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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #50476 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50476)
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-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 50476 ***
-
-THE THREE MISS KINGS
-
-An Australian Story
-
-
-BY
-
-ADA CAMBRIDGE
-
-
-AUTHOR OF MY GUARDIAN
-
-
-NEW YORK
-
-D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
-
-1891
-
-
-
-    CONTENTS
-
-
-          I.  A DISTANT VIEW
-         II.  A LONELY EYRIE
-        III.  PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT
-         IV.  DEPARTURE
-          V.  ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP
-         VI.  PAUL
-        VII.  A MORNING WALK
-       VIII.  AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY
-         IX.  MRS. AARONS
-          X.  THE FIRST INVITATION
-         XI.  DISAPPOINTMENT
-        XII.  TRIUMPH
-       XIII.  PATTY IN UNDRESS
-        XIV.  IN THE WOMB OF FATE
-         XV.  ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND
-        XVI.  "WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED"
-       XVII.  AFTERNOON TEA
-      XVIII.  THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
-        XIX.  A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION
-         XX.  CHINA _v._ THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY
-        XXI.  THE "CUP"
-       XXII.  CROSS PURPOSES
-      XXIII.  MR. YELVERTON'S MISSION
-       XXIV.  AN OLD STORY
-        XXV.  OUT IN THE COLD
-       XXVI.  WHAT PAUL COULD NOT KNOW
-      XXVII.  SLIGHTED
-     XXVIII.  "WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW-MEN"
-       XXIX.  PATTY CONFESSES
-        XXX.  THE OLD AND THE NEW
-       XXXI.  IN RETREAT
-      XXXII.  HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
-     XXXIII.  THE DRIVE HOME
-      XXXIV.  SUSPENSE
-       XXXV.  HOW ELIZABETH MADE UP HER MIND
-      XXXVI.  INVESTIGATION
-     XXXVII.  DISCOVERY
-    XXXVIII.  THE TIME FOR ACTION
-      XXXIX.  AN ASSIGNATION
-         XL.  MRS. DUFF-SCOTT HAS TO BE RECKONED WITH
-        XLI.  MR. YELVERTON STATES HIS INTENTIONS
-       XLII.  HER LORD AND MASTER
-      XLIII. THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING
-       XLIV. THE WEDDING DAY
-        XLV. IN SILK ATTIRE
-       XLVI. PATTY CHOOSES HER CAREER
-      XLVII. A FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOUR
-     XLVIII. PROBATION
-       XLIX. YELVERTON
-          L. "THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE"
-         LI. PATIENCE REWARDED
-        LII. CONCLUSION
-
-
-
-
-THE THREE MISS KINGS.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-
-A DISTANT VIEW.
-
-
-On the second of January, in the year 1880, three newly-orphaned
-sisters, finding themselves left to their own devices, with an income
-of exactly one hundred pounds a year a-piece, sat down to consult
-together as to the use they should make of their independence.
-
-The place where they sat was a grassy cliff overlooking a wide bay
-of the Southern Ocean--a lonely spot, whence no sign of human life
-was visible, except in the sail of a little fishing boat far away.
-The low sun, that blazed at the back of their heads, and threw their
-shadows and the shadow of every blade of grass into relief, touched
-that distant sail and made it shine like bridal satin; while a certain
-island rock, the home of sea-birds, blushed like a rose in the same
-necromantic light. As they sat, they could hear the waves breaking and
-seething on the sands and stones beneath them, but could only see the
-level plain of blue and purple water stretching from the toes of their
-boots to the indistinct horizon. That particular Friday was a terribly
-hot day for the colony, as weather records testify, but in this
-favoured spot it had been merely a little too warm for comfort, and,
-the sea-breeze coming up fresher and stronger as the sun went down, it
-was the perfection of an Australian summer evening at the hour of which
-I am writing.
-
-"What I want," said Patty King (Patty was the middle one), "is to
-make a dash--a straight-out plunge into the world, Elizabeth--no
-shilly-shallying and dawdling about, frittering our money away before
-we begin. Suppose we go to London--we shall have enough to cover our
-travelling expenses, and our income to start fair with--surely we could
-live anywhere on three hundred a year, in the greatest comfort--and
-take rooms near the British Museum?--or in South Kensington?--or
-suppose we go to one of those intellectual German towns, and study
-music and languages? What do you think, Nell? I am sure we could do it
-easily if we tried."
-
-"Oh," said Eleanor, the youngest of the trio, "I don't care so long as
-we go _somewhere_, and do _something_."
-
-"What do you think, Elizabeth?" pursued the enterprising Patty, alert
-and earnest. "Life is short, and there is so much for us to see and
-learn--all these years and years we have been out of it so utterly! Oh,
-I wonder how we have borne it! How _have_ we borne it--to hear about
-things and never to know or do them, like other people! Let us get
-into the thick of it at once, and recover lost time. Once in Europe,
-everything would be to our hand--everything would be possible. What do
-you think?"
-
-"My dear," said Elizabeth, with characteristic caution, "I think we are
-too young and ignorant to go so far afield just yet."
-
-"We are all over twenty-one," replied Patty quickly, "and though we
-have lived the lives of hermits, we are not more stupid than other
-people. We can speak French and German, and we are quite sharp enough
-to know when we are being cheated. We should travel in perfect safety,
-finding our way as we went along. And we _do_ know something of those
-places--of Melbourne we know nothing."
-
-"We should never get to the places mother knew--the sort of life we
-have heard of. And Mr. Brion and Paul are with us here--they will tell
-us all we want to know. No, Patty, we must not be reckless. We might
-go to Europe by-and-bye, but for the present let Melbourne content us.
-It will be as much of the world as we shall want to begin with, and
-we ought to get some experience before we spend our money--the little
-capital we have to spend."
-
-"You don't call two hundred and thirty-five pounds a little, do you?"
-interposed Eleanor. This was the price that a well-to-do storekeeper in
-the neighbouring township had offered them for the little house which
-had been their home since she was born, and to her it seemed a fortune.
-
-"Well, dear, we don't quite know yet whether it is little or much,
-for, you see, we don't know what it costs to live as other people do.
-We must not be reckless, Patty--we must take care of what we have, for
-we have only ourselves in the wide world to depend on, and this is
-all our fortune. I should think no girls were ever so utterly without
-belongings as we are now," she added, with a little break in her gentle
-voice.
-
-She was half lying on the grass, leaning on her elbow and propping her
-head in her hand. The light behind her was growing momentarily less
-fierce, and the breeze from the quiet ocean more cool and delicious;
-and she had taken off her hat in order to see and breathe in freedom.
-A noble figure she was, tall, strong, perfect in proportion, fine in
-texture, full of natural dignity and grace--the product of several
-generations of healthy and cultured people, and therefore a truly
-well-bred woman. Her face was a little too grave and thoughtful for
-her years, perhaps--she was not quite eight-and-twenty--and it was
-not at all handsome, in the vulgar sense of the word. But a sweeter,
-truer, kinder face, with its wide, firm mouth and its open brows, and
-its candid grey eyes, one could not wish to see. She had smooth brown
-hair of excessive fineness and brightness (a peculiarity of good blood
-shared by all the sisters), and it was closely coiled in a knot of
-braids at the back of her head, without any of those curls and fringes
-about the temples that have since become the prevailing fashion. And
-she was dressed in a very common, loosely-made, black print gown,
-with a little frill of crape at her throat, and a leather belt round
-her by no means slender waist. Her feet were encased in large and
-clumsy boots, and her shapely hands, fine-skinned and muscular, were
-not encased at all, but were brown with constant exposure to sun and
-wind, and the wear and tear of miscellaneous housework. The impetuous
-Patty, who sat bolt upright clasping her knees, was like her, but with
-marked differences. She was smaller and slighter in make, though she
-had the same look of abundant health and vigour. Her figure, though it
-had never worn stays, was more after the pattern of modern womanhood
-than Elizabeth's, and her brilliant little face was exquisite in
-outline, in colour, in all the charms of bright and wholesome youth.
-Patty's eyes were dark and keen, and her lips were delicate and red,
-and her hair had two or three ripples in it, and was the colour of
-a half-ripe chestnut. And altogether, she was a very striking and
-unmistakeably handsome girl. She, too, wore a black print gown, and a
-straw sailor hat, with a black ribbon, tilted back on her bead, and
-the same country-made boots, and the same brown and gloveless hands.
-Eleanor, again, with the general family qualities of physical health
-and refinement, had her own characteristics. She was slim and tall--as
-slim as Patty, and nearly as tall as Elizabeth, as was shown in her
-attitude as she lay full length on the grass, with her feet on the
-edge of the cliff, and her head on her elder sister's knee. She had a
-pure white skin, and sentimental blue eyes, and lovely yellow hair,
-just tinged with red; and her voice was low and sweet, and her manners
-gentle and graceful, and altogether she was one of the most pleasing
-young women that ever blushed unseen like a wild flower in the savage
-solitudes of the bush. This young person was not in black--because, she
-said, the weather was too hot for black. She wore an old blue gingham
-that had faded to a faint lavender in course of numerous washings, and
-she had a linen handkerchief loosely tied round her neck, and cotton
-gloves on her hands. She was the only one of the sisters to whom it had
-occurred that, having a good complexion, it was worth while to preserve
-it.
-
-The parents of these three girls had been a mysterious couple, about
-whose circumstances and antecedents people knew just as much as they
-liked to conjecture, and no more. Mr. King had been on the diggings
-in the old days--that much was a fact, to which he had himself been
-known to testify; but where and what he had been before, and why he
-had lived like a pelican in the wilderness ever since, nobody knew,
-though everybody was at liberty to guess. Years and years ago, he
-came to this lone coast--a region of hopeless sand and scrub, which
-no squatter or free selector with a grain of sense would look at--and
-here on a bleak headland he built his rude house, piece by piece, in
-great part with his own hands, and fenced his little paddock, and made
-his little garden; and here he had lived till the other day, a morose
-recluse, who shunned his neighbours as they shunned him, and never was
-known to have either business or pleasure, or commerce of any kind
-with his fellow-men. It was supposed that he had made some money at
-the diggings, for he took up no land (there was none fit to take up,
-indeed, within a dozen miles of him), and he kept no stock--except a
-few cows and pigs for the larder; and at the same time there was never
-any sign of actual poverty in his little establishment, simple and
-humble as it was. And it was also supposed--nay, it was confidently
-believed--that he was not, so to speak, "all there." No man who was not
-"touched" would conduct himself with such preposterous eccentricity as
-that which had marked his long career in their midst--so the neighbours
-argued, not without a show of reason. But the greatest mystery in
-connection with Mr. King was Mrs. King. He was obviously a gentleman,
-in the conventional sense of the word, but she was, in every sense,
-the most beautiful and accomplished lady that ever was seen, according
-to the judgment of those who knew her--the women who had nursed her in
-her confinements, and washed and scrubbed for her, and the tradesmen
-of the town to whom she had gone in her little buggy for occasional
-stores, and the doctor and the parson, and the children whom she had
-brought up in such a wonderful manner to be copies (though, it was
-thought, poor ones) of herself. And yet she had borne to live all
-the best years of her life, at once a captive and an exile, on that
-desolate sea-shore--and had loved that harsh and melancholy man with
-the most faithful and entire devotion--and had suffered her solitude
-and privations, the lack of everything to which she _must_ have been
-once accustomed, and the fret and trouble of her husband's bitter
-moods--without a murmur that anybody had ever heard.
-
-Both of them were gone now from the cottage on the cliff where they had
-lived so long together. The idolised mother had been dead for several
-years, and the harsh, and therefore not much loved nor much mourned,
-father had lain but a few weeks in his grave beside her; and they had
-left their children, as Elizabeth described it, more utterly without
-belongings than ever girls were before. It was a curious position
-altogether. As far as they knew, they had no relations, and they had
-never had a friend. Not one of them had left their home for a night
-since Eleanor was born, and not one invited guest had slept there
-during the whole of that period. They had never been to school, or had
-any governess but their mother, or any experience of life and the ways
-of the world save what they gained in their association with her, and
-from the books that she and their father selected for them. According
-to all precedent, they ought to have been dull and rustic and stupid
-(it was supposed that they were, because they dressed themselves so
-badly), but they were only simple and truthful in an extraordinary
-degree. They had no idea what was the "correct thing" in costume or
-manners, and they knew little or nothing of the value of money; but
-they were well and widely read, and highly accomplished in all the
-household arts, from playing the piano to making bread and butter, and
-as full of spiritual and intellectual aspirations as the most advanced
-amongst us.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-
-A LONELY EYRIE.
-
-
-"Then we will say Melbourne to begin with. Not for a permanence, but
-until we have gained a little more experience," said Patty, with
-something of regret and reluctance in her voice. By this time the sun
-had set and drawn off all the glow and colour from sea and shore. The
-island rock was an enchanted castle no longer, and the sails of the
-fishing-boats had ceased to shine. The girls had been discussing their
-schemes for a couple of hours, and had come to several conclusions.
-
-"I think so, Patty. It would be unwise to hurry ourselves in making
-our choice of a home. We will go to Melbourne and look about us. Paul
-Brion is there. He will see after lodgings for us and put us in the
-way of things generally. That will be a great advantage. And then the
-Exhibition will be coming--it would be a pity to miss that. And we
-shall feel more as if we belonged to the people here than elsewhere,
-don't you think? They are more likely to be kind to our ignorance and
-help us."
-
-"Oh, we don't want anyone to help us."
-
-"Someone must teach us what we don't know, directly or indirectly--and
-we are not above being taught."
-
-"But," insisted Patty, "there is no reason why we should be beholden
-to anybody. Paul Brion may look for some lodgings for us, if he
-likes--just a place to sleep in for a night or two--and tell us where
-we can find a house--that's all we shall want to ask of him or of
-anybody. We will have a house of our own, won't we?--so as not to be
-overlooked or interfered with."
-
-"Oh, of course!" said Eleanor promptly. "A landlady on the premises is
-not to be thought of for a moment. Whatever we do, we don't want to be
-interfered with, Elizabeth."
-
-"No, my dear--you can't desire to be free from interference--unpleasant
-interference--more than I do. Only I don't think we shall be able to be
-so independent as Patty thinks. I fancy, too, that we shall not care to
-be, when we begin to live in the world with other people. It will be so
-charming to have friends!"
-
-"Oh--friends!" Patty exclaimed, with a little toss of the head. "It is
-too soon to think about friends--when we have so much else to think
-about! We must have some lessons in Melbourne, Elizabeth. We will go
-to that library every day and read. We will make our stay there a
-preparation for England and Germany and Italy. Oh, Nell, Nell! think of
-seeing the great Alps and the Doge's Palace before we die!"
-
-"Ah!" responded Eleanor, drawing a long breath.
-
-They all rose from the grass and stood still an instant, side by side,
-for a last look at the calm ocean which had been the background of
-their simple lives. Each was sensible that it was a solemn moment, in
-view of the changes to come, but not a word was spoken to imply regret.
-Like all the rest of us, they were ungrateful for the good things of
-the present and the past, and were not likely to understand how much
-they loved the sea, that, like the nurse of Rorie Mhor, had lulled them
-to sleep every night since they were born, while the sound of its many
-waters was still in their ears.
-
-"Sam Dunn is out late," said Eleanor, pointing to a dark dot far away,
-that was a glittering sail a little while ago.
-
-"It is a good night for fishing," said Patty.
-
-And then they turned their faces landward, and set forth on their road
-home. Climbing to the top of the cliff on the slope of which they had
-been sitting, they stood upon a wide and desolate heath covered in all
-directions with a short, stiff scrub, full of wonderful wild-flowers
-(even at this barren season of the year), but without a tree of any
-sort; a picturesque desert, but still a desert, though with fertile
-country lying all around it--as utterly waste as the irreclaimable
-Sahara. Through this the girls wended their way by devious tracks
-amongst the bushes, ankle deep in the loose sand; and then again
-striking the cliff, reached a high point from which they had a distant
-view of human habitations--a little township, fringing a little bay;
-a lighthouse beyond it, with its little star shining steadily through
-the twilight; a little pier, running like a black thread through the
-silvery surf; and even a little steamer from Melbourne lying at the
-pier-head, veiling the rock-island, that now frowned like a fortress
-behind it, in a thin film of grey smoke from its invisible little
-funnels. But they did not go anywhere near these haunts of their
-fellow-men. Hugging the cliff, which was here of a great height,
-and honeycombed with caves in which the green sea-water rumbled and
-thundered like a great drum in the calm weather, and like a furious
-bombardment in a storm, they followed a slender track worn in the scant
-grass by their own light feet, until they came to a little depression
-in the line of the coast--a hollow scooped out of the great headland
-as if some Titanic monster of a prehistoric period had risen up out of
-the waves and bitten it--where, sheltered and hidden on three sides by
-grassy banks, sloping gently upward until they overtopped the chimneys,
-and with all the great plain of the sea outspread beneath the front
-verandah, stood the house which had been, but was to be no more, their
-home.
-
-It was well worth the money that the storekeeper had offered for it. It
-was a really charming house, though people had not been accustomed to
-look at it in that light--though it was built of roughest weatherboard
-that had never known a paint-brush, and heavily roofed with great
-sheets of bark that were an offence to the provincial eye, accustomed
-to the chaste elegance of corrugated zinc. A strong, and sturdy,
-and genuine little house--as, indeed, it had to be to hold its own
-against the stormy blasts that buffeted it; mellowed and tanned with
-time and weather, and with all its honest, rugged features softened
-under a tender drapery of hardy English ivy and climbing plants that
-patient skill and care had induced to grow, and even to thrive in
-that unfriendly air. The verandah, supported on squat posts, was a
-continuation of the roof; and that roof, with green leaves curling
-upward over it, was so conspicuously solid, and so widely overspread
-and over-shadowed the low walls, that it was about all that could be
-seen of the house from the ridges of the high land around it. But
-lower down, the windows--nearly all set in rude but substantial door
-frames--opened like shy eyes in the shadow of the deep eaves of the
-verandah, like eyes that had expression in them; and the retiring
-walls bore on numerous nails and shelves a miscellaneous but orderly
-collection of bird-cages, flower boxes, boating and fishing apparatus,
-and odds and ends of various kinds, that gave a charming homely
-picturesqueness to the quaint aspect of the place. The comparatively
-spacious verandah, running along the front of the house (which had been
-made all front, as far as possible), was the drawing-room and general
-living room of the family during the greater part of the year. Its
-floor, of unplaned hardwood, dark with age and wear, but as exquisitely
-clean as sweeping and scrubbing could make it, was one of the loveliest
-terraces in the country for the view that it afforded--so our girls
-will maintain, at any rate, to their dying day. Now that they see it no
-more, they have passionate memories of their beloved bay, seen through
-a frame of rustling leaves from that lofty platform--how it looked in
-the dawn and sunrise, in the intensely blue noon, in the moonlight
-nights, and when gales and tempests were abroad, and how it sounded
-in the hushed darkness when they woke out of their sleep to listen
-to it--the rhythmic fall of breaking waves on the rocks below, the
-tremulous boom that filled the air and seemed to shake the foundations
-of the solid earth. They have no wish to get back to their early home
-and their hermit life there now--they have tasted a new wine that is
-better than the old; but, all the same, they think and say that from
-the lonely eyrie where they were nursed and reared they looked out
-upon such a scene as the wide world would never show them any more.
-In the foreground, immediately below the verandah, a little grass, a
-few sturdy shrubs, and such flowers as could keep their footing in so
-exposed a place, clothed the short slope of the edge of the cliff,
-down the steep face of which a breakneck path zig-zagged to the beach,
-where only a narrow strip of white sand, scarcely more than a couple of
-yards wide, was uncovered when the tide was out. Behind the house was a
-well-kept, if rather sterile, kitchen garden; and higher up the cliff,
-but still partly sheltered in the hollow, a very small farm-yard and
-one barren little paddock.
-
-Through a back gate, by way of the farm-yard and kitchen garden, the
-sisters entered their domain when it was late enough to be called
-night, though the twilight lingered, and were welcomed with effusion
-by an ugly but worthy little terrier which had been bidden to keep
-house, and had faithfully discharged that duty during their absence. As
-they approached the house, a pet opossum sprang from the dairy roof to
-Eleanor's shoulder, and a number of tame magpies woke up with a sleepy
-scuffle and gathered round her. A little monkey-bear came cautiously
-down from the only gum tree that grew on the premises, grunting and
-whimpering, and crawled up Patty's skirts; and any quantity of cats
-and kittens appealed to Elizabeth for recognition. The girls spoke to
-them all by name, as if they had been so many children, cuffed them
-playfully for their forward manners, and ordered them to bed or to
-whatever avocations were proper to the hour. When a match was struck
-and the back-door opened, the opossum took a few flying leaps round
-the kitchen, had his ears boxed, and was flung back again upon the
-dairy roof. The little bear clung whining to his mistress, but was
-also put outside with a firm hand; and the cats and magpies were swept
-over the threshold with a broom. "_Brats!_" cried Patty with ferocious
-vehemence, as she closed the kitchen door sharply, at the risk of
-cutting off some of their noses; "what _are_ we to do with them? They
-seem as if they _knew_ we were going away, the aggravating little
-wretches. There, there"--raising the most caressing voice in answer
-to the whine of the monkey-bear--"don't cry, my pet! Get up your tree,
-darling, and have a nice supper and go to sleep."
-
-Then, having listened for a few seconds at the closed door, she
-followed Elizabeth through the kitchen to the sitting-room, and, while
-her sister lit the lamp, stepped through the French window to sniff
-the salt sea air. For some time the humble members of the family were
-heard prowling disconsolately about the house, but none of them, except
-the terrier, appeared upon the verandah, where the ghost of their evil
-genius still sat in his old armchair with his stick by his side. They
-had been driven thence so often and with such memorable indignities
-that it would never occur to them to go there any more. And so the
-sisters were left in peace. Eleanor busied herself in the kitchen for
-awhile, setting her little batch of bread by the embers of the hearth,
-in view of a hot loaf for their early breakfast, while she sang some
-German ballads to herself with an ear for the refinements of both
-language and music that testified to the thoroughness of her mother's
-culture, and of the methods by which it had been imparted. Patty went
-to the dairy for a jug of milk for supper, which frugal meal was
-otherwise prepared by Elizabeth's hands; and at nine o'clock the trio
-gathered round the sitting-room table to refresh themselves with thick
-slices of bread and jam, and half-an-hour's gossip before they went to
-bed.
-
-A pretty and pathetic picture they made as they sat round that
-table, with the dim light of one kerosene lamp on their strikingly
-fair faces--alone in the little house that was no longer theirs,
-and in the wide world, but so full of faith and hope in the unknown
-future--discussing ways and means for getting their furniture
-to Melbourne. That time-honoured furniture, and their immediate
-surroundings generally, made a poor setting for such a group--a long,
-low, canvas-lined room, papered with prints from the _Illustrated
-London News_ (a pictorial European "history of our own times"), from
-the ceiling to the floor, the floor being without a carpet, and the
-glass doors furnished only with a red baize curtain to draw against
-the sea winds of winter nights. The tables and chairs were of the
-same order of architecture as the house; the old mahogany bureau,
-with its brass mounting and multitudinous internal ramifications, was
-ridiculously out of date and out of fashion (as fashion was understood
-in that part of the world); the ancient chintz sofa, though as easy
-as a feather bed, and of a capacity equal to the accommodation of
-Giant Blunderbore, was obviously home-made and not meant to be
-too closely criticised; and even the piano, which was a modern and
-beautiful instrument in itself, hid its music in a stained deal case
-than which no plain egg of a nightingale could be plainer. And yet this
-odd environment for three beautiful and cultured women had a certain
-dignity and harmoniousness about it--often lacking in later and more
-luxurious surroundings. It was in tune with those simple lives, and
-with the majestic solitude of the great headland and the sea.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-
-PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT.
-
-
-Melbourne people, when they go to bed, chain up their doors carefully,
-and bar all their windows, lest the casual burglar should molest them.
-Bush people, no more afraid of the night than of the day, are often
-quite unable to tell you whether there is such a thing as an effective
-lock upon the premises. So our girls, in their lonely dwelling on the
-cliff, slept in perfect peace and security, with the wind from the sea
-blowing over their faces through the open door-windows at the foot of
-their little beds. Dan Tucker, the terrier, walked softly to and fro
-over their thresholds at intervals in the course of the night, and kept
-away any stray kitten that had not yet learned its proper place; that
-was all the watch and ward that he or they considered necessary.
-
-At five o'clock in the morning, Elizabeth King, who had a little slip
-of a room to herself, just wide enough to allow the leaves of the
-French window at the end of it to be held back, when open, by buttons
-attached to the side walls, stirred in her sleep, stretched herself,
-yawned, and then springing up into a sitting posture, propped herself
-on her pillows to see the new day begin. It was a sight to see, indeed,
-from that point of view; but it was not often that any of them woke
-from their sound and healthy slumber at this time of the year, until
-the sun was high enough to shoot a level ray into their eyes. At five
-o'clock the surface of the great deep had not begun to shine, but it
-was light enough to see the black posts and eaves of the verandah, and
-the stems and leaves that twined about them, outlined sharply upon the
-dim expanse. Elizabeth's bed had no footrail, and there was no chair
-or dressing-table in the way to impede a clear view of sea and sky.
-As she lay, the line of the horizon was drawn straight across the
-doorway, about three feet above the edge of the verandah floor; and
-there a faint pink streak, with fainter flushes on a bank of clouds
-above it, showed where the sun was about to rise. The waves splashed
-heavily on the beach, and boomed in the great caves of the rocks below;
-the sea-gulls called to each other with their queer little cry, at
-once soft and shrill; and the magpies piped and chattered all around
-the house, and more cocks than could anyhow be accounted for crowed
-a mutual defiance far and near. And yet, oh, how still--how solemnly
-still--it was! I am not going to describe that sunrise, though I saw
-one exactly like it only this very morning. I have seen people take out
-their tubes and brushes, and sit down with placid confidence to paint
-sun-kissed hills, and rocks, and seas; and, if you woke them up early
-enough, they would "sketch" the pink and golden fire of this flaming
-dawn without a moment's hesitation. But I know better.
-
-Ere the many-coloured transformation scene had melted in dazzle
-of daylight, Elizabeth was dressing herself by her still open
-window--throwing long shadows as she moved to and fro about the now
-sun-flooded room. Patty was busy in her dairy churning, with a number
-of her pets round the door, hustling each other to get at the milk
-dish set down for their breakfast--the magpies tugging at the cats and
-kittens by ears and tail, and the cats and kittens cuffing the magpies
-smartly. Eleanor, singing her German ballads still, was hard at work
-in the kitchen, baking delicate loaves for breakfast, and attending to
-kitchen matters generally. The elder sister's office on this occasion
-was to let out and feed the fowls, to sweep and dust, and to prepare
-the table for their morning meal. Never since they had grown out of
-childhood had they known the sensation of being waited upon by a
-servant, and as yet their system of education had been such that they
-did not know what the word "menial" meant. To be together with no one
-to interfere with them, and independent of everybody but themselves,
-was a habit whose origin was too remote for inquiry, and that had
-become a second nature and a settled theory of life--a sort of instinct
-of pride and modesty, moreover, though an instinct too natural to be
-aware of its own existence.
-
-When the little loaves were done and the big ones put in the oven,
-Eleanor fetched a towel, donned a broad hat, and, passing out at the
-front of the house, ran lightly down the steep track on the face of
-the cliff to their bath-house on the beach--a little closet of rough
-slabs built in the rock above high water; whence she presently emerged
-in a scanty flannel garment, with her slender white limbs bare, and
-flung herself like a mermaid into the sea. There were sharks in that
-bay sometimes, and there were devil-fish too (Sam Dunn had spread one
-out, star-wise, on a big boulder close by, and it lay there still,
-with its horrible arms dangling from its hideous bag of a body, to be
-a warning to these venturesome young ladies, who, he fully expected,
-would be "et up" some day like little flies by a spider); but they
-found their safety in the perfect transparency of the water, coming
-in from the great pure ocean to the unsullied rocks, and kept a wary
-watch for danger. While Eleanor was disporting herself, Patty joined
-her, and after Patty, Elizabeth; and one by one they came up, glowing
-and dripping, like--no, I _won't_ be tempted to make that familiar
-classical comparison--like nothing better than themselves for artistic
-purposes. As Elizabeth, who was the last to leave the water, walked
-up the short flight of steps to her little dressing closet, straight
-and stately, with her full throat and bust and her nobly shaped limbs,
-she was the very model that sculptors dream of and hunt for (as
-many more might be, if brought up as she had been), but seldom are
-fortunate enough to find. In her gown and leather belt, her beauty of
-figure, of course, was not so obvious: the raiment of civilisation,
-however simple, levelled it from the standard of Greek art to that of
-conventional comparison with other dressed-up women--by which, it must
-be confessed, she suffered.
-
-Having assumed this raiment, she followed her sisters up the cliff
-path to the house; and there she found them talking volubly with Mrs.
-Dunn, who had brought them, with Sam's best respects, a freshly caught
-schnapper for their breakfast. Mrs. Dunn was their nearest neighbour,
-their only help in domestic emergencies, and of late days their devoted
-and confidential friend. Sam, her husband, had for some years been a
-ministering angel in the back yard, a purveyor of firewood and mutton,
-a killer of pigs, and so on; and he also had taken the orphan girls
-under his protection, so far as he could, since they had been "left."
-
-"Look at this!" cried Eleanor, holding it up--it took both hands to
-hold it, for it weighed about a dozen pounds; "did you ever see such
-a fish, Elizabeth? Breakfast indeed! Yes, we'll have it to breakfast
-to-day and to-morrow too, and for dinner and tea and supper. Oh, how
-stupid Sam is! Why didn't he send it to market? Why didn't he take it
-down to the steamer? He's not a man of business a bit, Mrs. Dunn--he'll
-never make his fortune this way. Get the pan for me, Patty, and set the
-fat boiling. We'll fry a bit this very minute, and you shall stay and
-help us to eat it, Mrs. Dunn."
-
-"Oh, my dear Miss Nelly--"
-
-"Elizabeth, take charge of her, and don't let her go. Don't listen to
-her. We have not seen her for three whole days, and we want her to
-tell us about the furniture. Keep her safe, and Patty and I will have
-breakfast ready in a minute."
-
-And in a short time the slice of schnapper was steaming on the table--a
-most simply appointed breakfast table, but very clean and dainty in
-its simplicity--and Mrs. Dunn sat down with her young _protégées,_ and
-sipped her tea and gave them matronly advice, with much enjoyment of
-the situation.
-
-Her advice was excellent, and amounted to this--"Don't you go for to
-take a stick o' that there furniture out o' the place." They were
-to have an auction, she said; and go to Melbourne with the proceeds
-in their pockets. Hawkins would be glad o' the beds, perhaps, with
-his large family; as Mrs. Hawkins had a lovely suite in green rep,
-she wouldn't look at the rest o' the things, which, though very
-comf'able, no doubt--very nice indeed, my dears--were not what _ladies
-and gentlemen_ had in their houses _now-a-days_. "As for that there
-bureau"--pointing to it with her teaspoon--"if you set that up in a
-Melbourne parlour, why, you'd just have all your friends laughing at
-you."
-
-The girls looked around the room with quick eyes, and then looked at
-each other with half-grave and half amused dismay. Patty spoke up with
-her usual promptness.
-
-"It doesn't matter in the least to us what other people like to have
-in their houses," said she. "And that bureau, as it happens, is very
-valuable, Mrs. Dunn: it belonged to one of the governors before we had
-it, and Mr. Brion says there is no such cabinet work in these days. He
-says it was made in France more than a hundred years ago."
-
-"Yes, my dear. So you might say that there was no such stuff now-a-days
-as what them old gowns was made of, that your poor ma wore when she was
-a girl. But you wouldn't go for to wear them old gowns now. I daresay
-the bureau was a grand piece o' furniture once, but it's out o' fashion
-now, and when a thing is out o' fashion it isn't worth anything. Sell
-it to Mr. Brion if you can; it would be a fine thing for a lawyer's
-office, with all them little shelves and drawers. He might give you
-a five-pound note for it, as he's a friend like, and you could buy a
-handsome new cedar chiffonnier for that."
-
-"Mrs. Dunn," said Eleanor, rising to replenish the worthy matron's
-plate, with Patty's new butter and her own new bread, "we are not going
-to sell that bureau--no, not to anybody. It has associations, don't you
-understand?--and also a set of locks that no burglar could pick if he
-tried ever so. We are not going to sell our bureau--nor our piano--"
-
-"Oh, but, my dear Miss Nelly--"
-
-"My dear Mrs. Dunn, it cost ninety guineas, I do assure you, only five
-years ago, and it is as modern and fashionable as heart could wish."
-
-"Fashionable! why, it might as well be a cupboard bedstead, in that
-there common wood. Mrs. Hawkins gave only fifty pounds for hers, and it
-is real walnut and carved beautiful."
-
-"We are not going to sell that piano, my dear woman." Though Nelly
-appeared to wait meekly upon her elder sisters' judgment, it often
-happened that she decided a question that was put before them in this
-prompt way. "And I'll tell you for why," she continued playfully. "You
-shut your eyes for five minutes--wait, I'll tie my handkerchief over
-them"--and she deftly blindfolded the old woman, whose stout frame
-shook with honest giggles of enjoyment at this manifestation of Miss
-Nelly's fun. "Now," said Nelly, "don't laugh--don't remember that you
-are here with us, or that there is such a thing as a cupboard bedstead
-in the world. Imagine that you are floating down the Rhine on a
-moonlight night--no, by the way, imagine that you are in a drawing-room
-in Melbourne, furnished with a lovely green rep suite, and a handsome
-new cedar chiffonnier, and a carved walnut piano--and that a beautiful,
-fashionable lady, with scent on her pocket-handkerchief, is sitting at
-that piano. And--and listen for a minute."
-
-Whereupon, lifting her hands from the old woman's shoulders, she
-crossed the room, opened the piano noiselessly, and began to play her
-favourite German airs--the songs of the people, that seem so much
-sweeter and more pathetic and poetic than the songs of any other
-people--mixing two or three of them together and rendering them with a
-touch and expression that worked like a spell of enchantment upon them
-all. Elizabeth sat back in her chair and lost herself in the visions
-that appeared to her on the ceiling. Patty spread her arms over the
-table and leaned towards the piano, breathing a soft accompaniment
-of German words in tender, sighing undertones, while her warm pulses
-throbbed and her eyes brightened with the unconscious passion that was
-stirred in her fervent soul. Even the weather-beaten old charwoman fell
-into a reverent attitude as of a devotee in church.
-
-"There," said Eleanor, taking her hands from the keys and shutting up
-the instrument, with a suddenness that made them jump. "Now I ask you,
-Mrs. Dunn, as an honest and truthful woman--_can_ you say that that is
-a piano to be _sold?_"
-
-"Beautiful, my dear, beautiful--it's like being in heaven to hear the
-like o' that," the old woman responded warmly, pulling the bandage
-from her eyes. "But you'd draw music from an old packing case, I
-do believe." And it was found that Mrs. Dunn was unshaken in her
-conviction that pianos were valuable in proportion to their external
-splendour, and their tone sweet and powerful by virtue solely of the
-skill of the fingers that played upon them. If Mr. King had given
-ninety guineas for "that there"--about which she thought there must be
-some mistake--she could only conclude that his rural innocence had been
-imposed upon by wily city tradesmen.
-
-"Well," said Nelly, who was now busy collecting the crockery on the
-breakfast table, "we must see if we can't furbish it up, Mrs. Dunn.
-We can paint a landscape on the front, perhaps, and tie some pink
-satin ribbons on the handles. Or we might set it behind a curtain, or
-in a dark corner, where it will be heard and not seen. But keep it
-we must--both that and the bureau. You would not part with those two
-things, Elizabeth?"
-
-"My dear," said Elizabeth, "it would grieve me to part with anything."
-
-"But I think," said Patty, "Mrs. Dunn may be right about the other
-furniture. What would it cost to take all our things to Melbourne, Mrs.
-Dunn?"
-
-"Twice as much as they are worth, Miss Patty--three times as much.
-Carriage is awful, whether by sea or land."
-
-"It is a great distance," said Patty, thoughtfully, "and it would be
-very awkward. We cannot take them with us, for we shall want first
-to find a place to put them in, and we could not come back to fetch
-them. I think we had better speak to Mr. Hawkins, Elizabeth, and, if
-he doesn't want them, have a little auction. We must keep some things,
-of course; but I am sure Mr. Hawkins would let them stay till we could
-send for them, or Mr. Brion would house them for us."
-
-"We should feel very free that way, and it would be nice to buy new
-things," said Eleanor.
-
-"Or we might not have to buy--we might put this money to the other,"
-said Patty. "We might find that we did not like Melbourne, and then we
-could go to Europe at once without any trouble."
-
-"And take the pianner to Europe along with you?" inquired Mrs. Dunn.
-"And that there bureau?"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-
-DEPARTURE.
-
-
-They decided to sell their furniture--with the exception of the piano
-and the bureau, and sundry treasures that could bestowed away in the
-latter capacious receptacle; and, on being made acquainted with the
-fact, the obliging Mr. Hawkins offered to take it as it stood for a
-lump sum of £50, and his offer was gratefully accepted. Sam Dunn was
-very wroth over this transaction, for he knew the value of the dairy
-and kitchen utensils and farm-yard appliances, which went to the new
-tenant along with the household furniture that Mrs. Dunn, as a candid
-friend, had disparaged and despised; and he reproached Elizabeth,
-tenderly, but with tears in his eyes, for having allowed herself to
-be "done" by not taking Mr. Brion's advice upon the matter, and shook
-his head over the imminent fate of these three innocent and helpless
-lambs about to fling themselves into the jaws of the commercial
-wolves of Melbourne. Elizabeth told him that she did not like to be
-always teasing Mr. Brion, who had already done all the legal business
-necessary to put them in possession of their little property, and had
-refused to take any fee for his trouble; that, as they had nothing more
-to sell, no buyer could "do" them again; and that, finally, they all
-thought fifty pounds a great deal of money, and were quite satisfied
-with their bargain. But Sam, as a practical man, continued to shake his
-head, and bade her remember him when she was in trouble and in need
-of a faithful friend--assuring her, with a few strong seafaring oaths
-(which did not shock her in the least, for they were meant to emphasise
-the sincerity of his protestations), that she and her sisters should
-never want, if he knew it, while he had a crust of bread and a breath
-in his body.
-
-And so they began to pack up. And the fuss and confusion of that
-occupation--which becomes so irksome when the charm of novelty is
-past--was full of enjoyment for them all. It would have done the
-travel-worn cynic good to see them scampering about the house, as
-lightly as the kittens that frisked after them, carrying armfuls of
-house linen and other precious chattels to and fro, and prattling the
-while of their glorious future like so many school children about to
-pay a first visit to the pantomime. It was almost heartless, Mrs.
-Dunn thought--dropping in occasionally to see how they were getting
-on--considering what cause had broken up their home, and that their
-father had been so recently taken from them that she (Mrs. Dunn) could
-not bring herself to walk without hesitation into the house, still
-fancying she should see him sitting in his arm-chair and looking at her
-with those hard, unsmiling eyes, as if to ask her what business she had
-there. But Mr. King had been a harsh father, and this is what harsh
-fathers must expect of children who have never learned how to dissemble
-for the sake of appearances. They reverenced his memory and held it
-dear, but he had left them no associations that could sadden them like
-the sight of their mother's clothes folded away in the long unopened
-drawers of the wardrobe in her room--the room in which he had slept and
-died only a few weeks ago.
-
-These precious garments, smelling of lavender, camphor, and sandalwood,
-were all taken out and looked at, and tenderly smoothed afresh, and
-laid in a deep drawer of the bureau. There were treasures amongst them
-of a value that the girls had no idea of--old gowns of faded brocade
-and embroidered muslin, a yellow-white Indian shawl so soft that it
-could be drawn through a wedding ring, yellower lace of still more
-wonderful texture, and fans, and scarfs, and veils, and odds and ends
-of ancient finery, that would have been worth considerably more than
-their weight in gold to a modern art collector. But these reminiscences
-of their mother's far-off girlhood, carefully laid in the bottom of the
-drawer, were of no account to them compared with the half-worn gowns
-of cheap stuff and cotton--still showing the print of her throat and
-arms--that were spread so reverently on the top of them; and compared
-with the numerous other memorials of her last days--her workbox, with
-its unfinished bit of needlework, and scissors and thimble, and tapes
-and cottons, just as she had left it--her Prayer-Book and Bible--her
-favourite cup, from which she drank her morning tea--her shabby velvet
-slippers, her stiff-fingered gardening gloves--all the relics that her
-children had cherished of the daily, homely life that they had been
-privileged to share with her; the bestowal of which was carried on in
-silence, or with tearful whispers, while all the pets were locked out
-of the room, as if it had been a religious function. When this drawer
-was closed, and they had refreshed their saddened spirits with a long
-walk, they set themselves with light hearts to fill the remainder of
-the many shelves and niches of the bureau with piles of books and
-music, painting materials, collections of wild flowers and shells and
-seaweeds, fragments of silver plate that had lain there always, as
-far as they knew, along with some old miniatures and daguerreotypes
-in rusty leather cases, and old bundles of papers that Mr. Brion had
-warned them to take care of--and with their own portfolios of sketches
-and little personal treasures of various kinds, their father's watch,
-and stick, and spurs, and spectacles--and so on, and so on.
-
-After this, they had only to pack up their bed and table linen and
-knives and forks, which were to go with them to Melbourne, and to
-arrange their own scanty wardrobes to the best advantage.
-
-"We shall certainly want some clothes," said Eleanor, surveying their
-united stock of available wearing apparel on Elizabeth's bedroom floor.
-"I propose that we appropriate--say £5--no, that might not be enough;
-say £10--from the furniture money to settle ourselves up each with a
-nice costume--dress, jacket, and bonnet complete--so that we may look
-like other people when we get to Melbourne."
-
-"We'll get there first," said Patty, "and see what is worn, and the
-price of things. Our black prints are very nice for everyday, and we
-can wear our brown homespuns as soon as we get away from Mrs. Dunn. She
-said it was disrespectful to poor father's memory to put on anything
-but black when she saw you in your blue gingham, Nelly. Poor old soul!
-one would think we were a set of superstitious heathen pagans. I wonder
-where she got all those queer ideas from?"
-
-"She knows a great deal more than we do, Patty," said wise Elizabeth,
-from her kneeling posture on the floor.
-
-They packed all their clothes into two small but weighty brass-bound
-trunks, leaving out their blue ginghams, their well-worn water-proofs,
-and their black-ribboned sailor hats to travel in. Then they turned
-their attention to the animals, and suffered grievous trouble in their
-efforts to secure a comfortable provision for them after their own
-departure. The monkey-bear, the object of their fondest solicitude,
-was entrusted to Sam Dunn, who swore with picturesque energy that he
-would cherish it as his own child. It was put into a large cage with
-about a bushel of fresh gum leaves, and Sam was adjured to restore
-it to liberty as soon as he had induced it to grow fond of him. Then
-Patty and Eleanor took the long walk to the township to call on Mrs.
-Hawkins, in order to entreat her good offices for the rest of their
-pets. But Mrs. Hawkins seized the precious opportunity that they
-offered her for getting the detailed information, such as only women
-could give, concerning the interior construction and capabilities of
-her newly-acquired residence, and she had no attention to spare for
-anything else. The girls left, after sitting on two green rep chairs
-for nearly an hour, with the depressing knowledge that their house was
-to be painted inside and out, and roofed with zinc, and verandahed with
-green trellis-work; and that there was to be a nice road made to it, so
-that the family could drive to and from their place of business; and
-that it was to have "Sea View Villa" painted on the garden gate posts.
-But whether their pets were to be allowed to roam over the transformed
-premises (supposing they had the heart to do so) was more than they
-could tell. So they had an anxious consultation with Elizabeth, all
-the parties concerned being present, cuddled and fondled on arms and
-knees; and the result was a determination _not_ to leave the precious
-darlings to the tender mercies of the Hawkins family. Sam Dunn was to
-take the opossum in a basket to some place where there were trees,
-a river, and other opossums, and there turn him out to unlearn his
-civilisation and acquire the habits and customs of his unsophisticated
-kinsfolk--a course of study to which your pet opossum submits himself
-very readily as a rule. The magpies were also to be left to shift for
-themselves, for they were in the habit of consorting with other magpies
-in a desultory manner, and they could "find" themselves in board and
-lodging. But the cats--O, the poor, dear, confiding old cats! O, the
-sweet little playful kitties!--the girls were distracted to know what
-to do for _them_. There were so many of them, and they would never be
-induced to leave the place--that rocky platform so barren of little
-birds, and those ancient buildings where no mouse had been allowed so
-much as to come into the world for years past. They would not be fed,
-of course, when their mistresses were gone. They would get into the
-dairy and the pantry, and steal Mrs. Hawkins's milk and meat--and it
-was easy to conjecture what would happen _then_. Mrs. Hawkins had boys
-moreover--rough boys who went to the State school, and looked capable
-of all the fiendish atrocities that young animals of their age and sex
-were supposed to delight in. Could they leave their beloved ones to the
-mercy of _boys?_ They consulted Sam Dunn, and Sam's advice was----
-
-Never mind. Cats and kittens disappeared. And then only Dan Tucker
-was left. Him, at any rate, they declared they would never part with,
-while he had a breath in his faithful body. He should go with them to
-Melbourne, bless his precious heart!---or, if need were, to the ends of
-the earth.
-
-And so, at last, all their preparations were made, and the day came
-when, with unexpected regrets and fears, they walked out of the old
-house which had been their only home into the wide world, where they
-were utter strangers. Sam Dunn came with his wood-cart to carry their
-luggage to the steamer (the conveyance they had selected, in preference
-to coach and railway, because it was cheaper, and they were more
-familiar with it); and then they shut up doors and windows, sobbing as
-they went from room to room; stood on the verandah in front of the sea
-to solemnly kiss each other, and walked quietly down to the township,
-hand in hand, and with the terrier at their heels, to have tea with Mr.
-Brion and his old housekeeper before they went on board.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-
-ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.
-
-
-Late in the evening when the sea was lit up with a young moon, Mr.
-Brion, having given them a great deal of serious advice concerning
-their money and other business affairs, escorted our three girls to
-the little jetty where the steamer that called in once a week lay at
-her moorings, ready to start for Melbourne and intermediate ports
-at five o'clock next morning. The old lawyer was a spare, grave,
-gentlemanly-looking old man, and as much a gentleman as he looked, with
-the kindest heart in the world when you could get at it: a man who
-was esteemed and respected, to use the language of the local paper,
-by all his fellow-townsmen, whether friends or foes. They Anglicised
-his name in speaking it, and they wrote it "Bryan" far more often than
-not, though nothing enraged him more than to have his precious vowels
-tampered with; but they liked him so much that they never cast it up to
-him that he was a Frenchman.
-
-This good old man, chivalrous as any paladin, in his shy and secret
-way, always anxious to hide his generous emotions, as the traditional
-Frenchman is anxious to display them, had done a father's part by
-our young orphans since their own father had left them so strangely
-desolate. Sam Dunn had compassed them with sweet observances, as we
-have seen; but Sam was powerless to unravel the web of difficulties,
-legal and otherwise, in which Mr. King's death had plunged them. Mr.
-Brion had done all this, and a great deal more that nobody knew of,
-to protect the girls and their interests at a critical juncture, and
-to give them a fair and clear start on their own account. And in the
-process of thus serving them he had become very much attached to them
-in his old-fashioned, reticent way; and he did not at all like having
-to let them go away alone in this lonely-looking night.
-
-"But Paul will be there to meet you," he said, for the twentieth time,
-laying his hand over Elizabeth's, which rested on his arm. "You may
-trust to Paul--as soon as the boat is telegraphed he will come to meet
-you--he will see to everything that is necessary--you will have no
-bother at all. And, my dear, remember what I say--let the boy advise
-you for a little while. Let him take care of you, and imagine it is
-I. You may trust him as absolutely as you trust me, and he will not
-presume upon your confidence, believe me. He is not like the young men
-of the country," added Paul's father, putting a little extra stiffness
-into his upright figure. "No, no--he is quite different."
-
-"I think you have instructed us so fully, dear Mr. Brion, that we shall
-get along very well without having to trouble Mr. Paul," interposed
-Patty, in her clear, quick way, speaking from a little distance.
-
-The steamer, with her lamps lit, was all in a clatter and bustle,
-taking in passengers and cargo. Sam Dunn was on board, having seen the
-boxes stowed away safely; and he came forward to say good-bye to his
-young ladies before driving his cart home.
-
-"I'll miss ye," said the brawny fisherman, with savage tenderness; "and
-the missus'll miss ye. Darned if we shall know the place with you gone
-out of it. Many's the dark night the light o' your winders has been
-better'n the lighthouse to show me the way home."
-
-He pointed to the great headland lying, it seemed now, so far, far
-off, ghostly as a cloud. And presently he went away; and they could
-hear him, as he drove back along the jetty, cursing his old horse--to
-which he was as much attached as if it had been a human friend--with
-blood-curdling ferocity.
-
-Mr. Brion stayed with them until it seemed improper to stay any
-longer--until all the passengers that were to come on board had housed
-themselves for the night, and all the baggage had been snugly stowed
-away--and then bade them good-bye, with less outward emotion than Sam
-had displayed, but with almost as keen a pang.
-
-"God bless you, my dears," said he, with paternal solemnity. "Take care
-of yourselves, and let Paul do what he can for you. I will send you
-your money every quarter, and you must keep accounts--keep accounts
-strictly. And ask Paul what you want to know. Then you will get along
-all right, please God."
-
-"O yes, we shall get along all right," repeated Patty, whose sturdy
-optimism never failed her in the most trying moments.
-
-But when the old man was gone, and they stood on the tiny slip of deck
-that was available to stand on, feeling no necessity to cling to the
-railings as the little vessel heaved up and down in the wash of the
-tide that swirled amongst the piers of the jetty--when they looked at
-the lights of the town sprinkled round the shore and up the hillsides,
-at their own distant headland, unlighted, except by the white haze of
-the moon, at the now deserted jetty, and the apparently illimitable
-sea--when they realised for the first time that they were alone in this
-great and unknown world--even Patty's bold heart was inclined to sink a
-little.
-
-"Elizabeth," she said, "we _must_ not cry--it is absurd. What is there
-to cry for? Now, all the things we have been dreaming and longing for
-are going to happen--the story is beginning. Let us go to bed and get
-a good sleep before the steamer starts so that we are fresh in the
-morning--so that we don't lose anything. Come, Nelly, let us see if
-poor Dan is comfortable, and have some supper and go to bed."
-
-They cheered themselves with the sandwiches and the gooseberry wine
-that Mr. Brion's housekeeper had put up for them, paid a visit to Dan,
-who was in charge of an amiable cook (whom the old lawyer had tipped
-handsomely), and then faced the dangers and difficulties of getting
-to bed. Descending the brass-bound staircase to the lower regions,
-they paused, their faces flushed up, and they looked at each other as
-if the scene before them was something unfit for the eyes of modest
-girls. They were shocked, as by some specific impropriety, at the
-noise and confusion, the rough jostling and the impure atmosphere,
-in the morsel of a ladies' cabin, from which the tiny slips of bunks
-prepared for them were divided only by a scanty curtain. This was their
-first contact with the world, so to speak, and they fled from it. To
-spend a night in that suffocating hole, with those loud women their
-fellow passengers, was a too appalling prospect. So Elizabeth went to
-the captain, who knew their story, and admired their faces, and was
-inclined to be very kind to them, and asked his permission to occupy
-a retired corner of the deck. On his seeming to hesitate--they being
-desperately anxious not to give anybody any trouble--they assured him
-that the place above all others where they would like to make their bed
-was on the wedge-shaped platform in the bows, where they would be out
-of everybody's way.
-
-"But, my dear young lady, there is no railing there," said the captain,
-laughing at the proposal as a joke.
-
-"A good eight inches--ten inches," said Elizabeth. "Quite enough for
-anybody in the roughest sea."
-
-"For a sailor perhaps, but not for young ladies who get giddy and
-frightened and seasick. Supposing you tumbled off in the dark, and I
-found you gone when I came to look for you in the morning."
-
-"_We_ tumble off!" cried Eleanor. "We never tumbled off anything
-in our lives. We have lived on the cliffs like the goats and the
-gulls--nothing makes us giddy. And I don't think anything will make us
-seasick--or frightened either."
-
-"Certainly not frightened," said Patty.
-
-He let them have their way--taking a great many (as they thought)
-perfectly unnecessary precautions in fixing up their quarters in case
-of a rough sea--and himself carried out their old opossum rug and an
-armful of pillows to make their nest comfortable. So, in this quiet
-and breezy bedchamber, roofed over by the moonlit sky, they lay down
-with much satisfaction in each other's arms, unwatched and unmolested,
-as they loved to be, save by the faithful Dan Tucker, who found his
-way to their feet in the course of the night. And the steamer left her
-moorings and worked out of the bay into the open ocean, puffing and
-clattering, and danced up and down over the long waves, and they knew
-nothing about it. In the fresh air, with the familiar voice of the sea
-around them, they slept soundly under the opossum rug until the sun was
-high.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-
-PAUL.
-
-
-They slept for two nights on the tip of the steamer's nose, and they
-did not roll off. They had a long, delightful day at sea, no more
-troubled with seasickness than were the gulls to which they had
-compared themselves, and full of inquiring interest for each of the
-ports they touched at, and for all the little novelties of a first
-voyage. They became great friends with the captain and crew, and with
-some children who were amongst the passengers (the ladies of the party
-were indisposed to fraternise with them, not being able to reconcile
-themselves to the cut and quality of the faded blue gingham gowns,
-or to those eccentric sleeping arrangements, both of which seemed to
-point to impecuniosity--which is so closely allied to impropriety, as
-everybody knows). They sat down to their meals in the little cabin with
-wonderful appetites; they walked the deck in the fine salt wind with
-feet that were light and firm, and hearts that were high and hopeful
-and full of courage and enterprise. Altogether, they felt that the
-story was beginning pleasantly, and they were eager to turn over the
-pages.
-
-And then, on the brightest of bright summer mornings, they came to
-Melbourne.
-
-They did not quite know what they had expected to see, but what they
-did see astonished them. The wild things caught in the bush, and
-carried in cages to the Eastern market, could not have felt more
-surprised or dismayed by the novelty of the situation than did these
-intrepid damsels when they found themselves fairly launched into the
-world they were so anxious to know. For a few minutes after their
-arrival they stood together silent, breathless, taking it all in; and
-then Patty--yes, it _was_ Patty--exclaimed:
-
-"Oh, _where_ is Paul Brion?"
-
-Paul Brion was there, and the words had no sooner escaped her lips
-than he appeared before them. "How do you do, Miss King?" he said, not
-holding out his hand, but taking off his hat with one of his father's
-formal salutations, including them all. "I hope you have had a pleasant
-passage. If you will kindly tell me what luggage you have, I will take
-you to your cab; it is waiting for you just here. Three boxes? All
-right. I will see after them."
-
-He was a small, slight, wiry little man, with decidedly brusque, though
-perfectly polite manners; active and self-possessed, and, in a certain
-way of his own, dignified, notwithstanding his low stature. He was not
-handsome, but he had a keen and clever face--rather fierce as to the
-eyes and mouth, which latter was adorned with a fierce little moustache
-curling up at the corners--but pleasant to look at, and one that
-inspired trust.
-
-"He is not a bit like his father," said Patty, following him with
-Eleanor, as he led Elizabeth to the cab. Patty was angry with him for
-overhearing that "Where is Paul Brion?"--as she was convinced he had
-done--and her tone was disparaging.
-
-"As the mother duck said of the ugly duckling, if he is not pretty he
-has a good disposition," said Eleanor. "He is like his father in that.
-It was very kind of him to come and help us. A press man must always be
-terribly busy."
-
-"I don't see why we couldn't have managed for ourselves. It is nothing
-but to call a cab," said Patty with irritation.
-
-"And where could we have gone to?" asked her sister, reproachfully.
-
-"For the matter of that, where are we going now? We haven't the least
-idea. I think it was very stupid to leave ourselves in the hands of a
-chance young man whom we have hardly ever seen. We make ourselves look
-like a set of helpless infants--as if we couldn't do without him."
-
-"Well, we can't," said Eleanor.
-
-"Nonsense. We don't try. But," added Patty, after a pause, "we must
-begin to try--we must begin at once."
-
-They arrived at the cab, in which Elizabeth had seated herself, with
-the bewildered Dan in her arms, her sweet, open face all smiles and
-sunshine. Paul Brion held the door open, and, as the younger sisters
-passed him, looked at them intently with searching eyes. This was a
-fresh offence to Patty, at whom he certainly looked most. Impressions
-new and strange were crowding upon her brain this morning thick and
-fast. "Elizabeth," she said, unconscious that her brilliant little
-countenance, with that flush of excitement upon it, was enough to
-fascinate the gaze of the dullest man; "Elizabeth, he looks at us as
-if we were curiosities--he thinks we are dowdy and countryfied and it
-amuses him."
-
-"My dear," interposed Eleanor, who, like Elizabeth, was (as she herself
-expressed it) reeking with contentment, "you could not have seen his
-face if you think that. He was as grave as a judge."
-
-"Then he pities us, Nelly, and that is worse. He thinks we are queer
-outlandish creatures--_frights_. So we are. Look at those women on the
-other side of the street, how differently they are dressed! We ought
-not to have come in these old clothes, Elizabeth."
-
-"But, my darling, we are travelling, and anything does to travel in.
-We will put on our black frocks when we get home, and we will buy
-ourselves some new ones. Don't trouble about such a trifle _now_,
-Patty--it is not like you. Oh, see what a perfect day it is! And think
-of our being in Melbourne at last! I am trying to realise it, but it
-almost stuns me. What a place it is! But Mr. Paul says our lodgings
-are in a quiet, airy street--not in this noisy part. Ah, here he is!
-And there are the three boxes all safe. Thank you so much," she said
-warmly, looking at the young man of the world, who was some five
-years older than herself, with frankest friendliness, as a benevolent
-grandmamma might have looked at an obliging schoolboy. "You are very
-good--we are very grateful to you."
-
-"And very sorry to have given you so much trouble," added Patty, with
-the air of a young duchess.
-
-He looked at her quickly, and made a slight bow. He did not say that
-what he had done had been no trouble at all, but a pleasure--he did not
-say a word, indeed; and his silence made her little heart swell with
-mortification. He turned to Elizabeth, and, resting his hands on the
-door-frame, began to explain the nature of the arrangements that he had
-made for them, with business-like brevity.
-
-"Your lodgings are in Myrtle Street, Miss King. That is in East
-Melbourne, you know--quite close to the gardens--quite quiet and
-retired, and yet within a short walk of Collins Street, and handy for
-all the places you want to see. You have two bedrooms and a small
-sitting-room of your own, but take your meals with the other people of
-the house; you won't mind that, I hope--it made a difference of about
-thirty shillings a week, and it is the most usual arrangement. Of
-course you can alter anything you don't like when you get there. The
-landlady is a Scotchwoman--I know her very well, and can recommend her
-highly--I think you will like her."
-
-"But won't you come with us?" interposed Elizabeth, putting out her
-hand. "Come and introduce us to her, and see that the cabman takes us
-to the right place. Or perhaps you are too busy to spare the time?"
-
-"I--I will call on you this afternoon, if you will permit me--when
-you have had your lunch and are rested a little. Oh, I know the
-cabman quite well, and can answer for his taking you safely. This is
-your address"--hastily scribbling it on an envelope he drew from his
-pocket--"and the landlady is Mrs. M'Intyre. Good morning. I will do
-myself the pleasure of calling on you at four or five o'clock."
-
-He thereupon bowed and departed, and the cab rattled away in an
-opposite direction. Patty deeply resented his not coming with them,
-and wondered and wondered why he had refused. Was he too proud, or too
-shy, or too busy, or too indifferent? Did he feel that it was a trouble
-to him to have to look after them? Poor Paul! He would have liked
-to come, to see them comfortably housed and settled; but the simple
-difficulty was that he was afraid to risk giving them offence by paying
-the cab fare, and would not ride with them, a man in charge of three
-ladies, without paying it. And Patty was not educated to the point of
-appreciating that scruple. His desertion of them in the open street was
-a grievance to her. She could not help thinking of it, though there was
-so much else to think of.
-
-The cab turned into Collins Street and rattled merrily up that busy
-thoroughfare in the bright sunshine. They looked at the brilliant
-shop windows, at the gay crowd streaming up and down the pavements,
-and the fine equipages flashing along the road-way at the Town Hall,
-and the churches, and the statues of Burke and Wills--and were filled
-with admiration and wonder. Then they turned into quieter roads, and
-there was the Exhibition in its web of airy scaffolding, destined to be
-the theatre of great events, in which they would have their share--an
-inspiring sight. And they went round a few corners, catching refreshing
-glimpses of green trees and shady alleys, and presently arrived at
-Myrtle Street--quietest of suburban thoroughfares, with its rows of
-trim little houses, half-a-dozen in a block, each with its tiny patch
-of garden in front of it--where for the present they were to dwell.
-
-Mrs. M'Intyre's maid came out to take the parcels, and the landlady
-herself appeared on the doorstep to welcome the new-comers. They
-whispered to themselves hurriedly, "Oh, she has a nice face!"--and then
-Patty and Elizabeth addressed themselves to the responsible business of
-settling with the cabman.
-
-"How much have we to pay you?" asked Patty with dignity.
-
-"Twelve shillings, please, miss," the man gaily replied.
-
-Elizabeth looked at her energetic sister, who had boasted that they
-were quite sharp enough to know when they were being cheated. Upon
-which Patty, with her feathers up, appealed to the landlady. Mrs.
-M'Intyre said the proper sum due to him was just half what he had
-asked. The cabman said that was for one passenger, and not for three.
-Mrs. M'Intyre then represented that eighteen-pence apiece was as much
-as he could claim for the remaining two, that the luggage was a mere
-nothing, and that if he didn't mind what he was about, &c. So the sum
-was reduced to nine shillings, which Elizabeth paid, looking very grave
-over it, for it was still far beyond what she had reckoned on.
-
-Then they went into the house--the middle house of a smart little
-terrace, with a few ragged fern trees in the front garden--and Mrs.
-M'Intyre took them up to their rooms, and showed them drawers and
-cupboards, in a motherly and hospitable manner.
-
-"This is the large bedroom, with the two beds, and the small one opens
-off it; so that you will all be close together," said she, displaying
-the neat chambers, one of which was properly but a dressing-closet;
-and our girls, who knew no luxury but absolute cleanliness, took note
-of the whiteness of the floors and bedclothes, and were more than
-satisfied. "And this is your sitting-room," she proceeded, leading the
-way to an adjoining apartment pleasantly lighted by a French window,
-which opened upon a stone (or, rather, what looked like a stone)
-balcony. It had a little "suite" in green rep like Mrs. Hawkins's, and
-Mrs. Dunn's ideal cedar-wood chiffonnier; it had also a comfortable
-solid table with a crimson cloth, and a print of the ubiquitous Cenci
-over the mantelpiece. The carpet was a bed of blooming roses and
-lilies, the effect of which was much improved by the crumb cloth that
-was nailed all over it. It was a tiny room, but it had a cosy look, and
-the new lodgers agreed at once that it was all that could be desired.
-"And I hope you will be comfortable," concluded the amiable landlady,
-"and let me know whenever you want anything. There's a bathroom down
-that passage, and this is your bell, and those drawers have got keys,
-you see, and lunch will be ready in half-an-hour. The dining-room is
-the first door at the bottom of the stairs, and--phew! that tobacco
-smoke hangs about the place still, in spite of all my cleaning and
-airing. I never allow smoking in the house, Miss King--not in the
-general way; but a man who has to be up o' nights writing for the
-newspapers, and never getting his proper sleep, it's hard to grudge him
-the comfort of his pipe--now isn't it? And I have had no ladies here to
-be annoyed by it--in general I don't take ladies, for gentlemen are so
-much the most comfortable to do for; and Mr. Brion is so considerate,
-and gives so little trouble--"
-
-"What! Is Mr. Paul Brion lodging here?" broke in Patty impetuously,
-with her face aflame.
-
-"Not now," Mrs. M'Intyre replied. "He left me last week. These rooms
-that you have got were his--he has had them for over three years. He
-wanted you to come here, because he thought you would be comfortable
-with me"--smiling benignly. "He said a man could put up anywhere."
-
-She left them, presently; and as soon as the girls found themselves
-alone, they hurriedly assured each other that nothing should induce
-them to submit to this. It was not to be thought of for a moment. Paul
-Brion must be made to remove the mountainous obligation that he had put
-them under, and return to his rooms instantly. They would not put so
-much as a pocket handkerchief in the drawers and cupboards until this
-point had been settled with him.
-
-At four o'clock, when they had visited the bathroom, arranged their
-pretty hair afresh, and put on the black print gowns--when they had had
-a quiet lunch with Mrs. M'Intyre (whose other boarders being gentlemen
-in business, did not appear at the mid-day meal), prattling cheerfully
-with the landlady the while, and thinking that the cold beef and salads
-of Melbourne were the most delicious viands ever tasted--when they had
-examined their rooms minutely, and tried the sofas and easy-chairs, and
-stood for a long while on the balcony looking at the other houses in
-the quiet street--at four o'clock Paul Brion came; and the maid brought
-up his card, while he gossiped with Mrs. M'Intyre in the hall. He had
-no sooner entered the girls' sitting-room than Elizabeth hastened to
-unburden herself. Patty was burning to be the spokeswoman for the
-occasion, but she knew her place, and she remembered the small effect
-she had produced on him in the morning, and proudly held aloof. In her
-sweet and graceful way, but with as much gravity and earnestness as if
-it were a matter of life and death, Elizabeth explained her view of the
-situation. "Of course we cannot consent to such an arrangement," she
-said gently; "you must have known we could never consent to allow you
-to turn out of your own rooms to accommodate us. You must please come
-back again, Mr. Brion, and let us go elsewhere. There seem to be plenty
-of other lodgings to be had--even in this street."
-
-Paul Brion's face wore a pleasant smile as he listened. "Oh, thank
-you," he replied lightly. "But I am very comfortable where I am--quite
-as much so as I was here--rather more, indeed. For the people at No. 6
-have set up a piano on the other side of that wall"--pointing to the
-cedar chiffonnier--"and it bothered me dreadfully when I wanted to
-write. It was the piano drove me out--not you. Perhaps it will drive
-you out too. It is a horrible nuisance, for it is always out of tune;
-and you know the sort of playing that people indulge in who use pianos
-that are out of tune."
-
-So their little demonstration collapsed. Paul had gone away to please
-himself. "And has left _us_ to endure the agonies of a piano out of
-tune," commented Patty.
-
-As the day wore on, reaction from the mood of excitement and exaltation
-with which it began set in. Their spirits flagged. They felt tired and
-desolate in this new world. The unaccustomed hot dinner in the evening,
-at which they sat for nearly an hour in company with strange men who
-asked them questions, and pressed them to eat what they didn't want,
-was very uncongenial to them. And when, as soon as they could, they
-escaped to their own quarters, their little sitting-room, lighted with
-gas and full of hot upstairs air, struck them with its unsympathetic
-and unhomelike aspect. The next door piano was jingling its music-hall
-ditties faintly on the other side of the wall, and poor Dan, who had
-been banished to the back yard, was yelping so piteously that their
-hearts bled to hear him. "We must get a house of our own at once,
-Elizabeth--at _once_," exclaimed Eleanor--"if only for Dan's sake."
-
-"We will never have pets again--never!" said Patty, with something like
-an incipient sob in her voice, as she paced restlessly about the room.
-"Then we shall not have to ill-treat them and to part from them." She
-was thinking of her little bear, and the opossum, and the magpies, who
-were worse off than Dan.
-
-And Elizabeth sat down at the table, and took out pencil and note-book
-with a careworn face. She was going to keep accounts strictly, as
-Mr. Brion had advised her, and they not only meant to live within
-their income, as a matter of course, but to save a large part of
-it for future European contingencies. And, totting up the items of
-their expenditure for three days--cost of passage by steamer, cost of
-provisions on board, cab fare, and the sum paid for a week's board and
-lodging in advance--she found that they had been living for that period
-at the rate of about a thousand a year.
-
-So that, upon the whole, they were not quite so happy as they had
-expected to be, when they went to bed.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-
-A MORNING WALK.
-
-
-But they slept well in their strange beds, and by morning all their
-little troubles had disappeared. It was impossible not to suppose
-that the pets "at home" were making themselves happy, seeing how the
-sun shone and the sea breezes blew; and Dan, who had reached years of
-discretion, was evidently disposed to submit himself to circumstances.
-Having a good view of the back yard, they could see him lolling
-luxuriously on the warm asphalte, as if he had been accustomed to be
-chained up, and liked it. Concerning their most pressing anxiety--the
-rapid manner in which money seemed to melt away, leaving so little to
-show for it--it was pointed out that at least half the sum expended was
-for a special purpose, and chargeable to the reserve fund and not to
-their regular income, from which at present only five pounds had been
-taken, which was to provide all their living for a week to come.
-
-So they went downstairs in serene and hopeful spirits, and gladdened
-the eyes of the gentlemen boarders who were standing about the
-dining-room, devouring the morning's papers while they waited for
-breakfast. There were three of them, and each placed a chair promptly,
-and each offered handsomely to resign his newspaper. Elizabeth took an
-_Argus_ to see what advertisements there were of houses to let; and
-then Mrs. M'Intyre came in with her coffee-pot and her cheerful face,
-and they sat down to breakfast. Mrs. M'Intyre was that rare exception
-to the rule, a boarding-house keeper who had private means as well as
-the liberal disposition of which the poorest have their share, and so
-her breakfast was a good breakfast. And the presence of strangers at
-table was not so unpleasant to our girls on this occasion as the last.
-
-After breakfast they had a solemn consultation, the result being that
-the forenoon was dedicated to the important business of buying their
-clothes and finding their way to and from the shops.
-
-"For we must have _bonnets_," said Patty, "and that immediately.
-Bonnets, I perceive, are the essential tokens of respectability. And we
-must never ride in a cab again."
-
-They set off at ten o'clock, escorted by Mrs. M'Intyre, who chanced
-to be going to the city to do some marketing. The landlady, being a
-very fat woman, to whom time was precious, took the omnibus, according
-to custom; but her companions with one consent refused to squander
-unnecessary threepences by accompanying her in that vehicle. They had a
-straight road before them all the way from the corner of Myrtle Street
-to the Fishmarket, where she had business; and there they joined her
-when she had completed her purchases, and she gave them a fair start at
-the foot of Collins Street before she left them.
-
-In Collins Street they spent the morning--a bewildering, exciting,
-anxious morning--going from shop to shop, and everywhere finding
-that the sum they had brought to spend was utterly inadequate for
-the purpose to which they had dedicated it. They saw any quantity of
-pretty soft stuffs, that were admirably adapted alike to their taste
-and means, but to get them fashioned into gowns seemed to treble their
-price at once; and, as Patty represented, they must have one, at any
-rate, that was made in the mode before they could feel it safe to
-manufacture for themselves. They ended by choosing--as a measure of
-comparative safety, for thus only could they know what they were doing,
-as Patty said--three ready-made costumes that took their fancy, the
-combined cost of which was a few shillings over the ten pounds. They
-were merely morning dresses of black woollen stuff; lady-like, and with
-a captivating style of "the world" about them, but in the lowest class
-of goods of that kind dispensed in those magnificent shops. Of course
-that was the end of their purchases for the day; the selection of
-mantles, bonnets, gloves, boots, and all the other little odds and ends
-on Elizabeth's list was reserved for a future occasion. For the idea of
-buying anything on twenty-four hours' credit was never entertained for
-a moment. To be sure, they did ask about the bonnets, and were shown a
-great number, in spite of their polite anxiety not to give unprofitable
-trouble; and not one that they liked was less than several pounds in
-price. Dismayed and disheartened, they "left it" (Patty's suggestion
-again); and they gave the rest of their morning to the dressmaker, who
-undertook to remodel the bodices of the new gowns and make them fit
-properly. This fitting was not altogether a satisfactory business,
-either; for the dressmaker insisted that a well-shaped corset was
-indispensable--especially in these days, when fit was everything--and
-they had no corsets and did not wish for any. She was, however, a
-dressmaker of decision and resource, and she sent her assistant for a
-bundle of corsets, in which she encased her helpless victims before she
-would begin the ripping and snipping and pulling and pinning process.
-When they saw their figures in the glass, with their fashionable tight
-skirts and unwrinkled waists, they did not know themselves; and I am
-afraid that Patty and Eleanor, at any rate, were disposed to regard
-corsets favourably and to make light of the discomfort they were
-sensibly conscious of in wearing them. Elizabeth, whose natural shape
-was so beautiful--albeit she is destined, if the truth must be told, to
-be immensely stout and heavy some day--was not seduced by this specious
-appearance. She ordered the dressmaker, with a quiet peremptoriness
-that would have become a carriage customer, to make the waists of the
-three gowns "free" and to leave the turnings on; and she took off the
-borrowed corset, and drew a long breath, inwardly determining never to
-wear such a thing again, even to have a dress fitted--fashion or no
-fashion.
-
-It was half-past twelve by this time, and at one o'clock Mrs. M'Intyre
-would expect them in to lunch. They wanted to go home by way of those
-green enclosures that Paul Brion had told them of, and of which they
-had had a glimpse yesterday--which the landlady had assured them was
-the easiest thing possible. They had but to walk right up to the top of
-Collins Street, turn to the right, where they would see a gate leading
-into gardens, pass straight through those gardens, cross a road and
-go straight through other gardens, which would bring them within a
-few steps of Myrtle Street--a way so plain that they couldn't miss
-it if they tried. Ways always do seem so to people who know them. Our
-three girls were self-reliant young women, and kept their wits about
-them very creditably amid their novel and distracting surroundings.
-Nevertheless they were at some loss with respect to this obvious route.
-Because, in the first place, they didn't know which was the top of
-Collins Street and which the bottom.
-
-"Dear me! we shall be reduced to the ignominious necessity of asking
-our way," exclaimed Eleanor, as they stood forlornly on the pavement,
-jostled by the human tide that flowed up and down. "If only we had Paul
-Brion here."
-
-It was very provoking to Patty, but he _was_ there. Being a small man,
-he did not come into view till he was within a couple of yards of them,
-and that was just in time to overhear this invocation. His ordinarily
-fierce aspect, which she had disrespectfully likened to that of Dan
-when another terrier had insulted him, had for the moment disappeared.
-The little man showed all over him the pleased surprise with which he
-had caught the sound of his own name.
-
-"Have you got so far already?" he exclaimed, speaking in his sharp and
-rapid way, while his little moustache bristled with such a smile as
-they had not thought him capable of. "And--and can I assist you in any
-way?"
-
-Elizabeth explained their dilemma; upon which he declared he was
-himself going to East Melbourne (whence he had just come, after his
-morning sleep and noontide breakfast), and asked leave to escort them
-thither. "How fortunate we are!" Elizabeth said, turning to walk up the
-street by his side; and Eleanor told him he was like his father in the
-opportuneness of his friendly services. But Patty was silent, and raged
-inwardly.
-
-When they had traversed the length of the street, and were come to the
-open space before the Government offices, where they could fall again
-into one group, she made an effort to get rid of him and the burden of
-obligation that he was heaping upon them.
-
-"Mr. Brion," she began impetuously, "we know where we are now quite
-well--"
-
-"I don't think you do," he interrupted her, "seeing that you were never
-here before."
-
-"Our landlady gave us directions--she made it quite plain to us. There
-is no necessity for you to trouble yourself any further. You were not
-going this way when we met you, but exactly in the opposite direction."
-
-"I am going this way now, at any rate," he said, with decision. "I am
-going to show your sisters their way through the gardens. There are a
-good many paths, and they don't all lead to Myrtle Street."
-
-"But we know the points of the compass--we have our general
-directions," she insisted angrily, as she followed him helplessly
-through the gates. "We are not quite idiots, though we do come from the
-country."
-
-"Patty," interposed Elizabeth, surprised, "I am glad of Mr. Brion's
-kind help, if you are not."
-
-"Patty," echoed Eleanor in an undertone, "that haughty spirit of yours
-will have a fall some day."
-
-Patty felt that it was having a fall now. "I know it is very kind of
-Mr. Brion," she said tremulously, "but how are we to get on and do for
-ourselves if we are treated like children--I mean if we allow ourselves
-to hang on to other people? We should make our own way, as others have
-to do. I don't suppose _you_ had anyone to lead you about when _you_
-first came to Melbourne"--addressing Paul.
-
-"I was a man," he replied. "It is a man's business to take care of
-himself."
-
-"Of course. And equally it is a woman's business to take care of
-herself--if she has no man in her family."
-
-"Pardon me. In that case it is the business of all the men with whom
-she comes in contact to take care of her--each as he can."
-
-"Oh, what nonsense! You talk as if we lived in the time of the
-Troubadours--as if you didn't _know_ that all that stuff about women
-has had its day and been laughed out of existence long ago."
-
-"What stuff?"
-
-"That we are helpless imbeciles--a sort of angelic wax baby, good
-for nothing but to look pretty. As if we were not made of the same
-substance as you, with brains and hands--not so strong as yours,
-perhaps, but quite strong enough to rely upon when necessary. Oh!"
-exclaimed Patty, with a fierce gesture, "I do so _hate_ that man's cant
-about women--I have no patience with it!"
-
-"You must have been severely tried," murmured Paul (he was beginning
-to think the middle Miss King a disagreeable person, and to feel
-vindictive towards her). And Eleanor laughed cruelly, and said, "Oh,
-no, she's got it all out of books."
-
-"A great mistake to go by books," said he, with the air of a father.
-"Experience first--books afterwards, Miss Patty." And he smiled coolly
-into the girl's flaming face.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-
-AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY.
-
-
-Patty and her sisters very nearly had their first quarrel over Paul
-Brion. Patty said he was impertinent and patronising, that he presumed
-upon their friendless position to pay them insulting attentions--that,
-in short, he was a detestable young man whom she, for one, would have
-nothing more to do with. And she warned Elizabeth, in an hysterical,
-high-pitched voice, never to invite him into their house unless
-she wished to see her (Patty) walk out of it. Elizabeth, supported
-by Eleanor, took up the cudgels in his defence, and assured Patty,
-kindly, but with much firmness, that he had behaved with dignity
-and courtesy under great provocation to do otherwise. They also
-pointed out that he was his father's representative; that it would be
-ungracious and unladylike to reject the little services that it was
-certainly a pleasure to him to render, and unworthy of them to assume
-an independence that at present they were unable to support. Which was
-coming as near to "words" as was possible for them to come, and much
-nearer than any of them desired. Patty burst into tears at last, which
-was the signal for everything in the shape of discord and division to
-vanish. Her sisters kissed and fondled her, and assured her that they
-sympathised with her anxiety to be under obligations to nobody from the
-bottom of their hearts; and Patty owned that she had been captious and
-unreasonable, and consented to forgive her enemy for what he hadn't
-done and to be civil to him in future.
-
-And, as the days wore on, even she grew to be thankful for Paul Brion,
-though, of course, she would never own to it. Their troubles were many
-and various, and their helpless ignorance more profound and humiliating
-than they could have believed possible. I will not weary the reader
-by tracing the details of the process by which they became acquainted
-with the mode and cost of living "as other people do," and with the
-ways of the world in general; it would be too long a story. How Patty
-discovered that the cleverest fingers cannot copy a London bonnet
-without some previous knowledge of the science of millinery; how she
-and her sisters, after supplying themselves grudgingly with the mere
-necessaries of a modern outfit, found that the remainder of their
-"furniture money," to the last pound note, was spent; how, after weary
-trampings to and fro in search of a habitable house in a wholesome
-neighbourhood, they learned the ruinous rates of rent and taxes and
-(after much shopping and many consultations with Mrs. M'Intyre) the
-alarming prices of furniture and provisions; how they were driven to
-admit, in spite of Patty, that that landlady on the premises, whom
-Eleanor had declared was not to be thought of, might be a necessary
-safeguard against worse evils; and how they were brought to ask each
-other, in surprise and dismay, "Is it possible that we are poor people
-after all, and not rich, as we supposed?"--all these things can be
-better imagined than described. Suffice it to say, they passed through
-much tribulation and many bitter and humbling experiences during the
-early months of their sojourn in Melbourne; but when at last they
-reached a comparatively safe haven, and found themselves once more
-secure under their own control, able to regulate their needs and
-their expenditure, and generally to understand the conditions and
-possibilities of their position, Elizabeth and Eleanor made a solemn
-declaration that they were indebted for this happy issue to the good
-offices and faithful friendship of Paul Brion alone, and Patty--though
-she turned up her nose and said "Pooh!"--though she hated to be
-indebted to him, or to anybody--agreed with them.
-
-They settled down to their housekeeping by very slow degrees. For
-some time they stayed with Mrs. M'Intyre, because there really seemed
-nothing else to do that was at all within their means; and from
-this base of operations they made all those expeditions of inquiry
-into city habits and customs, commercial and domestic, which were
-such conspicuous and ignominious failures. As the sense of their
-helplessness grew upon them, they grudgingly admitted the young man
-(who was always at hand, and yet never intruded upon or pestered
-them) to their counsels, and accepted, without seeming to accept, his
-advice; and the more they condescended in this way the better they
-got on. Gradually they fell into the habit of depending on him, by
-tacit consent--which was the more easy to do because, as his father
-had promised, he did not presume upon their confidence in him. He was
-sharp and brusque, and even inclined to domineer--to be impertinent, as
-Patty called it--when they did submit their affairs to his judgment;
-but not the smallest suspicion of an unauthorised motive for his
-evident devotion to their interests appeared in his face, or voice, or
-manner, which were those of the man of business, slightly suggesting
-occasionally the imperious and impartial "nearest male relative."
-They grew to trust him--for his father's sake, they said, but there
-was nothing vicarious about it; and that they had the rare fortune
-to be justified in doing so, under such unlikely circumstances, made
-up to them for whatever ill luck they might otherwise have seemed to
-encounter in these days. It was he who finally found them their home,
-after their many futile searches--half a house in their own street and
-terrace, vacated by the marriage and departure to another colony of the
-lady who played the piano that was out of tune. No. 6, it appeared,
-had been divided into flats; the ground floor was occupied by the
-proprietor, his wife, and servant; and the upper, which had a gas stove
-and other kitchen appliances in a back room, was let unfurnished for
-£60 a year. Paul, always poking about in quest of opportunities, heard
-of this one and pounced upon it. He made immediate inquiries into the
-character and antecedents of the landlord of No. 6, the state of the
-drains and chimneys, and paint and paper, of the house; and, having
-satisfied himself that it was as nearly being what our girls wanted
-as anything they would be likely to find, called upon Elizabeth, and
-advised her to secure it forthwith. The sisters were just then adding
-up their accounts--taking stock of their affairs generally--and coming
-to desperate resolutions that something must be done; so the suggested
-arrangement, which would deliver them from bondage and from many of
-their worst difficulties, had quite a providential opportuneness about
-it. They took the rooms at once--four small rooms, including the
-improvised kitchen--and went into them, in defiance of Mrs. M'Intyre's
-protestations, before they had so much as a bedstead to sleep upon;
-and once more they were happy in the consciousness that they had
-recovered possession of themselves, and could call their souls their
-own. Slowly, bit by bit, the furniture came in--the barest necessaries
-first, and then odds and ends of comfort and prettiness (not a few
-of them discovered by Paul Brion in out-of-the-way places, where he
-"happened" to be), until the new little home grew to look as homelike
-as the old one. They sent for the bureau and the piano, which went
-a long way towards furnishing the sitting-room; and they bought a
-comfortable second-hand table and some capacious, cheap, wickerwork
-chairs; and they laid a square of matting on the floor, and made some
-chintz curtains for the window, and turned a deal packing-case into
-an ottoman, and another into a set of shelves for their books; and
-over all these little arrangements threw such an air of taste, such
-a complexion of spotless cleanliness and fastidious neatness, as are
-only seen in the homes of "nice" women, that it takes nice people to
-understand the charm of.
-
-One day, when their preparations for regular domestic life were fairly
-completed, Patty, tired after a long spell of amateur carpentering,
-sat down to the piano to rest and refresh herself. The piano had
-been tuned on its arrival in Melbourne; and the man who tuned it had
-stared at her when she told him that it had been made to her mother's
-order, and showed him the famous name above the key-board. He would
-have stared still more had he heard what kind of magic life she could
-summon into the exquisite mechanism boxed up in that poor-looking
-deal case. All the sisters were musicians, strange to say; taught by
-their mother in the noble and simple spirit of the German school, and
-inheriting from her the sensitive ear and heart to understand the
-dignity and mystery, if not the message (which nobody understands) of
-that wonderful language which begins where words leave off. To "play
-the piano" was no mere conventional drawing-room performance with them,
-as they themselves were no conventional drawing-room misses; a "piece"
-of the ordinary pattern would have shocked their sense of art and
-harmony almost as much as it might have shocked Mozart and Mendelssohn,
-and Schubert and Schumann, and the other great masters whose pupils
-they were; while to talk and laugh, either when playing or listening,
-would have been to them like talking and laughing over their prayers.
-But, of the three, Patty was the most truly musical, in the serious
-meaning of the word, inasmuch as her temperament was warmer than those
-of her sisters, her imagination more vivid, her senses generally more
-susceptible to delicate impressions than theirs. The "spirits of the
-air" had all their supernatural power over her receptive and responsive
-soul, and she thrilled like an Æolian harp to the west wind under the
-spell of those emotions that have no name or shape, and for which no
-imagery supplies a comparison, which belong to the ideal world, into
-which those magic spirits summon us, and where the sacred hours of our
-lives--the sweetest, the saddest, the happiest--are spent.
-
-To-day she sat down, suddenly prompted by the feeling that she was
-fagged and tired, and began to play mechanically a favourite Beethoven
-sonata; but in five minutes she had played her nerves to rest, and was
-as steeped in dreams as the great master himself must have been when
-he conceived the tender passages that only his spiritual ears could
-hear. Eleanor, who had been sewing industriously, by degrees let her
-fingers falter and her work fall into her lap; and Elizabeth, who had
-been arranging the books in the new book-shelves, presently put down
-her duster to come and stand behind the music-stool, and laid her
-large, cool hands on Patty's head. None of them spoke for some time,
-reverencing the Presence in their quiet room; but the touch of her
-sister's palms upon her hair brought the young musician out of her
-abstractions to a sense of her immediate surroundings again. She laid
-her head back on Elizabeth's breast and drew a long sigh, and left off
-playing. The gesture said, as plainly as words could have said it, that
-she was relieved and revived--that the spirit of peace and charity had
-descended upon her.
-
-"Elizabeth," she said presently, still keeping her seat on the
-music-stool, and stroking her cheek with one of her sister's hands
-while she held the other round her neck, "I begin to think that Paul
-Brion has been a very good friend to us. Don't you?"
-
-"I am not beginning," replied Elizabeth. "I have thought it every
-day since we have known him. And I have wondered often how you could
-dislike him so much."
-
-"I don't dislike him," said Patty, quite amiably.
-
-"I have taken particular notice," remarked Eleanor from the hearthrug,
-"and it is exactly three weeks since you spoke to him, and three weeks
-and five days since you shook hands."
-
-Patty smiled, not changing her position or ceasing to caress her cheek
-with Elizabeth's hand. "Well," she said, "don't you think it would be
-a graceful thing to ask him to come and have tea with us some night?
-We have made our room pretty"--looking round with contentment--"and
-we have all we want now. We might get our silver things out of the
-bureau, and make a couple of little dishes, and put some candles about,
-and buy a bunch of flowers--for once--what do you say, Nelly? He has
-_never_ been here since we came in--never farther than the downstairs
-passage--and wouldn't it be pleasant to have a little house warming,
-and show him our things, and give him some music, and--and try to make
-him enjoy himself? It would be some return for what he has done for
-us, and his father would be pleased."
-
-That she should make the proposition--she who, from the first, had not
-only never "got on" with him, but had seemed to regard him with active
-dislike--surprised both her sisters not a little; but the proposition
-itself appeared to them, as to her, to have every good reason to
-recommend it. They thought it a most happy idea, and adopted it with
-enthusiasm. That very evening they made their plans. They designed the
-simple decorations for their little room, and the appropriate dishes
-for their modest feast. And, when these details had been settled, they
-remembered that on the following night no Parliament would be sitting,
-which meant that Paul would probably come home early (they knew his
-times of coming and going, for he was back at his old quarters now,
-having returned in consequence of the departure of the discordant
-piano, and to oblige Mrs. M'Intyre, he said); and that decided them to
-send him his invitation at once. Patty, while her complaisant mood was
-on her, wrote it herself before she went to bed, and gave it over the
-garden railing to Mrs. M'Intyre's maid.
-
-In the morning, as they were asking which of them should go to town to
-fetch certain materials for their little _fête_, they heard the door
-bang and the gate rattle at No. 7, and a quick step that they knew. And
-the slavey of No. 6 came upstairs with Paul Brion's answer, which he
-had left as he passed on his way to his office. The note was addressed
-to "Miss King," whose amanuensis Patty had carefully explained herself
-to be when writing her invitation.
-
-    "MY DEAR MISS KING,--You are indeed very kind, but I fear
-    I must deny myself the pleasure you propose--than which, I
-    assure you, I could have none greater. If you will allow
-    me, I will come in some day with Mrs. M'Intyre, who is very
-    anxious to see your new menage. And when I come, I hope you
-    will let me hear that new piano, which is such an amazing
-    contrast to the old one.--Believe me, yours very truly,
-
-    "PAUL BRION."
-
-This was Paul Brion's note. When the girls had read it, they stood
-still and looked at each other in a long, dead silence. Eleanor was
-the first to speak. Half laughing, but with her delicate face dyed in
-blushes, she whispered under her breath, "Oh--oh, don't you see what he
-means?"
-
-"He is quite right--we must thank him," said Elizabeth, gentle as ever,
-but grave and proud. "We ought not to have wanted it--that is all I am
-sorry for."
-
-But Patty stood in the middle of the room, white to the lips, and
-beside herself with passion. "That we should have made such a
-mistake!--and for _him_ to rebuke us!" she cried, as if it were more
-than she could bear. "That _I_ should have been the one to write that
-letter! Elizabeth, I suppose he is not to blame--"
-
-"No, my dear--quite the contrary."
-
-"But, all the same, I will never forgive him," said poor Patty in the
-bitterness of her soul.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-
-MRS. AARONS.
-
-
-There was no room for doubt as to what Paul Brion had meant. When
-the evening of the next day came--on which there was no Parliament
-sitting--he returned to No. 7 to dinner, and after dinner it was
-apparent that neither professional nor other engagements would have
-prevented him from enjoying the society of his fair neighbours if he
-had had a mind for it. His sitting-room opened upon the balcony--so
-did theirs; there was but a thin partition between them, and the girls
-knew not only when he was at home, but to a great extent what he was
-doing, by the presence and pungency of the odour from his pipe. When
-only faint whiffs stole into their open window from time to time,
-he was in his room, engaged--it was supposed--upon those wonderful
-leading articles which were, to them, the great feature of the paper
-to whose staff he belonged. At such times--for the houses in Myrtle
-Street were of a very lath-and-plastery order--they were careful to
-make no noise, and especially not to open their piano, that he might
-pursue his arduous labours undisturbed. But sometimes on these "off"
-nights he sat outside his window or strolled up and down the few feet
-of space allotted to him; and they would hear the rustle of the leaves
-of books on the other side of the partition, and the smell of his pipe
-would be very strong. This indicated that he had come home to rest and
-relax himself; on which occasions, prompted by some subtle feminine
-impulse, they would now and then indulge themselves with some of their
-best music--tacitly agreeing to select the very finest movements from
-the works of those best-beloved old masters whose majestic chimes rang
-out the dark evening of the eighteenth century and rang in the new age
-of art and liberty whose morning light we see--so as not to suggest,
-except by extreme comparison, the departed lady who played conventional
-rubbish on the instrument that was out of tune. That Paul Brion did not
-know Bach and Spohr, even by name and fame (as he did not), never for
-a moment occurred to them. How were they to know that the science and
-literature of music, in which they had been so well instructed, were
-not the usual study of educated people? They heard that he ceased to
-walk up and down his enclosure when they began to play and sing, and
-they smelt that his pipe was as near their window as it could get until
-they left off. That was enough.
-
-To-night, then, he was strolling and sitting about his section of the
-balcony. They heard him tramping to and fro for a full hour after
-dinner, in a fidgetty manner; and then they heard him drag a chair
-through his window, and sit down on it heavily. It occurred to them
-all that he was doing nothing--except, perhaps, waiting for a chance
-to see and speak to them. A little intercourse had taken place of late
-in this way--a very little. One night, when Elizabeth had gone out
-to remonstrate with Dan for barking at inoffensive dogs that went by
-in the street below, Paul, who had been leaning meditatively on his
-balustrade, bent his head a little forward to ask her if she found the
-smell of his tobacco unpleasant. She assured him that none of them
-minded it at all, and remarked that the weather was warm. Upon which
-he replied that the thermometer was so and so, and suggested that she
-must miss the sea breezes very much. She said they missed them very
-much indeed, and inquired if he had heard from his father lately, and
-whether he was well. He was glad to inform her that his father, from
-whom he had just heard, was in excellent health, and further, that
-he had made many inquiries after her and her sisters. She thanked
-Mr. Brion sincerely, and hoped he (Mr. Paul) would give him their
-kindest regards when he wrote again and tell him they were getting on
-admirably. Mr. Paul said he would certainly not forget it. And they
-bade each other a polite good-night. Since then, both Elizabeth and
-Eleanor had had a word to say to him occasionally, when he and they
-simultaneously took the air after the day was over, and simultaneously
-happened to lean over the balustrade. Patty saw no harm in their doing
-so, but was very careful not to do it herself or to let him suppose
-that she was conscious of his near neighbourhood. She played to him
-sometimes with singular pleasure in her performance, but did not once
-put herself in the way of seeing or speaking to him.
-
-To-night, not only she, but all of them, made a stern though unspoken
-vow that they would never--that they _could_ never--so much as say
-good-night to him on the balcony any more. The lesson that he had
-taught them was sinking deeply into their hearts; they would never
-forget it again while they lived. They sat at their needlework in the
-bright gaslight, with the window open and the venetian blind down, and
-listened to the sound of his footstep and the dragging of his chair,
-and clearly realised the certainty that it was not because he was too
-busy that he had refused to spend the evening with them, but because
-he had felt obliged to show them that they had asked him to do a thing
-that was improper. Patty's head was bent down over her sewing; her face
-was flushed, her eyes restless, her quick fingers moving with nervous
-vehemence. Breaking her needle suddenly, she looked up and exclaimed,
-"Why are we sitting here so dull and stupid, all silent, like three
-scolded children? Play something, Nellie. Put away that horrid skirt,
-and play something bright and stirring--a good rousing march, or
-something of that sort."
-
-"The Bridal March from 'Lohengrin,'" suggested Elizabeth, softly.
-
-"No," said Patty; "something that will brace us up, and not make us
-feel small and humble and sat upon." What she meant was "something that
-will make Paul Brion understand that we don't feel small and humble and
-sat upon."
-
-Eleanor rose, and laid her long fingers on the keyboard. She was not in
-the habit of taking things much to heart herself, and she did not quite
-understand her sister's frame of mind. The spirit of mischief prompted
-her to choose the saddest thing in the way of a march that she could
-recall on the spur of the moment--that funeral march of Beethoven's
-that Patty had always said was capable of reducing her to dust and
-ashes in her most exuberant moments. She threw the most heartbreaking
-expression that art allowed into the stately solemnity of her always
-perfectly balanced execution, partly because she could never render
-such a theme otherwise than reverently, but chiefly for the playful
-purpose of working upon Patty's feelings. Poor Patty had "kept up"
-and maintained a superficial command of herself until now, but this
-unexpected touch of pathos broke her down completely. She laid her arm
-on the table, and her pretty head upon her arm, and broke into a brief
-but passionate fit of weeping, such as she had never indulged in in
-all her life before. At the sound of the first sob Eleanor jumped up
-from the music-stool, contrite and frightened--Elizabeth in another
-moment had her darling in her arms; and both sisters were seized with
-the fear that Patty was sickening for some illness, caught, probably,
-in the vitiated atmosphere of city streets, to which she had never been
-accustomed.
-
-In the stillness of the night, Paul Brion, leaning over the balustrade
-of the verandah, and whitening his coat against the partition that
-divided his portion of it from theirs, heard the opening bars of
-the funeral march, the gradually swelling sound and thrill of its
-impassioned harmonies, as of a procession tramping towards him along
-the street, and the sudden lapse into untimely silence. And then
-he heard, very faintly, a low cry and a few hurried sobs, and it
-was as if a lash had struck him. He felt sure that it was Patty who
-had been playing (he thought it must always be Patty who made that
-beautiful music), and Patty who had fallen a victim to the spirit of
-melancholy that she had invoked--simply because she always _did_ seem
-to him to represent the action of the little drama of the sisters'
-lives, and Elizabeth and Eleanor to be the chorus merely; and he had
-a clear conviction, in the midst of much vague surmise, that he was
-involved in the causes that had made her unhappy. For a little while
-he stood still, fixing his eyes upon a neighbouring street lamp and
-scowling frightfully. He heard the girls' open window go down with a
-sharp rattle, and presently heard it open again hastily to admit Dan,
-who had been left outside. Then he himself went back, on tiptoe, to
-his own apartment, with an expression of more than his usual alert
-determination on his face.
-
-Entering his room, he looked at his watch, shut his window and bolted
-it, walked into the adjoining bedchamber, and there, with the gas
-flaring noisily so as to give him as much light as possible, made a
-rapid toilet, exchanging his loose tweeds for evening dress. In less
-than ten minutes he was down in the hall, with his latch key in his
-pocket, shaking himself hurriedly into a light overcoat; and in less
-than half an hour he was standing at the door of a good-sized and
-rather imposing-looking house in the neighbouring suburb, banging it
-in his peremptory fashion with a particularly loud knocker.
-
-Within this house its mistress was receiving, and she was a friend
-of his, as might have been seen by the manner of their greeting when
-the servant announced him, as also by the expression of certain faces
-amongst the guests when they heard his name--as they could not well
-help hearing it. "Mr.--_Paul_--BRION," the footman shouted, with three
-distinct and well-accentuated shouts, as if his lady were entertaining
-in the Town Hall. It gave Mrs. Aarons great pleasure when her domestic,
-who was a late acquisition, exercised his functions in this impressive
-manner.
-
-She came sailing across the room in a very long-tailed and brilliant
-gown--a tall, fair, yellow-haired woman, carefully got up in the best
-style of conventional art (as a lady who had her clothes from Paris
-regardless of expense was bound to be)--flirting her fan coquettishly,
-and smiling an unmistakeable welcome. She was not young, but she looked
-young, and she was not pretty, but she was full of sprightly confidence
-and self-possession, which answered just as well. Least of all was
-she clever, as the two or three of her circle, who were, unwillingly
-recognised; but she was quick-witted and vivacious, accomplished in
-the art of small talk, and ready to lay down the law upon any subject,
-and somehow cleverness was assumed by herself and her world in general
-to be her most remarkable and distinguishing characteristic. And,
-finally, she had no pretensions to hereditary distinction--very much
-the contrary, indeed; but her husband was rich (he was standing in a
-retired corner, a long-nosed man with dark eyes rather close together,
-amongst a group of her admirers, admiring her as much as any of
-them), and she had known the social equivalent for money obtainable
-by good management in a community that must necessarily make a table
-of precedence for itself; and she had obtained it. She was a woman
-of fashion in her sphere, and her friends were polite enough to have
-no recollection of her antecedents, and no knowledge of the family
-connections whose existence she found it expedient to ignore. It must
-be said of her that her reputation, subject to the usual attacks of
-scandal-loving gossips who were jealous of her success, was perfectly
-untarnished; she was too cold and self-contained to be subject to the
-dangers that might have beset a less worldly woman in her position (for
-that Mr. Aarons was anything more than the minister to her ambitions
-and conveniences nobody for a moment supposed). Nevertheless, to have
-a little court of male admirers always hanging about her was the chief
-pleasure, and the attracting and retaining of their admiration the
-most absorbing pursuit of her life. Paul Brion was the latest, and at
-present the most interesting, of her victims. He had a good position
-in the press world, and had recently been talked of "in society" in
-connection with a particularly striking paper signed "P. B.," which
-had appeared in the literary columns of his journal. Wherefore, in the
-character of a clever woman, Mrs. Aarons had sought him out and added
-him to the attractions of her _salon_ and the number of sympathetic
-friends. And, in spite of his hawk eyes, and his keen discernment
-generally, our young man had the ordinary man's belief that he stood
-on a pedestal among his rivals, and thought her the kindest and most
-discriminating and most charming of women.
-
-At least he had thought so until this moment. Suddenly, as she came
-across the room to meet him, with her long train rustling over the
-carpet in a queenly manner, and a gracious welcome in her pale blue
-eyes, he found himself looking at her critically--comparing her
-complacent demeanour with the simple dignity of Elizabeth King, and
-her artificial elegance with the wild-flower grace of Eleanor, who was
-also tall and fair--and her studied sprightliness with Patty's inspired
-vigour--and her countenance, that was wont to be so attractive, with
-Patty's beautiful and intellectual face.
-
-"Ah!" said Mrs. Aarons, shaking hands with him impressively, "you have
-remembered my existence, then, _at last!_ Do you know how many weeks it
-is since you honoured me with your company?--_five_. And I wonder you
-can stand there and look me in the face."
-
-He said it had been his misfortune and not his fault--that he had been
-so immersed in business that he had had no time to indulge in pleasure.
-
-"Don't tell me. You don't have business on Friday evenings," said Mrs.
-Aarons promptly.
-
-"Oh, don't I?" retorted Mr. Brion (the fact being that he had spent
-several Friday evenings on his balcony, smoking and listening to his
-neighbours' music, in the most absolute and voluptuous idleness).
-"You ladies don't know what a press-man's life is--his nose to the
-grindstone at all hours of the night and day."
-
-"Poor man! Well, now you are here, come and sit down and tell me what
-you have been doing."
-
-She took a quick glance round the room, saw that her guests were in a
-fair way to support the general intercourse by voluntary contributions,
-set the piano and a thin-voiced young lady and some "Claribel" ditties
-going, and then retired with Paul to a corner sofa for a chat. She was
-inclined to make much of him after his long absence, and he was in a
-mood to be more effusive than his wont. Nevertheless, the young man
-did not advance, as suspicious observers supposed him to be doing, in
-the good graces of his charming friend--ready as she was to meet him
-half-way.
-
-"Of course I wanted very much to see you--it seems an awful time since
-I was here--but I had another reason for coming to-night," said Paul,
-when they had comfortably settled themselves (he was the descendant
-of countless gentlefolk and she had not even a father that she could
-conveniently call her own, yet was she constrained to blush for his bad
-manners and his brutal deficiency in delicacy and tact). "I want to ask
-a favour of you--you are always so kind and good--and I think you will
-not mind doing it. It is not much--at least to you--but it would be
-very much to them--"
-
-"To whom?" inquired Mrs. Aarons, with a little chill of disappointment
-and disapproval already in her voice and face. This was not what
-she felt she had a right to expect under the present combination of
-circumstances.
-
-"Three girls--three sisters, who are orphans--in a kind of way, wards
-of my father's," explained Paul, showing a disposition to stammer
-for the first time. "Their name is King, and they have come to live
-in Melbourne, where they don't know anyone--not a single friend. I
-thought, perhaps, you would just call in and see them some day--it
-would be so awfully kind of you, if you would. A little notice from a
-woman like _you_ would be just everything to them."
-
-"Are they nice?--that is to say, are they the sort of people whom one
-would--a--care to be responsible for--you know what I mean? Are they
-_ladies?_" inquired Mrs. Aarons, who, by virtue of her own extraction,
-was bound to be select and exclusive in her choice of acquaintances.
-
-"Most certainly," replied Paul, with imprudent warmth. "There can be no
-manner of doubt about that. _Born_ ladies."
-
-"I don't ask what they were born," she said quickly, with a toss of the
-head. "What are they _now?_ Who are their connections? What do they
-live on?"
-
-Paul Brion gave a succinct and graphic sketch of the superficial
-history and circumstances of his father's "wards," omitting various
-details that instinct warned him might be accounted "low"--such, for
-instance, as the fact that the single maidservant of the house they
-lived in was nothing more to them than their medium of communication
-with the front door. He dwelt (like the straightforward blunderer
-that he was) on their personal refinement and their high culture and
-accomplishments, how they studied every day at the Public Library,
-taking their frugal lunch at the pastry-cook's--how they could talk
-French and German like "natives"--how they played the piano in a way
-that made all the blood in one's veins tingle--how, in short, they were
-in all things certain to do honour and credit to whoever would spread
-the wing of the matron and chaperon over them. It seemed to him a very
-interesting story, told by himself, and he was quite convinced that it
-must touch the tender woman's heart beating under that pretty dress
-beside him.
-
-"You are a mother yourself," he said (as indeed she was--the mother
-of four disappointing little Aaronses, who were _all_ long-nosed and
-narrow-eyed and dark, each successive infant more the image of its
-father than the last), "and so you can understand their position--you
-know how to feel for them." He thought this an irresistible plea,
-and was unprepared for the dead silence with which it was received.
-Glancing up quickly, he saw that she was by no means in the melting
-mood that he had looked for.
-
-"Of course, if you don't wish it--if it will be troubling you too
-much--" he began, with his old fierce abruptness, drawing himself
-together.
-
-"It is not that," said she, looking at her fan. "But now I know why you
-have stayed away for five weeks."
-
-"Why _I_ have stayed away--oh! I understand. But I told you they were
-living _alone_, did I not? Therefore I have never been into their
-house--it is quite impossible for me to have the pleasure of their
-society."
-
-"Then you want me to take them up, so that you can have it here? Is
-that it?"
-
-The little man was looking so ferocious, and his departure from her
-side appeared so imminent, that she changed her tone quickly after
-putting this question. "Never mind," she said, laying her jewelled
-fingers on his coat sleeve for a moment, "I will not be jealous--at
-least I will try not to be. I will go and call on them to-morrow, and
-as soon as they have called on me I will ask them to one of my Fridays.
-Will that do?"
-
-"I don't wish you for a moment to do what would be at all unpleasant to
-yourself," he said, still in a hurt, blunt tone, but visibly softening.
-
-"It won't be unpleasant to me," she said sentimentally, "if it will
-please you."
-
-And Paul went home at midnight, well satisfied with what he had done,
-believing that a woman so "awfully kind" as Mrs. Aarons would be a
-shield and buckler to those defenceless girls.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-
-THE FIRST INVITATION.
-
-
-Mrs. Aarons kept her promise, and called upon the Kings on Saturday.
-Mrs. M'Intyre saw her get down at the gate of No. 6, at about four
-o'clock in the afternoon, watched the brougham which had brought her
-trundling slowly up and down the street for half-an-hour, and then saw
-her get into it and drive off; which facts, communicated to Paul Brion,
-gave him the greatest satisfaction.
-
-He did not see his neighbours for several days after. He heard their
-piano, and their footsteps and voices on the verandah; but, whenever
-he essayed to go outside his own room for a breath of fresh air, they
-were sure to retire into theirs immediately, like mice into a hole when
-the cat has frightened them. At last he came across them in an alley of
-the Fitzroy Gardens, as he and they were converging upon Myrtle Street
-from different points. They were all together as usual--the majestic
-Elizabeth in the middle, with her younger sisters on either side of
-her; and they were walking home from an organ recital in the Town Hall
-to their tea, and a cosy evening over a new book, having spent most
-of the morning at the Public Library, and had their mid-day dinner at
-Gunsler's. As he caught sight of them, he was struck by the change
-in their outward appearance that a few weeks of Melbourne experience
-had brought about, and pleased himself with thinking how much their
-distinguished aspect must have impressed that discerning woman of
-the world, who had so kindly condescended to take them up. They were
-dressed in their new gowns, and bonneted, booted, and gloved, in the
-neatest manner; a little air of the mode pervaded them now, while the
-primitive purity of their taste was still unadulterated. They had never
-looked more charming, more obviously "born ladies" than to-day, as he
-saw them after so long an interval.
-
-The three black figures stood the shock of the unexpected meeting
-with admirable fortitude. They came on towards him with no faltering
-of that free and graceful gait that was so noticeable in a city full
-of starched and whale-boned women, and, as he lifted his hat, bowed
-gravely--Elizabeth only giving him a dignified smile, and wishing him
-a good evening as she went by. He let them pass him, as they seemed
-to wish to pass him; then he turned sharply and followed them. It was
-a chance he might not get again for months, perhaps, and he could not
-afford to let it slip.
-
-"Miss King," he called in his imperative brusque way; and at the sound
-of his voice Elizabeth looked back and waited for him to join her,
-while her younger sisters, at a sign from Patty, walked on at a brisk
-pace, leaving her in command of the situation. "Miss King," said Paul
-earnestly, "I am so glad to have an opportunity of speaking to you--I
-have been wanting all the week to see you, that I might thank you for
-your kindness in asking me to tea."
-
-"Oh," said Elizabeth, whose face was scarlet, "don't mention it, Mr.
-Brion. We thought of it merely as a--a little attention--a sort of
-acknowledgment--to your father; that it might please him, perhaps,
-for you to see that we had settled ourselves, as he could not do so
-himself."
-
-"It would have pleased _me_, beyond everything in the world, Miss King.
-Only--only--"
-
-"Yes, I know. We forgot that it was not quite _de rigueur_--or, rather,
-we had not learned about those things. We have been so out of the
-world, you see. We were dreadfully ashamed of ourselves," she added
-candidly, with a little embarrassed laugh, "but you must set it down
-to our ignorance of the laws of propriety, and not suppose that we
-consciously disregarded them."
-
-"The laws of propriety!" repeated Paul hotly, his own face red and
-fierce. "It is Schiller, I think, who says that it is the experience
-of corruption which originated them. I hate to hear you speak of
-impropriety, as if you could even conceive the idea of it!"
-
-"Well, we are not in Arcadia now, and we must behave ourselves
-accordingly," said Elizabeth, who was beginning to feel glad in her
-gentle heart that she had been able to make this explanation. "I think
-we are getting corrupted with wonderful rapidity. We have even been
-_called upon_, quite as if we were people of fashion and consequence,
-by a lady who was dressed in the most magnificent manner, and who came
-in her carriage. Her name was Aarons--Mrs. Aarons. She said she had
-heard of of our being here, and thought she would like to make our
-acquaintance."
-
-"Did she?" responded Paul warmly, thinking how nice and delicate it
-was of Mrs. Aarons to respect his anxious wish that his name and
-interposition should not be mentioned, which was certainly more than he
-had expected of her. "And were you all at home when she called?"
-
-"As it happened--yes. It was on Saturday afternoon, when we are
-generally rather busy."
-
-"And have you returned her call yet?"
-
-"No. We don't mean to return it," said Elizabeth composedly; "we did
-not like her enough to wish to make an acquaintance of her. It is no
-good to put ourselves out, and waste our own time and theirs, for
-people whom we are sure not to care about, and who would not care about
-us, is it?"
-
-"But I think you would like her if you knew her, Miss King," pleaded
-Paul, much disturbed by this threatened downfall of his schemes. "I
-am sure--at least, I have always heard, and I can speak a little from
-personal knowledge--that she is a particularly nice woman; thoroughly
-kind and amiable, and, at the same time, having a good position
-in society, and a remarkably pleasant house, where you might meet
-interesting people whom you _would_ like. Oh, don't condemn her at
-first sight in that way! First impressions are so seldom to be trusted.
-Go and call, at any rate--indeed, you know, you ought to do that, if
-only for form's sake."
-
-"For politeness, do you mean? Would it be rude not to return her call?"
-
-"It would be thought so, of course."
-
-"Ah, I was not sure--I will call then. I don't _mind_ calling in the
-least. If she has done us a kindness, it is right to acknowledge it in
-whatever is the proper way. It was my sisters--especially Patty--who
-took a dislike to her, and particularly wished not to see her again.
-Patty thought she asked too many questions, and that she came from some
-motive of curiosity to pry into our affairs. She was certainly a little
-impertinent, I thought. But then, perhaps, ladies in 'the world' don't
-look at these things as we have been accustomed to do," added Elizabeth
-humbly.
-
-"I don't think they do," said Paul.
-
-By this time they had reached the gate through which Patty and Eleanor
-had passed before them out of the gardens. As they silently emerged
-into the road, they saw the pair flitting along the pavement a
-considerable distance ahead of them, and when they turned the corner
-into Myrtle Street both the slender black figures had disappeared. Paul
-wondered to see himself so irritated by this trifling and inevitable
-circumstance. He felt that it would have done him good to speak to
-Patty, if it were only to quarrel with her.
-
-Elizabeth bade him good-night when she reached the gate of No. 6, where
-the hall door stood open--putting her warm, strong hand with motherly
-benevolence into his.
-
-"Good-night, Miss King. I am so glad to have seen you," he responded,
-glaring fiercely at the balcony and the blank window overhead.
-"And--and you will return that call, won't you?"
-
-"O yes--of course. We will walk there on Monday, as we come home from
-the Library. We are able to find our way about in Melbourne very well
-now, with the help of the map you were so kind as to give us when we
-first came. I can't tell you how useful that has been."
-
-So, with mutual friendship and goodwill, they parted--Elizabeth to join
-her sisters upstairs, where one was already setting the tea-kettle to
-boil on the gas stove, and the other spreading a snow-white cloth on
-the sitting-room table--Paul Brion to get half-an-hour's work and a
-hasty dinner before repairing to the reporters' gallery of "the House."
-
-He did not see them again for a long time, and the first news he heard
-of them was from Mrs. Aarons, whom he chanced to meet when she was
-shopping one fine morning in Collins Street.
-
-"You see, I remembered my promise," she said, when matters of
-more personal moment had been disposed of; "I went to see those
-extraordinary _protégées_ of yours."
-
-"Extraordinary--how extraordinary?" he inquired stiffly.
-
-"Well, I put it to you--_are_ they not extraordinary?"
-
-He was silent for a few seconds, and the points of his moustache went
-up a little. "Perhaps so--now you mention it," he said. "Perhaps they
-_are_ unlike the--the usual girl of the period with whom we are
-familiar. But I hope you were favourably impressed with your visit.
-Were you?"
-
-"No, I wasn't. I will be frank with you--I wasn't. I never expected to
-find people living in that manner--and dressing in that manner. It is
-not what I am used to."
-
-"But they are very lady-like--if I am any judge--and that is the chief
-thing. Very pretty too. Don't you think so?"
-
-"O _dear_ no! The middle one has rather nice eyes perhaps--though
-she gives herself great airs, I think, considering her position. And
-the youngest is not bad looking. _Miss_ King is _plain_, decidedly.
-However, I told you I would do something for them, and I have kept my
-word. They are coming to my next Friday. And I do _hope_," proceeded
-Mrs. Aarons, with an anxious face, "that they will dress themselves
-respectably for the reputation of my house. Do you know anyone who
-could speak to them about it? Could you give them a hint, do you think?"
-
-"_I!_--good gracious! I should like to see myself at it," said Paul,
-grimly. "But I don't think," he added, with a fatuity really pitiable
-in a man of his years and experience, "that there is any danger of
-their not looking nice. They must have had their old frocks on when you
-saw them."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-
-DISAPPOINTMENT.
-
-
-How they should dress themselves for Mrs. Aarons's Friday was a
-question as full of interest for our girls as if they had been brought
-up in the lap of wealth and fashion. They were not so ignorant of the
-habits and customs of "the world" as not to know that evening dress
-was required of them on this occasion, and they had not seen so many
-shop windows and showrooms without learning something of its general
-features as applied to their sex and to the period. Great were the
-discussions that went on over the momentous subject. Even their studies
-at the Public Library lost their interest and importance, it is to be
-feared, for a day or two, while they were anxiously hesitating, first,
-whether they should accept the invitation, and, secondly, in what
-costume they should make their first appearance in polite society.
-The former of these questions was settled without much trouble.
-Elizabeth's yearning for "friends," the chance of discovering whom
-might be missed by missing this unusual opportunity; Patty's thirst
-for knowledge and experience in all available fields, and Eleanor's
-habit of peaceably falling in with her sisters' views, overcame the
-repugnance that all of them entertained to the idea of being patronised
-by, or beholden for attentions that they could not reciprocate to, Mrs.
-Aarons, against whom they had conceived a prejudice on the first day of
-contact with her which a further acquaintance had not tended to lessen.
-But the latter question was, as I have said, a matter of much debate.
-Could they afford themselves new frocks?--say, black grenadines that
-would do for the summer afterwards. This suggestion was inquired into
-at several shops and of several dressmakers, and then relinquished,
-but not without a struggle. "We are just recovering ourselves," said
-Elizabeth, with her note-book before her and her pencil in her hand;
-"and if we go on as we are doing now we shall be able to save enough to
-take us to Europe next year without meddling with our house-money. But
-if we break our rules--well, it will throw us back. And it will be a
-bad precedent, Patty."
-
-"Then we won't break them," said Patty valiantly. "We will go in our
-black frocks. Perhaps," she added, with some hesitation, "we can find
-something amongst our mother's things to trim us up a little."
-
-"She would like to see us making ourselves look pretty with her
-things," said Eleanor.
-
-"Yes, Nelly. That is what I think. Come along and let us look at
-that bundle of lace that we put in the bottom drawer of the bureau.
-Elizabeth, does lace so fine as that _go_ with woollen frocks, do you
-think? We must not have any incongruities if we can help it."
-
-Elizabeth thought that plain white ruffles would, perhaps, be best,
-as there was so much danger of incongruities if they trusted to their
-untrained invention. Whereupon Patty pointed out that they would have
-to buy ruffles, while the lace would cost nothing, which consideration,
-added to their secret wish for a little special decoration, now that
-the occasion for it had arisen--the love of adornment being, though
-refined and chastened, an ingredient of their nature as of every other
-woman's--carried the day in favour of "mother's things."
-
-"And I think," said Patty, with dignity, when at last Friday came
-and they had spread the selected finery on their little beds, "I
-think that ladies ought to know how to dress themselves better than
-shop-people can tell them. When they want to make themselves smart,
-they should think, first, what they can afford and what will be
-suitable to their position and the occasion, and then they should think
-what would look pretty in a picture. And they should put on _that_."
-
-Patty, I think, was well aware that she would look pretty in a picture,
-when she had arrayed herself for the evening. Round the neck of her
-black frock she had loosely knotted a length of fine, yellow-white
-Brussels lace, the value of which, enhanced by several darns that
-were almost as invisibly woven as the texture itself, neither she nor
-her sisters had any idea of. Of course it did not "go" with the black
-frock, even though the latter was not what mourning was expected to
-be, but its delicacy was wonderfully thrown up by its contrast with
-that background, and it was a most becoming setting for the wearer's
-brilliant face. Patty had more of the priceless flounce sewn on her
-black sleeves (the little Vandal had cut it into lengths on purpose),
-half of it tucked in at the wrists out of sight; and the ends that
-hung over her breast were loosely fastened down with a quaint old
-silver brooch, in which a few little bits of topaz sparkled. Elizabeth
-was not quite so magnificent. She wore a fichu of black lace over her
-shoulders--old Spanish, that happened just then to be the desire and
-despair of women of fashion, who could not get it for love or money;
-it was big enough to be called a shawl, and in putting it on Patty had
-to fold and tack it here and there with her needle, to keep it well
-up in its proper place. This was fastened down at the waist with a
-shawl-pin shaped like a gold arrow, that her grandmother had used to
-pin her Paisley over her chest; and, as the eldest daughter, Elizabeth
-wore her mother's slender watch-chain wound round and round her neck,
-and, depending from it, an ancient locket of old red gold, containing
-on its outward face a miniature of that beautiful mother as a girl,
-with a beading of little pearls all round it. Eleanor was dressed up
-in frills of soft, thick Valenciennes, taken from the bodice of one
-of the brocaded gowns; which lace, not being too fragile to handle,
-Elizabeth, ignorant as yet of the artistic excellence of the genuine
-coffee-colour of age, had contrived to wash to a respectable whiteness.
-And to Eleanor was given, from the little stock of family trinkets,
-a string of pearls, fastened with an emerald clasp--pearls the size
-of small peas, and dingy and yellow from never having been laid out
-on the grass, as, according to a high authority, pearls should be.
-Upon the whole, their finery, turned into money, would probably have
-bought up three of the most magnificent costumes worn in Melbourne that
-night; yet it can scarcely be said to have been effective. Neither Mrs.
-Aarons nor her lady friends had the requisite experience to detect
-its quality and understand what we may call its moral value. Only one
-person amongst the company discovered that Eleanor's pearls were real,
-and perhaps only that one had been educated in lace, save rudimentally,
-in the Melbourne shops. And amongst the _nouveaux riches_, as poor
-gentlefolks well know, to have no claims to distinction but such as are
-out of date is practically to have none.
-
-Late in the evening, Paul Brion, who had not intended to go to this
-particular Friday, lest his presence should betray to the sisters what
-he was so anxious to conceal from them, found that he could not resist
-the temptation to see with his own eyes how they were getting on; and
-when he had entered the room, which was unusually crowded, and had
-prowled about for a few minutes amongst the unpleasantly tall men who
-obstructed his view in all directions, he was surprised and enraged
-to see the three girls sitting side by side in a corner, looking
-neglected and lonely, and to see insolent women in long-tailed satin
-gowns sweeping past them as if they had not been there. One glance
-was enough to satisfy _him_ that there had been no fear of their not
-looking "nice." Patty's bright and flushed but (just now) severe
-little face, rising so proudly from the soft lace about her throat and
-bosom, seemed to him to stand out clear in a surrounding mist, apart
-and distinct from all the faces in the room--or in the world, for that
-matter. Elizabeth's dignified serenity in an uncomfortable position
-was the perfection of good breeding, and made a telling contrast to
-the effusive manners of those about her; and fair Eleanor, sitting so
-modestly at Elizabeth's side, with her hands, in a pair of white silk
-mittens, folded in her lap, was as charming to look at as heart of man
-could desire. Other men seemed to be of his opinion, for he saw several
-hovering around them and looking at them with undisguised interest; but
-the ladies, who, he thought, ought to have felt privileged to take them
-up, appeared to regard them coldly, or to turn their backs upon them
-altogether, literally as well as metaphorically. It was plain that Mrs.
-Aarons had introduced them to nobody, probably wishing (as was indeed
-the case--people of her class being morbidly sensitive to the disgrace
-of unfashionable connections) not to own to them more than she could
-help.
-
-He withdrew from their neighbourhood before they saw him, and went to
-seek his hostess, swelling with remonstrant wrath. He found her on a
-sofa at the other end of the room, talking volubly (she was always
-voluble, but now she was breathless in her volubility) to a lady who
-had never before honoured her Fridays, and who, by doing so to-night,
-had gratified an ambition that had long been paramount amongst the many
-ambitions which, enclosed in a narrow circle as they were, served to
-make the interest and occupation of Mrs. Aarons's life. She looked up
-at Paul as he approached her, and gave him a quick nod and smile, as if
-to say, "I see you, but you must be perfectly aware that I am unable
-to attend to you just now." Paul understood her, and, not having the
-honour of Mrs. Duff-Scott's acquaintance himself, fell back a little
-behind the sofa and waited for his opportunity. As he waited, he could
-not help overhearing the conversation of the two ladies, and deriving a
-little cynical amusement therefrom.
-
-"And, as soon as I heard of it, I _begged_ my husband to go and see if
-it was _really_ a genuine example of Derby-Chelsea; and, you see, it
-_was_," said Mrs. Aarons, with subdued enthusiasm--almost with tears of
-emotion.
-
-"It was, indeed," assented Mrs. Duff-Scott earnestly. "There was the
-true mark--the capital D, with the anchor in the middle of it. It is
-extremely rare, and I had no hope of ever possessing a specimen."
-
-"I _knew_ you would like to have it. I said to Ben. '_Do_ go and snatch
-it up at once for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.' And he was so pleased
-to find he was in time. We were so afraid someone might have been
-before us. But the fact is, people are so ignorant that they have no
-idea of the value of things of that sort--fortunately."
-
-"I don't call it fortunate at all," the other lady retorted, a little
-brusquely. "I don't like to see people ignorant--I am quite ready to
-share and share." Then she added, with a smile, "I am sure I can never
-be sufficiently obliged to Mr. Aarons for taking so much trouble on my
-account. I must get him into a corner presently, and find out how much
-I am in his debt--though, of course, no money can represent the true
-worth of such a treasure, and I shall always feel that I have robbed
-him."
-
-"Oh, pray, pray don't talk of _payment_," the hostess implored, with a
-gesture of her heavily-ringed hands. "You will hurt him _dreadfully_
-if you think of such a thing. He feels himself richly paid, I assure
-you, by having a chance to do you a little service. And such a mere
-_trifle_ as it is!"
-
-"No, indeed, it is not a trifle, Mrs. Aarons--very far from it. The
-thing is much too valuable for me to--to"--Mrs. Duff-Scott hesitated,
-and her face was rather red--"to deprive you of it in that way. I don't
-feel that I can take it as a present--a bit of _real_ Derby-Chelsea
-that you might never find a specimen of again--really I don't."
-
-"Oh, _please_"--and Mrs. Aarons's voice was at once reproachful and
-persuasive--"_please!_ I know you wouldn't wish to hurt us."
-
-A little more discussion ensued, which Paul watched with an amused
-smile; and Mrs. Duff-Scott gave in.
-
-"Well, if you insist--but you are really too good. It makes me quite
-uncomfortable to take such a treasure from you. However, perhaps, some
-day I may be able to contribute to _your_ collection."
-
-Like her famous model, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins, Mrs. Aarons stalked
-her big game with all kinds of stratagems, and china was the lure with
-which she had caught Mrs. Duff-Scott. This was a lady who possessed
-not only that most essential and valuable qualification of a lady,
-riches, but had also a history that was an open page to all men. It
-had not much heraldic emblazonment about it, but it showed a fair
-and honourable record of domestic and public circumstances that no
-self-respecting woman could fail to take social credit for. By virtue
-of these advantages, and of a somewhat imperious, though generous
-and unselfish, nature, she certainly did exercise that right to be
-"proud" which, in such a case, the most democratic of communities will
-cheerfully concede. She had been quite inaccessible to Mrs. Aarons,
-whom she was wont to designate a "person," long after that accomplished
-woman had carried the out-works of the social citadel in which she
-dwelt, and no doubt she would have been inaccessible to the last. Only
-she had a weakness--she had a hobby (to change the metaphor a little)
-that ran away with her, as hobbies will, even in the case of the most
-circumspect of women; and that hobby, exposed to the seductions of a
-kindred hobby, broke down and trampled upon the barriers of caste. It
-was the Derby-Chelsea specimen that had brought Mrs. Duff-Scott to
-occupy a sofa in Mrs. Aarons's drawing-room--to their mutual surprise,
-when they happened to think of it.
-
-She rose from that sofa now, slightly perturbed, saying she must go
-and find Mr. Aarons and acknowledge the obligation under which he had
-placed her, while all the time she was cudgelling her brains to think
-by what means and how soon she could discharge it--regretting very
-keenly for the moment that she had put herself in the way of people
-who did not understand the fine manners which would have made such a
-dilemma impossible. Her hostess jumped up immediately, and the two
-ladies passed slowly down the room in the direction of the corner
-where our neglected girls were sitting. Paul followed at a respectful
-distance, and was gratified to see Mrs. Duff-Scott stop at the piano,
-in place of hunting for her host (who was never a conspicuous feature
-of these entertainments), and shake hands cordially with a tall German
-in spectacles who had just risen from the music-stool. He had come
-to Mrs. Aarons's Friday in a professional capacity, but he was a
-sufficiently great artist for a great lady to make an equal of him.
-
-"Ah, my dear Herr Wüllner," she said, in a very distinct voice, "I
-was listening, and I thought I could not be mistaken in your touch.
-Heller's _Wanderstunden_, wasn't it?" And they plunged head first into
-musical talk such as musical people (who never care in the least how
-much unmusical people may be bored by it) love to indulge in whenever
-an occasion offers, while Mrs. Aarons stood by, smiling vaguely, and
-not understanding a word of it. Paul Brion listened to them for a few
-minutes, and a bright idea came into his head.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-
-TRIUMPH.
-
-
-Our girls still sat in their corner, but a change had come over them
-within the last few minutes. A stout man sitting near them was talking
-to Elizabeth across Eleanor's lap--Eleanor lying back in her seat, and
-smiling amiably as she listened to them; and Miss King was looking
-animated and interested, and showed some signs of enjoying herself at
-last. Patty also had lost her air of angry dignity, and was leaning a
-little forward, with her hands clasped on her knees, gazing at Herr
-Wüllner's venerable face with rapt enthusiasm. Paul, regarding her for
-a moment, felt himself possessed of sufficient courage to declare his
-presence, and, waiting until he could catch her eye, bowed pleasantly.
-She looked across at him with no recognition at first, then gave a
-little start, bent her head stiffly, and resumed her attentive perusal
-of Herr Wüllner's person. "Ah," thought Paul, "the old fellow has woke
-her up. And she wants him to play again." Mrs. Duff-Scott had dropped
-into a chair by the piano, and sat there contentedly, talking to the
-delighted musician, who had been as a fish out of water since he came
-into the room, and was now swimming at large in his native element
-again. She was a distinguished looking matron of fifty or thereabouts,
-with a handsome, vivacious, intelligent face and an imposing presence
-generally; and she had an active and well-cultivated mind which
-concerned itself with many other things than china. Having no necessity
-to work, no children on whom to expend her exuberant energies, and
-being incapable of finding the ordinary woman's satisfaction in the
-ordinary routine of society pleasures, she made ardent pursuits for
-herself in several special directions. Music was one. Herr Wüllner
-thought she was the most enlightened being in female shape that he
-had ever known, because she "understood" music--what was really music
-and what was not (according to his well-trained theories). She had,
-in the first place, the wonderful good sense to know that she could
-not play herself, and she held the opinion that people in general had
-no business to set themselves up to play, but only those who had been
-"called" by Divine permission and then properly instructed in the
-science of their art. "We won't look at bad pictures, nor read trashy
-books," she would say. "Why should our artistic sense be depraved and
-demoralised through our ears any more than through our eyes? Mothers
-should know better, my dear Herr Wüllner, and keep the incapables in
-the background. All girls should learn, if they _like_ learning--in
-which case it does them good, and delights the domestic circle; but
-if at sixteen they can't play--what _we_ call play--after having had
-every chance given them, they should leave off, so as to use the
-time better, or confine their performances to a family audience."
-And Mrs. Duff-Scott had the courage of her convictions, and crushed
-unrelentingly those presumptuous amateurs (together with their
-infatuated mammas) who thought they could play when they couldn't, and
-who regarded music as a mere frivolous drawing-room amusement for the
-encouragement of company conversation. Herr Wüllner delighted in her.
-The two sat talking by the piano, temporarily indifferent to what was
-going on around them, turning over a roll of music sheets that had had
-a great deal of wear and tear, apparently. Mrs. Aarons sat beside them,
-fanning herself and smiling, casting about her for more entertaining
-converse. And Paul Brion stood near his hostess, listening and watching
-for his opportunity. Presently it came.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott lifted up a sheet of crabbed manuscript as yellowed by
-time as Patty's Brussels lace, and said: "This is not quite the thing
-for a mixed audience, is it?"
-
-"Ah, no, you are right; it is the study of Haydn that a friend of mine
-asked of me yesterday, and that I propose to read to him to-night,"
-said Herr Wüllner, in that precise English and with that delicate
-pronunciation with which the cultivated foreigner so often puts us to
-shame. "It is, you perceive, an arrangement for one violin and a piano
-only--done by a very distinguished person for a lady who was for a
-short time my pupil, when I was a young man. You have heard it with
-the four-stringed instruments at your house; that was bad--bad! Ach!
-that second violin squeaked like the squeaking of a pig, and it was
-always in the wrong place. But in good hands it is sublime. This"--and
-he sighed as he added more sheets to the one she held and was steadily
-perusing--"this is but a crippled thing, perhaps; the piano, which
-should have none of it, has it all--and no one can properly translate
-that piano part--not one in ten thousand. But it is well done. Yes, it
-is very well done. And I have long been wanting my friend to try it
-with me."
-
-"And what about the young lady for whom it was written?--which part did
-she take?"
-
-"The piano--the piano. But then she had a wonderful execution and
-sympathy--it was truly wonderful for a lady, and she so young. Women
-play much better now, as a rule, but I never hear one who is an amateur
-play as she did. And so quick--so quick! It was an inspiration with
-her. Yes, this was written on purpose for that lady--I have had it ever
-since--it has never been published. The manuscript is in her own hand.
-She wrote out much of her music in her own hand. It was many, many
-years ago, and I was a young man then. We were fellow-pupils before I
-became her master, and she was my pupil only for a few weeks. It was a
-farce--a farce. She did not play the violin, but in everything else she
-was better than I. Ah, she was a great genius, that young lady. She was
-a great loss to the world of art."
-
-"Did she die, Herr Wüllner?"
-
-"She eloped," he said softly, "she ran away with a scapegrace. And the
-ship she sailed in was lost at sea."
-
-"Dear me! How very sad. Well, you must make your friend try it over,
-and, if you manage it all right, bring him with you to my house on
-Monday evening and let me hear it."
-
-"That shall give me great pleasure," said the old man, bowing low.
-
-"You have your violin with you, I suppose?" she asked.
-
-"It is in the hall, under my cloak. I do not bring it into this room,"
-he replied.
-
-"Why not?" she persisted. "Go and fetch it, Herr Wüllner, and let Mrs.
-Aarons hear you play it"--suddenly bethinking herself of her hostess
-and smiling upon that lady--"if she has never had that treat before."
-
-Mrs. Aarons was eager to hear the violin, and Herr Wüllner went
-himself, though reluctantly, to fetch his treasure from the old case
-that he had hidden away below. When he had tuned up his strings a
-little, and had tucked the instrument lovingly under his chin, he
-looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott and said softly, "What?"
-
-"Oh," cried Mrs. Aarons, striking in, "play that--you know--what you
-were talking of just now--what Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted so much to hear.
-_I_ want to hear it too."
-
-"Impossible--impossible," he said quickly, almost with a shudder. "It
-has a piano part, and there is no one here to take that."
-
-Then Paul Brion broke in, conscious that he was running heavy risks of
-all sorts, but resolved to seize his chance.
-
-"I think there _is_ someone who could play it," he said to Mrs. Aarons,
-speaking with elaborate distinctness. "The Miss Kings--one of them, at
-any rate--"
-
-"Nonsense," interrupted Mrs. Aarons, sharply, but under her breath.
-"Not at all likely." She was annoyed by the suggestion, and wished to
-treat it as if unheard (it was unreasonable, on the face of it, of
-course); but Mrs. Duff-Scott caught at it in her direct way. "Who are
-they? Which are the Miss Kings?" she asked of Paul, putting up her
-eye-glass to see what manner of man had taken upon himself to interfere.
-
-"My dear lady," sighed Herr Wüllner, dropping his bow dejectedly, "it
-is out of the question, absolutely. It is not normal music at its
-best--and I have it only in manuscript. It is impossible that any lady
-can attempt it."
-
-"She will not attempt it if she cannot do it, Herr Wüllner," said Paul.
-"But you might ask her."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott had followed the direction of his eyes, and her
-attention was violently arrested by the figures of the three girls
-sitting together, who were so remarkably unlike the majority of Mrs.
-Aarons's guests. She took note of all their superficial peculiarities
-in a moment, and the conviction that the lace and the pearls were real
-flashed across her like an inspiration. "Is it the young lady with the
-bright eyes?" she inquired. "What a charming face! Yes, Herr Wüllner,
-we _will_ ask her. Introduce her to me, Mrs. Aarons, will you?"
-
-She rose as she spoke and sailed towards Patty, Mrs. Aarons following;
-and Paul Brion held his breath while he waited to see how his reckless
-enterprise would turn out. In a few minutes Patty came towards the
-piano, with her head up and her face flushed, looking a little defiant,
-but as self-possessed as the great lady who convoyed her across the
-room. The events of the evening had roused her spirit, and strung up
-her nerves like Herr Wüllner's fiddle-strings, and she, too, was in a
-daring and audacious mood.
-
-"This is it," said the old musician, looking at her critically as he
-gave a sheet of manuscript into her hand. It was a wonderful chance, of
-course, but Patty had seen the facsimile of that manuscript many times
-before, and had played from it. It is true she had never played with
-the violin accompaniment--had never so much as seen a violin until she
-came to Melbourne; but her mother had contrived to make her understand
-how the more delicate and sensitive instrument ought to be deferred to
-in the execution of the piano part, and what the whole should sound
-like, by singing the missing air in her flexible trilling voice; and
-just now she was in that peculiar mood of exaltation that she felt
-inspired to dare anything and assured that she should succeed. "You
-will not be able to read it?" Herr Wüllner suggested persuasively,
-drawing hope from her momentary silence.
-
-"Oh, yes," she said, looking up bravely: "I think so. You will stop me,
-please, if I do not play it right." And she seated herself at the piano
-with a quiet air of knowing what she was doing that confounded the two
-ladies who were watching her and deeply interested Mrs. Duff-Scott.
-Paul Brion's heart was beating high with anticipated triumph. Herr
-Wüllner's heart, on the contrary, sank with a mild despair.
-
-"Well, we will have a few bars," he sighed. "And pray, my dear young
-lady, don't bang the piano--I mean don't play over me. And try to keep
-time. But you will never do it--with the best intentions, my dear, you
-will never be able to read it from such a manuscript as that."
-
-Patty looked up at him with a sort of radiant calmness, and said
-gently, "Go on. You see you have an opening movement to yourself."
-
-Bewildered, the old man dropped his bow upon the strings, and set forth
-on his hopeless task. And at exactly the right moment the piano glided
-in, so lightly, so tenderly, and yet with such admirable precision and
-delicate clearness, that it justified, for once, its trespass upon
-ground that belonged to more aerial instruments. It was just what Paul
-Brion had counted on--though Paul Brion had not the least idea what
-a wild chance had brought about the fulfilment of his expectations.
-Patty was able to display her chief accomplishment to the very best
-advantage, and the sisters were thereby promoted to honour. The cold
-shade of neglect and obscurity was to chill them no more from this
-happy moment. It was a much greater triumph than Patty herself had any
-idea of, or than anybody had had the least reason to expect. _She_
-knew that piles of music, all in this self-same handwriting (she had
-never seen any other and supposed that all manuscript music was alike),
-were stowed away in the old bureau at home, and in the ottoman which
-she had constructed out of a packing-case, and that long familiarity
-had made it as easy to her to read as print; but Herr Wüllner was not
-in a position to make the faintest guess at such a circumstance. When
-Elizabeth moved her seat nearer to the piano, as if to support her
-sister, though he was close enough to see it, he did not recognise in
-the miniature round her neck the face of that young lady of genius who
-eloped with a scapegrace, and was supposed to have been drowned at
-sea with her husband. And yet it was that lady's face. Such wonderful
-coincidences are continually happening in our small world. It was not
-more wonderful than that Herr Wüllner, Mrs. Duff-Scott, Paul Brion, and
-Patty King should have been gathered together round one piano, and that
-piano Mrs. Aarons's.
-
-The guests were laughing and talking and flirting, as they were wont to
-do under cover of the music that generally prevailed at these Friday
-receptions, when an angry "Hush!" from the violinist, repeated by Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, made a little circle of silence round the performers. And
-in this silence Patty carried through her responsible undertaking
-with perfect accuracy and the finest taste--save for a shadowy mistake
-or two, which, glancing over them as if they were mere phantoms of
-mistakes, and recovering herself instantly, only served to show more
-clearly the finished quality of her execution, and the thoroughness of
-her musical experience. She was conscious herself of being in her very
-best form.
-
-"Ah!" said Herr Wüllner, drawing a long breath as he uttered the
-exclamation, and softly laying down his violin, "I was mistaken. My
-dear young lady, allow me to beg your pardon, and to thank you." And he
-bowed before Patty until his nose nearly touched his knees.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, who was a woman of impulses, as most nice women are,
-was enthusiastic. Not only had she listened to Patty's performance with
-all her intelligent ears, but she had at the same time investigated
-and appraised the various details of her personal appearance, and been
-particularly interested in that bit of lace about her neck.
-
-"My dear," she said, putting out her hand as the girl rose from the
-music-stool, "come here and sit by me and tell me where you learned to
-play like that."
-
-Patty went over to her readily, won by the kind voice and motherly
-gesture. And, in a very few minutes, Paul had the pleasure of seeing
-the great lady sitting on a sofa with all three sisters around her,
-talking to them, and they to her, as if they had known one another for
-years.
-
-Leaving them thus safe and cared for, he bade good-night to his
-hostess, and went home to his work, in a mood of high contentment.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-
-PATTY IN UNDRESS.
-
-
-When Paul Brion bade Mrs. Aarons good-night, he perceived that she was
-a little cold to him, and rather wondered at himself that he did not
-feel inclined either to resent or to grieve over that unprecedented
-circumstance.
-
-"I am going to steal away," he said in an airy whisper, coming across
-her in the middle of the room as he made his way to the door. "I have a
-good couple of hours' work to get through to-night."
-
-He was accustomed to speak to her in this familiar and confidential
-fashion, though she was but a recent acquaintance, and she had always
-responded in a highly gratifying way. But now she looked at him
-listlessly, with no change of face, and merely said, "Indeed."
-
-"Yes," he repeated; "I have a lot to do before I can go to bed. It
-is delightful to be here; but I must not indulge myself any longer.
-Good-night."
-
-"Good-night," she said, still unsmiling, as she gave him her hand. "I
-am sorry you must go so soon." But she did not look as if she were
-sorry; she looked as if she didn't care a straw whether he went or
-stayed. However, he pressed her hand with the wonted friendly pressure,
-and slipped out of the room, unabashed by her assumed indifference and
-real change of manner, which he was at no great trouble to interpret;
-and he took a cab to his office--now a humming hive of busy bees
-improving the shining hours of the gaslit night--and walked back
-from the city through the shadowy gardens to his lodgings, singing a
-tuneless air to himself, which, if devoid of music, was a pleasant
-expression of his frame of mind.
-
-When he reached Myrtle Street the town clocks were striking twelve.
-He looked up at his neighbours' windows as he passed the gate of No.
-6, and saw no light, and supposed they had returned from their revels
-and gone peaceably to bed. He opened his own door softly, as if afraid
-of waking them, and went upstairs to his sitting-room, where Mrs.
-M'Intyre, who loved to make him comfortable, had left him a bit of
-supper, and a speck of gas about the size of a pea in the burner at the
-head of his arm-chair; and he pulled off his dress coat, and kicked
-away his boots, and got his slippers and his dressing-gown, and his
-tobacco and his pipe, and took measures generally for making himself at
-home. But before he had quite settled himself the idea occurred to him
-that his neighbours might _not_ have returned from Mrs. Aarons's, but
-might, indeed (for he knew their frugal and unconventional habits), be
-even then out in the streets, alone and unprotected, walking home by
-night as they walked home by day, unconscious of the perils and dangers
-that beset them. He had not presumed to offer his escort--he had not
-even spoken to them during the evening, lest he should seem to take
-those liberties that Miss Patty resented so much; but now he angrily
-reproached himself for not having stayed at Mrs. Aarons's until their
-departure, so that he could, at least, have followed and watched over
-them. He put down his pipe hastily, and, opening the window, stepped
-out on the balcony. It was a dark night, and a cold wind was blowing,
-and the quarter-hour after midnight was chiming from the tower of the
-Post Office. He was about to go in for his boots and his overcoat, when
-he was relieved to hear a cab approaching at a smart pace, and to see
-it draw up at the gate of No. 6. Standing still in the shadow of the
-partition that divided his enclosure from theirs, he watched the girls
-descend upon the footpath, one by one, fitfully illuminated from the
-interior of the vehicle. First Eleanor, then Elizabeth, then Patty--who
-entered the gate and tapped softly at her street door. He expected to
-see the driver dismissed, with probably double the fare to which he was
-entitled; but to his surprise, the cab lingered, and Elizabeth stood at
-the step and began to talk to someone inside. "Thank you so much for
-your kindness," she said, in her gentle but clear tones, which were
-perfectly audible on the balcony. A voice from the cab answered, "Don't
-mention it, my dear. I am very glad to see as much of you as possible,
-for I want to know you. May I come and have a little gossip to-morrow
-afternoon?" It was the voice of Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, after keeping
-them late at Mrs. Aarons's, talking to them, had frustrated their
-intention of making their own way home. That powerful woman had "taken
-them up," literally and figuratively, and she was not one to drop them
-again--as fine ladies commonly drop interesting impecunious _protégées_
-when the novelty of their acquaintance has worn off--save for causes in
-their own conduct and circumstances that were never likely to arise.
-Paul Brion, thoroughly realising that his little schemes had been
-crowned with the most gratifying success, stole back to his rooms, shut
-the window softly, and sat down to his pipe and his manuscripts. And he
-wrote such a maliciously bitter article that, when he took it to the
-office, his editor refused to print it without modifications, on the
-ground that it would land the paper in an action for libel.
-
-Meanwhile our girls parted from their new friend with affectionate
-good-nights, and were let into their house by the landlady, who had
-herself been entertaining company to a late hour. They went upstairs
-with light feet, too excited to feel tired, and all assembled in
-Elizabeth's meagrely-appointed bedchamber to take off their finery
-and to have a little happy gossip before they went to rest. Elizabeth
-herself, who was not a gushing person, had the most to say at first,
-pouring out her ingenuous heart in grateful reminiscences of the
-unparalleled kindness of Mrs. Duff-Scott. "What a dear, dear woman!"
-she murmured, with soft rapture, as she unwound the watch-chain and
-locket from her neck and disembarrassed herself of her voluminous
-fichu. "You can _see_ that what she does and says is real and
-truthful--I am certain you can trust her. I do not trust Mrs. Aarons--I
-do not understand her ways. She wanted us to go and see her, and when
-we went she was unkind to us; at least, she was not polite. I was very
-sorry we had gone to her house--until Mrs. Duff-Scott came to our sofa
-to speak to us. But now I feel so glad! For it has given us _her_. And
-she is just the kind of friend I have so often pictured to myself--so
-often longed to know."
-
-"I think it was Patty's playing that gave us Mrs. Duff-Scott,"
-said Eleanor, who was sitting by the dressing table with her frock
-unbuttoned. "She is fond of music, and really there was no one who
-could play at all except Herr Wüllner--which was a very strange thing,
-don't you think? And the singing was worse--such sickly, silly sort of
-songs, with such eccentric accompaniments. I could not understand it,
-unless the fashion has changed since mother was a girl. I suppose it
-has. But when Patty and Herr Wüllner got together it was like another
-atmosphere in the room. How did you come to play so well, Patty?--to be
-so collected and quiet when there was so much to frighten you? I was so
-nervous that my hands shook, and I had to squeeze them to keep myself
-still."
-
-"I was nervous, too, at first," said Patty, who, divested of her
-dress and laces, was lying all along on Elizabeth's bed, with her
-pretty bare arms flung up over the pillows, and her hands clasped
-one over the other at the back of her head. "When we got there, that
-impudent maid in the room where we took our things off upset me; she
-looked at our old hats and water-proofs as if she had never seen such
-things before--and they _did_ seem very shabby amongst all the pretty
-cloaks and hoods that the other ladies were taking off. And then it
-was so ignominious to have to find our way to the drawing-room by
-following other people, and to have our names bawled out as if to call
-everybody's attention to us, and then not to _have_ attentions. When we
-trailed about the room, so lost and lonely, with all those fine people
-watching us and staring at us, my knees were shaking under me, and I
-felt hot and cold--I don't know how I felt. The only comfort I had was
-seeing how calm Elizabeth was. She seemed to stand up for us all, and
-to carry us through it. _I_ felt--I hate to think I could be such an
-idiot--so nervous and so unhinged, and so miserable altogether, that
-I should have liked to go away somewhere and have a good cry. But,"
-added Patty, suddenly sitting up in the bed, and removing her hands
-from the back of her head to her knees, "but after a little while it
-got _too_ horrid. And then I got angry, and that made me feel much
-better. And by-and-bye, when they began to play and sing, and I saw how
-ridiculous they made themselves, I brightened up, and was not nervous
-any more--for I saw that they were rather ignorant people, in spite
-of their airs and their fine clothes. When the girl in that beautiful
-creamy satin dress sang her whining little song about parting and dying
-half a note flat, while she dashed her hands up and down the keyboard,
-and they all hung round her when she had done and said how charming
-it was, I felt that _really_--" Patty paused, and stared into the
-obscurity of the room with brilliant, humorous, disdainful eyes, which
-expressed her sentiments with a distinctness that made further words
-unnecessary.
-
-"But, you see, if people don't _know_ that you are superior to them--"
-suggested Eleanor, folding up Elizabeth's best gloves, and wrapping
-them in tissue paper, with a reflective air.
-
-"Who would care about their knowing?" interposed Elizabeth. "We should
-not be very much superior to anyone if we could indulge in a poor
-ambition to seem so. That is not one of Patty's feelings, I think."
-
-"But it is, then," Patty confessed, with honest promptness. "I found
-it out to-night, Elizabeth. When I saw those conceited people sweeping
-about in their splendid trains and looking as if all Melbourne belonged
-to them--when I heard that girl singing that preposterous twaddle,
-and herself and all her friends thinking she was a perfect genius--I
-felt that I would give anything, _anything_, just to rise up and be
-very grand and magnificent for a little while and crush them all into
-vulgarity and insignificance."
-
-"Patty!" murmured Elizabeth.
-
-"Yes, my dear, it shocks you, I know. But you wouldn't have me disguise
-the truth from you, would you? I wanted to pay them out. I saw they
-were turning up their noses at us, and I longed--I _raged_--to be in
-a position to turn up my nose at them, if only for five minutes. I
-thought to myself, oh, if the door should suddenly open and that big
-footman shout out, 'His Grace the Duke of So and So;' and they should
-all be ready to drop on their knees before such a grand person--as
-you know they would be, Elizabeth; they would _grovel_, simply--and he
-should look with a sort of gracious, ducal haughtiness over their heads
-and say to Mrs. Aarons, 'I am told that I shall find here the daughters
-of my brother, who disappeared from home when he was young, along with
-his wife, the Princess So and So.' You know, Elizabeth, our father, who
-never would talk about his family to anybody, _might_ have been a duke
-or an earl in disguise, for anything we know, and our mother was the
-very image of what a princess _ought_ to be--"
-
-"We should have been found out before this, if we had been such
-illustrious persons," said Elizabeth, calmly.
-
-"Yes, of course--of course. But one needn't be so practical. You are
-free to think what you like, however improbable it may be. And that is
-what I thought of. Then I thought, suppose a telegram should be brought
-in, saying that some enormously wealthy squatter, with several millions
-of money and no children, had left us all his fortune--"
-
-"I should think that kind of news would come by post," suggested
-Eleanor.
-
-"It might and it mightn't, Nelly. The old squatter might have been that
-queer old man who comes to the Library sometimes, and seems to take
-such interest in seeing us reading so hard. He might have thought that
-girls who were so studious would have serious views of life and the
-value of money. Or he might have overheard us castle-building about
-Europe, and determined to help us to realise our dreams. Or he might
-have fallen in love with Elizabeth--at a distance, you know, and in a
-humble, old-fashioned, hopeless way."
-
-"But that doesn't account for the telegram, Patty."
-
-"And have felt himself dying, perhaps," continued Patty, quite
-solemnly, with her bright eyes fixed on her invisible drama, "and have
-thought he would like to see us--to speak to Elizabeth--to give some
-directions and last wishes to us--before he went. No," she added,
-checking herself with a laugh and shaking herself up, "I don't think it
-was that. I think the lawyer came himself to tell us. The lawyer had
-opened the will, and he was a friend of Mrs. Aarons's, and he came to
-tell her of the wonderful thing that had happened. 'Everyone has been
-wondering whom he would leave his money to,' he says to her, 'but no
-one ever expected this. He has left it to three poor girls whom no one
-has ever heard of, and whom he never spoke to in his life. I am now
-going to find them out, for they are living somewhere in Melbourne.
-Their name is King, and they are sisters, without father or mother, or
-friends or fortune--mere nobodies, in fact. But now they will be the
-richest women in Australia.' And Mrs. Aarons suddenly remembers us,
-away there in the corner of the room, and it flashes across her that
-_we_ are the great heiresses. And she tells the other ladies, and they
-all flock round us, and--and--"
-
-"And you find yourself in the position to turn up your nose at them,"
-laughed Eleanor. "No one would have guessed your thoughts, Patty,
-seeing you sitting on that sofa, looking so severe and dignified."
-
-"But I had other thoughts," said Patty, quickly. "These were just
-passing ideas, of course. What really _did_ take hold of me was an
-intense desire to be asked to play, so that I might show them how much
-better we could play than they could. Especially after I heard Herr
-Wüllner. I knew he, at least, would appreciate the difference--and
-I thought Mrs. Duff-Scott looked like a person who would, also. And
-perhaps--perhaps--Paul Brion."
-
-"Oh, Patty!" exclaimed Elizabeth, smiling, but reproachful. "Did
-you really want to go to the piano for the sake of showing off your
-skill--to mortify those poor women who had not been taught as well as
-you had?"
-
-"Yes," said Patty, hardily. "I really did. When Mrs. Duff-Scott came
-and asked me to join Herr Wüllner in that duet, I felt that, failing
-the duke and the lawyer, it was just the opportunity that I had been
-looking and longing for. And it was because I felt that I was going to
-do so much better than they could that I was in such good spirits, and
-got on--as I flatter myself I did--so splendidly."
-
-"Well, I don't believe you," said Elizabeth. "You could never
-have rendered that beautiful music as you did simply from pure
-vindictiveness. It is not in you."
-
-"No," said Patty, throwing herself back on the bed and flinging up
-her arms again, "no--when I come to think of it--I was not vindictive
-all the time. At first I was _savage_--O yes, there is no doubt about
-it. Then Herr Wüllner's fears and frights were so charming that I
-got amused a little; I felt jocose and mischievous. Then I felt Mrs.
-Duff-Scott looking at me--_studying_ me--and that made me serious
-again, and also quieted me down and steadied me. Then I was a little
-afraid that I _might_ blunder over the music--it was a long time since
-I had played that thing, and the manuscript was pale and smudged--and
-so I had to brace myself up and forget about the outside people. And
-as soon as Herr Wüllner reached me, and I began safely and found that
-we were making it, oh, so sweet! between us--then I lost sight of lots
-of things. I mean I began to see and think of lots of other things. I
-remembered playing it with mother--it was like the echo of her voice,
-that violin!--and the sun shining through a bit of the red curtain
-into our sitting-room at home, and flickering on the wall over the
-piano, where it used to stand; and the sound of the sea under the
-cliffs--_whish-sh-sh-sh_--in the still afternoon--" Patty broke off
-abruptly, with a little laugh that was half a sob, and flung herself
-from the bed with vehemence. "But it won't do to go on chattering like
-this--we shall have daylight here directly," she said, gathering up her
-frock and shoes.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.
-
-
-IN THE WOMB OF FATE.
-
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott came for her gossip on Saturday afternoon, and it
-was a long one, and deeply interesting to all concerned. The girls
-took her to their trustful hearts, and told her their past history
-and present circumstances in such a way that she understood them even
-better than they did themselves. They introduced her to their entire
-suite of rooms, including the infinitesimal kitchen and its gas stove;
-they unlocked the drawers and cupboards of the old bureau to show her
-their own and their mother's sketches, and the family miniatures, and
-even the jewels they had worn the night before, about which she was
-frankly curious, and which she examined with the same discriminating
-intelligence that she brought to bear upon old china. They chattered
-to her, they played to her, they set the kettle on the gas-stove and
-made tea for her, with a familiar and yet modest friendliness that
-was a pleasant contrast to the attitude in which feminine attentions
-were too often offered to her. In return, she put off that armour of
-self-defence in which she usually performed her social duties, fearing
-no danger to pride or principle from an unreserved intercourse with
-such unsophisticated and yet singularly well-bred young women; and she
-revelled in unguarded and unlimited gossip as freely as if they had
-been her own sisters or her grown-up children. She gave them a great
-deal of very plain, but very wholesome, advice as to the necessity
-that lay upon them to walk circumspectly in the new life they had
-entered upon; and they accepted it in a spirit of meek gratitude that
-would have astonished Paul Brion beyond measure. All sorts of delicate
-difficulties were touched upon in connection with the non-existent
-chaperon and the omnipotent and omnipresent Mrs. Grundy, and not only
-touched upon, but frankly discussed, between the kindly woman of the
-world who wished to serve them and the proud but modest girls who were
-but too anxious to learn of one who they felt was authorised to teach
-them. In short, they sat together for more than two hours, and learned
-in that one interview to know and trust each other better than some of
-us will do after living for two years under the same roof. When at last
-the lady called her coachman, who had been mooning up and down Myrtle
-Street, half asleep upon his box, to the gate of No. 6, she had made a
-compact with herself to "look after" the three sweet and pretty sisters
-who had so oddly fallen in her way with systematic vigilance; and
-they were unconsciously of one mind, that to be looked after by Mrs.
-Duff-Scott was the most delightful experience, by far, that Melbourne
-had yet given them.
-
-On the following Monday they went to her house, and spent a ravishing
-evening in a beautiful, cosy, stately, deeply-coloured, softly-lighted
-room, that was full of wonderful and historical bric-à-brac such as
-they had never seen before, listening to Herr Wüllner and three brother
-artists playing violins and a violoncello in a way that brought tears
-to their eyes and unspeakable emotions into their responsive hearts.
-Never had they had such a time as this. There was no Mr. Duff-Scott--he
-was away from home just now, looking after property in Queensland;
-and no Mrs. Aarons--she was not privileged to join any but large and
-comprehensive parties in this select "set." There were no conceited
-women to stare at and to snub them, and no girls to sing sickly
-ballads, half a note flat. Only two or three unpretentious music-loving
-ladies, who smiled on them and were kind to them, and two or three
-quiet men who paid them charmingly delicate attentions; nothing that
-was unpleasant or unharmonious--nothing to jar with the exquisite music
-of a well-trained quartette, which was like a new revelation to them
-of the possibilities of art and life. They went home that night in a
-cab, escorted by one of the quiet men, whose provincial rank was such
-that the landlady curtsied like an English rustic, when she opened
-the door to him, and paid her young lodgers marked attentions for days
-afterwards in honour of their acquaintance with such a distinguished
-individual. And Paul Brion, who was carefully informed by Mrs. M'Intyre
-of their rise and progress in the world that was not his world, said
-how glad he was that they had been recognised and appreciated for what
-they were, and went on writing smart literary and political and social
-criticisms for his paper, that were continually proving too smart for
-prudent journalism.
-
-Then Mrs. Duff-Scott left Melbourne for a visit to some relations
-in Brisbane, and to join her husband on his homeward journey, and
-the girls fell back into their old quiet life for a while. It was an
-exceedingly simple and homely life. They rose early every morning--not
-much after the hour at which their neighbour on the other side of the
-wall was accustomed to go to bed--and aired, and swept, and scrubbed
-their little rooms, and made their beds, and polished their furniture,
-and generally set their dwelling in an exquisite order that is not at
-all universal with housewives in these days, but must always be the
-instinct of really well-bred women. They breakfasted frugally after the
-most of this was done, and took a corresponding meal in the evening,
-the staple of both being bread and butter; and at mid-day they saved
-"messing" and the smell of cooking about their rooms, and saved also
-the precious hours of the morning for their studies, by dining at a
-restaurant in the city, where they enjoyed a comfortable and abundant
-repast for a shilling apiece. Every day at about ten o'clock they
-walked through the leafy Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, and the bright
-and busy streets that never lost their charm of novelty, to the Public
-Library, where with pencils and note-books on the table before them,
-they read and studied upon a systematic principle until the clock
-struck one; at which hour they closed their books and set off with
-never-failing appetites in search of dinner. After dinner, if it was
-Thursday, they stayed in town for the organ recital at the Town Hall;
-but on other days they generally sauntered quietly home, with a new
-novel from Mullen's (they were very fond of novels), and made up their
-fire, and had a cup of tea, and sat down to rest and chat over their
-needlework, while one read aloud or practised her music, until the time
-came to lay the cloth for the unfashionable tea-supper at night-fall.
-And these countrified young people invariably began to yawn at eight
-o'clock, and might have been found in bed and asleep, five nights out
-of six, at half-past nine.
-
-So the days wore on, one very much like another, and all very gentle
-and peaceful, though not without the small annoyances that beset the
-most flowery paths of this mortal life, until October came--until
-the gardens through which they passed to and from the city, morning
-and afternoon (though there were other and shorter routes to choose
-from), were thick with young green leaves and odorous with innumerable
-blossoms--until the winter was over, and the loveliest month of the
-Australian year, when the brief spring hurries to meet the voluptuous
-summer, made even Melbourne delightful. And in October the great
-event that was recorded in the annals of the colony inaugurated a new
-departure in their career.
-
-On the Thursday immediately preceding the opening of the Exhibition
-they did not go to the Library as usual, nor to Gunsler's for their
-lunch. Like a number of other people, their habits were deranged and
-themselves demoralised by anticipations of the impending festival. They
-stayed at home to make themselves new bonnets for the occasion, and
-took a cold dinner while at their work, and two of them did not stir
-outside their rooms from morn till dewy eve for so much as a glance
-into Myrtle Street from the balcony.
-
-But in the afternoon it was found that half a yard more of ribbon was
-required to complete the last of the bonnets, and Patty volunteered to
-"run into town" to fetch it. At about four o'clock she set off alone
-by way of an adjoining road which was an omnibus route, intending to
-expend threepence, for once, in the purchase of a little precious time,
-but every omnibus was full, and she had to walk the whole way. The
-pavements were crowded with hurrying folk, who jostled and obstructed
-her. Collins Street, when she turned into it, seemed riotous with
-abnormal life, and she went from shop to shop and could not get waited
-on until the usual closing hour was past, and the evening beginning
-to grow dark. Then she got what she wanted, and set off home by way
-of the Gardens, feeling a little daunted by the noise and bustle of
-the streets, and fancying she would be secure when once those green
-alleys, always so peaceful, were reached. But to-night even the gardens
-were infested by the spirit of unrest and enterprise that pervaded the
-city. The quiet walks were not quiet now, and the sense of her belated
-isolation in the growing dusk seemed more formidable here instead of
-less. For hardly had she passed through the gates into the Treasury
-enclosure than she was conscious of being watched and peered at by
-strange men, who appeared to swarm all over the place; and by the time
-she had reached the Gardens nearer home the appalling fact was forced
-upon her that a tobacco-scented individual was dogging her steps, as if
-with an intention of accosting her. She was bold, but her imagination
-was easily wrought upon; and the formless danger, of a kind in which
-she was totally inexperienced, gave a shock to her nerves. So that when
-presently, as she hurriedly pattered on, hearing the heavier tread and
-an occasional artificial cough behind her, she suddenly saw a still
-more expeditious pedestrian hastening by, and recognised Paul's light
-figure and active gait, the words seemed to utter themselves without
-conscious effort of hers--"Mr. Brion!--oh, Mr. Brion, is that you?"
-
-He stopped at the first sound of her voice, looked back and saw her,
-saw the man behind her, and comprehended the situation immediately.
-Without speaking, he stepped to her side and offered his arm, which
-she took for one happy moment when the delightful sense of his
-protection was too strong for her, and then--reacting violently from
-that mood--released. "I--I am _mortified_ with myself for being such
-a fool," she said angrily; "but really that person did frighten me. I
-don't know what is the matter with Melbourne to-night--I suppose it is
-the Exhibition." And she went on to explain how she came to be abroad
-alone at that hour, and to explain away, as she hoped, her apparent
-satisfaction in meeting him. "It seems to promise for a fine day, does
-it not?" she concluded airily, looking up at the sky.
-
-Paul Brion put his hands in his pockets. He was mortified, too. When he
-spoke, it was with icy composure.
-
-"Are you going to the opening?"
-
-"Yes," said Patty. "Of course we are."
-
-"With your swell friends, I suppose?"
-
-"Whom do you mean by our swell friends? Mrs. Duff-Scott is not in
-Melbourne, I believe--if you allude to her. But she is not swell. The
-only swell person we know is Mrs. Aarons, and she is not our friend."
-
-He allowed the allusion to Mrs. Aarons to pass. "Well, I hope you will
-have good seats," he said, moodily. "It will be a disgusting crush and
-scramble, I expect."
-
-"Seats? Oh, we are not going to have seats," said Patty. "We are going
-to mingle with the common herd, and look on at the civic functions,
-humbly, from the outside. _We_ are not swell"--dwelling upon the
-adjective with a malicious enjoyment of the suspicion that he had not
-meant to use it--"and we like to be independent."
-
-"O yes, I know you do. But you'll find the Rights of Woman not much
-good to you to-morrow in the Melbourne streets, I fancy, if you go
-there on foot without an escort. May I ask how you propose to take care
-of yourselves?"
-
-"We are going," said Patty, "to start very early indeed, and to take
-up a certain advantageous position that we have already selected
-before the streets fill. We shall have a little elevation above the
-heads of the crowd, and a wall at our backs, and--the three of us
-together--we shall see the procession beautifully, and be quite safe
-and comfortable."
-
-"Well, I hope you won't find yourself mistaken," he replied.
-
-A few minutes later Patty burst into the room where her sisters were
-sitting, placidly occupied with their bonnet-making, her eyes shining
-with excitement. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth," she cried breathlessly, "Paul
-Brion is going to ask you to let him be our escort to-morrow. But you
-won't--oh, you _won't_--have him, will you?"
-
-"No, dear," said Elizabeth, serenely; "not if you would rather not. Why
-should we? It will be broad daylight, when there can be no harm in our
-being out without an escort. We shall be much happier by ourselves."
-
-"Much happier than with _him_," added Patty, sharply.
-
-And they went on with their preparations for the great day that had
-been so long desired, little thinking what it was to bring forth.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.
-
-
-ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND.
-
-
-They had an early breakfast, dressed themselves with great care in
-their best frocks and the new bonnets, and, each carrying an umbrella,
-set forth with a cheerful resolve to see what was to be seen of the
-ceremonies of the day, blissfully ignorant of the nature of their
-undertaking. Paul Brion, out of bed betimes, heard their voices and the
-click of their gate, and stepped into his balcony to see them start.
-He took note of the pretty costumes, that had a gala air about them,
-and of the fresh and striking beauty of at least two of the three
-sweet faces; and he groaned to think of such women being hustled and
-battered, helplessly, in the fierce crush of a solid street crowd. But
-they had no fear whatever for themselves.
-
-However, they had not gone far before they perceived that the idea of
-securing a good position early in the day had occurred to a great many
-people besides themselves. Even sleepy Myrtle Street was awake and
-active, and the adjoining road, when they turned into it, was teeming
-with holiday life. They took their favourite route through the Fitzroy
-and Treasury Gardens, and found those sylvan glades alive with traffic:
-and, by the time they got into Spring Street, the crowd had thickened
-to an extent that embarrassed their progress and made it devious and
-slow. And they had scarcely passed the Treasury buildings when Eleanor,
-who had been suffering from a slight sore throat, began to cough and
-shiver, and aroused the maternal anxiety of her careful elder sister.
-"O, my dear," said Elizabeth, coming to an abrupt standstill on the
-pavement, "have you nothing but that wisp of muslin round your neck?
-And the day so cold--and looking so like rain! It will never do for you
-to stand about for hours in this wind, with the chance of getting wet,
-unless you are wrapped up better. We must run home again and fix you
-up. And I think it would be wiser if we were all to change our things
-and put on our old bonnets."
-
-"Now, look here, Elizabeth," said Patty, with strong emphasis; "you see
-that street, don't you?"--and she pointed down the main thoroughfare of
-the city, which was already gorged with people throughout its length.
-"You see that, and that"--and she indicated the swarming road ahead of
-them and the populous valley in the opposite direction. "If there is
-such a crowd now, what will there be in half-an-hour's time? And we
-couldn't do it in half-an-hour. Let us make Nelly tie up her throat
-in our three pocket-handkerchiefs, and push on and get our places.
-Otherwise we shall be out of it altogether--we shall see _nothing_."
-
-But the gentle Elizabeth was obdurate on some occasions, and this was
-one of them. Eleanor was chilled with the cold, and it was not to be
-thought of that she should run the risk of an illness from imprudent
-exposure--no, not for all the exhibitions in the world. So they
-compromised the case by deciding that Patty and Eleanor should "run"
-home together, while the elder sister awaited their return, keeping
-possession of a little post of vantage on the Treasury steps--where
-they would be able to see the procession, if not the Exhibition--in
-case the crowd should be too great by-and-bye to allow of their getting
-farther.
-
-"Well, make yourself as big as you can," said Patty, resignedly.
-
-"And, whatever you do," implored Eleanor, "don't stir an inch from
-where you are until we come back, lest we should lose you."
-
-Upon which they set off in hot haste to Myrtle Street.
-
-Elizabeth, when they were gone, saw with alarm the rapid growth of
-the crowd around her. It filled up the street in all directions, and
-condensed into a solid mass on the Treasury steps, very soon absorbing
-the modest amount of space that she had hoped to reserve for her
-sisters. In much less than half-an-hour she was so hopelessly wedged
-in her place that, tall and strong as she was, she was almost lifted
-off her feet; and there was no prospect of restoring communications
-with Patty and Eleanor until the show was over. In a fever of anxiety,
-bitterly regretting that she had consented to part from them, she kept
-her eyes turned towards the gate of the Gardens, whence she expected
-them to emerge; and then she saw, presently, the figure of their good
-genius and deliverer from all dilemmas, Paul Brion, fighting his way
-towards her. The little man pursued an energetic course through the
-crowd, which almost covered him, hurling himself along with a velocity
-that was out of all proportion to his bulk; and from time to time she
-saw his quick eyes flashing over other people's shoulders, and that he
-was looking eagerly in all directions. It seemed hopeless to expect him
-to distinguish her in the sea of faces around him, but he did. Sunk in
-the human tide that rose in the street above the level of his head,
-he made desperately for a footing on a higher plane, and in so doing
-caught sight of her and battled his way to her side. "Oh, _here_ you
-are!" he exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "I have been so anxious about
-you. But where is Miss Patty? Where are your sisters?"
-
-"Oh, Mr. Brion," she responded, "you always seem to turn up to help us
-as soon as we get into trouble, and I am _so_ thankful to see you! The
-girls had to go home for something, and were to meet me here, and I
-don't know what will become of them in this crowd."
-
-"Which way were they to come?" he inquired eagerly.
-
-"By the Gardens. But the gates are completely blocked."
-
-"I will go and find them," he said. "Don't be anxious about them. They
-will be in there--they will be all right. You will come too, won't you?
-I think I can manage to get you through."
-
-"I can't," she replied. "I promised I would not stir from this place,
-and I must not, in case they should be in the street, or we should miss
-them."
-
-"'The boy stood on the burning deck,'" he quoted, with a laugh. He
-could afford a little jest, though she was so serious, for he was happy
-in the conviction that the girls had been unable to reach the street,
-that he should find them disconsolate in the gardens, and compel Miss
-Patty to feel, if not to acknowledge, that he was of some use and
-comfort to her, after all. "But I hate to leave you here," he added,
-glaring upon her uncomfortable but inoffensive neighbours, "all alone
-by yourself."
-
-"Oh, don't mind me," said Elizabeth, cheerfully. "If you can only find
-Patty and Nelly, and be so good as to take care of them, _I_ shall be
-all right."
-
-And so, with apparent reluctance, but the utmost real alacrity, he left
-her, flinging himself from the steps into the crowd like a swimmer
-diving into the sea, and she saw him disappear with an easy mind.
-
-Then began the tramp of the procession, first in sections, then in
-imposing columns, with bands playing, and flags flying, and horses
-prancing, and the people shouting and cheering as it went by. There
-were the smart men of the Naval Reserve and the sailors of the
-warships--English and French, German and Italian, eight or nine hundred
-strong--with their merry buglers in the midst of them; and there were
-the troops of the military, with their music and accoutrements; and all
-the long procession of the trades' associations, and the fire brigades,
-with the drubbing of drums and the blare of trumpets and the shrill
-whistle of innumerable fifes accompanying their triumphal progress.
-And by-and-bye the boom of the saluting guns from the Prince's Bridge
-battery, and the seven carriages from Government House rolling slowly
-up the street and round the corner, with their dashing cavalry escort,
-amid the lusty cheers of Her Majesty's loyal subjects on the line of
-route assembled.
-
-But long before the Queen's representative made his appearance upon
-the scene, Elizabeth had ceased to see or care for the great spectacle
-that she had been so anxious to witness. Moment by moment the crowd
-about her grew more dense and dogged, more pitilessly indifferent to
-the comfort of one another, more evidently minded that the fittest
-should survive in the fight for existence on the Treasury steps. Rough
-men pushed her forward and backward, and from side to side, treading
-on her feet, and tearing the stitches of her gown, and knocking her
-bonnet awry, until she felt bruised and sick with the buffetings that
-she got, and the keen consciousness of the indignity of her position.
-She could scarcely breathe for the pressure around her, though the
-breath of all sorts of unpleasant people was freely poured into her
-face. She would have struggled away and gone home--convinced of the
-comforting fact that Patty and Eleanor were safely out of it in Paul
-Brion's protection--but she could not stir an inch by her own volition.
-When she did stir it was by some violent propelling power in another
-person, and this was exercised presently in such a way as to completely
-overbalance her. A sudden wave of movement broke against a stout
-woman standing immediately behind her, and the stout woman, quite
-unintentionally, pushed her to the edge of the step, and flung her upon
-the shoulder of a brawny larrikin who had fought his way backwards and
-upwards into a position whence he could see the pageant of the street
-to his satisfaction. The larrikin half turned, struck her savagely
-in the breast with his elbow, demanding, with a roar and an oath,
-where she was a-shoving to; and between her two assailants, faint and
-frightened, she lost her footing, and all but fell headlong into the
-seething mass beneath her.
-
-But as she was falling--a moment so agonising at the time, and so
-delightful to remember afterwards--some one caught her round the waist
-with a strong grip, and lifted her up, and set her safely on her feet
-again. It was a man who had been standing within a little distance of
-her, tall enough to overtop the crowd, and strong enough to maintain an
-upright position in it; she had noticed him for some time, and that he
-had seemed not seriously incommoded by the bustling and scuffling that
-rendered her so helpless; but she had not noticed his gradual approach
-to her side. Now, looking up with a little sob of relief, her instant
-recognition of him as a gentleman was followed by an instinctive
-identification of him as a sort of Cinderella's prince.
-
-In short, there is no need to make a mystery of the matter. At
-half-past ten o'clock in the morning of the first of October in the
-year 1880, when she was plunged into the most wretched and terrifying
-circumstances of her life--at the instant when she was struck by the
-larrikin's elbow and felt herself about to be crushed under the feet of
-the crowd--Elizabeth King met her happy fate. She found that friend for
-whom, hungrily if unconsciously, her tender heart had longed.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.
-
-
-"WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED."
-
-
-"Stand here, and I can shelter you a little," he said, in a quiet tone
-that contrasted refreshingly with the hoarse excitement around them.
-He drew her close to his side by the same grip of her waist that had
-lifted her bodily when she was off her feet, and, immediately releasing
-her, stretched a strong left arm between her exposed shoulder and the
-crush of the crowd. The arm was irresistibly pressed upon her own
-arm, and bent across her in a curve that was neither more nor less
-than a vehement embrace, and so she stood in a condition of delicious
-astonishment, one tingling blush from head to foot. It would have been
-horrible had it been anyone else.
-
-"I am so sorry," he said, "but I cannot help it. If you don't mind
-standing as you are for a few minutes, you will be all right directly.
-As soon as the procession has passed the crowd will scatter to follow
-it."
-
-They looked at each other across a space of half-a-dozen inches or
-so, and in that momentary glance, upon which everything that mutually
-concerned them depended, were severally relieved and satisfied. He was
-not handsome--he had even a reputation for ugliness; but there are
-some kinds of ugliness that are practically handsomer than many kinds
-of beauty, and his was of that sort. He had a leathery, sun-dried,
-weather-beaten, whiskerless, red moustached face, and he had a
-roughly-moulded, broad-based, ostentatious nose; his mouth was large,
-and his light grey eyes deeply set and small. Yet it was a strikingly
-distinguished and attractive face, and Elizabeth fell in love with it
-there and then. Similarly, her face, at once modest and candid, was an
-open book to his experienced glance, and provisionally delighted him.
-He was as glad as she was that fate had selected him to deliver her in
-her moment of peril, out of the many who might have held out a helping
-hand to her and did not.
-
-"I am afraid you cannot see very well," he remarked presently. There
-were sounds in the distance that indicated the approach of the
-vice-regal carriages, and people were craning their necks over each
-other's shoulders and standing on tiptoe to catch the first glimpse of
-them. Just in front of her the exuberant larrikin was making himself as
-tall as possible.
-
-"Oh, thank you--I don't want to see," she replied hastily.
-
-"But that was what you came here for--like the rest of us--wasn't it?"
-
-"I did not know what I was coming for," she said, desperately,
-determined to set herself right in his eyes. "I never saw anything like
-this before--I was never in a crowd--I did not know what it was like."
-
-"Some one should have told you, then."
-
-"We have not any one belonging to us to tell us things."
-
-"Indeed?"
-
-"My sisters and I have lived in the bush always, until now. We have no
-parents. We have not seen much yet. We came out this morning, thinking
-we could stand together in a corner and look on quietly--we did not
-expect this."
-
-"And your sisters--?"
-
-"They went home again. They are all right, I hope."
-
-"And left you here alone?"
-
-Elizabeth explained the state of the case more fully, and by the time
-she had done so the Governors' carriages were in sight. The people
-were shouting and cheering; the larrikin was dancing up and down in
-his hob-nailed boots, and bumping heavily upon the arm that shielded
-her. Shrinking from him, she drew her feet back another inch or two;
-upon which the right arm as well as the left was firmly folded round
-her. And the pressure of those two arms, stretched like iron bars to
-defend her from harm, the throbbing of his heart upon her shoulder, the
-sound of his deep-chested breathing in her ear--no consideration of
-the involuntary and unromantic necessity of the situation could calm
-the tremulous excitement communicated to her by these things. Oh, how
-hideous, how simply insupportable it would have been, had she been thus
-cast upon another breast and into other arms than HIS! As it was, it
-was all right. He said he feared she was terribly uncomfortable, but,
-though she did not contradict him, she felt in the secret depths of her
-primitive soul that she had never been more comfortable. To be cared
-for and protected was a new sensation, and, though she had had to bear
-anxious responsibilities for herself and others, she had no natural
-vocation for independence. Many a time since have they spoken of this
-first half hour with pride, boasting of how they trusted each other at
-sight, needing no proofs from experience like other people--a foolish
-boast, for they were but a man and woman, and not gods. "I took you to
-my heart the first moment I saw you," he says. "And I knew, even as
-soon as that, that it was my own place," she calmly replies. Whereas
-good luck, and not their own wisdom, justified them.
-
-He spoke to her with studied coldness while necessarily holding her
-embraced, as it were, to protect her from the crowd; at the same
-time he put himself to some trouble to make conversation, which was
-less embarrassing to her than silence. He remarked that he was fond
-of crowds himself--found them intensely interesting--and spoke of
-Thackeray's paper on the crowd that went to see the man hanged (which
-she had never read) as illustrating the kind of interest he meant.
-He had lately seen the crowd at the opening of the Trocadero Palace,
-and that which celebrated the completion of Cologne Cathedral; facts
-which proclaimed him a "globe-trotter" and new arrival in Melbourne.
-The few words in which he described the festival at Cologne fired her
-imagination, fed so long upon dreams of foreign travel, and made her
-forget for the moment that he was not an old acquaintance.
-
-"It was at about this hour of the day," he said, "and I stood with the
-throng in the streets, as I am doing now. They put the last stone on
-the top of the cross on one of the towers more than six hundred years
-after the foundation stone was laid. The people were wild with joy, and
-hung out their flags all over the place. One old fellow came up to me
-and wanted to kiss me--he thought I must be as overcome as he was."
-
-"And were you not impressed?"
-
-"Of course I was. It was very pathetic," he replied, gently. And she
-thought "pathetic" an odd word to use. Why pathetic? She did not like
-to ask him. Then he made the further curious statement that this crowd
-was the tamest he had ever seen.
-
-"_I_ don't call it tame," she said, with a laugh, as the yells of the
-larrikin and his fellows rent the air around them.
-
-He responded to her laugh with a pleasant smile, and his voice was
-friendlier when he spoke again. "But I am quite delighted with it,
-unimpressive as it is. It is composed of people who are not _wanting
-anything_. I don't know that I was ever in a crowd of that sort before.
-I feel, for once, that I can breathe in peace."
-
-"Oh, I wish I could feel so!" she cried. The carriages, in their slow
-progress, were now turning at the top of Collins Street, and the hubbub
-around them had reached its height.
-
-"It will soon be over now," he murmured encouragingly.
-
-"Yes," she replied. In a few minutes the crush would lessen, and he
-and she would part. That was what they thought, to the exclusion of all
-interest in the passing spectacle. Even as she spoke, the noise and
-confusion that had made a solitude for their quiet intercourse sensibly
-subsided. The tail of the procession was well in sight; the heaving
-crowd on the Treasury steps was swaying and breaking like a huge wave
-upon the street; the larrikin was gone. It was time for the unknown
-gentleman to resume the conventional attitude, and for Elizabeth to
-remember that he was a total stranger to her.
-
-"You had better take my arm," he said, as she hastily disengaged
-herself before it was safe to do so, and was immediately caught in the
-eddy that was setting strongly in the direction of the Exhibition. "If
-you don't mind waiting here for a few minutes longer, you will be able
-to get home comfortably."
-
-She struggled back to his side, and took his arm, and waited; but they
-did not talk any more. They watched the disintegration and dispersion
-of the great mass that had hemmed them in together, until at last they
-stood in ease and freedom almost alone upon that coign of vantage which
-had been won with so much difficulty--two rather imposing figures,
-if anyone had cared to notice them. Then she withdrew her hand, and
-said, with a little stiff bow and a bright and becoming colour in her
-face--"_Thank_ you."
-
-"Don't mention it," he replied, with perfect gravity. "I am very happy
-to have been of any service to you."
-
-Still they did not move from where they stood.
-
-"Don't you want to see the rest of it?" she asked timidly.
-
-"Do you?" he responded, looking at her with a smile.
-
-"O dear no, thank you! I have had quite enough, and I am very anxious
-to find my sisters."
-
-"Then allow me to be your escort until you are clear of the streets."
-He did not put it as a request, and he began to descend the steps
-before she could make up her mind how to answer him. So she found
-herself walking beside him along the footpath and through the Gardens,
-wondering who he was, and how she could politely dismiss him--or how
-soon he would dismiss her. Now and then she snatched a sidelong glance
-at him, and noted his great stature and the easy dignity with which he
-carried himself, and transferred one by one the striking features of
-his countenance to her faithful memory. He made a powerful impression
-upon her. Thinking of him, she had almost forgotten how anxious she
-was to find her sisters until, with a start, she suddenly caught sight
-of them sitting comfortably on a bench in an alley of the Fitzroy
-Gardens, Eleanor and Patty side by side, and Paul Brion on the other
-side of Eleanor. The three sprang up as soon as they saw her coming,
-with gestures of eager welcome.
-
-"Ah!" said Elizabeth, her face flaming with an entirely unnecessary
-blush, "there are my sisters. I--I am all right now. I need not trouble
-you any further. Thank you very much."
-
-She paused, and so did he. She bent her head without lifting her eyes,
-and he took off his hat to her with profound respect. And so they
-parted--for a little while.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII.
-
-
-AFTERNOON TEA.
-
-
-When he had turned and left her, Elizabeth faced her sisters with
-that vivid blush still on her cheeks, and a general appearance of
-embarrassment that was too novel to escape notice. Patty and Eleanor
-stared for a moment, and Eleanor laughed.
-
-"Who is he?" she inquired saucily.
-
-"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "Where have you been, dears? How have
-you got on? I have been so anxious about you."
-
-"But who is he?" persisted Eleanor.
-
-"I have not the least idea, I tell you. Perhaps Mr. Brion knows."
-
-"No," said Mr. Brion. "He is a perfect stranger to me."
-
-"He is a new arrival, I suppose," said Elizabeth, stealing a backward
-glance at her hero, whom the others were watching intently as he walked
-away. "Yes, he can have but just arrived, for he saw the last stone put
-to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and that was not more than six or
-seven weeks ago. He has come out to see the Exhibition, probably. He
-seems to be a great traveller."
-
-"Oh," said Eleanor, turning with a grimace to Patty, "here have we been
-mooning about in the gardens, and she has been seeing everything, and
-having adventures into the bargain!"
-
-"It is very little I have seen," her elder sister remarked, "and this
-will tell you the nature of my adventures"--and she showed them a rent
-in her gown. "I was nearly torn to pieces by the crowd after you left.
-I am only too thankful you were out of it."
-
-"But we are not at all thankful," pouted Eleanor. "Are we, Patty?"
-(Patty was silent, but apparently amiable.) "It is only the stitching
-that is undone--you can mend it in five minutes. We wouldn't have
-minded little trifles of that sort--not in the least--to have seen the
-procession, and made the acquaintance of distinguished travellers. Were
-there many more of them about, do you suppose?"
-
-"O no," replied Elizabeth, promptly. "Only he."
-
-"And you managed to find him! Why shouldn't we have found him
-too--Patty and I? Do tell us his name, Elizabeth, and how you happened
-on him, and what he has been saying and doing."
-
-"He took care of me, dear--that's all. I was crushed almost into a
-pulp, and he allowed me to--to stand beside him until the worst of it
-was over."
-
-"How interesting!" ejaculated Eleanor. "And then he talked to you about
-Cologne Cathedral?"
-
-"Yes. But never mind about him. Tell me where Mr. Brion found you, and
-what you have been doing."
-
-"Oh, _we_ have not been doing anything--far from it. I _wish_ you knew
-his name, Elizabeth."
-
-"But, my dear, I don't. So leave off asking silly questions. I daresay
-we shall never see or hear of him again."
-
-"Oh, don't you believe it! I'm _certain_ we shall see him again. He
-will be at the Exhibition some day when we go there--to-morrow, very
-likely."
-
-"Well, well, never mind. What are we going to do now?"
-
-They consulted with Paul for a few minutes, and he took them where they
-could get a distant view of the crowds swarming around the Exhibition,
-and hear the confused clamour of the bands--which seemed to gratify
-the two younger sisters very much, in the absence of more pronounced
-excitement. They walked about until they saw the Royal Standard hoisted
-over the great dome, and heard the saluting guns proclaim that the
-Exhibition was open; and then they returned to Myrtle Street, with a
-sense of having had breakfast in the remote past, and of having spent
-an enormously long morning not unpleasantly, upon the whole.
-
-Mrs. M'Intyre was standing at her gate when they reached home, and
-stopped them to ask what they had seen, and how they had enjoyed
-themselves. _She_ had stayed quietly in the house, and busied herself
-in the manufacture of meringues and lemon cheese-cakes--having, she
-explained, superfluous eggs in the larder, and a new lodger coming in;
-and she evidently prided herself upon her well-spent time. "And if
-you'll stay, you shall have some," she said, and she opened the gate
-hospitably. "Now, don't say no, Miss King--don't, Miss Nelly. It's past
-one, and I've got a nice cutlet and mashed potatoes just coming on the
-table. Bring them along, Mr. Brion. I'm sure they'll come if _you_ ask
-them."
-
-"We'll come without that," said Eleanor, walking boldly in. "At least,
-I will. _I_ couldn't resist cutlets and mashed potatoes under present
-circumstances--not to speak of lemon cheese-cakes and meringues--and
-your society, Mrs. M'Intyre."
-
-Paul held the gate open, and Elizabeth followed Eleanor, and Patty
-followed Elizabeth. Patty did not look at him, but she was in a
-peaceable disposition; seeing which, he felt happier than he had been
-for months. They lunched together, with much enjoyment of the viands
-placed before them, and of each other's company, feeling distinctly
-that, however small had been their share in the demonstrations of the
-day, the festival spirit was with them; and when they rose from the
-table there was an obvious reluctance to separate.
-
-"Now, I'll tell you what," said Eleanor; "we have had dinner with you,
-Mrs. M'Intyre, and now you ought to come and have afternoon tea with
-us. You have not been in to see us for _years_."
-
-She looked at Elizabeth, who hastened to endorse the invitation, and
-Mrs. M'Intyre consented to think about it.
-
-"And may not I come too?" pleaded Paul, not daring to glance at his
-little mistress, but appealing fervently to Elizabeth. "Mayn't I come
-with Mrs. M'Intyre for a cup of tea, too?"
-
-"Of course you may," said Elizabeth, and Eleanor nodded acquiescence,
-and Patty gazed serenely out of the window. "Go and have your smoke
-comfortably, and come in in about an hour."
-
-With which the sisters left, and, as soon as they reached their
-own quarters, set to work with something like enthusiasm to make
-preparations for their expected guests. Before the hour was up, a
-bright fire was blazing in their sitting-room, and a little table
-beside it was spread comfortably with a snow-white cloth, and twinkling
-crockery and spoons. The kettle was singing on the hearth, and a
-plate of buttered muffins reposed under a napkin in the fender. The
-window was open; so was the piano. Patty was flying from place to
-place, with a duster in her hand, changing the position of the chairs,
-and polishing the spotless surfaces of the furniture generally, with
-anxious industry. _She_ had not asked Paul Brion to come to see them,
-but since he was coming they might as well have the place decent, she
-said.
-
-When he came at last meekly creeping upstairs at Mrs. M'Intyre's heels,
-Patty was nowhere to be seen. He looked all round as he crossed the
-threshold, and took in the delicate air of cheerfulness, the almost
-austere simplicity and orderliness that characterised the little room,
-and made it quite different from any room he had ever seen; and then
-his heart sank, and a cloud of disappointment fell over his eager face.
-He braced himself to bear it. He made up his mind at once that he
-had had his share of luck for that day, and must not expect anything
-more. However, some minutes later, when Mrs. M'Intyre had made herself
-comfortable by unhooking her jacket, and untying her bonnet strings,
-and when Elizabeth was preparing to pour out the tea, Patty sauntered
-in with some needlework in her hand--stitching as she walked--and took
-a retired seat by the window. He seized upon a cup of tea and carried
-it to her, and stood there as if to secure her before she could escape
-again. As he approached she bent her head lower over her work, and
-a little colour stole into her face; and then she lifted herself up
-defiantly.
-
-"Here is your tea, Miss Patty," he said, humbly.
-
-"Thanks. Just put it down there, will you?"
-
-She nodded towards a chair near her, and he set the cup down on it
-carefully. But he did not go.
-
-"You are very busy," he remarked.
-
-"Yes," she replied, shortly. "I have wasted all the morning. Now I must
-try to make up for it."
-
-"Are you too busy to play something--presently, I mean, when you have
-had your tea? I must go and work too, directly. I should so enjoy to
-hear you play before I go."
-
-She laid her sewing on her knee, reached for her cup, and began to
-sip it with a relenting face. She asked him what kind of music he
-preferred, and he said he didn't care, but he thought he liked "soft
-things" best. "There was a thing you played last Sunday night," he
-suggested; "quite late, just before you went to bed. It has been
-running in my head ever since."
-
-She balanced her teaspoon in her hand, and puckered her brows
-thoughtfully. "Let me think--what was I playing on Sunday night?" she
-murmured to herself. "It must have been one of the _Lieder_ surely--or,
-perhaps, a Beethoven sonata? Or Batiste's andante in G perhaps?"
-
-"Oh, I don't know the name of anything. I only remember that it was
-very lovely and sad."
-
-"But we shouldn't play sad things in the broad daylight, when people
-want to gossip over their tea," she said, glancing at Mrs. M'Intyre,
-who was energetically describing to Elizabeth the only proper way of
-making tomato sauce. But she got up, all the same, and went over to the
-piano, and began to play the andante just above a whisper, caressing
-the soft pedal with her foot.
-
-"Was that it?" she asked gently, smiling at him as he drew up a low
-wicker chair and sat down at her elbow to listen.
-
-"Go on," he murmured gratefully. "It was _like_ that."
-
-And she went on--while Mrs. M'Intyre, having concluded her remarks upon
-tomato sauce, detailed the results of her wide experience in orange
-marmalade and quince jelly, and Elizabeth and Eleanor did their best
-to profit by her wisdom--playing to him alone. It did not last very
-long--a quarter of an hour perhaps--but every moment was an ecstasy
-to Paul Brion. Even more than the music, delicious as it was, Patty's
-gentle and approachable mood enchanted him. She had never been like
-that to him before. He sat on his low chair, and looked up at her
-tender profile as she drooped a little over the keys, throbbing with
-a new sense of her sweetness and beauty, and learning more about his
-own heart in those few minutes than all the previous weeks and months
-of their acquaintance had taught him. And then the spell that had been
-weaving and winding them together, as it seemed to him, was suddenly
-and rudely broken. There was a clatter of wheels and hoofs along the
-street, a swinging gate and a jangling door bell; and Eleanor, running
-to the window, uttered an exclamation that effectually wakened him from
-his dreams.
-
-"Oh, _Elizabeth--Patty--_it is Mrs. Duff-Scott!"
-
-In another minute the great lady herself stood amongst them, rustling
-over the matting in her splendid gown, almost filling the little room
-with her presence. Mrs. M'Intyre gave way before her, and edged towards
-the door with modest, deprecatory movements, but Paul stood where
-he had risen, as stiff as a poker, and glared at her with murderous
-ferocity.
-
-"You see I have come back, my dears," she exclaimed, cordially, kissing
-the girls one after the other. "And I am so sorry I could not get to
-you in time to make arrangements for taking you with me to see the
-opening--I quite intended to take you. But I only returned last night."
-
-"Oh, thank you," responded Elizabeth, with warm gratitude, "it is treat
-enough for us to see you again." And then, hesitating a little as she
-wondered whether it was or was not a proper thing to do, she looked at
-her other guests and murmured their names. Upon which Mrs. M'Intyre
-made a servile curtsey, unworthy of a daughter of a free country, and
-Paul a most reluctant inclination of the head. To which again Mrs.
-Duff-Scott responded by a slight nod and a glance of good-humoured
-curiosity at them both.
-
-"I'll say good afternoon, Miss King," said Mr. Brion haughtily.
-
-"Oh, _good_ afternoon," replied Elizabeth, smiling sweetly. And she and
-her sisters shook hands with him and with his landlady, and the pair
-departed in some haste, Paul in a worse temper than he had ever known
-himself to indulge in; and he was not much mollified by the sudden
-appearance of Elizabeth, as he was fumbling with the handle of the
-front door, bearing her evident if unspoken apologies for having seemed
-to turn him out.
-
-"You will come with Mrs. M'Intyre another time," she suggested kindly,
-"and have some more music? I would have asked you to stay longer
-to-day, but we haven't seen Mrs. Duff-Scott for such a long time--"
-
-"Oh, pray don't mention it," he interrupted stiffly. "I should have had
-to leave in any case, for my work is all behind-hand."
-
-"Ah, that is because we have been wasting your time!"
-
-"Not at all. I am only too happy to be of use--in the absence of your
-other friends."
-
-She would not notice this little sneer, but said good-bye and turned
-to walk upstairs. Paul, ashamed of himself, made an effort to detain
-her. "Is there anything I can do for you, Miss King?" he asked, gruffly
-indeed, but with an appeal for forbearance in his eyes. "Do you want
-your books changed or anything?"
-
-She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, and thought for a moment;
-and then she said, dropping her eyes, "I--I think _you_ have a book
-that I should like to borrow--if I might."
-
-"Most happy. What book is it?"
-
-"It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete
-edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present.
-I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about
-a man being hanged--and a crowd--" She broke off with an embarrassed
-laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded.
-
-"You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled
-'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches'--"
-
-"That is the book I mean."
-
-"All right--I'll get it and send it in to you at once--with pleasure."
-
-"Oh, _thank_ you. I'm _so_ much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest
-care of it," she assured him fervently.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII.
-
-
-THE FAIRY GODMOTHER.
-
-
-Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying
-to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father
-was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been
-inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere
-accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions
-upon the subject.
-
-"Don't encourage him, my dears--don't encourage him to come again," she
-was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two
-very different people, whatever they may think."
-
-"We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has
-done so much for us."
-
-"Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls _can't_ be grateful to young
-men--don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got
-_me_ to do things for you."
-
-"But he helped us when we had no one else."
-
-"Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him--a
-privilege--for _him_ to be grateful for rather than you. But--well,
-Elizabeth knows what I mean"--turning an expressive glance towards the
-discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and
-Elizabeth answered both of them at once.
-
-"You must not ask us to give up Paul Brion," she said, promptly.
-
-"I don't," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. "I only ask you to keep him in his
-place. He is not the kind of person to indulge with tea and music, you
-know--that is what I mean."
-
-"You speak as if you knew something against him," murmured Patty, with
-heightened colour.
-
-"I know this much, my dear," replied the elder woman, gravely; "he is
-_a friend of Mrs. Aarons's_."
-
-"And is not Mrs. Aarons--"
-
-"She is very well, in her way. But she likes to have men dangling about
-her. She means no harm, I am sure," added Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, in
-the matter of scandal, prided herself on being a non-conductor, "but
-still it is not nice, you know. And I don't think that her men friends
-are the kind of friends for you. You don't mind my speaking frankly,
-my love? I am an old woman, you know, and I have had a great deal of
-experience."
-
-She was assured that they did not mind it, but were, on the contrary,
-indebted to her for her good advice. And the subject of Paul Brion was
-dropped. Patty was effectually silenced by that unexpected reference
-to Mrs. Aarons, and by the rush of recollections, embracing him and
-her together, which suddenly gave form and colour to the horrible
-idea of him as a victim to a married woman's fascinations. She turned
-away abruptly, with a painful blush that not only crimsoned her from
-throat to temples, but seemed to make her tingle to her toes; and,
-like the headlong and pitiless young zealot that she was, determined
-to thrust him out for ever from the sacred precincts of her regard.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was satisfied too. She was always sure of her own power
-to speak plainly without giving offence, and she found it absolutely
-necessary to protect these ingenuous maidens from their own ignorance.
-Needless to say that, since she had adopted them into her social
-circle, she had laid plans for their ultimate settlement therein. In
-her impulsive benevolence she had even gone the length of marking
-down the three husbands whom she considered respectively appropriate
-to the requirements of the case, and promised herself a great deal of
-interest and pleasure in the vicarious pursuit of them through the
-ensuing season. Wherefore she was much relieved to have come across
-this obscure writer for the press, and to have had the good chance, at
-the outset of her campaign, to counteract his possibly antagonistic
-influence. She knew her girls quite well enough to make sure that her
-hint would take its full effect.
-
-She leaned back in her chair comfortably, and drew off her gloves,
-while they put fresh tea in the teapot, and cut her thin shavings of
-bread and butter; and she sat with them until six o'clock, gossiping
-pleasantly. After giving them a history of the morning's ceremonies,
-as witnessed by the Government's invited guests inside the Exhibition
-building, she launched into hospitable schemes for their enjoyment of
-the gay time that had set in. "Now that I am come back," she said, "I
-shall take care that you shall go out and see everything there is to be
-seen. You have never had such a chance to learn something of the world,
-and I can't allow you to neglect it."
-
-"Dear Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Elizabeth, "we have already been indulging
-ourselves too much, I am afraid. We have done no reading--at least none
-worth doing--for days. We are getting all behind-hand. The whole of
-yesterday and all this morning--"
-
-"What did you do this morning?" Mrs. Duff-Scott interrupted quickly.
-
-They gave her a sketch of their adventures, merely suppressing
-the incident of the elder sister's encounter with the mysterious
-person whom the younger ones had begun to style "Elizabeth's young
-man"--though why they suppressed that none of them could have explained.
-
-"Very well," was her comment upon the little narrative, which told her
-far more than it told them. "That shows you that I am right. There are
-a great many things for you to learn that all the books in the Public
-Library could not teach you. Take my advice, and give up literary
-studies for a little while. Give them up altogether, and come and learn
-what the world and your fellow-creatures are made of. Make a school of
-the Exhibition while it lasts, and let me give you lessons in--a--what
-shall I call it--social science?--the study of human nature?"
-
-Nothing could be more charming than to have lessons from her, they told
-her; and they had intended to go to school to the Exhibition as often
-as they could. But--but their literary studies were their equipment for
-the larger and fuller life that they looked forward to in the great
-world beyond the seas. Perhaps she did not understand that?
-
-"I understand this, my dears," the matron replied, with energy. "There
-is no greater mistake in life than to sacrifice the substance of the
-present for the shadow of the future. We most of us do it--until we
-get old--and then we look back to see how foolish and wasteful we
-have been, and that is not much comfort to us. What we've got, we've
-got; what we are going to have nobody can tell. Lay in all the store
-you can, of course--take all reasonable precautions to insure as
-satisfactory a future as possible--but don't forget that the Present is
-the great time, the most important stage of your existence, no matter
-what your circumstances may be."
-
-The girls listened to her thoughtfully, allowing that she might be
-right, but suspending their judgment in the matter. They were all too
-young to be convinced by another person's experience.
-
-"You let Europe take care of itself for a bit," their friend proceeded,
-"and come out and see what Australia in holiday time is like, and what
-the fleeting hour will give you. I will fetch you to-morrow for a long
-day at the Exhibition to begin with, and then I'll--I'll--" She broke
-off and looked from one to another with an unwonted and surprising
-embarrassment, and then went on impetuously.
-
-"My dears, I don't know how to put it so as not to hurt or burden you,
-but you won't misunderstand me if I express myself awkwardly--you
-won't have any of that absurd conventional pride about not being
-under obligations--it is a selfish feeling, a want of trust and true
-generosity, when it is the case of a friend who--" She stammered and
-hesitated, this self-possessed empress of a woman, and was obviously at
-a loss for words wherein to give her meaning. Elizabeth, seeing what it
-was that she wanted to say, sank on her knees before her, and took her
-hands and kissed them. But over her sister's bent head Patty stood up
-stiffly, with a burning colour in her face. Mrs. Duff-Scott, absently
-fondling Elizabeth, addressed herself to Patty when she spoke again.
-
-"As an ordinary rule," she said, "one should not accept things
-from another who is not a relation--I know that. _Not_ because it
-is improper--it ought to be the most proper thing in the world for
-people to help each other--but because in so many cases it can never
-happen without bitter mortifications afterwards. People are so--so
-superficial? But I--Patty, dear, I am an old woman, and I have a great
-deal of money, and I have no children; and I have never been able to
-fill the great gap where the children should be with music and china,
-or any interest of that sort. And you are alone in the world, and I
-have taken a fancy to you--I have grown _fond_ of you--and I have
-made a little plan for having you about me, to be a sort of adopted
-daughters for whom I could feel free to do little motherly things in
-return for your love and confidence in me. You will indulge me, and let
-me have my way, won't you? It will be doing more for me, I am sure,
-than I could do for you."
-
-"O no--no--_no!_" said Patty, with a deep breath, but stretching her
-hands with deprecating tenderness towards their guest. "You would
-do everything for us, and we _could_ do nothing for you. You would
-overwhelm us! And not only that; perhaps--perhaps, by-and-bye, you
-would not care about us so much as you do now--we might want to do
-something that you didn't like, something we felt ourselves _obliged_
-to do, however much you disliked it--and if you got vexed with us, or
-tired of us--oh, think what that would be! Think how you would regret
-that you had--had--made us seem to belong to you. And how we should
-hate ourselves."
-
-She looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott with a world of ardent apology in her
-eyes, before which the matron's fell, discouraged and displeased.
-
-"You make me feel that I am an impulsive and romantic girl, and that
-_you_ are the wise old woman of the world," she said with a proud sigh.
-
-But at this, Patty, pierced to the heart, flung her arms round Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's neck, and crushed the most beautiful bonnet in Melbourne
-remorselessly out of shape against her young breast. That settled the
-question, for all practical purposes. Mrs. Duff-Scott went home at six
-o'clock, feeling that she had achieved her purpose, and entered into
-some of the dear privileges of maternity. It was more delightful than
-any "find" of old china. She did not go to sleep until she had talked
-both her husband and herself into a headache with her numerous plans
-for the welfare of her _protégées_, and until she had designed down to
-the smallest detail the most becoming costumes she could think of for
-them to wear, when she took them with her to the Cup.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX.
-
-
-A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION.
-
-
-Paul Brion was wakened from his sleep next morning by the sound of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's carriage wheels and prancing horses, and sauntering to
-his sitting-room window about ten minutes later, had the satisfaction
-of seeing his young neighbours step into the distinguished vehicle and
-drive away. There was Elizabeth reposing by her chaperon's side, as
-serene as a princess who had never set foot on common earth; and there
-were Patty and Eleanor, smiling and animated, lovelier than their wont,
-if that could be, nestling under the shadow of two tall men-servants
-in irreproachable liveries, with cockades upon their hats. It was a
-pretty sight, but it spoiled his appetite for his breakfast. He could
-no longer pretend that he was thankful for the fruition of his desires
-on their behalf. He could only feel that they were gone, and that he
-was left behind--that a great gulf had suddenly opened between them and
-him and the humble and happy circumstances of yesterday, with no bridge
-across it that he could walk over.
-
-The girls, for their part, practically forgot him, and enjoyed the
-difference between to-day and yesterday in the most worldly and
-womanly manner. The sensation of bowling along the streets in a
-perfectly-appointed carriage was as delicious to them as it is to most
-of us who are too poor to indulge in it as a habit; for the time being
-it answered all the purposes of happiness as thoroughly as if they had
-never had any higher ambition than to cut a dash. They went shopping
-with the fairy godmother before they went to the Exhibition, and that,
-too, was absorbingly delightful--both to Elizabeth, who went in with
-Mrs. Duff-Scott to assist her in her purchases, and to the younger
-sisters, who reposed majestically in the carriage at the door. Patty's
-quick eyes caught sight of Mrs. Aarons and a pair of her long-nosed
-children walking on the pavement, and she cheerfully owned herself a
-snob and gloried in it. It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, she said,
-to sit there and look down upon Mrs. Aarons.
-
-As they passed the Melbourne Club on their way to the Exhibition, the
-coachman was hailed by the elder of two gentlemen who were sauntering
-down the steps, and they were introduced for the first time to the
-fairy godmother's husband. Major Duff-Scott, an ex-officer of dragoons
-and a late prominent public man of his colony (he was prominent
-still, but for his social, and not his official qualifications), was
-a well-dressed and well-preserved old gentleman, who, having sown a
-large and miscellaneous crop of wild oats in the course of a long
-career, had been rewarded with great wealth and all the privileges
-of the highest respectability. He had been a prodigal, but he had
-enjoyed it--never knowing the bitterness of either hunger or husks.
-He had tasted dry bread at times, as a matter of course, but only
-just enough of it to give a proper relish to the abundant cakes and
-ale that were his portion; and the proverb which says you cannot eat
-your cake and have it was a perfectly dead letter in his case. He had
-been eating his all his life, and he had got it still. In person he
-was the most gentle-looking little man imaginable--about half the size
-of his imposing wife, thin and spare, and with a little stoop in his
-shoulders; but there was an alertness in his step and a brightness in
-his eye, twinkling remotely between the shadow of his hat brim and a
-bulging mass of white moustache that covered all the lower part of
-his small face, which had suggestions of youth and vigour about them
-that were lacking in the figure and physiognomy of the young man at
-his side. When he came up to the carriage door to be introduced to his
-wife's _protégées_, whom he greeted with as much cordiality as Mrs.
-Duff-Scott could have desired, they did not know why it was that they
-so immediately lost the sense of awe with which they had contemplated
-the approach of a person destined to have so formidable a relation to
-themselves. They shook hands with him, they made modest replies to his
-polite inquiries, they looked beyond his ostensible person to the eyes
-that looked at them; and then their three grave faces relaxed, and in
-half a minute were brimming over with smiles. They felt at home with
-Major Duff-Scott at once.
-
-"Come, come," said the fairy godmother rather impatiently, when
-something like a fine aroma of badinage was beginning to perfume
-the conversation, "you must not stop us now. We want to have a long
-morning. You can join us at the Exhibition presently, if you like,
-and bring Mr. Westmoreland." She indicated the young man who had
-been talking to her while her spouse made the acquaintance of her
-companions, and who happened to be one of the three husbands whom she
-had selected for those young ladies. He was the richest of them all,
-and the most stupid, and therefore he seemed to be cut out for Patty,
-who, being so intellectual and so enterprising, would not only make
-a good use of his money, but would make the best that was to be made
-of _him_. "My dears," she said, turning towards the girls, "let me
-introduce Mr. Westmoreland to you. Mr. Westmoreland, Miss King--Miss
-Eleanor King--Miss _Patty_ King."
-
-The heavy young man made a heavy bow to each, and then stared straight
-at Eleanor, and studied her with calm attention until the carriage bore
-her from his sight. She, with her tender blue eyes and her yellow hair,
-and her skin like the petals of a blush rose, was what he was pleased
-to call, in speaking of her a little later to a confidential friend,
-the "girl for him." Of Patty he took no notice whatever.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to Carlton, stopped to speak to an
-acquaintance who was driving in an opposite direction, and by the time
-she reached the Exhibition, she found that her husband's hansom had
-arrived before her, and that he and Mr. Westmoreland were waiting at
-the entrance to offer their services as escort to the party. The major
-was the best of husbands, but he was not in the habit of paying her
-these small attentions; and Mr. Westmoreland had never been known,
-within her memory of him, to put himself to so much trouble for a
-lady's convenience. Wherefore the fairy godmother smiled upon them
-both, and felt that the Fates were altogether propitious to her little
-schemes. They walked up the pathway in a group, fell necessarily into
-single file in the narrow passage where they received and returned
-their tickets, and collected in a group again under the great dome,
-where they stood to look round on the twenty acres of covered space
-heaped with the treasures of those nations which Victoria welcomed in
-great letters on the walls. Mrs. Duff-Scott hooked her gold-rimmed
-glasses over her nose, and pointed out to her husband wherein the
-building was deficient, and wherein superfluous, in its internal
-arrangements and decorations. In her opinion--which placed the matter
-beyond discussion--the symbolical groups over the arches were all out
-of drawing, the colouring of the whole place vulgar to a degree, and
-the painted clouds inside the cupola enough to make one sick. The
-major endorsed her criticisms, perfunctorily, with amused little nods,
-glancing hither and thither in the directions she desired. "Ah, my
-dear," said he, "you mustn't expect everybody to have such good taste
-as yours." Mr. Westmoreland seemed to have exhausted the Exhibition,
-for his part; he had seen it all the day before, he explained, and he
-did not see what there was to make a fuss about. With the exception
-of some mysteries in the basement, into which he darkly hinted a
-desire to initiate the major presently, it had nothing about it to
-interest a man who, like him, had just returned from Europe and had
-seen the Paris affair. But to our girls it was an enchanted palace of
-delights--far exceeding their most extravagant anticipations. They
-gave no verbal expression to their sentiments, but they looked at each
-other with faces full of exalted emotion, and tacitly agreed that they
-were perfectly satisfied. The fascination of the place, as a storehouse
-of genuine samples of the treasures of that great world which they
-had never seen, laid hold of them with a grip that left a lasting
-impression. Even the _rococo_ magnificence of the architecture and its
-adornments, which Mrs. Duff-Scott, enlightened by a large experience,
-despised, affected their untrained imaginations with all the force of
-the highest artistic sublimity. A longing took possession of them all
-at the same moment to steal back to-morrow--next day--as soon as they
-were free again to follow their own devices--and wander about the great
-and wonderful labyrinth by themselves and revel unobserved in their
-secret enthusiasms.
-
-However, they enjoyed themselves to-day beyond all expectation. After
-skimming the cream of the many sensations offered to them, sauntering
-up and down and round and round through the larger thoroughfares in
-a straggling group, the little party, fixing upon their place of
-rendezvous and lunching arrangements, paired themselves for a closer
-inspection of such works of art as they were severally inclined to.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott kept Patty by her side, partly because Mr. Westmoreland
-did not seem to want her, and partly because the girl was such an
-interesting companion, being wholly absorbed in what she had come
-to see, and full of intelligent appreciation of everything that was
-pointed out to her; and this pair went a-hunting in the wildernesses of
-miscellaneous pottery for such unique and precious "bits" as might be
-secured, on the early bird principle, for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.
-Very soon that lady's card was hanging round the necks of all sorts of
-quaint vessels that she had greedily pounced upon (and which further
-researches proved to be relatively unworthy of notice) in her anxiety
-to outwit and frustrate the birds that would come round presently;
-while Patty was having her first lesson in china, and showing herself a
-delightfully precocious pupil. Mr. Westmoreland confined his attentions
-exclusively to Eleanor, who by-and-bye found herself interested in
-being made so much of, and even inclined to be a little frivolous. She
-did not know whether to take him as a joke or in earnest, but either
-way he was amusing. He strolled heavily along by her side for awhile
-in the wake of Mrs. Duff-Scott and Patty, paying no attention to the
-dazzling wares around him, but a great deal to his companion. He kept
-turning his head to gaze at her, with solemn, ruminating eyes, until at
-last, tired of pretending she did not notice it, she looked back at him
-and laughed. This seemed to put him at his ease with her at once.
-
-"What are you laughing at?" he asked, with more animation than she
-thought him capable of.
-
-"Nothing," said she.
-
-"Oh, but you were laughing at something. What was it? Was it because I
-was staring at you?"
-
-"Well, you _do_ stare," she admitted.
-
-"I can't help it. No one could help staring at you."
-
-"Why? Am I such a curiosity?"
-
-"You know why. Don't pretend you don't."
-
-She blushed at this, making herself look prettier than ever; it was not
-in her to pretend she didn't know--nor yet to pretend that his crude
-flattery displeased her.
-
-"A cat may look at a king," he remarked, his heavy face quite lit up
-with his enjoyment of his own delicate raillery.
-
-"O yes, certainly," she retorted. "But you see I am not a king, and you
-are not a cat."
-
-"'Pon my word, you're awfully sharp," he rejoined, admiringly. And
-he laughed over this little joke at intervals for several minutes.
-Then by degrees they dropped away from their party, and went straying
-up and down the nave _tête-à-tête_ amongst the crowd, looking at the
-exhibits and not much understanding what they looked at; and they
-carried on their conversation in much the same style as they began it,
-with, I grieve to say, considerable mutual enjoyment. By-and-bye Mr.
-Westmoreland took his young companion to the German tent, where the
-Hanau jewels were, by way of giving her the greatest treat he could
-think of. He betted her sixpence that he could tell her which necklace
-she liked the best, and he showed her the several articles (worth
-some thousands of pounds) which he should have selected for his wife,
-had he had a wife--declaring in the same breath that they were very
-poor things in comparison with such and such other things that he had
-seen elsewhere. Then they strolled along the gallery, glancing at the
-pictures as they went, Eleanor making mental notes for future study,
-but finding herself unable to study anything in Mr. Westmoreland's
-company. And then suddenly came a tall figure towards them--a
-gentlemanly man with a brown face and a red moustache--at sight of whom
-she gave a a little start of delighted recognition.
-
-"Hullo!" cried Mr. Westmoreland, "there's old Yelverton, I do declare.
-He _said_ he'd come over to have a look at the Exhibition."
-
-Old Yelverton was no other than "Elizabeth's young man."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX.
-
-
-CHINA V. THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY.
-
-
-Meanwhile, Major Duff-Scott took charge of Elizabeth, and he was
-very well satisfied with the arrangement that left her to his care.
-He always preferred a mature woman to a young girl, as being a more
-interesting and intelligent companion, and he admired her when on a
-generous scale, as is the wont of small men. Elizabeth's frank face
-and simple manners and majestic physical proportions struck him as an
-admirable combination. "A fine woman," he called her, speaking of her
-later to his wife: "reminds me of what you were when I married you,
-my dear." And when he got to know her better he called her "a fine
-creature"--which meant that he recognised other good qualities in her
-besides that of a lofty stature.
-
-As soon as Mrs. Duff-Scott stated her intention of going to see "what
-she could pick up," the major waved his hand and begged that he might
-be allowed to resign all his responsibilities on her behalf. "Buy what
-you like, my dear, buy what you like," he said plaintively, "but don't
-ask me to come and look on while you do it. Take Westmoreland--I'm sure
-he would enjoy it immensely."
-
-"Don't flatter yourselves that I shall ask either of you," retorted his
-wife. "You would be rather in the way than otherwise. I've got Patty."
-
-"Oh, she's got Patty!" he repeated, looking with gentle mournfulness at
-the young lady in question, while his far-off eyes twinkled under his
-hat brim. "I trust you are fond of china, Miss Patty."
-
-"I am fond of _everything_," Patty fervently replied.
-
-"Oh, that's right. You and Mrs. Duff-Scott will get on together
-admirably, I foresee. Come, Miss King"--turning to Elizabeth--"let us
-go and see what _we_ can discover in the way of desirable bric-à-brac.
-We'll have a look at the Murano ware for you, my dear, if you
-like"--again addressing his wife softly--"and come back and tell you
-if there is anything particularly choice. I know they have a lovely
-bonnet there, all made of the sweetest Venetian glass and trimmed with
-blue velvet. But you could take the velvet off, you know, and trim it
-with a mirror. Those wreaths of leaves and flowers, and beautiful pink
-braids--"
-
-"Oh, go along!" she interrupted impatiently. "Elizabeth, take care of
-him, and don't let him buy anything, but see what is there and tell me.
-I'm not going to put any of that modern stuff with my sixteenth century
-cup and bottle," she added, looking at nobody in particular, with a
-sudden brightening of her eyes; "but if there is anything pretty that
-will do for my new cabinet in the morning room--or for the table--I
-should like to have the first choice."
-
-"Very well," assented her husband, meekly. "Come along, Miss King.
-We'll promise not to buy anything." He and Elizabeth then set off on
-their own account, and Elizabeth found herself led straight to the foot
-of a staircase, where the little major offered his arm to assist her in
-the ascent.
-
-"But the Murano Court is not upstairs, is it?" she asked, hesitating.
-
-"O no," he replied; "it is over there," giving a little backward nod.
-
-"And are we not going to look at the glass?"
-
-"Not at present," he said, softly. "That will keep. We'll look at it
-by-and-bye. First, I am going to show you the pictures. You are fond of
-pictures, are you not?"
-
-"I am, indeed."
-
-"Yes, I was certain of it. Come along, then, I can show you a few
-tolerably good ones. Won't you take my arm?"
-
-She took his arm, as he seemed to expect it, though it would have
-been more reasonable if he had taken hers; and they marched upstairs,
-slowly, in face of the crowd that was coming down.
-
-"My wife," said the major, sententiously, "is one of the best women
-that ever breathed."
-
-"I am _sure_ she is," assented Elizabeth, with warmth.
-
-"No," he said, "_you_ can't be sure; that is why I tell you. I have
-known her a long time, and experience has proved it to me. She is one
-of the best women that ever lived. But she has her faults. I think I
-ought to warn you, Miss King, that she has her faults."
-
-"I think you ought not," said Elizabeth, with instinctive propriety.
-
-"Yes," he went on, "it is a point of honour. I owe it to you, as the
-head of my house--the nominal head, you understand--the responsible
-head--not to let you labour under any delusion respecting us. It
-is best that you should know the truth at once. Mrs. Duff-Scott is
-_energetic_. She is fearfully, I may say abnormally, energetic."
-
-"I think," replied Elizabeth, with decision, "that that is one of the
-finest qualities in the world."
-
-"Ah, do you?" he rejoined sadly. "That is because you are young. I
-used to think so, too, when I was young. But I don't now--experience
-has taught me better. What I object to in my wife is that experience
-doesn't teach her anything. She _won't_ learn. She persists in keeping
-all her youthful illusions, in the most obstinate and unjustifiable
-manner."
-
-Here they reached the gallery and the pictures, but the major saw two
-empty chairs, and, sitting down on one of them, bade his companion
-rest herself on the other until she had recovered from the fatigue of
-getting upstairs.
-
-"There is no hurry," he said wearily; "we have plenty of time." And
-then he looked at her with that twinkle in his eye, and said gently,
-"Miss King, you are very musical, I hear. Is that a fact?"
-
-"We are very, very fond of music," she said, smiling. "It is rather a
-hobby with us, I think."
-
-"A hobby! Ah, that's delightful. I'm so glad it is a hobby. You don't,
-by happy chance, play the violin, do you?"
-
-"No. We only know the piano."
-
-"You all play the piano?--old masters, and that sort of thing?"
-
-"Yes. My sister Patty plays best. Her touch and expression are
-beautiful."
-
-"Ah!" he exclaimed again, softly, as if with much inward satisfaction.
-He was sitting languidly on his chair, nursing his knee, and gazing
-through the balustrade of the gallery upon the crowd below. Elizabeth
-was on the point of suggesting that they might now go and look at the
-pictures, when he began upon a fresh topic.
-
-"And about china, Miss King? Tell me, do you know anything about china?"
-
-"I'm afraid not," said Elizabeth.
-
-"You don't know the difference between Chelsea and Derby-Chelsea, for
-instance?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Nor between old Majolica and modern?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Nor between a Limoges enamel of the sixteenth century--everything
-_good_ belongs to the sixteenth century, you must remember--and what
-they call Limoges now-a-days?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Ah, well, I think very few people do," said the major, resignedly.
-"But, at any rate"--speaking in a tone of encouragement--"you _do_ know
-Sèvres and Dresden when you see them?--you could tell one of _them_
-from the other?"
-
-"Really," Elizabeth replied, beginning to blush for her surpassing
-ignorance, "I am very sorry to have to confess it, but I don't believe
-I could."
-
-The major softly unclasped his knees and leaned back in his chair, and
-sighed.
-
-"But I could learn," suggested Elizabeth.
-
-"Ah, so you can," he responded, brightening. "You can learn, of course.
-_Will_ you learn? You can't think what a favour it would be to me if
-you would learn. Do promise me that you will."
-
-"No, I will not promise. I should do it to please myself--and, of
-course, because it is a thing that Mrs. Duff-Scott takes an interest
-in," said Elizabeth.
-
-"That is just what I mean. It is _because_ Mrs. Duff-Scott takes such
-an interest in china that I want you to cultivate a taste for it.
-You see it is this way," he proceeded argumentatively, again, still
-clasping his knees, and looking up at her with a quaint smile from
-under his hat brim. "I will be frank with you, Miss King--it is this
-way. I want to induce you to enter into an alliance with me, offensive
-and defensive, against that terrible energy which, as I said, is my
-wife's alarming characteristic. For her own good, you understand--for
-my comfort incidentally, but for her own good in the first place, I
-want you to help me to keep her energy within bounds. As long as she
-is happy with music and china we shall be all right, but if she goes
-beyond things of that sort--well, I tremble for the consequences. They
-would be fatal--fatal!"
-
-"Where are you afraid she should go to?" asked Elizabeth.
-
-"I am afraid she should go into _philanthropy_," the major solemnly
-rejoined. "That is the bug-bear--the spectre--the haunting terror of
-my life. I never see a seedy man in a black frock coat, nor an elderly
-female in spectacles, about the house or speaking to my wife in the
-street, that I don't shake in my shoes--literally shake in my shoes, I
-do assure you. I can't think how it is that she has never taken up the
-Cause of Humanity," he proceeded reflectively. "If we had not settled
-down in Australia, she _must_ have done it--she could not have helped
-herself. But even here she is beset with temptations. _I_ can see them
-in every direction. I can't think how it is that she doesn't see them
-too."
-
-"No doubt she sees them," said Elizabeth.
-
-"O no, she does not. The moment she sees them--the moment she casts
-a serious eye upon them--that moment she will be a lost woman, and I
-shall be a desperate man."
-
-The major shuddered visibly, and Elizabeth laughed at his distress.
-"Whenever it happens that Mrs. Duff-Scott goes into philanthropy," she
-said, a little in joke and a great deal in earnest, "I shall certainly
-be proud to accompany her, if she will have me." And, as she spoke,
-there flashed into her mind some idea of the meaning of certain little
-sentences that were breathed into her ear yesterday. The major talked
-on as before, and she tried to attend to what he said, but she found
-herself thinking less of him now than of her unknown friend--less
-occupied with the substantial figures upon the stage of action around
-her than with the delusive scene-painting in the background of her own
-imagination. Beyond the crowd that flowed up and down the gallery, she
-saw a dim panorama of other crowds--phantom crowds--that gradually
-absorbed her attention. They were in the streets of Cologne, looking
-up at those mighty walls and towers that had been six centuries
-a-building, shouting and shaking hands with each other; and in the
-midst of them _he_ was standing, grave and critical, observing their
-excitement and finding it "pathetic"--nothing more. They were in
-London streets in the early daylight--daylight at half-past three
-in the morning! that was a strange thing to think of--a "gentle and
-good-humoured" mob, yet full of tragic interest for the philosopher
-watching its movements, listening to its talk, speculating upon its
-potential value in the sum of humankind. It was the typical crowd that
-he was in the habit of studying--not like the people who thronged
-the Treasury steps this time yesterday. Surely it was the _Cause of
-Humanity_ that had laid hold of _him_. That was the explanation of the
-interest he took in some crowds, and of the delight that he found in
-the uninterestingness of others. That was what he meant when he told
-her she ought to read Thackeray's paper to help her to understand him.
-
-Pondering over this thought, fitfully, amid the distractions of the
-conversation, she raised her head and saw Eleanor coming towards her.
-
-"There's Westmoreland and your sister," said the major. "And one of
-those strangers who are swarming all about the place just now, and
-crowding us out of our club. It's Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton he
-calls himself. He is rather a swell when he's at home, they tell me;
-but Westmoreland has no business to foist his acquaintance on your
-sister. He'll have my wife about him if he is not more careful than
-that."
-
-Elizabeth saw them approaching, and forgot all about the crowd under
-Cologne Cathedral and the crowd that went to see the man hanged.
-She remembered only the crowd of yesterday, and how that stately
-gentleman--could it be possible?--had stood with her amid the crush and
-clamour, holding her in his arms. For the first time she was able to
-look at him fairly and see what he was like; and it seemed to her that
-she had never seen a man of such a noble presence. His eyes were fixed
-upon her as she raised hers to his face, regarding her steadily, but
-with inscrutable gravity and absolute respect. The major rose to salute
-him in response to Mr. Westmoreland's rather imperious demand. "My old
-friend, whom I met in Paris," said Mr. Westmoreland; "come over to have
-a look at us. Want you to know him, major. We must do our best to make
-him enjoy himself, you know."
-
-"Didn't I tell you?" whispered Eleanor, creeping round the back of her
-sister's chair. "Didn't I tell you he would be here?"
-
-And at the same moment Elizabeth heard some one murmur over her head,
-"Miss King, allow me to introduce Mr. Yelverton--my friend, whom I knew
-in Paris--"
-
-And so he and she not only met again, but received Mrs. Grundy's
-gracious permission to make each other's acquaintance.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI.
-
-
-THE "CUP."
-
-
-Out of the many Cup Days that have gladdened the hearts of countless
-holiday-makers on the Flemington course assembled, perhaps that of
-1880 was the most "all round" satisfactory and delightful to everybody
-concerned--except the bookmakers, and nobody grieves much over their
-disasters (though there are several legitimate and highly respected
-lines of business that are conducted on precisely the same system as
-governs their nefarious practices). It was, indeed, considered that
-the discomfiture of the bookmakers was a part of the brilliant success
-of the occasion. In the capricious spring-time of the year, when cold
-winds, or hot winds, or storms of rain, or clouds of dust, might any of
-them have been expected, this second of November displayed a perfect
-pattern of the boasted Australian climate to the foreigners of all
-nations who had been invited to enjoy it--a sweet blue sky, a fresh and
-delicate air, a broad glow of soft and mellow sunshine, of a quality
-to sufficiently account for the holiday-making propensities of the
-Australian people, and for the fascination that draws them home, in
-spite of all intentions to the contrary, when they have gone to look
-for happiness in other lands. The great racing-ground was in its finest
-order, the running track sanded and rolled, the lawns watered to a
-velvet greenness, the promenade level and speckless and elastic to the
-feet as a ball-room floor; and by noon more than a hundred thousand
-spectators, well-dressed and well-to-do--so orderly in their coming
-and going, and when congregated in solid masses together, that the
-policeman, though doubtless ubiquitous, was forgotten--were waiting
-to see the triumph of Grand Flâneur. At which time, and throughout
-the afternoon, Melbourne city was as a city of the dead; shops and
-warehouses deserted, and the empty streets echoing to a passing
-footfall with the hollow distinctness of midnight or the early hours of
-Sunday morning.
-
-While a full half of the crowd was being conveyed to the course by
-innumerable trains, the sunny road was alive with vehicles of every
-description--spring-carts and lorries, cabs and buggies, broughams
-and landaus, and four-in-hand coaches--all filled to their utmost
-capacity, and displaying the sweetest things in bonnets and parasols.
-And amongst the best-appointed carriages Major Duff-Scott's was
-conspicuous, not only for its build and finish, and the excellence of
-the horses that drew it, and the fit of the livery of the coachman
-who drove it, but for the beauty and charming costumes of the ladies
-inside. The major himself, festive in light grey, with his member's
-card in his button-hole and his field-glass slung over his shoulder,
-occupied the place of the usual footman on the box seat in order that
-all the three sisters should accompany his wife; and Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-having set her heart on dressing her girls for the occasion, had been
-allowed to have her own way, with the happiest results. The good woman
-sat back in her corner, forgetting her own Parisian elegance and how
-it would compare with the Cup Day elegance of rival matrons in the
-van of rank and fashion, while she revelled in the contemplation of
-the young pair before her, on whom her best taste had been exercised.
-Elizabeth, by her side, was perfectly satisfactory in straw-coloured
-Indian silk, ruffled with some of her own fine old lace, and wearing
-a delicate French bonnet and parasol to match, with a bunch of
-Camille de Rohan roses at her throat for colour; but Elizabeth was
-not a striking beauty, nor of a style to be experimented on. Patty
-and Eleanor were; and they had been "treated" accordingly. Patty was
-a harmony in pink--the faintest shell-pink--and Eleanor a study in
-the softest, palest shade of china-blue; both their dresses being of
-muslin, lightly frilled, and tied round the waist with sashes; while
-they wore bewitching little cap-like bonnets, with swathes of tulle
-under their chins. The effect--designed for a sunny morning, and to
-be set off by the subdued richness of her own olive-tinted robes--was
-all that Mrs. Duff-Scott anticipated. The two girls were exquisitely
-sylph-like, and harmonious, and refined--looking prettier than they had
-ever done in their lives, because they knew themselves that they were
-looking so--and it was confidently expected by their chaperon that they
-would do considerable execution before the day was over. At the back
-of the carriage was strapped a hamper containing luncheon sufficient
-for all the potential husbands that the racecourse might produce, and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was prepared to exercise discriminating but extensive
-hospitality.
-
-It was not more than eleven o'clock when they entered the carriage
-enclosure and were landed at the foot of the terrace steps, and already
-more carriages than one would have imagined the combined colonies could
-produce were standing empty and in close order in the paddock on one
-hand, while on the other the grand stand was packed from end to end.
-Lawn and terrace were swarming with those brilliant toilets which are
-the feature of our great annual _fête_ day, and the chief subject of
-interest in the newspapers of the day after.
-
-"Dear me, what a crowd!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott, as her horses drew
-up on the smooth gravel, and she glanced eagerly up the steps. "We
-shall not be able to find anyone."
-
-But they had no sooner alighted and shaken out their skirts than
-down from the terrace stepped Mr. Westmoreland, the first and most
-substantial instalment of expected cavaliers, to assist the major to
-convoy his party to the field. Mr. Westmoreland was unusually alert
-and animated, and he pounced upon Eleanor, after hurriedly saluting
-the other ladies, with such an open preference that Mrs. Duff-Scott
-readjusted her schemes upon the spot. If the young man insisted upon
-choosing the youngest instead of the middle one, he must be allowed to
-do so, was the matron's prompt conclusion. She would rather have begun
-at the top and worked downwards, leaving fair Eleanor to be disposed of
-after the elder sisters were settled; but she recognised the wisdom of
-taking the goods the gods provided as she could get them.
-
-"I do declare," said Mr. Westmoreland, looking straight at the girl's
-face, framed in the soft little bonnet, and the pale blue disc of her
-parasol, "I do declare I never saw anybody look so--so--"
-
-"Come, come," interrupted the chaperon, "I don't allow speeches of
-that sort." She spoke quite sharply, this astute diplomatist, so that
-the young man who was used to being allowed, and even encouraged, to
-make speeches of that sort, experienced the strange sensation of being
-snubbed, and was half inclined to be sulky over it; and at the same
-moment she quietly seconded his manoeuvres to get to Eleanor's side,
-and took care that he had his chances generally for the rest of the day.
-
-They joined the two great streams of gorgeous promenaders slowly pacing
-up and down the long green lawn. Every seat in the stand was occupied
-and the gangways and gallery so tightly packed that when the Governor
-arrived presently, driving his own four-in-hand, with the Duke of
-Manchester beside him, there was some difficulty in squeezing out a
-path whereby he and his party might ascend to their box. But there were
-frequent benches on the grass, and it was of far more consequence to
-have freedom to move and display one's clothes, and opportunities of
-meeting one's friends, and observing the social aspect of the affair
-generally, than it was to see the racing to the best advantage--since
-one had to choose between the two. At least, that was understood to
-be the opinion of the ladies present; and Cup Day, notwithstanding
-its tremendous issues, is a ladies' day. The major, than whom no man
-better loved a first-class race, had had a good time at the Derby on
-the previous Saturday, and looked forward to enjoying himself as a man
-and a sportsman when Saturday should come again; but to-day, though
-sharing a warm interest in the great event with those who thronged
-the betting and saddling paddock, he meekly gave himself up to be his
-wife's attendant and to help her to entertain her _protégées_. He did
-not find this task a hard one, nor wanting in abundant consolations. He
-took off Elizabeth, in the first place, to show her the arrangements
-of the course, of which, by virtue of the badge in his button-hole, he
-was naturally proud; and it pleased him to meet his friends at every
-step, and to note the grave respect with which they saluted him out of
-compliment to the lady at his side--obviously wondering who was that
-fine creature with Duff-Scott. He showed her the scratching-house, with
-its four-faced clock in its tall tower, and made erasures on his own
-card and hers from the latest corrected lists that it displayed; and he
-taught her the rudiments of betting as practised by her sex. Then he
-initiated her into the mysteries of the electric bells and telegraphs,
-and all the other V.R.C. appliances for conducting business in an
-enlightened manner; showed her the bookmakers noisily pursuing their
-ill-fated enterprises; showed her the beautiful horses pacing up and
-down and round and round, fresh and full of enthusiasm for their day's
-work. And he had much satisfaction in her intelligent and cheerful
-appreciation of these new experiences.
-
-Meanwhile Mrs. Duff-Scott, in the care of Mr. Westmoreland, awaited
-their return on the lawn, slowly sweeping to and fro, with her train
-rustling over the grass behind her, and feeling that she had never
-enjoyed a Cup Day half so much before. Her girls were admired to her
-heart's content, and she literally basked in the radiance of their
-success. She regarded them, indeed, with an enthusiasm of affection and
-interest that her husband felt to be the most substantial safeguard
-against promiscuous philanthropy that had yet been afforded her. How
-hungrily had she longed for children of her own! How she had envied
-other women their grown-up daughters!--always with the sense that hers
-would have been, like her cabinets of china, so much more choice and
-so much better "arranged" than theirs. And now that she had discovered
-these charming orphans, who had beauty, and breeding, and culture,
-and not a relative or connection in the world, she did not know how
-to restrain the extravagance of her satisfaction. As she rustled
-majestically up and down the lawn, with one fair girl on one side of
-her and one on the other, while men and women turned at every step to
-stare at them, her heart swelled and throbbed with the long-latent
-pride of motherhood, and a sense that she had at last stumbled upon
-the particular "specimen" that she had all her life been hunting for.
-The only drawback to her enjoyment in them was the consciousness that,
-though they were nobody else's, they were not altogether hers. She
-would have given half her fortune to be able to buy them, as she would
-buy three bits of precious crockery, for her absolute possession, body
-and soul--to dress, to manage, to marry as she liked.
-
-The major kept Elizabeth walking about with him until the hour
-approached for the Maiden Plate race and luncheon. And when at last
-they joined their party they found that Mrs. Duff-Scott was already
-getting together her guests for the latter entertainment. She was
-seated on a bench, between Eleanor and Patty, and before her stood a
-group of men, in various attitudes of animation and repose, conspicuous
-amongst whom was the tall form of Mr. Kingscote Yelverton. Elizabeth
-had only had distant glimpses of him during the four weeks that had
-passed since he was introduced to her, her chaperon not having seemed
-inclined to cultivate his acquaintance--probably because she had not
-sought it for herself; but now the girl saw, with a quickened pulse,
-that the happiness of speaking to him again was in store for her. He
-seemed to be aware of her approach as soon as she was within sight,
-and lifted his head and turned to watch her--still sustaining his
-dialogue with Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had singled him out to talk to; and
-Elizabeth, feeling his eyes upon her, had a sudden sense of discomfort
-in her beautiful dress and her changed surroundings. She was sure that
-he would draw comparisons, and she did not feel herself elevated by the
-new dignities that had been conferred upon her.
-
-Coming up to her party, she was introduced to several
-strangers--amongst others, to the husband Mrs. Duff-Scott had selected
-for her, a portly widower with a grey beard--and in the conversation
-that ensued she quite ignored the only person in the group of whose
-presence she was distinctly conscious. She neither looked at him nor
-spoke to him, though aware of every word and glance and movement of
-his; until presently they were all standing upon the slope of grass
-connecting the terrace with the lawn to see the first race as best
-they could, and then she found herself once more by his side. And not
-only by his side, but, as those who could not gain a footing upon the
-stand congregated upon the terrace elevation, gradually wedged against
-him almost as tightly as on the former memorable occasion. Below them
-stood Mrs. Duff-Scott, protected by Mr. Westmoreland, and Patty and
-Eleanor, guarded vigilantly by the little major. It was Mr. Yelverton
-himself who had quietly seen and seized upon his chance of renewing his
-original relations with Elizabeth.
-
-"Miss King," he said, in a low tone of authority, "take my arm--it will
-steady you."
-
-She took his arm, and felt at once that she was in shelter and safety.
-Strong as she was, her impulse to lean on him was almost irresistible.
-
-"Now, give me your parasol," he said. The noonday sun was pouring down,
-but at this critical juncture the convenience of the greatest number
-had to be considered, and unselfish women were patiently exposing their
-best complexions to destruction. Of course Elizabeth declared she
-should do very well until the race was over. Whereupon her companion
-took her parasol gently from her hand, opened it, and held it--as from
-his great height he was able to do--so that it shaded her without
-incommoding other people. And so they stood, in silent enjoyment,
-both thinking of where and how something like this--and yet something
-so very different--had happened before, but neither of them saying a
-word to betray their thoughts, until the first race was run, and the
-excitement of it cooled down, and they were summoned by Mrs. Duff-Scott
-to follow her to the carriage-paddock for lunch.
-
-Down on the lawn again they sauntered side by side, finding themselves
-_tête-à-tête_ without listeners for the first time since they had been
-introduced to each other. Elizabeth made a tremendous effort to ignore
-the secret intimacy between them. "It is a lovely day, is it not?" she
-lightly remarked, from under the dome of her straw-coloured parasol. "I
-don't think there has been such a fine Cup Day for years."
-
-"Lovely," he assented. "Have you often been here before?"
-
-"I?--oh, no. I have never been here before."
-
-He was silent a moment, while he looked intently at what he could see
-of her. She had no air of rustic inexperience of the world to-day. "You
-are beginning to understand crowds," he said.
-
-"Yes--I am, a little." Then, glancing up at him, she said, "How does
-_this_ crowd affect you? Do you find it all interesting?"
-
-He met her eyes gravely, and then lifted his own towards the hill above
-the grand stand, which was now literally black with human beings, like
-a swarming ant-hill.
-
-"I think it might be more interesting up yonder," he said; and then
-added, after a pause--"if we could be there."
-
-Eleanor was walking just in front of them, chatting airily with her
-admirer, Mr. Westmoreland, who certainly was making no secret of
-his admiration; and she turned round when she heard this. "Ah, Mr.
-Yelverton," she said, lightly, "you are very disappointing. You don't
-care for our great Flemington show. You are not a connoisseur in
-ladies' dresses, I suppose."
-
-"I know when a lady's dress is becoming, Miss Eleanor," he promptly
-responded, with a smile and bow. At which she blushed and laughed, and
-turned her back again. For the moment he was a man like other men who
-enjoy social success and favour--ready to be all things to all women;
-but it was only for the moment. Elizabeth noted, with a swelling sense
-of pride and pleasure, that he was not like that to her.
-
-"I am out of my element in an affair of this kind," he said, in the
-undertone that was meant for her ear alone.
-
-"What is your element?"
-
-"Perhaps I oughtn't to call it my element--the groove I have got
-into--my 'walk of life,' so to speak."
-
-"Yes?"
-
-"I'll tell you about it some day--if I ever get the chance. I can't
-here."
-
-"I should like to know. And I can guess a little. You don't spend life
-wholly in getting pleasure for yourself--you help others."
-
-"What makes you think that?"
-
-"I am sure of it."
-
-"Thank you."
-
-Elizabeth blushed, and could not think of a remark to make, though she
-tried hard.
-
-"Just at present," he went on, "I am on pleasure bent entirely. I am
-taking several months' holiday--doing nothing but amusing myself."
-
-"A holiday implies work."
-
-"I suppose we all work, more or less."
-
-"Oh, no, we don't. Not voluntarily--not disinterestedly--in that way."
-
-"You mean in my way?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Ah, I see that Westmoreland has been romancing."
-
-"I have not heard a word from Mr. Westmoreland--he has never spoken of
-you to me."
-
-"Who, then?"
-
-"Nobody."
-
-"These are your own conjectures?"
-
-She made no reply, and they crossed the gravelled drive and entered the
-labyrinth of carriages where the major's servants had prepared luncheon
-in and around his own spacious vehicle, which was in a position to
-lend itself to commissariat purposes. They all assembled there, the
-ladies in the carriage, the gentlemen outside, and napkins and plates
-were handed round and champagne uncorked; and they ate and drank
-together, and were a very cheerful party. Mr. Yelverton contributed
-witty nothings to the general entertainment--with so much happy tact
-that Mrs. Duff-Scott was charmed with him, and said afterwards that
-she had never met a man with finer manners. While the other men waited
-upon their hostess and the younger sisters, he stood for the most part
-quietly at Elizabeth's elbow, joining freely in the badinage round him
-without once addressing her--silently replenishing her plate and her
-glass when either required it with an air of making her his special
-charge that was too unobtrusive to attract outside attention, but
-which was more eloquent than any verbal intercourse could have been to
-themselves. Elizabeth attempted no analysis of her sweet and strange
-sensations. She took them from his hand, as she took her boned turkey
-and champagne, without question or protest. She only felt that she was
-happy and satisfied as she had never been before.
-
-Later in the afternoon, when the great Cup race and all the excitement
-of the day was over, Mrs. Duff-Scott gathered her brood together and
-took leave of her casual male guests.
-
-"_Good_-bye, Mr. Yelverton," she said cordially, when his turn came to
-bid her adieu; "you will come and see me at my own house, I hope?"
-
-Elizabeth looked up at him when she heard the words. She could not
-help it--she did not know what she did. And in her eyes he read the
-invitation that he declared gravely he would do himself the honour to
-accept.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII.
-
-
-CROSS PURPOSES.
-
-
-While Elizabeth was thus happily absorbed in her "young man," and
-Eleanor making an evident conquest of Mr. Westmoreland, Patty, who was
-rather accustomed to the lion's share of whatever interesting thing
-was going on, had very little enjoyment. For the first hour or two she
-was delighted with the beauty of the scene and the weather and her own
-personal circumstances, and she entered into the festive spirit of the
-day with the ardour of her energetic temperament. But in a little while
-the glamour faded. A serpent revealed itself in Paradise, and all her
-innocent pleasure was at an end.
-
-That serpent was Mrs. Aarons. Or, rather, it was a hydra-headed
-monster, consisting of Mrs. Aarons and Paul Brion combined. Poor Paul
-had come to spend a holiday afternoon at the races like everybody
-else, travelling to the course by train along with the undistinguished
-multitude, with the harmless intention of recruiting his mind, and, at
-the same time, storing it with new impressions. He had meant to enjoy
-himself in a quiet and independent fashion, strolling amongst the crowd
-and studying its various aspects from the point of view of a writer
-for the press to whom men and women are "material" and "subjects," and
-then to go home as soon as the Cup race was over, and, after an early
-dinner, to spend a peaceful solitary evening, embodying the results of
-his observations in a brilliant article for his newspaper. But, before
-he had well thought out the plan of his paper, he encountered Mrs.
-Aarons; and to her he was a helpless captive for the whole live-long
-afternoon. Mrs. Aarons had come to the course in all due state, attired
-in one of the few real amongst the many reputed Worth dresses of the
-day, and reclining in her own landau, with her long-nosed husband
-at her side. But after her arrival, having lost the shelter of her
-carriage, and being amongst the many who were shut out from the grand
-stand, she had felt just a little unprotected and uncared-for. The
-first time she stopped to speak to a friend, Mr. Aarons took the
-opportunity to slip off to the saddling paddock, where the astute
-speculator was speedily absorbed in a more congenial occupation than
-that of idling up and down the promenade; and the other gentlemen who
-were so assiduous in their attendance upon her in the ordinary way
-had their own female relatives to look after on this extraordinary
-occasion. She joined one set and then another of casual acquaintances
-whom she chanced to meet, but her hold upon them all was more or less
-precarious; so that when by-and-bye she saw Paul Brion, threading his
-way alone amongst the throng, she pounced upon him thankfully, and
-confided herself to his protection. Paul had no choice but to accept
-the post of escort assigned to him under such circumstances, nor was
-he at all unwilling to become her companion. He had been rather out
-in the cold lately. Patty, though nominally at home in Myrtle Street,
-had been practically living with Mrs. Duff-Scott for the last few
-weeks, and he had scarcely had a glimpse of her, and he had left off
-going to Mrs. Aarons's Fridays since the evening that she snubbed him
-for Patty's sake. The result was that he was in a mood to appreciate
-women's society and to be inclined to melt when the sunshine of his old
-friend's favour was poured upon him again.
-
-They greeted each other amicably, therefore, and made up the intangible
-quarrel that was between them. Mrs. Aarons justified her reputation as
-a clever woman by speedily causing him to regard her as the injured
-party, and to wonder how he could have been such a brute as to wound
-her tender susceptibilities as he had done. She insinuated, with
-the utmost tact, that she had suffered exceedingly from the absence
-of his society, and was evidently in a mood to revive the slightly
-sentimental intercourse that he had not found disagreeable in earlier
-days. Paul, however, was never less inclined to be sentimental in her
-company than he was to-day, in spite of his cordial disposition. He
-was changed from what he was in those earlier days; he felt it as soon
-as she began to talk to him, and perfectly understood the meaning of
-it. After a little while she felt, too, that he was changed, and she
-adapted herself to him accordingly. They fell into easy chat as they
-strolled up and down, and were very friendly in a harmless way. They
-did not discuss their private feelings at all, but only the topics that
-were in every-day use--the weather, the races, the trial of Ned Kelly,
-the wreck of the Sorata, the decay of Berryism--anything that happened
-to come into their heads or to be suggested by the scene around them.
-Nevertheless, they had a look of being very intimate with each other
-to the superficial eye of Mrs. Grundy. People with nothing better to
-do stared at them as they meandered in and out amongst the crowd, he
-and she _tête-à-tête_ by their solitary selves; and those who knew they
-were legally unrelated were quick to discover a want of conventional
-discretion in their behaviour. Mrs. Duff-Scott, for instance, who
-abhorred scandal, made use of them to point a delicate moral for the
-edification of her girls.
-
-Paul, who was a good talker, was giving his companion an animated
-account of the French plays going on at one of the theatres just
-then--which she had not yet been to see--and describing with great
-warmth the graceful and finished acting of charming Madame Audrée,
-when he was suddenly aware of Patty King passing close beside him.
-Patty was walking at her chaperon's side, with her head erect, and her
-white parasol, with its pink lining, held well back over her shoulder,
-a vision of loveliness in her diaphanous dress. He caught his breath
-at sight of her, looking so different from her ordinary self, and was
-about to raise his hat, when--to his deep dismay and surprise--she
-swept haughtily past him, meeting his eyes fairly, with a cold disdain,
-but making no sign of recognition.
-
-The blood rushed into his face, and he set his teeth, and walked on
-silently, not seeing where he went. For a moment he felt stunned with
-the shock. Then he was brought to himself by a harsh laugh from Mrs.
-Aarons. "Dear me," said she, in a high tone, "the Miss Kings have
-become so grand that we are beneath their notice. You and I are not
-good enough for them now, Mr. Brion. We must hide our diminished heads."
-
-"I see," he assented, with savage quietness. "Very well. I am quite
-ready to hide mine."
-
-Meanwhile Patty, at the farther end of the lawn, was overwhelmed
-with remorse for what she had done. At the first sight of him, in
-close intercourse with that woman who, Mrs. Duff-Scott again reminded
-her, was not "nice"--who, though a wife and mother, liked men to
-"dangle" round her--she had arraigned and judged and sentenced him
-with the swift severity of youth, that knows nothing of the complex
-trials and sufferings which teach older people to bear and forbear
-with one another. But when it was over, and she had seen his shocked
-and bewildered face, all her instinctive trust in him revived, and
-she would have given anything to be able to make reparation for her
-cruelty. The whole afternoon she was looking for him, hoping for a
-chance to show him somehow that she did not altogether "mean it," but,
-though she saw him several times--eating his lunch with Mrs. Aarons
-under the refreshment shed close by the Duff-Scott carriage, watching
-Grand Flâneur win the greatest of his half-dozen successive victories
-from the same point of view as that taken by the Duff-Scott party--he
-never turned his head again in her direction or seemed to have the
-faintest consciousness that she was there.
-
-And next day, when no longer in her glorious apparel, but walking
-quietly home from the Library with Eleanor, she met him unexpectedly,
-face to face, in the Fitzroy Gardens. And then _he_ cut _her_--dead.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII.
-
-
-MR. YELVERTON'S MISSION.
-
-
-On a Thursday evening in the race week--two days after the "Cup,"
-Mrs. Duff-Scott took her girls to the Town Hall to one of a series of
-concerts that were given at that time by Henri Ketten, the Hungarian
-pianist, and the Austrian band that had come out to Melbourne to give
-_éclat_ to the Exhibition.
-
-It was a fine clear night, and the great hall was full when they
-arrived, notwithstanding the fact that half-a-dozen theatres were
-open and displaying their most attractive novelties, for music-loving
-souls are pretty numerous in this part of the world, taking all things
-into consideration. Australians may not have such an enlightened
-appreciation of high-class music as, say, the educated Viennese,
-who live and breathe and have their being in it. There are, indeed,
-sad instances on record of a great artist, or a choice combination
-of artists, having appealed in vain for sympathy to the Melbourne
-public--that is to say, having found not numbers of paying and
-applauding listeners, but only a select and fervent few. But such
-instances are rare, and to be accounted for as the result, not of
-indifference, but of inexperience. The rule is--as I think most of
-our distinguished musical visitors will testify--that we are a people
-peculiarly ready to recognise whatever is good that comes to us, and
-to acknowledge and appreciate it with ungrudging generosity. And so
-the Austrian band, though it had many critics, never played to a thin
-audience or to inattentive ears; and no city in Europe (according
-to his own death-bed testimony) ever offered such incense of loving
-enthusiasm to Ketten's genius as burnt steadily in Melbourne from the
-moment that he laid his fingers on the keyboard, at the Opera House,
-until he took his reluctant departure. This, I hasten to explain (lest
-I should be accused of "blowing"), is not due to any exceptional virtue
-of discrimination on our part, but to our good fortune in having
-inherited an enterprising and active intelligence from the brave men
-who had the courage and energy to make a new country, and to that
-country being such a land of plenty that those who live in it have easy
-times and abundant leisure to enjoy themselves.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott sailed into the hall, with her girls around her, and
-many eyes were turned to look at them and to watch their progress to
-their seats. By this time "the pretty Miss Kings" had become well-known
-and much talked about, and the public interest in what they wore,
-and what gentlemen were in attendance on them, was apt to be keen on
-these occasions. To-night the younger girls, with their lovely hair
-lifted from their white necks and coiled high at the back of their
-heads, wore picturesque flowered gowns of blue and white stuff, while
-the elder sister was characteristically dignified in black. And the
-gentlemen in attendance upon them were Mr. Westmoreland, still devoted
-to Eleanor, and the portly widower, whom Mrs. Duff-Scott had intended
-for Elizabeth, but who was perversely addicted to Patty. The little
-party took their places in the body of the hall, in preference to the
-gallery, and seated themselves in two rows of three--the widower behind
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, Patty next him behind Eleanor, and Elizabeth behind
-Mr. Westmoreland. And when the concert began there was an empty chair
-beside Elizabeth.
-
-By-and-bye, when the overture was at an end--when the sonorous tinkling
-and trumpeting of the orchestra had ceased, and she was listening, in
-soft rapture, to Ketten's delicate improvisation, at once echo and
-prelude, reminiscent of the idea that the band had been elaborating,
-and prophetic of the beautiful Beethoven sonata that he was thus
-tenderly approaching, Elizabeth was aware that the empty chair was
-taken, and knew, without turning her head, by whom. She tried not to
-blush and feel fluttered--she was too old, she told herself, for that
-nonsense--but for half a minute or so it was an effort to control
-these sentimental tendencies. He laid his light overcoat over the back
-of his chair, and sat down quietly. Mrs. Duff-Scott looked over her
-shoulder, and gave him a pleasant nod. Mr. Westmoreland said, "Hullo!
-Got back again?" And then Elizabeth felt sufficiently composed to turn
-and hold out her hand, which he took in a strong clasp that was not
-far removed from a squeeze. They did not speak to each other; nor did
-they look at each other, though Mr. Yelverton was speedily informed of
-all the details of his neighbour's appearance, and she took no time to
-ascertain that he looked particularly handsome in his evening dress
-(but _she_ always thought him handsome; big nose, leather cheeks, red
-moustache, and all), and that his well-cut coat and trousers were not
-in their first freshness. Then the concert went on as before--but
-not as before--and they sat side by side and listened. Elizabeth's
-programme lay on her knee, and he took it up to study it, and laid it
-lightly on her knee again. Presently she pointed to one and another of
-the selections on the list, about which she had her own strong musical
-feelings, and he looked down at them and nodded, understanding what
-she meant. And again they sat back in their chairs, and gazed serenely
-at the stage under the great organ, at Herr Wildner cutting the air
-with his baton, or at poor Ketten, with his long, white, solemn face,
-sitting at the piano in a bower of votive wreaths and bouquets, raining
-his magic finger-tips like a sparkling cascade upon the keyboard,
-and wrinkling the skin of his forehead up and down. But they had no
-audible conversation throughout the whole performance. When, between
-the two divisions of the programme, the usual interval occurred for the
-relaxation and refreshment of the performers and their audience, Mr.
-Westmoreland turned round, with his elbow over the back of his chair,
-and appropriated an opportunity to which they had secretly been looking
-forward. "So you've got back?" he remarked for the second time. "I
-thought you were going to make a round of the country?"
-
-"I shall do it in instalments," replied Mr. Yelverton.
-
-"You won't have time to do much that way, if you are going home again
-next month. Will you?"
-
-"I can extend my time a little, if necessary."
-
-"Can you? Oh, I thought there was some awfully urgent business that you
-had to get back for--a new costermonger's theatre to open, or a street
-Arab's public-house--eh?"
-
-Mr. Westmoreland laughed, as at a good joke that he had got hold
-of, but Mr. Yelverton was imperturbably grave. "I have business in
-Australia just now," he said, "and I'm going to finish that first."
-
-Here the portly widower, who had overheard the dialogue, leaned over
-Patty to join in the conversation. He was a wealthy person of the
-name of Smith, who, like Mr. Phillips's father in the _Undiscovered
-Country_, had been in business "on that obscure line which divides
-the wholesale merchant's social acceptability from the lost condition
-of the retail trader," but who, on his retirement with a fortune, had
-safely scaled the most exclusive heights of respectability. "I say," he
-called out, addressing Mr. Yelverton, "you're not going to write a book
-about us, I hope, like Trollope and those fellows? We're suspicious
-of people who come here utter strangers, and think they can learn all
-about us in two or three weeks."
-
-Mr. Yelverton reassured him upon this point, and then Mrs. Duff-Scott
-broke in. "You have not been to call on me yet, Mr. Yelverton."
-
-"No. I hope to have that pleasure to-morrow," he replied. "I am told
-that Friday is your reception day."
-
-"Oh, you needn't have waited for that. Any day before four. Come
-to-morrow and dine with us, will you? We are going to have a few
-friends and a little music in the evening. I suppose you are fond of
-music--being here."
-
-Mr. Yelverton said he was very fond of music, though he did not
-understand much about it, and that he would be very happy to dine with
-her next day. Then, after a little more desultory talk, the orchestra
-returned to the stage and began the second overture--from Mozart this
-time--and they all became silent listeners again.
-
-When at last the concert was over, Elizabeth and her "young man" found
-themselves once more navigating a slow course together through a
-crowd. Mrs. Duff-Scott, with Mr. Westmoreland and Eleanor, moved off
-in advance; Mr. Smith offered his arm to Patty and followed; and so,
-by the favour of fate and circumstances, the remaining pair were left
-with no choice but to accompany each other. "Wait a moment," said Mr.
-Yelverton, as she stepped out from her seat, taking her shawl--a soft
-white Rampore chuddah, that was the fairy godmother's latest gift--from
-her arms. "You will feel it cold in the passages." She stood still
-obediently, and he put the shawl over her shoulders and folded one end
-of it lightly round her throat. Then he held his arm, and her hand
-was drawn closely to his side; and so they set forth towards the door,
-having put a dozen yards between themselves and the rest of their party.
-
-"You are living with Mrs. Duff-Scott, are you not?" he asked abruptly.
-
-"Not quite that," she replied. "Mrs. Duff-Scott would like us to be
-there always, but we think it better to be at home sometimes."
-
-"Yes--I should think it is better," he replied.
-
-"But we are with her very often--nearly every day," she added.
-
-"Shall you be there to-morrow?" he asked, not looking at her. "Shall I
-see you there in the evening?"
-
-"I think so," she replied rather unsteadily. And, after a little while,
-she felt emboldened to ask a few questions of him. "Are you really only
-making a flying visit to Australia, Mr. Yelverton?"
-
-"I had intended that it should be very short," he said; "but I shall
-not go away quite yet."
-
-"You have many interests at home--to call you back?" she ventured to
-say, with a little timidity about touching on his private affairs.
-
-"Yes. You are thinking of what Westmoreland said? He is a scoffer--he
-doesn't understand. You mustn't mind what he says. But I should like,"
-he added, as they drew near the door and saw Mrs. Duff-Scott looking
-back for them, "I should very much like to tell you something about it
-myself. I think--I feel sure--it would interest you. Perhaps I may have
-an opportunity to-morrow night."
-
-Here Mrs. Duff-Scott's emissary, Mr. Smith, who had been sent back
-to his duty, claimed Elizabeth on her chaperon's behalf. She and her
-lover had no time to say anything more, except good-night. But that
-good-night--and their anticipations--satisfied them.
-
-On reaching Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, where the girls were to sleep,
-they found the major awaiting their return, and were hospitably
-invited--along with Mr. Westmoreland, who had been allowed to "see them
-safely home," on the box-seat of the carriage--into the library, where
-they found a bright little fire in the grate, and refreshments on the
-table. The little man, apparently, was as paternal in his dispositions
-towards the orphans as his wife could desire, and was becoming quite
-weaned from his bad club habits under the influence of his new
-domestic ties.
-
-"Dear me, _how_ nice!--_how_ comfortable!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-sailing up to the hearth and seating herself in a deep leather chair.
-"Come in, Mr. Westmoreland. Come along to the fire, dears." And she
-called her brood around her. Eleanor, who had caressing ways, knelt
-down at her chaperon's feet on the soft oriental carpet, and she pulled
-out the frills of lace round the girl's white neck and elbows with a
-motherly gesture.
-
-"Dear child!" she ejaculated fondly, "doesn't she"--appealing to her
-husband--"remind you exactly of a bit of fifteenth century Nankin?"
-
-"I should like to see the bit of porcelain, Nankin or otherwise, that
-would remind me exactly of Miss Nelly," replied the gallant major,
-bowing to the kneeling girl. "I would buy that bit, whatever price it
-was."
-
-"That's supposing you could get it," interrupted Mr. Westmoreland, with
-a laugh.
-
-"It is the very shade of blue, with that grey tinge in it," murmured
-Mrs. Duff-Scott. But at the same time she was thinking of a new topic.
-"I have asked Mr. Yelverton to dine with us to-morrow, my dear," she
-remarked, suddenly, to her spouse. "We wanted another man to make up
-our number."
-
-"Oh, have you? All right. I shall be very glad to see him. He's a
-gentlemanly fellow, is Yelverton. Very rich, too, they tell me. But we
-don't see much of him."
-
-"No," said Mr. Westmoreland, withdrawing his eyes from the
-contemplation of Eleanor and her æsthetic gown, "he's not a society
-man. He don't go much into clubs, Yelverton. He's one of the richest
-commoners in Great Britain--give you my word, sir, he's got a princely
-fortune, all to his own cheek--and he lets his places and lives in
-chambers in Piccadilly, and spends nearly all his time when he's at
-home in the slums and gutters of Whitechapel. He's got a mania for
-philanthropy, unfortunately. It's an awful pity, for he really _would_
-be a good fellow."
-
-At the word "philanthropy," the major made a clandestine grimace to
-Elizabeth, but composed his face immediately, seeing that she was not
-regarding him, but gazing with serious eyes at the narrator of Mr.
-Yelverton's peculiarities.
-
-"He's been poking into every hole and corner," continued Mr.
-Westmoreland, "since he came here, overhauling the factory places, and
-finding out the prices of things, and the land regulations, and I don't
-know what. He's just been to Sandhurst, to look at the mines--doing a
-little amateur emigration business, I expect. Seems a strange thing,"
-concluded the young man, thoughtfully, "for a rich swell of his class
-to be bothering himself about things of that sort."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott had been listening attentively, and at this she
-roused herself and sat up in her chair. "It is the rich who _should_
-do it," said she, with energy. "And I admire him--I admire him, that
-he has given up his own selfish ease to help those whose lives are
-hard and miserable. I believe the squalid wretchedness of places
-like Whitechapel--though I have never been there--is something
-dreadful--dreadful! I admire him," she repeated defiantly. "I think
-it's a pity a few more of us are not like him. I shall talk to him
-about it. I--I shall see if I can't help him."
-
-This time Elizabeth did look at the major, who was making a feint of
-putting his handkerchief to his eyes. She smiled at him sweetly, and
-then she walked over to Mrs. Duff-Scott, put her strong arms round the
-matron's shoulders, and kissed her fervently.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV.
-
-
-AN OLD STORY.
-
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room, at nine or ten o'clock on Friday
-evening, was a pleasant sight. Very spacious, very voluptuous, in
-a subdued, majestic, high-toned way; very dim--with splashes of
-richness--as to walls and ceilings; very glowing and splendid--with
-folds of velvety darkness--as to window curtains and portières.
-The colouring of it was such as required a strong light to show
-how beautiful it was, but with a proud reserve, and to mark its
-unostentatious superiority over the glittering salons of the
-uneducated _nouveaux riches_, it was always more or less in a warm
-and mellow twilight, veiling its sombre magnificence from the vulgar
-eye. Just now its main compartment was lit by wax candles in archaic
-candlesticks amongst the flowers and _bric-à-brac_ of an _étagère_ over
-the mantelpiece, and by seven shaded and coloured lamps, of various
-artistic devices, judiciously distributed over the abundant table-space
-so as to suffuse with a soft illumination the occupants of most of
-the wonderfully stuffed and rotund chairs and lounges grouped about
-the floor; and yet the side of the room was decidedly bad for reading
-in. "It does not light up well," was the consolation of women of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's acquaintance, who still clung to pale walls and primary
-colours and cut-glass chandeliers, either from necessity or choice.
-"Pooh!" Mrs. Duff-Scott used to retort, hearing of this just criticism;
-"as if I _wanted_ it to light up!" But she had compromised with her
-principles in the arrangement of the smaller division of the room,
-where, between and beyond a pair of vaguely tinted portières, stood the
-piano, and all other material appliances for heightening the spiritual
-enjoyment of musical people. Here she had grudgingly retained the
-gas-burner of utilitarian Philistinism. It hung down from the ceiling
-straight over the piano, a circlet of gaudy yellow flames, that made
-the face of every plaque upon the wall to glitter. But the brilliant
-corona was borne in no gas-fitter's vehicle; its shrine was of dull
-brass, mediæval and precious, said to have been manufactured, in the
-first instance, for either papal or imperial purposes--it didn't matter
-which.
-
-In this bright music-room was gathered to-night a little company of
-the elect--Herr Wüllner and his violin, together with three other
-stringed instruments and their human complement. Patty at the piano,
-Eleanor, Mrs. Duff-Scott, and half-a-dozen more enthusiasts--with a
-mixed audience around them. In the dim, big room beyond, the major
-entertained the inartistic, outlawed few who did not care, nor pretend
-to care, for aught but the sensual comfort of downy chairs and after
-dinner chit-chat. And, at the farthest end, in a recess of curtained
-window that had no lamps about it, sat Elizabeth and Mr. Yelverton,
-side by side, on a low settee--not indifferent to the pathetic wail of
-the far-distant violins, but finding more entertainment in their own
-talk than the finest music could have afforded them.
-
-"I had a friend who gave up everything to go and work amongst the
-London poor--in the usual clerical way, you know, with schools and
-guilds and all the right and proper things. He used to ask me for
-money, and insist on my helping him with a lecture or a reading now
-and then, and I got drawn in. I had always had an idea of doing
-something--taking a line of some sort--and somehow this got hold of me.
-I couldn't see all that misery--you've no idea of it, Miss King--"
-
-"I have read of it," she said.
-
-"You would have to see it to realise it in the least. After I saw it I
-couldn't turn my back and go home and enjoy myself as if nothing had
-happened. And I had no family to consider. I got drawn in."
-
-"And _that_ is your work?" said Elizabeth. "I _knew_ it."
-
-"No. My friend talks of 'his work'--a lot of them have 'their
-work'--it's splendid, too--but they don't allow me to use that word,
-and I don't want it. What I do is all wrong, they say--not only
-useless, but mischievous."
-
-"I don't believe it," said Elizabeth.
-
-"Nor I, of course--though they may be right. We can only judge
-according to our lights. To me, it seems that when things are as bad
-as possible, a well meaning person can't make them worse and _may_
-make them better. They say 'no,' and argue it all out as plainly as
-possible. Yet I stick to my view--I go on in my own line. It doesn't
-interfere with theirs, though they say it does."
-
-"And what is it?" she asked, with her sympathetic eyes.
-
-"Well, you'll hardly understand, for you don't know the class--the
-lowest deep of all--those who can't be dealt with by the Societies--the
-poor wretches whom nothing will raise, and who are abandoned as
-hopeless, outside the pale of everything. They are my line."
-
-"Can there be any abandoned as hopeless?"
-
-"Yes. They really are so, you know. Neither religion nor political
-economy can do anything for them, though efforts are made for the
-children. Poor, sodden, senseless, vicious lumps of misery, with the
-last spark of soul bred out of them--a sort of animated garbage that
-cumbers the ground and makes the air stink--given up as a bad job, and
-only wanted out of the way--from the first they were on my mind more
-than all the others. And when I saw them left to rot like that, I felt
-I might have a free hand."
-
-"And can you succeed where so many have failed?"
-
-"Oh, what I do doesn't involve success or failure. It's outside all
-that, just as they are. They're only brutes in human shape--hardly
-human shape either; but I have a feeling for brutes. I love horses
-and dogs--I can't bear to see things suffer. So that's all I do--just
-comfort them where I can, in their own way; not the parson's
-way--that's no use. I wouldn't mock them by speaking of religion--I
-suppose religion, as we know it, has had a large hand in making them
-what they are; and to go and tell them that God ordained their
-miserable pariah-dog lot would be rank blasphemy. I leave all that. I
-don't bother about their souls, because I know they haven't got any; I
-see their wretched bodies, and that's enough for me. It's something not
-to let them go out of the world without _ever_ knowing what it is to be
-physically comfortable. It eases my conscience, as a man who has never
-been hungry, except for the pleasure of it."
-
-"And do they blame you for that?"
-
-"They say I pauperise them and demoralise them," he answered, with
-a sudden laugh; "that I disorganise the schemes of the legitimate
-workers--that I outrage every principle of political economy. Well, I
-do _that_, certainly. But that I make things worse--that I retard the
-legitimate workers--I won't believe. If I do," he concluded, "I can't
-help it."
-
-"No," breathed Elizabeth, softly.
-
-"There's only one thing in which I and the legitimate workers are
-alike--everybody is alike in that, I suppose--the want of money. Only
-in the matter of beer and tobacco, what interest I could get on a few
-hundred pounds! What I could do in the way of filling empty stomachs
-and easing aches and pains if I had control of large means! What a good
-word 'means' is, isn't it? We want 'means' for all the ends we seek--no
-matter what they are."
-
-"I thought," said Elizabeth, "that you were rich. Mr. Westmoreland told
-us so."
-
-"Well, in a way, I am," he rejoined. "I hold large estates in my own
-name, and can draw fifty or sixty thousand a year interest from them if
-I like. But there have been events--there are peculiar circumstances
-in connection with the inheritance of the property, which make me
-feel myself not quite entitled to use it freely--not yet. I _will_
-use it, after this year, if nothing happens. I think I _ought_ to;
-but I have put it off hitherto so as to make as sure as possible
-that I was lawfully in possession. I will tell you how it is," he
-proceeded, leaning forward and clasping his knee with his big brown
-hands. "I am used to speaking of the main facts freely, because I am
-always in hopes of discovering something as I go about the world. A
-good many years ago my father's second brother disappeared, and was
-never heard of afterwards. He and the eldest brother, at that time
-the head of the family, and in possession of the property, quarrelled
-about--well, about a woman whom both were in love with; and the elder
-one was found dead--shot dead--in a plantation not far from the house
-on the evening of the day of the quarrel, an hour after the total
-disappearance of the other. My uncle Kingscote--I was named after him,
-and he was my godfather--was last seen going out towards the plantation
-with his gun; he was traced to London within the next few days; and
-it was almost--but just not quite certainly--proved that he had there
-gone on board a ship that sailed for South America and was lost. He
-was advertised for in every respectable newspaper in the world, at
-intervals, for twenty years afterwards--during which time the estate
-was in Chancery, before they would grant it to my father, from whom it
-descended to me--and I should think the agony columns of all countries
-never had one message cast into such various shapes. But he never gave
-a sign. All sorts of apparent clues were followed up, but they led to
-nothing. If alive he must have known that it was all right, and would
-have come home to take his property. He _must_ have gone down in that
-ship."
-
-"But--oh, surely he would never have come back to take the property of
-a murdered brother!" exclaimed Elizabeth, in a shocked voice.
-
-"His brother was not murdered," Mr. Yelverton replied. "Many people
-thought so, of course--people have a way of thinking the worst in
-these cases, not from malice, but because it is more interesting--and
-a tradition to that effect survives still, I am afraid. But my
-uncle's family never suspected him of such a crime. The thing was not
-legally proved, one way or the other. There were strong indications
-in the position of the gun which lay by his side, and in the general
-appearance of the spot where he was found, that my uncle, Patrick
-Yelverton, accidentally shot himself; that was the opinion of the
-coroner's jury, and the conviction of the family. But poor Kingscote
-evidently assumed that he would be accused of murder. Perhaps--it is
-very possible--some rough-tempered action of his might have caused
-the catastrophe, and his remorse have had the same effect as fear in
-prompting him to efface himself. Anyway, no one who knew him well
-believed him capable of doing his brother a mischief wilfully. His
-innocence was, indeed, proved by the fact that he married the lady
-who had been at the bottom of the trouble--by no fault of hers, poor
-soul!--after he escaped to London; and, wherever he went to, he took
-her with him. She disappeared a few days after he did, and was lost
-as completely, from that time. The record and circumstances of their
-marriage were discovered; and that was all. He would not have married
-her--she would not have married him--had he been a murderer."
-
-"Do you think not?" said Elizabeth. "That is always assumed as a
-matter of course, in books--that murder and--and other disgraces are
-irrevocable barriers between those who love each other, when they
-discover them. But I do not understand why. With such an awful misery
-to bear, they would want all that their love could give them so much
-_more_--not less."
-
-"You see," said Mr. Yelverton, regarding her with great interest, "it
-is a sort of point of honour with the one in misfortune not to drag the
-other down. When we are married, as when we are dead, 'it is for a long
-time.'"
-
-Elizabeth made no answer, but there was a quiet smile about her lips
-that plainly testified to her want of sympathy with this view. After
-a silence of a few seconds, her companion leaned forward and looked
-directly into her face. "Would _you_ stick to the man you loved if he
-had forfeited his good name or were in risk of the gallows?--I mean if
-he were really a criminal, and not only a suspected one?" he asked with
-impressive slowness.
-
-"If I had found him worthy to be loved before that," she replied,
-speaking collectedly, but dismayed to find herself growing crimson,
-"and if he cared for me--and leant on me--oh, yes! It might be wrong,
-but I should do it. Surely any woman would. I don't see how she could
-help herself."
-
-He changed his position, and looked away from her face into the room
-with a light in his deep-set eyes. "You ought to have been Elizabeth
-Leigh's daughter," he said. "I did not think there were any more women
-like her in the world."
-
-"I am like other women," said Elizabeth, humbly, "only more ignorant."
-
-He made no comment--they both found it rather difficult to speak
-at this point--and, after an expressive pause, she went on, rather
-hurriedly, "Was Elizabeth Leigh the lady who married your uncle?"
-
-"Yes," he replied, bringing himself back to his story with an effort,
-"she was. She was a lovely woman, bright and clever, fond of dress and
-fun and admiration, like other women; but with a solid foundation to
-her character that you will forgive my saying is rare to your sex--as
-far, at least, as I am able to judge. I saw her when I was a little
-schoolboy, but I can picture her now, as if it were but yesterday.
-What vigour she had! What a wholesome zest for life! And yet she gave
-up everything to go into exile and obscurity with the man she loved.
-Ah, _what_ a woman! She _ought_ not to have died. She should have lived
-and reigned at Yelverton, and had a houseful of children. It is still
-possible--barely, barely possible--that she did live, and that I shall
-some day stumble over a handsome young cousin who will tell me that he
-is the head of the family."
-
-"O no," said Elizabeth, "not after all these years. Give up thinking
-of such a thing. Take your own money now, as soon as you go home,
-and"--looking up with a smile--"buy all the beer and tobacco that you
-want."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.
-
-
-OUT IN THE COLD.
-
-
-Paul Brion, meanwhile, plodded on in his old groove, which no longer
-fitted him as it used to do, and vexed the soul of his benevolent
-landlady with the unprecedented shortness of his temper. She didn't
-know how to take him, she said, he was that cantankerous and
-"contrairy:" but she triumphantly recognised the result that she had
-all along expected would follow a long course of turning night into
-day, and therefore was not surprised at the change in him. "Your brain
-is over-wrought," she said, soothingly, when one day a compunctious
-spirit moved him to apologise for his moroseness; "your nervous system
-is unstrung. You've been going on too long, and you want a spell. You
-just take a holiday straight off, and go right away, and don't look
-at an ink-bottle for a month. It will save you a brain fever, mark
-my words." But Paul was consistent in his perversity, and refused to
-take good advice. He did think, for a moment, that he might as well
-have a little run and see how his father was getting on; and for
-several days he entertained the more serious project of "cutting" the
-colony altogether and going to seek his fortune in London. All the
-same, he stayed on with Mrs. M'Intyre, producing his weekly tale of
-political articles and promiscuous essays, and sitting up all night,
-and sleeping all the morning, with his habitual irregular regularity.
-But the flavour had gone out of work and recreation alike, and not
-all Mrs. Aarons's blandishments, which were now exercised upon him for
-an hour or two every Friday evening, were of any avail to coax it back
-again. Those three Miss Kings, whom his father had sent to him, and
-whom Mrs. Duff-Scott had taken away from him, had spoiled the taste
-of life. That was the fact, though he would not own it. "What care I?
-They are nothing to me," he used to say to himself when fighting an
-occasional spasm of rage or jealousy. He really persuaded himself very
-often that they were nothing to him, and that his bitter feeling was
-caused solely by the spectacle of their deterioration. To see them
-exchanging all their great plans and high aspirations for these vulgar
-social triumphs--giving up their studies at the Library to attend
-dancing classes, and to dawdle about the Block, and gossip in the
-Exhibition--laying aside their high-bred independence to accept the
-patronage of a fine lady who might drop them as suddenly as she took
-them up--was it not enough to make a man's heart bleed?
-
-As for Patty, he made up his mind that he could never forgive _her_.
-Now and then he would steal out upon his balcony to listen to a
-Schubert serenade or a Beethoven sonata in the tender stillness of a
-summer night, and then he would have that sensation of bleeding at the
-heart which melted, and unnerved, and unmanned him; but, for the most
-part, every sight and sound and reminiscence of her were so many fiery
-styptics applied to his wound, scorching up all tender emotions in one
-great angry pain. Outwardly he shunned her, cut her--withered her up,
-indeed--with his ostentatiously expressed indifference; but secretly
-he spent hours of the day and night dogging her from place to place,
-when he ought to have been at work or in his bed, merely that he might
-get a glimpse of her in a crowd, and some notion of what she was doing.
-He haunted the Exhibition with the same disregard for the legitimate
-attractions of that social head-centre as prevailed with the majority
-of its visitors, to whom it was a daily trysting-place; and there
-he had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing her every now and then.
-Once she was in the Indian Court, so fragrant with sandalwood, and
-she was looking with ardent eyes at gossamer muslins and embroidered
-cashmeres, while young Westmoreland leaned on the glass case beside
-her in an attitude of insufferable familiarity. It was an indication,
-to the jealous lover, that the woman who had elevated her sex from
-the rather low place that it had held in his estimation before he
-knew her, and made it sacred to him for her sake, was, after all,
-"no better than the rest of them." He had dreamed of her as a man's
-true helpmate and companion, able to walk hand in hand with him on
-the high roads of human progress, and finding her vocation and her
-happiness in that spiritual and intellectual fellowship; and here she
-was lost in the greedy contemplation of a bit of fine embroidery that
-had cost some poor creature his eyesight already, and was presently
-to cost again what would perhaps provision a starving family for a
-twelvemonth--just like any other ignorant and frivolous female who
-had sold her soul to the demon of fashion. He marched home to Myrtle
-Street with the zeal of the reformer (which draws its inspiration from
-such unsuspected sources) red-hot in his busy brain. He lit his pipe,
-spread out his paper, dipped his pen in the ink-bottle, and began to
-deal with the question of "Woman's Clothes in Relation to her Moral
-and Intellectual Development" in what he conceived to be a thoroughly
-impersonal and benevolent temper. His words should be brief, he said
-to himself, but they should be pregnant with suggestive truth. He
-would lay a light touch upon this great sore that had eaten so deeply
-into one member of the body politic, causing all the members to suffer
-with it; but he would diagnose it faithfully, without fear or favour,
-and show wherein it had hindered the natural advancement of the race,
-and to what fatal issues its unchecked development tended. It was a
-serious matter, that had too long been left unnoticed by the leaders
-of the thought of the day. "It is a _problem_," he wrote, with a
-splutter of his pen, charging his grievance full tilt with his most
-effective term; "it is, we conscientiously believe, one of the great
-problems of this problem-haunted and problem-fighting age--one of the
-wrongs that it is the mission of the reforming Modern Spirit to set
-right--though the subject is so inextricably entangled and wrapped up
-in its amusing associations that at present its naked gravity is only
-recognised by the philosophic few. It is all very well to make fun of
-it; and, indeed, it is a very good thing to make fun of it--for every
-reform must have a beginning, and there is no better weapon than just
-and judicious ridicule wherewith Reason can open her attack upon the
-solid and solemn front of time-honoured Prejudice. The heavy artillery
-of argument has no effect until the enemy has contracted an internal
-weakness by being made to imbibe the idea that he is absurd. A little
-wit, in the early stage of the campaign, is worth a deal of logic. But
-still there it stands--this great, relentless, crushing, cruel CUSTOM
-(which requires capital letters to emphasise it suitably)--and there
-are moments when we _can't_ be witty about it--when our hearts burn
-within us at the spectacle of our human counterpart still, with a few
-bright exceptions, in the stage of intellectual childhood, while we
-fight the battle of the world's progress alone--"
-
-Here the typical strong-minded female, against whom he had fulminated
-in frequent wrath, suddenly appeared before him, side by side with a
-vision of Patty in her shell-pink Cup dress; and his sword arm failed
-him. He paused, and laid down his pen, and leaned his head on his hand;
-and he was thereupon seized with a raging desire to be rich, in order
-that he might buy Indian embroideries for his beloved, and clothe her
-like a king's daughter in glorious apparel. Somehow that remarkable
-paper which was to inaugurate so vast a revolution in the social system
-never got written. At least, it did not for two or three years, and
-then it came forth in so mild a form that its original design was
-unrecognisable. (N.B.--In this latest contribution to the Dress Reform
-Question, women, to the peril of their immortal intellects, were
-invited to make themselves as pretty as they could, no hard condition
-being laid upon them, save that they should try to dress to please the
-eyes of men instead of to rival and outshine each other--that they
-should cultivate such sense of art and reason as might happily have
-survived in them--and, above all, from the high principles of religion
-and philanthropy, that they should abstain from bringing in new
-fashions violently--or, indeed, at all--leaving the spirit of beauty
-and the spirit of usefulness to produce their healthy offspring by the
-natural processes. In the composition of this paper he had the great
-advantage of being able to study both his own and the woman's point of
-view.)
-
-The next day he went to the Exhibition again, and again he saw Patty,
-with no happier result than before. She was standing amongst the
-carriages with Mr. Smith--popularly believed to have been for years on
-the look-out for a pretty young second wife--who was pointing out to
-her the charms of a seductive little lady's phaeton, painted lake and
-lined with claret, with a little "dickey" for a groom behind; no doubt
-tempting her with the idea of driving such a one of her own some day.
-This was even more bitter to Paul than the former encounter. He could
-bear with Mr. Westmoreland, whose youth entitled him to place himself
-somewhat on an equality with her, and whom, moreover, his rival (as
-he thought himself) secretly regarded as beneath contempt; but this
-grey-bearded widower, whose defunct wife might almost have been her
-grandmother, Paul felt he could _not_ bear, in any sort of conjunction
-with his maiden queen, who, though in such dire disgrace, was his queen
-always. He went hastily away that he might not see them together, and
-get bad thoughts into his head--such as, for instance, that Patty might
-be contemplating the incredible degradation of matrimony with the
-widower, in order to be able to drive the prettiest pony carriage in
-town.
-
-He went away, but he came back again in a day or two. And then he saw
-her standing in the nave, with Mr. Smith again, looking at Kate Kelly,
-newly robed in black, and prancing up and down, in flowing hair and
-three-inch veil, and high heels and furbelows, putting on all sorts
-of airs and graces because, a few hours before, Ned had crowned his
-exploits and added a new distinction to the family by being hung in
-gaol; and she (Patty) could not only bear that shabby and shameless
-spectacle, but was even listening while Mr. Smith cut jokes about
-it--this pitiful demolishment of our imagined Kate Kelly, our Grizell
-Hume of the bush--and smiling at his misplaced humour. The fact being
-that poor Patty was aware of her lover's proximity, and was moved to
-unnatural and hysteric mirth in order that he might not carry away the
-mistaken notion that she was fretting for him. But Paul, who could see
-no further through a stone wall than other men, was profoundly shocked
-and disgusted.
-
-And yet once more he saw his beloved, whom he tried so hard to hate.
-On the night of the 17th--a Wednesday night--he had yawned through
-an uninteresting, and to him unprofitable, session of the Assembly,
-dealing with such mere practical matters as the passing in committee
-of clauses of railway bills and rabbit bills, which neither enlivened
-the spirits and speeches of honourable members nor left a press critic
-anything in particular to criticise; and at a few minutes after
-midnight he was sauntering through the streets to his office, and
-chanced to pass the Town Hall, where the great ball of the Exhibition
-year was going on. It was not chance, perhaps, that led him that
-way--along by the chief entrance, round which carriages and cabs were
-standing in a dense black mass, and where even the pavements were too
-much crowded by loiterers to be comfortable to the pedestrian abroad
-on business. But it was chance that gave him a glimpse of Patty at
-the only moment of the night when he could have seen her. As he
-went by he looked up at the lighted vestibule with a sneer. He was
-not himself of the class which went to balls of that description--he
-honestly believed he had no desire to be, and that, as a worker for
-his bread, endowed with brains instead of money, he was at an infinite
-advantage over those who did; but he knew that the three Miss Kings
-would be numbered with the elect. He pictured Patty in gorgeous array,
-bare-necked and bare-armed, displaying her dancing-class acquirements
-for the edification of the gilded youth of the Melbourne Club, whirling
-round and round, with flushed cheeks and flying draperies, in the
-arms of young Westmoreland and his brother hosts, intoxicated with
-flattery and unwholesome excitement, and he made up his mind that
-she was only beginning the orgy of the night, and might be expected
-to trail home, dishevelled, when the stars grew pale in the summer
-dawn. However, as this surmise occurred to him it was dispelled by the
-vision of Mrs. Duff-Scott coming out of the light and descending the
-flight of steps in front of him. He recognised her majestic figure in
-spite of its wraps, and the sound of her voice directing the major
-to call the carriage up. She had a regal--or, I should rather say,
-vice-regal--habit of leaving a ball-room early (generally after having
-been amongst the first to be taken to supper), as he might have known
-had he known a little more about her. It was one of the trivial little
-customs that indicated her rank. Paul looked up at her for a moment, to
-make sure that she had all her party with her; and then he drew into
-the shadow of a group of bystanders to watch them drive off.
-
-First came the chaperon herself, with Eleanor leaning lightly on her
-arm, and a couple of hosts in attendance. Eleanor was not bare-armed
-and necked, nor was she dishevelled; she had just refreshed herself
-with chicken and champagne, and was looking as composed and fair
-and refined as possible in her delicate white gown and unruffled
-yellow hair--like a tall lily, I feel I ought (and for a moment was
-tempted) to add, only that I know no girl ever did look like a lily
-since the world was made, nor ever will, no matter what the processes
-of evolution may come to. This pair, or quartette, were followed by
-Elizabeth, escorted on one side by the little major and on the other by
-big Mr. Yelverton. She, too, had neither tumbled draperies nor towsled
-head, but looked serene and dignified as usual, holding a bouquet to
-her breast with the one hand, and with the other thriftily guarding her
-skirts from contact with the pavement. But Mr. Brion took no notice of
-her. His attention was concentrated on his Patty, who appeared last of
-all, under the charge of that ubiquitous widower (whom he was beginning
-to hate with a deadly hatred), Mr. Smith. She was as beautiful
-as--whatever classical or horticultural object the reader likes to
-imagine--in the uncertain light and in her jealous lover's estimation,
-when she chanced, after stepping down to his level, to stand within a
-couple of yards of him to wait for the carriage. No bronze, or dead
-leaf, or half-ripe chestnut (to which I inadvertently likened it) was
-fit to be named in the same breath with that wavy hair that he could
-almost touch, and not all the jewellers' shops in Melbourne could have
-furnished a comparison worthy of her lovely eyes. She, too, was dressed
-in snowy, foamy, feathery white (I use these adjectives in deference to
-immemorial custom, and not because they accurately describe the finer
-qualities of Indian muslin and Mechlin lace), ruffled round her white
-throat and elbows in the most delicately modest fashion; and not a
-scrap of precious stone or metal was to be seen anywhere to vulgarise
-the maidenly simplicity of her attire. He had never seen her look so
-charming--he had never given himself so entirely to the influence of
-her beauty. And she stood there, so close that he could see the rise
-and fall of the laces on her breast with her gentle breathing, silent
-and patient, paying no attention to the blandishments of her cavalier,
-looking tired and pre-occupied, and as far as possible from the
-condition in which he had pictured her. Yet, when presently he emerged
-from his obscurity, and strode away, he felt that he had never been in
-such a rage of wrath against her. And why, may it be asked? What had
-poor Patty done this time? _She had not known that he was there beside
-her._ It was the greatest offence of all that she had committed, and
-the culmination of his wrongs.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.
-
-
-WHAT PAUL COULD NOT KNOW.
-
-
-It was a pity that Paul Brion, looking at Patty's charming figure in
-the gaslight, could not have looked into her heart. It is a pity, for
-us all, that there is no Palace of Truth amongst our sacred edifices,
-into which we could go--say, once a week--and show ourselves as we
-are to our neighbours and ourselves. If we could know our friends from
-our enemies, whom to trust and whom to shun--if we could vindicate
-ourselves from the false testimony of appearances in the eyes of
-those whom we love and by whom we desire to be loved--not to speak of
-larger privileges--what a different world it would be! But we can't,
-unfortunately. And so Paul carried away with him the impression that
-his Patty had become a fine lady--too fine to have any longer a thought
-for him--than which he had never conceived a baser calumny in his life.
-
-Nor was he the only one who misread her superficial aspect that night.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, the most discerning of women, had a fixed belief
-that her girls, all of them, thoroughly enjoyed their first ball.
-From the moment that they entered the room, a few minutes in advance
-of the Governor's party, received by a dozen or two of hosts drawn
-up in line on either side of the doorway, it was patent to her that
-they would do her every sort of credit; and this anticipation, at any
-rate, was abundantly realised. For the greater part of the evening
-she herself was enthroned under the gallery, which roofed a series of
-small drawing-rooms on this occasion, eminently adapted to matronly
-requirements; and from her arm-chair or sofa corner she looked out
-through curtains of æsthetic hues upon the pretty scene which had
-almost as fresh an interest for her to-night as it had for them. And
-no mother could have been more proud than she when one or other was
-taken from her side by the most eligible and satisfactory partners,
-or when for brief minutes they came back to her and gave her an
-opportunity to pull out a fold or a frill that had become disarranged,
-or when at intervals during their absence she caught sight of them
-amongst the throng, looking so distinguished in their expensively
-simple toilettes--those unpretending white muslins upon which she had
-not hesitated to spend the price of her own black velvet and Venetian
-point, whereof the costly richness was obvious to the least instructed
-observer--and evidently receiving as much homage and attention as they
-well knew what to do with. Now it was Eleanor going by on the arm of
-a naval foreigner, to whom she was chatting in that pure German (or
-equally pure French) that was one of her unaccountable accomplishments,
-or dancing as if she had danced from childhood with a more important
-somebody else. Now it was Patty, sitting bowered in azaleas on the
-steps under the great organ, while the Austrian band (bowered almost
-out of sight) discoursed Strauss waltzes over her head, and Mr. Smith
-sat in a significant attitude on the crimson carpet at her feet. And
-again it was Elizabeth, up in the gallery, which was a forest of fern
-trees to-night, sitting under the shade of the great green fronds with
-Mr. Yelverton, who had such an evident partiality for her society.
-Strange to say, Mrs. Duff-Scott, acute as she was in such matters, had
-never thought of Mr. Yelverton as a possible husband, and did not so
-think of him now--while noting his proceedings. She was taking so deep
-an interest in him as a philanthropist and social philosopher that
-she forgot he might have other and less exceptional characteristics;
-and she left off scheming for Elizabeth when Mr. Smith made choice
-of Patty, and was fully occupied in her manoeuvres and anxieties for
-the welfare of the younger sisters. That Patty should be the second
-Mrs. Smith she had quite made up her mind, and that Eleanor should be
-Mrs. Westmoreland was equally a settled thing. With these two affairs
-approaching a crisis together, she had quite enough to think of; and,
-with the prospect of losing two of her children so soon after becoming
-possessed of them, she was naturally in no hurry to deprive herself
-of the third. She was beginning to regard Elizabeth as destined to
-be her surviving comfort when the others were gone, and therefore
-abandoned all matrimonial projects on her behalf. Concerning Patty,
-the fairy godmother felt that her mind was at rest; half-a-dozen times
-in an hour and a half did she see the girl in some sort of association
-with Mr. Smith--who finally took her in to supper, and from supper
-to the cloak-room and carriage. For her she had reached the question
-of the trousseau and whom she would invite for bridesmaids. About
-Eleanor she was not so easy. It did not seem that Mr. Westmoreland
-lived up to his privileges; he did not dance with her at all, and was
-remarkably attentive to a plain heiress in a vulgar satin gown and
-diamonds. However, that was nothing. The bachelors of the club had all
-the roomful to entertain, and were obliged to lay aside their private
-preferences for the occasion. He had made his attentions to Eleanor
-so conspicuous that his proposal was only required as a matter of
-form; and Mrs. Duff-Scott felt that she would rather get the fuss of
-one engagement over before another came on. So, when the dissipations
-of the night were past, she retired from the field with a pleasant
-sense of almost unalloyed success, and fondly believed that her pretty
-_protégées_ were as satisfied with the situation as she was.
-
-But she was wrong. She was mistaken about them all--and most of all
-about Patty. When she first came into the room, and the fairy-land
-effect of the decorations burst upon her--when she passed up the
-lane of bachelor hosts, running the gauntlet of their respectful but
-admiring observation, like a young queen receiving homage--when the
-little major took her for a slow promenade round the hall and made
-her pause for a moment in front of one of the great mirrors that
-flanked the flowery orchestra, to show her herself in full length and
-in the most charming relief against her brilliant surroundings--the
-girl certainly did enjoy herself in a manner that bordered closely
-upon intoxication. She said very little, but her eyes were radiant
-and her whole face and figure rapturous, all her delicate soul spread
-out like a flower opened to the sunshine under the sensuous and
-artistic influences thus suddenly poured upon her. And then, after an
-interval of vague wonder as to what it was that was missing from the
-completeness of her pleasure--what it was that, being absent, spoiled
-the flavour of it all--there came an overpowering longing for her
-lover's presence and companionship, that lover without whom few balls
-are worth the trouble of dressing for, unless I am much mistaken. And
-after she found out that she wanted Paul Brion, who was not there,
-her gaiety became an excited restlessness, and her enjoyment of the
-pretty scene around her changed to passionate discontent. Why was
-he not there? She curled her lip in indignant scorn. Because he was
-poor, and a worker for his bread, and therefore was not accounted the
-equal of Mr. Westmoreland and Mr. Smith. She was too young and ardent
-to take into account the multitudes of other reasons which entirely
-removed it from the sphere of social grievances; like many another
-woman, she could see only one side of a subject at a time, and looked
-at that through a telescope. It seemed to her a despicably vulgar
-thing, and an indication of the utter rottenness of the whole fabric
-of society, that a high-born man of distinguished attainments should
-by common consent be neglected and despised simply because he was not
-rich. That was how she looked at it. And if Paul Brion had not been
-thought good enough for a select assembly, why had _she_ been invited?
-Her answer to this question was a still more painful testimony to the
-generally improper state of things, and brought her to long for her
-own legitimate and humble environment, in which she could enjoy her
-independence and self-respect, and (which was the idea that tantalised
-her most just now) solace her lover with Beethoven sonatas when he
-was tired of writing, and wanted a rest. From the longing to see
-him in the ballroom, to have him with her as other girls had their
-natural counterparts, to share with her in the various delights of
-this great occasion, she fell to longing to go home to him--to belong
-to Myrtle Street and obscurity again, just as he did, and because he
-did. Why should she be listening to the Austrian band, eating ices
-and strawberries, rustling to and fro amongst the flowers and fine
-ladies, flaunting herself in this dazzling crowd of rich and idle
-people, while he plodded at his desk or smoked a lonely pipe on his
-balcony, out of it all, and with nothing to cheer him? Then the memory
-of their estrangement, and how it had come about, and how little chance
-there seemed now of any return to old relations and those blessed
-opportunities that she had so perversely thrown away, wrought upon her
-high-strung nerves, and inspired her with a kind of heroism of despair.
-Poor, thin-skinned Patty! She was sensitive to circumstances to a
-degree that almost merited the term "morbid," which is so convenient
-as a description of people of that sort. A ray of sunshine would light
-up the whole world, and show her her own pathway in it, shining into
-the farthest future with a divine effulgence of happiness and success;
-and the patter of rain upon the window on a dark day could beat down
-hope and discourage effort as effectually as if its natural mission
-were to bring misfortune. At one moment she would be inflated with a
-proud belief in herself and her own value and dignity, that gave her
-the strength of a giant to be and do and suffer; and then, at some
-little touch of failure, some discovery that she was mortal and a woman
-liable to blunder, as were other women, she would collapse into nothing
-and fling herself into the abysses of shame and self-condemnation as
-a worthless and useless thing. When this happened, her only chance of
-rescue and restoration in her own esteem was to do penance in some
-striking shape--to prove herself to herself as having some genuineness
-of moral substance in her, though it were only to own honestly how
-little it was. It was above all things necessary to her to have her
-own good opinion; what others thought of her was comparatively of no
-consequence.
-
-She had been dancing for some time before the intercourse with Mr.
-Smith, that so gratified Mrs. Duff-Scott, set in. The portly widower
-found her fanning herself on a sofa in the neighbourhood of her
-chaperon, for the moment unattended by cavaliers; and, approaching
-her with one of the frequent little plates and spoons that were
-handed about, invited her favour through the medium of three colossal
-strawberries veiled in sugar and cream.
-
-"I am so grieved that I am not a dancing man," he sighed as she refused
-his offering on the ground that she had already eaten strawberries
-twice; "I would ask leave to inscribe my humble name on your programme,
-Miss Patty."
-
-"I don't see anything to grieve about," she replied, "in not being a
-dancing man. I am sure I don't want to dance. And you may inscribe your
-name on my programme and welcome"--holding it out to him. "It will keep
-other people from doing it."
-
-The delighted old fellow felt that this was indeed meeting him half
-way, and he put his name down for all the available round dances that
-were to take place before morning, with her free permission. Then, as
-the band struck up for the first of them, and the people about them
-began to crystallise into pairs and groups, and the smart man-o'-wars
-men stretched their crimson rope across the hall to divide the crowd,
-Mr. Smith took his young lady on his arm and went off to enjoy himself.
-First to the buffet, crowned with noble icebergs to cool the air, and
-groaning with such miscellaneous refreshment that supper, in its due
-course, came to her as a surprise and a superfluity, where he insisted
-that she should support her much-tried strength (as he did his own)
-with a sandwich and champagne. Then up a narrow staircase to the groves
-above--where already sat Elizabeth in a distant and secluded bower with
-Mr. Yelverton, lost, apparently, to all that went on around her. Here
-Mr. Smith took a front seat, that the young men might see and envy him,
-and set himself to the improvement of his opportunity.
-
-"And so you don't care about dancing," he remarked tenderly; "you, with
-these little fairy feet! I wonder why that is?"
-
-"Because I am not used to it," said Patty, leaning her white arms on
-the ledge in front of her and looking down at the shining sea of heads
-below. "I have been brought up to other accomplishments."
-
-"Music," he murmured; "and--and--"
-
-"And scrubbing and sweeping, and washing and ironing, and churning and
-bread-making, and cleaning dirty pots and kettles," said Patty, with
-elaborate distinctness.
-
-"Ha-ha!" chuckled Mr. Smith. "I should like to see you cleaning pots
-and kettles! Cinderella after twelve o'clock, eh?"
-
-"Yes," said she; "you have expressed it exactly. After twelve
-o'clock--what time is it now?--after twelve o'clock, or it may be a
-little later, I shall be Cinderella again. I shall take off my glass
-slippers, and go back to my kitchen." And she had an impulse to rise
-and run round the gallery to beg Elizabeth to get permission for their
-return to their own lodgings after the ball; only Elizabeth seemed to
-be enjoying her _tête-à-tête_ so much that she had not the heart to
-disturb her. Then she looked up at Mr. Smith, who stared at her in a
-puzzled and embarrassed way. "You don't seem to believe me," she said,
-with a defiant smile. "Did you think I was a fine lady, like all these
-other people?"
-
-"I have always thought you the most lovely--the most charming--"
-
-"Nonsense. I see you don't understand at all. So just listen, and I
-will tell you." Whereupon Patty proceeded to sketch herself and her
-domestic circumstances in what, had it been another person, would have
-been a simply brutal manner. She made herself out to be a Cinderella
-indeed, in her life and habits, a parasite, a sycophant, a jay in
-borrowed plumage--everything that was sordid and "low," and calculated
-to shock the sensibilities of a "new rich" man; making her statement
-with calm energy and in the most terse and expressive terms. It was her
-penance, and it did her good. It made her feel that she was genuine in
-her unworthiness, which was the great thing just now; and it made her
-feel, also, that she was set back in her proper place at Paul Brion's
-side--or, rather, at his feet. It also comforted her, for some reason,
-to be able, as a matter of duty, to disgust Mr. Smith.
-
-But Mr. Smith, though he was a "new rich" man, and not given to tell
-people who did not know it what he had been before he got his money,
-was still a man, and a shrewd man too. And he was not at all disgusted.
-Very far, indeed, from it. This admirable honesty, so rare in a young
-person of her sex and charms--this touching confidence in him as a
-lover and a gentleman--put the crowning grace to Patty's attractions
-and made her irresistible. Which was not what she meant to do at all.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII.
-
-
-SLIGHTED.
-
-
-Some hours earlier on the same evening, Eleanor, dressing for dinner
-and the ball in her spacious bedroom at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, felt
-that _she_, at any rate, was arming herself for conquest. No misgivings
-of any sort troubled the serene and rather shallow waters of that
-young lady's mind. While her sisters were tossing to and fro in the
-perturbations of the tender passion, she had calmly taken her bearings,
-so to speak, and was sailing a straight course. She had summed up her
-possibilities and arranged her programme accordingly. In short, she had
-made up her mind to marry Mr. Westmoreland--who, if not all that could
-be desired in a man and a husband, was well enough--and thereby to
-take a short cut to Europe, and to all those other goals towards which
-her feet were set. As Mr. Westmoreland himself boasted, some years
-afterwards, Eleanor was not a fool; and I feel sure that this negative
-excellence, herein displayed, will not fail to commend itself to the
-gentle reader of her little history.
-
-She had made up her mind to marry Mr. Westmoreland, and to-night she
-meant that he should ask her. Looking at her graceful person in the
-long glass, with a soft smile on her face, she had no doubt of her
-power to draw forth that necessary question at any convenient moment.
-It had not taken her long to learn her power; nor had she failed to see
-that it had its limitations, and that possibly other and greater men
-might be unaffected by it. She was a very sensible young woman, but I
-would not have any one run off with the idea that she was mercenary
-and calculating in the sordid sense. No, she was not in love, like
-Elizabeth and Patty; but that was not her fault. And in arranging her
-matrimonial plans she was actuated by all sorts of tender and human
-motives. In the first place, she liked her admirer, who was fond of her
-and a good comrade, and whom she naturally invested with many ideal
-excellences that he did not actually possess; and she liked (as will
-any single woman honestly tell me that she does not?) the thought of
-the dignities and privileges of a wife, and of that dearer and deeper
-happiness that lay behind. She was in haste to snatch at them while
-she had the chance, lest the dreadful fate of a childless old maid
-should some day overtake her--as undoubtedly it did overtake the very
-prettiest girls sometimes. And she was in love with the prospect of
-wealth at her own disposal, after her narrow experiences; not from any
-vulgar love of luxury and display, but for the sake of the enriched
-life, bright and full of beauty and knowledge, that it would make
-possible for her sisters as well as herself. If these motives seem
-poor and inadequate, in comparison with the great motive of all (as
-no doubt they are), we must remember that they are at the bottom of a
-considerable proportion of the marriages of real life, and not perhaps
-the least successful ones. It goes against me to admit so much, but one
-must take things as one finds them.
-
-Elizabeth came in to lace up her bodice--Elizabeth, whose own soft eyes
-were shining, and who walked across the floor with an elastic step,
-trailing her long robes behind her; and Eleanor vented upon her some of
-the fancies which were seething in her small head. "Don't we look like
-brides?" she said, nodding at their reflections in the glass.
-
-"Or bridesmaids," said Elizabeth. "Brides wear silks and satins mostly,
-I believe."
-
-"If they only knew it," said Eleanor reflectively, "muslin and lace are
-much more becoming to the complexion. When I am married, Elizabeth,
-I think I shall have my dress made of that 'woven dew' that we were
-looking at in the Exhibition the other day."
-
-"My dear girl, when you are married you will do nothing so
-preposterous. Do you suppose we are always going to let Mrs. Duff-Scott
-squander her money on us like this? I was telling her in her room just
-now that we must begin to draw the line. It is _too_ much. The lace on
-these gowns cost a little fortune. But lace is always family property,
-and I shall pick it off and make her take it back again. So just be
-very careful not to tear it, dear."
-
-"She won't take it back," said Eleanor, fingering it delicately;
-"she looks on us as her children, for whom nothing is too good. And
-perhaps--perhaps some day we may have it in our power to do things for
-_her_."
-
-"I wish I could think so. But there is no chance of that."
-
-"How can you tell? When we are married, we may be very well off--"
-
-"That would be to desert her, Nelly, and to cut off all our
-opportunities for repaying her."
-
-"No. It would please her more than anything. We might settle down
-close to her--one of us, at any rate--and she could advise us about
-furnishing and housekeeping. To have the choosing of the colours for
-our drawing-rooms, and all that sort of thing, would give her ecstasies
-of delight."
-
-"Bless her!" was Elizabeth's pious and fervent rejoinder.
-
-Then Eleanor laid out her fan and gloves for the evening, and the
-girls went down to dinner. Patty was in the music-room, working off
-her excitement in one of Liszt's rhapsodies, to which Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was listening with critical approval--the girl very seldom putting her
-brilliant powers of execution to such evident proof; and the major was
-smiling to himself as he paced gently up and down the Persian carpeted
-parquet of the long drawing-room beyond, waiting for the sound of the
-dinner bell, and the appearance of his dear Elizabeth. As soon as she
-came in, he went up to her, still subtly smiling, carrying a beautiful
-bouquet in his hand. It was composed almost entirely of that flower
-which is so sweet and lovely, but so rare in Australia, the lily of
-the valley (and lest the reader should say it was impossible, I can
-tell him or her that I saw it and smelt it that very night, and in that
-very Melbourne ballroom where Elizabeth disported herself, with my own
-eyes and nose), the great cluster of white bells delicately thinned and
-veiled in the finest and most ethereal feathers of maiden-hair. "For
-you," said the major, looking at her with his sagacious eyes.
-
-"Oh!" she cried, taking it with tremulous eagerness, and inhaling its
-delicious perfume in a long breath. "Real lilies of the valley, and I
-have never seen them before. But not for me, surely," she added; "I
-have already the beautiful bouquet you told the gardener to cut for me."
-
-"You may make that over to my wife," said the major, plaintively. "I
-thought she was above carrying flowers about with her to parties--she
-used to say it was bad art--you did, my dear, so don't deny it; you
-told me distinctly that that was not what flowers were meant for. But
-she says she will have your bouquet, Elizabeth, so that you may not be
-afraid of hurting my feelings by taking this that is so much better.
-Where the fellow got it from I can't imagine. I only know of one place
-where lilies of the valley grow, and they are not for sale _there_."
-
-Elizabeth looked at him with slowly-crimsoning cheeks. "What fellow?"
-she asked.
-
-He returned her look with one that only Major Duff-Scott's eyes could
-give. "I don't know," he said softly.
-
-"He _does_ know," his wife broke in; "I can see by his manner that he
-knows perfectly well."
-
-"I assure you, on my word of honour, that I don't," protested the
-little major, still with a distant sparkle in his quaint eyes. "It was
-brought to the door just now by somebody, who said it was for Miss
-King--that's all."
-
-"It might be for any of them," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, slightly put out
-by the liberty that somebody had taken without her leave. "They are all
-Miss Kings to outside people. It was a very stupid way of sending it."
-
-"Will you take it for yourself?" said Elizabeth, holding it out to her
-chaperon. "Let me keep my own, and you take this."
-
-"O no," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, flinging out her hands. "That would never
-do. It was meant for one of you, of course--not for me. _I_ think Mr.
-Smith sent it. It must have been either he or Mr. Westmoreland, and I
-fancy Mr. Westmoreland would not choose lilies of the valley, even if
-he could get them. I think you had better draw lots for it, pending
-further information."
-
-Patty, rising from the piano with a laugh, declared that _she_ would
-not have it, on any account. Eleanor believed that it was meant for
-her, and that Mr. Westmoreland had better taste than people gave him
-credit for; and she had a mind to put in her claim for it. But the
-major set her aside gently. "No," he said, "it belongs to Elizabeth.
-I don't know who sent it--you may shake your head at me, my dear; I
-can't help it if you don't believe me--but I am convinced that it is
-Elizabeth's lawful property."
-
-"As if that didn't _prove_ that you know!" retorted Mrs. Duff-Scott.
-
-He was still looking at Elizabeth, who was holding her lilies of the
-valley to her breast. His eyes asked her whether she did not endorse
-his views, and when she lifted her face at the sound of the dinner
-bell, she satisfied him, without at all intending to do so, that she
-did. _She_ knew that the bouquet had been sent for her.
-
-It was carefully set into the top of a cloisonné pot in a cool corner
-until dinner was over, and until the girls were wrapped up and the
-carriage waiting for them at the hall door. Then the elder sister
-fetched it from the drawing-room, and carried it out into the balmy
-summer night, still held against her breast as if she were afraid it
-might be taken from her; and the younger sister gazed at it smilingly,
-convinced that it was Mr. Westmoreland's tribute to herself, and
-magnanimously determined to beg him not to let Elizabeth know it.
-Thus the evening began happily for both of them. And by-and-bye their
-carriage slowly ploughed its way to the Town Hall entrance, and they
-went up the stone stairs to the vestibule and the cloak-room and the
-ball-room, and had their names shouted out so that every ear listening
-for them should hear and heed, and were received by the hospitable
-bachelors and passed into the great hall that was so dazzlingly
-splendid to their unsophisticated eyes; and the first face that Eleanor
-was aware of was Mr. Westmoreland's, standing out solidly from the
-double row of them that lined the doorway. She gave him a side-long
-glance as she bowed and passed, and then stood by her chaperon's side
-in the middle of the room, and waited for him to come to her. But he
-did not come. She waited, and watched, and listened, with her thanks
-and explanations all ready, chatting smilingly to her party the while
-in perfect ease of mind; but, to her great surprise, she waited in
-vain. Perhaps he had to stand by the door till the Governor came;
-perhaps he had other duties to perform that kept him from her and his
-private pursuits; perhaps he had forgotten that he had asked her for
-the first dance two days ago; perhaps he had noticed her bouquet, and
-had supposed that she had given it away, and was offended with her.
-She had a serene and patient temperament, and did not allow herself to
-be put out; it would all be explained presently. And in the meantime
-the major introduced his friends to her, and she began to fill her
-programme rapidly.
-
-The evening passed on. Mrs. Duff-Scott settled herself in the
-particular one of the series of boudoirs under the gallery that struck
-her as having a commanding prospect. The Governor came, the band
-played, the guests danced, and promenaded, and danced again; and Mr.
-Westmoreland was nowhere to be seen. Eleanor was beset with other
-partners, and thought it well to punish him by letting them forestall
-him as they would; and, provisionally, she captivated a couple of naval
-officers by her proficiency in foreign languages, and made various men
-happy by her graceful and gay demeanour. By-and-bye, however, she came
-across her recreant admirer--as she was bound to do some time. He was
-leaning against a pillar, his dull eyes roving over the crowd before
-him, evidently looking for some one. She thought he was looking for her.
-
-"Well?" she said, archly, pausing before him, on the arm of an
-Exhibition commissioner with whom she was about to plunge into the
-intricacies of the lancers. Mr. Westmoreland looked at her with a start
-and in momentary confusion.
-
-"Oh--er," he stammered, hurriedly, "_here_ you are! Where have you been
-hiding yourself all the evening?" Then, after a pause, "Got any dances
-saved for me?"
-
-"_Saved_, indeed!" she retorted. "What next? When you don't take the
-trouble to come and ask for them!"
-
-"I am so engaged to-night, Miss Eleanor----"
-
-"I see you are. Never mind--I can get on without you." She walked on a
-step, and turned back. "Did you send me a pretty bouquet just now?" she
-whispered, touching his arm. "I think you did, and it was so good of
-you, but there was some mistake about it--" She checked herself, seeing
-a blank look in his face, and blushed violently. "Oh, it was _not_
-you!" she exclaimed, in a shocked voice, wishing the ball-room floor
-would open and swallow her up.
-
-"Really," he said, "I--I was very remiss--I'm awfully sorry." And he
-gave her to understand, to her profound consternation, that he had
-fully intended to send her a bouquet, but had forgotten it in the rush
-of his many important engagements.
-
-She passed on to her lancers with a wan smile, and presently saw him,
-under those seductive fern trees upstairs, with the person whom he
-had been looking for when she accosted him. "There's Westmoreland and
-his old flame," remarked her then partner, a club-frequenting youth
-who knew all about everybody. "_He_ calls her the handsomest woman
-out--because she's got a lot of money, I suppose. All the Westmorelands
-are worshippers of the golden calf, father and son--a regular set of
-screws the old fellows were, and he's got the family eye to the main
-chance. Trust him! _I_ can't see anything in her; can you? She's as
-round as a tub, and as swarthy as a gipsy. I like women"--looking at
-his partner--"to be tall, and slender, and fair. That's _my_ style."
-
-This was how poor Eleanor's pleasure in her first ball was spoiled.
-I am aware that it looks a very poor and shabby little episode, not
-worthy of a chapter to itself; but then things are not always what they
-seem, and, as a matter of fact, the life histories of a large majority
-of us are made up of just such unheroic passages.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII.
-
-
-"WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW MEN."
-
-
-When Elizabeth went into the room, watchfully attended by the major,
-who was deeply interested in her proceedings, she was perhaps the
-happiest woman of all that gala company. She was in love, and she was
-going to meet her lover--which things meant to her something different
-from what they mean to girls brought up in conventional habits of
-thought. Eve in the Garden of Eden could not have been more pure and
-unsophisticated, more absolutely natural, more warmly human, more
-blindly confiding and incautious than she; therefore she had obeyed her
-strongest instinct without hesitation or reserve, and had given herself
-up to the delight of loving without thought of cost or consequences.
-Where her affections were concerned she was incapable of compromise or
-calculation; it was only the noble and simple rectitude that was the
-foundation of her character and education which could "save her from
-herself," as we call it, and that only in the last extremity. Just
-now she was in the full flood-tide, and she let herself go with it
-without an effort. Adam's "graceful consort" could not have had a more
-primitive notion of what was appropriate and expected of her under the
-circumstances. She stood in the brilliant ball-room, without a particle
-of self-consciousness, in an attitude of unaffected dignity, and with a
-radiance of gentle happiness all over her, that made her beautiful to
-look at, though she was not technically beautiful. The major watched
-her with profound interest, reading her like an open book; he knew what
-was happening, and what was going to happen (he mostly did), though
-he had a habit of keeping his own counsel about his own discoveries.
-He noted her pose, which, besides being so admirably graceful, so
-evidently implied expectancy; the way she held her flowers to her
-breast, her chin just touched by the fringes of maiden-hair, while she
-gently turned her head from side to side. And he saw her lift her eyes
-to the gallery, saw at the same moment a light spread over her face
-that had a superficial resemblance to a smile, though her sensitive
-mouth never changed its expression of firm repose; and, chuckling
-silently to himself, he walked away to find a sofa for his wife.
-
-Presently Mrs. Duff-Scott, suitably enthroned, and with her younger
-girls already carried off by her husband from her side, saw Mr.
-Yelverton approaching her, and rejoiced at the prospect of securing his
-society for herself and having the tedium of the chaperon's inactivity
-relieved by sensible conversation. "Ah, so you are here!" she exclaimed
-cordially; "I thought balls were things quite out of your line."
-
-"So they are," he said, shaking hands with her and Elizabeth
-impartially, without a glance at the latter. "But I consider it a duty
-to investigate the customs of the country. I like to look all round
-when I am about it."
-
-"Quite right. This is distinctly one of our institutions, and I am very
-glad you are not above taking notice of it."
-
-"I am not above taking notice of anything, I hope."
-
-"No, of course not. You are a true philosopher. There is no
-dilettantism about you. That is what I like in you," she added frankly.
-"Come and sit down here between Miss King and me, and talk to us. I
-want to know how the emigration business is getting on."
-
-He sat down between the two ladies, Elizabeth drawing back her white
-skirts.
-
-"I have been doing no business, emigration or other," he said; "I have
-been spending my time in pleasure."
-
-"Is it possible? Well, I am glad to hear it. I should very much like
-to know what stands for pleasure with you, only it would be too rude a
-question."
-
-"I have been in the country," he said, smiling.
-
-"H--m--that's not saying much. You don't mean to tell me, I see.
-Talking of the country--look at Elizabeth's bouquet. Did you think we
-could raise lilies of the valley like those?"
-
-He bent his head slightly to smell them. "I heard that they did grow
-hereabouts," he said; and his eyes and Elizabeth's met for a moment
-over the fragrant flowers that she held between them, while Mrs.
-Duff-Scott detailed the negligent circumstances of their presentation,
-which left it a matter of doubt where they came from and for whom they
-were intended.
-
-"I want to find Mr. Smith," said she; "I fancy he can give us
-information."
-
-"I don't think so," said Mr. Yelverton; "he was showing me a lily of
-the valley in his button-hole just now as a great rarity in these
-parts."
-
-Then it flashed across Mrs. Duff-Scott that Paul Brion might have been
-the donor, and she said no more.
-
-For some time the trio sat upon the sofa, and the matron and the
-philanthropist discussed political economy in its modern developments.
-They talked about emigration; they talked about protection--and wherein
-a promising, but inexperienced, young country was doing its best to
-retard the wheels of progress--as if they were at a committee meeting
-rather than disporting themselves at a ball. The major found partners
-for the younger girls, but he left Elizabeth to her devices; at least
-he did so for a long time--until it seemed to him that she was being
-neglected by her companions. Then he started across the room to rescue
-her from her obscurity. At the moment that he came in sight, Mr.
-Yelverton turned to her. "What about dancing, Miss King?" he said,
-quickly. "May I be allowed to do my best?"
-
-"I cannot dance," said Elizabeth. "I began too late--I can't take to
-it, somehow."
-
-"My dear," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, "that is nonsense. All you want is
-practice. And I am not going to allow you to become a wall-flower." She
-turned her head to greet some newly-arrived friends, and Mr. Yelverton
-rose and offered his arm to Elizabeth.
-
-"Let us go and practise," he said, and straightway they passed down the
-room, threading a crowd once more, and went upstairs to the gallery,
-which was a primeval forest in its solitude at this comparatively
-early hour. "There is no reason why you should dance if you don't like
-it," he remarked; "we can sit here and look on." Then, when she was
-comfortably settled in her cushions under the fern trees, he leaned
-forward and touched her bouquet with a gesture that was significant of
-the unacknowledged but well-understood intimacy between them. "I am so
-glad I was able to get them for you," he said; "I wanted you to know
-what they were really like--when you told me how much your mother had
-loved them."
-
-"I can't thank you," she replied.
-
-"Do not," he said. "It is for me to thank you for accepting them. I
-wish you could see them in my garden at Yelverton. There is a dark
-corner between two gables of the house where they make a perfect carpet
-in April."
-
-She lifted those she held to her face, and sniffed luxuriously.
-
-"There is a room in that recess," he went on, "a lady's sitting-room.
-Not a very healthy spot, by the way, it is too dank and dark. It was
-fitted up for poor Elizabeth Leigh when my two uncles, Patrick and
-Kingscote, expected her to come and live there, each wanting her for
-his wife--so my grandmother used to say. It has never been altered,
-though nearly all the rest of the house has been turned inside out. I
-think the lilies of the valley were planted there for her. I wish you
-could see that room. You would like sitting by the open window--it is
-one of those old diamond-paned casements, and has got some interesting
-stained glass in it--and seeing the sun shine on the grey walls
-outside, and smelling the lilies in that green well that the sun cannot
-reach down below. It is just one of those things that would suit you."
-
-She listened silently, gazing at the great organ opposite, towering out
-of the groves of flowers at its base, without seeing what it was she
-looked at. After a pause he went on, still leaning forward, with his
-arms resting on his knees. "I can think of nothing now but how much I
-want you to see and know everything that makes my life at home," he
-said.
-
-"Tell me about it," she said, with the woman's instinctive desire for
-delay at this juncture, not because she didn't want to hear the rest,
-but to prolong the sweetness of anticipation; "tell me what your life
-at Yelverton is like."
-
-"I have not had much of it at present," he replied, after a brief
-pause. "The place was let for a long while. Then, when I took it over
-again, I made it into a sort of convalescent home, and training-place,
-and general starting-point for girls and children--_protégées_ of my
-friend who does slumming in the orthodox way. Though he disapproves
-of me he makes use of me, and, of course, I don't disapprove of him,
-and am very glad to help him. The house is too big for me alone, and
-it seems the best use I can put it to. Of course I keep control of
-it; I take the poor things in on the condition that they are to be
-disciplined after my system and not his--his may be the best, but they
-don't enjoy it as they do mine--and when I am at home I run down once a
-week or so to see how they are getting on."
-
-"And how is it now?"
-
-"Now the house is just packed, I believe, from top to bottom. I got
-a letter a few days ago from my faithful lieutenant, who looks after
-things for me, to say that it couldn't hold many more, and that the
-funds of the institution are stretched to their utmost capacity to
-provide supplies."
-
-"The funds? Oh, you must certainly use that other money now!"
-
-"Yes, I shall use it now. I have, indeed, already appropriated a small
-instalment. I told Le Breton to draw on it, rather than let one child
-go that we could take--rather than let one opportunity be lost."
-
-"You have other people working with you, then?"
-
-"A good many--yes, and a very miscellaneous lot you would think them.
-Le Breton is the one I trust as I do myself. I could not have been here
-now if it had not been for him. He is my right hand."
-
-"Who is he?" she asked, fascinated, in spite of her preoccupations, by
-this sketch of a life that had really found its mission in the world,
-and one so beneficent and so satisfying.
-
-"He is a very interesting man," said Mr. Yelverton, who still leaned
-towards her, touching her flowers occasionally with a tender audacity;
-"a man to respect and admire--a brave man who would have been burnt at
-the stake had he lived a few centuries ago. He was once a clergyman,
-but he gave that up."
-
-"He gave it up!" repeated Elizabeth, who had read "Thomas à Kempis" and
-the _Christian Year_ daily since she was a child, as her mother had
-done before her.
-
-"He couldn't stand it," said Mr. Yelverton, simply. "You see he was a
-man with a very literal, and straight-going, and independent mind--a
-mind that could nohow bend itself to the necessities of the case. I
-don't suppose he ever really gave himself up out of his own control,
-but, at any rate, when he got to know the world and the kind of time
-that we had come to, he couldn't pretend to shut his eyes. He couldn't
-make-believe that he was all the same as he had been when a mere lad
-of three-and-twenty, and that nothing had happened to change things
-while he had been learning and growing. And once he fell out with
-his conscience there was no patching up the breach with compromises
-for _him_. He tried it, poor fellow--he had a tough tussle before he
-gave in. It was a great step to take, you know--a martyrdom with all
-the pain and none of the glory--that nobody could sympathise with or
-understand."
-
-Elizabeth was sitting very still, watching with unseeing eyes the
-glitter of a conspicuous diamond tiara in the moving crowd below. She,
-at any rate, could neither sympathise nor understand.
-
-"He was in the thick of his troubles when I first met him," Mr.
-Yelverton went on. "He was working hard in one of the East End
-parishes, doing his level best, as the Yankees say, and tormented all
-the time, not only by his own scruples and self-accusations, but by a
-perfect hornet's nest of ecclesiastical persecutors. I said to him. 'Be
-an honest man, and give up being a parson--'"
-
-"Isn't it possible to be _both?_" Elizabeth broke in.
-
-"No doubt it is. But it was not possible for him. Seeing that, I
-advised him to let go, and leave those that could to hold on--as I am
-glad they do hold on, for we want the brake down at the rate we are
-going. He was in agonies of dread about the future, because he had a
-wife and children, so I offered him a salary equal to the emoluments
-of his living to come and work with me. 'You and I will do what good
-we can together,' I said, 'without pretending to be anything more than
-what we _know_ we are.' And so he cast in his lot with me, and we have
-worked together ever since. They call him all sorts of bad names, but
-he doesn't care--at least not much. It is such a relief to him to be
-able to hold his head up as a free man--and he does work with such a
-zest compared to what he did!"
-
-"And you," said Elizabeth, drawing short breaths, "what are you?--are
-you a Dissenter, too?"
-
-"Very much so, I think," he said, smiling at a term that to him, an
-Englishman, was obsolete, while to her, an Australian born, it had
-still its ancient British significance (for she had been born and
-reared in her hermit home, the devoutest of English-churchwomen).
-
-"And yet, in one sense, no one could be less so."
-
-"But _what_ are you?" she urged, suddenly revealing to him that she was
-frightened by this ambiguity.
-
-"Really, I don't know," he replied, looking at her gravely. "I think
-if I had to label my religious faith in the usual way, with a motto, I
-should say I was a Humanitarian. The word has been a good deal battered
-about and spoiled, but it expresses my creed better than any other."
-
-"A Humanitarian!" she ejaculated with a cold and sinking heart. "Is
-that all?" To her, in such a connection, it was but another word for an
-infidel.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX.
-
-
-PATTY CONFESSES.
-
-
-A little group of their male attendants stood in the lobby, while Mrs.
-Duff-Scott and the girls put on their wraps in the cloak-room. When the
-ladies reappeared, they fell into the order in which Paul, unseen in
-the shadows of the street, saw them descend the steps to the pavement.
-
-"May I come and see you to-morrow morning?" asked Mr. Yelverton of
-Elizabeth, whom he especially escorted.
-
-"Not--not to-morrow," she replied. "We shall be at Myrtle Street, and
-we never receive any visitors there."
-
-"At Myrtle Street!" exclaimed the major, who also walked beside her.
-"Surely you are not going to run off to Myrtle Street to-morrow?"
-
-"We are going there now," said she, "if we can get in. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-knows."
-
-"Let them alone," said the chaperon, looking back over her shoulder.
-"If they have a fancy to go home they shall go. I won't have them
-persuaded." She was as reluctant to leave them at Myrtle Street as the
-major could be, but she carefully abstained, as she always did, from
-interfering with their wishes when nothing of importance was involved.
-She was wise enough to know that she would have the stronger hold on
-them by seeming to leave them their liberty.
-
-They were put into the carriage by their attentive cavaliers, the major
-taking his now frequent box seat in order to accompany them; and Mr.
-Smith and Mr. Yelverton were left standing on the pavement. Arrived
-at Myrtle Street, it was found that the house was still open, and the
-girls bade the elder couple an effusively affectionate and compunctious
-good-night.
-
-"And when shall I see you again?" Mrs. Duff-Scott inquired, with a
-carefully composed smile and cheerful air.
-
-"To-morrow," said Elizabeth, eagerly; "to-morrow, of course, some of
-us will come." All three girls had a painful feeling that they were
-ungrateful, while under obligations to be grateful, in spite of their
-friend's effort to prevent it, as they stood a moment in the warm night
-at their street door, and watched the carriage roll away. And yet they
-were so glad to be on their own "tauri" to-night--even Eleanor, who had
-grown more out of tune with the old frugal life than any of them.
-
-They were let in by the ground-floor landlady, with whom they chatted
-for a few minutes, arranging about the materials for their breakfast;
-then they went upstairs to their lonely little bedrooms, where they
-lit their candles and began at once to prepare for bed. They were dead
-tired, they said, and wanted to sleep and not to talk.
-
-But a full hour after their separation for the night, each one was as
-wide awake as she had been all day. Elizabeth was kneeling on the floor
-by her bedside, still half-dressed--she had not changed her attitude
-for a long time, though the undulations of her body showed how far from
-passive rest she was--when Patty, clothed only in her night-gown, crept
-in, making no noise with her bare feet.
-
-"Elizabeth," she whispered, laying her hand on her sister's shoulder,
-"are you asleep?--or are you saying your prayers?"
-
-Elizabeth, startled, lifted up her head, and disclosed to Patty's gaze
-in the candle-light a pale, and strained, and careworn face, "I was
-saying my prayers," she replied, with a dazed look. "Why are you out of
-bed, my darling? What is the matter?"
-
-"That is what I want to know," said Patty, sitting down on the bed.
-"What is the matter with us all? What has come to us? Nelly has been
-crying ever since I put the light out--she thought I couldn't hear her,
-but she was mistaken--sobbing and sniffing under the bedclothes, and
-blowing her nose in that elaborately cautious way--"
-
-"Oh, poor, dear child!" interrupted the maternal elder sister, making a
-start towards the door.
-
-"No, don't go to her," said Patty, putting out her hand; "leave her
-alone--she is quiet now. Besides, you couldn't do her any good. Do you
-know what she is fretting about? Because Mr. Westmoreland has been
-neglecting her. Would you believe it? She is caring about it, after
-all--and we thought it was only fun. She doesn't care about _him_, she
-couldn't do that--"
-
-"We can't tell," interrupted Elizabeth. "It is not for us to say.
-Perhaps she does, poor child!"
-
-"Oh, she _couldn't_," Patty scornfully insisted. "That is quite
-impossible. No, she has got fond of this life that we are living now
-with Mrs. Duff-Scott--I have seen it, how it has laid hold of her--and
-she would like to marry him so that she could have it always. That is
-what _she_ has come to. Oh, Elizabeth, don't you wish we had gone to
-Europe at the very first, and never come to Melbourne at all!" Here
-Patty herself broke down, and uttered a little shaking, hysterical sob.
-"Everything seems to be going wrong with us here! It does not look so,
-I know, but at the bottom of my heart I feel it. Why did we turn aside
-to waste and spoil ourselves like this, instead of going on to the life
-that we had laid out--a real life, that we should never have had to be
-ashamed of?"
-
-Elizabeth was silent for a few minutes, soothing her sister's
-excitement with maternal caresses, and at the same time thinking with
-all her might. "We must try not to get confused," she said presently.
-"Life is life, you know, Patty, wherever you are--all the other things
-are incidental. And we need not try to struggle with everything at
-once. I think we have done our best, when we have had anything to
-do--any serious step to take--since we came to Melbourne; and in Europe
-we could have done no more. It seemed right to please Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-and to accept such a treasure as her friendship when it came to us in
-what seemed such a providential way--did it not? It seemed so to me. It
-would have been ungenerous to have held out against her--and we were
-always a little given to be too proud of standing alone. It makes her
-happy to have us. I don't know what work we could have done that would
-have been more profitable than that. Patty"--after another thoughtful
-pause--"I don't think it is that _things_ are going wrong, dear. It is
-only that we have to manage them, and to steer our way, and to take
-care of ourselves, and that is so trying and perplexing. God knows _I_
-find it difficult! So, I suppose, does everyone."
-
-"You, Elizabeth? _You_ always seem to know what is right. And you are
-so good that you never ought to have troubles."
-
-"If Nelly is susceptible to such a temptation as Mr. Westmoreland--Mr.
-Westmoreland, because he is rich--she would not have gone far with us,
-in any case," Elizabeth went on, putting aside the allusion to herself.
-"Europe would not have strengthened her. It would have been all the
-same. While, as for you, my darling--"
-
-"I--I!" broke in Patty excitedly. "I should have been happy now, and
-not as I am! I should have been saved from making a fool of myself if I
-had gone to Europe! I should have been worth something, and able to do
-something, there!"
-
-"How can you tell, dear child? And why do you suppose you have been
-foolish? _I_ don't think so. On the contrary, it has often seemed to me
-that you have been the sensible one of us all."
-
-"O, Elizabeth, don't laugh at me!" wailed Patty, reproachfully.
-
-"I laugh at you, my darling! What an idea! I mean it, every word. You
-see everything in a distorted and exaggerated way just now, because
-you are tired and your nerves are over-wrought. You are not yourself
-to-night, Patty. You will cheer up--we shall all cheer up--when we
-have had a good sleep and a little quiet time to think things over."
-
-"No, I am not myself, indeed," assented Patty, with moody passion. "I
-am not myself at all--to be made to feel so weak and miserable!" She
-put her face down in her hands and began to cry with more abandonment
-at the thought of how weak she had become.
-
-"But Patty, dearest, there must be something the matter with you," her
-motherly elder sister cried, much distressed by this abnormal symptom.
-"Are you feeling ill? Don't frighten me like this."
-
-The girl laid her head upon her sister's shoulder, and there let
-herself loose from all restraint. "You _know_ what is the matter," she
-sobbed; "you know as well as I do what is the matter--that it is Paul
-Brion who worries me so and makes me so utterly wretched."
-
-"Paul Brion! _He_ worry you, Patty--_he_ make you wretched?"
-
-"You have always been delicate and considerate, Elizabeth--you have
-never said anything--but I know you know all about it, and how spoiled
-I am, and how spoiled everything is because of him. I hate to talk of
-it--I can't bear even you to see that I am fretting about him--but I
-can't help it! and I know you understand. When I have had just one good
-cry," she concluded, with a fresh and violent burst of tears, "perhaps
-I shall get on better."
-
-Elizabeth stared at the wall over her sister's head in dumb amazement,
-evidently not deserving the credit for perspicacity accorded to her.
-"Do you mean," she said slowly, "do you really mean--"
-
-"Yes," sobbed Patty, desperate, for the moment dead to shame.
-
-"Oh, how blind--how wickedly blind--how stupid--how selfish I have
-been!" Elizabeth exclaimed, after another pause in which to collect
-her shocked and bewildered faculties. "I never dreamt about it, my
-darling--never, for a single moment. I thought--I always had the
-settled impression that you did not like him."
-
-"I don't like him," said Patty, fiercely, lifting herself up. "I love
-him--I _love_ him! I must say it right out once, if I never speak
-another word," and she bent her head back a little, and stretched out
-her arms with an indescribable gesture as if she saw him standing
-before her. "He is a man--a real, true, strong man--who works, and
-thinks, and lives--lives! It is all serious with him, as I wanted
-it to be with me--and I _might_ have been worthy of him! A little
-while ago we were so near to each other--so near that we almost
-_touched_--and now no two people could be farther apart. I have done
-him wrong--I have been a wicked fool, but I am punished for it out of
-all proportion. _He_ flirt with a married woman! What could I have
-been dreaming of? Oh, how _disgusting_ I must be to have allowed such
-an idea to come into my head! And yet it was only a little thing,
-Elizabeth, when you come to think of it relatively--the only time I
-ever really did him injustice, and it was only for a moment. No one can
-always do what is right and fair without making a mistake sometimes--it
-was just a mistake for want of thinking. But it has taken him from me
-as completely as if I had committed suicide, and was dead and buried
-and done with. It has made him _hate_ me. No wonder! If he cared about
-me, I wouldn't be too proud to beg his pardon, but he doesn't--he
-doesn't! And so I must face it out, or else he will think I am running
-after him, and he will despise me more than he does already."
-
-"But if he was doing no harm," said Elizabeth, soothingly, "he could
-not suppose that you thought he was."
-
-"No," said Patty, "he will never think I was so disgusting as to think
-_that_ of him. But it is as bad as if he did. That at least was a
-great, outrageous, downright wrong, worth fighting about, and not the
-pitiful shabby thing that it appears to him. For, of course, he thinks
-I did it because I was too grand to notice him while I was wearing a
-fine dress and swelling about with great people. It never occurred
-to me that it would be possible for him or anybody to suspect me of
-_that_," said Patty, proudly, drawing herself up; "but afterwards I
-saw that he could not help doing it. And ever since then it has been
-getting worse and worse--everything has seemed to point to its being
-so. Haven't you noticed? I never see him except I am with people who
-_are_ above noticing him; and Mr. Smith--oh, what I have suffered from
-Mr. Smith to-night, Elizabeth!--has all this time been thinking I was
-going to marry him, and I can see now how it must have looked to other
-people as if I was. Just think of it!"--with a gesture of intense
-disgust. "As if any girl could stoop to that, after having had such a
-contrast before her eyes! No wonder he hates me and despises me--no
-wonder he looks at me as if I were the dirt beneath his feet. I wish I
-were," she added, with reckless passion; "oh, my dear love, I only wish
-I were!"
-
-When she was about it, Patty cleansed her stuffed bosom thoroughly.
-It was not her way to do things by halves. She rhapsodised about her
-love and her lover with a wild extravagance that was proportionate
-to the strained reserve and restraint that she had so long put upon
-her emotions. After which came the inevitable reaction. The fit being
-over, she braced herself up again, and was twice as strong-minded and
-self-sufficient as before. When the morning came, and she and Elizabeth
-busied themselves with housework--Eleanor being relegated to the sofa
-with a sick headache--the girl who had dissolved herself in tears and
-given way to temporary insanity, as she chose herself to call it, so
-recently, was bright, and brusque, and cheerful, in spite of sultry
-weather; and not only did she pretend, even to her confidante, that the
-young man on the other side of the wall had no place in her thoughts,
-but she hardened her heart to adamant against _him_, for having been
-the cause of her humiliating lapse from dignity. It was quite a lucky
-chance, indeed, that she did not straightway go and accept the hand
-and fortune of Mr. Smith, by way of making reparation for the outrage
-committed vicariously by Paul Brion on her self-respect.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX.
-
-
-THE OLD AND THE NEW.
-
-
-The weather was scorchingly hot and a thunderstorm brewing when the
-girls sat down to their frugal lunch at mid-day. It was composed of
-bread and butter and pickled fish, for which, under the circumstances,
-they had not appetite enough. They trifled with the homely viands for
-awhile, in a manner quite unusual with them, in whatever state of the
-atmosphere; and then they said they would "make up" at tea time, if
-weather permitted, and cleared the table. Eleanor was sent to lie down
-in her room, Patty volunteered to read a pleasant novel to the invalid,
-and Elizabeth put on her bonnet to pay her promised visit to Mrs.
-Duff-Scott.
-
-She found her friend in the cool music-room, standing by the piano, on
-which some loose white sheets were scattered. The major sat on a sofa,
-surveying the energetic woman with a sad and pensive smile.
-
-"Are you looking over new music?" asked Elizabeth, as she walked in.
-
-"O my dear, is that you? How good of you to venture out in this
-heat!--but I knew you would," exclaimed the lady of the house, coming
-forward with outstretched arms of welcome. "Music, did you say?--O
-_dear_ no!" as if music were the last thing likely to interest her. "It
-is something of far more importance."
-
-"Yelverton has been here," said the major, sadly; "and he has been
-sketching some plans for Whitechapel cottages. My wife thinks they are
-most artistic."
-
-"So they are," she insisted, hardly, "though I don't believe I used the
-word; for things are artistic when they are suitable for the purpose
-they are meant for, and only pretend to be what they are. Look at
-this, Elizabeth. You see it is of no use to build Peabody houses in
-these frightfully low neighbourhoods, where half-starved creatures are
-packed together like herrings in a barrel--Mr. Yelverton has explained
-that quite clearly. The better class of poor come to live in them, and
-the poorest of all are worse off instead of better, because they have
-less room than they had before. You _must_ take into consideration
-that there is only a certain amount of space, and if you build model
-lodgings here, and a school there, and a new street somewhere else, you
-do good, of course, but you herd the poor street-hawkers and people of
-that class more and more thickly into their wretched dens, where they
-haven't enough room to breathe as it is--"
-
-"I think I'll go, my dear, if you'll excuse me," interrupted the major,
-humbly, in tones of deep dejection.
-
-"And therefore," proceeded Mrs. Duff-Scott, taking no notice of her
-husband, "the proper and reasonable thing to do--if you want to help
-those who are most in need of help--is to let fine schemes alone. Mr.
-Yelverton expects to come into a large property soon, and he means to
-buy into those wretched neighbourhoods, where he can, and to build
-for one-room tenants--for cheapness and low rents. He will get about
-four per cent. on his money, but that he will use to improve with--I
-mean for putting them in the way of sanitary habits, poor creatures.
-He makes a great point of teaching them sanitation. He seems to think
-more of that than about teaching them the Bible, and really one
-can hardly wonder at it when one sees the frightful depravity and
-general demoralisation that come of ignorance and stupidity in those
-matters--and he sees so much of it. He seems to be always rooting
-about in those sewers and dunghills, as he calls them--he is rather
-addicted to strong expressions, if you notice--and turning things out
-from the very bottom. He is queer in some of his notions, but he is a
-good man, Elizabeth. One can forgive him his little crotchets, for the
-sake of all the good he does--it must be incalculable! He shrinks from
-nothing, and spends himself trying to better the things that are so bad
-that most people feel there is nothing for it but to shut their eyes to
-them--without making any fuss about it either, or setting himself up
-for a saint. Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott, throwing a contemptuous
-glance around her museum of precious curiosities, "how inconceivably
-petty and selfish it seems to care for rubbish like this, when there
-are such miseries in the world that we might lighten, as he does, if we
-would only set ourselves to it in the same spirit."
-
-_Rubbish!_--those priceless pots and plates, those brasses and ivories
-and enamels, those oriental carpets and tapestries, those unique
-miscellaneous relics of the mediæval prime! Truly the Cause of Humanity
-had taken hold of Mrs. Duff-Scott at last.
-
-She sat down in an arm-chair, having invited Elizabeth to take off
-her hat and make herself as comfortable as the state of the weather
-permitted, and began to wave a large fan to and fro while she looked
-into vacant space with shining eyes.
-
-"He is a strange man," she said musingly. "A most interesting,
-admirable man, but full of queer ideas--not at all like any man I ever
-met before. He has been lunching with us, Elizabeth--he came quite
-early--and we have had an immense deal of talk. I wish you had been
-here to listen to him--though I don't know that it would have been very
-good for you, either. He is extremely free, and what you might call
-revolutionary, in his opinions; he treats the most sacred subjects as
-if they were to be judged and criticised like common subjects. He talks
-of the religions of the world, for instance, as if they were all on
-the same foundation, and calls the Bible our Veda or Koran--says they
-are all alike inspired writings because they respectively express the
-religious spirit, craving for knowledge of the mystery of life and the
-unseen, that is an integral part of man's nature, and universal in
-all races, though developed according to circumstances. He says all
-mankind are children of God, and brothers, and that he declines to make
-invidious distinctions. And personal religion to him seems nothing more
-than the most rudimentary morality--simply to speak the truth and to
-be unselfish--just as to be selfish or untrue are the only sins he
-will acknowledge that we are responsible for out of the long catalogue
-of sins that stain this unhappy world. He won't call it an unhappy
-world, by the way, in spite of the cruel things he sees; he is the most
-optimistic of unbelievers. It will all come right some day--and our
-time will be called the dark ages by our remote descendants. Ever since
-men and women came first, they have been getting better and higher--the
-world increases in human goodness steadily, and will go on doing so as
-long as it is a world--and that because of the natural instincts and
-aspirations of human nature, and not from what we have always supposed
-all our improvement came from--rather in spite of that, indeed."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott poured out this information, which had been seething in
-her active mind, volubly and with a desire to relieve herself to some
-one; but here she checked herself, feeling that she had better have
-left it all unsaid, not less for Elizabeth's sake than for her own. She
-got up out of her seat and began to pace about the room with a restless
-air. She was genuinely troubled. It was as if a window in a closed
-chamber had been opened, letting in a too strong wind that was blowing
-the delicate furniture all about; now, with the woman's instinctive
-timidity and fear (that may be less a weakness than a safeguard), she
-was eager to shut it to again, though suspecting that it might be
-too late to repair the damage done. Now that she took time to think
-about it, she felt particularly guilty on Elizabeth's account, who had
-not had her experience, and was not furnished with her ripe judgment
-and powers of discrimination as a preservative against the danger of
-contact with heterodox ideas.
-
-"I ought not to repeat such things," she exclaimed, vexedly, beginning
-to gather up the plans of the Whitechapel cottages, but observing
-only her companion's strained and wistful face. "The mere independent
-hypotheses and speculations of one man, when no two seem ever to think
-alike! I suppose those who study ancient history and literatures,
-and the sciences generally, get into the habit of pulling things to
-pieces--"
-
-"Those who learn most _ought_ to know most," suggested Elizabeth.
-
-"They ought, my dear; but it doesn't follow."
-
-"Not when they are so earnest in trying to find out?"
-
-"No; that very earnestness is against them--they over-reach themselves.
-They get confused, too, with learning so much, and mixing so many
-things up together." Mrs. Duff-Scott was a little reckless as to means
-so long as she could compass the desired end--which was the shutting
-of that metaphorical window which she had incautiously set (or left)
-open.
-
-"Well, he believes in God--that all men are God's children," the
-girl continued, clinging where she could. "That seems like religion
-to me--it is a good and loving way to think of God, that He gave His
-spirit to all alike from the beginning--that He is so just and kind to
-all, and not only to a few."
-
-"Yes, he believes in God. He believes in the Bible, too, in a sort of
-a way. He says he would have the lessons of the New Testament and the
-life of Christ disseminated far and wide, but not as they are now, with
-the moral left out, and not as if those who wrote them were wise enough
-for all time. But, whatever his beliefs may be," said Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-"they are not what will satisfy us, Elizabeth. You and I must hold fast
-to our faith in Christ, dear child, or I don't know what would become
-of us. We will let 'whys' alone--we will not trouble ourselves to try
-and find out mysteries that no doubt are wisely withheld from us, and
-that anyhow we should never be able to understand."
-
-Here the servant entered with a gliding step, opened a little
-Sutherland table before his mistress's chair, spread the æsthetic
-cloth, and set out the dainty tea service. Outside the storm had burst,
-and was now spending itself and cooling the hot air in a steady shower
-that made a rushing sound on the gravel. Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had
-reseated herself, leant back silently with an air of reaction after her
-strong emotion in the expression of her handsome face and form, and
-Elizabeth mechanically got up to pour out the tea. Presently, as still
-in silence they began to sip and munch their afternoon repast, the girl
-saw on the piano near which she stood a photograph that arrested her
-attention. "What is this?" she asked. "Did he bring this too?" It was a
-copy of Luke Fildes' picture of "The Casuals." Mrs. Duff-Scott took it
-from her hand.
-
-"No, it is mine," she said. "I have had it here for some time, in a
-portfolio amongst others, and never took any particular notice of it. I
-just had an idea that it was an unpleasant and disagreeable subject. I
-never gave it a thought--what it really meant--until this morning, when
-he was talking to me, and happened to mention it. I remembered that I
-had it, and I got it out to look at it. Oh!" setting down her teacup
-and holding it fairly in both hands before her--"isn't it a terrible
-sermon? Isn't it heartbreaking to think that it is _true?_ And he says
-the truth is understated."
-
-Like the great Buddha, when he returned from his first excursion beyond
-his palace gates, Elizabeth's mind was temporarily darkened by the new
-knowledge of the world that she was acquiring, and she looked at the
-picture with a fast-beating heart. "Sphinxes set up against that dead
-wall," she quoted from a little printed foot-note, "and none likely to
-be at the pains of solving them until the general overthrow." She was
-leaning over her friend's shoulder, and the tears were dropping from
-her eyes.
-
-"They are Dickens's words," said Mrs. Duff-Scott.
-
-"Why is it like this, I wonder?" the girl murmured, after a long,
-impressive pause. "We must not think it is God's fault--that can't
-be. It must be somebody else's fault. It cannot have been _intended_
-that a great part of the human race should be forced, from no fault of
-their own, to accept such a cruel lot--to be made to starve, when so
-many roll in riches--to be driven to crime because they cannot help
-it--to be driven to _hell_ when they _need not_ have gone there--if
-there is such a place--if there is any truth in what we have been
-taught. But"--with a kind of sad indignation--"if religion has been
-doing its best for ever so many centuries, and this is all that there
-is to show for it--doesn't that seem to say that _he_ may be right,
-and that religion has been altogether misinterpreted--that we have all
-along been making mistakes--" She checked herself, with a feeling of
-dismay at her own words; and Mrs. Duff-Scott made haste to put away
-the picture, evidently much disturbed. Both women had taken the "short
-views" of life so often advocated, not from philosophical choice, but
-from disinclination, and perhaps inability, to take long ones; and
-they had the ordinary woman's conception of religion as exclusively
-an ecclesiastical matter. This rough disturbance of old habits of
-thought and sentiments of reverence and duty was very alarming; but
-while Elizabeth was rashly confident, because she was inexperienced,
-and because she longed to put faith in her beloved, Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was seized with a sort of panic of remorseful misgiving. To shut that
-window had become an absolute necessity, no matter by what means.
-
-"My dear," she said, in desperation, "whatever you do, you must not
-begin to ask questions of that sort. We can never find out the answers,
-and it leads to endless trouble. God's ways are not as our ways--we
-are not in the secrets of His providence. It is for us to trust Him
-to know what is best. If you admit one doubt, Elizabeth, you will see
-that everything will go. Thousands are finding that out now-a-days,
-to their bitter cost. Indeed, I don't know what we are coming to--the
-'general overthrow,' I suppose. I hope I, at any rate, shall not live
-to see it. What would life be worth to us--_any_ of us, even the best
-off--if we lost our faith in God and our hope of immortality? Just try
-to imagine it for a moment."
-
-Elizabeth looked at her mentor, who had again risen and was walking
-about the room. The girl's eyes were full of solemn thought. "Not
-much," she replied, gravely. "But I was never afraid of losing faith in
-God."
-
-"It is best to be afraid," replied Mrs. Duff-Scott, with decision.
-"It is best not to run into temptation. Don't think about these
-difficulties, Elizabeth--leave them, leave them. You would only
-unsettle yourself and become wretched and discontented, and you would
-never be any the wiser."
-
-Elizabeth thought over this for a few minutes, while Mrs. Duff-Scott
-mechanically took up a brass lota and dusted it with her handkerchief.
-
-"Then you think one ought not to read books, or to talk to people--to
-try to find out the ground one stands on----"
-
-"No, no, no--let it alone altogether. You know the ground you ought to
-stand on quite well. You don't want to see where you are if you can
-feel that God is with you. Blessed are they that have not seen and
-yet have believed!" she ended in a voice broken with strong feeling,
-clasping her hands with a little fervent, prayerful gesture.
-
-Elizabeth drew a long breath, and in her turn began to walk restlessly
-up and down the room. She had one more question to ask, but the asking
-of it almost choked her. "Then you would say--I suppose you think
-it would be wrong--for one who was a believer to marry one who was
-not?--however good, and noble, and useful he or she might be--however
-religious _practically_--however blameless in character?"
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, forgetting for the moment that there was such a person
-as Mr. Yelverton in the world, sat down once more in an arm-chair,
-and addressed herself to the proposition on its abstract merits. She
-had worked herself up, by this time, into a state of highly fervid
-orthodoxy. Her hour of weakness was past, and she was fain to put forth
-and test her reserves of strength. Wherefore she had very clear views
-as to the iniquity of an unequal yoking together with unbelievers, and
-the peril of touching the unclean thing; and she stated them plainly
-and with all her wonted incisive vigour.
-
-When it was all over, Elizabeth put on her hat and walked back through
-the pattering rain to Myrtle Street, heavy-hearted and heavy-footed, as
-if a weight of twenty years had been laid on her since the morning.
-
-"Patty," she said, when her sister, warmly welcoming her return,
-exclaimed at her pale face and weary air, and made her take the sofa
-that Eleanor had vacated, "Patty, let us go away for a few weeks, shall
-we? I want a breath of fresh air, and to be in peace and quiet for a
-little, to think things over."
-
-"So do I," said Patty. "So does Nelly. Let us write to Sam Dunn to find
-us lodgings."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI.
-
-
-IN RETREAT.
-
-
-"Is it possible that we have only been away for nine months?"
-murmured Elizabeth, as the little steamer worked its way up to the
-well-remembered jetty, and she looked once more on surf and headland,
-island rock and scattered township, lying under the desolate moorlands
-along the shore. "Doesn't it seem _at least_ nine years?"
-
-"Or ninety," replied Patty. "I feel like a new generation. How exactly
-the same everything is! Here they have all been going on as they always
-did. There is Mrs. Dunn, dear old woman!--in the identical gown that
-she had on the day we went away."
-
-Everything was the same, but they were incredibly changed. There was no
-sleeping on the nose of the vessel now; no shrinking from association
-with their fellow-passengers. The skipper touched his cap to them,
-which he never used to do in the old times; and the idlers on the
-pier, when the vessel came in, stared at them as if they had indeed
-been away for ninety years. Mrs. Dunn took in at a glance the details
-of their travelling costumes, which were of a cut and quality not
-often seen in those parts; and, woman-like, straightway readjusted her
-smiles and manners, unconsciously becoming at once more effusive and
-more respectful than (with the ancient waterproofs in her mind's eye)
-she had prepared herself to be. But Sam saw only the three fair faces,
-that were to him as unchanged as his own heart; and he launched himself
-fearlessly into the boat as soon as it came alongside, with horny hand
-outstretched, and boisterous welcomes.
-
-"So y'are come back again?" he cried, "and darn glad I am to see yer,
-and no mistake." He added a great deal more in the way of greeting
-and congratulation before he got them up the landing stage and into
-the capacious arms of Mrs. Dunn--who was quite agreeably surprised to
-be hugged and kissed by three such fashionable young ladies. Then he
-proceeded to business with a triumphant air. "Now, Miss 'Lisbeth, yer
-see here's the cart--that's for the luggage. Me and the old hoss is
-going to take it straight up. And there is a buggy awaiting for you.
-And Mr. Brion told me to say as he was sorry he couldn't come down to
-the boat, but it's court day, yer see, and he's got a case on, and he's
-obliged to stop till he's done wi' that."
-
-"Oh," exclaimed Elizabeth, hastily, "did you tell Mr. Brion that we
-were coming?"
-
-"Why, of course, miss. I went and told him the very first thing--'twas
-only right, him being such a friend--your only friend here, as one may
-say."
-
-"Oh, no, Sam, we have you."
-
-"Me!"--with scornful humility--"I'm nothing. Yes, of course I went and
-told him. And he wouldn't let us get no lodgings; he said you was just
-to go and stay wi' Mrs. Harris and him. He would ha' wrote to tell yer,
-but there worn't time."
-
-"And much more comfortable you'll be than at them lodging places," put
-in Mrs. Dunn. "There's nothing empty now that's at all fit for you. The
-season is just a-coming on, you see, and we're like to be pretty full
-this year."
-
-"But we wanted to be away from the town, Mrs. Dunn."
-
-"And so you will be away from the town. Why, bless me, you can't be
-much farther away--to be anywhere at all--than up there," pointing to
-the headland where their old home was dimly visible in the November
-sunshine. "There's only Mrs. Harris and the gal, and _they_ won't
-interfere with you."
-
-"Up _there!_" exclaimed the sisters in a breath. And Mr. and Mrs. Dunn
-looked with broad grins at one another.
-
-"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the fisherman. "You don't mean as Master
-Paul never let on about his pa and him buying the old place, do you?
-Why, they've had it, and the old man has been living there--he comes
-down every morning and goes up every night--walks both ways, he do,
-like a young chap--this two or three months past. Mrs. Hawkins she
-couldn't bear the lonesomeness of it when the winter come on, and was
-right down glad to get out of it. They gave Hawkins nearly double what
-_you_ got for it. I told yer at the time that yer was a-throwing of it
-away."
-
-The girls tried to look as if they had known all about it, while they
-digested their surprise. It was a very great surprise, almost amounting
-to a shock.
-
-"And how _is_ Mr. Paul?" asked Mrs. Dunn of Patty. "Dear young man,
-it's a long time since we've seen anything of him! I hope he's keeping
-his health well!"
-
-"I think so--I hope so," said Patty gently. "He works very hard, you
-know, writing things for the papers. He is wanted too much to be able
-to take holidays like ordinary people. They couldn't get on without
-him."
-
-Elizabeth turned round in astonishment: she had expected to see her
-sister in a blaze of wrath over Sam's unexpected communications. "I'm
-afraid you won't like this arrangement, dearie," she whispered. "What
-had we better do?"
-
-"Oh, go--go," replied Patty, with a tremulous eagerness that she vainly
-tried to hide. "I don't mind it. I--I am glad to see Mr. Brion. It will
-be very nice to stay with him--and in our own dear old house too. Oh, I
-wouldn't refuse to go for anything! Besides we _can't_."
-
-"No, I don't see how we can," acquiesced Elizabeth, cheerfully. Patty
-having no objection, she was delighted with the prospect.
-
-They walked up the little pier in a group, the "hoss" following them
-with the reins upon his neck; and, while Elizabeth and Patty mounted
-the buggy provided by Mr. Brion, Eleanor gratified the old fisherman
-and his wife by choosing to stay with them and ride up in the cart. It
-was a lovely morning, just approaching noon, the sky as blue as--no,
-_not_ as a turquoise or a sapphire--but as nothing save itself can be
-in a climate like ours, saturated with light and lucent colour, and
-giving to the sea its own but an intenser hue. I can see it all in my
-mind's eye--as my bodily eyes have seen it often--that dome above, that
-plain below, the white clouds throwing violet shadows on the water, the
-white gulls dipping their red legs in the shining surf and reflecting
-the sunlight on their white wings; but I cannot describe it. It is
-beyond the range of pen and ink, as of brush and pigments. As the buggy
-lightly climbed the steep cliff, opening the view wider at every step,
-the sisters sat hand in hand, leaning forward to take it all in; but
-they, too, said nothing--only inhaled long draughts of the delicious
-salt air, and felt in every invigorated fibre of them that they had
-done well to come. Reaching the crest of the bluff, and descending into
-the broken basin--or saucer, rather--in which Seaview Villa nestled,
-they uttered simultaneously an indignant moan at the spectacle of Mrs.
-Hawkins's devastations. There was the bright paint, and the whitewash,
-and the iron roof, and the fantastic trellis; and there was _not_ the
-ivy that had mantled the eaves and the chimney stacks, nor the creepers
-that had fought so hard for existence, nor the squat verandah posts
-which they had bountifully embraced--nor any of the features that had
-made the old house distinct and characteristic.
-
-"Never mind," said Patty, who was the first to recover herself. "It
-looks very smart and tidy. I daresay it wanted doing up badly. After
-all, I'd sooner see it look as unlike home as possible, now that it
-isn't home."
-
-Mrs. Harris came out and warmly welcomed them in Mr. Brion's name.
-She took them into the old sitting-room, now utterly transformed, but
-cosy and inviting, notwithstanding, with the lawyer's substantial old
-leather chairs and sofas about it, and a round table in the middle
-set out for lunch, and the sea and sky shining in through the open
-verandah doors. She pressed them to have wine and cake to "stay" them
-till Eleanor and lunch time arrived; and she bustled about with them in
-their rooms--their own old bedrooms, in one of which was a collection
-of Paul's schoolboy books and treasures, while they took off their hats
-and washed their hands and faces; and was very motherly and hospitable,
-and made them feel still more pleased that they had come. They feasted,
-with fine appetites, on fish and gooseberry-fool at one o'clock, while
-Sam and Mrs. Dunn were entertained by the housekeeper in the kitchen;
-and in the afternoon, the cart and "hoss" having departed, they sat on
-the verandah in basket chairs, and drank tea, and idled, and enjoyed
-the situation thoroughly. Patty got a dog's-eared novel of Mayne
-Reid's from the book-case in her bedroom, and turned over the pages
-without reading them to look at the pencil marks and thumb stains; and
-Eleanor dozed and fanned herself; and Elizabeth sewed and thought. And
-then their host came home, riding up from the township on a fast and
-panting steed, quite thrown off his balance by emotion. He was abject
-in his apologies for having been deterred by cruel fate and business
-from meeting them at the steamer and conducting them in person to his
-house, and superfluous in expressions of delight at the honour they had
-conferred on him.
-
-"And how did you leave my boy?" he asked presently, when due inquiries
-after their own health and welfare had been satisfied. He spoke as
-if they and Paul had all been living under one roof. "And when is he
-coming to see his old father again?"
-
-Patty, who was sitting beside her host--"in his pocket," Nelly
-declared--and was simply servile in her affectionate demonstrations,
-undertook to describe Paul's condition and circumstances, and she
-implied a familiar knowledge of them which considerably astonished her
-sisters. She also gave the father a full history of all the son's good
-deeds in relation to themselves--described how he had befriended them
-in this and that emergency, and asserted warmly, and with a grave face,
-that she didn't know what they _should_ have done without him.
-
-"That's right--that's right!" said the old man, laying her hand on his
-knee and patting it fondly. "I was sure he would--I knew you'd find out
-his worth when you came to know him. We must write to him to-morrow,
-and tell him you have arrived safely. He doesn't know I have got you,
-eh? We must tell him. Perhaps we can induce him to take a little
-holiday himself--I am sure it is high time he had one--and join us for
-a few days. What do you think?"
-
-"Oh, I am _sure_ he can't come away just now," protested Patty, pale
-with eagerness and horror. "In the middle of the Exhibition--and a
-parliamentary crisis coming on--it would be quite impossible!"
-
-"I don't know--I don't know. I fancy 'impossible' is not a word you
-will find in his dictionary," said the old gentleman encouragingly.
-"When he hears of our little arrangement, he'll want to take a hand, as
-the Yankees say. He won't like to be left out--no, no."
-
-"But, dear Mr. Brion," Patty strenuously implored--for this was really
-a matter of life and death, "do think what a critical time it is! They
-never _can_ spare him now."
-
-"Then they ought to spare him. Because he is the best man they have,
-that is no reason why they should work him to death. They don't
-consider him sufficiently. He gives in to them too much. He is not a
-machine."
-
-"Perhaps he would come," said Patty, "but it would be against his
-judgment--it would be at a heavy cost to his country--it would be just
-to please us--oh, don't let us tempt him to desert his post, which _no_
-one could fill in his absence! Don't let us unsettle and disturb him at
-such a time, when he is doing so much good, and when he wants his mind
-kept calm. Wait for a little while; he might get away for Christmas
-perhaps."
-
-"But by Christmas, I am afraid, you would be gone."
-
-"Never mind. We see him in Melbourne. And we came here to get away from
-all Melbourne associations."
-
-"Well, well, we'll see. But I am afraid you will be very dull with only
-an old fellow like me to entertain you."
-
-"Dull!" they all exclaimed in a breath. It was just what they wanted,
-to be so peaceful and quiet--and, above all things, to have him (Mr.
-Brion, senior) entirely to themselves.
-
-The polite old man looked as if he were scarcely equal to the weight
-of the honour and pleasure they conferred upon him. He was excessively
-happy. As the hours and days went on, his happiness increased. His
-punctilious courtesy merged more and more into a familiar and paternal
-devotion that took all kinds of touching shapes; and he felt more
-and more at a loss to express adequately the tender solicitude and
-profound satisfaction inspired in his good old heart by the sojourn of
-such charming guests within his gates. To Patty he became especially
-attached; which was not to be wondered at, seeing how susceptible he
-was and how lavishly she exercised her fascinations upon him. She
-walked to his office with him in the morning; she walked to meet him
-when he came hastening back in the afternoon; she read the newspaper
-(containing Paul's peerless articles) to him in the evening, and mixed
-his modest glass of grog for him before he went to bed. In short,
-she made him understand what it was to have a charming and devoted
-daughter, though she had no design in doing so--no motive but to
-gratify her affection for Paul in the only way open to her. So the old
-gentleman was very happy--and so were they. But still it seemed to
-him that he must be happier than they were, and that, being a total
-reversal of the proper order of things, troubled him. He had a pang
-every morning when he wrenched himself away from them--leaving them,
-as he called it, alone--though loneliness was the very last sensation
-likely to afflict them. It seemed so inhospitable, so improper, that
-they should be thrown upon their own resources, and the company of a
-housekeeper of humble status, for the greater part of the day--that
-they should be without a male attendant and devotee, while a man
-existed who was privileged to wait on them. If only Paul had been at
-home! Paul would have taken them for walks, for drives, for boating
-excursions, for pic-nics; he would have done the honours of Seaview
-Villa as the best of hosts and gentlemen. However, Paul, alas! was tied
-to his newspaper in Melbourne, and the old man had a business that he
-was cruelly bound to attend to--at any rate, sometimes. But at other
-times he contrived to shirk his business and then he racked his brains
-for projects whereby he might give them pleasure.
-
-"Let's see," he said one evening, a few days after their arrival; "I
-suppose you have been to the caves too often to care to go again?"
-
-"No," said Elizabeth; "we have never been to the caves at all."
-
-"_What_--living within half-a-dozen miles of them all your lives! Well,
-I believe there are many more like you. If they had been fifty miles
-away, you would have gone about once a twelvemonth."
-
-"No, Mr. Brion; we were never in the habit of going sight-seeing. My
-father seldom left the house, and my mother only when necessary; and we
-had no one else to take us."
-
-"Then I'll take you, and we will go to-morrow. Mrs. Harris shall pack
-us a basket for lunch, and we'll make a day of it. Dear, dear, what a
-pity Paul couldn't be here, to go with us!"
-
-The next morning, which was brilliantly fine, brought the girls an
-anxiously-expected letter from Mrs. Duff-Scott. Sam Dunn, who was an
-occasional postman for the solitary house, delivered it, along with
-a present of fresh fish, while Mr. Brion was absent in the township,
-negotiating for a buggy and horses for his expedition. The fairy
-godmother had given but a grudging permission for this _villeggiatura_
-of theirs, and they were all relieved to have her assurance that she
-was not seriously vexed with them. Her envelope was inscribed to "Miss
-King," but the long letter enclosed was addressed to her "dearest
-children" collectively, tenderly inquiring how they were getting
-on and when they were coming back, pathetically describing her own
-solitude--so unlike what it was before she knew the comfort of their
-companionship--and detailing various items of society news. Folded in
-this, however, was the traditional lady's postscript, scribbled on
-a small half-sheet and marked "private," which Elizabeth took away
-to read by herself. She wondered, with a little alarm, what serious
-matter it was that required a confidential postscript, and this was
-what she read:--
-
-"I have been thinking over our talk the other day, dear. Perhaps I
-spoke too strongly. One is apt to make arbitrary generalisations on the
-spur of the moment, and to forget how circumstances may alter cases.
-There is another side to the question that should not be overlooked.
-The believing wife or husband may be the salvation of _the other_, and
-when the other is _honest_ and _earnest_, though _mistaken_, there is
-the strongest hope of this. It requires thinking of on _all_ sides, my
-darling, and I fear I spoke without thinking enough. Consult your own
-heart--I am sure it will advise you well."
-
-Elizabeth folded up the note, and put it into her pocket. Then--for
-she was alone in her own little bedroom--she sat down to think of it;
-to wonder what had reminded Mrs. Duff-Scott of their conversation the
-"other day"--what had induced her to temporise with the convictions
-which then appeared so sincere and absolute. But she could make nothing
-of it. It was a riddle without the key.
-
-Then she heard the sound of buggy wheels, hurried steps on the
-verandah, and the voice of Mr. Brion calling her.
-
-"My dear," said the old man when she went out to him, speaking in some
-haste and agitation, "I have just met at the hotel a friend of yours
-from Melbourne--Mr. Yelverton. He came by the coach last night. He
-says Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him up to see how you are getting on, and to
-report to her. He is going away again to-morrow, and I did not like to
-put off our trip, so I have asked him to join us. I hope I have not
-done wrong"--looking anxiously into her rapidly changing face--"I hope
-you won't think that I have taken a liberty, my dear."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII.
-
-
-HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.
-
-
-He was talking to Patty and Eleanor in the garden when Elizabeth went
-out to him, looking cool and colonial in a silk coat and a solar
-topee. The girls were chatting gaily; the old lawyer was sketching a
-programme of the day's proceedings, and generally doing the honours
-of his neighbourhood with polite vivacity. Two buggies, one single
-and one double, in charge of a groom from the hotel, were drawn up by
-the gate, and Mrs. Harris and "the gal" were busily packing them with
-luncheon baskets and rugs. There was a cloudless summer sky overhead--a
-miracle of loveliness spread out before them in the shining plain of
-the sea; and the delicate, fresh, salt air, tremulous with the boom of
-subterranean breakers, was more potent than any wine to make glad the
-heart of man and to give him a cheerful countenance.
-
-Very cheerfully did Mr. Yelverton come forward to greet his beloved,
-albeit a little moved with the sentiment of the occasion. He had parted
-from her in a ball-room, with a half-spoken confession of--something
-that she knew all about quite as well as he did--on his lips; and he
-had followed her now to say the rest, and to hear what she had to reply
-to it. This was perfectly understood by both of them, as they shook
-hands, with a little conventional air of unexpectedness, and he told
-her that he had come at Mrs. Duff-Scott's orders.
-
-"She could not rest," he said, gravely, "until she was sure that you
-had found pleasant quarters, and were comfortable. She worried about
-you--and so she sent me up."
-
-"It was troubling you too much," Elizabeth murmured, evading his direct
-eyes, but quite unable to hide her agitation from him.
-
-"You say that from politeness, I suppose? No, it was not troubling
-me at all--quite the contrary. I am delighted with my trip. And I am
-glad," he concluded, dropping his voice, "to see the place where you
-were brought up. This was your home, was it not?" He looked all round
-him.
-
-"It was not like this when we were here," she replied. "The house was
-old then--now it is new. They have done it up."
-
-"I see. Have you a sketch of it as it used to be? You draw, I know.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott has been showing me your drawings."
-
-"Yes, I have one. It hangs in the Melbourne sitting-room."
-
-Mr. Brion broke in upon this dialogue. "Now, my dears, I think we are
-all ready," he said. "Elizabeth, you and I will go in the little buggy
-and lead the way. Perhaps Mr. Yelverton will be good enough to take
-charge of the two young ladies. Will you prefer to drive yourself, Mr.
-Yelverton?"
-
-Mr. Yelverton said he preferred to be driven, as he was not acquainted
-with the road; and Elizabeth, throned in the seat of honour in the
-little buggy, looked back with envious eyes to watch his arrangements
-for her sisters' comfort. He put Patty beside the groom on the front
-seat, and carefully tucked her up from the dust; and then he placed
-Eleanor at the back, climbed to her side, and opened a large umbrella
-which he held so that it protected both of them. In this order the
-two vehicles set forth, and for the greater part of the way, owing to
-the superior lightness of the smaller one, they were not within sight
-of each other; during which time Elizabeth was a silent listener to
-her host's amiable prattle, and reproaching herself for not feeling
-interested in it. She kept looking through the pane of glass behind
-her, and round the side of the hood, and wondering where the others
-were, and whether they were keeping the road.
-
-"Oh, they can't miss it," was Mr. Brion's invariable comment. "They
-will follow our tracks. If not, the man knows our destination."
-
-For the old lawyer was making those short cuts which are so dear to
-all Jehus of the bush; preferring a straight mile of heavy sand to a
-devious mile and a quarter of metal, and ploughing through the stiff
-scrub that covered the waste moors of the district rather by the sun's
-than by the surveyor's direction. It made the drive more interesting,
-of course. The bushes that rustled through the wheels and scratched the
-horses' legs were wonderful with wild flowers of every hue, and the
-orchids that were trampled into the sand, and gathered by handfuls to
-die in the buggy, were remarkable for their fantastic variety. And then
-there were lizards and butterflies, and other common objects of the
-country, not so easily discerned on a beaten track. But Elizabeth could
-not bring herself to care much for these things to-day.
-
-They reached high land after a while, whence, looking back, they saw
-the other buggy crawling towards them a mile or two away, and, looking
-forward, saw, beyond a green and wild foreground, the brilliant sea
-again, with a rocky cape jutting out into it, sprinkled with a few
-white houses on its landward shoulder--a scene that was too beautiful,
-on such a morning, to be disregarded. Here the girl sat at ease, while
-the horses took breath, thoroughly appreciating her opportunities;
-wondering, not what Mr. Yelverton was doing or was going to do, but how
-it was that she had never been this way before. Then Mr. Brion turned
-and drove down the other side of the hill, and exclaimed "Here we are!"
-in triumph.
-
-It was a shallow basin of a dell, in the midst of romantic glens,
-sandy, and full of bushes and wild flowers, and bracken and tussocky
-grass, and shady with tall-stemmed gum trees. As the buggy bumped
-and bounced into the hollow, shaving the dead logs that lay about in
-a manner which reflected great credit upon the lawyer's navigation,
-Elizabeth, feeling the cool shadows close over her head, and aware
-that they had reached their destination, looked all round her for the
-yawning cavern that she had specially come to see.
-
-"Where are the caves?" she inquired--to Mr. Brion's intense
-gratification.
-
-"Ah, where are they?" he retorted, enjoying his little joke. "Well, we
-have just been driving over them."
-
-"But the mouth, I mean?"
-
-"Oh, the mouth--the mouth is here. We were very nearly driving over
-that too. But we'll have lunch first, my dear, before we investigate
-the caves--if it's agreeable to you. I will take the horses out, and
-we'll find a nice place to camp before they come."
-
-Presently the other buggy climbed over the ridge and down into the
-hollow; and Mr. Yelverton beheld Elizabeth kneeling amongst the bracken
-fronds, with the dappled sun and shade on her bare head and her blue
-cotton gown, busily trying to spread a table-cloth on the least uneven
-piece of ground that she could find, where it lay like a miniature
-snow-clad landscape, all hills except where the dishes weighed it to
-the earth. He hastened to help her as soon as he had lifted Patty and
-Eleanor from their seats.
-
-"You are making yourself hot," he said, with his quiet air of authority
-and proprietorship. "You sit down, and let me do it. I am quite used
-to commissariat business, and can set a table beautifully." He took
-some tumblers from her hand, and, looking into her agitated face, said
-suddenly, "I could not help coming, Elizabeth--I could not leave it
-broken off like that--I wanted to know why you ran away from me--and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott gave me leave. You will let me talk to you presently?"
-
-"Oh, not now--not now!" she replied, in a hurried, low tone, turning
-her head from side to side. "I must have time to think--"
-
-"Time to think!" he repeated, with just a touch of reproach in his
-grave surprise. And he put down the tumblers carefully, got up, and
-walked away. Upon which, Elizabeth, reacting violently from the mood
-in which she had received him, had an agonising fear that he would
-impute her indecision to want of love for him, or insensibility to his
-love for her--though, till now, that had seemed an impossibility. In
-a few minutes he returned with her sisters and Mr. Brion, all bearing
-dishes and bottles, and buggy cushions and rugs; and, when the luncheon
-was ready, and the groom had retired to feed and water his horses, she
-lifted her eyes to her tall lover's face with a look that he understood
-far better than she did. He quietly came round from the log on which he
-had been about to seat himself, and laid his long limbs on the sand and
-bracken at her side.
-
-"What will you have?" he asked carelessly; "roast beef and salad, or
-chicken pie? I can recommend the salad, which has travelled remarkably
-well." And all the time he was looking at her with happy contentment, a
-little smile under his red moustache; and her heart was beating so that
-she could not answer him.
-
-The luncheon was discussed at leisure, and, as far as Mr. Brion could
-judge, was a highly successful entertainment. The younger girls,
-whatever might be going to happen to-morrow, could not help enjoying
-themselves to-day--could not help getting a little intoxicated with the
-sweetness of the summer air and the influences of the scene generally,
-and breaking out in fun and laughter; even Elizabeth, with her
-desperate anxieties, was not proof against the contagion of their good
-spirits now and then. The travelled stranger, who talked a great deal,
-was the most entertaining of guests, and the host congratulated himself
-continually on having added him to the party. "We only want Paul now
-to make it all complete," said the happy old man, as he gave Patty,
-who had a dreadful appetite after her long drive, a second helping of
-chicken pie.
-
-When the sylvan meal was ended, and the unsightly remnants cleared
-away, the two men smoked a soothing cigarette under the trees, while
-the girls tucked up their clean gowns a little and tied handkerchiefs
-over their heads, and then Mr. Brion, armed with matches and a pound
-of candles, marched them off to see the caves. He took them but a
-little way from where they had camped, and disclosed in the hillside
-what looked like a good-sized wombat or rabbit hole. "Now, you stay
-here while I go and light up a bit," he said, impressively, and he
-straightway slid down and disappeared into the hole. They stooped and
-peered after him, and saw a rather muddy narrow shaft slanting down
-into the earth, through which the human adult could only pass "end on."
-The girls were rather dismayed at the prospect.
-
-"It is a case of faith," said Mr. Yelverton. "We must trust ourselves
-to Mr. Brion entirely or give it up."
-
-"We will trust Mr. Brion," said Elizabeth.
-
-A few minutes later the old man's voice was heard from below. "Now,
-come along! Just creep down for a step or two, and I will reach your
-hand. Who is coming first?"
-
-They looked at each other for a moment, and Patty's quick eye caught
-something from Mr. Yelverton's. "I will go first," she said; "and you
-can follow me, Nelly." And down she went, half sliding, half sitting,
-and when nearly out of sight stretched up her arm to steady her sister.
-"It's all right," she cried; "there's plenty of room. Come along!"
-
-When they had both disappeared, Mr. Yelverton took Elizabeth's
-unlighted candle from her hand and put it into his pocket. "There is no
-need for you to be bothered with that," he said: "one will do for us."
-And he let himself a little way down the shaft, and put up his hand to
-draw her after him.
-
-In a few seconds they stood upright, and were able, by the light of
-the three candles just dispersing into the interior, to see what
-kind of place they had come to. They were limestone caves, ramifying
-underground for a quarter of a mile or so in direct length, and
-spreading wide on either side in a labyrinth of chambers and passages.
-The roof was hung with a few stalactites, but mostly crusted with soft
-bosses, like enormous cauliflowers, that yielded to the touch; lofty
-in places, so that the candle-light scarcely reached it, and in places
-so low that one could not pass under it. The floor, if floor it could
-be called, was a confusion of hills and vales and black abysses, stony
-here, and dusty there, and wet and slippery elsewhere--altogether an
-uncanny place, full of weird suggestions. The enterprising and fearless
-Patty was far ahead, exploring on her own account, and Mr. Brion,
-escorting Eleanor, dwindling away visibly into a mere pin's point,
-before Mr. Yelverton and Elizabeth had got their candle lighted and
-begun their investigations. A voice came floating back to them through
-the immense darkness, duplicated in ever so many echoes: "Are you all
-right, Elizabeth?"
-
-"Yes," shouted Mr. Yelverton instantly, like a soldier answering to the
-roll-call. Then he took her hand, and, holding the candle high, led her
-carefully in the direction of the voice. She was terribly nervous and
-excited by the situation, which had come upon her unawares, and she
-had an impulse to move on hastily, as if to join her sisters. Bat her
-lover held her back with a turn of his strong wrist.
-
-"Don't hurry," he said, in a tone that revealed to her how he
-appreciated his opportunity, and how he would certainly turn it to
-account; "it is not safe in such a place as this. And you can trust
-_me_ to take care of you as well as Mr. Brion, can't you?"
-
-She did not answer, and he did not press the question. They crept
-up, and slid down, and leapt over, the dark obstructions in their
-devious course for a little while in silence--two lonely atoms in the
-vast and lifeless gloom. Fainter and fainter grew the voices in the
-distance--fainter and fainter the three tiny specks of light, which
-seemed as far away as the stars in heaven. There was something dreadful
-in their isolation in the black bowels of the earth, but an unspeakably
-poignant bliss in being thus cast away together. There was no room for
-thought of anything outside that.
-
-Groping along hand in hand, they came to a chasm that yawned,
-bridgeless, across their path. It was about three feet wide, and
-perhaps it was not much deeper, but it looked like the bottomless pit,
-and was very terrifying. Bidding Elizabeth to wait where she was,
-Mr. Yelverton leaped over by himself, and, dropping some tallow on a
-boulder near him, fixed his candle to the rock. Then he held out his
-arms and called her to come to him.
-
-For a moment she hesitated, knowing what awaited her, and then she
-leaped blindly, fell a little short, and knocked the candle from its
-insecure socket into the gulf beneath her. She uttered a sharp cry as
-she felt herself falling, and the next instant found herself dragged up
-in her lover's strong arms, and folded with a savage tenderness to his
-breast. _This_ time he held her as if he did not mean to let her go.
-
-"Hush!--you are quite safe," he whispered to her in the pitch darkness.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII.
-
-
-THE DRIVE HOME.
-
-
-The girls were boiling a kettle and making afternoon tea, while the men
-were getting their horses and buggy furniture together, at about four
-o'clock. Elizabeth was on her knees, feeding the gipsy fire with dry
-sticks, when Mr. Yelverton came to her with an alert step.
-
-"I am going to drive the little buggy back," he said, "and you are
-coming with me. The others will start first, and we will follow."
-
-She looked up with a startled expression that puzzled and disappointed
-him.
-
-"_What!_" he exclaimed, "do you mean to say that you would rather not?"
-
-"Oh, no, I did not mean that," she faltered hurriedly; and into her
-averted face, which had been deadly pale since she came out of the
-cave, the hot blood flushed, remembering how long he and she had stood
-there together in a profound and breathless solitude, and the very
-blackest night that ever Egypt knew, after he took her into his arms,
-and before they remembered that they had a second candle and matches
-to light it with. In that interval, when she laid her head upon his
-shoulder, and he his red moustache upon her responsive lips, she had
-virtually accepted him, though she had not meant to do so. "No," she
-repeated, as he silently watched her, "you know it is not that."
-
-"What then? Do you think it is improper?"
-
-"Of course not."
-
-"You would really like it, Elizabeth?"
-
-"Yes--yes. I will come with you. We can talk as we go home."
-
-"We can. That was precisely my object in making the arrangement."
-
-Eleanor, presiding over her crockery at a little distance, called to
-them to ask whether the water boiled--and they perceived that it did.
-Mr. Yelverton carried the kettle to the teapot, and presently busied
-himself in handing the cups--so refreshing at the close of a summer
-picnic, when exercise and sun and lunch together have resulted in
-inevitable lassitude and incipient headaches--and doling out slices of
-thin bread and butter as Patty deftly shaved them from the loaf. They
-squatted round amongst the fern fronds and tussocks, and poured their
-tea vulgarly into their saucers--being warned by Mr. Brion that they
-had no time to waste--and then packed up, and washed their hands, and
-tied on their hats, and shook out their skirts, and set forth home
-again, declaring they had had the most beautiful time. The large buggy
-started first, the host driving; and Mr. Yelverton was informed that
-another track would be taken for the return journey, and that he was
-to be very careful not to lose himself.
-
-"If we do lose ourselves," said Mr. Yelverton, as his escort
-disappeared over the crest of the hill, and he still stood in the
-valley--apparently in no haste to follow--tucking a light rug over his
-companion's knees, "it won't matter very much, will it?"
-
-"Oh, yes, it will," she replied anxiously. "I don't know the way at
-all."
-
-"Very well; then we will keep them in sight. But only just in sight--no
-more. Will you have the hood up or down?"
-
-"Down," she said. "The day is too lovely to be shut out."
-
-"It is, it is. I think it is just about the most lovely day I ever
-knew--not even excepting the first of October."
-
-"The first of October was not a lovely day at all. It was cold and
-dismal."
-
-"That was its superficial appearance." He let down the hood and
-climbed to his seat beside her, taking the reins from her hand. He had
-completely laid aside his sedate demeanour, and, though self-contained
-still, had a light in his eyes that made her tremble. "On your
-conscience," he said, looking at her, "can you say that the first of
-October was a dismal day? We may as well begin as we mean to go on,"
-he added, as she did not answer; "and we will make a bargain, in the
-first place, never to say a word that we don't mean, nor to keep back
-one that we do mean from each other. You will agree to that, won't you,
-Elizabeth?"--his disengaged arm was round her shoulder and he had drawn
-her face up to his. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth,"--repeating the syllables
-fondly--"what a sweet and honest name it is! Kiss me, Elizabeth."
-
-Instead of kissing him she began to sob. "Oh, don't, don't!" she cried,
-making a movement to free herself--at which he instantly released
-her. "Let us go on--they will be wondering where we are. I am very
-foolish--I can't help it--I will tell you presently!"
-
-She took out her handkerchief, and tried to calm herself as she sat
-back in the buggy; and he, without speaking, touched his horses
-with his whip and drove slowly out of the shady dell into the clear
-sunshine. For a mile or more of up-and-down tracking, where the wheels
-of the leading vehicle had left devious ruts in sand and grass to
-guide them, they sat side by side in silence--she fighting with and
-gradually overcoming her excitement, and he gravely waiting, with a
-not less strong emotion, until she had recovered herself. And then
-he turned to her, and laid his powerful hand on hers that had dropped
-dejectedly into her lap, and said gently, though with decision--"Now
-tell me, dear. What is the matter? I _must_ know. It is not--it is
-_not_"--contracting his fingers sharply--"that you don't mean what you
-have been telling me, after all? For though not in words, you _have_
-been telling me, have you not?"
-
-"No," she sighed; "it is not that."
-
-"I knew it. I was sure it could not be. Then what else can
-matter?--what else should trouble you? Is it about your sisters? You
-_know_ they will be all right. They will not lose you--they will gain
-me. I flatter myself they will be all the better for gaining me,
-Elizabeth. I hoped you would think so?"
-
-"I do think so."
-
-"What then? Tell me."
-
-"Mr. Yelverton, it is so hard to tell you--I don't know how to do it.
-But I am afraid--I am afraid--"
-
-"Of what? Of _me?_"
-
-"Oh, no! But I want to do what is right. And it seems to me that to let
-myself be happy like this would be wrong--"
-
-"Wrong to let yourself be happy? Good heavens! Who has been teaching
-you such blasphemy as that?"
-
-"No one has taught me anything, except my mother. But she was so good,
-and she had so many troubles, and she said that she would never have
-been able to bear them--to have borne life--had she not been stayed
-up by her religious faith. She told us, when it seemed to her that we
-might some day be cast upon the world to shift for ourselves, never
-to let go of that--to suffer and renounce everything rather than be
-tempted to give up that."
-
-"Who has asked you to give it up?" he responded, with grave and gentle
-earnestness. "Not I. I would be the last man to dream of such a thing."
-
-"But you--_you_ have given up religion!" she broke forth, despairingly.
-
-"Have I? I don't think so. Tell me what you mean by religion?"
-
-"I mean what we have been brought up to believe."
-
-"By the churches?"
-
-"By the Church--the English Church--which I have always held to be the
-true Church."
-
-"My dear child, every Church holds itself to be the true Church, and
-all the others to be false ones. Why should yours be right any more
-than other people's?"
-
-"My mother taught us so," said Elizabeth.
-
-"Yes. Your mother made it true, as she would have made any other true,
-by the religious spirit that she brought into it. They are _all_
-true--not only those we know of, but Buddhism and Mohammedanism, and
-even the queer faiths and superstitions of barbarian races, for they
-all have the same origin and object; and at the same time they are all
-so adulterated with human errors and vices, according to the sort of
-people who have had the charge of them, that you can't say any one of
-them is pure. No more pure than we are, and no less. For you to say
-that the rest are mistaken is just the pot calling the kettle black,
-Elizabeth. You may be a few degrees nearer the truth than those are who
-are less educated and civilised, but even that at present does not look
-so certain that you are justified in boasting about it--I mean your
-Church, you know, not you."
-
-"But we go by our Bible--we trust, not in ourselves, but in _that_."
-
-"So do the 'Dissenters,' as you call them."
-
-"Yes, I am speaking of all of us--all who are Christian people. What
-guide should we have if we let our Bible go?"
-
-"Why should you let it go? I have not let it go. If you read it
-intelligently it is truly a Holy Scripture--far more so than when you
-make a sort of charm and fetish of it. You should study its origin
-and history, and try to get at its meaning as you would at that of
-any other book. It has a very wonderful history, which in its turn is
-derived from other wonderful histories, which people will perversely
-shut their eyes to; and because of this undiscriminating ignorance,
-which is the blindness of those who won't see or who are afraid to see,
-it remains to this day the least understood of all ancient records.
-Some parts of it, you know, are a collection of myths and legends,
-which you will find in the same shape in older writings--the first dim
-forms of human thought about God and man and the mysteries of creation;
-and a great many good people read _these_ as gospel truth, in spite
-of the evidence of all their senses to the contrary, and take them
-as being of the same value and importance as the beautiful books of
-the later time. And there are other Bibles in the world besides ours,
-whether we choose to acknowledge them or not."
-
-Elizabeth listened with terror. "And do you say it is _not_ the light
-of the world after all?" she cried in a shaken voice.
-
-"There should be no preaching to the heathen, and spreading the good
-tidings over all lands?"
-
-"Yes, there should," he replied; "oh, yes, certainly there should.
-But it should be done as it was by Christ, to whom all were with Him
-who were not against Him, and with a feeling that we should share all
-we know, and help each other to find out the best way. Not by rudely
-wrenching from the heathen, as we call him, all his immemorial moral
-standards, which, if you study them closely, are often found, rough as
-they are, to be thoroughly effective and serviceable, and giving him
-nothing in their places except outworn myths, and senseless hymns, and
-a patter of Scripture phrases that he can't possibly make head or tail
-of. That, I often think, is beginning the work of salvation by turning
-him from a religious man into an irreligious one. Your Church creed,"
-he went on, "is just the garment of religion, and you wear finely-woven
-stuffs while the blacks wear blankets and 'possum-skins; they are all
-little systems that have their day and cease to be--that change and
-change as the fashion of the world changes. But the spirit of man--the
-indestructible intelligence that makes him apprehend the mystery of his
-existence and of the great Power that surrounds it--which in the early
-stages makes him cringe and fear, and later on to love and trust--that
-is the _body_. That is religion, as I take it. It is in the nature of
-man, and not to be given or taken away. Only the more freely we let
-that inner voice speak and guide us, the better we are, and the better
-we make the world and help things on. That's my creed, Elizabeth. You
-confuse things," he went on, after a pause, during which she kept an
-attentive silence, "when you confound religion and churchism together,
-as if they were identical. I have given up churchism, in your sense,
-because, though I have hunted the churches through and through, one
-after another, I have found in them no adequate equipment for the
-work of my life. The world has gone on, and they have not gone on.
-The world has discovered breechloaders, so to speak, and they go to
-the field with the old blunderbusses of centuries ago. Centuries!--of
-the prehistoric ages, it seems, now. My dear, I have lived over forty
-years--did you know I was so old as that?--seeking and striving to get
-hold of what I could in the way of a light and a guide to help me to
-make the best of my life and to do what little I might to better the
-world and brighten the hard lot of the poor and miserable. Is that
-giving up religion? I am not a churchman--I would be if I could, it
-is not my fault--but if I can't accept those tests, which revolt the
-reason and consciousness of a thinking man, am I therefore irreligious?
-_Am_ I, Elizabeth?"
-
-"You bewilder me," she said; "I have never made these distinctions. I
-have been taught in the Church--I have found comfort there and help. I
-am afraid to begin to question the things that I have been taught--I
-should get lost altogether, trying to find a new way."
-
-"Then don't begin," he said. "_I_ will not meddle with your faith--God
-forbid! Keep it while you can, and get all possible help and comfort
-out of it."
-
-"But you have meddled with it already," she said, sighing. "The little
-that you have said has shaken it like an earthquake."
-
-"If it is worth anything," he responded, "it is not shaken so easily."
-
-"And _you_ may be able to do good in your own strength," she went on,
-"but how could I?--a woman, so weak, so ignorant as I?"
-
-"Do you want a policeman to keep you straight? I have a better opinion
-of you. Oh, you will be all right, my darling; don't fear. If you only
-honestly believe what you _do_ believe, and follow the truth as it
-reveals itself to you, no matter in what shape, and no matter where it
-leads you, you will be all right. Be only sincere with yourself, and
-don't pretend--don't, whatever you do, pretend to _anything_. Surely
-that is the best religion, whether it enables you to keep within church
-walls or drives you out into the wilderness. Doesn't it stand to
-reason? We can only do our best, Elizabeth, and leave it." He put his
-arm round her again, and drew her head down to his shoulder. They were
-driving through a lone, unpeopled land, and the leading buggy was but a
-speck on the horizon.
-
-"Oh!" she sighed, closing her eyes wearily, "if I only knew _what_ was
-best!"
-
-"Well," he said, "I will not ask you to trust me since you don't seem
-equal to it. You must decide for yourself. But, Elizabeth, if you
-_knew_ what a life it was that I had planned! We were to be married
-at once--within a few weeks--and I was to take you home to _my_ home.
-Patty and Nelly were to follow us later on, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, who
-wants to come over to see my London work, which she thinks will help
-her to do something here when she returns. You and I were to go away
-alone--wouldn't you have liked that, my love?--to be always with me,
-and taken care of and kept from harm and trouble, as I kept you to-day
-and on that Exhibition morning. Yes, and we were to take up that
-fortune that has been accumulating so long, and take Yelverton, and
-make our home and head-quarters there; and we were to live a great deal
-in London, and go backwards and forwards and all about amongst those
-unhappy ones, brightening up their lives because our own were so bright
-and sweet. You were to help me, as only a woman like you--the woman
-I have been looking for all my life--could help; but I was not going
-to let you work too hard--you were to be cared for and made happy,
-first of all--before all the world. And I _could_ make you happy--I
-could, I could--if you would let me try." He was carried away for the
-moment with the rush of his passionate desire for that life that he was
-contemplating, and held her and kissed her as if he would compel her to
-come to him. Then with a strong effort he controlled himself, and went
-on quietly, though in a rather unsteady voice: "Don't you think we can
-be together without harming each other? We shall both have the same
-aims--to live the best life and do the most good that we can--what will
-the details matter? We could not thwart each other really--it would be
-impossible. The same spirit would be in us; it is only the letter we
-should differ about."
-
-"If we were together," she said, "we should not differ about anything.
-Spirit or letter, I should grow to think as you did."
-
-"I believe you would, Elizabeth--I believe you would. And I should grow
-to think as you did. No doubt we should influence each other--it would
-not be all on one side. Can't you trust me, my dear? Can't we trust
-each other? You will have temptations, wherever you go, and with me,
-at least, you will always know where you are. If your faith is a true
-faith it will stand all that I shall do to it, and if your love for me
-is a true love--"
-
-He paused, and she looked up at him with a look in her swimming eyes
-that settled that doubt promptly.
-
-"Then you will do it, Elizabeth?"
-
-"Oh," she said, "you know you can _make_ me do it, whether it is right
-or wrong!"
-
-It was a confession of her love, and of its power over her that
-appealed to every sentiment of duty and chivalry in him. "No," he said,
-very gravely and with a great effort, "I will not make you do anything
-wrong. You shall feel that it is not wrong before you do it."
-
-An hour later they had reached the shore again, and were in sight of
-the headland and the smoke from the kitchen chimney of Seaview Villa,
-and in sight of their companions dismounting at Mr. Brion's garden
-gate. They had not lost themselves, though they had taken so little
-heed of the way. The sun was setting as they climbed the cliff, and
-flamed gloriously in their faces and across the bay. Sea and sky were
-bathed in indescribable colour and beauty. Checking their tired horses
-to gaze upon the scene, on the eve of an indefinite separation, the
-lovers realised to the full the sweetness of being together and what it
-would be to part.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV.
-
-
-SUSPENSE.
-
-
-Mr. Brion stood at his gate when the little buggy drove up, beaming
-with contentment and hospitality. He respectfully begged that Mr.
-Yelverton would grant them the favour of his company a little
-longer--would take pot-luck and smoke an evening pipe before he
-returned to his hotel in the town, whither he, Mr. Brion, would be
-only too happy to drive him. Mr. Yelverton declared, and with perfect
-truth, that nothing would give him greater pleasure. Whereupon the
-hotel servant was dismissed in charge of the larger vehicle, and the
-horses of the other were put into the stable. The girls went in to wash
-and dress, and the housekeeper put forth her best efforts to raise the
-character of the dinner from the respectable to the genteel in honour
-of a guest who was presumably accustomed to genteel dining.
-
-The meal was served in the one sitting-room of the house, by the
-light of a single lamp on the round table and a flood of moonlight
-that poured in from the sea through the wide-open doors. After the
-feasts and fatigues of the day, no one had any appetite to speak of
-for the company dishes that Mrs. Harris hastily compounded, course by
-course, in the kitchen; but everyone felt that the meal was a pleasant
-one, notwithstanding. Mr. Yelverton, his host, and Patty, who was
-unusually sprightly, had the conversation to themselves. Patty talked
-incessantly. Nelly was amiable and charming, but decidedly sleepy;
-and Elizabeth, at her lover's side, was not, perhaps, unhappy, but
-visibly pale and noticeably silent. After dinner they went out upon
-the verandah, and sat there in a group on the comfortable old chairs
-and about the floor, and drank coffee, and chatted in subdued tones,
-and looked at the lovely water shining in the moonlight, and listened
-to it booming and splashing on the beach below. The two men, by virtue
-of their respective and yet common qualities, "took to" each other,
-and, by the time the girls had persuaded them to light the soothing
-cigarette, Mr. Brion was talking freely of his clever lad in Melbourne,
-and Mr. Yelverton of the mysterious disappearance of his uncle, as if
-it were quite a usual thing with them to confide their family affairs
-to strangers. Eleanor meanwhile swayed herself softly to and fro in
-a ragged rocking chair, half awake and half asleep; Elizabeth, still
-irresistibly attracted to the neighbourhood of her beloved, sat in the
-shadow of his large form, listening and pondering, with her eyes fixed
-on the veiled horizon, and all her senses on the alert; Patty squatted
-on the edge of the verandah, leaning against a post and looking up into
-the sky. She was the leading spirit of the group to-night. It was a
-long time since she had been so lively and entertaining.
-
-"I wonder," she conjectured, in a pause of the conversation, "whether
-the inhabitants of any of those other worlds are sitting out on their
-verandahs to-night, and looking at _us_. I suppose we are not so
-absolutely insignificant but that _some_ of them, our own brother
-and sister planets, at any rate, can see us if they use their best
-telescopes--are we, Mr. Yelverton?"
-
-"We will hope not," said Mr. Yelverton.
-
-"To think that the moon--miserable impostor that she is!--should
-be able to put them out," continued Patty, still gazing at the
-palely-shining stars. "The other Sunday we heard a clergyman liken her
-to something or other which on its appearance quenched the ineffectual
-fires of the _lesser_ luminaries--"
-
-"He said the sun," corrected Elizabeth.
-
-"Well, it's all the same. What's the sun? The stars he hides are
-better suns than he is--not to speak of their being no end to them. It
-shows how easily we allow ourselves to be taken in by mere superficial
-appearances."
-
-"The sun and moon quench the stars for _us_, Patty."
-
-"Pooh! That's a very petty parish-vestry sort of way to look at things.
-Just what you might expect in a little bit of a world like this. In
-Jupiter now"--she paused, and turned her bright eyes upon a deep-set
-pair that were watching her amusedly. "Mr. Yelverton, I hope you are
-not going to insist upon it that Jupiter is too hot to do anything but
-blaze and shine and keep life going on his little satellites--are you?"
-
-"O dear no!" he replied. "I wouldn't dream of such a thing."
-
-"Very well. We will assume, then, that Jupiter is a habitable world, as
-there is no reason why he shouldn't be that _I_ can see---just for the
-sake of enlarging Elizabeth's mind. And, having assumed that, the least
-we can suppose--seeing that a few billions of years are of no account
-in the chronology of the heavenly bodies--is that a world on such a
-superior scale was fully up to _our_ little standard before we began.
-I mean our present standard. Don't you think we may reasonably suppose
-that, Mr. Yelverton?"
-
-"In the absence of information to the contrary, I think we may," he
-said. "Though I would ask to be allowed to reserve my own opinion."
-
-"Certainly. I don't ask for anybody's opinion. I am merely throwing
-out suggestions. I want to extend Elizabeth's vision in these matters
-beyond the range of the sun and moon. So I say that Jupiter--and if not
-Jupiter, one of the countless millions of cooler planets, perhaps ever
-so much bigger than he is, which lie out in the other sun-systems--was
-well on with his railways and telegraphs when we began to get a crust,
-and to condense vapours. You will allow me to say as much as that, for
-the sake of argument?"
-
-"I think you argue beautifully," said Mr. Yelverton.
-
-"Very well then. Millions of years ago, if you had lived in Jupiter,
-you could have travelled in luxury as long as your life lasted, and
-seen countries whose numbers and resources never came to an end. Think
-of the railway system, and the shipping interest, of a world of that
-size!"
-
-"_Don't_, Patty," interposed Elizabeth. "Think what a little, little
-life it would have been, by comparison! If we can't make it do us now,
-what would its insufficiency be under such conditions?"
-
-Patty waved her hand to indicate the irrelevancy of the suggestion.
-"In a planet where, we are told, there are no vicissitudes of climate,
-people can't catch colds, Elizabeth; and colds, all the doctors say,
-are the primary cause of illness, and it is because they get ill that
-people die. That is a detail. Don't interrupt me. So you see, Mr.
-Yelverton, assuming that they knew all that we know, and did all that
-we do, before the fire and the water made our rocks and seas, and the
-chalk beds grew, and the slimy things crawled, and primitive man began
-to chip stones into wedges to kill the saurians with--just imagine for
-a moment the state of civilisation that must exist in Jupiter, _now_.
-Not necessarily our own Jupiter--any of the older and more improved
-Jupiters that must be spinning about in space."
-
-"I can't," said Mr. Yelverton. "My imagination is not equal to such a
-task."
-
-"I want Elizabeth to think of it," said Patty. "She is a little
-inclined to be provincial, as you see, and I want to elevate her ideas."
-
-"Thank you, dear," said Elizabeth.
-
-"It is a pity," Patty went on, "that we can't have a Federal
-Convention. That's what we want. If only the inhabited planets
-could send representatives to meet and confer together somewhere
-occasionally, then we should all have broad views--then we might find
-out at once how to set everything right, without any more trouble."
-
-"Space would have to be annihilated indeed, Miss Patty."
-
-"Yes, I know--I know. Of course I know it can't be done--at any
-rate, not _yet_--not in the present embryonic stage of things. If a
-meteor takes a million years to travel from star to star, going at
-the rate of thousands of miles per second--and keeps on paying visits
-indefinitely--Ah, what was that?"
-
-She sprang from her low seat suddenly, all her celestial fancies
-scattered to the mundane winds, at the sound of a wakeful magpie
-beginning to pipe plaintively on the house roof. She thought she
-recognised one of the dear voices of the past. "_Can_ it be Peter?" she
-cried, breathlessly. "Oh, Elizabeth, I do believe it is Peter! Do come
-out and let us call him down!"
-
-They hurried, hand in hand, down to the shelving terrace that divided
-the verandah from the edge of the cliff, and there called and cooed and
-coaxed in their most seductive tones. The magpie looked at them for a
-moment, with his head cocked on one side, and then flew away.
-
-"No," said Patty, with a groan, "it is _not_ Peter! They are all gone,
-every one of them. I have no doubt the Hawkins boys shot them--little
-bloodthirsty wretches! Come down to the beach, Elizabeth."
-
-They descended the steep and perilous footpath zig-zagging down the
-face of the cliff, with the confidence of young goats, and reaching the
-little bathing-house, sat down on the threshold. The tide was high, and
-the surf seething within a few inches of the bottom step of the short
-ladder up and down which they had glided bare-footed daily for so many
-years. The fine spray damped their faces; the salt sea-breezes fanned
-them deliciously. Patty put her arms impulsively round her sister's
-neck.
-
-"Oh, Elizabeth," she said, "I am so glad for you--I _am_ so glad! It
-has crossed my mind several times, but I was never sure of it till
-to-day, and I wouldn't say anything until I was sure, or until you told
-me yourself."
-
-"My darling," said Elizabeth, responding to the caress, "don't be sure
-yet. _I_ am not sure."
-
-"_You_ are not!" exclaimed Patty, with derisive energy. "Don't try to
-make me believe you are a born idiot, now, because I know you too well.
-Why, a baby in arms could see it!"
-
-"I see it, dear, of course; both of us see it. We understand each
-other. But--but I don't know yet whether I shall accept him, Patty."
-
-"Don't you?" responded Patty. She had taken her arms from her sister's
-neck, and was clasping her knees with them in a most unsympathetic
-attitude. "Do you happen to know whether you love him, Elizabeth?"
-
-"Yes," whispered Elizabeth, blushing in the darkness; "I know that."
-
-"And whether he loves you?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Of course you do. You can't help knowing it. Nobody could. And if,"
-proceeded Patty sternly, fixing the fatuous countenance of the man in
-the moon with a baleful eye, "if, under those circumstances, you don't
-accept him, you deserve to be a miserable, lonely woman for all the
-rest of your wretched life. That's my opinion if you ask me for it."
-
-Elizabeth looked at the sea in tranquil contemplation for a few
-seconds. Then she told Patty the story of her perplexity from the
-beginning to the end.
-
-"Now _what_ would you do?" she finally asked of her sister, who had
-listened with the utmost interest and intelligent sympathy. "If it were
-your own case, my darling, and you wanted to do what was right, _how_
-would you decide?"
-
-"Well, Elizabeth," said Patty; "I'll tell you the truth. I should not
-stop to think whether it was right or wrong."
-
-"Patty!"
-
-"No. A year ago I would not have said so--a year ago I might have been
-able to give you the very best advice. But now--but now"--the girl
-stretched out her hands with the pathetic gesture that Elizabeth had
-seen and been struck with once before--"now, if it were my own case, I
-should take the man I loved, no matter _what_ he was, if he would take
-me."
-
-Elizabeth heaved a long sigh from the bottom of her troubled heart. She
-felt that Patty, to whom she had looked for help, had made her burden
-of responsibility heavier instead of lighter. "Let us go up to the
-house again," she said wearily. "There is no need to decide to-night."
-
-When they reached the house, they found Eleanor gone to bed, and the
-gentlemen sitting on the verandah together, still talking of Mr.
-Yelverton's family history, in which the lawyer was professionally
-interested. The horses were in the little buggy, which stood at the
-gate.
-
-"Ah, here they are!" said Mr. Brion. "Mr. Yelverton is waiting to say
-good-night, my dears. He has to settle at the hotel, and go on board
-to-night."
-
-Patty bade her potential brother-in-law an affectionate farewell, and
-then vanished into her bedroom. The old man bustled off at her heels,
-under pretence of speaking to the lad-of-all-work who held the horses;
-and Elizabeth and her lover were left for a brief interval alone.
-
-"You will not keep me in suspense longer than you can help, will you?"
-Mr. Yelverton said, holding her hands. "Won't a week be long enough?"
-
-"Yes," she said; "I will decide it in a week."
-
-"And may I come back to you here, to learn my fate? Or will you come to
-Melbourne to me?"
-
-"Had I not better write?"
-
-"No. Certainly not."
-
-"Then I will come to you," she said.
-
-He drew her to him and kissed her forehead gravely. "Good-night, my
-love," he said. "You will be my love, whatever happens."
-
-And so he departed to the township, accompanied by his hospitable host,
-and she went miserable to bed. And at the first pale streak of dawn
-the little steamer sounded her whistle and puffed away from the little
-jetty, carrying him back to the world, and she stood on the cliff, a
-mile away from Seaview Villa, to watch the last whiff of smoke from its
-funnels fade like a breath upon the horizon.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXV.
-
-
-HOW ELIZABETH MADE UP HER MIND.
-
-
-If we could trace back the wonderful things that happen to us "by
-accident," or, as some pious souls believe, by the operation of a
-special Providence or in answer to prayer, to their remote origin,
-how far should we not have to go? Into the mists of antiquity, and
-beyond--even to the primal source whence the world was derived, and
-the consideration of the accident of its separation from its parent
-globe; nay, of the accident which separated our sun itself from the
-countless dust of other suns that strew the illimitable ether--still
-leaving the root of the matter in undiscoverable mystery. The chain of
-causes has no beginning for us, as the sequence of effects has no end.
-These considerations occurred to me just now, when I sat down, cheerful
-and confident, to relate how it came to pass (and what multitudinous
-trifles could have prevented it from coming to pass) that an
-extraordinary accident happened to the three Miss Kings in the course
-of the week following Mr. Yelverton's departure. Thinking it over, I
-find that I cannot relate it. It would make this chapter like the first
-half-dozen in the book of Chronicles, only much worse. If Mr. King
-had not inherited a bad temper from his great-great-grandfathers--I
-could get as far as that. But the task is beyond me. I give it up,
-and content myself with a narration of the little event (in the
-immeasurable chain of events) which, at this date of which I am
-writing--in the ephemeral summer time of these three brief little
-lives--loomed so large, and had such striking consequences.
-
-It happened--or, as far as my story is concerned, it began to
-happen--while the steamer that carried away Mr. Yelverton was still
-ploughing the ocean waves, with that interesting passenger on board.
-Seaview Villa lay upon the headland, serene and peaceful in the
-sunshine of as perfect a morning as visitors to the seaside could
-wish to see, all its door-windows open to the south wind, and the
-sibilant music of the little wavelets at its feet. The occupants of
-the house had risen from their beds, and were pursuing the trivial
-round and common task of another day, with placid enjoyment of its
-atmospheric charms, and with no presentiment of what was to befall
-them. The girls went down to their bath-house before breakfast, and
-spent half an hour in the sunny water, diving, and floating, and
-playing all the pranks of childhood over again; and then they attacked
-a dish of fried flathead with appetites that a schoolboy might have
-envied. After breakfast the lawyer had to go to his office, and his
-guests accompanied him part of the way. On their return, Sam Dunn
-came to see them, with the information that his best boat, which bore
-the inappropriate title of "The Rose in June," was moored on the
-beach below, and an invitation to his young ladies to come out for
-a sail in her while the sea was so calm and the wind so fair. This
-invitation Elizabeth declined for herself; she was still wondering in
-which direction the right path lay--whether towards the fruition of
-her desires or the renunciation of all that now made life beautiful
-and valuable to her--and finding no solution to the problem either in
-meditation or prayer; and she had little inclination to waste any of
-the short time that remained to her for making up her mind. But to
-Patty and Eleanor it was irresistible. They scampered off to their
-bedrooms to put on their oldest frocks, hats, and boots, rushed into
-the kitchen to Mrs. Harris to beg for a bundle of sandwiches, and set
-forth on their expedition in the highest spirits--as if they had never
-been away from Sam Dunn and the sea, to learn life, and love, and
-trouble, and etiquette amongst city folks.
-
-When they were gone, the house was very still for several hours.
-Elizabeth sat on the verandah, sewing and thinking, and watching the
-white sail of "The Rose in June" through a telescope; then she had her
-lunch brought to her on a white-napkined tray; after eating which in
-solitude she went back to her sewing, and thinking, and watching again.
-So four o'clock--the fateful hour--drew on. At a little before four,
-Mr. Brion came home, hot and dusty from his long walk, had a bath and
-changed his clothes, and sat down to enjoy himself in his arm-chair.
-Mrs. Harris brought in the afternoon tea things, with some newly-baked
-cakes; Elizabeth put down her work and seated herself at the table to
-brew the refreshing cup. Then home came Patty and Eleanor, happy and
-hungry, tanned and draggled, and in the gayest temper, having been
-sailing Sam's boat for him all the day and generally roughing it with
-great ardour. They were just in time for the tea and cakes, and sat
-down as they were, with hats tilted back on their wind-roughened heads,
-to regale themselves therewith.
-
-When Patty was in the middle of her third cake, she suddenly remembered
-something. She plunged her hand into her pocket, and drew forth a
-small object. It was as if one touched the button of that wonderful
-electric apparatus whereby the great ships that are launched by
-princesses are sent gliding out of dock into the sea. "Look," she said,
-opening her hand carefully, "what he has given me. It is a Queensland
-opal. A mate of his, he says, gave it to him, but I have a terrible
-suspicion that the dear fellow bought it. Mates don't give such things
-for nothing. Is it not a beauty?"--and she held between her thumb and
-finger a silky-looking flattened stone, on which, when it caught the
-light, a strong blue sheen was visible. "I shall have it cut and made
-into something when we go back to town, and I shall keep it _for ever_,
-in memory of Sam Dunn," said Patty with enthusiasm.
-
-And then, when they had all examined and appraised it thoroughly, she
-carried it to the mantelpiece, intending to place it there in safety
-until she went to her own room. But she had no sooner laid it down,
-pushing it gently up to the wall, than there was a little click and a
-faint rattle, and it was gone.
-
-"Oh," she exclaimed, "what _shall_ I do? It has fallen behind the
-mantelpiece! I _quite_ forgot that old hole--and it is there still.
-Surely," she continued angrily, stamping her foot, "when Mr. Hawkins
-took the trouble to do all this"--and she indicated the surface of the
-woodwork, which had been painted in a wild and ghastly imitation of
-marble--"he might have taken a little more, and fixed the thing close
-up to the wall?"
-
-Mr. Brion examined the mantelpiece, pushed it, shook it, peered
-behind it with one eye, and said that he had himself lost a valuable
-paper-knife in the same distressing manner, and had long intended to
-have the aperture closed up. "And I will get a carpenter to-morrow
-morning, my dear," he boldly declared, "and he shall take the whole
-thing to pieces and fix it again properly. Yes, I will--as well now as
-any other time--and we will find your opal."
-
-Having pledged himself to which tremendous purpose, he and they
-finished their tea, and afterwards had their dinner, and afterwards sat
-on the verandah and gossiped, and afterwards went to bed--and in due
-time got up again--as if nothing out of the common way had happened!
-
-In the morning Fate sent another of her humble emissaries from the
-township to Seaview Villa, with a bag of tools over his shoulder--tools
-that were keys to unlock one of her long-kept secrets. And half an
-hour after his arrival they found the opal, and several things
-besides. When, after Mrs. Harris had carefully removed the furniture
-and hearthrug, and spread cornsacks over the carpet, the carpenter
-wrenched the mantelpiece from its fastenings, such a treasure-trove
-was discovered in the rough hollows of the wall and floor as none of
-them had dreamed of. It did not look much at the first glance. There
-were the opal and the paper-knife, half a dozen letters (circulars and
-household bills of Mrs. King's), several pens and pencils, a pair of
-scissors, a silver fruit-knife, a teaspoon, a variety of miscellaneous
-trifles, such as bodkins and corks, and a vast quantity of dust. That
-seemed all. But, kneeling reverently to grope amongst these humble
-relics of the past, Elizabeth found, quite at the bottom of everything,
-a little card. It was an old, old card, dingy and fretted with age,
-and dried and curled up like a dead leaf, and it had a little picture
-on it that had almost faded away. She carefully wiped the dust from it
-with her handkerchief, and looked at it as she knelt; it was a crude
-and youthful water-colour drawing of an extensive Elizabethan house,
-with a great many gables and fluted chimney-stacks, and much exuberance
-of architectural fancy generally. It had been minutely outlined by
-a hand trained to good draughtsmanship, and then coloured much as a
-child would colour a newspaper print from a sixpenny paint-box, and
-less effectively, because there was no light and shade to go upon.
-It was flat and pale, like a builder's plan, only that it had some
-washy grass and trees about it, and a couple of dogs running a race
-in the foreground, which showed its more ambitious pretensions; and
-the whole thing had evidently been composed with the greatest care.
-Elizabeth, studying it attentively, and thinking that she recognised
-her father's hand in certain details, turned the little picture over
-in search of the artist's signature. And there, in a corner, written
-very fine and small, but with elaborate distinctness, she read these
-words:--"_Elizabeth Leigh, from Kingscote Yelverton, Yelverton, June_,
-1847."
-
-She stared at the legend--in which she recognised a peculiar capital
-K of his own invention that her father always used--with the utmost
-surprise, and with no idea of its tremendous significance. "Why--why!"
-she gasped, holding it up, "it belongs to _him_--it has Mr. Yelverton's
-name upon it! How in the world did it come here? What does it mean?
-Did he drop it here the other day? But, no, that is impossible--it was
-quite at the bottom--it must have been lying here for ages. Mr. Brion,
-_what_ does it mean?"
-
-The old man was already stooping over her, trying to take it from her
-hand. "Give it to me, my dear, give it to me," he cried eagerly. "Don't
-tear it--oh, for God's sake, be careful!--let me see what it is first."
-He took it from her, read the inscription over and over and over again,
-and then drew a chair to the table and sat down with the card before
-him, his face pale, and his hands shaking. The sisters gathered round
-him, bewildered; Elizabeth still possessed with her first impression
-that the little picture was her lover's property, Eleanor scarcely
-aware of what was going on, and Patty--always the quickest to reach
-the truth--already beginning dimly to discern the secret of their
-discovery. The carpenter and the housekeeper stood by, open-mouthed and
-open-eyed; and to them the lawyer tremulously addressed himself.
-
-"You had better go for a little while," he said; "we will put the
-mantelpiece up presently. Yet, stay--we have found a very important
-document, as I believe, and you are witnesses that we have done so. You
-had better examine it carefully before you go, that you may know it
-when you see it again." Whereupon he solemnly proceeded to print the
-said document upon their memories, and insisted that they should each
-take a copy of the words that made its chief importance, embodying it
-in a sort of affidavit, to which they signed their names. Then he sent
-them out of the room, and confronted the three sisters, in a state of
-great excitement. "I must see Paul," he said hurriedly. "I must have my
-son to help me. We must ransack that old bureau of yours--there must be
-more in it than we found that time when we looked for the will. Tell
-me, my dears, did your father let you have the run of the bureau, when
-he was alive?"
-
-No, they told him; Mr. King had been extremely particular in allowing
-no one to go to it but himself.
-
-"Ah," said the old man, "we must hunt it from top to bottom--we must
-break it into pieces, if necessary. I will telegraph to Paul. We must
-go to town at once, my dears, and investigate this matter--before Mr.
-Yelverton leaves the country."
-
-"He will not leave the country yet," said Elizabeth. "What is it, Mr.
-Brion?"
-
-"I think I see what it is," broke in Patty. "Mr. Brion thinks
-that father was Mr. Yelverton's uncle, who was lost so long ago.
-King--King--Mr. Yelverton told us the other day that they called _him_
-'King,' for short--and he was named Kingscote Yelverton, like his
-uncle. Mother's name was Elizabeth. I believe Mr. Brion is right And,
-if so--"
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-"And, if so," Patty repeated, when that wonderful, bewildering day
-was over, and she and her elder sister were packing for their return
-to Melbourne in the small hours of the next morning--"if so, we are
-the heiresses of all those hundreds of thousands that are supposed
-to belong to our cousin Kingscote. Now, Elizabeth, do you feel like
-depriving him of everything, and stopping his work, and leaving his
-poor starved costermongers to revert to their original condition--or do
-you not?"
-
-"I would not take it," said Elizabeth, passionately.
-
-"Pooh!--as if we should be allowed to choose! People can't do as they
-like where fortunes and lawyers are concerned. For Nelly's sake--not to
-speak of mine--they will insist on our claim, if we have one; and then
-do you suppose _he_ would keep your money? Of course not--it's a most
-insulting idea. Therefore the case lies in a nutshell. You will have to
-make up your mind quickly, Elizabeth."
-
-"I have made up my mind," said Elizabeth, "if it is a question of which
-of us is most worthy to have wealth, and knows best how to use it."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVI.
-
-
-INVESTIGATION.
-
-
-They did not wait for the next steamer, but hurried back to Melbourne
-by train and coach, and reached Myrtle Street once more at a little
-before midnight, the girls dazed with sleep and weariness and the
-strain of so much excitement as they had passed through. They had sent
-no message to Mrs. Duff-Scott at present, preferring to make their
-investigations, in the first place, as privately as possible; and Mr.
-Brion had merely telegraphed to his son that they were returning with
-him on important business. Paul was at the house when they arrived,
-but Mrs. M'Intyre had made hospitable preparations at No. 6 as well
-as at No. 7; and the tired sisters found their rooms aired and their
-beds arranged, a little fire lit, gas burning, kettle boiling, and
-a tempting supper laid out for them when they dragged their weary
-limbs upstairs. Mrs. M'Intyre herself was there to give them welcome,
-and Dan, who had been reluctantly left behind when they went into the
-country, was wild with rapture, almost tearing them to pieces in the
-vehemence of his delight at seeing them again, long past the age of
-gambols as he was. Mr. Brion was consoled for the upsetting of his
-own arrangements, which had been to take his charges to an hotel for
-the night, and there luxuriously entertain them; and he bade them
-an affectionate good-night, and went off contentedly to No. 7 under
-the wing of Paul's landlady, to doze in Paul's arm-chair until that
-brilliant ornament of the press should be released from duty.
-
-Cheered by their little fire--for, summer though it was, their fatigues
-had made them chilly--and by Mrs. M'Intyre's ham and chicken and hot
-coffee, the girls sat, talking and resting, for a full hour before they
-went to bed; still dwelling on the strange discovery of the little
-picture behind the mantelpiece, which Mr. Brion had taken possession
-of, and wondering if it would really prove them to be the three Miss
-Yelvertons instead of the three Miss Kings, and co-heiresses of one of
-the largest properties in England.
-
-As they passed the old bureau on their way to their rooms, Elizabeth
-paused and laid her hand on it thoughtfully. "It hardly seems to me
-possible," she said, "that father should have kept such a secret
-all these years, and died without telling us of it. He must have
-seen the advertisements--he must have known what difficulties he was
-making for everybody. Perhaps he did not write those names on the
-picture--handwriting is not much to go by, especially when it is so
-old as that; you may see whole schools of boys or girls writing in one
-style. Perhaps father was at school with Mr. Yelverton's uncle. Perhaps
-mother knew Elizabeth Leigh. Perhaps she gave her the sketch--or
-she might have come by it accidentally. One day she must have found
-it--slipped in one of her old music-books, maybe--and taken it out to
-show father; and she put it up on the mantelpiece, and it slipped down
-behind, like Patty's opal. If it had been of so much consequence as it
-seems to us--if they had desired to leave no trace of their connection
-with the Yelverton family--surely they would have pulled the house down
-but what they would have recovered it. And then we have hunted the
-bureau over--we have turned it out again and again--and never found
-anything."
-
-"Mr. Brion thinks there are secret drawers," said Eleanor, who, of all
-the three, was most anxious that their golden expectations should be
-realised. "It is just the kind of cabinet work, he says, that is always
-full of hidden nooks and corners, and he is blaming himself that he did
-not search it more thoroughly in the first instance."
-
-"And he thinks," continued Patty, "that father seemed like a man with
-things on his mind, and believes he _would_ have told us had he had
-more warning of his death. But you know he was seized so suddenly, and
-could not speak afterwards."
-
-"Poor father--poor father!" sighed Elizabeth, pitifully. They thought
-of his sad life, in the light of this possible theory, with more tender
-compassion than they had ever felt for him before; but the idea that
-he might have murdered his brother, accidentally or otherwise--and for
-that reason had effaced himself and done bitter penance for the rest of
-his days--never for a moment occurred to them. "Well, we shall know by
-to-morrow night," said the elder sister, gently. "If the bureau does
-not yield fresh evidence, there is none that we can allow Mr. Brion, or
-anyone else, to act upon. The more I think it over, the more I see how
-easily the whole thing could be explained--to mean nothing so important
-as Mr. Brion thinks. And, for myself, I should not be disappointed if
-we found ourselves only Miss Kings, without fortune or pedigree, as we
-have always been. We are very happy as we are."
-
-"That is how I felt at first," said Patty. "But I must say I am growing
-more and more in love with the idea of being rich. The delightful
-things that you can do with plenty of money keep flashing into my mind,
-one after the other, till I feel that I never understood what being
-poor meant till now, and that I could not content myself with a hundred
-a year and Mrs. Duff-Scott's benefactions any more. No; the wish may be
-father to the thought, Elizabeth, but I _do_ think it, honestly, that
-we shall turn out to be Mr. Yelverton's cousins--destined to supersede
-him, to a certain extent."
-
-"I think so, too," said Eleanor, anxiously. "I can't--I
-_won't_--believe that Mr. Brion is mistaken."
-
-So they went, severally affected by their strange circumstances, to
-bed. And in the morning they were up early, and made great haste to get
-their breakfast over, and their sitting-room in order, in readiness for
-the lawyer's visit. They were very much agitated by their suspense and
-anxiety, especially Patty, to whom the impending interview with Paul
-had become of more pressing consequence, temporarily, than even the
-investigations that he was to assist. She had had no communication
-with him whatever since she cut him on the racecourse when he was
-innocently disporting himself with Mrs. Aarons; and her nerves were
-shaken by the prospect of seeing and speaking to him again, and by
-the vehemence of her conflicting hopes and fears. She grew cold and
-hot at the recollection of one or two accidental encounters that had
-taken place _since_ Cup Day, and at the picture of his contemptuous,
-unrecognising face that rose up vividly before her. Elizabeth noticed
-her unusual pallor and restless movements, and how she hovered about
-the window, straining her ears to catch a chance sound of the men's
-voices next door, and made an effort to divert her thoughts. "Come and
-help me, Patty," she said, putting her hand on her sister's shoulder.
-"We have nothing more to do now, so we may as well turn out some of the
-drawers before they come. We can look over dear mother's clothes, and
-see if they have any marks on them that we have overlooked. Mr. Brion
-will want to have everything examined."
-
-So they began to work at the bureau with solemn diligence, and a fresh
-set of emotions were evolved by that occupation, which counteracted,
-without effacing, those others that were in Patty's mind. She became
-absorbed and attentive. They took out all Mrs. King's gowns, and her
-linen, and her little everyday personal belongings, searched them
-carefully for indications of ownership, and, finding none, laid them
-aside in the adjoining bedroom. Then they exhumed all those relics of
-an olden time which had a new significance at the present juncture--the
-fine laces, the faded brocades, the Indian shawl and Indian muslins,
-the quaint fans and little bits of jewellery--and arranged them
-carefully on the table for the lawyer's inspection.
-
-"We know _now_," said Patty, "though we didn't know a few mouths ago,
-that these are things that could only belong to a lady who had been
-rich once."
-
-"Yes," said Elizabeth. "But there is another point to be considered.
-Elizabeth Leigh ran away with her husband secretly and in haste, and
-under circumstances that make it seem _most_ unlikely that she should
-have hampered herself and him with luggage, or bestowed a thought on
-such trifles as fans and finery."
-
-The younger sisters were a little daunted for a moment by this view of
-the case. Then Eleanor spoke up. "How you do love to throw cold water
-on everything!" she complained, pettishly. "Why shouldn't she think
-of her pretty things? I'm sure if I were going to run away--no matter
-under what circumstances--I should take all _mine_, if I had half
-an hour to pack them up. So would you. At least, I don't know about
-you--but Patty would. Wouldn't you, Patty?"
-
-"Well," said Patty, thoughtfully, sitting back on her heels and folding
-her hands in her lap, "I really think I should, Elizabeth. If you come
-to think of it, it is the heroines of novels who do those things. They
-throw away lovers, and husbands, and fortunes, and everything else, on
-the slightest provocation; it is a matter of course--it is the correct
-thing in novels. But in real life girls are fond of all nice things--at
-least, that is my experience--and they don't feel like throwing them
-away. Girls in novels would never let Mrs. Duff-Scott give them gowns
-and bonnets, for instance--they would be too proud; and they would
-burn a bureau any day rather than rummage in it for a title to money
-that a nice man, whom they cared for, was in possession of. Don't tell
-me. You are thinking of the heroines of fiction, Elizabeth, and not of
-Elizabeth Leigh. _She_, I agree with Nelly--however much she might have
-been troubled and bothered--did not leave her little treasures for the
-servants to pawn. Either she took them with her, or someone able to
-keep her destination a secret sent them after her."
-
-"Well, well," said Elizabeth, who had got out her mother's jewellery
-and was gazing fondly at the miniature in the pearl-edged locket, "we
-shall soon know. Get out the books and music, dear."
-
-They were turning over a vast pile of music, which required at least
-half a day to examine properly, when the servant of the house tapped
-at the door to ask, with Mr. Brion's compliments, when it would be
-convenient to Miss King to receive that gentleman. In a few minutes
-father and son were in the room, the former distributing hasty and
-paternal greetings all around, and the latter quietly shaking hands
-with an air of almost aggressive deliberation. Paul was quite polite,
-and to a certain extent friendly, but he was terribly, uncompromisingly
-business-like. Not a moment did he waste in mere social amenities,
-after shaking hands with Patty--which he did as if he were a wooden
-automaton, and without looking at her--but plunged at once into the
-matter of the discovered picture, as if time were money and nothing
-else of any consequence. Patty's heart sank, but her spirit rose;
-she determined not to "let herself down" or in any way to "make an
-exhibition of herself," if she could help it. She drew a little aside
-from the bureau, and went on turning over the music--which presently
-she was able to report valueless as evidence, except negative evidence,
-the name, wherever it had been written at the head of a sheet, having
-been cut out or erased; while Elizabeth took the remaining articles
-from their drawers and pigeon-holes, and piled them on the table and in
-Nelly's arms.
-
-For some time they were all intent upon their search, and very silent;
-and it still seemed that they were to find nothing in the shape of that
-positive proof which Elizabeth, as the head of the family, demanded
-before she would give permission for any action to be taken. There were
-no names in the old volumes of music, and the fly-leaves had been torn
-from the older books. Some pieces of ancient silver plate--a pair of
-candlesticks, a pair of salt-cellars, a teapot and sugar basin (now
-in daily use), a child's mug, some Queen Anne spoons and ladles--were
-all unmarked by crest or monogram; and two ivory-painted miniatures
-and three daguerreotypes, representing respectively one old lady in
-high-crowned cap and modest kerchief, one young one with puffs all
-over her head, and a classic absence of bodice to her gown, one little
-fair-haired child, similarly scanty in attire, and one middle-aged
-gentleman with a large shirt frill and a prodigious quantity of
-neck-cloth--likewise failed to verify themselves by date or inscription
-when carefully prised out of their frames and leather cases with Paul
-Brion's pen-knife. These family portraits, understood by the girls to
-belong to the maternal side of the house, were laid aside, however,
-along with the pearl-rimmed locket and other jewels, and the picture
-that was found behind the mantelpiece; and then, nothing else being
-left, apparently, the two men began an inspection of the papers.
-
-While this was going on, Patty, at a sign from Elizabeth, set up
-the leaves of a little tea-table by the window, spread it with a
-white cloth, and fetched in such a luncheon as the slender larder
-afforded--the remains of Mrs. M'Intyre's chicken and ham, some bread
-and butter, a plate of biscuits, and a decanter of sherry--for it was
-past one o'clock, and Mr. Brion and Paul had evidently no intention
-of going away until their investigations were complete. The room was
-quite silent. Her soft steps and the brush of her gown as she passed
-to and fro were distinctly audible to her lover, who would not so much
-as glance at her, but remained sternly intent upon the manuscripts
-before him. These were found to be very interesting, but to have no
-more bearing upon the matter in hand than the rest of the relics that
-had been overhauled; for the most part, they were studies in various
-arts and sciences prepared by Mr. and Mrs. King for their daughters
-during the process of their education, and such odds and ends of
-literature as would be found in a clever woman's common-place books.
-They had all been gone over at the time of Mr. King's death, in a vain
-hunt for testamentary documents; and Elizabeth, looking into the now
-bare shelves and apertures of the bureau, began to think how she could
-console her sisters for the disappointment of their hopes.
-
-"Come and have some lunch," she said to Paul (Mr. Brion was already at
-the table, deprecating the trouble that his dear Patty was taking). "I
-don't think you will find anything more."
-
-The young man stood up with his brows knitted over his keen eyes,
-and glanced askance at the group by the window. "We have not done
-yet," he said decisively; "and we have learned quite enough, in what
-we _haven't_ found, to justify us in consulting Mr. Yelverton's
-solicitors."
-
-"No," she said, "I'll have nothing said to Mr. Yelverton, unless the
-whole thing is proved first."
-
-Never thinking that the thing would be proved, first or last, she
-advanced to the extemporised lunch table, and dispensed the modest
-hospitalities of the establishment with her wonted simple grace. Mr.
-Brion was accommodated with an arm-chair and a music-book to lay
-across his knees, whereon Patty placed the tit-bits of the chicken
-and the knobby top-crust of the loaf, waiting upon him with that
-tender solicitude to which he had grown accustomed, but which was so
-astonishing, and so interesting also, to his son.
-
-"She has spoiled me altogether," said the old man fondly, laying his
-hand on her bright head as she knelt before him to help him to mustard
-and salt. "I don't know how I shall ever manage to get along without
-her now."
-
-"Has this sad fate overtaken you in one short week?" inquired Paul,
-rather grimly. "Your sister should be labelled like an explosive
-compound, Miss King--'dangerous,' in capital letters." Paul was sitting
-in a low chair by Elizabeth, with his plate on his knee, and he thawed
-a good deal, in spite of fierce intentions to the contrary, under the
-influence of food and wine and the general conversation. He looked at
-Patty now and then, and by-and-bye went so far as to address a remark
-to her. "What did she think of the caves?" he asked, indifferently,
-offering her at the same moment a glass of sherry, which, though
-unaccustomed to fermented liquors, she had not the presence of mind
-to refuse--and which she took with such a shaking hand that she
-spilled some of it over her apron. And she plunged at once into rapid
-and enthusiastic descriptions of the caves and the delights of their
-expedition thereto, absurdly uplifted by this slight token of interest
-in her proceedings.
-
-When luncheon was over, Elizabeth culled Eleanor--who, too restless
-to eat much herself, was hovering about the bureau, tapping it here
-and there with a chisel--to take her turn to be useful by clearing
-the table; and then, as if business were of no consequence, bade her
-guests rest themselves for a little and smoke a cigarette if they felt
-inclined.
-
-"Smoke!" exclaimed Paul, with a little sarcastic laugh. "Oh, no, Miss
-King, that would never do. What would Mrs. Duff-Scott say if she were
-to smell tobacco in your sitting-room?"
-
-"Well, what would she say?" returned Elizabeth, gently--she was very
-gentle with Paul to-day. "Mrs. Duff-Scott, I believe, is rather fond of
-the smell of tobacco, when it is good."
-
-Mr. Brion having satisfied the demands of politeness with profuse
-protestations, suffered himself to indulge in a mild cigarette; but
-Paul would not be persuaded. He resumed his study of the manuscripts
-with an air of determination, as of a man who had idled away precious
-time. He conscientiously endeavoured to fix his attention on the
-important business that he had undertaken, and to forget everything
-else until he had finished it. For a little while Patty wandered up and
-down in an aimless manner, making neat heaps of the various articles
-scattered about the room and watching him furtively; then she softly
-opened the piano, and began to play, just above a whisper, the "Sonata
-Pathetique."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVII.
-
-
-DISCOVERY.
-
-
-It was between two and three o'clock; Mr. Brion reposed in his
-arm-chair, smoking a little, talking a little to Elizabeth who sat
-beside him, listening dreamily to the piano, and feeling himself
-more and more inclined to doze and nod his head in the sleepy warmth
-of the afternoon, after his glass of sherry and his recent severe
-fatigues. Elizabeth, by way of entertaining him, sat at his elbow,
-thinking, thinking, with her fingers interlaced in her lap and her
-gaze fixed upon the floor. Patty, intensely alert and wakeful, but
-almost motionless in her straight back and delicately poised head,
-drooped over the keyboard, playing all the "soft things" that she could
-remember without notes; and Paul, who had resisted her enchantments
-as long as he could, leaned back in his chair, with his hand over his
-eyes, having evidently ceased to pay any attention to his papers. And,
-suddenly, Eleanor, who was supposed to be washing plates and dishes in
-the kitchen, flashed into the room, startling them all out of their
-dreams.
-
-"Elizabeth, dear," she exclaimed tremulously, "forgive me for meddling
-with your things. But I was thinking and thinking what else there was
-that we had not examined, and mother's old Bible came into my head--the
-little old Bible that she always used, and that you kept in your top
-drawer. I could not help looking at it, and here"--holding out a small
-leather-bound volume, frayed at the corners and fastened with silver
-clasps--"here is what I have found. The two first leaves are stuck
-together--I remembered that--but they are only stuck round the edges;
-there is a little piece in the middle that is loose and rattles, and,
-see, there is writing on it." The girl was excited and eager, and
-almost pushed the Bible into Paul Brion's hands. "Look at it, look
-at it," she cried. "Undo the leaves with your knife and see what the
-writing is."
-
-Paul examined the joined leaves attentively, saw that Eleanor was
-correct in her surmise, and looked at Elizabeth. "May I, Miss King?" he
-asked, his tone showing that he understood how sacred this relic must
-be, and how much it would go against its present possessor to see it
-tampered with.
-
-"I suppose you had better," said Elizabeth.
-
-He therefore sat down, laid the book before him, and opened his sharp
-knife. A sense that something was really going to happen now--that
-the secret of all this careful effacement of the little chronicles
-common and natural to every civilised family would reveal itself in the
-long-hidden page which, alone of all the records of the past, their
-mother had lacked the heart to destroy--fell upon the three girls; and
-they gathered round to watch the operation with pale faces and beating
-hearts. Paul was a long time about it, for he tried to part the leaves
-without cutting them, and they were too tightly stuck together. He had
-at last to make a little hole in which to insert his knife, and then
-it was a most difficult matter to cut away the plain sheet without
-injuring the written one. Presently, however, he opened a little door
-in the middle of the page, held the flap up, glanced at what was behind
-it for a moment, looked significantly at his father, and silently
-handed the open book to Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, trembling with
-excitement and apprehension, lifting up the little flap in her turn,
-read this clear inscription--
-
-                   "To my darling child, ELIZABETH,
-                        From her loving mother,
-                         ELEANOR D'ARCY LEIGH.
-                   Bradenham Abbey. Christmas, 1839.
-                           Psalm xv., 1, 2."
-
-There was a dead silence while they all looked at the fine brown
-writing--that delicate caligraphy which, like fine needlework, went
-out of fashion when our grandmothers passed away--of which every
-letter, though pale, was perfectly legible. A flood of recollection
-poured into the minds of the three girls, especially the elder ones,
-at the sight of those two words, "Bradenham Abbey," in the corner of
-the uncovered portion of the page. "Leigh" and "D'Arcy" were both
-unfamiliar names--or had been until lately--but Bradenham had a place
-in the archives of memory, and came forth at this summons from its
-dusty and forgotten nook. When they were children their mother used
-to tell them stories by the firelight in winter evenings, and amongst
-those stories were several whose scenes were laid in the tapestried
-chambers and ghostly corridors, and about the parks and deer-drives
-and lake-shores of a great "place" in an English county--a place that
-had once been a famous monastery, every feature and aspect of which
-Mrs. King had at various times described so minutely that they were
-almost as familiar with it as if they had seen it for themselves.
-These stories generally came to an untimely end by the narrator
-falling into an impenetrable brown study or being overtaken by an
-unaccountable disposition to cry--which gave them, of course, a special
-and mysterious fascination for the children. While still little things
-in pinafores, they were quick enough to perceive that mother had a
-personal interest in that wonderful place of which they never tired
-of hearing, and which evidently did not belong to the realms of
-Make-believe, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty and Blue-beard's
-castle; and therefore they were always, if unconsciously, trying to
-understand what that interest was. And when, one day when she was
-painting a wreath of forget-me-nots on some little trifle intended for
-a bazaar, and, her husband coming to look over her, she said to him
-impulsively, "Oh, do you remember how they grew in the sedges round the
-Swan's Pool at Bradenham?"--and when he sternly bade her hush, and not
-speak of Bradenham unless she wished to drive him mad--then Patty and
-Elizabeth, who heard them both, knew that Bradenham was the name of the
-great house where monks had lived, in the grounds of which, as they
-had had innumerable proofs, pools and swans abounded. It was the first
-time they had heard it, but it was too important a piece of information
-to be forgotten. On this memorable day, so many years after, when they
-read "Bradenham Abbey" in the well-worn Bible, they looked at each
-other, immediately recalling that long-ago incident; but their hearts
-were too full to speak. It was Mr. Brion who broke the silence that had
-fallen upon them all.
-
-"This, added to our other discoveries, is conclusive, I think,"
-said the old lawyer, standing up in order to deliver his opinion
-impressively, and resting his hands on the table. "At any rate, I
-must insist on placing the results of our investigation before Mr.
-Yelverton--yes, Elizabeth, you must forgive me, my dear, if I take
-the matter into my own hands. Paul will agree with me that we have
-passed the time for sentiment. We will have another look into the
-bureau--because it seems incredible that any man should deliberately
-rob his children of their rights, even if he repudiated his own, and
-therefore I think there _must_ be legal instruments _somewhere_; but,
-supposing none are with us, it will not be difficult, I imagine, to
-supply what is wanting to complete our case from other sources--from
-other records of the family, in fact. Mr. Yelverton himself, in
-five minutes, would be able to throw a great deal of light upon our
-discoveries. It is absolutely necessary to consult him."
-
-"I would not mind so much," said Elizabeth, who was deadly pale, "if it
-were to be fought out with strangers. But _he_ would give it all up at
-once, without waiting to see--without asking us to prove--that we had a
-strictly legal title."
-
-"Don't you believe it," interposed Paul sententiously.
-
-She rose from her chair in majestic silence, and moved towards the
-bureau. She would not bandy her lover's name nor discuss his character
-with those who did not know him as she did. Paul followed her, with his
-chisel in his hand.
-
-"Let us look for that secret drawer, at any rate," he said. "I feel
-pretty certain there must be one, now. Mr. King took great pains to
-prevent identification during his lifetime, but, as my father says,
-that is a very different thing from disinheriting _you_. If you will
-allow me, I'll take every moveable part out first."
-
-He did so, while she watched and assisted him. All the brass-handled
-drawers, and sliding shelves, and partitions were withdrawn from their
-closely-fitting sockets, leaving a number of holes and spaces each
-differing in size and shape from the rest. Then he drew up a chair in
-front of the exposed skeleton, and gazed at it thoughtfully; after
-which he began to make careful measurements inside and out, to tap the
-woodwork in every direction, and to prise some of its strong joints
-asunder. This work continued until four o'clock, when, notwithstanding
-the highly stimulating excitement of the day's proceedings, the girls
-began to feel that craving for a cup of tea which is as strong upon the
-average woman at this time as the craving for a nobbler of whisky is
-upon the--shall I say average man?--when the sight of a public-house
-appeals to his nobler appetite. Not that they wanted to eat and
-drink--far from it; the cup of tea was the symbol of rest and relief
-for a little while from the stress and strain of labour and worry, and
-that was what they were in need of. Elizabeth looked at her watch and
-then at Patty, and the two girls slipped out of the room together,
-leaving Eleanor to watch operations at the bureau. Reaching their
-little kitchen, they mechanically lit the gas in the stove, and set
-the kettle on to boil; and then they went to the open window, which
-commanded an unattractive view of the back yard, and stood there side
-by side, leaning on each other.
-
-"In 1839," said Patty, "she must have been a girl, a child, and living
-at Bradenham _at home_. Think of it, Elizabeth--with a mother loving
-her and petting her as she did us. She was twenty-five when she
-married; she must have been about sixteen when that Bible was given
-to her--ever so much younger than any of us are now. _She_ lived in
-those beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish leather on the walls--_she_
-danced in that long gallery with the painted windows and the slippery
-oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a row--no doubt
-she rode about herself with those hunting parties in the winter, and
-rowed and skated on the lake--I can imagine it, what a life it must
-have been. Can't you see her, before she grew stout and careworn,
-and her bright hair got dull, and her pretty hands rough with hard
-work--young, and lovely, and happy, and petted by everybody--wearing
-beautiful clothes, and never knowing what it was to have to do anything
-for herself? I can. And it seems dreadful to think that she had to
-remember all that, living as she did afterwards. If only he had made it
-up to her!--but I don't think he did, Elizabeth--I don't think he did.
-He used to be so cross to her sometimes. Oh, bless her, bless her! Why
-didn't she tell _us_, so that _we_ could have done more to comfort her?"
-
-"I don't think she ever repented," said Elizabeth, who remembered more
-about her mother than Patty could do. "She did it because she loved him
-better than Bradenham and wealth and her own personal comfort; and she
-loved him like that always, even when he was cross. Poor father! No
-wonder he was cross!"
-
-"Why didn't he go back--for her sake, if not for ours--when he saw the
-advertisements? Elizabeth, my idea is that the death of his brother
-gave a permanent shock to his brain. I think he could never have been
-quite himself afterwards. It was a sort of mania with him to disconnect
-himself from everything that could suggest the tragedy--to get as far
-away as possible from any association with it."
-
-"I think so, too," said Elizabeth.
-
-Thus they talked by the kitchen window until the kettle bubbled on the
-stove; and then, recalled to the passing hour and their own personal
-affairs, they collected cups and saucers, sugar-basin and milk-jug,
-and cut bread and butter for the afternoon repast. Just as their
-preparations were completed, Eleanor came flying along the passage from
-the sitting-room. "They have found a secret drawer," she cried in an
-excited whisper. "At least not a drawer, but a double partition that
-seems to have been glued up; and Mr. Brion is sure, by the dull sound
-of the wood, that there are things in it. Come and see!"
-
-She flew back again, not even waiting to help her sisters with the tea.
-Silently Elizabeth took up the tray of cups and saucers, and Patty the
-teapot and the plate of bread and butter; and they followed her with
-beating hearts. This was the crisis of their long day's trial. Paul
-was tearing at the intestines of the bureau like a cat at the wainscot
-that has just given sanctuary to a mouse, and his father was too much
-absorbed in helping him to notice their return.
-
-"Now, pull, pull!" cried the old man, at the moment when the sisters
-closed the door behind them. "Break it, if it won't come. A--a--ah!" as
-a sudden crash of splintered wood resounded through the room, "there
-they are at last! I _thought_ they must be here somewhere!"
-
-"What is it?" inquired Elizabeth, setting down her tea-tray, and
-hastily running to his side. He was stripping a pink tape from a thin
-bundle of blue papers in a most unprofessional state of excitement and
-agitation.
-
-"What is it?" he echoed triumphantly. "This is what it is, my
-dear"--and he began in a loud voice to read from the outside of the
-blue packet, to which he pointed with a shaking finger--"The will
-of Kingscote Yelverton, formerly of Yelverton, in the county of
-Kent--Elizabeth Yelverton, sole executrix."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVIII.
-
-
-THE TIME FOR ACTION.
-
-
-Yes, it was their father's will--the will they had vainly hunted for
-a year ago, little thinking what manner of will it was; executed when
-Eleanor was a baby in long clothes, and providing for their inheritance
-of that enormous English fortune. When they were a little recovered
-from the shock of this last overwhelming surprise, Mr. Brion broke
-the seal of the document, and formally and solemnly read it to them.
-It was very short, but perfectly correct in form, and the testator
-(after giving to his wife, in the event of her surviving him, the sole
-control of the entire property, which was unentailed, for her lifetime)
-bequeathed to his younger daughters, and to any other children who
-might have followed them, a portion of thirty thousand pounds apiece,
-and left the eldest, Elizabeth, heiress of Yelverton and residuary
-legatee. Patty and Eleanor were thus to be made rich beyond _their_
-dreams of avarice, but Elizabeth, who had been her father's favourite,
-was to inherit a colossal fortune. That was, of course, supposing such
-wealth existed in fact as well as in the imagination of this incredible
-madman. Paul and his father found themselves unable to conceive of such
-a thing as that any one in his senses should possess these rare and
-precious privileges, so passionately desired and so recklessly sought
-and sinned for by those who had them not, and should yet abjure, them
-voluntarily, and against every natural temptation and moral obligation
-to do otherwise. It was something wholly outside the common course of
-human affairs, and unintelligible to men of business. Both of them
-felt that they must get out of the region of romance and into the
-practical domain of other lawyers' offices before they could cope
-effectively with the anomalies of the case. As it stood, it was beyond
-their grasp. While the girls, sitting together by the table, strove to
-digest the meaning of the legal phrases that had fallen so strangely on
-their ears, Mr. Brion and Paul exchanged _sotto voce_ suggestions and
-opinions over the parchment spread out before them. Then presently the
-old man opened a second document, glanced silently down the first page,
-cleared his throat, and looking over his spectacles, said solemnly, "My
-dears, give me your attention for a few minutes."
-
-Each changed her position a little, and looked at him steadily. Paul
-leaned back in his chair, and put his hand over his eyes.
-
-"What I have just been reading to you," said Mr. Brion, "is your
-father's last will and testament, as I believe. It appears that his
-surname was Yelverton, and that King was only an abbreviation of his
-Christian name--assumed as the surname for the purpose of eluding the
-search made for him by his family. Now, certain circumstances have come
-to our knowledge lately, referring, apparently, to this inexplicable
-conduct on your father's part." He paused, coughed, and nervously
-smoothed out the sheets before him, glancing hither and thither
-over their contents. "Elizabeth, my dear," he went on, "I think you
-heard Mr. Yelverton's account of his uncle's strange disappearance
-after--ahem--after a certain unfortunate catastrophe?"
-
-"Yes," said Elizabeth. "We all know about that."
-
-"Well, it seems--of course we must not jump at conclusions too hastily,
-but still it appears to me a reasonable conjecture--that your father
-and Mr. Yelverton's lost uncle _were_ one and the same person. The
-affair altogether is so extraordinary, so altogether unaccountable, on
-the face of it, that we shall require a great deal of proof--and of
-course Mr. Yelverton himself will require the very fullest and most
-absolute legal proof--before we can accept the theory as an established
-fact--"
-
-"Did I not say so?" Elizabeth interrupted eagerly, surprised by
-the old man's sudden assumption of scepticism now that all doubt
-and uncertainty seemed to be over. "I wish that nothing should be
-done--that no steps of any sort should be taken--until it is all proved
-to the last letter."
-
-"Well," said Mr. Brion, at once abandoning his cautious attitude, "we
-must take steps to obtain proof before we _can_ obtain it. And, as it
-providentially happens, we have received the most opportune and, as I
-believe, the most unimpeachable testimony from Mr. Yelverton himself,
-who is the loser by our gain, and who gave us the information which is
-so singularly corroborated in these documents before the existence of
-such documents was known to anybody. But if more were wanted--"
-
-"More _is_ wanted," urged Elizabeth. "We cannot take advantage of his
-own admissions to ruin him."
-
-"If more were wanted," Mr. Brion repeated, with growing solemnity
-of manner, "we have here a paper under your father's hand, and duly
-witnessed by the same persons who witnessed the will--where are you
-going, Paul?" For at this point Paul rose and walked quietly towards
-the door.
-
-"Go on," said the young man. "I will come back presently."
-
-"But where are you going?" his father repeated with irritation. "Can't
-you wait until this business is finished?"
-
-"I think," said Paul, "that the Miss Kings--the Miss Yelvertons, I
-suppose I ought to say--would rather be by themselves while you read
-that paper. It is not just like the will, you know; it is a private
-matter--not for outsiders to listen to."
-
-Elizabeth rose promptly and went towards him, laying her hand on
-his arm. "Do you think we consider _you_ an outsider?" she said,
-reproachfully. "You are one of us--you are in the place of our
-brother--we want you to help us now more than we have ever done. Come
-and sit down--that is, of course, if you can spare time for our affairs
-when you have so many important ones of your own."
-
-He went and sat down, taking the seat by Patty to which Elizabeth
-pointed him. Patty looked up at him wistfully, and then leaned her
-elbows on the table and put her face in her hands. Her lover laid his
-arm gently on the back of her chair.
-
-"Shall I begin, my dear?" asked the lawyer hesitatingly. "I am afraid
-it will be painful to you, Elizabeth. Perhaps, as Paul says, it would
-be better for you to read it by yourselves. I will leave it with you
-for a little while, if you promise faithfully to be very careful with
-it."
-
-But Elizabeth wished it to be read as the will was read, and the old
-man, vaguely suspecting that she might be illegally generous to the
-superseded representative of the Yelverton name and property, was
-glad to keep the paper in his own hands, and proceeded to recite its
-contents. "I, Kingscote Yelverton, calling myself John King, do hereby
-declare," &c.
-
-It was the story of Kingscote Yelverton's unfortunate life, put on
-record in the form of an affidavit for the benefit of his children,
-apparently with the intention that they should claim their inheritance
-when he was gone. The witnesses were an old midwife, long since
-dead, and a young Scripture reader, now a middle-aged and prosperous
-ecclesiastic in a distant colony; both of whom the lawyer remembered
-as features of the "old days" when he himself was a new-comer to the
-out-of-the-world place that counted Mr. King as its oldest inhabitant.
-It was a touching little document, in the sad story that it told
-and the severe formality of the style of telling it. Kingscote
-Yelverton, it was stated, was the second of three brothers, sons of
-a long line of Yelvertons of Yelverton, of which three, however,
-according to hereditary custom, only one was privileged to inherit
-the ancestral wealth. This one, Patrick, a bachelor, had already come
-into his kingdom; the youngest, a briefless barrister in comfortable
-circumstances, had married a farmer's daughter in very early youth
-(while reading for university honours during a long vacation spent in
-the farmer's house), and was the father of a sturdy schoolboy while
-himself not long emancipated from the rule of pastors and masters;
-and Kingscote was a flourishing young captain in the Guards--when
-the tragedy which shattered the family to pieces, and threw its vast
-property into Chancery, took place. Bradenham Abbey was neighbour to
-Yelverton, and Cuthbert Leigh of Bradenham was kin to the Yelvertons of
-Yelverton. Cuthbert Leigh had a beautiful daughter by his first wife,
-Eleanor D'Arcy; when this daughter was sixteen her mother died, and a
-stepmother soon after took Eleanor D'Arcy's place; and not long after
-the stepmother came to Bradenham Cuthbert Leigh himself died, leaving
-an infant son and heir; and not long after _that_ Mrs. Cuthbert Leigh
-married again, and her new husband administered Bradenham--in the
-interest of the heir eventually, but of himself and his own children in
-the meantime. So it happened that Elizabeth Leigh was rather elbowed
-out of her rights and privileges as her father's daughter; which being
-the case, her distant cousin and near friend, Mrs. Patrick Yelverton,
-mother of the ill-fated brothers (who lived, poor soul, to see her
-house left desolate), fetched the girl away from the home which was
-hers no more, and took her to live under her own wing at Yelverton.
-Then the troubles began. Elizabeth was young and fair; indeed, all
-accounts of her agreed in presenting the portrait of a woman who must
-have been irresistible to the normal and unappropriated man brought
-into close contact with her. At Yelverton she was the daily companion
-of the unwedded master of the house, and he succumbed accordingly.
-As an impartial chronicler, I may hazard the suggestion that she
-enjoyed a flirtation within lady-like limits, and was not without some
-responsibility in the matter. It was clear also that the dowager Mrs.
-Patrick, anxious to see her first-born suitably married and settled,
-and placed safely beyond the reach of designing farmers' daughters,
-contrived her best to effect a union between the two. But while
-Patrick was over head and ears in love, and Elizabeth was dallying
-with him, and the old mother planning new furniture for the stately
-rooms where the queen was to reign who should succeed her, Kingscote
-the guardsman--Kingscote, the handsome, strong-willed, fiery-tempered
-second son--came home. To him the girl's heart, with the immemorial and
-incurable perversity of hearts, turned forthwith, like a flower to the
-sun; and a very short furlough had but half run out when she was as
-deeply over head and ears in love with Kingscote as Patrick was with
-her. Kingscote also loved her passionately--on his own testimony, he
-loved her as never man loved before, though he made a proud confession
-that he had still been utterly unworthy of her; and so the materials
-for the tragedy were laid, like a housemaid's fire, ready for the match
-that kindled them. Elizabeth found her position untenable amid the
-strenuous and conflicting attentions bestowed on her by the mother and
-sons, and went away for a time to visit some of her other relatives;
-and when her presence and influence were withdrawn from Yelverton, the
-smothered enmity of the brothers broke out, and they had their first
-and last and fatal quarrel about her. She had left a miniature of
-herself hanging in their mother's boudoir; this miniature Patrick laid
-hands on, and carried off to his private rooms; wherefrom Kingscote,
-in a violent passion (as Elizabeth's accepted lover), abstracted it by
-force. Then the master of the house, always too much inclined to assert
-himself as such, being highly incensed in his turn at the liberty that
-had been taken with him, marched into his brother's bedroom, where
-the disputed treasure was hidden, found it, and put it in his breast
-until he could discover a safer place for it. They behaved like a
-pair of ill-regulated schoolboys, in short, as men do when love and
-jealousy combine to derange their nervous systems, and wrought their
-own irreparable ruin over this miserable trifle. Patrick, flushed with
-a lurid triumph at his temporary success, strolled away from the house
-for an aimless walk, but afterwards went to a gamekeeper's cottage to
-give some instructions that occurred to him. The gamekeeper was not at
-home, and the squire returned by way of a lonely track through a thick
-plantation, where some of the keeper's work had to be inspected. Here
-he met Kingscote, striding along with his gun over his shoulder. The
-guardsman had discovered his loss, and was in search of his brother,
-intending to make a calm statement of his right to the possession of
-the picture by virtue of his rights in the person of the fair original,
-but at the same time passionately determined that this sort of thing
-should be put a stop to. There was a short parley, a brief but fierce
-altercation, a momentary struggle--on one side to keep, on the other
-to take, the worthless little bone of contention--and it was all over.
-Patrick, sent backward by a sweep of his strong brother's arm, fell
-over the gun that had been carelessly propped against a sapling; the
-stock of the gun, flying up, was caught by a tough twig which dragged
-across the hammers, and as the man and the weapon tumbled to the ground
-together one hammer fell, and the exploded charge entered the squire's
-neck, just under the chin, and, passing upward to the brain, killed
-him. It was an accident, as all the family believed; but to the author
-of the mischance it was nothing less than murder. He was guilty of his
-brother's blood, and he accepted the portion of Cain--to be a fugitive
-and a vagabond on the face of the earth--in expiation of it. Partly
-with the idea of sparing pain and disgrace to his family (believing
-that the only evidence available would convict him of murder in a court
-of law), and partly because he felt that, if acquitted, it would be
-too horrible and impossible to take an inheritance that had come to
-him by such means, in the overwhelming desperation of his remorse and
-despair he took that determination to blot himself out which was never
-afterwards revoked. Returning to the house, he collected some money
-and a few valuables, and, unsuspected and unnoticed, took leave of his
-home, and his name, and his place in the world, and was half way to
-London, and beyond recall, before the dead body in the plantation was
-discovered. In London Elizabeth Leigh was staying with an old Miss
-D'Arcy, quietly studying her music and taking a rest while the society
-which was so fond of her was out of town; and the stricken man could
-not carry out his resolve without bidding farewell to his beloved. He
-had a clandestine interview with Elizabeth, to whom alone he confided
-the circumstances of his wretched plight. The girl, of course, advised
-him to return to Yelverton, and bravely meet and bear whatever might
-befall; and it would have been well for him and for her if he had taken
-that advice. But he would not listen to it, nor be turned from his
-fixed purpose to banish and efface himself, if possible, for the rest
-of his life; seeing which, the devoted woman chose to share his fate.
-Whether he could and should have spared her that enormous sacrifice,
-or whether she was happier in making it than she would otherwise have
-been, only themselves ever knew. She did her woman's part in helping
-and sustaining and consoling him through all the blighted years that he
-was suffered to live and fret her with his brooding melancholy and his
-broken-spirited moroseness, and doubtless she found her true vocation
-in that thorny path of love.
-
-The story, as told by himself for the information of his children (who,
-as children ever do, came in time to have interests of their own that
-transcended in importance those that were merely personal to their
-parents), was much more brief and bald than this, and the reading of it
-did not take many minutes. When he had finished it, in dead silence,
-the lawyer took from the packet of papers a third and smaller document,
-which he also proceeded to read aloud to those whom it concerned. This
-proved to be a certificate of the marriage of Kingscote Yelverton and
-Elizabeth Leigh, celebrated in an obscure London parish by a curate
-who had been the bridegroom's Eton and Oxford chum, and witnessed by
-a pair of humble folk who had had great difficulty in composing their
-respective signatures, on the 25th of November in the year 1849. And,
-finally, half-folded round the packet, there was a slip of paper, on
-which was written--"Not to be opened until my death."
-
-"And it might never have been opened until you were _all_ dead!"
-exclaimed the lawyer, holding up his hands. "He must have meant to give
-it to you at the last, and did not reckon on being struck helpless in a
-moment when his time came."
-
-"Oh, poor father!" sobbed Elizabeth, whose head lay on the table,
-crushed down in her handkerchief. And the other sisters put their arms
-about her, Patty with a set white face and Eleanor whimpering a little.
-But Mr. Brion and Paul were incensed with the dead man, and could not
-pity him at present.
-
-It was late before the two friendly advisers, summoned to dinner by
-their landlady, went back to No. 7, and they did not like going. It
-did not seem to them at all right that the three girls should be
-left alone under present circumstances. Mr. Brion wanted to summon
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, or even Mrs. M'Intyre, to bear them company and see
-that they did not faint, or have hysterics, or otherwise "give way,"
-under the exceptional strain put upon their nervous systems. Then he
-wanted them to come next door for that dinner which he felt they must
-certainly stand much in need of, and for which they did not seem to
-have adequate materials; or to let him take them to the nearest hotel,
-or to Mrs. Duff-Scott's; or, at least, to permit him to give them some
-brandy and water; and he was genuinely distressed because they refused
-to be nourished and comforted and appropriately cared for in any of
-these ways.
-
-"We want to be quiet for a little, dear Mr. Brion, that we may talk
-things over by ourselves--if you don't mind," Elizabeth said; and
-the tone of her voice silenced all his protests. The old man kissed
-them, for the first time in his life, uttering a few broken words of
-congratulation on the wonderful change in their fortunes; and Paul
-shook hands with great gravity and without saying anything at all, even
-though Patty, looking up into his inscrutable face, mutely asked for
-his sympathy with her wistful, wet eyes. And they went away.
-
-As they were letting themselves out of the house, assisted by the
-ground-floor domestic, who, scenting mystery in the air, politely
-volunteered to open the hall door in order that she might investigate
-the countenances of the Miss Kings' visitors and perchance gather some
-enlightenment therefrom, Patty, dry-eyed and excited, came flying
-downstairs, and pounced upon the old man.
-
-"Mr. Brion, Mr. Brion, Elizabeth says she hopes you will be _sure_
-not to divulge what we have discovered to _anybody_," she panted
-breathlessly (at the same time glancing at her lover's back as he stood
-on the door-step). "It is of the utmost consequence to her to keep it
-quiet for a little longer."
-
-"But, my dear, what object can Elizabeth have in waiting _now?_ Surely
-it is better to have it over at once, and settled. I thought of walking
-up to the club by-and-bye, with the papers, and having a word with Mr.
-Yelverton."
-
-"Of course it is better to have it over," assented Patty.
-
-"I know your time is precious, and I myself am simply frantic till I
-can tell Mrs. Duff-Scott. So is Elizabeth. But there is something she
-must do first--I can't tell you the particulars--but she _must_ have a
-few hours' start--say till to-morrow evening--before you speak to Mr.
-Yelverton or take any steps. I am sure she will do _whatever_ you wish,
-after that."
-
-The lawyer hesitated, suspicious of the wisdom of the delay, but not
-seeing how much harm could happen, seeing that he had all the precious
-documents in his own breast pocket; then he reluctantly granted Patty's
-request, and the girl went upstairs again with feet not quite so light
-as those that had carried her down. Upstairs, however, she subordinated
-her own interests to the consideration of her sister's more pressing
-affairs.
-
-"Elizabeth," she said, with fervid and portentous solemnity, "this
-is a crisis for you, and you must be bold and brave. It is no time
-for shilly-shallying--you have twenty-four hours before you, and you
-must _act_. If you don't, you will see that he will just throw up
-everything, and be too proud to take it back. He will lose all his
-money and the influence for good that it gives him, and _you_ will lose
-_him_."
-
-"How shall I act?" asked Elizabeth, leaning instinctively upon this
-more courageous spirit.
-
-"How?" echoed Patty, looking at her sister with brilliant eyes. "Oh!"
-drawing a long breath, and speaking with a yearning passion that it was
-beyond the power of good grammar to express--"oh, if it was only _me!_"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIX.
-
-
-AN ASSIGNATION.
-
-
-That evening Mr. Yelverton was leisurely finishing his dinner at the
-club when a note was brought to him. He thought he knew the writing,
-though he had never seen it before, and put it into his pocket until he
-could politely detach himself from three semi-hosts, semi-guests, with
-whom he was dining. Then he went upstairs rather quickly, tearing open
-his letter as he went, and, arrived at the reading-room, sat down at
-a table, took pen in hand, and dashed off an immediate reply. "I will
-certainly be there," he wrote, in a hand more vigorous than elegant.
-"I will wait for you in the German picture gallery. Come as early as
-possible, while the place is quiet." And, having closed his missive
-and consigned it to the bag, he remained in a comfortable arm-chair
-in the quiet room, all by himself, meditating. He felt he had a great
-deal to think about, and it indisposed him for convivialities. The week
-since his parting with Elizabeth, long as it had seemed to him, had
-not quite run out, and she had made an assignation which, though it
-might have appeared unequivocal to the casual eye, was to him extremely
-perplexing. She had come back, and she wanted to see him, and she
-wanted to see him alone, and she asked him if he would meet her at the
-Exhibition in the morning. And she addressed him as her dearest friend,
-and signed herself affectionately his. He tried very hard, but he could
-not extract his expected comfort from such a communication, made under
-such circumstances.
-
-In the morning he was amongst the first batch of breakfasters in the
-club coffee-room, and amongst the first to represent the public at
-the ticket-windows of the Carlton Palace. When he entered the great
-building, it was in the possession of officials and workmen, and
-echoed in a hollow manner to his solid footfall. Without a glance to
-right or left, he walked upstairs to the gallery and into that cosiest
-nook of the whole Exhibition, the German room, and there waited for
-his mistress. This restful room, with its carpeted floor and velvety
-settees (so grateful to the weary), its great Meissen vases in the
-middle, and casts of antique statues all round, was quite empty of
-visitors, and looked as pleasant and convenient a place of rendezvous
-as lovers could desire. If only Elizabeth would come quickly, he
-thought, they might have the most delicious quiet talk, sitting side
-by side on a semi-circular ottoman opposite to Lindenschmidt's "Death
-of Adonis"--not regarding that unhappy subject, of course, nor any
-other object but themselves. He would not sit down until she came,
-but strolled round and round, pausing now and then to investigate a
-picture, but thinking of nothing but his beloved, for whose light step
-he was listening. If his bodily eyes were fixed on the "Cloister Pond"
-or "Evening," or any other of the tranquil landscapes pictured on the
-wall, he thought of Elizabeth resting with him under green trees, far
-from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, absolutely his own, and in a
-world that (practically) held nobody but him and her. If he looked at
-autumnal rain slanting fiercely across the canvas, he thought how he
-would protect and shield her in all the storms that might visit her
-life--"My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter
-thee!" And visions of a fair morning in Thuringia, of a lake in the
-Bavarian mountains, of a glacier in the Engadine, and of Venice in
-four or five aspects of sunlight and moonlight, suggested his wedding
-journey and how beautiful the world she had so longed to see--the world
-that he knew so well--would look henceforth, if--if--
-
-There was a step upon the corridor outside, and he turned sharply from
-his contemplation of a little picture of an Isle of Wight sunrise to
-meet her as she came in. She had been walking hurriedly, but in the
-doorway she paused, seeing him striding towards her, and stood for a
-moment confused and hesitating, overcome with embarrassment. It was a
-bright morning, and she had dressed herself in a delicate linen gown,
-fitting easily to the sweeping curves of her noble figure--a gown
-over which Mrs. Duff-Scott had spent hours of careful thought and a
-considerable amount of money, but which was so simple and unpretending
-in its effects as to suggest the domestic needle and the judicious
-outlay of a few shillings to those admirable critics of the other sex
-who have so little knowledge of such matters and so much good taste;
-and all the details of her costume were in harmony with this central
-feature--her drooping straw hat, tied with soft Indian muslin under
-the chin, her Swedish gloves, her neat French shoes, her parasol--and
-the effect was insidious but impressive. She had got herself up
-carefully for her lover's eyes, and nobody could have looked less got
-up than she. Mr. Yelverton thought how much more charming was a homely
-every-day style than the elaborate dressing of the ball-room and the
-block, and that it was certainly evident to any sensible person that
-a woman like Elizabeth needed no arts of the milliner to make her
-attractive. He took her hand in a strong clasp, and held it in silence
-for a moment, his left hand laid over her fine unwrinkled glove, while
-he looked into her downcast face for some sign of the nature of her
-errand.
-
-"Well, my love," he murmured eagerly, "what is it? Don't keep me in
-suspense. Is it yes or no, Elizabeth?"
-
-Her embarrassment melted away before the look he bent upon her, as a
-morning mist before the sun. She lifted her eyes to his--those honest
-eyes that he could read like a book--and her lips parted in an effort
-to speak. The next instant, before a word was said, he had her in
-his arms, and her mouth met his under the red moustache in a long,
-and close, and breathless kiss; and both of them knew that they were
-to part no more till their lives' end. While that brief ceremony of
-betrothal lasted, they might have been in the black grotto where they
-kissed each other first, so oblivious were they of their surroundings;
-but they took in presently the meaning of certain sounds in the gallery
-on the other side of the curtain, and resumed their normal attitudes.
-"Come and sit down," said Mr. Yelverton, drawing her into the room.
-"Come and let's have a talk." And he set her down on the velvet ottoman
-and took a seat beside her--leaning forward with an arm on his knee
-to barricade her from an invasion of the public as far as possible.
-His thoughts turned, naturally enough, to their late very important
-interview in the caves.
-
-"We will go back there," he said, expressing his desire frankly. "When
-we are married, Elizabeth, we will go to your old home again together,
-before we set out on longer travels, and you and I will have a picnic
-to the caves all alone by ourselves, in that little buggy that we drove
-the other day. Shall we?"
-
-"We might tumble into one of those terrible black holes," she replied,
-"if we went there again."
-
-"True--we might. And when we are married we must not run any
-unnecessary risks. We will live together as long as we possibly can,
-Elizabeth."
-
-She had drawn off her right glove, and now slipped her hand into
-his. He grasped it fervently, and kneaded it like a lump of stiff
-dough (excuse the homely simile, dear reader--it has the merit of
-appropriateness, which is more than you can say for the lilies and
-jewellery) between his two strong palms. How he did long for that dark
-cave!--for any nook or corner that would have hidden him and her from
-sight for the next half hour.
-
-"Why couldn't you have told me a week ago?" he demanded, with a thrill
-in his deep voice. "You must have known you would take me then, or
-you would not have come to me like this to-day. Why didn't you give
-yourself to me at first? Then we should have been together all this
-time--all these precious days that we have wasted--and we should have
-been by the sea at this moment, sitting under those big rocks, or
-wandering away into the bush, where nobody could interfere with us."
-
-As he spoke, a party of ladies strolled into the court, and he leaned
-back upon his cushioned seat to wait until they were gone again. They
-looked at the pictures, with one eye on him, dawdled up and down for
-five minutes, trying to assert their right to be there if they chose;
-and then, too uncomfortably conscious of being _de trop_, departed.
-After which the lovers were alone again for a little while. Mr.
-Yelverton resumed possession of Elizabeth's hand, and repeated his
-rather cruel question.
-
-"Didn't you know all along that it must come to this?"
-
-"A week ago I did not know what I know now," she replied.
-
-"Ah, my dear, you knew it in your heart, but you would not listen to
-your heart."
-
-He thought he understood it all, perfectly. He pictured her regret and
-hungry longing for him after he was gone, how she had fought against
-it for a time, and how it had precipitately driven her to Melbourne at
-last, and driven her to summon him in this importunate fashion to her
-side. It was exactly what he would have done, he thought, had he been
-in her place.
-
-"Mr. Yelverton--"
-
-She was beginning to speak seriously, but he stopped her. "No," he
-said, "I am not going to be called Mr. Yelverton by _you_. Never again,
-remember. My name is Kingscote, if you wish to know. My people at home,
-when I had any people, called me King. I think you might as well call
-me King--it will keep your dear name alive in the family when you no
-longer answer to it yourself. Now"--as she paused, and was looking at
-him rather strangely--"what were you going to say?"
-
-"I was going to say that I have not wasted this week since you went
-away. A great deal has happened--a great many changes--and I was helped
-by something outside myself to make up my mind."
-
-"I don't believe it--I don't believe it, Elizabeth. You know you love
-me, and you know that, whatever your religious sentiments may be,
-you would not do violence to them for anything _less_ than that. You
-are taking me because you love me too well to give me up--for any
-consideration whatever. So don't say you are not."
-
-She touched his shoulder for a moment with her cheek. "Oh, I do love
-you, I do love you!" she murmured, drawing a long, sighing breath.
-
-He knew it well, and he did not know how to bear to sit there, unable
-to respond to her touching confession. He could only knead her hand
-between his palms.
-
-"And you are going to trust me, my love--me and yourself? You are not
-afraid now?"
-
-"No, I don't think I am afraid." She caught her breath a little, and
-looked grave and anxious as she said it, haunted still by the feeling
-that duty meant sacrifice and that happiness meant sin in some more or
-less insidious shape; a habit of thought in which she, like so many
-more of us, had been educated until it had taken the likeness of a
-natural instinct. "I don't think I am afraid. Religion, as you say,
-is a living thing, independent of the creeds that it is dressed in.
-And--and--you _must_ be a good man!"
-
-"Don't begin by making that an article of faith," he returned promptly.
-"To set up for being a good man is the last thing I would dream of.
-Like other men, I am good as far as I was born and have been made so,
-and neither more nor less. All I can take credit for on my own account
-is that I try to live up to the light that has been given me."
-
-"What can anyone do more?" she said, eagerly. "It is better than
-believing at haphazard and not trying at all--which is what so many
-good people are content with."
-
-"It seems better to me," he said.
-
-"I will trust you--I will trust you," she went on, leaning towards
-him as he sat beside her. "You are doing more good in the world than
-I had even thought of until I knew you. It is I who will not be up to
-the mark--not you. But I will help you as much as you will let me--I
-am going to give my life to helping you. And at least--at least--you
-believe in God," she concluded, yearning for some tangible and definite
-evidence of faith, as she had understood faith, wherewith to comfort
-her conscientious soul. "We are together in _that_--the chief thing of
-all--are we not?"
-
-He was a scrupulously truthful man, and he hesitated for a moment.
-"Yes, my dear," he said, gravely. "I believe in God--that is to say,
-I _feel_ Him--I lean my littleness on a greatness that I know is all
-around me and upholding me, which is Something that even God seems a
-word too mean for. I think," he added, "that God, to me, is not what He
-has been taught to seem to you."
-
-"Never mind," she said, in a low voice, responding to the spirit rather
-than the letter of his words. "Whatever you believe you are sure to
-believe thoroughly, and if you believe in God, your God must be a true
-God. I feel it, though I don't know it."
-
-"You feel that things will all come right for us if we have faith in
-our own hearts, and love and trust each other. So do I, Elizabeth."
-There was nobody looking, and he put his arm round her shoulder for a
-moment. "And we may consider our religious controversy closed then? We
-need not trouble ourselves about that any more?"
-
-"I would not say 'closed.' Don't you think we ought to talk of _all_
-our thoughts--and especially those that trouble us--to each other?"
-
-"I do--I do, indeed. And so we shall. Ours is going to be a real
-marriage. We shall be, not two, but one. Only for the present we may
-put this topic aside, as being no longer an obstruction in the way of
-our arrangements, mayn't we?"
-
-"Yes," she said. And the die was cast.
-
-"Very well, then." He seemed to pull himself together at this point,
-and into his fine frame and his vigorous face a new energy was infused,
-the force of which seemed to be communicated to the air around her, and
-made her heart beat more strongly to the quicker pulse of his. "Very
-well, then. Now tell me, Elizabeth--without any formality, while you
-and I are here together--when shall we be married?"
-
-The question had a tone of masterful command about it, for, though
-he knew how spontaneous and straightforward she was, her natural
-delicacy unspoiled by artificial sentiment, he yet prepared himself
-to encounter a certain amount of maidenly reluctance to meet a man's
-reasonable views upon this matter. But she answered him without delay
-or hesitation, impelled by the terrors that beset her and thinking of
-Patty's awful warnings and prophesyings--"I will leave you to say when."
-
-"Will you really? Do you mean you will _really?_" His deep-set eyes
-glowed, and his voice had a thrilling tremor in it as he made this
-incredulous inquiry. "Then I say we will be married soon--_very_
-soon--so as not to lose a day more than we can help. Will you agree to
-that?"
-
-She looked a little frightened, but she stood her ground. "If you
-wish," she whispered, all the tone shaken out of her voice.
-
-"If _I_ wish!" A palpitating silence held them for a moment. Then "What
-do you say to _to-morrow?_" he suggested.
-
-She looked up at him, blushing violently.
-
-"Ah, you are thinking how forward I am!" she exclaimed, drawing her
-hand from his.
-
-"Elizabeth," he remonstrated, with swift energy, "did I not ask
-you, ever so long ago, not to be conventional? Why should I think
-you forward? How can you be forward--with _me?_ You are the most
-delicate-minded woman I ever knew, and I think you are showing yourself
-so at this moment--when anything short of perfect truth and candour
-would have disappointed me. Now, I am quite serious--will you marry
-me to-morrow? There is no reason why you should not, that I can see.
-Just think of it, calmly. Mrs. Duff-Scott gave her consent a fortnight
-ago--yes, she gave it privately, to _me_; and Patty and Nelly, I know,
-would be delighted. As for you and me, what have we--honestly, what
-_have_ we--to wait for? Each of us is without any tie to be broken by
-it. Those who look to us will all be better off. I want to get home
-soon, and you have taken me, Elizabeth--it will be all the same in the
-end--you know that no probation will prove us unfit or unwilling to
-marry--the _raison d'être_ of an engagement does not exist for us. And
-I am not young, my love, and life is short and uncertain; while you--"
-
-"I am not young either," she interrupted. "I shall soon be thirty."
-
-"Shall you? I am glad of it. Well, think of it then--_why_ should we
-not do it, so exceptionally circumstanced as we are? We can take the
-afternoon train to somewhere--say to Macedon, to live up there amongst
-the mountains for a little while--till we decide what next to do, while
-our sisters enjoy themselves with Mrs. Duff-Scott. I can make all
-arrangements to-day, except for wedding cake and bridesmaids--and we
-would rather be without them. Come here to-morrow morning, my darling,
-as soon as the place is open, in that same pretty gown that you have
-got on now; and we will take a cab and go and get married peaceably,
-without all the town staring at us. I will see Mrs. Duff-Scott and make
-it all right. She shall meet us at the church, with the girls, and the
-major to give you away. Will you? Seriously, _will_ you?"
-
-She was silent for some time, while he leaned forward and watched her
-face. He saw, to his surprise, that she was actually thinking over
-it, and he did not interrupt her. She was, indeed, possessed by the
-idea that this wild project offered safety to them both in face of the
-impending catastrophe. If she could not secure him in the possession of
-his property before he was made aware that he had lost it, she might
-anticipate his possible refusal to let her be his benefactor, and the
-hindrances and difficulties that seemed likely to sunder them after
-having come so near to each other. She lifted her eyes from the carpet
-presently, and looked into his.
-
-"Do you mean that you _will?_" he exclaimed, the fierceness of his
-delight tempered by a still evident incredulity.
-
-"I will," she said, "if--"
-
-"Hush--hush! Don't let there be any ifs, Elizabeth!"
-
-"Yes--listen. If Mrs. Duff-Scott will freely consent and approve--"
-
-"You may consider _that_ settled, anyhow. I know she will."
-
-"And if you will see Mr. Brion to-night--"
-
-"Mr. Brion? What do we want with Mr. Brion? Settlements?"
-
-"No. But he has something to tell you about me--about my
-family--something that you _must_ know before we can be married."
-
-"What is it? Can't _you_ tell me what it is?" He looked surprised and
-uneasy. "Don't frighten me, Elizabeth--it is nothing to matter, is it?"
-
-"I don't know. I hope not. I cannot tell you myself. He will explain
-everything if you will see him this evening. He came back to Melbourne
-with us, and he is waiting to see you."
-
-"Tell me this much, at any rate," said Mr. Yelverton, anxiously; "it is
-no just cause or impediment to our being married to-morrow, is it?"
-
-"No. At least, I don't think so. I hope you won't."
-
-"_I_ shan't if _you_ don't, you may depend upon that." He made up
-his mind on the spot that there were some shady pages in her family
-history that a sense of honour prompted her to reveal to him before
-he married her, and congratulated himself that she was not like the
-conventional heroine, who would have been too proud to make him happy
-under such circumstances. "I am not afraid of Mr. Brion, if you are
-not," he repeated. "And we will shunt him for the present, with your
-permission. Somehow I can't bring myself to think of anybody just now
-except you and me." The picture galleries were pretty full by this
-time, and the public was invading the privacy of the German Court
-rather freely. "Come and let us walk about a little," he said, rising
-from the ottoman, "and enjoy the sensation of being alone in a crowd."
-And they sauntered out into the corridor, and down the stairs, and up
-and down the long nave, side by side--a distinguished and imposing if
-not strictly handsome couple--passing shoals of people, and bowing now
-and then to an acquaintance; mixing unsuspected with the common herd,
-and hugging the delicious consciousness that in secret they were alone
-and apart from everybody. They talked with more ease and freedom than
-when _tête-à-tête_ on their settee upstairs.
-
-"And so, by this time to-morrow, we shall be man and wife," Mr.
-Yelverton said, musingly. "Doesn't your head swim a little when you
-think of that, Elizabeth? _I_ feel as if I had been drinking, and I
-am terribly afraid of finding myself sober presently. No, I am not
-afraid," he continued, correcting himself. "You have given me your
-promise, and you won't go back on it, as the Yankees say, will you?"
-
-"If either of us goes back," said Elizabeth, unblushingly; "it won't be
-me."
-
-"You seem to think it possible that _I_ may go back? Don't you flatter
-yourself, my young friend. When you come here to-morrow, as you will,
-in that pretty cool gown--I stipulate for that gown remember--"
-
-"Even if it is a cold day?--or pouring with rain?"
-
-"Well, I don't know. Couldn't you put a warm jacket over it? When you
-come here to-morrow, I say, you will find me waiting for you, the
-embodiment of relentless fate, with the wedding ring in my pocket. By
-the way--that reminds me--how am I to know the size of your finger? And
-you have not got your engagement ring yet! I'll tell you what we'll do,
-Elizabeth; we'll choose a ring out of the Exhibition, and we'll cheat
-the customs for once. The small things are smuggled out of the place
-all day long, and every day, as you may see by taking stock of the show
-cases occasionally. We'll be smugglers too--it is in a good cause--and
-I'll go so far as to use bribery and corruption, if necessary, to get
-possession of that ring to-day. I'll say, 'Let me have it now, or I
-won't have it at all,' and you will see they'll let me have it. I will
-then put it on your finger, and you shall wear it for a little while,
-and then I will borrow it to get the size of your wedding ring from it.
-By-and-bye, you know, when we are at home at Yelverton--years hence,
-when we are old people--"
-
-"Oh, don't talk of our being old people!" she interrupted, quickly.
-
-"No, I won't--it will be a long time yet, dear. By-and-bye, when we are
-at home at Yelverton, you will look at your ring, and think of this
-day, and of the German picture gallery--of the dear Exhibition which
-brought us together, and where you gave yourself to me--long after I
-had given myself to _you_, Elizabeth! It is most appropriate that your
-engagement ring should be got here. Come along and let us choose it.
-What stones do you like best?"
-
-They spent nearly an hour amongst the jewellery of all nations before
-Mr. Yelverton could decide on what he liked. At last he selected from
-a medley of glittering trinkets a sober ring that did not glitter,
-and yet was rare and valuable--a broad, plain band of gold set with
-a lovely cameo carved out of an opal stone. "There is some little
-originality about it," he said, as he tried it on her finger, which it
-fitted perfectly, "and, though the intaglio looks so delicate, it will
-stand wear and tear, and last for ever. That is the chief thing. Do you
-like it? Or would you rather have diamonds?"
-
-She had no words to say how much she liked it, and how much she
-preferred it to diamonds. And so, after a few severe struggles, carried
-on in a foreign tongue, he obtained immediate possession of his
-purchase, and she carried it away on her finger.
-
-"Now," said he, looking at his watch, "are you in any great hurry to
-get home?"
-
-She thought of her non-existent trousseau, and the packing of her
-portmanteau for her wedding journey; nevertheless, she intimated her
-willingness to stay a little while longer.
-
-"Very well. We will go and have our lunch then. We'll join the _table
-d'hôte_ of the Exhibition, Elizabeth--that will give us a foretaste
-of our Continental travels. To-morrow we shall have lunch--where? At
-Mrs. Duff-Scott's, I suppose--it would be too hard upon her to leave
-her literally at the church door. Yes, we shall have lunch at Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's, and I suppose the major will insist our drinking our
-healths in champagne, and making us a pretty speech. Never mind, we
-will have our dinner in peace. To-morrow evening we shall be at home,
-Elizabeth, and you and I will dine _tête-à-tête_, without even a single
-parlourmaid to stand behind our chairs. I don't quite know yet where
-I shall discover those blessed four walls that we shall dine in, nor
-what sort of dinner it will be--but I will find out before I sleep
-to-night."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XL.
-
-
-MRS. DUFF-SCOTT HAS TO BE RECKONED WITH.
-
-
-Prosaic as were their surroundings and their occupation--sitting at
-a long table, he at the end and she at the corner on his left hand,
-amongst a scattered crowd of hungry folk, in the refreshment room of
-the Exhibition, eating sweetbreads and drinking champagne and soda
-water--it was like a dream to Elizabeth, this foretaste of Continental
-travels. In the background of her consciousness she had a sense of
-having acted madly, if not absurdly, in committing herself to the
-programme that her audacious lover had drawn out; but the thoughts and
-fancies floating on the surface of her mind were too absorbing for the
-present to leave room for serious reflections. Dreaming as she was,
-she not only enjoyed the homely charm of sitting at meat with him in
-this informal, independent manner, but she enjoyed her lunch as well,
-after her rather exhausting emotions. It is commonly supposed, I know,
-that overpowering happiness takes away the appetite; but experience has
-taught me that it is not invariably the case. The misery of suspense
-and dread can make you sicken at the sight of food, but the bliss of
-rest and security in having got what you want has an invigorating
-effect, physically as well as spiritually, if you are a healthy person.
-So I say that Elizabeth was unsentimentally hungry, and enjoyed her
-sweetbreads. They chatted happily over their meal, like truant children
-playing on the edge of a precipice. Mr. Yelverton had the lion's share
-in the conversation, and talked with distracting persistence of the
-journey to-morrow, and the lighter features of the stupendous scheme
-that they had so abruptly adopted. Elizabeth smiled and blushed and
-listened, venturing occasionally upon a gentle repartee. Presently,
-however, she started a topic on her own account "Tell me," she said,
-"do you object to first cousins marrying?"
-
-"Dear child, I don't object to anything to-day," he replied. "As long
-as I am allowed to marry you, I am quite willing to let other men
-please themselves."
-
-"But tell me seriously--do you?"
-
-"Must I be serious? Well, let me think. No, I don't know that I
-object--there is so very little that I object to, you see, in the way
-of things that people want to do--but I think, perhaps, that, all
-things being equal, a man would not _choose_ to marry so near a blood
-relation."
-
-"You _do_ think it wrong, then?"
-
-"I think it not only wrong but utterly preposterous and indefensible,"
-he said, "that it should be lawful and virtuous for a man to marry his
-first cousin and wicked and indecent to marry his sister-in-law--or
-his aunt-in-law for the matter of that--or any other free woman who
-has no connection with him except through other people's marriages.
-If a legal restriction in such matters can ever be necessary or
-justifiable, it should be in the way of preventing the union of people
-of the same blood. Sense and the laws of physiology have something to
-say to _that_--they have nothing whatever to say to the relations that
-are of no kin to each other. Them's my sentiments, Miss King, if you
-particularly wish to know them."
-
-Elizabeth put her knife and fork together on her plate softly. It was a
-gesture of elaborate caution, meant to cover her conscious agitation.
-"Then you would not--if it were your own case--marry your cousin?" she
-asked, after a pause, in a very small and gentle voice. He was studying
-the _menu_ on her behalf, and wondering if the strawberries and cream
-would be fresh. Consequently he did not notice how pale she had grown,
-all of a sudden.
-
-"Well," he said, "you see I have no cousin, to begin with. And if I had
-I could not possibly want to marry her, since I am going to marry you
-to-morrow, and a man is only allowed to have one wife at a time. So my
-own case doesn't come in."
-
-"But if _I_ had been your cousin?" she urged, breathlessly, but with
-her eyes on her plate. "Supposing, for the sake of argument, that _I_
-had been of your blood--would you still have had me?"
-
-"Ah!" he said, laughing, "that is, indeed, a home question."
-
-"_Would_ you?" she persisted.
-
-"Would I?" he echoed, putting a hand under the table to touch hers. "I
-really think I would, Elizabeth. I'm afraid that nothing short of your
-having been my own full sister could have saved you."
-
-After that she regained her colour and brightness, and was able to
-enjoy the early strawberries and cream--which did happen to be fresh.
-
-They did not hurry themselves over their lunch, and when they left the
-refreshment-room they went and sat down on two chairs by the Brinsmead
-pianos and listened to a little music (in that worst place that ever
-was for hearing it). Then Mr. Yelverton took his _fiancée_ to get a cup
-of Indian tea. Then he looked at his watch gravely.
-
-"Do you know," he said, "I really have an immense deal of business to
-get through before night if we are to be married to-morrow morning."
-
-"There is no reason why we should be married to-morrow morning," was
-her immediate comment "Indeed--indeed, it is far too soon."
-
-"It may be soon, Elizabeth, but I deny that it is too soon, reluctant
-as I am to contradict you. And, whether or no, the date is fixed,
-_irrevocably_. We have only to consider"--he broke off, and consulted
-his watch again, thinking of railway and telegraph arrangements. "Am I
-obliged to see Mr. Brion to-day?" he asked, abruptly. "Can't I put him
-off till another time? Because, you know, he may say just whatever he
-likes, and it won't make the smallest particle of difference."
-
-"Oh," she replied earnestly, "you _must_ see him. I can't marry
-you till he has told you everything. I wish I could!" she added,
-impulsively.
-
-"Well, if I must I must--though I know it doesn't matter the least bit.
-Will he keep me long, do you suppose?"
-
-"I think, very likely, he will."
-
-"Then, my darling, we must go. Give me your ring--you shall have it
-back to-night. Go and pack your portmanteau this afternoon, so that you
-have a little spare time for Mrs. Duff-Scott. She will be sure to want
-you in the evening. You need not take much, you know--just enough for a
-week or two. She will be only too delighted to look after your clothes
-while you are away, and"--with a smile--"we'll buy the trousseau in
-Paris on our way home. I am credibly informed that Paris is the proper
-place to go to for the trousseau of a lady of quality."
-
-"Trousseaus are nonsense," said Elizabeth, who perfectly understood
-his motives for this proposition, "in these days of rapidly changing
-fashions, unless the bride cannot trust her husband to give her enough
-pocket money."
-
-"Precisely. That is just what I think. And I don't want to be deprived
-of the pleasure of dressing you. But for a week or two, Elizabeth, we
-are going out of the world just as far as we can get, where you won't
-want much dressing. Take only what is necessary for comfort, dear,
-enough for a fortnight--or say three weeks. That will do. And tell me
-where I shall find Mr. Brion."
-
-They were passing out of the Exhibition building--passing that noble
-group of listening hounds and huntsman that stood between the front
-entrance and the gate--and Elizabeth was wondering how she should
-find Mr. Brion at once and make sure of that evening interview, when
-she caught sight of the old lawyer himself coming into the flowery
-enclosure from the street. "Why, there he is!" she exclaimed. "And my
-sisters are with him."
-
-"We are taking him out for an airing," exclaimed Eleanor, who was
-glorious in her Cup-day costume, and evidently in an effervescence of
-good spirits, when she recognised the engaged pair. "Mr. Paul was too
-busy to attend to him, and he had nobody but us, poor man! So we are
-going to show him round. Would you believe that he has never seen the
-Exhibition, Elizabeth?"
-
-They had scarcely exchanged greetings with each other when, out of an
-open carriage at the gate, stepped Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to that
-extensive kettle-drum which was held in the Exhibition at this hour.
-When she saw her girls, their festive raiment, and their cavaliers, the
-fairy godmother's face was a study.
-
-"What!" she exclaimed, with heart-rending reproach, "you are back in
-Melbourne! You are walking about with--with your friends"--hooking on
-her eye-glass the better to wither poor Mr. Brion, who wasted upon her
-a bow that would have done credit to Lord Chesterfield--"and _I_ am not
-told!"
-
-Patty came forward, radiant with suppressed excitement. "She must be
-told," exclaimed the girl, breathlessly. "Elizabeth, we are all here
-now. And it is Mrs. Duff-Scott's _right_ to know what we know. And Mr.
-Yelverton's too."
-
-"You may tell them now," said Elizabeth, who was as white as the muslin
-round her chin. "Take them all to Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, and explain
-everything, and get it over--while I go home."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLI.
-
-
-MR. YELVERTON STATES HIS INTENTIONS.
-
-
-"I don't think you know Mr. Brion," said Mr. Yelverton, first lifting
-his hat and shaking hands with Mrs. Duff-Scott, and then, with an airy
-and audacious cheerfulness, introducing the old man (whose name and
-association with her _protégées_ she immediately recalled to mind);
-"Mr. Brion--Mrs. Duff-Scott."
-
-The fairy godmother bowed frigidly, nearly shutting her eyes as she
-did so, and for a moment the little group kept an embarrassed silence,
-while a sort of electric current of intelligence passed between Patty
-and her new-found cousin. Mr. Yelverton was, as we say, not the same
-man that he had been a few hours before. Quiet in his manner, as he
-ever was, there was yet an aspect of glowing energy about him, an air
-of being at high pressure, that did not escape the immediate notice of
-the girl's vigilant and sympathetic eyes. I have described him very
-badly if I have not made the reader understand the virile breadth and
-strength of his emotional nature, and how it would be affected by his
-present situation. The hot blue blood and superfine culture of that
-ardent young aristocrat who became his father at such an early age,
-and the wholesome physical and moral solidity of the farmer's fair and
-rustic daughter who was his mother, were blended together in him; with
-the result that he was a man at all points, having all the strongest
-human instincts alive and active in him. He was not the orthodox
-philanthropist, the half-feminine, half-neuter specialist with a hobby,
-the foot-rule reformer, the prig with a mission to set the world
-right; his benevolence was simply the natural expression of a sense of
-sympathy and brotherhood between him and his fellows, and the spirit
-which produced that was not limited in any direction. From the same
-source came a passionately quick and keen apprehension of the nature of
-the closest bond of all, not given to the selfish and narrow-hearted.
-Amongst his abstract brothers and sisters he had been looking always
-for his own concrete mate, and having found her and secured her, he was
-as a king newly anointed, whose crown had just been set upon his head.
-
-"Will you come?" said Patty to him, trying not to look too conscious
-of the change she saw in him. "It is time to have done with all our
-secrets now."
-
-"I agree with you," he replied. "And I will come with pleasure." Mrs.
-Duff-Scott was accordingly made to understand, with some difficulty,
-that the mystery which puzzled her had a deep significance, and that
-she was desired to take steps at once whereby she might be made
-acquainted with it. Much bewildered, but without relaxing her offended
-air--for she conceived that no explanation would make any difference in
-the central fact that Mr. Yelverton and Mr. Brion had taken precedence
-of her in the confidence of her own adopted daughters--she returned to
-her carriage, all the little party following meekly at her heels. The
-girls were put in first--even Elizabeth, who, insisting upon detaching
-herself from the assembling council, had to submit to be conveyed to
-Myrtle Street; and the two men, lifting their hats to the departing
-vehicle, were left on the footpath together. The lawyer was very grave,
-and slightly nervous and embarrassed. To his companion he had all the
-air of a man with a necessary but disagreeable duty to perform.
-
-"What is all this about?" Mr. Yelverton demanded with a little anxious
-irritation in his tone. "Nothing of any great consequence, is it?"
-
-"I--I'm afraid you will think it rather a serious matter," the lawyer
-replied, with hesitation. "Still," he added, earnestly, "if you
-are their friend, as I believe you are--knowing that they have no
-responsibility in the matter--you will not let it make any difference
-in your feeling for them--"
-
-"There is not the _faintest_ danger of that," Mr. Yelverton promptly
-and haughtily interposed.
-
-"I am sure of it--I am sure of it. Well, you shall know all in half
-an hour. If you will kindly find Major Duff-Scott--he has constituted
-himself their guardian, in a way, and ought to be present--I will just
-run round to my lodgings in Myrtle Street."
-
-"Are you going to fetch your son?" asked Mr. Yelverton, quickly. "Don't
-you think that, under the circumstances--supposing matters have to be
-talked of that will be painful to the Miss Kings--the fewer present the
-better?"
-
-"Certainly. I am not going to fetch my son, who, by the way, already
-knows all there is to know, but some documents relating to the affair,
-which he keeps in his strong-box for safety. Major Duff-Scott is the
-only person whose presence we require, since--"
-
-"Since what?"
-
-Mr. Brion was going to say, "Since your solicitors are not at hand,"
-but checked himself. "Never mind," he said, "never mind. I cannot say
-any more now."
-
-"All right. I'll go and find the major. Thank Heaven, he's no gossip,
-and I think he is too real a friend of the Miss Kings to care what he
-hears any more than I do." But Mr. Yelverton got anxious about this
-point after it occurred to him, and went off thoughtfully to the club,
-congratulating himself that, thanks to his sweetheart's reasonableness,
-he was in a position which gave him the privilege of protecting them
-should the issue of this mysterious business leave them in need of
-protection.
-
-At the club he found the major, talking desultory politics with other
-ex-guardians of the State now shelved in luxurious irresponsibility
-with him; and the little man was quite ready to obey his friend's
-summons to attend the family council.
-
-"The Miss Kings are back," said Mr. Yelverton, "and old Brion, the
-lawyer, is with them, and there are some important matters to be talked
-over this afternoon, and you must come and hear."
-
-The major said that he was at the Miss Kings' service, and got his
-hat. He asked no questions as he passed through the lobby and down
-the steps to Mr. Yelverton's cab, which waited in the street. In his
-own mind he concluded that Elizabeth's engagement had "come off," and
-this legal consultation had some more or less direct reference to
-settlements, and the relations of the bride-elect's sisters to her
-new lot in life. What chiefly occupied his thoughts was the fear that
-he was going to be asked to give up Patty and Eleanor, and all the
-way from the club to his house he was wondering how far his and his
-wife's rights in them extended, and how far his energetic better half
-might be relied upon to defend and maintain them. At the house they
-found that Mr. Brion had already arrived, and that Mrs. Duff-Scott was
-assembling her party in the library, as being an appropriate place for
-the discussion of business in which men were so largely concerned. It
-was a spacious, pleasant room; the books ranging all round from the
-floor to about a third of the way up the wall, like a big dado; the top
-shelf supporting bric-à-brac of a stately and substantial order, and
-the deep red walls, which had a Pompeian frieze that was one of the
-artistic features of the house, bearing those pictures in oils which
-were the major's special pride as a connoisseur and man of family, and
-which held their permanent place of honour irrespective of the waves of
-fashion that ebbed and flowed around them. There was a Turkey carpet
-on the polished floor, and soft, thick oriental stuffs on the chairs
-and sofas and in the drapery of the wide bow-window--stuffs of dim but
-richly-coloured silk and wool, with tints of gold thread where the
-light fell. There was a many-drawered and amply-furnished writing table
-in that bow-window, the most comfortable and handy elbow tables by the
-hearth, and another and substantial one for general use in the centre
-of the floor. And altogether it was a pleasant place both to use and to
-look at, and was particularly pleasant in its shadowed coolness this
-summer afternoon. At the centre table sat the lady of the house, with
-an air of reproachful patience, talking surface talk with the girls
-about their country trip. Eleanor stood near her, looking very charming
-in her pale blue gown, with her flushed cheeks, and brightened eyes.
-Patty supported Mr. Brion, who was not quite at home in this strange
-atmosphere, and she watched the door with a face of radiant excitement.
-
-"Where is Elizabeth?" asked the major, having hospitably shaken hands
-with the lawyer, whom he had never seen before.
-
-"Elizabeth," said Mr. Yelverton, using the name familiarly, as if he
-had never called her by any other, "is not coming."
-
-"Oh, indeed. Well, I suppose we are to go on without her, eh?"
-
-"Yes, I suppose so." They were all seating themselves at the table,
-and as he took a chair by Patty's side he looked round and caught a
-significant glance passing between the major and his wife. "It is not
-of _my_ convening, this meeting," he explained; "whatever business is
-on hand, I know nothing of it at present."
-
-"_Don't_ you?" cried his hostess, opening her eyes.
-
-The major smiled; he, too, was thrown off the scent and puzzled, but
-did not show it as she did.
-
-"No," said Mr. Brion, clearing his throat and putting his hand into his
-breast pocket to take out his papers, "what Mr. Yelverton says is true.
-He knows nothing of it at present. I am very sorry, for his sake, that
-it is so. I may say I am very sorry for everybody's sake, for it is a
-very painful thing to--"
-
-Here Mr. Yelverton rose to his feet abruptly, nipping the exordium in
-the bud. "Allow me one moment," he said with some peremptoriness. "I
-don't know what Mr. Brion means by saying he is sorry for _my_ sake. I
-don't know whether he alludes to a--a special attachment on my part,
-but I cannot conceive how any revelation he may make can affect me. As
-far as I am concerned--"
-
-"My dear sir," interrupted the lawyer in his turn, "if you will wait
-until I have made my explanation, you will understand what I mean."
-
-"Sit down," said Patty, putting a hand on his arm. "You have no idea
-what he is going to say. Sit down and listen."
-
-"I do not want to listen, dear," he said, giving her a quick look. "It
-cannot be anything painful to me unless it is painful to you, and if it
-is painful to you I would rather not hear it."
-
-The major was watching them all, and ruminating on the situation.
-"Wait a bit, Yelverton," he said in his soft voice. "If it's their
-doing there's some good reason for it. Just hear what it is that Mr.
-Brion has to say. I see he has got some legal papers. We must pay
-attention to legal papers, you know."
-
-"Oh, for goodness sake, go on!" cried Mrs. Duff-Scott, whose nerves
-were chafed by this delay. "If anything is the matter, let us know the
-worst at once."
-
-"Very well. Mr. Brion shall go on. But before he does so," said Mr.
-Yelverton, still standing, leaning on the table, and looking round
-on the little group with glowing eyes, "I will ask leave to make a
-statement. I am so happy--Mrs. Duff-Scott would have known it in an
-hour or two--I am so happy as to be Miss King's promised husband, and I
-hope to be her husband actually by this time to-morrow." Patty gave a
-little hysterical cry, and snatched at her handkerchief, in which her
-face was immediately buried. Mrs. Duff-Scott leaned back in her chair
-with a stoical composure, as if inured to thunderbolts, and waited for
-what would happen next. "I know it is very short notice," he went on,
-looking at the elder lady with a half-tender, half-defiant smile, "but
-my available time here is limited, and Elizabeth and I did not begin to
-care for each other yesterday. I persuaded her this morning to consent
-to an early and quiet marriage, for various reasons that I do not need
-to enter into now; and she has given her consent--provided only that
-Mrs. Duff-Scott has no objection."
-
-"But I have the greatest objection," said that lady, emphatically.
-"Not to your marrying Elizabeth--you know I am quite agreeable to
-_that_--but to your doing it in such an unreasonable way. To-morrow!
-you must be joking. It is preposterous, on the face of it."
-
-"You are thinking of clothes, of course."
-
-"No, I am not thinking of clothes. I am thinking of what people will
-say. You can have no idea of the extraordinary tales that will get
-about. I must consider Elizabeth."
-
-"_I_ consider Elizabeth," he said. "And before Mr. Brion makes his
-communication, whatever it may be, I should like to have it settled and
-understood that the arrangements she and I have made will be permitted
-to stand." He paused, and stood looking at Mrs. Duff-Scott, with an air
-that impressed her with the hopelessness of attempting to oppose such a
-man as that.
-
-"I don't know what to say," she said. "We will talk it over presently."
-
-"No, I want it settled now. Elizabeth will do whatever you desire, but
-I want her to please me." The major chuckled, and, hearing him, Mr.
-Yelverton laughed for a moment, and then bent his emphatic eyes upon
-the old man sitting silent before his unopened papers. "I want you and
-everybody to understand that whatever is to be said concerns my wife
-and sisters, Mr. Brion."
-
-"Very good, sir," said Mr. Brion. "I am delighted to hear it. At the
-same time I would suggest that it might be wiser not to hurry things
-quite so much."
-
-At this point Patty, who had been laughing and crying in her
-handkerchief, and clinging to Eleanor, who had come round the table
-and was hanging over her, suddenly broke into the discussion. "Oh, let
-them, let them, let them!" she exclaimed eagerly, to the bewilderment
-of the uninitiated, who were quite sure that some social disability
-was about to be attached to the bride elect, from which her lover
-was striving to rescue her. "Do let them be married to-morrow, dear
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, if Mr. Yelverton wishes it. Elizabeth knows why she
-consents--I know, too--so does Nelly. Give them your permission now, as
-he says, before Mr. Brion goes on--how can anyone say anything against
-it if _you_ approve? Let it be all settled now--absolutely settled--so
-that no one can undo it afterwards." She turned and looked at the
-major with such a peculiar light and earnestness in her face that
-the little man, utterly adrift himself, determined at once to anchor
-himself to her. "Look here," he said, in his gentle way, but with no
-sign of indecision, "I am the head of the house, and if anybody has any
-authority over Elizabeth here, it is I. Forgive me, my dear"--to his
-wife at the other end of the table--"if I seem to take too much upon
-myself, but it appears to me that I ought to act in this emergency. Mr.
-Yelverton, we have every reason to trust your motives and conduct, and
-Elizabeth's also; and she is her own mistress in every way. So you may
-tell her from my wife and me that we hope she will do whatever seems
-right to herself, and that what makes her happy will make us so."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott got up from her chair proudly, as if to leave the room
-where this outrage had been put upon her; but she sat down again and
-wept a few tears instead. At the unwonted sight of which Patty flew
-round to her and took her majestic head into her young arms. "Ah! how
-ungrateful we _seem_ to hurt and vex you," she murmured, in the tone of
-a mother talking to a suffering child, "but you don't know how it is
-all going to turn out. If you give them your consent now, you will see
-how glad you will be in a little while."
-
-"It doesn't seem that anybody cares much whether I give my consent or
-not," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. But she wiped away her tears, kissed her
-consoler, and made an effort to be cheerful and business-like. "There,
-there--we have wasted enough time," she said, brusquely. "Go on, Mr.
-Brion, or we shall have dinner time here before we begin."
-
-"Shall I go on?" asked Mr. Brion, looking round.
-
-Mr. Yelverton, who was very grave, nodded.
-
-And Mr. Brion went on.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLII.
-
-
-HER LORD AND MASTER.
-
-
-It was not much after three o'clock when Elizabeth walked slowly
-upstairs to her room, bearing single-handed her own responsibilities.
-Now that she was alone and undisturbed, she began to realise how
-great they were. She sat down on her little bed to think what she was
-doing--to look back upon the past, and forward into the future--until
-her head spun round. When she could think no more, she slid down
-upon her knees and prayed a fervent, wordless prayer--rested her
-over-weighted soul on the pillars of the universe, which bore up the
-strange little world in which she was but an infinitesimal atom--and,
-feeling that there was a strong foundation somewhere, and perhaps
-even feeling dimly that she had touched her point of contact with it
-only just now when she touched her true love's lips, she felt less
-intolerably burdened with the charge of herself. She rose up with her
-nerves steadied and her brain composed. What was done was done, and
-it had been done for the best. "We can but do our best, and leave
-it," he had said; and, thinking of his words, a sense of his robust
-faith, which she did not call faith, permeated her unsettled mind
-and comforted her with the feeling that she would have support and
-strength in him. She could not repent. She could not wish anything to
-be altered. She loved him and needed him; and he loved and needed her,
-and had a right to her. Yes, he had a right to her, independently of
-that fortune which was hers and which she dared not take away from him
-while he was using it so much better than she could, he was her mate
-and lord, and she belonged to him. What reason was there against her
-marrying him? Only one; Mrs. Duff-Scott's reason, which even she had
-abandoned, apparently--one obligation of duty, which conscience, left
-to its own delicate sense of good and evil, refused to insist upon as
-such. And what reason was there against marrying him to-morrow, if he
-desired it, and by doing which, while they would be made so happy, no
-one else could be made unhappy? She was unlearned in the social views
-and customs concerning such matters, and said in her simple heart there
-was no reason whatever--none, none.
-
-So she set to work on her preparations, her eyes shining and her hands
-trembling with the overwhelming bliss of her anticipations, which
-awed and dazzled her; beset at intervals with chill misgivings, and
-thrills of panic, dread and fear, as to what effect upon her blessed
-fortune that afternoon's work at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house might have.
-She took off her pretty gown, which he had sanctified by his approval,
-and laid it tenderly on the bed; put on a loose wrapper, pulled out
-drawers and opened cupboards, and proceeded to pack her portmanteau
-for that wedding journey which she still could not believe was to be
-taken to-morrow. If such a sudden demand upon the resources of her
-wardrobe had been made a few months ago, she would have been greatly
-perplexed to meet it. Now she had, not only a commodious portmanteau
-(procured for their country visit), but drawers full of fine linen,
-piles of handkerchiefs, boxes of gloves, everything that she could need
-for an indefinite sojourn either in the world or out of it. When Mrs.
-Duff-Scott had gained their consent to be allowed to become a mother
-to them, she had lost no time in fitting them all out as became her
-adopted daughters, in defiance of any scruples or protests that they
-might make. Elizabeth's trousseau, it seemed to her, as she filled one
-side of the portmanteau with dainty underclothes delicately stitched
-and embroidered and frilled with lace, had been already provided for
-her, and while her heart went out in gratitude to her munificent
-friend, she could not help feeling that one of the dearest privileges
-of being rich was to have the power to acknowledge that munificence
-suitably. Only that very day, for the first time, she had seen an
-indication that tended to confirm her and Patty's instinctive sense
-that they had made a mistake in permitting themselves to accept so
-many favours. Eleanor, feeling herself already rich and the potential
-possessor of unlimited fine clothes, had put on her Cup dress and
-bonnet to walk out with Mr. Brion; and Mrs. Duff-Scott, when she
-met her in the Exhibition grounds, and while thrown for a moment off
-her usual even balance, had looked at the girl with a disapproving
-eye, which plainly accused her of extravagance--in other words, of
-wasting her (Mrs. Duff-Scott's) substance in riotous living. That
-little incident, so slight and momentary as it was, would have been
-as terrible a blow to them as was Paul Brion's refusal of their
-invitation to tea, had it not been that they were no longer poor, but
-in a position to discharge their obligations. She thought how Mrs.
-Duff-Scott would come to Yelverton by-and-bye, and to the London house,
-and how she (Elizabeth) would lavish the best of everything upon her.
-It was a delightful thought.
-
-While she was building air castles, she sorted and folded her clothes
-methodically, and with motherly care turned over those belonging to
-her sisters, to see that they were well provided for and in need
-of nothing for the time of her brief absence. While investigating
-Patty's wardrobe, she thought much of her dear companion and that
-next-door neighbour, still in their unreconciled trouble, and still
-so far from the safe haven to which she was drawing nigh; and she was
-not too selfish in her own happiness to be unable to concern herself
-anxiously about theirs. Well, even this was to be set right now. She
-and Kingscote, with their mutually augmented wisdom and power, would
-be able to settle that matter, one way or another, when they returned
-from their wedding journey. Kingscote, who was never daunted by any
-difficulties, would find a way to solve this one, and to do what
-was best for Patty. Then it occurred to her that if Patty and Paul
-were married, Paul might want to keep his wife in Australia, and the
-sisters, who had never been away from each other, might be doomed
-to live apart. But she persuaded herself that this also would be
-prevented, and that Paul, stiff-necked as he was, would not let Patty
-be unhappy, as she certainly would be if separated by the width of the
-world from herself--not if Kingscote were at hand, to point it out
-to him in his authoritative and convincing manner. As for Nelly, she
-was to comfort Mrs. Duff-Scott for awhile, and then she was to come,
-bringing the fairy godmother with her, to Yelverton, to live under her
-brother-cousin's protection until she, too, was married--to someone
-better, far better, than Mr. Westmoreland. Perhaps the Duff-Scotts
-themselves would be tempted (by the charms of West-End and Whitechapel
-society, respectively) to settle in England too. In which case there
-would be nothing left to wish for.
-
-At five o'clock she had finished her packing, put on her dress--not
-the wedding dress, which was laid smoothly on a cupboard shelf--and
-sat down by the sitting-room window to wait for her sisters, or for
-somebody, to come to her. This half-hour of unoccupied suspense was
-a very trying time; all her tremulous elation died down, all her
-blissful anticipations became overcast with chill forebodings, as
-a sunny sky with creeping clouds, while she bent strained eyes and
-ears upon the street, watching for the news that did not come. In
-uncontrollable excitement and restlessness, she abandoned her post
-towards six o'clock, and set herself to prepare tea in the expectation
-of her sisters' return. She spread the cloth and set out the cups and
-saucers, the bread and butter, the modest tin of sardines. As the warm
-day was manifestly about to close with a keen south wind, she thought
-she would light a fire in the sitting-room and make some toast. It
-was better to have something to do to distract her from her fierce
-anxieties, and, moreover, she wished the little home nest to be as cosy
-and comfortable as possible to-night, which might be the last night
-that the sisters would be there together--the closing scene of their
-independent life. So she turned up her cuffs, put on gloves and apron,
-and fetched wood and coals from their small store in the back-yard;
-and then she laid and lit a fire, blew it into as cheerful a blaze as
-the unsatisfactory nature of city fuel and a city grate permitted,
-and, having shaken down her neat dress and washed her hands, proceeded
-to make the toast. She was at this work, kneeling on the hearthrug,
-and staring intently into the fire over a newly-cut slice of bread
-that she had just put upon the fork, when she heard a sound that made
-her heart stand still. It was the sound of a cab rattling into the
-street and bumping against the kerb at her own gate. Springing to her
-feet and listening breathlessly, she heard the gate open to a quiet,
-strong hand that belonged to neither of her sisters, and a solid tread
-on the flags that paved a footpath through the little garden to the
-door. At the door a quick rapping, at once light and powerful, brought
-the servant from her underground kitchen, and a sonorous, low voice
-spoke in the hall and echoed up the stairs--the well-known voice of
-Kingscote Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton, unaccompanied by anybody
-else--paying his first visit to this virgin retreat, where, as he knew
-very well, his sweetheart at this moment was alone, and where, as he
-also knew, the unchaperoned male had no business to be. Evidently his
-presence announced a crisis that transcended all the circumstances and
-conventionalities of every-day life.
-
-He walked upstairs to her sitting-room, and rapped at the door. She
-could not tell him to come in, for her heart seemed to be beating in
-her throat, and she felt too suffocated to speak; she stumbled across
-to the door, and, opening it, looked at him dumbly, with a face as
-white as the white frills of her gown. He, for his part, neither spoke
-to her nor kissed her; his whole aspect indicated strong emotion,
-but he was so portentously grave, and almost stern, that her heart,
-which had fluttered so wildly at the sight of him, collapsed and sank.
-Taking her hand gently, he shut the door, led her across the room to
-the hearthrug, and stood, her embodied fate, before her. She was so
-overwhelmed with fear of what he might be going to say that she turned
-and hid her face in her hands against the edge of the mantelpiece, that
-she might brace herself to bear it without showing him how stricken she
-was.
-
-"Well," he said, after a little pause, "I have been having a great
-surprise, Elizabeth. I little thought what you were letting me in for
-when you arranged that interview with Mr. Brion. I never was so utterly
-out of my reckoning as I have found myself to-day."
-
-She did not speak, but waited in breathless anguish for the sentence
-that she foreboded was to be passed upon her--condemning her to keep
-that miserable money in exchange for him.
-
-"I know all about the great discovery now," he went on. "I have read
-all the papers. I can testify that they are perfectly genuine. I have
-seen the marriage register that that one was copied from--I can verify
-all those dates, and names, and places--there is not a flaw anywhere
-in Mr. Brion's case. You are really my cousins, and you--_you_,
-Elizabeth--are the head of the family now. There was no entail--it was
-cut off before my uncle Patrick's time, and he died before he made a
-will: so everything is yours." After a pause, he added, brokenly, "I
-wish you joy, my dear. I should be a hypocrite if I said I was glad,
-but--but I wish you joy all the same."
-
-She gave a short, dry sob, keeping her face hidden; evidently, even to
-him, she was not having much joy in her good fortune just now. He moved
-closer to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.
-
-"I have come now to fetch you," he said, in a low, grave tone, that was
-still unsteady. "Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted to come herself, but I asked
-her to let me come alone, because I have something to say to you that
-is only between ourselves."
-
-Then her nervous terrors found voice. "Oh, tell me what it is!" she
-cried, trembling like a leaf. "Don't keep me in suspense. If you have
-anything cruel to say, say it quickly."
-
-"Anything cruel?" he repeated. "I don't think you are really afraid
-of that--from me. No, I haven't anything cruel to say--only a simple
-question to ask--which you will have to answer me honestly, Elizabeth."
-
-She waited in silence, and he went on. "Didn't you tell
-me"--emphasising each word heavily--"that you had been induced by
-something outside yourself to decide in my favour?"
-
-"Not altogether induced," she protested; "helped perhaps."
-
-"Helped, then--influenced--by outside considerations?"
-
-"Yes," she assented, with heroic truthfulness.
-
-"You were alluding to this discovery, of course?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"And you have consented to marry me in order that I may not be deprived
-of my property?" She did not speak immediately, from purely physical
-incapacity, and he went on with a hardening voice. "I will not be
-married on those grounds, Elizabeth. You must have _known_ that I would
-not."
-
-For a moment she stood with her face hidden, struggling with a rising
-tide of tears that, when these terrible words were spoken, would not
-be kept in check; then she lifted her head, and flung out her arms,
-and clasped him round his great shoulders. (It is not, I own, what a
-heroine should have done, whose duty was to carry a difficulty of this
-sort through half a volume at least, but I am nevertheless convinced
-that my real Elizabeth did it, though I was not there to see--standing,
-as she did, within a few inches of her lover, and with nothing to
-prevent their coming to a reasonable understanding.) "Oh," she cried,
-between her long-drawn sobs, "_don't_ cast me off because of that
-horrid money! I could not bear it _now!_"
-
-"What!" he responded, stooping over her and holding her to his breast,
-speaking in a voice as shaken as her own, "is it really so? Is it for
-love of me only, my darling, my darling?"--pouring his long pent-up
-passion over her with a force that seemed to carry her off her feet and
-make the room spin round. "Would you have me if there was no property
-in the question, simply because you feel, as I do, that we could not do
-without each other? Then we will be married to-morrow, Elizabeth, and
-all the world shall be welcome to brand me a schemer and fortune-hunter
-if it likes."
-
-She got her breath in a few seconds, and recovered sufficient
-consciousness to grasp the vanishing tail of those last words.
-
-"A fortune-hunter! Oh, how _preposterous!_ A fortune-hunter!"
-
-"That is what I shall seem," he insisted, with a smile, "to that worthy
-public for whose opinion some people care so much."
-
-"But you don't care?"
-
-"No; I don't care."
-
-She considered a moment, with her tall head at rest on his tall
-shoulder; then new lights dawned on her. "But I must care for you," she
-said, straightening herself. "I must not allow anything so unjust--so
-outrageous--to be said of you--of _you_, and through my fault. Look
-here"--very seriously--"let us put off our marriage for a while--for
-just so long as may enable me to show the world, as I very easily can,
-that it is _I_ who am seeking _you_--"
-
-"Like a queen selecting her prince consort?"
-
-"No, like Esther--seeking favour of her king. I would not be too proud
-to run after you--" She broke off, with a hysterical laugh, as she
-realised the nature of her proposal.
-
-"Ah, my darling, that would be very sweet," said he, drowning her
-once more in ineffable caresses, "but to be married to-morrow will
-be sweeter still. No, we won't wait--I _can't_--unless there is an
-absolute necessity for it. That game would certainly not be worth the
-candle. What is the world to me if I have got you? I said we would be
-married to-morrow; I told Mrs. Duff-Scott so, and got her consent--not
-without some difficulty, I must own--before Mr. Brion opened his
-budget. I would not hear what he had to say--little thinking what it
-was I was going to hear!--until I had announced my intentions and the
-date of our wedding. Think of my cheek! Conceive of such unparalleled
-impudence! But now that everything is square between us, that date
-shall be kept--it shall be faithfully kept. Come, then, I must take you
-away. Have you done your packing? Mrs. Duff-Scott says we are to bring
-that portmanteau with us, that she may see for herself if you have
-furnished it properly. And you are not to come back here--you are not
-to come to me to the Exhibition to-morrow. She was terribly scandalised
-at that item in our programme."
-
-"In yours," said Elizabeth, ungenerously.
-
-"In mine. I accept it cheerfully. So she is going to take charge of you
-from this hour until you are Mrs. Yelverton, and in my sole care for
-the rest of your life--or mine. Poor woman, she is greatly cut up by
-the loss of that grand wedding that she would have had if we had let
-her."
-
-"I am sure she must be cut up," said Elizabeth, whose face was suffused
-with blushes, and whose eyes looked troubled. "She must be shocked and
-vexed at such--such precipitancy. It really does not seem decorous,"
-she confessed, with tardy scrupulousness; "do you think it does?"
-
-"Oh, yes, I think it is quite decorous. It may not be conventional, but
-that is quite another thing."
-
-"It is like a clandestine marriage--almost like an elopement. It _must_
-vex her to see me acting so--so--"
-
-"So what? No, I don't think it does. She _was_ a little vexed at first,
-but she has got over it. In her heart of hearts I believe she would be
-disappointed now if we didn't do it. She likes a little bit of innocent
-unconventionalism as well as anybody, and the romance of the whole
-thing has taken hold of her. Besides," added Mr. Yelverton, "you know
-she intended us for each other, sooner or later."
-
-"You have said as much before, but _I_ don't know anything about it,"
-laughed Elizabeth.
-
-"Yes, she told me I might have you--weeks ago."
-
-"She was very generous."
-
-"She was. She was more generous than she knew. Well"--catching himself
-up suddenly--"we really must go to her now, Elizabeth. I told her I
-would only come in here, where I have no business to be to-day, for
-half a minute, and I have stayed more than half an hour. It is nearly
-dinner time, and I have a great deal to do this evening. I have more to
-do even than I bargained for."
-
-"Why more?" she asked, apprehensively.
-
-"I am going to have some papers prepared by Mr. Brion and the major's
-lawyers, which you will have to sign before you surrender your
-independence to-morrow."
-
-"I won't sign anything," said Elizabeth.
-
-"Oh, won't you! We'll see about that."
-
-"I know what it means. You will make me sign away your freedom to use
-that money as your own--and I won't do it."
-
-"We'll see," he repeated, smiling with an air which said plainly that
-if she thought herself a free agent she was very much mistaken.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLIII.
-
-
-THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING.
-
-
-"Now, where is that portmanteau?"
-
-"It is in my room."
-
-"Strapped up?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Let me take it down to the cab. Have you anything else to do?"
-
-"Only to change my dress."
-
-"Don't be long about it; it is seven o'clock. I will wait for you
-downstairs."
-
-Mr. Yelverton walked into the passage, possessed himself of the
-portmanteau, and descended the stairs to the little hall below. The
-wide-eyed maid-of-all-work hastened to offer her services. She had
-never volunteered to carry luggage for the Miss Kings, but she seemed
-horrified at the sight of this stalwart gentleman making a porter of
-himself. "Allow me, sir," she said, sweetly, with her most engaging
-smile.
-
-"Thank you, my girl; I think I am better able to carry it than you
-are," he said, pleasantly. But he scrutinised her face with his keen
-eyes for a moment, and then took a sovereign from his pocket and
-slipped it into her hand. "Go and see if you can help Miss King," he
-said. "And ask her if there is anything you can do for her while she is
-away from home."
-
-"Oh, sir"--simpering and blushing--"I'm sure--_anything_--" and
-she rushed upstairs and offered her services to Elizabeth in such
-acceptable fashion that the bride-elect was touched almost to tears, as
-by the discovery of a new friend. It seemed to her that she had never
-properly appreciated Mary Ann before.
-
-Mr. Yelverton meanwhile paced a few steps to and fro on the footpath
-outside the gate, looking at his watch frequently. Paul Brion was at
-home, listening to his father's account of the afternoon's events and
-the news of the imminent marriage, with moody brow and heavy heart; it
-was the end of the romance for _him_, he felt, and he was realising
-what a stale and flat residuum remained in his cup of life. He had seen
-Mr. Yelverton go to No. 6 with fierce resentment of the liberty that
-the fortunate lover permitted himself to take with those sacred rights
-of single womanhood which he, Paul, had been so scrupulous to observe;
-now he watched the tall man pacing to and fro in the street below,
-waiting for his bride, with a sense of the inequalities of fortune that
-made him almost bloodthirsty. He saw the portmanteau set on end by the
-cabdriver's seat; he saw Elizabeth come forth with a bag in one hand
-and an umbrella in the other, followed by the servant with an ulster
-and a bonnet-box. He watched the dispossessed master of Yelverton, who,
-after all, had lost nothing, and had gained so much, and the great
-heiress who was to know Myrtle Street and obscurity no more, as they
-took their seats in the vehicle, she handed in by him with such tender
-and yet masterful care. He had an impulse to go out upon the balcony
-to bid her good-bye and God-speed, but he checked it proudly; and,
-surveying her departure from the window of his sitting-room, convinced
-himself that she was too much taken up with her own happiness to so
-much as remember his existence. It was the closing scene of the Myrtle
-Street drama--the last chapter of the charming little homely story
-which had been the romance of his life. No more would he see the girls
-going in and out of the gate of No. 7, nor meet them in the gardens
-and the street, nor be privileged to offer them his assistance and
-advice. No more would he sit on his balcony of nights to listen to
-Beethoven sonatas and Schubert serenades. The sponge had been passed
-over all those pleasant things, and had wiped them out as if they had
-never been. There were no longer any Miss Kings. And for Paul there
-was no longer anything left in life but arid and flavourless newspaper
-work--the ceaseless grinding of his brains in the great mill of the
-Press, which gave to the world its daily bread of wisdom, but had no
-guerdon for the producers of that invaluable grist.
-
-In truth, Elizabeth _did_ forget all about him. She did not lift her
-eyes to the window where he sat; she could see and think of nothing but
-herself and her lover, and the wonderful circumstances that immediately
-surrounded them. When the cabman closed the door upon them, and they
-rattled away down the quiet street, it was borne in upon her that she
-really _was_ going to be married on the morrow; and that circumstance
-was far more than enough to absorb her whole attention. In the suburbs
-through which they passed it was growing dusk, and the lamps were
-lighted. A few carriages were taking people out to dinner. It was
-already evening--the day was over. Mrs. Duff-Scott was standing on her
-doorstep as they drove up to the house, anxiously looking out for them.
-She had not changed her morning dress; nor had Patty, who stood beside
-her. All the rules of daily life were suspended at this crisis. A grave
-footman came to the door of the cab, out of which Mr. Yelverton helped
-Elizabeth, and then led her into the hall, where she was received in
-the fairy godmother's open arms.
-
-"Take care of her," he said to Patty, "and make her rest herself. I
-will come back about nine or ten o'clock."
-
-Patty nodded. Mrs. Duff-Scott tried to keep him to dinner, but he
-said he had no time to stay. So the cab departed with him, and his
-betrothed was hurried upstairs to her bedroom, where there ensued a
-great commotion. Even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had tried to stand upon
-her dignity a little, was unable to do so, and shared the feverish
-excitement that possessed the younger sisters. They were all a little
-off their heads--as, indeed, they must have been more than women
-not to be. The explanations and counter-explanations, the fervid
-congratulations, the irrepressible astonishment, the loving curiosity,
-the tearful raptures, the wild confusion of tongues and miscellaneous
-caresses, were very bewildering and upsetting. They did, in fact, bring
-on that attack of hysterics, the first and last in Elizabeth's life,
-which had been slowly generating in her healthy nervous system under
-the severe and various trials of the day. This little accident sobered
-them down, and reminded them of Mr. Yelverton's command that Elizabeth
-was to be made to rest herself. The heiress was accordingly laid upon
-a sofa, much against her wish, and composed with sal-volatile, and
-eau-de-cologne, and tea, and fans, and a great deal of kissing and
-petting.
-
-"But I _cannot_ understand this excessive, this abnormal haste," Mrs.
-Duff-Scott said, when the girl seemed strong enough to bear being
-mildly argued with. "Mr. Yelverton explains it very plausibly, but
-still I can't understand it, from _your_ point of view. Patty's theory
-is altogether untenable."
-
-"I don't understand it either," the bride-elect replied. "I think I had
-an idea that it might prevent him from knowing or realising that I was
-giving him the money instead of his giving it to me--I wanted to be
-beforehand with Mr. Brion. But of course that was absurd. And if you
-can persuade him to put it off for a few weeks--"
-
-"O dear no!--I know him too well. He is not a man to be persuaded.
-Well, I am thankful he is going to let you be married in church. I
-expected he would insist on the registry office. And he has promised to
-bring you back to me at the end of a fortnight or so, to stay here all
-the time till you go home. That is something." The fairy godmother was
-certainly a little huffy--for all these wonderful things had come to
-pass without her permission or assistance--but in her heart of hearts,
-as Mr. Yelverton had suspected, she was charmed with the situation, and
-as brimful of sympathy for the girl in her extraordinary circumstances
-as her own mother could have been.
-
-They had a quiet dinner at eight o'clock, for which the major, who had
-been despatched to his solicitors (to see about the drawing up of that
-"instrument" which Miss Yelverton's _fiancé_ and cousin required her to
-sign on her own behalf before her individuality was irrevocably merged
-in his), returned too late to dress, creeping into the house gently
-as if he had no business to be there; and Elizabeth sat at her host's
-right hand, the recipient of the tenderest attentions and tit-bits.
-The little man, whose twinkling eye had lost its wonted humour, was
-profoundly touched by the events that had transpired, and saddened by
-the prospect of losing that sister of the three whom he had made his
-own particular chum, and with the presentiment that her departure would
-mean the loss of the others also. He could not even concern himself
-about the consequences to his wife of their removal from the circle
-of her activities, so possessed was he by the sad vision of his house
-left desolate. Perhaps the major felt himself getting old at last, and
-realised that cakes and ale could not be heaped upon his board for
-ever. He was certainly conscious of a check in his prosperous career,
-by the translation of the Miss Kings, and a feeling of injury in that
-Providence had not given him children that he _could_ have kept around
-him for the solace of his declining years. It was hard to have just
-learned what it was to have charming daughters, and then to be bereaved
-of them like this, at a moment's notice. Yet he bore his disappointment
-with admirable grace; for the little major, despite all the traditions
-of his long-protracted youth, was the most unselfish of mortals, and a
-gentleman to the marrow of his bones.
-
-In the evening he went to town again, to find Mr. Yelverton. Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, when dinner was over, had a consultation with her cook,
-and made arrangements for a festive luncheon for the following day.
-The girls went upstairs again, and thither their adopted mother
-presently followed them, and they spent an hour together in Elizabeth's
-bedroom, absorbed in the sad but delightful business of overhauling
-her portmanteau. By this time they were able to discuss the situation
-with sobriety--a sobriety infused with much chastened emotion, to be
-sure, but still far removed from the ferment of hysterics. Patty, in
-particular, had a very bracing air about her.
-
-"Now I call this _life_," she said, flourishing open the skirt of one
-of Elizabeth's dresses to see if it was fit to be worn on a wedding
-journey; "I call this really _living_. One feels as if one's faculties
-were given for some purpose. After all, it is not necessary to go
-to Europe to see the world. It is not necessary to travel to gain
-experience and to have adventures. Is not this frock too shabby, Mrs.
-Duff-Scott--all things considered?"
-
-"Certainly," assented that lady, promptly. "Put in her new cashmere and
-the Indian silk, and throw away those old things now."
-
-"Go and get the Indian silk, Nelly. It is in the wardrobe. And don't
-hang over Elizabeth in that doleful manner, as if she were going to
-have her head cut off, like Lady Jane Grey. She is one of the happiest
-women on the face of the earth--or, if she isn't, she ought to be--with
-such a prospect before her. Think of it! It is enough to make one gnash
-one's teeth with envy."
-
-"Let us hope she will indeed realise her prospects," said Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, feeling called upon to reprove and moderate the pagan
-spirit that breathed in Patty's words. "Let us hope she will be as
-happy in the future as she is now."
-
-"Oh, she will--she will! Let us hope she will have enough troubles to
-keep her from being _too_ happy--too happy to last," said the girl
-audaciously; "that is the danger she will want preserving from."
-
-"You may say what you like, but it is a rash venture," persisted the
-matron, shaking her head. "She has known him but for such a _very_
-short time. Really, I feel that I am much to blame to let her run into
-it like this--with so little knowledge of what she is undertaking.
-And he _has_ a difficult temperament, Elizabeth. There is no denying
-it--good and nice as he is, he is terribly obstinate about getting
-his own way. And if he is so _now_, what will he be, do you suppose,
-presently?"
-
-Patty, sitting on her heels on the floor, with her sister's clothes
-spread around her, looked up and laughed.
-
-"Ah! that is one safeguard against too much happiness, perhaps. I do
-think, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, that you have met your master, my dear."
-
-"I don't think it," replied Elizabeth, serenely. "I know I have."
-
-"And you are quite content to be mastered?"
-
-"Yes--by him."
-
-"Of course you are. Who would marry a chicken-hearted milksop if she
-could get a splendid tyrant like that?" exclaimed Patty, fervently,
-for the moment forgetting there were such things as woman's rights
-in the world. "I wouldn't give a straw for a man who let you have
-your own way--unless, of course, he was no wiser than you. A man who
-sets up to domineer when he can't carry it out thoroughly is the most
-detestable and contemptible of created beings, but there is no want of
-thoroughness about _him_. To see him standing up at the table in the
-library this afternoon and defying Mrs. Duff-Scott to prevent him from
-marrying you to-morrow did one's heart good. It did indeed."
-
-"I daresay," said the fairy godmother. "But I should like to see _you_
-with a man like that to deal with. It is really a pity he did not take
-to you instead of Elizabeth. I should have liked to see what would have
-happened. The 'Taming of the Shrew' would have been a trifle to it."
-
-"Well," said Patty, "he will be my brother and lawful guardian
-to-morrow, and I suppose I shall have to accept his authority to a
-certain extent. Then you will see what will happen." She was silent
-for a few minutes, folding the Indian silk into the portmanteau, and a
-slow smile spread over her face. "We shall have some fights," she said,
-laughing softly. "But it will be worth while to fight with him."
-
-"Elizabeth will never fight with him," said Eleanor.
-
-"Elizabeth!" echoed Patty. "She will be wax--she will be
-butter--simply. She would spoil him if he could be spoiled. But I don't
-think he is spoilable. He is too tough. He is what we may call an ash
-tree man. And what isn't ash-tree is leather."
-
-"You are not complimentary," said Nelly, fearing that Elizabeth's
-feelings might be hurt by what seemed an allusion to the bridegroom's
-complexion.
-
-"Pooh! He is not the sort of man to compliment. Elizabeth knows what
-I mean. I feel inclined to puff myself out when I think of his being
-our own kith and kin--a man like that. I shall have ever so much more
-confidence in myself now that I know I have his blood in my veins;
-one can't be so near a relation without sharing some of the virtue of
-it--and a little of that sort ought to go a long way. Ha!"--lifting her
-finger for silence as she heard a sound in the hall below--"there he
-is."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott's maid came running upstairs to say, "Please'm, could
-you and the young ladies come down to the library for a few minutes?"
-She was breathless and fluttered, scenting mystery in the air, and she
-looked at Elizabeth with intense interest. "The major and Mr. Yelverton
-is 'ome," she added, "and some other gentlemen 'ave come. Shall I just
-put your 'air straight, Miss?"
-
-She was a little Cockney who had waited on fine ladies in London, and
-was one of Mrs. Duff-Scott's household treasures. In a twinkling she
-had "settled up" Elizabeth's rather dishevelled braids and twitched
-her frills and draperies into trim order; then, without offering to
-straighten any one else, she withdrew into the background until she
-could safely watch them go downstairs to the hall, where she knew Mr.
-Yelverton was waiting. Looking over the balustrade presently, she
-saw the four ladies join him; three of them were passing on to the
-library, as feeling themselves _de trop_, but were called back. She
-could not hear what was said, but she saw what was done, to the very
-best advantage. Mr. Yelverton fitted a substantial wedding-ring upon
-Miss King's finger, and then, removing it, put another ring in its
-place; a deeply-interested and sympathetic trio standing by to witness
-the little ceremony. The maid slipped down by the back-stairs to the
-servants' hall, and communicated the result of her observations to
-her fellow-servants. Mr. Yelverton meanwhile led Elizabeth into the
-library, where were seated at the same table where Mr. Brion had read
-his documents earlier in the day, three sedate gentlemen, Mr. Brion
-being one of them, with other documents spread out before them. The
-major was languidly fetching pens and ink from the writing-table in the
-window, and smiling furtively. He seemed to be amused by this latest
-phase of the Yelverton affair. His eyes twinkled with sagacious humour
-politely repressed, when he saw the betrothed couple enter the room
-together.
-
-He hastened forward to put a chair for the interesting "client,"
-for this one night his ward, at the head of the table; the girls and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott grouped themselves before the hearth to watch the
-proceedings, and whisper their comments thereupon. The bridegroom took
-his stand at Elizabeth's elbow, and intimated that it was his part to
-direct her what to do.
-
-"Why should I do anything?" she inquired, looking round her from face
-to face with a vague idea of seeking protection in legal quarters. "It
-cannot make the least difference. I know that a woman's property, if
-you don't meddle with it, is her husband's when she is married"--this
-was before the late amendment of the law on this matter, and she was,
-as one of the lawyers advised her, correctly informed--"and if ever it
-should be so, it should be so in _our_ case. I cannot, I will not, have
-any separate rights. No"--as Mr. Yelverton laid a paper before her--"I
-don't want to read it."
-
-"Well, you need not read it," he said, laughing. "Mr. Brion does that
-for you. But I want you to sign. It is nothing to what you will have to
-do before we get this business settled."
-
-"Mr. Yelverton is an honourable man, my dear," said Mr. Brion, with
-some energy--and his brother lawyers nodded in acquiescence--as he gave
-her a pen.
-
-"You need not tell me that," she replied, superbly. And, seeing no help
-for it, she took the pen and signed "Elizabeth Yelverton" (having to
-be reminded of her true name on each occasion) with the most reckless
-unconcern, determined that if she had signed away her husband's liberty
-to use her property as he liked, she would sign it back again when she
-had married him.
-
-And this was the last event of that eventful day. At midnight, lawyers
-and lover went away, and the tired girls to bed, and Elizabeth and
-Patty spent their last night together in each other's arms.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLIV.
-
-
-THE WEDDING DAY.
-
-
-After all, Elizabeth's wedding ceremonies, though shorn of much
-customary state, were not so wildly unconventional as to shock the
-feelings of society. Save in the matter of that excessive haste--which
-Mr. Yelverton took pains to show was not haste at all, seeing that,
-on the one hand, his time was limited, and that, on the other, there
-was absolutely nothing to wait for--all things were done decently
-and in order; and Mrs. Duff-Scott even went so far as to confess,
-when the bride and bridegroom had departed, that the fashion of their
-nuptials was "good art;" and that these were not the days to follow
-stereotyped customs blindfold. There was no unnecessary secrecy about
-it. Overnight, just, and only just, before she went to bed, the
-mistress of the house had explained the main facts of the case to her
-head servants, who, she knew, would not be able to repeat the story
-until too late for the publication of it to cause any inconvenience.
-She told them how the three Miss Kings--who had never been Miss Kings
-after all--had come in for large fortunes, under a will that had been
-long mislaid and accidentally recovered; and how Miss Elizabeth, who
-had been engaged for some considerable time (O, mendacious matron!),
-was to be married to her cousin, Mr. Yelverton, in the morning--very
-quietly, because both of them had a dislike to publicity and fuss. And
-in the morning the little Cockney lady's-maid, bringing them their
-tea, brought a first instalment of congratulations to the bride and
-her sisters, who had to hold a _levée_ in the servants' hall as soon
-as they went downstairs. The household, if not boiling over with the
-excitement inseparable from a marriage _à la mode_, was in a pleasant
-simmer of decorous enjoyment; and the arrangements for the domestic
-celebration of the event lacked nothing in either completeness or
-taste. The gardener brought his choicest flowers for the table and
-for the bride's bouquet, which was kept in water until her return
-from church; and the cook surpassed himself in his efforts to provide
-a wedding breakfast that should be both faultless and unique. The
-men servants wore bits of strong-scented orange blossom in their
-button-holes, and the women white ribbons in their caps. They did what
-they could, in short, to honour the occasion and the young lady who had
-won their affection before she came into her inheritance of wealth, and
-the result to themselves and the family was quite satisfactory.
-
-There was a great deal of cold weather in the last month of 1880,
-summer time though it was, and this special morning was very cold.
-Elizabeth had not the face to come down to the early breakfast and
-a blazing fire in the gown she had worn the day before, and Mrs.
-Duff-Scott would not hear of her going to church in it. "Do you
-suppose he is quite an idiot?" she indignantly demanded (forgetting
-the absolute indifference to weather shown in the conventional bridal
-costume), when the bride gave an excuse for her own unreasonableness.
-"Do you suppose he wants you to catch your death of cold on your
-wedding day?"
-
-"What does it matter?" said Patty. "He won't care what you have on. Put
-it in the portmanteau and wear it at dinner every night, if he likes to
-see you in it. This morning you had better make yourself warm. He never
-expected the day to turn out so cold as this."
-
-And while they were talking of it Mr. Yelverton himself appeared,
-contrary to etiquette and his own arrangements. "Good morning," he
-said, shaking hands impartially all round. "I just came in to tell you
-that it is exceedingly cold, and that Elizabeth had better put a warm
-dress on. One would think it was an English December day by the feel of
-the wind."
-
-She got up from the breakfast-table and went out of the room, hurried
-away by Mrs. Duff-Scott; but in a minute she came back again.
-
-"Did you come for anything in particular?" she asked, anxiously.
-
-"No," he said, "only to take care that you did not put on that thin
-dress. And to see that you were alive," he added, dropping his voice.
-
-"And we really are to be married this morning?"
-
-"We really are, Elizabeth. In three quarters of an hour, if you can be
-at the church so soon. I am on my way there now. I am just going round
-to Myrtle Street to pick up old Brion."
-
-"Pick up young Brion, too," she urged earnestly, thinking of Patty.
-"Tell him I specially wished it."
-
-"He won't come," said Mr. Yelverton; "I asked him yesterday. His father
-says his liver must be out of order, he has grown so perverse and
-irritable lately. He won't do anything that he is wanted to do."
-
-"Ah, poor boy! We must look after him, you and I, when we come back.
-Where are we going, Kingscote?"
-
-"My darling, I fear you will think my plans very prosaic. I think we
-are just going to Geelong--till to-morrow or next day. You see it is
-so cold, and I don't want you to be fagged with a long journey. Mount
-Macedon would have been charming, but I could not get accommodation.
-At Geelong, where we are both strangers, we shall be practically to
-ourselves, and it is better to make sure of a good hotel than of
-romantic scenery, if you have to choose between the two--for the
-present, at any rate--vulgar and sordid as that sentiment may appear.
-We can go where we like afterwards. I have just got a telegram to say
-that things will be ready for us. You left it to me, you know."
-
-"I am only too happy to leave everything to you," she said, at once.
-"And I don't care where we go---it will be the same everywhere."
-
-"I think it will, Elizabeth--I think we shall be more independent
-of our circumstances than most people. Still I am glad to have made
-sure of a warm fire and a good dinner for you at your journey's end.
-We start at twenty minutes past four, I may tell you, and we are to
-get home--_home_, my dear, which will be wherever you and I can be
-together, henceforth--at about half-past six. That will give you time
-to rest before dinner. And you will not be very tired, after such a
-little journey, will you?"
-
-"Elizabeth!" called a voice from the corridor above their heads, "send
-Mr. Yelverton away, and come upstairs at once."
-
-So Mr. Yelverton departed in his cab, to pick up old Brion and await
-his bride at the nearest church; and he was presently followed by
-the major in his brougham, and a little later by Mrs. Duff-Scott's
-capacious open carriage, containing herself and the three sisters, all
-in woollen walking dresses and furs. And Elizabeth really was married,
-still to her own great surprise. She stood in the cold and silent
-church, and took Kingscote, her lover, to be her lawful husband, and
-legally ratified that irrevocable contract in the clearest handwriting.
-He led her out into the windy road, when it was over, and put her into
-the brougham--the major taking her place in the other carriage, and on
-their way back both bride and bridegroom were very serious over their
-exploit.
-
-"You have the most wonderful trust in me," he said to her, holding
-her still ungloved hand, and slipping the wedding ring round on her
-finger--"the most amazing trust."
-
-"I have," she assented, simply.
-
-"It rather frightens me," he went on, "to see you taking me so
-absolutely for granted. Do you really think I am quite perfect,
-Elizabeth?"
-
-"No," she replied, promptly.
-
-"Well, I am glad of that. For I am far from it, I assure you." Then he
-added, after a pause, "What are the faults you have to find with me,
-then?"
-
-"None--none," she responded fervently. "Your faults are no faults to
-me, for they are part of you. I don't want you perfect--I only want you
-to be always as I know you now."
-
-"I think I am rather a tyrant," he said, beginning to criticise himself
-freely, now that she showed no disposition to do it, "and perhaps I
-shall bully you if you allow me too much latitude. I am too fond of
-driving straight at everything I want, Elizabeth--I might drive over
-you, without thinking, some day, if you give me my own way always."
-
-"You may drive over me, if you like, and welcome," she said, smiling.
-
-"You have no consideration for your rights as a woman and a matron?--no
-proper pride?--no respect for your dignity, at all?"
-
-"None whatever--now."
-
-"Ah, well, after all, I think it is a good thing for you that I have
-got you. You might have fallen into worse hands. You are just made to
-be a victim. And you will be better off as my victim than you might
-have been as another man's victim."
-
-"Much better," she said. "But I don't think I should have been another
-man's victim."
-
-When they reached Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, Patty and Eleanor, who had
-arrived a few minutes earlier, met their brother and sister, kissed
-them both, and took Elizabeth upstairs, where they tenderly drew
-off her furs and her bonnet, and waited upon her with a reverential
-recognition of her new and high estate. During their absence, Mr.
-Yelverton, Mr. Brion, and their host and hostess stood round the
-drawing-room fire, talking over a plan they had hatched between them,
-prior to taking leave of the old lawyer, who had to depart for his
-country home and business by an afternoon boat. This plan provided for
-a temporary disposal of that home and business at an early date, in
-order that Mr. Brion might accompany the entire party--the major and
-his wife, Mr. Yelverton and the three sisters--to England as the legal
-adviser of the latter, it having been deemed expedient to take these
-measures to facilitate the conveyance and distribution of the great
-Yelverton property. The old man was delighted at the prospect of his
-trip, which it was intended should be made both profitable and pleasant
-to him, and at the certainty of being identified for some time longer
-with the welfare of his young friends. Mrs. Duff-Scott was also ardent
-in her anticipation of seeing Elizabeth installed at Yelverton, of
-investigating the philanthropical enterprises of Elizabeth's husband,
-and of keeping, during the most critical and most interesting period
-of their career, the two unappropriated heiresses under her wing. The
-major was pleased to join this family party, and looked forward with
-some avidity to the enjoyment of certain London experiences that he had
-missed from his cup of blessings of late years.
-
-"And the dear girls will not be separated, except for this little week
-or two," said the fairy godmother, wiping away a surreptitious tear.
-"How happy that will make them!"
-
-They entered the room as she spoke, clinging together; and they sat
-down round the hearthrug, and were drawn into the discussion. Yes, it
-did make them happy, they said; it was the sweetest and brightest of
-plans and prospects. Only Patty, thinking of Elizabeth and Nelly going
-and Paul Brion left behind, felt her heart torn in two.
-
-The wedding breakfast was the mid-day lunch, to which they were
-summoned by the butler with his bridal favour in his button-hole. The
-little party of seven, when they went into the dining-room, found
-that apartment decorated with flowers and evergreens in a manner
-wonderful to behold, considering the short notice that had been given.
-The table was glorious with white blossoms of every description, the
-orange predominating and saturating the air with its almost too strong
-fragrance; and the dishes and the wines would have done honour to the
-bridal banquet of a princess. Little did anyone care for dishes and
-wines, except the host and hostess, who would have been less than
-mortal had they not felt interested therein; and most of them were glad
-to get the meal over. Some healths were drunk in the major's best dry
-champagne, and three little speeches were delivered; and then Mr. Brion
-respectfully begged to be excused, said good-bye all round, made his
-Grandisonian bow, and departed.
-
-"Tell Paul," said Elizabeth (she could call him Paul now), "that we
-have missed him to-day."
-
-"I will, my dear, I will," said the old man. And when he delivered that
-message half-an-hour later, he was hurt to see in what a bad spirit it
-was received. "I daresay!" was Paul's cynical comment.
-
-When Mr. Brion was gone, the little family returned to the
-drawing-room, and again sat round the bright fire, and behaved
-themselves as if nothing had happened. Elizabeth spread out her hands
-to the warmth, and gazed at her thick wedding ring meditatively: and
-the girls, who hung about her, gazed at it also with fascinated eyes.
-Mr. Yelverton sat a little apart, and watched his wife furtively. Mrs.
-Duff-Scott chatted, recalling the topography and notable features of
-Geelong. They had afternoon tea, as usual (only earlier than usual),
-in the familiar precious teacups, out of the familiar Queen Anne
-teapot. There was an every-day homeliness about this quiet hour, and
-yet it seemed that years had come and gone since yesterday. Presently
-Mr. Yelverton's watch-case was heard to shut with a sharp click, and
-the bride turned her head quickly and looked at him. He nodded. And
-as she rose from her low chair, holding out her hand to the faithful
-Patty, the wheels of the brougham crunched over the gravel in front of
-the windows. It was time to go.
-
-And in ten minutes more they were gone. Like that monarch who went
-into his own kingdom and shut the door, Elizabeth went into hers--to
-assume the crown and sceptre of a sovereignty than which no woman
-can boast a greater, let her be who she may--passing wholly into her
-strong husband's keeping without one shadow of regret or mistrust left
-in her heart, either for herself or him. They were driven to Spencer
-Street, where, while they waited a few minutes for their train, people
-who knew them stared at them, recognising the situation. They paced
-up and down the platform, side by side, she in her modest cloth dress
-and furs; and, far from avoiding observation, they rather courted it
-unconsciously, in a quiet way. They were so proud of belonging to each
-other, and from the enclosure of their own kingdom the outside world
-seemed such an enormous distance off. They went to Geelong in a saloon
-car full of people--what did it matter to them?--and at the seaside
-station found a carriage waiting for them. And by half-past six, as
-her husband said, Elizabeth reached home. There was a bright and cosy
-sitting-room, with a table prettily set for their _tête-à-tête_ dinner,
-and a bright fire (of wood and not coal--a real bush fire) crackling
-on the hearth. In an inner room there was a fire too; and here, when
-her portmanteau had been unstrapped, and while Kingscote was consulting
-with the landlord, she hastily threw off her wraps and travelling
-dress, twisted up her fine hair afresh, put on that delicate gown that
-she had worn yesterday morning--could it possibly, she asked herself,
-have been _only_ yesterday morning?--and made herself as fair to look
-upon as she knew how. And, when she opened the door softly, trembling
-with excitement and happiness, he was waiting for her, standing on the
-hearthrug, with his back to the fire--looking at her as he had looked
-that day, not so very long ago, when they were in the cave together,
-he on one side of the gulf and she on the other. He held out his arms
-again, and this time she sprang into them, and lifted her own to clasp
-his neck. And so they stood, without moving or speaking--"resting
-before dinner"--until the waiter, heralding his approach by a discreet
-tap at the door, came in with the soup-tureen.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLV.
-
-
-IN SILK ATTIRE.
-
-
-The bride and bridegroom did not return to Melbourne until the day
-before Christmas--Friday the 24th, which was a warm, and bright, and
-proper summer day, but working up for a spell of north winds and bush
-fires before the year ran out. They had been wandering happily amongst
-the lovely vales and mountains of that sequestered district of Victoria
-which has become vaguely known as the "Kelly Country," and finding out
-before they left it, to their great satisfaction, that Australia could
-show them scenery so variously romantic as to put the charms of the
-best hotels into the shade. Even that terrestrial paradise on the ferny
-slopes of Upper Macedon was, if not eclipsed, forgotten, in the beauty
-of the wilder woodland of the far Upper Murray, which was beyond the
-reach of railways. They had also been again to visit the old house by
-the sea and Mr. Brion; had dawdled along the familiar shore in twilight
-and moonlight; had driven to the caves and eaten lunch once more in the
-green dell among the bracken fronds; had visited the graves of that
-other pair of married lovers--that Kingscote and Elizabeth of the last
-generation--and made arrangements for the perpetual protection from
-disturbance and desecration of that sadly sacred spot. And it was only
-on receipt of an urgent telegram from Mrs. Duff-Scott, to remind them
-that Christmas was approaching, and that she had devised festivities
-which were to be more in honour of them than of the season, that they
-remembered how long they had been away, and that it had become time to
-return to their anxious relatives.
-
-They arrived in Melbourne by the 3.41 train from Ballarat, where
-they had broken a long journey the evening before, and found Patty
-and Eleanor and the major's servants waiting for them at Spencer
-Street. The meeting between the sisters, after their first separation,
-was silent, but intensely impressive. On the platform though they
-were, they held each other's hands and gazed into each other's eyes,
-unconscious of the attention they attracted, unable to find words
-to express how much they had missed each other and how glad they
-were to be reunited. They drove home together in a state of absolute
-happiness; and at home Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major were standing on
-their doorstep as the carriage swept up the broad drive to the house,
-as full of tender welcomes for the bride as any father or mother could
-have been, rejoicing over a recovered child. Elizabeth thought of
-the last Christmas Eve which she and her sisters, newly orphaned and
-alone in the world, poor in purse and destitute of kith and kin, spent
-in that humble little bark-roofed cottage on the solitary cliff; and
-she marvelled at the wonderful and dazzling changes that the year had
-brought. Only one year out of twenty-nine!--and yet it seemed to have
-held the whole history of her life. She was taken into the drawing-room
-and put into a downy chair, and fed with bread and butter and tea and
-choice morsels of news, while Patty knelt on the floor beside her,
-and her husband stood on the hearthrug watching her, with, his air
-of quiet but proud proprietorship, as he chatted of their travels to
-the major. It was very delightful. She wondered if it were really
-herself--Elizabeth King that used to be--whose lines had fallen on
-these pleasant places.
-
-While the afternoon tea was in progress, Eleanor fidgetted impatiently
-about the room. She was so graceful and undulating in her movements
-that her fidgetting was only perceived to be such by those who knew
-her ways; but Elizabeth marked her gentle restlessness, in spite of
-personal preoccupations.
-
-"Do you want me to go upstairs with you?" she inquired with her kind
-eyes, setting down her teacup; and Nelly almost flew to escort her out
-of the room. There was to be a large dinner party at Mrs. Duff-Scott's
-to-night, to "meet Mr. and Mrs. Yelverton on their return," all
-Melbourne having been made acquainted with the romance of their
-cousinship and marriage, and the extent of their worldly possessions,
-during their absence.
-
-"It is to be so large," said Patty, as her brother-in-law shut the
-drawing-room door upon the trio, "that even Mrs. Aarons will be
-included in it."
-
-"Mrs. Aarons!" echoed Elizabeth, who knew that the fairy godmother had
-repaid that lady's hospitality and attentions with her second-best
-bit of sang-de-boeuf crackle and her sole specimen of genuine Rose
-du Barry--dear and precious treasures sacrificed to the demands of
-conscience which proclaimed Mrs. Aarons wronged and insulted by being
-excluded from the Duff-Scott dinner list. "And she is really coming?"
-
-"She really is--though it is her own right to receive, as I
-think Mrs. Duff-Scott perfectly remembered when she sent her
-invitation--accompanied, of course, by Mr. Aarons."
-
-"And now," said Nelly, looking back, "Patty has got her old wish--she
-really _is_ in a position to turn up her nose, at last."
-
-"Oh," said Patty, vehemently, "don't remind me of that wicked, vulgar,
-indecent speech! Poor woman, who am I that I should turn up my nose at
-her? I am very glad she is coming--I think she ought to have been asked
-long ago. Why not? She is just as good as we are, every bit."
-
-Eleanor laughed softly. "Ah, what a difference in one's sentiments does
-a large fortune make--doesn't it, Elizabeth? Patty doesn't want to
-turn up her nose at Mrs. Aarons, because, don't you see, she knows she
-can crush her quite naturally and comfortably by keeping it down. And,
-besides, when one has got one's revenge--when one has paid off one's
-old score--one doesn't want to be mean and barbarous. Oh," exclaimed
-Nelly, rapturously, "I never thought that being rich was so delicious
-as it is!"
-
-"I hope it won't spoil you," said Elizabeth.
-
-"I hope it won't spoil _you_," retorted the girl, saucily. "You are in
-far greater danger than I am."
-
-By this time they had reached the top of the stairs, and Eleanor, who
-had led the way, opened the door, not of Elizabeth's old bedroom, but
-of the state guest-chamber of the house; and she motioned the bride
-to enter with a low bow. Here was the explanation of that impatience
-to get her upstairs. Elizabeth took a few steps over the threshold
-and then stood still, while the tears rushed into her eyes. The room
-had been elaborately dressed in white lace and white ribbons; the
-dressing-table was decorated with white flowers; the bed was covered
-with an æsthetic satin quilt, and on the bed was spread out a bridal
-robe--white brocade, the bodice frilled with Brussels lace--with white
-shoes, white gloves, white silk stockings, white feather fan, white
-everything _en suite_.
-
-"This is your dress for to-night," said Patty, coaxing it with soft
-hands. "And you will find lots more in the wardrobe. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-has been fitting you up while you have been away."
-
-Upon which Nelly threw open the doors of the wardrobe and pulled out
-the drawers, and displayed with great pride the piles and layers of new
-clothes that the fairy godmother had laboriously gathered together;
-the cream, or, to speak more correctly (if less poetically), the
-butter, churned from the finest material that the Melbourne shops
-could produce, and "made up" by a Collins Street mademoiselle, whose
-handiwork was as recognisable to the local initiated as that of Elise
-herself. The bride had been allowed no choice in the matter of her own
-trousseau, but she did not feel that she had missed anything by that.
-She stood and gazed at the beautiful garments, which were all dim and
-misty as seen through her tears, with lips and hands trembling, and a
-sense of misgiving lest such extravagant indulgence of all a woman's
-possible desires should tempt Fate to lay hands prematurely upon her.
-Then she went to find her friend--who had had so much enjoyment in the
-preparation of her surprise--and did what she could by dumb caresses to
-express her inexpressible sentiments.
-
-Then in course of time these upsetting incidents were got over, and
-cheerful calmness supervened. As the night drew on, Mrs. Duff-Scott
-retired to put on her war paint. Nelly also departed to arrange her
-own toilet, which was a matter of considerable importance to her in
-these days. The girl who had worn cotton gloves to keep the sun from
-her hands, a year ago, had developed a great faculty for taking care of
-her beauty and taking pains with her clothes. Patty lingered behind to
-wait on Elizabeth. And in the interval before the bridegroom came up,
-these two had a little confidential chat. "What have you been doing, my
-darling," said the elder sister, "while I have been away?"
-
-"Oh, nothing much," said Patty, rather drearily. "Shopping about your
-things most of the time, and getting ready for our voyage. They say
-we are to go as far as Italy next month, because January is the best
-time for the Red Sea. And they want the law business settled. It is
-dreadfully soon, isn't it?" This was not the tone of voice in which
-Italy was talked of a year ago.
-
-"And you haven't--seen anybody?"
-
-"No, I haven't seen anybody. Except once--and then he took off his hat
-without looking at me."
-
-Elizabeth sighed. She was herself so safe and happy with her beloved
-that she could not bear to think of this other pair estranged and
-apart, making themselves so miserable.
-
-"And what about Nelly and Mr. Westmoreland?" she inquired presently.
-
-"Nelly is a baby," said Patty, with lofty scorn, "and Mr. Westmoreland
-is a great lout. You have no idea what a spectacle they are making of
-themselves."
-
-"What--is it going on again?"
-
-"Yes, it is going on--but not in the old style. Mr. Westmoreland
-has fallen in love with her really now--as far as such a brainless
-hippopotamus is capable of falling in love, that is to say. I suppose,
-the fact of her having a great fortune and high connections makes all
-the difference. And she is really uncommonly pretty. It is only in
-these last weeks that I have fully understood how much prettier she
-is than other girls, and I believe he, to do him justice, has always
-understood it in his stupid, coarse way."
-
-"And Nelly?"
-
-"Nelly," said Patty, "has been finding out a great deal lately. She
-knows well enough how pretty she is, and she knows what money and all
-the other things are worth. She is tasting the sweets of power, and
-she likes it--she likes it too much, I think--she will grow into a
-bit of a snob, if she doesn't mind. She is 'coming the swell' over
-Mr. Westmoreland, to use one of his own choice idioms--not exactly
-rudely, because she has such pretty manners, but with the most superb
-impertinence, all the same--and practising coquetry as if she had been
-beset with abject lovers all her life. She sits upon him and teases him
-and aggravates him till he doesn't know how to contain himself. It is
-_too_ ridiculous."
-
-"I should have thought he was the last man to let himself be sat upon."
-
-"So should I. But he courts it--he obtrudes his infatuated
-servility--he goes and asks her, as it were, to sit upon him. It has
-the charm of novelty and difficulty, I suppose. People must get tired
-of having their own way always."
-
-"But I can't understand Nelly."
-
-"You soon will. You will see to-night how she goes on, for he is coming
-to dinner. She will tantalise him till he will forget where he is, and
-lose all sense of decency, and be fit to stamp and roar like a great
-buffalo. She says it is 'taking it out of him.' And she will look at
-the time so sweet and serene and unconscious--bah! I could box her
-ears," concluded Patty.
-
-"And Mrs. Duff-Scott encourages him still, then?"
-
-"No. That is another change. Mrs. Duff-Scott has withdrawn her gracious
-favour. She doesn't want him now. She thinks she will make a pair
-of duchesses of us when she gets us to London, don't you see? Dear
-woman, I'm afraid she will be grievously disappointed, so far as I am
-concerned. No, ever since the day you went away--which was the very day
-that Mr. Westmoreland began to come back--she has given him the cold
-shoulder. You know _what_ a cold shoulder it can be! There is not a man
-alive who could stand up against it, except him. But he doesn't care.
-He can't, or won't, see that he is not wanted. I suppose it doesn't
-occur to him that _he_ can possibly be unwelcome anywhere. He loafs
-about the house--he drops on us at Alston and Brown's--he turns up
-at the theatre--at the Exhibition--at Mullen's--everywhere. We can't
-escape him. Nelly likes it. If a day passes without her seeing him, she
-gets quite restless. She is like a horrid schoolboy with a cockroach
-on a pin--it is her great amusement in life to see him kicking and
-struggling."
-
-"Perhaps she really does care about him, Patty."
-
-"Not she. She is just having her revenge--heartless little monkey!
-I believe she will be a duchess, after all, with a miserable old
-toothless creature for her husband. It would be no more than she
-deserves. Oh, Elizabeth!"--suddenly changing her voice from sharps to
-flats--"how _beautiful_ you do look! Nelly may be a duchess, and so
-might I, and neither of us would ever beat you for _presence_. I heard
-Mrs. Duff-Scott the other day congratulating herself that the prettiest
-of her three daughters were still left to dispose of. I don't believe
-we are the prettiest, but, if we are, what is mere prettiness compared
-with having a head set on like yours and a figure like a Greek statue?"
-
-Elizabeth had been proceeding with her toilet, in order to have
-leisure to gossip with her husband when he came up; and now she stood
-before her long glass in her bridal dress, which had been composed by
-Mrs. Duff-Scott with an unlimited expenditure of taste and care. The
-material of it was exceptionally, if not obtrusively, rich--like a
-thick, dull, soft silk cloth, covered all over with a running pattern
-of flowers severely conventionalised; and it was made as plain as plain
-could be, falling straight to her feet in front, and sweeping back in
-great heavy folds behind, and fitting like a pliant glove to the curves
-of her lovely shape. Only round the bodice, cut neither low nor high,
-and round her rather massive elbows, had full ruffles of the lace that
-was its sole trimming been allowed; and altogether Mrs. Yelverton's
-strong points were brought out by her costume in a marvellously
-effective manner.
-
-There was a sound at this moment in the adjoining room, on hearing
-which Patty abruptly departed; and the bride stood listening to her
-lord's footsteps, and still looking at herself in the glass. He
-entered her room, and she did not turn or raise her eyes, but a soft
-smile spread over her face as if a sun had risen and covered her with
-sudden light and warmth. She tried to see if the waist of her gown was
-wrinkled, or the set of it awry, but it was no use. When he came close
-to her and stooped to kiss her white neck, she lost all recollection of
-details.
-
-"You want," he said, about ten minutes afterwards, when he had himself
-turned her round and round, and fingered the thick brocade and the lace
-critically, "you want diamonds with such a stately dress."
-
-"Oh, no," she said; "I won't have any diamonds."
-
-"You _won't_, did you say? This language to _me_, Elizabeth!"
-
-"The diamonds shall go in beer and tobacco, Kingscote."
-
-"My dear, they can't."
-
-"Why not?"
-
-"Because the Yelverton diamonds are heirlooms."
-
-"Oh, dear me! Are there Yelverton diamonds too?"
-
-"There are, I grieve to say. They have been laid up under lock and key
-for about forty years, and they must be very old-fashioned. But they
-are considered rather fine, and they are yours for the present, and as
-you can't make any use of them they may as well fulfil their purpose of
-being ornamental. You must wear them by-and-by, you know, when you go
-to Court."
-
-"To Court?" reproachfully. "Is that the kind of life we are going to
-lead?"
-
-"Just occasionally. We are going to combine things, and our duties to
-ourselves and to society. It is not going to be all Buckingham Palace,
-nor yet all Whitechapel, but a judicious blending of the two."
-
-"And Yelverton?"
-
-"And Yelverton of course. Yelverton is to be always there--our place of
-rest--our base of operations--our workshop--our fortress--our home with
-a capital H."
-
-"Oh," she said, "we seem to have the shares of so many poor people
-besides our own. It overwhelms me to think of it."
-
-"Don't think of it," he said, as she laid her head on his shoulder, and
-he smoothed her fine brown hair with his big palm. "Don't be afraid
-that we are destined to be too happy. We shall be handicapped yet."
-
-They did not go down until the carriages had begun to arrive, and then
-they descended the wide stairs dawdlingly, she leaning on him, with her
-two white-gloved hands clasped round his coat sleeve, and he bending
-his tall head towards her--talking still of their own affairs, and
-quite indifferent to the sensation they were about to make. When they
-entered the dim-coloured drawing-room, which was suffused with a low
-murmur of conversation, and by the mild radiance of many wax candles
-and coloured lamps, Elizabeth was made to understand by hostess and
-guests the exceptional position of Mrs. Yelverton of Yelverton, and
-wherein and how enormously it differed from that of Elizabeth King.
-But she was not so much taken up with her own state and circumstance
-as to forget those two who had been her charge for so many years. She
-searched for Nelly first. And Nelly was in the music-room, sitting at
-the piano, and looking dazzlingly fair under the gaslight in the white
-dress that she had worn at the club ball, and with dark red roses at
-her throat and in her yellow hair. She was playing Schubert's A Minor
-Sonata ravishingly--for the benefit of Mr. Smith, apparently, who sat,
-the recipient of smiles and whispers, beside her, rapt in ecstasies
-of appreciation; and she was taking not the slightest notice of Mr.
-Westmoreland, who, leaning over the other end of the piano on his
-folded arms, was openly sighing his soul into his lady's face. Then
-Elizabeth looked for Patty. And Patty she found on that settee within
-the alcove at the opposite end of the big room--also in her white ball
-dress, and also looking charming--engaged in what appeared to be an
-interesting and animated dialogue with the voluble Mrs. Aarons.
-
-The young matron sighed as she contrasted her own blessed lot with
-theirs--with Nelly's, ignorant of what love was, and with Patty's,
-knowing it, and yet having no comfort in the knowing. She did not know
-which to pity most.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLVI.
-
-
-PATTY CHOOSES HER CAREER.
-
-
-The dinner party on Christmas Eve was the first of a series of
-brilliant festivities, extending all through the hot last week of
-1880, and over the cool new year (for which fires were lighted and
-furs brought out again), and into the sultry middle of January, and up
-to the memorable anniversary of the day on which the three Miss Kings
-had first arrived in Melbourne; and when they were over this was the
-state of the sisters' affairs:--Elizabeth a little tired with so much
-dissipation, but content to do all that was asked of her, since she was
-not asked to leave her husband's side; Eleanor, still revelling in the
-delights of wealth and power, and in Mr. Westmoreland's accumulating
-torments; and Patty worn and pale with sleepless nights and heart-sick
-with hope deferred, longing to set herself straight with Paul Brion
-before she left Australia, and seeing her chances of doing so dwindling
-and fading day by day. And now they were beginning to prepare for their
-voyage to a world yet larger and fuller than the one in which they had
-lived and learned so much.
-
-One afternoon, while Mrs. Duff-Scott and Eleanor paid calls, Elizabeth
-and Patty went for the last time to Myrtle Street, to pack up the
-bureau and some of their smaller household effects in preparation
-for the men who were to clear the rooms on the morrow. Mr. Yelverton
-accompanied them, and lingered in the small sitting-room for awhile,
-helping here and there, or pretending to do so. For his entertainment
-they boiled the kettle and set out the cheap cups and saucers, and they
-had afternoon tea together, and Patty played the Moonlight Sonata; and
-then Elizabeth bade her husband go and amuse himself at his club and
-come back to them in an hour's time. He went, accordingly; and the two
-sisters pinned up their skirts and tucked up their sleeves, and worked
-with great diligence when he was no longer there to distract them. They
-worked so well that at the end of half an hour they had nothing left
-to do, except a little sorting of house linen and books. Elizabeth
-undertaking this business, Patty pulled down her sleeves and walked to
-the window; and she stood there for a little while, leaning her arm on
-the frame and her head on her arm.
-
-"Paul Brion is at home, Elizabeth," she said, presently.
-
-"Is he, dear?" responded the elder sister, who had begun to think
-(because her husband thought it) that it was a pity Paul Brion, being
-so hopelessly cantankerous, should be allowed to bother them any more.
-
-"Yes. And, Elizabeth, I hope you won't mind--it is very improper, I
-know--but _I shall go and see him._ It is my last chance. I will go and
-say good-bye to Mrs. M'Intyre, and then I will run up to his room and
-speak to him--just for one minute. It is my last chance," she repeated;
-"I shall never have another."
-
-"But, my darling--"
-
-"Oh, don't be afraid"--drawing herself up haughtily--"I am not going to
-be _quite_ a fool. I shall not throw myself into his arms. I am simply
-going to apologise for cutting him on Cup Day. I am simply going to set
-myself right with him before I go away--for his father's sake."
-
-"It is a risky experiment, my dear, whichever way you look at it. I
-think you had better write."
-
-"No. I have no faith in writing. You cannot make a letter say what
-you mean. And he will not come to us--he will not share his father's
-friendship for Kingscote--he was not at home when you and Kingscote
-called on him--he was not even at Mrs. Aarons's on Friday. There is no
-way to get at him but to go and see him now. I hear him in his room,
-and he is alone. I will not trouble him long--I will let him see that
-I can do without him quite as well as he can do without me--but I must
-and will explain the horrible mistake that I know he has fallen into
-about me, before I lose the chance for the rest of my life."
-
-"My dear, how can you? How can you tell him your true reason for
-cutting him? How can you do it at all, without implying more than you
-would like to imply? You had better leave it, Patty. Or let me go for
-you, my darling."
-
-But Patty insisted upon going herself, conscientiously assuring her
-sister that she would do it in ten minutes, without saying anything
-improper about Mrs. Aarons, and without giving the young man the
-smallest reason to suppose that she cared for him any more than she
-cared for his father, or was in the least degree desirous of being
-cared for by him. And this was how she did it.
-
-Paul was sitting at his table, with papers strewn before him. He had
-been writing since his mid-day breakfast, and was half way through
-a brilliant article on "Patronage in the Railway Department," when
-the sound of the piano next door, heard for the first time after a
-long interval, scattered his political ideas and set him dreaming and
-meditating for the rest of the afternoon. He was leaning back in his
-chair, with his pipe in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, and his
-legs stretched out rigidly under the table, when he heard a tap at the
-door. He said "Come in," listlessly, expecting Betsy's familiar face;
-and when, instead of an uninteresting housemaid, he saw the beautiful
-form of his beloved standing on the threshold, he was so stunned with
-astonishment that at first he could not speak.
-
-"Miss--Miss Yelverton!" he exclaimed, flinging his pipe aside and
-struggling to his feet.
-
-"I hope I am not disturbing you," said Patty, very stiffly. "I have
-only come for a moment--because we are going away, and--and--and I had
-something to say to you before we went. We have been so unfortunate--my
-sister and brother-in-law were so unfortunate--as to miss seeing you
-the other day. I--we have come this afternoon to do some packing,
-because we are giving up our old rooms, and I thought--I thought--"
-
-She was stammering fearfully, and her face was scarlet with confusion
-and embarrassment. She was beginning already to realise the difficulty
-of her undertaking.
-
-"Won't you sit down?" he said, wheeling his tobacco-scented arm-chair
-out of its corner. He, too, was very much off his balance and
-bewildered by the situation, and his voice, though grave, was shaken.
-
-"No, thank you," she replied, with what she intended to be a haughty
-and distant bow. "I only came for a moment--as I happened to be saying
-good-bye to Mrs. M'Intyre. My sister is waiting for me. We are going
-home directly. I just wanted--I only wanted"--she lifted her eyes, full
-of wistful appeal, suddenly to his--"I wanted just to beg your pardon,
-that's all. I was very rude to you one day, and you have never forgiven
-me for it. I wanted to tell you that--that it was not what you thought
-it was--that I had a reason you did not know of for doing it, and that
-the moment after I was sorry--I have been sorry every hour of my life
-since, because I knew I had given you a wrong impression, and I have
-not been able to rectify it."
-
-"I don't quite understand--" he began.
-
-"No, I know--I know. And I can't explain. Don't ask me to explain.
-Only _believe_," she said earnestly, standing before him and leaning
-on the table, "that I have never, never been ungrateful for all the
-kindness you showed us when we came here a year ago--I have always
-been the same. It was not because I forgot that you were our best
-friend--the best friend we ever had--that I--that I"--her voice was
-breaking, and she was searching for her pocket-handkerchief--"that I
-behaved to you as I did."
-
-"Can't you tell me how it was?" he asked, anxiously. "You have nothing
-to be grateful for, Miss Patty--Miss Yelverton, I ought to say--and
-I cannot feel that I have anything to forgive. But I should like to
-know--yes, now that you have spoken of it, I think you ought to tell
-me--why you did it."
-
-"I cannot--I cannot. It was something that had been said of you. I
-believed it for a moment, because--because it looked as if it were
-true--but only for a moment. When I came to think of it I knew it was
-impossible."
-
-Paul Brion's keen face, that had been pale and strained, cleared
-suddenly, and his dark eyes brightened. He was quite satisfied with
-this explanation. He knew what Patty meant as well as if there had been
-but one word for a spade, and she had used it--as well, and even better
-than she could have imagined; for she forgot that she had no right or
-reason to resent his shortcomings, save on the ground of a special
-interest in him, and he was quick to remember it.
-
-"Oh, do sit down a moment," he said, pushing the arm-chair a few inches
-forward. He was trying to think what he might dare to say to her to
-show how thankful he was. It was impossible for her to help seeing the
-change in him.
-
-"No," she replied, hastily pulling herself together. "I must go
-now. I had no business to come here at all--it was only because it
-seemed the last chance of speaking to you. I have said what I came to
-say, and now I must go back to my sister." She looked all round the
-well-remembered room--at the green rep suite, and the flowery carpet,
-and the cedar chiffonnier, and the Cenci over the fire-place--at Paul's
-bookshelves and littered writing-table, and his pipes and letters on
-the chimney-piece, and his newspapers on the floor; and then she looked
-at him with eyes that _would_ cry, though she did her very best to help
-it. "Good-bye," she said, turning towards the door.
-
-He took her outstretched hand and held it "Good-bye--if it must be so,"
-he said. "You are really going away by the next mail?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"And not coming back again?"
-
-"I don't know."
-
-"Well," he said, "you are rich, and a great lady now. I can only wish
-with all my heart for your happiness--I cannot hope that I shall ever
-be privileged to contribute to it again. I am out of it now, Miss
-Patty."
-
-She left her right hand in his, and with the other put her handkerchief
-to her eyes. "Why should you be out of it?" she sobbed. "Your father
-is not out of it. It is you who have deserted us--we should never have
-deserted you."
-
-"I thought you threw me over that day on the racecourse, and I have
-only tried to keep my place."
-
-"But I have told you I never meant that."
-
-"Yes, thank God! Whatever happens, I shall have this day to
-remember--that you came to me voluntarily to tell me that you had never
-been unworthy of yourself. You have asked me to forgive you, but it is
-I that want to be forgiven--for insulting you by thinking that money
-and grandeur and fine clothes could change you."
-
-"They will never change me," said Patty, who had broken down
-altogether, and was making no secret of her tears. In fact, they were
-past making a secret of. She had determined to have no tender sentiment
-when she sought this interview, but she found herself powerless to
-resist the pathos of the situation. To be parting from Paul Brion--and
-it seemed as if it were really going to be a parting--was too
-heartbreaking to bear as she would have liked to bear it.
-
-"When you were poor," he said, hurried along by a very strong current
-of emotions of various kinds, "when you lived here on the other side of
-the wall--if you had come to me--if you had spoken to me, and treated
-me like this _then_--"
-
-She drew her hand from his grasp, and tried to collect herself.
-"Hush--we must not go on talking," she said, with a flurried air; "you
-must not keep me here now."
-
-"No, I will not keep you--I will not take advantage of you now," he
-replied, "though I am horribly tempted. But if it had been as it used
-to be--if we were both poor alike, as we were then--if you were Patty
-King instead of Miss Yelverton--I would not let you out of this room
-without telling me something more. Oh, why did you come at all?" he
-burst out, in a sudden rage of passion, quivering all over as he looked
-at her with the desire to seize her and kiss her and satisfy his
-starving heart.
-
-"You have been hard to me always--from first to last--but this is the
-very cruellest thing you have ever done. To come here and drive me
-wild like this, and then go and leave me us if I were Mrs. M'Intyre or
-the landlord you were paying off next door. I wonder what you think
-I am made of? I have stood everything--I have stood all your snubs,
-and slights, and hard usage of me--I have been humble and patient as
-I never was to anybody who treated me so in my life before--but that
-doesn't mean that I am made of wood or stone. There are limits to
-one's powers of endurance, and though I have borne so much, I _can't_
-bear _this_. I tell you fairly it is trying me too far." He stood at
-the table fluttering his papers with a hand as unsteady as that of
-a drunkard, and glaring at her, not straight into her eyes--which,
-indeed, were cast abjectly on the floor--but all over her pretty,
-forlorn figure, shrinking and cowering before him. "You are kind enough
-to everybody else," he went on; "you might at least show some common
-humanity to me. I am not a coxcomb, I hope, but I know you can't have
-helped knowing what I have felt for you--no woman can help knowing when
-a man cares for her, though he never says a word about it. A dog who
-loves you will get some consideration for it, but you are having no
-consideration for me. I hope I am not rude--I'm afraid I am forgetting
-my manners, Miss Patty--but a man can't think of manners when he is
-driven out of his senses. Forgive me, I am speaking to you too roughly.
-It was kind of you to come and tell me what you have told me--I am not
-ungrateful for that--but it was a cruel kindness. Why didn't you send
-me a note--a little, cold, formal note? or why did you not send Mrs.
-Yelverton to explain things? That would have done just as well. You
-have paid me a great honour, I know; but I can't look at it like that.
-After all, I was making up my mind to lose you, and I think I could
-have borne it, and got on somehow, and got something out of life in
-spite of it. But now how can I bear it?--how can I bear it _now?_"
-
-Patty bowed like a reed to this unexpected storm, which, nevertheless,
-thrilled her with wild elation and rapture, through and through. She
-had no sense of either pride or shame; she never for a moment regretted
-that she had not written a note, or sent Mrs. Yelverton in her
-place. But what she said and what she did I will leave the reader to
-conjecture. There has been too much love-making in these pages of late.
-Tableau. We will ring the curtain down.
-
-Meanwhile Elizabeth sat alone when her work was done, wondering what
-was happening at Mrs. M'Intyre's, until her husband came to tell her
-that it was past six o'clock, and time to go home to dress for dinner.
-"The child can't possibly be with _him_," said Mr. Yelverton, rather
-severely. "She must be gossiping with the landlady."
-
-"I think I will go and fetch her," said Elizabeth. But as she was
-patting on her bonnet, Patty came upstairs, smiling and preening her
-feathers, so to speak--bringing Paul with her.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLVII.
-
-
-A FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOUR.
-
-
-When Mrs. Duff-Scott came to hear of all this, she was terribly vexed
-with Patty. Indeed, no one dared to tell her the whole truth, and to
-this day she does not know that the engagement was made in the young
-bachelor's sitting-room, whither Patty had sought him because he would
-not seek her. She thinks the pair met at No. 6, under the lax and
-injudicious chaperonage of Elizabeth; and, in the first blush of her
-disappointment and indignation, she was firmly convinced, though too
-well bred to express her conviction, that the son had taken advantage
-of the father's privileged position to entrap the young heiress for
-the sake of her thirty thousand pounds. Things did not go smoothly
-with Patty, as they had done with her sister. Elizabeth herself was a
-rock of shelter and a storehouse of consolation from the moment that
-the pair came up to the dismantled room where she and her husband were
-having a lovers' _tête-à-tête_ of their own, and she saw that the long
-misunderstanding was at an end; but no one else except Mrs. M'Intyre
-(who, poor woman, was held of no account), took kindly to the alliance
-so unexpectedly proposed. Quite the contrary, in fact. Mr. Yelverton,
-notwithstanding his late experiences, had no sympathy whatever for
-the young fellow who had flattered him by following his example. The
-philanthropist, with all his full-blown modern radicalism, was also a
-man of long descent and great connections, and some subtle instinct
-of race and habit rose up in opposition to the claims of an obscure
-press writer to enter his distinguished family. It was one thing for a
-Yelverton man to marry a humbly-circumstanced woman, as he had himself
-been prepared to do, but quite another thing for a humbly-circumstanced
-man to aspire to the hand of a Yelverton woman, and that woman rich and
-beautiful, his own ward and sister. He was not aware of this strong
-sentiment, but believed his objections arose from a proper solicitude
-for Patty's welfare. Paul had been rude and impertinent, wanting in
-respect for her and hers; he had an ill-conditioned, sulky temper;
-he lived an irregular life, from hand to mouth; he had no money; he
-had no reputable friends. Therefore, when Paul (with some defiance of
-mien, as one who knew that it was a merely formal courtesy) requested
-the consent of the head of the house to his union with the lady of his
-choice, the head of the house, though elaborately polite, was very
-high and mighty, and--Patty and Elizabeth being out of the way, shut
-up together to kiss in comfort in one of the little bedrooms at the
-back--made some very plain statements of his views to the ineligible
-suitor, which fanned the vital spark in that young man's ardent spirit
-to a white heat of wrath. By-and-by Mr. Yelverton modified those views,
-like the just and large-hearted student of humanity that he was, and
-was brought to see that a man can do no more for a woman than love
-her, be he who he may, and that a woman, whether queen or peasant,
-millionaire or pauper, can never give more than value for that "value
-received." And by-and-by Paul learned to respect his brother-in-law for
-a man whose manhood was his own, and to trust his motives absolutely,
-even when he did not understand his actions. But just at first things
-were unpleasant. Mr. Yelverton touched the young man's sensitive pride,
-already morbidly exercised by his consciousness of the disparity
-between Patty's social position and fortunes and his own, by some
-indirect allusion to that painful circumstance, and brought upon
-himself a revengeful reminder that his (Mr. Yelverton's) marriage with
-Elizabeth might not be considered by superficial persons to be entirely
-above suspicion. Things were, indeed, very unpleasant. Paul, irritated
-in the first rapture of happiness, used more bad language (in thought
-if not in speech) than he had done since Cup Day, when he went back to
-his unfinished article on Political Patronage; Patty drove home with a
-burning sense of being of age and her own mistress; and Elizabeth sat
-in the carriage beside her, silent and thoughtful, feeling that the
-first little cloud (that first one which, however faint and small, is
-so incredible and so terrible) had made its appearance on the hitherto
-stainless horizon of her married life.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, when they got home, received the blow with a stern
-fortitude that was almost worse than Mr. Yelverton's prompt resistance,
-and much worse than the mild but equally decided opposition of that
-punctilious old gentleman at Seaview Villa, who, by-and-by, used all
-his influence to keep the pair apart whom he would have given his
-heart's blood to see united, out of a fastidious sense of what he
-conceived to be his social and professional duty. Between them all,
-they nearly drove the two high-spirited victims into further following
-the example of the head of the house--the imminent danger of which
-became apparent to Patty's confidante Elizabeth, who gave timely
-warning of it to her husband. This latter pair, who had themselves
-carried matters with such a very high hand, were far from desiring
-that Paul and Patty should make assignations at the Exhibition with a
-view to circumventing their adversaries by a clandestine or otherwise
-untimely marriage (such divergence of opinion with respect to one's own
-affairs and other people's being very common in this world, the gentle
-reader may observe, even in the case of the most high-minded people).
-
-"Kingscote," said Elizabeth, when one night she sat brushing her hair
-before the looking-glass, and he, still in his evening dress, lounged
-in an arm-chair by the dressing-table, talking to her, "Kingscote, I
-am afraid you are too hard on Patty--you and the Duff-Scotts--keeping
-her from Paul still, though she has but three days left, and I don't
-believe she will stand it."
-
-"My dear, we are not hard upon her, are we? It is for her sake. If we
-can tide over these few days and get her away all right, a year or two
-of absence, and all the new interests that she will find in Europe and
-in her changed position, will probably cure her of her fancy for a
-fellow who is not good enough for her."
-
-"That shows how little you know her," said Elizabeth, with a melancholy
-smile. "She is not a girl to take 'fancies' in that direction, and
-having given her heart--and she has not given it so easily as you
-imagine--she will be as faithful to him--as faithful"--casting about
-for an adequate illustration--"as I should have been to you, Kingscote."
-
-"Perhaps so, dear. I myself think it very likely. And in such a case
-no harm is done. They will test each other, and if they both stand the
-test it will be better and happier for them to have borne it, and we
-shall feel then that we are justified in letting them marry. But at
-present they know so little of each other--she has had no fair choice
-of a husband--and she is too good to be thrown away. I feel responsible
-for her, don't you see? And I only want her to have all her chances. I
-will be the last to hinder the course of true love when once it proves
-itself to _be_ true love."
-
-"_We_ did not think it necessary to prove _our_ love--and I don't think
-we should have allowed anybody else to prove it--by a long probation,
-Kingscote."
-
-"My darling, we were different," he said, promptly.
-
-She did not ask him to explain wherein they were different, he and she,
-who had met for the first time less than four months ago; she shared
-the usual unconscious prejudice that we all have in favour of our own
-sincerity and trustworthiness, and wisdom and foresight, and assumed as
-a matter of course that their case was an exceptional one. Still she
-had faith in others as well as in herself and her second self.
-
-"I know Patty," she said, laying her hair brush on her knee and
-looking with solemn earnestness into her husband's rough-hewn but
-impressive face--a face that seemed to her to contain every element
-of noble manhood, and that would have been weakened and spoiled by
-mere superficial beauty--"I know Patty, Kingscote, better than anyone
-knows her except herself. She is like a little briar rose--sweet and
-tender if you are gentle and sympathetic with her, but certain to
-prick if you handle her roughly. And so strong in the stem--so tough
-and strong--that you cannot root her out or twist her any way that she
-doesn't feel naturally inclined to grow--not if you use all your power
-to make her."
-
-"Poor little Patty!" he said, smiling. "That is a very pathetic image
-of her. But I don't like to figure in your parable as the blind
-genius of brute force--a horny-handed hedger and ditcher with a smock
-frock and a bill-hook. I am quite capable of feeling the beauty, and
-understanding the moral qualities of a wild rose--at least, I thought I
-was. Perhaps I am mistaken. Tell me what you would do, if you were in
-my place?"
-
-Elizabeth slipped from her chair and down upon her knees beside him,
-with her long hair and her long dressing-gown flowing about her, and
-laid her head where it was glad of any excuse to be laid--a locality
-at this moment indicated by the polished and unyielding surface of
-his starched shirt front. "You know I never likened you to a hedger
-and ditcher," she said, fondly. "No one is so wise and thoughtful
-and far-sighted as you. It is only that you don't know Patty quite
-yet--you will do soon--and what might be the perfect management of
-such a crisis in another girl's affairs is likely not to succeed with
-her--just simply and only for the reason that she is a little peculiar,
-and you have not yet had time to learn that."
-
-"It is time that I should learn," he said, lifting her into a restful
-position and settling himself for a comfortable talk. "Tell me what you
-think and know yourself, and what, in your judgment, it would be best
-to do."
-
-"In my judgment, then, it would be best," said Elizabeth, brief
-interval given up to the enjoyment of a wordless _tête-à-tête_, "to
-let Patty and Paul be together a little before they part. For this
-reason--that they _will_ be together, whether they are let or not.
-Isn't it preferable to make concessions before they are ignominiously
-extorted from you? And if Patty has much longer to bear seeing her
-lover, as she thinks, humiliated and insulted, by being ignored as her
-lover in this house, she will go to the other extreme--she will go away
-from us to him--by way of making up to him for it. It is like what you
-say of the smouldering, poverty-bred anarchy in your European national
-life--that if you don't find a vent for the accumulating electricity
-generating in the human sewer--how do you put it?--it is no use to try
-to draw it off after the storm has burst."
-
-"Elizabeth," said her husband, reproachfully, "that is worse than being
-called a hedger and ditcher."
-
-"Well, you know what I mean."
-
-"Tell me what you mean in the vulgar tongue, my dear. Do you want me to
-go and call on Mr. Paul Brion and tell him that we have thought better
-of it?"
-
-"Not exactly that. But if you would persuade Mrs. Duff-Scott to be
-nice about it--no one can be more enchantingly nice than she, when she
-likes, but when she doesn't like she is enough to drive a man--a proud
-man like Paul Brion--simply frantic. And Patty will never stand it--she
-will not hold out--she will not go away leaving things as they are now.
-We could not expect it of her."
-
-"Well? And how should Mrs. Duff-Scott show herself nice to Mr. Brion?"
-
-"She might treat him as--as she did you, Kingscote, when you were
-wanting me."
-
-"But she approved of me, you see. She doesn't approve of him."
-
-"You are both gentlemen, anyhow--though he is poor. _I_ would have
-been the more tender and considerate to him, because he is poor. He is
-not too poor for Patty--nor would he have been if she had no fortune
-herself. As it is, there is abundance. And, Kingscote, though I don't
-mean for a moment to disparage you--"
-
-"I should hope not, Elizabeth."
-
-"Still I can't help thinking that to have brains as he has is to be
-essentially a rich and distinguished man. And to be a writer for a
-high-class newspaper, which you say yourself is the greatest and best
-educator in the world--to spend himself in making other men see what is
-right and useful--in spreading light and knowledge that no money could
-pay for, and all the time effacing himself, and taking no reward of
-honour or credit for it--surely that must be the noblest profession,
-and one that should make a man anybody's equal--even yours, my love!"
-
-She lifted herself up to make this eloquent appeal, and dropped back on
-his shoulder again, and wound her arm about his neck and his bent head
-with tender deprecation. He was deeply touched and stirred, and did not
-speak for a moment. Then he said gruffly, "I shall go and see him in
-the morning, Elizabeth. Tell me what I shall say to him, my dear."
-
-"Say," said Elizabeth, "that you would rather not have a fixed
-engagement at first, in order that Patty may be unhampered during
-the time she is away--in order that she may be free to make other
-matrimonial arrangements when she gets into the great world, if she
-_likes_--but that you will leave that to him. Tell him that if love is
-not to be kept faithful without vows and promises, it is not love nor
-worth keeping--but I daresay he knows that. Tell him that, except for
-being obliged to go to England just now on the family affairs, Patty is
-free to do exactly as she likes--which she is by law, you know, for she
-is over three-and-twenty--and that we will be happy to see her happy,
-whatever way she chooses. And then let him come here and see her. Ask
-Mrs. Duff-Scott to be nice and kind, and to give him an invitation--she
-will do anything for you--and then treat them both as if they were
-engaged for just this little time until we leave. It will comfort them
-so much, poor things! It will put them on their honour. It will draw
-off the electricity, you know, and prevent catastrophes. And it will
-make not the slightest difference in the final issue. But, oh," she
-added impulsively, "you don't want me to tell you what to do, you are
-so much wiser than I am."
-
-"I told you we should give and take," he responded; "I told you we
-should teach and lead each other--sometimes I and sometimes you. That
-is what we are doing already--it is as it should be. I shall go and see
-Paul Brion in the morning. Confound him!" he added, as he got up out of
-his chair to go to his dressing-room.
-
-And so it came to pass that the young press writer, newly risen from
-his bed, and meditating desperate things over his coffee and cutlet,
-received a friendly embassy from the great powers that had taken up
-arms against him. Mr. Yelverton was the bearer of despatches from
-his sovereign, Mrs. Duff-Scott, in the shape of a gracious note of
-invitation to dinner, which--after a long discussion of the situation
-with her envoy--Mr. Paul Brion permitted himself to accept politely.
-The interview between the two men was productive of a strong sense
-of relief and satisfaction on both sides, and it brought about the
-cessation of all open hostilities.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLVIII.
-
-
-PROBATION.
-
-
-Mr. Yelverton did not return home from his mission until Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's farewell kettle-drum was in full blast. He found the two
-drawing-rooms filled with a fashionable crowd; and the hum of sprightly
-conversation, the tinkle of teaspoons, the rustle of crisp draperies,
-the all-pervading clamour of soft feminine voices, raised in staccato
-exclamations and laughter, were such that he did not see his way to
-getting a word in edgeways. Round each of the Yelverton sisters the
-press of bland and attentive visitors was noticeably great. They were
-swallowed up in the compact groups around them. This I am tempted to
-impute to the fact of their recent elevation to rank and wealth, and to
-a certain extent it may be admitted that that fact was influential. And
-why not? But in justice I must state that the three pretty Miss Kings
-had become favourites in Melbourne society while the utmost ignorance
-prevailed as to their birth and antecedents, in conjunction with the
-most exact knowledge as to the narrowness of their incomes. Melbourne
-society, if a little too loosely constituted to please the tastes of
-a British prig, born and bred to class exclusiveness, is, I honestly
-believe, as free as may be from the elaborate snobbishness with which
-that typical individual (though rather as his misfortune than his
-fault) must be credited.
-
-In Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room were numerous representatives of
-this society--its most select circle, in fact--numbering amongst them
-women of all sorts; women like Mrs. Duff-Scott herself, who busied
-themselves with hospitals and benevolent schemes, conscious of natural
-aspirations and abilities for better things than dressing and gossiping
-and intriguing for social triumphs; women like Mrs. Aarons, who had
-had to struggle desperately to rise with the "cream" to the top of the
-cup, and whose every nerve was strained to retain the advantages so
-hardly won; women to whom scandal was the breath of their nostrils,
-and the dissemination thereof the occupation of their lives; women
-whose highest ambition was to make a large waist into a small one;
-women with the still higher ambition to have a house that was more
-pleasant and popular than anybody else's. All sorts and conditions of
-women, indeed; including a good proportion of those whose womanhood
-was unspoiled and unspoilable even by the deteriorating influences
-of luxury and idleness, and whose intellect and mental culture and
-charming qualities generally were such as one would need to hunt well
-to find anything better in the same line elsewhere. These people had
-all accepted the Miss Kings cordially when Mrs. Duff-Scott brought them
-into their circle and enabled the girls to do their duty therein by
-dressing well, and looking pretty, and contributing a graceful element
-to fashionable gatherings by their very attractive manners. That was
-all that was demanded of them, and, as Miss Kings only, they would
-doubtless have had a brilliant career and never been made to feel the
-want of either pedigree or fortune. Now, as representatives of a great
-family and possessors of independent wealth, they were overwhelmed with
-attentions; but this, I maintain, was due to the interesting nature
-of the situation rather than to that worship of worldly prosperity
-which (because he has plenty of it) is supposed to characterise the
-successful colonist.
-
-Mr. Yelverton looked round, and dropped into a chair near the door,
-to talk to a group of ladies with whom he had friendly relations
-until he could find an opportunity to rejoin his family. The hostess
-was dispensing tea, with Nelly's assistance--Nelly being herself
-attended by Mr. Westmoreland, who dogged her footsteps with patient and
-abject assiduity--other men straying about amongst the crowd with the
-precious little fragile cups and saucers in their hands. Elizabeth was
-surrounded by young matrons fervently interested in her new condition,
-and pouring out upon her their several experiences of European life,
-in the form of information and advice for her own guidance. The best
-shops, the best dressmakers, the best hotels, the best travelling
-routes, and generally the best things to do and see, were emphatically
-and at great length impressed upon her, and she made notes of them on
-the back of an envelope with polite gratitude, invariably convinced
-that her husband knew all about such things far better than anybody
-else could do. Patty was in the music-room, not playing, but sitting
-at the piano, and when Kingscote turned his head in her direction he
-met a full and glowing look of inquiry from her bright eyes that told
-him she knew or guessed the nature of his recent errand. There was such
-an invitation in her face that he found himself drawn from his chair
-as by a strong magnet. He and she had already had those "fights" which
-she had prophetically anticipated. Lately their relations had been such
-that he had permitted himself to call her a "spitfire" in speaking of
-her to her own sister. But they were friends, tacitly trusting each
-other at heart even when most openly at war, and the force that drew
-them apart was always returned in the rebound that united them when
-their quarrels were over. They seemed to be all over for the present.
-As he approached her she resumed her talk with the ladies beside her,
-and dropped her eyes as if taking no notice of him; but she had the
-greatest difficulty to keep herself down on the music-stool and resist
-an inclination to kiss him that for the first time beset her. She
-did, indeed, suddenly put out her hand to him--her left hand--with a
-vigour of intention that called faint smiles to the faces of the fair
-spectators; who concluded that Mr. Yelverton had been out of town and
-was receiving a welcome home after a too long absence. Then Patty was
-seized with an ungovernable restlessness. She quivered all over; she
-fidgetted in her seat; she did not know who spoke to her or what she
-was talking about; her fingers went fluttering up and down the keyboard.
-
-"Play us something, dear Miss Yelverton," said a lady sitting by. "Let
-us hear your lovely touch once more."
-
-"I don't think I can," said Patty, falteringly--the first time she had
-ever made such a reply to such a demand. She got up and began to turn
-over some loose music that lay about on the piano. Her brother-in-law
-essayed to help her; he saw what an agony of suspense and expectation
-she was in.
-
-"You know where I have been?" he inquired in a careless tone, speaking
-low, so that only she could hear.
-
-"Yes"--breathlessly--"I think so."
-
-"I went to take an invitation from Mrs. Duff-Scott."
-
-"Yes?"
-
-"I had a pleasant talk. I am very glad I went. He is coming to dine
-here to-night."
-
-"Is he?"
-
-"Mrs. Duff-Scott thought you would all like to see him before you went
-away. Let us have the 'Moonlight Sonata,' shall we? Beauty fades and
-mere goodness is apt to pall, as Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins would say,
-but one never gets tired of the 'Moonlight Sonata,' when it is played
-as you play it. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Aarons?"
-
-"I do, indeed," responded that lady, fervently. She agreed with
-everybody in his rank of life. And she implored Patty to give them the
-"Moonlight Sonata."
-
-Patty did--disdaining "notes," and sitting at the piano like a
-young queen upon her throne. She laid her fingers on the keyboard
-with a touch as light as thistle-down, but only so light because
-it was so strong, and played with a hushed passion and subdued
-power that testified to the effect on her of her brother-in-law's
-communication--her face set and calm, but radiant in its sudden
-peacefulness. Her way, too, as well as Elizabeth's, was opening before
-her now. She lost sight of the gorgeous ladies around her for a little
-while, and saw only the comfortable path which she and Paul would tread
-together thenceforth. She played the "Moonlight Sonata" to _him_,
-sitting in his own chamber corner, with his pipe, resting himself after
-his work. "I will never," she said to herself, with a little remote
-smile that nobody saw, "I will never have a room in my house that he
-shall not smoke in, if he likes. When he is with me, he shall enjoy
-himself." In those sweet few minutes she sketched the entire programme
-of her married life.
-
-The crowd thinned by degrees, and filtered away; the drawing-rooms
-were deserted, save for the soft-footed servants who came in to set
-them in order, and light the wax candles and rosy lamps, and the
-great gas-burner over the piano, which was as the sun amongst his
-planet family. Night came, and the ladies returned in their pretty
-dinner costumes; and the major stole downstairs after them, and smiled
-and chuckled silently over the new affair as he had done over the
-old--looking on like a benevolent, superannuated Jove upon these simple
-little romances from the high Olympus of his own brilliant past; and
-then (preceded by no carriage wheels) there was a step on the gravel
-and a ring at the door bell, and the guest of the evening was announced.
-
-When Paul came in, correctly appointed, and looking so fierce and
-commanding that Patty's heart swelled with pride as she gazed at him,
-seeing how well--how almost too well, indeed--he upheld his dignity
-and hers, which had been subjected to so many trials, he found himself
-received with a cordiality that left him nothing to find fault with.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was an impulsive, and generous, and well-bred woman,
-not given to do things by halves. She still hoped that Patty would not
-marry this young man, and did not mean to let her if she could help it;
-but, having gone the length of inviting him to her house, she treated
-him accordingly. She greeted him as if he were an old friend, and she
-chatted to him pleasantly while they waited for dinner, questioning him
-with subtle flattery about his professional affairs, and implying that
-reverence for the majesty of the press which is so gratifying to all
-enlightened people. Then she took his arm into dinner, and continued
-to talk to him throughout the meal as only one hostess in a hundred,
-really nice and clever, with a hospitable soul, and a warm heart, and
-abundant tact and good taste, can talk, and was surprised herself to
-find how much she appreciated it. She intended to make the poor young
-fellow enjoy his brief taste of Paradise, since she had given herself
-leave to do so, and Paul responded by shining for her entertainment
-with a mental effulgence that astonished and charmed her. He put forth
-his very best wares for her inspection, and at the same time, in a
-difficult position, conducted himself with irreproachable propriety. By
-the time she left the table she was ready to own herself heartily sorry
-that fickle fortune had not endowed him according to his deserts.
-
-"I _do_ so like really interesting and intellectual young men, who
-don't give themselves any airs about it," she said to nobody in
-particular, when she strolled back to the drawing-room with her three
-girls; "and one does so _very_ seldom meet with them!" She threw
-herself into a low chair, snatched up a fan, and began to fan herself
-vigorously. The discovery that a press writer of Paul Brion's standing
-meant a cultured man of the world impressed her strongly; the thought
-of him as a new son for herself, clever, enterprising, active-minded
-as she was--a man to be governed, perhaps, in a motherly way, and
-to be proud of whether he let himself be governed or not--danced
-tantalisingly through her brain. She felt it necessary to put a very
-strong check upon herself to keep her from being foolish.
-
-She escaped that danger, however. A high sense of duty to Patty held
-her back from foolishness. Still she could not help being kind to
-the young couple while she had the opportunity; turning her head
-when they strolled into the conservatory after the men came in from
-the dining-room, and otherwise shutting her eyes to their joint
-proceedings. And they had a peaceful and sad and happy time, by her
-gracious favour, for two days and a half--until the mail ship carried
-one of them to England, and left the other behind.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLIX.
-
-
-YELVERTON.
-
-
-Patty went "home," and stayed there for two years; but it was never
-home to her, though all her friends and connections, save one, were
-with her--because that one was absent. She saw "the great Alps and the
-Doge's palace," and all the beauty and glory of that great world that
-she had so ardently dreamed of and longed for; travelling in comfort
-and luxury, and enjoying herself thoroughly all the while. She was
-presented at Court--"Miss Yelverton, by her sister, Mrs. Kingscote
-Yelverton"--and held a distinguished place in the _Court Journal_ and
-in the gossip of London society for the better part of two seasons. She
-was taught to know that she was a beauty, if she had never known it
-before; she was made to understand the value of a high social position
-and the inestimable advantage of large means (and she did understand it
-perfectly, being a young person abundantly gifted with common sense);
-and she was offered these good things for the rest of her life, and a
-coronet into the bargain. Nevertheless, she chose to abide by her first
-choice, and to remain faithful to her penniless press writer under all
-temptations. She passed through the fire of every trying ordeal that
-the ingenuity of Mrs. Duff-Scott could devise; her unpledged constancy
-underwent the severest tests that, in the case of a girl of her tastes
-and character, it could possibly be subjected to; and at the end of a
-year and a half, when the owner of the coronet above-mentioned raised
-the question of her matrimonial prospects, she announced to him, and
-subsequently to her family, that they had been irrevocably settled
-long ago; that she was entirely unchanged in her sentiments and
-relations towards Paul Brion; and that she intended, moreover, if they
-had no objection, to return to Australia to marry him.
-
-It was in September when she thus declared herself--after keeping
-a hopeful silence, for the most part, concerning her love affairs,
-since she disgraced herself before a crowd of people by weeping in
-her sweetheart's arms on the deck of the mail steamer at the moment
-when she was bidden by a cruel fate to part from him. The Yelverton
-family had spent the previous winter in the South of Europe, "doing"
-the palaces, and churches, and picture galleries that were such an
-old story to most people of their class, but to the unsophisticated
-sisters so fresh and wonderful an experience--an experience that
-fulfilled all expectations, moreover, which such realisations of young
-dreams so seldom do. Generally, when at last one has one's wish of
-this sort, the spirit that conceived the charms and pleasures of it
-is quenched by bodily wearinesses and vexations and the thousand and
-one petty accidents that circumvent one's schemes. One is burdened
-and fretted with uncongenial companions, perhaps, or one is worried
-and hampered for want of money; or one is nervous or bilious, or one
-is too old and careworn to enjoy as one might once have done; in some
-way or other one's heart's desire comes to one as if only to show the
-"leanness withal" in the soul that seemed (until thus proved) to have
-such power to assimilate happiness and enrich itself thereby. But with
-the Yelverton sisters there was no disillusionment of this sort. They
-had their little drawbacks, of course. Elizabeth was not always in
-good health; Patty pined for her Paul; Eleanor sprained her ankle and
-had to lie on Roman sofas while the others were exploring Roman ruins
-out of doors; and there were features about the winter, even in those
-famous climes, which gave them sensible discomfort and occasionally
-set them on the verge of discontent. But, looking back upon their
-travels, they have no recollection of these things. Young, and strong,
-and rich, with no troubles to speak of and the keenest appetites to
-see and learn, they had as good a time as pleasure-seeking mortals
-can hope for in this world; the memories of it, tenderly stored up to
-the smallest detail, will be a joy for ever to all of them. On their
-return to England they took up their abode in the London house, and for
-some weeks they revelled delightedly in balls, drums, garden parties,
-concerts, and so on, under the supervision and generalship of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott; and they also made acquaintance with the widely-ramifying
-Whitechapel institutions. Early in the summer Elizabeth and her husband
-went to Yelverton, which in their absence had been prepared for "the
-family" to live in again. A neighbouring country house and several
-cottages had been rented and fitted up for the waifs and strays, where
-they had been made as comfortable as before, and were still under the
-eye of their protector; and the ancestral furniture that had been
-removed for their convenience and its own safety was put back in its
-place, and bright (no, not bright--Mrs. Duff-Scott undertook the task
-of fitting them up--but eminently artistic and charming) rooms were
-newly decorated and made ready for Elizabeth's occupation.
-
-She went there early in June--she and her husband alone, leaving Mrs.
-Duff-Scott and the girls in London. Mr. Yelverton had always a little
-jealousy about keeping his wife to himself on these specially sacred
-occasions, and he invited no one to join them during their first days
-at home, and instructed Mr. Le Breton to repress any tendency that
-might be apparent in tenants or _protégés_ to make a public festival of
-their arrival there. The _rôle_ of squire was in no way to his taste,
-nor that of Lady Bountiful to hers. And yet he had planned for their
-home-coming with the utmost care and forethought, that nothing should
-be wanting to make it satisfying and complete--as he had planned for
-their wedding journey on the eve of their hurried marriage.
-
-It is too late in my story to say much about Yelverton. It merits a
-description, but a description would be out of place, and serve no
-purpose now. Those who are familiar with old Elizabethan country seats,
-and the general environment of a hereditary dweller therein, will
-have a sufficient idea of Elizabeth's home; and those who have never
-seen such things--who have not grown up in personal association with
-the traditions of an "old family"--will not care to be told about it.
-In the near future (for, though his brother magnates of the county,
-hearing of the restoration of the house, congratulated themselves that
-Yelverton's marriage had cured him of his crack-brained fads, he only
-delivered her property intact to his wife in order that they might be
-crack-brained together, at her instance and with her legal permission
-in new and worse directions afterwards) Yelverton will lose many of
-its time-honoured aristocratic distinctions; oxen and sheep will take
-the place of its antlered herds, and the vulgar plough and ploughman
-will break up the broad park lawns, where now the pheasant walks in
-the evening, and the fox, stealing out from his cover, haunts for his
-dainty meal. But when Elizabeth saw it that tender June night, just
-when the sun was setting, as in England it only sets in June, all its
-old-world charm of feudal state and beauty, jealously walled off from
-the common herd outside as one man's heritage by divine right and for
-his exclusive enjoyment, lay about it, as it had lain for generations
-past. Will she ever forget that drive in the summer evening from the
-little country railway station to her ancestral home?--the silent road,
-with the great trees almost meeting overhead; the snug farm-houses, old
-and picturesque, and standing behind their white gates amongst their
-hollyhocks and bee-hives; the thatched cottages by the roadside, with
-groups of wide-eyed children standing at the doors to see the carriage
-pass; the smell of the hay and the red clover in the fields, and the
-honeysuckle and the sweet-briar in the hedges; the sound of the wood
-pigeons cooing in the plantations; the first sight of her own lodge
-gates, with their great ramping griffins stonily pawing the air, and of
-those miles and miles of shadow-dappled sward within, those mysterious
-dark coverts, whence now and then a stag looked out at her and went
-crashing back to his ferny lair, and those odorous avenues of beech
-and lime, still haunted by belated bees and buzzing cockchafers, under
-which she passed to the inner enclosure of lawns and gardens where the
-old house stood, with open doors of welcome, awaiting her. What an old
-house! She had seen such in pictures--in the little prints that adorned
-old-fashioned pocket-books of her mother's time---but the reality, as
-in the case of the Continental palaces, transcended all her dreams.
-White smoke curled up to the sky from the fluted chimney-stacks; the
-diamond-paned casements--little sections of the enormous mullioned
-windows--were set wide to the evening breezes and sunshine; on the
-steps before the porch a group of servants, respectful but not
-obsequious, stood ready to receive their new mistress, and to efface
-themselves as soon as they had made her welcome.
-
-"It is more than my share," she said, almost oppressed by all these
-evidences of her prosperity, and thinking of her mother's different
-lot. "It doesn't seem fair, Kingscote."
-
-"It is not fair," he replied. "But that is not your fault, nor mine.
-We are not going to keep it all to ourselves, you and I--because a
-king happened to fall in love with one of our grandmothers, who was
-no better than she should be--which is our title to be great folks, I
-believe. We are going to let other people have a share. But just for
-a little while we'll be selfish, Elizabeth; it's a luxury we don't
-indulge in often."
-
-So he led her into the beautiful house, after giving her a solemn kiss
-upon the threshold; and passing through the great hall, she was taken
-to a vast but charming bedroom that had been newly fitted up for her
-on the ground floor, and thence to an adjoining sitting-room, looking
-out upon a shady lawn--a homely, cosy little room that he had himself
-arranged for her private use, and which no one was to be allowed to
-have the run of, he told her, except him.
-
-"I want to feel that there is one place where we can be together,"
-he said, "whenever we want to be together, sure of being always
-undisturbed. It won't matter how full the house is, nor how much bustle
-and business goes on, if we can keep this nest for ourselves, to come
-to when we are tired and when we want to talk. It is not your boudoir,
-you know--that is in another place--and it is not your morning room; it
-is a little sanctuary apart, where nobody is to be allowed to set foot,
-save our own two selves and the housemaid."
-
-"It shall be," said his wife, with kindling eyes. "I will take care of
-that."
-
-"Very well. That is a bargain. We will take possession to-night. We
-will inaugurate our occupation by having our tea here. You shall not be
-fatigued by sitting up to dinner--you shall have a Myrtle Street tea,
-and I will wait on you."
-
-She was placed in a deep arm-chair, beside a hearth whereon burned the
-first wood fire that she had seen since she left Australia--billets
-of elm-wood split from the butts of dead and felled giants that had
-lived their life out on the Yelverton acres--with her feet on a rug
-of Tasmanian opossum skins, and a bouquet of golden wattle blossoms
-(procured with as much difficulty in England as the lilies of the
-valley had been in Australia) on a table beside her, scenting the room
-with its sweet and familiar fragrance. And here tea was brought in--a
-dainty little nondescript meal, with very little about it to remind her
-of Myrtle Street, save its comfortable informality; and the servant was
-dismissed, and the husband waited upon his wife--helping her from the
-little savoury dishes that she did not know, nor care to ask, the name
-of--pouring the cream into the cup that for so many years had held her
-strongest beverage, dusting the sugar over her strawberries--all the
-time keeping her at rest in her soft chair, with the sense of being
-at home and in peace and safety under his protection working like a
-delicious opiate on her tired nerves and brain.
-
-This was how they came to Yelverton. And for some days thereafter they
-indulged in the luxury of selfishness--they took their happiness in
-both hands, and made all they could of it, conscious they were well
-within their just rights and privileges--gaining experiences that all
-the rest of their lives would be the better for, and putting off from
-day to day, and from week to week, that summons to join them, which the
-matron and girls in London were ready to obey at a moment's notice.
-Husband and wife sat in their gable room, reading, resting, talking,
-love-making. They explored all the nooks and corners of their old
-house, investigated its multifarious antiquities, studied its bygone
-history, exhumed the pathetic memorials of the Kingscote and Elizabeth
-whose inheritance had come to them in so strange a way. They rambled
-in the beautiful summer woods, she with her needlework, he with his
-book--sometimes with a luncheon basket, when they would stay out all
-day; and they took quiet drives, all by themselves in a light buggy,
-as if they were in Australia still--apparently with no consciousness
-of that toiling and moiling world outside their park-gates which had
-once been of so much importance to them. And then one day Elizabeth
-complained of feeling unusually tired. The walks and drives came to an
-end, and the sitting-room was left empty. There was a breathless hush
-all over the great house for a little while; whispers and rustlings to
-and fro; and then a little cry--which, weak and small as it was, and
-shut in with double doors and curtains, somehow managed to make itself
-heard from the attic to the basement--announced that a new generation
-of Yelvertons of Yelverton had come into the world.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott returned home from a series of Belgravian
-entertainments, with that coronet of Patty's capture on her mind,
-in the small hours of the morning following this eventful day; and
-she found a telegram on her hall table, and learned, to her intense
-indignation, that Elizabeth had dared to have a baby without her (Mrs.
-Duff-Scott) being there to assist at the all-important ceremony.
-
-"It's just like him," she exclaimed to the much-excited sisters, who
-were ready to melt into tears over the good news. "It is just what I
-expected he would do when he took her off by herself in that way. It
-is the marriage over again. He wants to manage everything in his own
-fashion, and to have no interference from anybody. But this is really
-carrying independence too far. Supposing anything had gone wrong
-with Elizabeth? And how am I to know that her nurse is an efficient
-person?--and that the poor dear infant will be properly looked after?"
-
-"You may depend," said Patty, who did not grudge her sister her new
-happiness, but envied it from the bottom of her honest woman's heart,
-"You may depend he has taken every care of that. He is not a man to
-leave things to chance--at any rate, not where _she_ is concerned."
-
-"Rubbish!" retorted the disappointed matron, who, though she had had
-no children of her own--perhaps because she had had none--had looked
-forward to a vicarious participation in Elizabeth's experiences at
-this time with the strongest interest and eagerness; "as if a man has
-any business to take upon himself to meddle at all in such matters! It
-is not fair to Elizabeth. She has a right to have us with her. I gave
-way about the wedding, but here I must draw the line. She is in her
-own house, and I shall go to her at once. Tell your maid to pack up,
-dears--we will start to-morrow."
-
-But they did not. They stayed in London, with what patience they could,
-subsisting on daily letters and telegrams, until the season there was
-over, and the baby at Yelverton was three weeks old. Then, though no
-explanations were made, they became aware that they would be no longer
-considered _de trop_ by the baby's father, and rushed from the town to
-the country house with all possible haste.
-
-"You are a tyrant," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, when the master came forth to
-meet her. "I always said so, and now I know it."
-
-"I was afraid she would get talking and exerting herself too much if
-she had you all about her," he replied, with his imperturbable smile.
-
-"And you didn't think that _we_ might possibly have a grain of sense,
-as well as you?"
-
-"I didn't think of anything," he said coolly, "except to make sure of
-her safety as far as possible."
-
-"O yes, I know"--laughing and brushing past him--"all you think of is
-to get your own way. Well, let us see the poor dear girl now we are
-here. I know how she must have been pining to show her baby to her
-sisters all this while, when you wouldn't let her."
-
-The next time he found himself alone with his wife, Mr. Yelverton asked
-her, with some conscientious misgiving, whether she _had_ been pining
-for this forbidden pleasure, and whether he really was a tyrant.
-Of course, Elizabeth scouted any suggestion of such an idea as most
-horrible and preposterous, but the fact was--
-
-Never mind. We all have our little failings, and the intelligent reader
-will not expect to find the perfect man any more than the perfect
-woman in this present world. And if he--or, I should say, she--_could_
-find him, no doubt she would be dreadfully disappointed, and not like
-him half so well as the imperfect ones. Elizabeth, who, as Patty had
-predicted, was "butter" in his hands, would not have had her husband
-less fond of his own way on any account.
-
-For some time everybody was taken up with the baby, who was felt to be
-the realisation of that ideal which Dan and the magpies had faintly
-typified in the past. Dan himself lay humbly on the hem of the mother's
-skirts, or under her chair, resting his disjointed nose on his paws,
-and blinking meditatively at the rival who had for ever superseded
-him. Like a philosophical dog as he was, he accepted superannuation
-without a protest as the inevitable and universal lot, and, when no one
-took any notice of him, coiled himself on the softest thing he could
-find and went to sleep, or if he couldn't go to sleep, amused himself
-snapping at the English flies. The girls forgot, or temporarily laid
-aside, their own affairs, in the excitement of a constant struggle
-for possession of the person of the little heir, whom they regarded
-with passionate solicitude or devouring envy and jealousy according
-as they were successful or otherwise. The nurse's post was a sinecure
-at this time. The aunts hushed the infant to sleep, and kept watch by
-his cradle, and carried him up and down the garden terraces with a
-parasol over his head. The mother insisted upon performing his toilet,
-and generally taking a much larger share of him than was proper for
-a mother in her rank of life; and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, for whom
-china had lost its remaining charms, assumed privileges as a deputy
-grandmother which it was found expedient to respect. In this absorbing
-domesticity the summer passed away. The harvest of field and orchard
-was by-and-by gathered in; the dark-green woods and avenues turned
-red, and brown, and orange under the mellow autumn sun; the wild
-fruits in the hedgerows ripened; the swallows took wing. To Yelverton
-came a party of guests--country neighbours and distinguished public
-men, of a class that had not been there a-visiting for years past;
-who shot the well-stocked covers, and otherwise disported themselves
-after the manner of their kind. And amongst the nobilities was that
-coronet, that incarnation of dignity and magnificence, which had been
-singled out as an appropriate mate for Patty. It, or he, was offered
-in form, and with circumstances of state and ceremony befitting the
-great occasion; and Patty was summoned to a consultation with her
-family--every member of which, not even excepting Elizabeth herself,
-was anxious to see the coronet on Patty's brow (which shows how
-hereditary superstitions and social prejudices linger in the blood,
-even after they seem to be eradicated from the brain)--for the purpose
-of receiving their advice, and stating her own intentions.
-
-"My intention," said Patty, firmly, with her little nose uplifted,
-and a high colour in her face, "is to put an end to this useless and
-culpable waste of time. The man I love and am _engaged to_ is working,
-and slaving, and waiting for me; and I, like the rest of you, am
-neglecting him, and sacrificing him, as if he were of no consequence
-whatever. _This_ shows me how I have been treating him. I will not
-do it any more. I did not become Miss Yelverton to repudiate all I
-undertook when I was only Patty King. I am Yelverton by name, but I am
-King by nature, still. I don't want to be a great swell. I have seen
-the world, and I am satisfied. Now I want to go home to Paul--as I
-ought to have done before. I will ask you, if you please, Kingscote, to
-take my passage for me at once. I shall go back next month, and I shall
-marry Paul Brion as soon as the steamer gets to Melbourne."
-
-Her brother-in-law put out his hand, and drew her to him, and kissed
-her. "Well done," he said, speaking boldly from his honest heart. "So
-you shall."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER L.
-
-
-"THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE."
-
-
-Patty softened down the terms in which she made her declaration of
-independence, when she found that it was received in so proper a
-spirit. She asked them if they had _any objection_--which, after
-telling them that it didn't matter whether they had or not, was a
-graceful act, tending to make things pleasant without committing
-anybody. But if they had objections (as of course they had) they
-abandoned them at this crisis. It was no use to fight against Paul
-Brion, so they accepted him, and made the best of him. The head of
-the family suddenly and forcibly realised that he should have been
-disappointed in his little sister-in law if she had acted otherwise;
-and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who would always so much rather help than
-hinder a generous project, no matter how opposed to the ethics of her
-class, was surprised herself by the readiness with which she turned her
-back on faded old lords and dissipated young baronets, and gave herself
-up to the pleasant task of making true lovers happy. Elizabeth repented
-swiftly of her own disloyalty to plighted love, temporary and shadowy
-as it was; and, seeing how matters really stood, acquiesced in the
-situation with a sense of great thankfulness that her Patty was proved
-so incorruptible by the tests she had gone through. Mrs. Yelverton's
-only trouble was the fear of separation in the family, which the
-ratification of the engagement seemed likely to bring about.
-
-But Patty was dissuaded from her daring enterprise, as first proposed;
-and Paul was written to by her brother and guardian, and adjured to
-detach himself from his newspaper for a while and come to England
-for a holiday--which, it was delicately hinted, might take the form
-of a bridal tour. And in that little sitting-room, sacred to the
-private interviews of the master and mistress of the house, great
-schemes were conceived and elaborated for the purpose of seducing Mrs.
-Brion's husband to remain in England for good and all. They settled
-his future for him in what seemed to them an irresistibly attractive
-way. He was to rent a certain picturesque manor-house in the Yelverton
-neighbourhood, and there, keeping Patty within her sister's reach,
-take up that wholesome, out-door country life which they were sure
-would be so good for his health and his temper. He could do a little
-high farming, and "whiles" write famous books; or, if his tastes and
-habits unfitted him for such a humdrum career, he could live in the
-world of London art and intellect, and be a "power" on behalf of those
-social reforms for which his brother-in-law so ardently laboured.
-Mr. Brion, senior, who had long ago returned to Seaview Villa, was,
-of course, to be sent for back again, to shelter himself under the
-broad Yelverton wing. The plan was all arranged in the most harmonious
-manner, and Elizabeth's heart grew more light and confident every time
-she discussed it.
-
-Paul received his pressing invitation--which he understood to mean,
-as it did, a permission to go and marry Patty from her sister's
-house---just after having been informed by Mrs. Aarons, "as a positive
-fact," that Miss Yelverton was shortly to be made a countess. He
-did not believe this piece of news, though Mrs. Aarons, who had an
-unaccountably large number of friends in the highest circles of London
-society, was ready to vouch for its authenticity with her life, if
-necessary; but, all the same, it made him feel moody, and surly, and
-ill-used, and miserable. It was his dark hour before the dawn. In
-Australia the summer was coming on. It was the middle of November. The
-"Cup" carnival was over for another year. The war in Egypt was also
-over, and the campaign of Murdoch's cricketers in England--two events
-which it seemed somehow natural to bracket together. The Honourable
-Ivo Bligh and his team had just arrived in Melbourne. The Austral had
-just been sunk in Sydney Harbour. It was early summer with us here,
-the brightest and gayest time of the whole year. In England the bitter
-winter was at hand--that dreaded English winter which the Australian
-shudders to think of, but which the Yelverton family had agreed to
-spend in their ancestral house, in order to naturalise and acclimatise
-the sisters, and that duty might be done in respect of those who had to
-bear the full extent of its bitterness, in hunger, and cold, and want.
-When Mr. Yelverton wrote to Paul to ask him to visit them, Patty wrote
-also to suggest that his precious health might suffer by coming over at
-such a season, and to advise him to wait until February or March. But
-the moment her lover had read those letters, he put on his hat and went
-forth to his office to demand leave for six months, and in a few days
-was on board the returning mail steamer on his way to England. He did
-not feel like waiting now--after waiting for two years--and she was not
-in the least afraid that he would accept her advice.
-
-Paul's answers arrived by post, as he was himself speeding through
-Europe--not so much absorbed in his mission as to neglect note-making
-by the way, and able to write brilliant articles on Gambetta's death,
-and other affairs of the moment, while waiting for boat or train to
-carry him to his beloved; and it was still only the first week in
-January when they received a telegram at Yelverton announcing his
-imminent arrival. Mr. Yelverton himself went to London to meet him,
-and Elizabeth rolled herself in furs and an opossum rug in her snug
-brougham and drove to the country railway station to meet them both,
-leaving Patty sitting by the wood fire in the hall. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was in town, and Eleanor with her, trying to see Rossetti's pictures
-through the murky darkness of the winter days, but in reality bent on
-giving the long-divided lovers as much as possible of their own society
-for a little while. The carriage went forth early in the afternoon,
-with its lamps lighted, and it returned when the cold night had settled
-down on the dreary landscape at five o'clock. Paul, ulstered and
-comfortered, walked into the dimly-lighted, warm, vast space, hung
-round with ghostly banners and antlers, and coats of mail, and pictures
-whereof little was visible but the frames, and marched straight into
-the ruddy circle of the firelight, where the small figure awaited him
-by the twinkling tea-table, herself only an outline against the dusk
-behind her; and the pair stood on the hearthrug and kissed each other
-silently, while Elizabeth, accompanied by her husband, went to take her
-bonnet off, and to see how Kingscote junior was getting on.
-
-After that Paul and Patty parted no more. They had a few peaceful
-weeks at Yelverton, during which the newspaper in Melbourne got
-nothing whatever from the fertile brain of its brilliant contributor
-(which, Patty thought, must certainly be a most serious matter for the
-proprietors); and in which interval they made compensation for all past
-shortcomings as far as their opportunities, which were profuse and
-various, allowed. It delighted Paul to cast up at Patty the several
-slights and snubs that she had inflicted on him in the old Myrtle
-Street days, and it was her great luxury in life to make atonement for
-them all--to pay him back a hundredfold for all that he had suffered on
-her account. The number of "soft things" that she played upon the piano
-from morning till night would alone have set him up in "Fridays" for
-the two years that he had been driven to Mrs. Aarons for entertainment;
-and the abject meekness of the little spitfire that he used to know
-was enough to provoke him to bully her, if he had had anything of the
-bully in him. The butter-like consistency to which she melted in this
-freezing English winter time was such as to disqualify her for ever
-from sitting in judgment upon Elizabeth's conjugal attitude. She fell
-so low, indeed, that she became, in her turn, a mark for Eleanor's
-scoffing criticism.
-
-"Well, I never thought to see you grovel to any living being--let alone
-a _man_--as you do to him," said that young lady on one occasion, with
-an impudent smile. "The citizens of Calais on their knees to Edward the
-Third were truculent swaggerers by comparison."
-
-"You mind your own business," retorted Patty, with a flash of her
-ancient spirit.
-
-Whereat Nelly rejoined that she would mind it by keeping her _fiancé_
-in his proper place when _her_ time came to have a _fiancé. She_ would
-not let him put a rope round her neck and tie it to his button-hole
-like a hat-string. She'd see him farther first.
-
-February came, and Mrs. Duff-Scott returned, and preparations for the
-wedding were set going. The fairy godmother was determined to make up
-for the disappointment she had suffered in Elizabeth's case by making a
-great festival of the second marriage of the family, and they let her
-have her wish, the result being that the bride of the poor press-writer
-had a _trousseau_ worthy of that coronet which she had extravagantly
-thrown away, and presents the list and description of which filled a
-whole column of the _Yelverton Advertiser_, and made the hearts of all
-the local maidens to burn with envy. In March they were married in
-Yelverton village church. They went to London for a week, and came back
-for a fortnight; and in April they crossed the sea again, bound for
-their Melbourne home.
-
-For all the beautiful arrangements that had been planned for them fell
-through. The Yelvertons had reckoned without their host--as is the
-incurable habit of sanguine human nature--with the usual result. Paul
-had no mind to abandon his chosen career and the country that, as a
-true Australian, he loved and served as he could never love and serve
-another, because he had married into a great English family; and Patty
-would not allow him to be persuaded. Though her heart was torn in
-two at the thought of parting with Elizabeth, and with that precious
-baby who was Elizabeth's rival in her affections, she promptly and
-uncomplainingly tore herself from both of them to follow her husband
-whithersoever it seemed good to him to go.
-
-"One cannot have everything in this world," said Patty philosophically,
-"and you and I, Elizabeth, have considerably more than our fair share.
-If we hadn't to pay something for our happiness, how could we expect it
-to last?"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LI.
-
-
-PATIENCE REWARDED.
-
-
-Eleanor, like Patty, withstood the seductions of English life and
-miscellaneous English admirers, and lived to be Miss Yelverton in her
-turn, unappropriated and independent. And, like both her sisters,
-though more by accident than of deliberate intention, she remained
-true to her first love, and, after seeing the world and supping
-full of pleasure and luxury, returned to Melbourne and married Mr.
-Westmoreland. That is to say, Mr. Westmoreland followed her to England,
-and followed her all over Europe--dogging her from place to place with
-a steadfast persistence that certainly deserved reward--until the
-major and Mrs. Duff-Scott, returning home almost immediately after
-Patty's marriage and departure, brought their one ewe lamb, which the
-Yelvertons had not the conscience to immediately deprive them of, back
-to Australia with them; when her persevering suitor promptly took his
-passage in the same ship. All this time Mr. Westmoreland had been
-as much in love as his capacity for the tender passion--much larger
-than was generally supposed--permitted. Whether it was that she was
-the only woman who dared to bully him and trample on him, and thereby
-won his admiration and respect--or whether his passion required that
-the object of it should be difficult of attainment--or whether her
-grace and beauty were literally irresistible to him--or whether he
-was merely the sport of that unaccountable fate which seems to govern
-or misgovern these affairs, it is not necessary to conjecture. No one
-asks for reasons when a man or woman falls a victim to this sort of
-infatuation. Some said it was because she had become rich and grand,
-but that was not the case--except in so far as the change in her
-social circumstances had made her tyrannical and impudent, in which
-sense wealth and consequence had certainly enhanced her attractions in
-his eyes. Thirty thousand pounds, though a very respectable marriage
-portion in England, is not sufficient to make a fortune-hunter of an
-Australian suitor in his position; and let me do the Australian suitor
-of all ranks justice and here state that fortune hunting, through the
-medium of matrimony, is a weakness that his worst enemy cannot accuse
-him of--whatever his other faults may be. Mr. Westmoreland, being fond
-of money, as a constitutional and hereditary peculiarity--if you
-can call that a peculiarity--was tempted to marry it once, when that
-stout and swarthy person in the satin gown and diamonds exercised her
-fascinations on him at the club ball, and he could have married it at
-any time of his bachelor life, the above possessor of it being, like
-Barkis, "willin'", and even more than "willin'". Her fortune was such
-that Eleanor's thirty thousand was but a drop in the bucket compared
-with it, and yet even he did not value it in comparison with the favour
-of that capricious young lady. So he followed her about from day to
-day and from place to place, as if he had no other aim in life than
-to keep her within sight, making himself an insufferable nuisance to
-her friends very often, but apparently not offending her by his open
-and inveterate pursuit. She was not kind, but she was not cruel, and
-yet she was both in turn to a distracting degree. She made his life
-an ecstasy of miserable longing for her, keeping him by her side like
-a big dog on a chain, and feeding him with stones (in the prettiest
-manner) when he asked for bread. But she grew very partial to her
-big dog in the process of tormenting him and witnessing his touching
-patience under it. She was "used to him," she said; and when, from
-some untoward circumstance over which he had no control, he was for a
-little while absent from her, she felt the gap he left. She sensibly
-missed him. Moreover, though she trampled on him herself, it hurt her
-to see others do it; and when Mrs. Duff-Scott and Kingscote Yelverton
-respectively aired their opinions of his character and conduct, she
-instantly went over to his side, and protested in her heart, if not in
-words, against the injustice and opprobrium that he incurred for her
-sake. So, when Elizabeth became the much-occupied mother of a family,
-and when Patty was married and gone off into the world with her Paul,
-Eleanor, left alone in her independence, began to reckon up what it was
-worth. The spectacle of her sisters' wedded lives gave her pleasant
-notions of matrimony, and the state of single blessedness, as such,
-never had any particular charms for her. Was it worth while, she asked
-herself, to be cruel any more?--and might she not just as well have a
-house and home of her own as Elizabeth and Patty? Her lover was only
-a big dog upon a chain, but then why shouldn't he be? Husbands were
-not required to be all of the same pattern. She didn't want to be
-domineered over. And she didn't see anybody she liked better. She might
-go farther and fare worse. And--she was getting older every day.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott broke in upon these meditations with the demand that
-she (Eleanor) should return with her to Melbourne, if only for a year
-or two, so that she should not be entirely bereft and desolate.
-
-"I must start at once," said the energetic woman, suddenly seized with
-a paroxysm of home sickness and a sense of the necessity to be doing
-something now that at Yelverton there seemed nothing more to do, and in
-order to shake off the depressing effect of the first break in their
-little circle. "I have been away too long--it is time to be looking
-after my own business. Besides, I can't allow Patty to remain in that
-young man's lodgings--full of dusty papers and tobacco smoke, and
-where, I daresay, she hasn't so much as a peg to hang her dresses on.
-She must get a house at once, and I must be there to see about it, and
-to help her to choose the furniture. Elizabeth, my darling, you have
-your husband and child--I am leaving you happy and comfortable--and
-I will come and see you again in a year or two, or perhaps you and
-Kingscote will take a trip over yourselves and spend a winter with us.
-But I must go now. And do, do--oh, _do_ let me keep Nelly for a little
-while longer! You know I will take care of her, and I couldn't bear the
-sight of my house with none of you in it!"
-
-So she went, and of course she took Eleanor, who secretly longed for
-the land of sunshine after her full dose of "that horrid English
-climate," and who, with a sister at either end of the world, perhaps
-missed Patty, who had been her companion by night as well as by day,
-more than she would miss Elizabeth. The girl was very ready to go. She
-wept bitterly when the actual parting came, but she got over it in a
-way that gave great satisfaction to Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major, and
-relieved them of all fear that they had been selfish about bringing
-her away. They joined the mail steamer at Venice, and there found Mr.
-Westmoreland on board. He had been summoned by his agent at home he
-explained; one of his partners wanted to retire, and he had to be there
-to sign papers. And since it had so happened that he was obliged to
-go back by this particular boat, he hoped the ladies would make him
-useful, and let him look after their luggage and things. Eleanor was
-properly and conventionally astonished by the curious coincidence,
-but had known that it would happen just as well as he. The chaperon,
-for her part, was indignant and annoyed by it--for a little while;
-afterwards she, too, reflected that Eleanor had spent two unproductive
-years in England and was growing older every day. Also that she might
-certainly go farther and fare worse. So Mr. Westmoreland was accepted
-as a member of the travelling party. All the heavy duties of escort
-were relegated to him by the major, and Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him hither
-and thither in a way that he had never been accustomed to. But he was
-meek and biddable in these days, and did not mind what uses he put
-his noble self to for his lady's sake. And she was very gracious. The
-conditions of ship life, at once so favourable and so very unfavourable
-for the growth of tender relations, suited his requirements in every
-way. She could not snub him under the ever-watchful eyes of their
-fellow-passengers. She could not send him away from her. She was even a
-little tempted, by that ingrained vanity of the female heart, to make a
-display before the other and less favoured ladies of the subject-like
-homage which she, queen-like, received. Altogether, things went on
-in a very promising manner. So that when, no farther than the Red
-Sea--while life seemed, as it does in that charming locality, reduced
-to its simple elements, and the pleasure of having a man to fan her was
-a comparatively strong sensation--when at this propitious juncture,
-Mr. Westmoreland bewailed his hard fate for the thousandth time, and
-wondered whether he should ever have the good fortune to find a little
-favour in her sight, it seemed to her that this sort of thing had gone
-on long enough, and that she might as well pacify him and have done
-with it. So she said, looking at him languidly with her sentimental
-blue eyes--"Well, if you'll promise not to bother me any more, I'll
-think about it."
-
-He promised faithfully not to bother her any more, and he did not. But
-he asked her presently, after fanning her in silence for some minutes,
-what colour she would like her carriage painted, and she answered
-promptly, "Dark green."
-
-While they were yet upon the sea, a letter--three letters, in
-fact--were despatched to Yelverton, to ask the consent of the head of
-the family to the newly-formed engagement, and not long after the party
-arrived in Melbourne the desired permission was received, Mr. and Mrs.
-Yelverton having learned the futility of opposition in these matters,
-and having no serious objection to Nelly's choice. And then again Mrs.
-Duff-Scott plunged into the delight of preparation for trousseau and
-wedding festivities--quite willing that the "poor dear fellow," as
-she now called him (having taken him to her capacious heart), should
-receive the reward of his devotion without unnecessary delay. The house
-was already there, a spick and span family mansion in Toorak, built
-by Mr. Westmoreland's father, and inherited by himself ere the first
-gloss was off the furniture; there was nothing to do to that but to
-arrange the chairs and sofas, and scatter Eleanor's wedding presents
-over the tables. There was nothing more _possible_. It was "hopeless,"
-Mrs. Duff-Scott said, surveying the bright and shining rooms through
-her double eye-glass. Unless it were entirely cleared out, and you
-started afresh from the beginning, she would defy you to make anything
-of it. So, as the bridegroom was particularly proud of his furniture,
-which was both new and costly, and would have scouted with indignation
-any suggestion of replacing it, Mrs. Duff-Scott abandoned Eleanor
-æsthetically to her fate. There was nothing to wait for, so the pair
-were made one with great pomp and ceremony not long after their return
-to Australia. Eleanor had the grandest wedding of them all, and really
-did wear "woven dew" on the occasion--with any quantity of lace about
-it of extravagant delicacy and preciousness. And now she has settled
-herself in her great, gay-coloured, handsome house, and is already
-a very fashionable and much-admired and much-sought-after lady--so
-overwhelmed with her social engagements and responsibilities sometimes
-that she says she doesn't know what she should do if she hadn't Patty's
-quiet little house to slip into now and then. But she enjoys it. And
-she enjoys leading her infatuated husband about with her, like a tame
-bear on a string, to show people how very, very infatuated he is. It is
-her idea of married happiness--at present.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LII.
-
-
-CONCLUSION.
-
-
-While Mrs. Westmoreland thus disports herself in the gay world, Mrs.
-Brion pursues her less brilliant career in much peace and quietness.
-When she and Paul came back to Australia, a bride and bridegroom, free
-to follow their own devices unhampered by any necessity to consider the
-feelings of relatives and friends, nothing would satisfy her but to go
-straight from the ship to Mrs. M'Intyre's, and there temporarily abide
-in those tobacco-perfumed rooms which had once been such forbidden
-ground to her. She scoffed at the Oriental; she turned up her nose at
-the Esplanade; she would not hear of any suites of apartments, no
-matter how superior they might be. Her idea of perfect luxury was to
-go and live as Paul had lived, to find out all the little details of
-his old solitary life which aforetime she had not dared to inquire
-into, to rummage boldly over his bookshelves and desk and cupboards,
-which once it would have been indelicate for her to so much as look
-at, to revel in the sense that it was improper no longer for her to
-make just as free as she liked with his defunct bachelorhood, the
-existing conditions of which had had so many terrors for her. When Paul
-represented that it was not a fit place for her to go into, she told
-him that there was no place in the world so fit, and begged so hard to
-be taken there, if only for a week or two, that he let her have her
-way. And a very happy time they spent at No. 7, notwithstanding many
-little inconveniences. And even the inconveniences had their charm.
-Then Mrs. Duff-Scott and Eleanor came out, when it was felt to be time
-to say good-bye to these humble circumstances--to leave the flowery
-carpet, now faded and threadbare, the dingy rep suite, and the smirking
-Cenci over the mantelpiece, for the delectation of lodgers to whom
-such things were appropriate; and to select a house and furnish it
-as befitted the occupation of Miss Yelverton that was and her (now)
-distinguished husband.
-
-By good fortune (they did not say it was good fortune, but they thought
-it), the old landlord next door saw fit to die at this particular
-juncture, and No. 6 was advertised to be let. Mr. and Mrs. Brion at
-once pounced upon the opportunity to secure the old house, which,
-it seemed to them, was admirably suited to their present modest
-requirements; and, by the joint exercise of Mrs. Duff-Scott's and
-Patty's own excellent taste, educated in England to the last degree
-of modern perfectibility, the purveyors of art furniture in our
-enlightened city transformed the humble dwelling of less than a dozen
-rooms into a little palace of esoteric delights. Such a subdued,
-harmonious brightness, such a refined simplicity, such an unpretentious
-air of comfort pervades it from top to bottom; and as a study of
-colour, Mrs. Duff-Scott will tell you, it is unique in the Australian
-colonies. It does her good--even her--to go and rest her eyes and her
-soul in the contemplation of it. Paul has the bureau in his study (and
-finds it very useful), and Patty has the piano in her drawing-room,
-its keyboard to a retired corner behind a portière (draped where once
-was a partition of folding doors), and its back, turned outwards,
-covered with a piece of South Kensington needlework. In this cosy nest
-of theirs, where Paul, with a new spur to his energies, works his
-special lever of the great machine that makes the world go on (when
-it would fain be lazy and sit down), doing great things for other men
-if gaining little glory for himself--and where Patty has afternoon
-teas and evenings that gather together whatever genuine exponents
-of intellectual culture may be going about, totally eclipsing the
-attractions of Mrs. Aarons's Fridays to serious workers in the fields
-of art and thought, without in any way dimming the brilliancy of those
-entertainments--the married pair seem likely to lead as happy a life
-as can be looked for in this world of compromises. It will not be
-all cakes and ale, by any means. The very happiest lives are rarely
-surfeited with these, perhaps, unwholesome delicacies, and I doubt if
-theirs will even be amongst the happiest. They are too much alike to be
-the ideal match. Patty is thin-skinned and passionate, too ready to be
-hurt to the heart by the mere little pin-pricks and mosquito bites of
-life; and Paul is proud and crotchety, and, like the great Napoleon,
-given to kick the fire with his boots when he is put out. There will
-be many little gusts of temper, little clouds of misunderstanding,
-disappointments, and bereavements, and sickness of mind and body; but,
-with all this, they will find their lot so blessed, by reason of the
-mutual love and sympathy that, through all vicissitudes, will surely
-grow deeper and stronger every day they live together, that they will
-not know how to conceive a better one. And, after all, that is the most
-one can ask or wish for in this world.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, being thus deprived of all her children, and finding
-china no longer the substantial comfort to her that it used to be,
-has fulfilled her husband's darkest predictions and "gone in" for
-philanthropy. In London she served a short but severe apprenticeship to
-that noble cause which seeks to remove the curse of past ignorance and
-cruelty from those to whom it has come down in hereditary entail--those
-on whose unhappy and degraded lives all the powers of evil held
-mortgages (to quote a thoughtful writer) before ever the deeds were
-put into their hands--and who are now preached at and punished for the
-crimes that, not they, but their tyrants of the past committed. She
-took a lesson in that new political economy which is to the old science
-what the spirit of modern religion is to the ecclesiasticism which
-has been its unwilling mother, and has learned that the rich _are_
-responsible for the poor--that, let these interesting debating clubs
-that call themselves the people's parliaments say what they like, the
-moral of the great social problem is that the selfishness of the past
-must be met by unselfishness in the present, if any of us would hope to
-see good days in the future.
-
-"It will not do," says Mrs. Duff-Scott to her clergyman, who deplores
-the dangerous opinions that she has imbibed, "to leave these matters to
-legislation. Of what use is legislation? Here are a lot of ignorant,
-vain men who know nothing about it, fighting with one another for what
-they can get, and the handful amongst them who are really anxious for
-the public good are left nowhere in the scrimmage. It is _we_ who must
-put our shoulders to the wheel, my dear sir--and the sooner we set
-about it the better. Look at the state of Europe"--she waves her hand
-abroad--"and see what things are coming to! The very heart of those
-countries is being eaten out by the cancer-growths of Nihilism and
-all sorts of dreadful isms, because the poor are getting educated to
-understand _why_ they are so poor. Look at wealthy England, with more
-than a million paupers, and millions and millions that are worse than
-paupers--England is comparatively quiet and orderly under it, and why?
-Because a number of good people like Mr. Yelverton"--the clergyman
-shakes his head at the mention of this wicked sinner's name--"have
-given themselves up to struggle honestly and face to face with the
-evils that nothing but a self-sacrificing and independent philanthropy
-can touch. I believe that if England escapes the explosion of this
-fermenting democracy, which is brewing such a revolution as the world
-has never seen, it will be owing to neither Church nor State--unless
-Church and State both mend their ways considerably--but to the
-self-denying work that is being done outside of them by those who have
-a single-hearted desire to help, to _really_ help, their wronged and
-wretched fellow-creatures."
-
-Thus this energetic woman, in the headlong ardour of her new
-conversion. And (if a woman, ready to admit her disabilities as
-such, may say so) it is surely better to be generous in the cause of
-a possibly mistaken conviction of your own, than to be selfish in
-deference to the opinions of other people, which, though they be the
-product of the combined wisdom of all the legislatures of the world,
-find no response in the instincts of your human heart. At any rate, I
-believe we shall be brought to think so some day--that great Someday
-which looms not far ahead of us, when, as a Cornish proverb puts it,
-if we have not ruled ourselves by the rudder we shall be ruled by
-the rock. And so Mrs. Duff-Scott works, and thinks, and writes and
-(of course) talks, and bothers her husband and her acquaintances for
-the public weal, and leads her clergyman a life that makes him wish
-sometimes that he had chosen a less harassing profession; economising
-her money, and her time, and all she has of this world's goods, that
-she may fulfil her sacred obligations to her fellow-creatures and help
-the fortunate new country in which she lives to keep itself from the
-evil ways that have wrought such trouble and danger to the old ones.
-
-And the man who set her to this good work pursues it himself, not in
-haste or under fitful and feverish impulses of what we call enthusiasm,
-but with refreshed energy and redoubled power, by reason of the great
-"means" that are now at his disposal, the faithful companionship that
-at once lightens and strengthens the labour of his hands and brain,
-and the deep passion of love for wife and home which keeps his heart
-warm with vital benevolence for all the world. Mr. Yelverton has
-not become more orthodox since his marriage; but that was not to be
-expected. In these days orthodoxy and goodness are not synonymous
-terms. It is doubtful, indeed, if orthodoxy has not rather become the
-synonym for the opposite of goodness, in the eyes of those who judge
-trees by their fruits and whose ideal of goodness is to love one's
-neighbour as one's self. While it is patent to the candid observer
-that the men who have studied the new book of Genesis which latter-day
-science has written for us, and have known that Exodus from the land of
-bondage which is the inevitable result of such study, conscientiously
-pursued, are, as a rule, distinguished by a large-minded justice and
-charity, sympathy and self-abnegation, a regard for the sacred ties
-of brotherhood binding man with man, which, being incompatible with
-the petty meannesses and cruelties so largely practised in sectarian
-circles, make their unostentatious influence to be felt like sweet and
-wholesome leaven all around them. Such a man is Elizabeth's husband,
-and as time goes on she ceases to wish for any change in him save that
-which means progression in his self-determined course. It was not
-lightly that he flew in the face of the religious traditions of his
-youth; rather did he crawl heavily and unwillingly away from them, in
-irresistible obedience to a conscience so sensitive and well-balanced
-that it ever pointed in the direction of the truth, like the magnetic
-needle to the pole, and in which he dared to trust absolutely, no
-matter how dark the outlook seemed. And now that, after much search,
-he has found his way, as far as he may hope to find it in this world,
-he is too intently concerned to discover what may be ahead of him,
-and in store for those who will follow him, to trouble himself and
-others with irrelevant trifles--to indulge in spites and jealousies,
-in ambitions that lead nowhere, in quarrels and controversies about
-nothing--to waste his precious strength and faculties in the child's
-play that with so many of us is the occupation of life, and like other
-child's play, full of pinches and scratches and selfish squabbling
-over trumpery toys. To one who has learned that "the hope of nature is
-in man," and something of what great nature is, and what man should
-be, there no longer exists much temptation to envy, hatred, malice,
-and uncharitableness, or any other of the vulgar vices of predatory
-humanity, not yet cured of its self-seeking propensities. He is
-educated above that level. His recognition of the brotherhood of men,
-and their common interests and high destiny, makes him feel for others
-in their differences with him, and patient and forbearing with those
-whose privileges have been fewer and whose light is less than his. He
-takes so wide an outlook over life that the little features of the
-foreground, which loom so large to those who cannot or will not look
-beyond them, are dwarfed to insignificance; or, rather, he can fix
-their just relation to the general design in human affairs, and so
-reads them with their context, as it were, and by the light of truth
-and justice spread abroad in his own heart--thus proving how different
-they are in essential value from what they superficially appear. So
-Mr. Yelverton, despite his constitutional imperiousness, is one of
-the most tolerant, fine-tempered, and generous of men; and he goes on
-his way steadily, bending circumstances to his will, but hurting no
-one in the process--rather lifting up and steadying and strengthening
-those with whom he comes in contact by the contagion of his bold spirit
-and his inflexible and incorruptible honesty; and proving himself in
-private life, as such men mostly do, a faithful exponent and practical
-illustration of all the domestic virtues.
-
-Elizabeth is a happy woman, and she knows it well. It seems to her
-that all the prosperity and comfort that should have been her mother's
-has, like the enormous wealth that she inherits, been accumulating
-at compound interest, through the long years representing the lapsed
-generation, for her sole profit and enjoyment. She strolls often
-through the old plantation, where, in a remote nook, a moss-grown
-column stands to mark the spot where a little twig, a hair's breadth
-lack of space, was enough to destroy one strong life and ruin another,
-and to entail such tremendous consequences upon so many people, living
-and unborn; and she frequently drives to Bradenham Abbey to call on or
-to dine with her step-uncle's wife, and sees the stately environment
-of her mother's girlhood--the "beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish
-leather on the walls," the "long gallery with the painted windows and
-the slippery oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a
-row"--which she contrasts with the bark-roofed cottage on the sea-cliff
-within whose narrow walls that beautiful and beloved woman afterwards
-lived and died. And then she goes home to Yelverton to her husband and
-baby, and asks what she has done to deserve to be so much better off
-than those who went before her?
-
-And yet, perhaps, if all accounts were added up, the sum total of loss
-and profit on those respective investments that we make, or that are
-made for us, of our property in life, would not be found to differ
-so very much, one case with another. We can neither suffer nor enjoy
-beyond a certain point. Elizabeth is rich beyond the dreams of avarice
-in all that to such a woman is precious and desirable, and happy in her
-choice and lot beyond her utmost expectations. Yet not so happy as to
-have nothing to wish for--which we know, as well as Patty, means "too
-happy to last." There is that hunger for her absent sisters, which
-tries in vain to satisfy itself in weekly letters of prodigious length,
-left as a sort of hostage to fortune, a valuable if not altogether
-trustworthy security for the safety of her dearest possessions.
-
-
-THE END.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Miss Kings, by Ada Cambridge
-
-
-*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 50476 ***
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-
-<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 50476 ***</div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 475px;">
-<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="475" alt="" />
-</div>
-
-<hr class="r5" />
-<h1>THE THREE MISS KINGS</h1>
-
-<h2>An Australian Story</h2>
-
-
-<h3>BY</h3>
-
-<h2>ADA CAMBRIDGE</h2>
-
-
-<h4>AUTHOR OF MY GUARDIAN</h4>
-
-
-<h5>NEW YORK</h5>
-
-<h5>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</h5>
-
-<h5>1891</h5>
-
-
-
-<hr class="full" />
-<p class="caption">CONTENTS</p>
-
-<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" style="font-size: 0.8em;">
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">A DISTANT VIEW</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">A LONELY EYRIE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">IV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">DEPARTURE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">V.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">PAUL</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">A MORNING WALK</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">IX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">MRS. AARONS</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">X.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">THE FIRST INVITATION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">DISAPPOINTMENT</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">TRIUMPH</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">PATTY IN UNDRESS</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">IN THE WOMB OF FATE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">"WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED"</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">AFTERNOON TEA</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">THE FAIRY GODMOTHER</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHINA <i>v.</i> THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">THE "CUP"</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CROSS PURPOSES</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">MR. YELVERTON'S MISSION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">AN OLD STORY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">OUT IN THE COLD</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">WHAT PAUL COULD NOT KNOW</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">SLIGHTED</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">"WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW-MEN"</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">PATTY CONFESSES</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">THE OLD AND THE NEW</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">IN RETREAT</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right"> XXXIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">THE DRIVE HOME</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">SUSPENSE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">HOW ELIZABETH MADE UP HER MIND</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">INVESTIGATION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">DISCOVERY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">THE TIME FOR ACTION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">AN ASSIGNATION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XL.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">MRS. DUFF-SCOTT HAS TO BE RECKONED WITH</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">MR. YELVERTON STATES HIS INTENTIONS</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">HER LORD AND MASTER</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">THE WEDDING DAY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">IN SILK ATTIRE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">PATTY CHOOSES HER CAREER</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">A FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOUR</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right"> XLVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">PROBATION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">YELVERTON</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">L.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_L">"THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE"</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">LI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_LI">PATIENCE REWARDED</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">LII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_LII">CONCLUSION</a></td></tr>
-</table>
-
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h3>THE THREE MISS KINGS.</h3>
-
-
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A DISTANT VIEW.</h4>
-
-
-<p>On the second of January, in the year 1880, three newly-orphaned
-sisters, finding themselves left to their own devices, with an income
-of exactly one hundred pounds a year a-piece, sat down to consult
-together as to the use they should make of their independence.</p>
-
-<p>The place where they sat was a grassy cliff overlooking a wide bay
-of the Southern Ocean&mdash;a lonely spot, whence no sign of human life
-was visible, except in the sail of a little fishing boat far away.
-The low sun, that blazed at the back of their heads, and threw their
-shadows and the shadow of every blade of grass into relief, touched
-that distant sail and made it shine like bridal satin; while a certain
-island rock, the home of sea-birds, blushed like a rose in the same
-necromantic light. As they sat, they could hear the waves breaking and
-seething on the sands and stones beneath them, but could only see the
-level plain of blue and purple water stretching from the toes of their
-boots to the indistinct horizon. That particular Friday was a terribly
-hot day for the colony, as weather records testify, but in this
-favoured spot it had been merely a little too warm for comfort, and,
-the sea-breeze coming up fresher and stronger as the sun went down, it
-was the perfection of an Australian summer evening at the hour of which
-I am writing.</p>
-
-<p>"What I want," said Patty King (Patty was the middle one), "is to
-make a dash&mdash;a straight-out plunge into the world, Elizabeth&mdash;no
-shilly-shallying and dawdling about, frittering our money away before
-we begin. Suppose we go to London&mdash;we shall have enough to cover our
-travelling expenses, and our income to start fair with&mdash;surely we could
-live anywhere on three hundred a year, in the greatest comfort&mdash;and
-take rooms near the British Museum?&mdash;or in South Kensington?&mdash;or
-suppose we go to one of those intellectual German towns, and study
-music and languages? What do you think, Nell? I am sure we could do it
-easily if we tried."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," said Eleanor, the youngest of the trio, "I don't care so long as
-we go <i>somewhere</i>, and do <i>something</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"What do you think, Elizabeth?" pursued the enterprising Patty, alert
-and earnest. "Life is short, and there is so much for us to see and
-learn&mdash;all these years and years we have been out of it so utterly! Oh,
-I wonder how we have borne it! How <i>have</i> we borne it&mdash;to hear about
-things and never to know or do them, like other people! Let us get
-into the thick of it at once, and recover lost time. Once in Europe,
-everything would be to our hand&mdash;everything would be possible. What do
-you think?"</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," said Elizabeth, with characteristic caution, "I think we are
-too young and ignorant to go so far afield just yet."</p>
-
-<p>"We are all over twenty-one," replied Patty quickly, "and though we
-have lived the lives of hermits, we are not more stupid than other
-people. We can speak French and German, and we are quite sharp enough
-to know when we are being cheated. We should travel in perfect safety,
-finding our way as we went along. And we <i>do</i> know something of those
-places&mdash;of Melbourne we know nothing."</p>
-
-<p>"We should never get to the places mother knew&mdash;the sort of life we
-have heard of. And Mr. Brion and Paul are with us here&mdash;they will tell
-us all we want to know. No, Patty, we must not be reckless. We might
-go to Europe by-and-bye, but for the present let Melbourne content us.
-It will be as much of the world as we shall want to begin with, and
-we ought to get some experience before we spend our money&mdash;the little
-capital we have to spend."</p>
-
-<p>"You don't call two hundred and thirty-five pounds a little, do you?"
-interposed Eleanor. This was the price that a well-to-do storekeeper in
-the neighbouring township had offered them for the little house which
-had been their home since she was born, and to her it seemed a fortune.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, dear, we don't quite know yet whether it is little or much,
-for, you see, we don't know what it costs to live as other people do.
-We must not be reckless, Patty&mdash;we must take care of what we have, for
-we have only ourselves in the wide world to depend on, and this is
-all our fortune. I should think no girls were ever so utterly without
-belongings as we are now," she added, with a little break in her gentle
-voice.</p>
-
-<p>She was half lying on the grass, leaning on her elbow and propping her
-head in her hand. The light behind her was growing momentarily less
-fierce, and the breeze from the quiet ocean more cool and delicious;
-and she had taken off her hat in order to see and breathe in freedom.
-A noble figure she was, tall, strong, perfect in proportion, fine in
-texture, full of natural dignity and grace&mdash;the product of several
-generations of healthy and cultured people, and therefore a truly
-well-bred woman. Her face was a little too grave and thoughtful for
-her years, perhaps&mdash;she was not quite eight-and-twenty&mdash;and it was
-not at all handsome, in the vulgar sense of the word. But a sweeter,
-truer, kinder face, with its wide, firm mouth and its open brows, and
-its candid grey eyes, one could not wish to see. She had smooth brown
-hair of excessive fineness and brightness (a peculiarity of good blood
-shared by all the sisters), and it was closely coiled in a knot of
-braids at the back of her head, without any of those curls and fringes
-about the temples that have since become the prevailing fashion. And
-she was dressed in a very common, loosely-made, black print gown,
-with a little frill of crape at her throat, and a leather belt round
-her by no means slender waist. Her feet were encased in large and
-clumsy boots, and her shapely hands, fine-skinned and muscular, were
-not encased at all, but were brown with constant exposure to sun and
-wind, and the wear and tear of miscellaneous housework. The impetuous
-Patty, who sat bolt upright clasping her knees, was like her, but with
-marked differences. She was smaller and slighter in make, though she
-had the same look of abundant health and vigour. Her figure, though it
-had never worn stays, was more after the pattern of modern womanhood
-than Elizabeth's, and her brilliant little face was exquisite in
-outline, in colour, in all the charms of bright and wholesome youth.
-Patty's eyes were dark and keen, and her lips were delicate and red,
-and her hair had two or three ripples in it, and was the colour of
-a half-ripe chestnut. And altogether, she was a very striking and
-unmistakeably handsome girl. She, too, wore a black print gown, and a
-straw sailor hat, with a black ribbon, tilted back on her bead, and
-the same country-made boots, and the same brown and gloveless hands.
-Eleanor, again, with the general family qualities of physical health
-and refinement, had her own characteristics. She was slim and tall&mdash;as
-slim as Patty, and nearly as tall as Elizabeth, as was shown in her
-attitude as she lay full length on the grass, with her feet on the
-edge of the cliff, and her head on her elder sister's knee. She had a
-pure white skin, and sentimental blue eyes, and lovely yellow hair,
-just tinged with red; and her voice was low and sweet, and her manners
-gentle and graceful, and altogether she was one of the most pleasing
-young women that ever blushed unseen like a wild flower in the savage
-solitudes of the bush. This young person was not in black&mdash;because, she
-said, the weather was too hot for black. She wore an old blue gingham
-that had faded to a faint lavender in course of numerous washings, and
-she had a linen handkerchief loosely tied round her neck, and cotton
-gloves on her hands. She was the only one of the sisters to whom it had
-occurred that, having a good complexion, it was worth while to preserve
-it.</p>
-
-<p>The parents of these three girls had been a mysterious couple, about
-whose circumstances and antecedents people knew just as much as they
-liked to conjecture, and no more. Mr. King had been on the diggings
-in the old days&mdash;that much was a fact, to which he had himself been
-known to testify; but where and what he had been before, and why he
-had lived like a pelican in the wilderness ever since, nobody knew,
-though everybody was at liberty to guess. Years and years ago, he
-came to this lone coast&mdash;a region of hopeless sand and scrub, which
-no squatter or free selector with a grain of sense would look at&mdash;and
-here on a bleak headland he built his rude house, piece by piece, in
-great part with his own hands, and fenced his little paddock, and made
-his little garden; and here he had lived till the other day, a morose
-recluse, who shunned his neighbours as they shunned him, and never was
-known to have either business or pleasure, or commerce of any kind
-with his fellow-men. It was supposed that he had made some money at
-the diggings, for he took up no land (there was none fit to take up,
-indeed, within a dozen miles of him), and he kept no stock&mdash;except a
-few cows and pigs for the larder; and at the same time there was never
-any sign of actual poverty in his little establishment, simple and
-humble as it was. And it was also supposed&mdash;nay, it was confidently
-believed&mdash;that he was not, so to speak, "all there." No man who was not
-"touched" would conduct himself with such preposterous eccentricity as
-that which had marked his long career in their midst&mdash;so the neighbours
-argued, not without a show of reason. But the greatest mystery in
-connection with Mr. King was Mrs. King. He was obviously a gentleman,
-in the conventional sense of the word, but she was, in every sense,
-the most beautiful and accomplished lady that ever was seen, according
-to the judgment of those who knew her&mdash;the women who had nursed her in
-her confinements, and washed and scrubbed for her, and the tradesmen
-of the town to whom she had gone in her little buggy for occasional
-stores, and the doctor and the parson, and the children whom she had
-brought up in such a wonderful manner to be copies (though, it was
-thought, poor ones) of herself. And yet she had borne to live all
-the best years of her life, at once a captive and an exile, on that
-desolate sea-shore&mdash;and had loved that harsh and melancholy man with
-the most faithful and entire devotion&mdash;and had suffered her solitude
-and privations, the lack of everything to which she <i>must</i> have been
-once accustomed, and the fret and trouble of her husband's bitter
-moods&mdash;without a murmur that anybody had ever heard.</p>
-
-<p>Both of them were gone now from the cottage on the cliff where they had
-lived so long together. The idolised mother had been dead for several
-years, and the harsh, and therefore not much loved nor much mourned,
-father had lain but a few weeks in his grave beside her; and they had
-left their children, as Elizabeth described it, more utterly without
-belongings than ever girls were before. It was a curious position
-altogether. As far as they knew, they had no relations, and they had
-never had a friend. Not one of them had left their home for a night
-since Eleanor was born, and not one invited guest had slept there
-during the whole of that period. They had never been to school, or had
-any governess but their mother, or any experience of life and the ways
-of the world save what they gained in their association with her, and
-from the books that she and their father selected for them. According
-to all precedent, they ought to have been dull and rustic and stupid
-(it was supposed that they were, because they dressed themselves so
-badly), but they were only simple and truthful in an extraordinary
-degree. They had no idea what was the "correct thing" in costume or
-manners, and they knew little or nothing of the value of money; but
-they were well and widely read, and highly accomplished in all the
-household arts, from playing the piano to making bread and butter, and
-as full of spiritual and intellectual aspirations as the most advanced
-amongst us.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A LONELY EYRIE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>"Then we will say Melbourne to begin with. Not for a permanence, but
-until we have gained a little more experience," said Patty, with
-something of regret and reluctance in her voice. By this time the sun
-had set and drawn off all the glow and colour from sea and shore. The
-island rock was an enchanted castle no longer, and the sails of the
-fishing-boats had ceased to shine. The girls had been discussing their
-schemes for a couple of hours, and had come to several conclusions.</p>
-
-<p>"I think so, Patty. It would be unwise to hurry ourselves in making
-our choice of a home. We will go to Melbourne and look about us. Paul
-Brion is there. He will see after lodgings for us and put us in the
-way of things generally. That will be a great advantage. And then the
-Exhibition will be coming&mdash;it would be a pity to miss that. And we
-shall feel more as if we belonged to the people here than elsewhere,
-don't you think? They are more likely to be kind to our ignorance and
-help us."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, we don't want anyone to help us."</p>
-
-<p>"Someone must teach us what we don't know, directly or indirectly&mdash;and
-we are not above being taught."</p>
-
-<p>"But," insisted Patty, "there is no reason why we should be beholden
-to anybody. Paul Brion may look for some lodgings for us, if he
-likes&mdash;just a place to sleep in for a night or two&mdash;and tell us where
-we can find a house&mdash;that's all we shall want to ask of him or of
-anybody. We will have a house of our own, won't we?&mdash;so as not to be
-overlooked or interfered with."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, of course!" said Eleanor promptly. "A landlady on the premises is
-not to be thought of for a moment. Whatever we do, we don't want to be
-interfered with, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"No, my dear&mdash;you can't desire to be free from interference&mdash;unpleasant
-interference&mdash;more than I do. Only I don't think we shall be able to be
-so independent as Patty thinks. I fancy, too, that we shall not care to
-be, when we begin to live in the world with other people. It will be so
-charming to have friends!"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh&mdash;friends!" Patty exclaimed, with a little toss of the head. "It is
-too soon to think about friends&mdash;when we have so much else to think
-about! We must have some lessons in Melbourne, Elizabeth. We will go
-to that library every day and read. We will make our stay there a
-preparation for England and Germany and Italy. Oh, Nell, Nell! think of
-seeing the great Alps and the Doge's Palace before we die!"</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" responded Eleanor, drawing a long breath.</p>
-
-<p>They all rose from the grass and stood still an instant, side by side,
-for a last look at the calm ocean which had been the background of
-their simple lives. Each was sensible that it was a solemn moment, in
-view of the changes to come, but not a word was spoken to imply regret.
-Like all the rest of us, they were ungrateful for the good things of
-the present and the past, and were not likely to understand how much
-they loved the sea, that, like the nurse of Rorie Mhor, had lulled them
-to sleep every night since they were born, while the sound of its many
-waters was still in their ears.</p>
-
-<p>"Sam Dunn is out late," said Eleanor, pointing to a dark dot far away,
-that was a glittering sail a little while ago.</p>
-
-<p>"It is a good night for fishing," said Patty.</p>
-
-<p>And then they turned their faces landward, and set forth on their road
-home. Climbing to the top of the cliff on the slope of which they had
-been sitting, they stood upon a wide and desolate heath covered in all
-directions with a short, stiff scrub, full of wonderful wild-flowers
-(even at this barren season of the year), but without a tree of any
-sort; a picturesque desert, but still a desert, though with fertile
-country lying all around it&mdash;as utterly waste as the irreclaimable
-Sahara. Through this the girls wended their way by devious tracks
-amongst the bushes, ankle deep in the loose sand; and then again
-striking the cliff, reached a high point from which they had a distant
-view of human habitations&mdash;a little township, fringing a little bay;
-a lighthouse beyond it, with its little star shining steadily through
-the twilight; a little pier, running like a black thread through the
-silvery surf; and even a little steamer from Melbourne lying at the
-pier-head, veiling the rock-island, that now frowned like a fortress
-behind it, in a thin film of grey smoke from its invisible little
-funnels. But they did not go anywhere near these haunts of their
-fellow-men. Hugging the cliff, which was here of a great height,
-and honeycombed with caves in which the green sea-water rumbled and
-thundered like a great drum in the calm weather, and like a furious
-bombardment in a storm, they followed a slender track worn in the scant
-grass by their own light feet, until they came to a little depression
-in the line of the coast&mdash;a hollow scooped out of the great headland
-as if some Titanic monster of a prehistoric period had risen up out of
-the waves and bitten it&mdash;where, sheltered and hidden on three sides by
-grassy banks, sloping gently upward until they overtopped the chimneys,
-and with all the great plain of the sea outspread beneath the front
-verandah, stood the house which had been, but was to be no more, their
-home.</p>
-
-<p>It was well worth the money that the storekeeper had offered for it. It
-was a really charming house, though people had not been accustomed to
-look at it in that light&mdash;though it was built of roughest weatherboard
-that had never known a paint-brush, and heavily roofed with great
-sheets of bark that were an offence to the provincial eye, accustomed
-to the chaste elegance of corrugated zinc. A strong, and sturdy,
-and genuine little house&mdash;as, indeed, it had to be to hold its own
-against the stormy blasts that buffeted it; mellowed and tanned with
-time and weather, and with all its honest, rugged features softened
-under a tender drapery of hardy English ivy and climbing plants that
-patient skill and care had induced to grow, and even to thrive in
-that unfriendly air. The verandah, supported on squat posts, was a
-continuation of the roof; and that roof, with green leaves curling
-upward over it, was so conspicuously solid, and so widely overspread
-and over-shadowed the low walls, that it was about all that could be
-seen of the house from the ridges of the high land around it. But
-lower down, the windows&mdash;nearly all set in rude but substantial door
-frames&mdash;opened like shy eyes in the shadow of the deep eaves of the
-verandah, like eyes that had expression in them; and the retiring
-walls bore on numerous nails and shelves a miscellaneous but orderly
-collection of bird-cages, flower boxes, boating and fishing apparatus,
-and odds and ends of various kinds, that gave a charming homely
-picturesqueness to the quaint aspect of the place. The comparatively
-spacious verandah, running along the front of the house (which had been
-made all front, as far as possible), was the drawing-room and general
-living room of the family during the greater part of the year. Its
-floor, of unplaned hardwood, dark with age and wear, but as exquisitely
-clean as sweeping and scrubbing could make it, was one of the loveliest
-terraces in the country for the view that it afforded&mdash;so our girls
-will maintain, at any rate, to their dying day. Now that they see it no
-more, they have passionate memories of their beloved bay, seen through
-a frame of rustling leaves from that lofty platform&mdash;how it looked in
-the dawn and sunrise, in the intensely blue noon, in the moonlight
-nights, and when gales and tempests were abroad, and how it sounded
-in the hushed darkness when they woke out of their sleep to listen
-to it&mdash;the rhythmic fall of breaking waves on the rocks below, the
-tremulous boom that filled the air and seemed to shake the foundations
-of the solid earth. They have no wish to get back to their early home
-and their hermit life there now&mdash;they have tasted a new wine that is
-better than the old; but, all the same, they think and say that from
-the lonely eyrie where they were nursed and reared they looked out
-upon such a scene as the wide world would never show them any more.
-In the foreground, immediately below the verandah, a little grass, a
-few sturdy shrubs, and such flowers as could keep their footing in so
-exposed a place, clothed the short slope of the edge of the cliff,
-down the steep face of which a breakneck path zig-zagged to the beach,
-where only a narrow strip of white sand, scarcely more than a couple of
-yards wide, was uncovered when the tide was out. Behind the house was a
-well-kept, if rather sterile, kitchen garden; and higher up the cliff,
-but still partly sheltered in the hollow, a very small farm-yard and
-one barren little paddock.</p>
-
-<p>Through a back gate, by way of the farm-yard and kitchen garden, the
-sisters entered their domain when it was late enough to be called
-night, though the twilight lingered, and were welcomed with effusion
-by an ugly but worthy little terrier which had been bidden to keep
-house, and had faithfully discharged that duty during their absence. As
-they approached the house, a pet opossum sprang from the dairy roof to
-Eleanor's shoulder, and a number of tame magpies woke up with a sleepy
-scuffle and gathered round her. A little monkey-bear came cautiously
-down from the only gum tree that grew on the premises, grunting and
-whimpering, and crawled up Patty's skirts; and any quantity of cats
-and kittens appealed to Elizabeth for recognition. The girls spoke to
-them all by name, as if they had been so many children, cuffed them
-playfully for their forward manners, and ordered them to bed or to
-whatever avocations were proper to the hour. When a match was struck
-and the back-door opened, the opossum took a few flying leaps round
-the kitchen, had his ears boxed, and was flung back again upon the
-dairy roof. The little bear clung whining to his mistress, but was
-also put outside with a firm hand; and the cats and magpies were swept
-over the threshold with a broom. "<i>Brats!</i>" cried Patty with ferocious
-vehemence, as she closed the kitchen door sharply, at the risk of
-cutting off some of their noses; "what <i>are</i> we to do with them? They
-seem as if they <i>knew</i> we were going away, the aggravating little
-wretches. There, there"&mdash;raising the most caressing voice in answer
-to the whine of the monkey-bear&mdash;"don't cry, my pet! Get up your tree,
-darling, and have a nice supper and go to sleep."</p>
-
-<p>Then, having listened for a few seconds at the closed door, she
-followed Elizabeth through the kitchen to the sitting-room, and, while
-her sister lit the lamp, stepped through the French window to sniff
-the salt sea air. For some time the humble members of the family were
-heard prowling disconsolately about the house, but none of them, except
-the terrier, appeared upon the verandah, where the ghost of their evil
-genius still sat in his old armchair with his stick by his side. They
-had been driven thence so often and with such memorable indignities
-that it would never occur to them to go there any more. And so the
-sisters were left in peace. Eleanor busied herself in the kitchen for
-awhile, setting her little batch of bread by the embers of the hearth,
-in view of a hot loaf for their early breakfast, while she sang some
-German ballads to herself with an ear for the refinements of both
-language and music that testified to the thoroughness of her mother's
-culture, and of the methods by which it had been imparted. Patty went
-to the dairy for a jug of milk for supper, which frugal meal was
-otherwise prepared by Elizabeth's hands; and at nine o'clock the trio
-gathered round the sitting-room table to refresh themselves with thick
-slices of bread and jam, and half-an-hour's gossip before they went to
-bed.</p>
-
-<p>A pretty and pathetic picture they made as they sat round that
-table, with the dim light of one kerosene lamp on their strikingly
-fair faces&mdash;alone in the little house that was no longer theirs,
-and in the wide world, but so full of faith and hope in the unknown
-future&mdash;discussing ways and means for getting their furniture
-to Melbourne. That time-honoured furniture, and their immediate
-surroundings generally, made a poor setting for such a group&mdash;a long,
-low, canvas-lined room, papered with prints from the <i>Illustrated
-London News</i> (a pictorial European "history of our own times"), from
-the ceiling to the floor, the floor being without a carpet, and the
-glass doors furnished only with a red baize curtain to draw against
-the sea winds of winter nights. The tables and chairs were of the
-same order of architecture as the house; the old mahogany bureau,
-with its brass mounting and multitudinous internal ramifications, was
-ridiculously out of date and out of fashion (as fashion was understood
-in that part of the world); the ancient chintz sofa, though as easy
-as a feather bed, and of a capacity equal to the accommodation of
-Giant Blunderbore, was obviously home-made and not meant to be
-too closely criticised; and even the piano, which was a modern and
-beautiful instrument in itself, hid its music in a stained deal case
-than which no plain egg of a nightingale could be plainer. And yet this
-odd environment for three beautiful and cultured women had a certain
-dignity and harmoniousness about it&mdash;often lacking in later and more
-luxurious surroundings. It was in tune with those simple lives, and
-with the majestic solitude of the great headland and the sea.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Melbourne people, when they go to bed, chain up their doors carefully,
-and bar all their windows, lest the casual burglar should molest them.
-Bush people, no more afraid of the night than of the day, are often
-quite unable to tell you whether there is such a thing as an effective
-lock upon the premises. So our girls, in their lonely dwelling on the
-cliff, slept in perfect peace and security, with the wind from the sea
-blowing over their faces through the open door-windows at the foot of
-their little beds. Dan Tucker, the terrier, walked softly to and fro
-over their thresholds at intervals in the course of the night, and kept
-away any stray kitten that had not yet learned its proper place; that
-was all the watch and ward that he or they considered necessary.</p>
-
-<p>At five o'clock in the morning, Elizabeth King, who had a little slip
-of a room to herself, just wide enough to allow the leaves of the
-French window at the end of it to be held back, when open, by buttons
-attached to the side walls, stirred in her sleep, stretched herself,
-yawned, and then springing up into a sitting posture, propped herself
-on her pillows to see the new day begin. It was a sight to see, indeed,
-from that point of view; but it was not often that any of them woke
-from their sound and healthy slumber at this time of the year, until
-the sun was high enough to shoot a level ray into their eyes. At five
-o'clock the surface of the great deep had not begun to shine, but it
-was light enough to see the black posts and eaves of the verandah, and
-the stems and leaves that twined about them, outlined sharply upon the
-dim expanse. Elizabeth's bed had no footrail, and there was no chair
-or dressing-table in the way to impede a clear view of sea and sky.
-As she lay, the line of the horizon was drawn straight across the
-doorway, about three feet above the edge of the verandah floor; and
-there a faint pink streak, with fainter flushes on a bank of clouds
-above it, showed where the sun was about to rise. The waves splashed
-heavily on the beach, and boomed in the great caves of the rocks below;
-the sea-gulls called to each other with their queer little cry, at
-once soft and shrill; and the magpies piped and chattered all around
-the house, and more cocks than could anyhow be accounted for crowed
-a mutual defiance far and near. And yet, oh, how still&mdash;how solemnly
-still&mdash;it was! I am not going to describe that sunrise, though I saw
-one exactly like it only this very morning. I have seen people take out
-their tubes and brushes, and sit down with placid confidence to paint
-sun-kissed hills, and rocks, and seas; and, if you woke them up early
-enough, they would "sketch" the pink and golden fire of this flaming
-dawn without a moment's hesitation. But I know better.</p>
-
-<p>Ere the many-coloured transformation scene had melted in dazzle
-of daylight, Elizabeth was dressing herself by her still open
-window&mdash;throwing long shadows as she moved to and fro about the now
-sun-flooded room. Patty was busy in her dairy churning, with a number
-of her pets round the door, hustling each other to get at the milk
-dish set down for their breakfast&mdash;the magpies tugging at the cats and
-kittens by ears and tail, and the cats and kittens cuffing the magpies
-smartly. Eleanor, singing her German ballads still, was hard at work
-in the kitchen, baking delicate loaves for breakfast, and attending to
-kitchen matters generally. The elder sister's office on this occasion
-was to let out and feed the fowls, to sweep and dust, and to prepare
-the table for their morning meal. Never since they had grown out of
-childhood had they known the sensation of being waited upon by a
-servant, and as yet their system of education had been such that they
-did not know what the word "menial" meant. To be together with no one
-to interfere with them, and independent of everybody but themselves,
-was a habit whose origin was too remote for inquiry, and that had
-become a second nature and a settled theory of life&mdash;a sort of instinct
-of pride and modesty, moreover, though an instinct too natural to be
-aware of its own existence.</p>
-
-<p>When the little loaves were done and the big ones put in the oven,
-Eleanor fetched a towel, donned a broad hat, and, passing out at the
-front of the house, ran lightly down the steep track on the face of
-the cliff to their bath-house on the beach&mdash;a little closet of rough
-slabs built in the rock above high water; whence she presently emerged
-in a scanty flannel garment, with her slender white limbs bare, and
-flung herself like a mermaid into the sea. There were sharks in that
-bay sometimes, and there were devil-fish too (Sam Dunn had spread one
-out, star-wise, on a big boulder close by, and it lay there still,
-with its horrible arms dangling from its hideous bag of a body, to be
-a warning to these venturesome young ladies, who, he fully expected,
-would be "et up" some day like little flies by a spider); but they
-found their safety in the perfect transparency of the water, coming
-in from the great pure ocean to the unsullied rocks, and kept a wary
-watch for danger. While Eleanor was disporting herself, Patty joined
-her, and after Patty, Elizabeth; and one by one they came up, glowing
-and dripping, like&mdash;no, I <i>won't</i> be tempted to make that familiar
-classical comparison&mdash;like nothing better than themselves for artistic
-purposes. As Elizabeth, who was the last to leave the water, walked
-up the short flight of steps to her little dressing closet, straight
-and stately, with her full throat and bust and her nobly shaped limbs,
-she was the very model that sculptors dream of and hunt for (as
-many more might be, if brought up as she had been), but seldom are
-fortunate enough to find. In her gown and leather belt, her beauty of
-figure, of course, was not so obvious: the raiment of civilisation,
-however simple, levelled it from the standard of Greek art to that of
-conventional comparison with other dressed-up women&mdash;by which, it must
-be confessed, she suffered.</p>
-
-<p>Having assumed this raiment, she followed her sisters up the cliff
-path to the house; and there she found them talking volubly with Mrs.
-Dunn, who had brought them, with Sam's best respects, a freshly caught
-schnapper for their breakfast. Mrs. Dunn was their nearest neighbour,
-their only help in domestic emergencies, and of late days their devoted
-and confidential friend. Sam, her husband, had for some years been a
-ministering angel in the back yard, a purveyor of firewood and mutton,
-a killer of pigs, and so on; and he also had taken the orphan girls
-under his protection, so far as he could, since they had been "left."</p>
-
-<p>"Look at this!" cried Eleanor, holding it up&mdash;it took both hands to
-hold it, for it weighed about a dozen pounds; "did you ever see such
-a fish, Elizabeth? Breakfast indeed! Yes, we'll have it to breakfast
-to-day and to-morrow too, and for dinner and tea and supper. Oh, how
-stupid Sam is! Why didn't he send it to market? Why didn't he take it
-down to the steamer? He's not a man of business a bit, Mrs. Dunn&mdash;he'll
-never make his fortune this way. Get the pan for me, Patty, and set the
-fat boiling. We'll fry a bit this very minute, and you shall stay and
-help us to eat it, Mrs. Dunn."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, my dear Miss Nelly&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth, take charge of her, and don't let her go. Don't listen to
-her. We have not seen her for three whole days, and we want her to
-tell us about the furniture. Keep her safe, and Patty and I will have
-breakfast ready in a minute."</p>
-
-<p>And in a short time the slice of schnapper was steaming on the table&mdash;a
-most simply appointed breakfast table, but very clean and dainty in
-its simplicity&mdash;and Mrs. Dunn sat down with her young <i>protégées,</i> and
-sipped her tea and gave them matronly advice, with much enjoyment of
-the situation.</p>
-
-<p>Her advice was excellent, and amounted to this&mdash;"Don't you go for to
-take a stick o' that there furniture out o' the place." They were
-to have an auction, she said; and go to Melbourne with the proceeds
-in their pockets. Hawkins would be glad o' the beds, perhaps, with
-his large family; as Mrs. Hawkins had a lovely suite in green rep,
-she wouldn't look at the rest o' the things, which, though very
-comf'able, no doubt&mdash;very nice indeed, my dears&mdash;were not what <i>ladies
-and gentlemen</i> had in their houses <i>now-a-days</i>. "As for that there
-bureau"&mdash;pointing to it with her teaspoon&mdash;"if you set that up in a
-Melbourne parlour, why, you'd just have all your friends laughing at
-you."</p>
-
-<p>The girls looked around the room with quick eyes, and then looked at
-each other with half-grave and half amused dismay. Patty spoke up with
-her usual promptness.</p>
-
-<p>"It doesn't matter in the least to us what other people like to have
-in their houses," said she. "And that bureau, as it happens, is very
-valuable, Mrs. Dunn: it belonged to one of the governors before we had
-it, and Mr. Brion says there is no such cabinet work in these days. He
-says it was made in France more than a hundred years ago."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, my dear. So you might say that there was no such stuff now-a-days
-as what them old gowns was made of, that your poor ma wore when she was
-a girl. But you wouldn't go for to wear them old gowns now. I daresay
-the bureau was a grand piece o' furniture once, but it's out o' fashion
-now, and when a thing is out o' fashion it isn't worth anything. Sell
-it to Mr. Brion if you can; it would be a fine thing for a lawyer's
-office, with all them little shelves and drawers. He might give you
-a five-pound note for it, as he's a friend like, and you could buy a
-handsome new cedar chiffonnier for that."</p>
-
-<p>"Mrs. Dunn," said Eleanor, rising to replenish the worthy matron's
-plate, with Patty's new butter and her own new bread, "we are not going
-to sell that bureau&mdash;no, not to anybody. It has associations, don't you
-understand?&mdash;and also a set of locks that no burglar could pick if he
-tried ever so. We are not going to sell our bureau&mdash;nor our piano&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, but, my dear Miss Nelly&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"My dear Mrs. Dunn, it cost ninety guineas, I do assure you, only five
-years ago, and it is as modern and fashionable as heart could wish."</p>
-
-<p>"Fashionable! why, it might as well be a cupboard bedstead, in that
-there common wood. Mrs. Hawkins gave only fifty pounds for hers, and it
-is real walnut and carved beautiful."</p>
-
-<p>"We are not going to sell that piano, my dear woman." Though Nelly
-appeared to wait meekly upon her elder sisters' judgment, it often
-happened that she decided a question that was put before them in this
-prompt way. "And I'll tell you for why," she continued playfully. "You
-shut your eyes for five minutes&mdash;wait, I'll tie my handkerchief over
-them"&mdash;and she deftly blindfolded the old woman, whose stout frame
-shook with honest giggles of enjoyment at this manifestation of Miss
-Nelly's fun. "Now," said Nelly, "don't laugh&mdash;don't remember that you
-are here with us, or that there is such a thing as a cupboard bedstead
-in the world. Imagine that you are floating down the Rhine on a
-moonlight night&mdash;no, by the way, imagine that you are in a drawing-room
-in Melbourne, furnished with a lovely green rep suite, and a handsome
-new cedar chiffonnier, and a carved walnut piano&mdash;and that a beautiful,
-fashionable lady, with scent on her pocket-handkerchief, is sitting at
-that piano. And&mdash;and listen for a minute."</p>
-
-<p>Whereupon, lifting her hands from the old woman's shoulders, she
-crossed the room, opened the piano noiselessly, and began to play her
-favourite German airs&mdash;the songs of the people, that seem so much
-sweeter and more pathetic and poetic than the songs of any other
-people&mdash;mixing two or three of them together and rendering them with a
-touch and expression that worked like a spell of enchantment upon them
-all. Elizabeth sat back in her chair and lost herself in the visions
-that appeared to her on the ceiling. Patty spread her arms over the
-table and leaned towards the piano, breathing a soft accompaniment
-of German words in tender, sighing undertones, while her warm pulses
-throbbed and her eyes brightened with the unconscious passion that was
-stirred in her fervent soul. Even the weather-beaten old charwoman fell
-into a reverent attitude as of a devotee in church.</p>
-
-<p>"There," said Eleanor, taking her hands from the keys and shutting up
-the instrument, with a suddenness that made them jump. "Now I ask you,
-Mrs. Dunn, as an honest and truthful woman&mdash;<i>can</i> you say that that is
-a piano to be <i>sold?</i>"</p>
-
-<p>"Beautiful, my dear, beautiful&mdash;it's like being in heaven to hear the
-like o' that," the old woman responded warmly, pulling the bandage
-from her eyes. "But you'd draw music from an old packing case, I
-do believe." And it was found that Mrs. Dunn was unshaken in her
-conviction that pianos were valuable in proportion to their external
-splendour, and their tone sweet and powerful by virtue solely of the
-skill of the fingers that played upon them. If Mr. King had given
-ninety guineas for "that there"&mdash;about which she thought there must be
-some mistake&mdash;she could only conclude that his rural innocence had been
-imposed upon by wily city tradesmen.</p>
-
-<p>"Well," said Nelly, who was now busy collecting the crockery on the
-breakfast table, "we must see if we can't furbish it up, Mrs. Dunn.
-We can paint a landscape on the front, perhaps, and tie some pink
-satin ribbons on the handles. Or we might set it behind a curtain, or
-in a dark corner, where it will be heard and not seen. But keep it
-we must&mdash;both that and the bureau. You would not part with those two
-things, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," said Elizabeth, "it would grieve me to part with anything."</p>
-
-<p>"But I think," said Patty, "Mrs. Dunn may be right about the other
-furniture. What would it cost to take all our things to Melbourne, Mrs.
-Dunn?"</p>
-
-<p>"Twice as much as they are worth, Miss Patty&mdash;three times as much.
-Carriage is awful, whether by sea or land."</p>
-
-<p>"It is a great distance," said Patty, thoughtfully, "and it would be
-very awkward. We cannot take them with us, for we shall want first
-to find a place to put them in, and we could not come back to fetch
-them. I think we had better speak to Mr. Hawkins, Elizabeth, and, if
-he doesn't want them, have a little auction. We must keep some things,
-of course; but I am sure Mr. Hawkins would let them stay till we could
-send for them, or Mr. Brion would house them for us."</p>
-
-<p>"We should feel very free that way, and it would be nice to buy new
-things," said Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"Or we might not have to buy&mdash;we might put this money to the other,"
-said Patty. "We might find that we did not like Melbourne, and then we
-could go to Europe at once without any trouble."</p>
-
-<p>"And take the pianner to Europe along with you?" inquired Mrs. Dunn.
-"And that there bureau?"</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>DEPARTURE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>They decided to sell their furniture&mdash;with the exception of the piano
-and the bureau, and sundry treasures that could bestowed away in the
-latter capacious receptacle; and, on being made acquainted with the
-fact, the obliging Mr. Hawkins offered to take it as it stood for a
-lump sum of £50, and his offer was gratefully accepted. Sam Dunn was
-very wroth over this transaction, for he knew the value of the dairy
-and kitchen utensils and farm-yard appliances, which went to the new
-tenant along with the household furniture that Mrs. Dunn, as a candid
-friend, had disparaged and despised; and he reproached Elizabeth,
-tenderly, but with tears in his eyes, for having allowed herself to
-be "done" by not taking Mr. Brion's advice upon the matter, and shook
-his head over the imminent fate of these three innocent and helpless
-lambs about to fling themselves into the jaws of the commercial
-wolves of Melbourne. Elizabeth told him that she did not like to be
-always teasing Mr. Brion, who had already done all the legal business
-necessary to put them in possession of their little property, and had
-refused to take any fee for his trouble; that, as they had nothing more
-to sell, no buyer could "do" them again; and that, finally, they all
-thought fifty pounds a great deal of money, and were quite satisfied
-with their bargain. But Sam, as a practical man, continued to shake his
-head, and bade her remember him when she was in trouble and in need
-of a faithful friend&mdash;assuring her, with a few strong seafaring oaths
-(which did not shock her in the least, for they were meant to emphasise
-the sincerity of his protestations), that she and her sisters should
-never want, if he knew it, while he had a crust of bread and a breath
-in his body.</p>
-
-<p>And so they began to pack up. And the fuss and confusion of that
-occupation&mdash;which becomes so irksome when the charm of novelty is
-past&mdash;was full of enjoyment for them all. It would have done the
-travel-worn cynic good to see them scampering about the house, as
-lightly as the kittens that frisked after them, carrying armfuls of
-house linen and other precious chattels to and fro, and prattling the
-while of their glorious future like so many school children about to
-pay a first visit to the pantomime. It was almost heartless, Mrs.
-Dunn thought&mdash;dropping in occasionally to see how they were getting
-on&mdash;considering what cause had broken up their home, and that their
-father had been so recently taken from them that she (Mrs. Dunn) could
-not bring herself to walk without hesitation into the house, still
-fancying she should see him sitting in his arm-chair and looking at her
-with those hard, unsmiling eyes, as if to ask her what business she had
-there. But Mr. King had been a harsh father, and this is what harsh
-fathers must expect of children who have never learned how to dissemble
-for the sake of appearances. They reverenced his memory and held it
-dear, but he had left them no associations that could sadden them like
-the sight of their mother's clothes folded away in the long unopened
-drawers of the wardrobe in her room&mdash;the room in which he had slept and
-died only a few weeks ago.</p>
-
-<p>These precious garments, smelling of lavender, camphor, and sandalwood,
-were all taken out and looked at, and tenderly smoothed afresh, and
-laid in a deep drawer of the bureau. There were treasures amongst them
-of a value that the girls had no idea of&mdash;old gowns of faded brocade
-and embroidered muslin, a yellow-white Indian shawl so soft that it
-could be drawn through a wedding ring, yellower lace of still more
-wonderful texture, and fans, and scarfs, and veils, and odds and ends
-of ancient finery, that would have been worth considerably more than
-their weight in gold to a modern art collector. But these reminiscences
-of their mother's far-off girlhood, carefully laid in the bottom of the
-drawer, were of no account to them compared with the half-worn gowns
-of cheap stuff and cotton&mdash;still showing the print of her throat and
-arms&mdash;that were spread so reverently on the top of them; and compared
-with the numerous other memorials of her last days&mdash;her workbox, with
-its unfinished bit of needlework, and scissors and thimble, and tapes
-and cottons, just as she had left it&mdash;her Prayer-Book and Bible&mdash;her
-favourite cup, from which she drank her morning tea&mdash;her shabby velvet
-slippers, her stiff-fingered gardening gloves&mdash;all the relics that her
-children had cherished of the daily, homely life that they had been
-privileged to share with her; the bestowal of which was carried on in
-silence, or with tearful whispers, while all the pets were locked out
-of the room, as if it had been a religious function. When this drawer
-was closed, and they had refreshed their saddened spirits with a long
-walk, they set themselves with light hearts to fill the remainder of
-the many shelves and niches of the bureau with piles of books and
-music, painting materials, collections of wild flowers and shells and
-seaweeds, fragments of silver plate that had lain there always, as
-far as they knew, along with some old miniatures and daguerreotypes
-in rusty leather cases, and old bundles of papers that Mr. Brion had
-warned them to take care of&mdash;and with their own portfolios of sketches
-and little personal treasures of various kinds, their father's watch,
-and stick, and spurs, and spectacles&mdash;and so on, and so on.</p>
-
-<p>After this, they had only to pack up their bed and table linen and
-knives and forks, which were to go with them to Melbourne, and to
-arrange their own scanty wardrobes to the best advantage.</p>
-
-<p>"We shall certainly want some clothes," said Eleanor, surveying their
-united stock of available wearing apparel on Elizabeth's bedroom floor.
-"I propose that we appropriate&mdash;say £5&mdash;no, that might not be enough;
-say £10&mdash;from the furniture money to settle ourselves up each with a
-nice costume&mdash;dress, jacket, and bonnet complete&mdash;so that we may look
-like other people when we get to Melbourne."</p>
-
-<p>"We'll get there first," said Patty, "and see what is worn, and the
-price of things. Our black prints are very nice for everyday, and we
-can wear our brown homespuns as soon as we get away from Mrs. Dunn. She
-said it was disrespectful to poor father's memory to put on anything
-but black when she saw you in your blue gingham, Nelly. Poor old soul!
-one would think we were a set of superstitious heathen pagans. I wonder
-where she got all those queer ideas from?"</p>
-
-<p>"She knows a great deal more than we do, Patty," said wise Elizabeth,
-from her kneeling posture on the floor.</p>
-
-<p>They packed all their clothes into two small but weighty brass-bound
-trunks, leaving out their blue ginghams, their well-worn water-proofs,
-and their black-ribboned sailor hats to travel in. Then they turned
-their attention to the animals, and suffered grievous trouble in their
-efforts to secure a comfortable provision for them after their own
-departure. The monkey-bear, the object of their fondest solicitude,
-was entrusted to Sam Dunn, who swore with picturesque energy that he
-would cherish it as his own child. It was put into a large cage with
-about a bushel of fresh gum leaves, and Sam was adjured to restore
-it to liberty as soon as he had induced it to grow fond of him. Then
-Patty and Eleanor took the long walk to the township to call on Mrs.
-Hawkins, in order to entreat her good offices for the rest of their
-pets. But Mrs. Hawkins seized the precious opportunity that they
-offered her for getting the detailed information, such as only women
-could give, concerning the interior construction and capabilities of
-her newly-acquired residence, and she had no attention to spare for
-anything else. The girls left, after sitting on two green rep chairs
-for nearly an hour, with the depressing knowledge that their house was
-to be painted inside and out, and roofed with zinc, and verandahed with
-green trellis-work; and that there was to be a nice road made to it, so
-that the family could drive to and from their place of business; and
-that it was to have "Sea View Villa" painted on the garden gate posts.
-But whether their pets were to be allowed to roam over the transformed
-premises (supposing they had the heart to do so) was more than they
-could tell. So they had an anxious consultation with Elizabeth, all
-the parties concerned being present, cuddled and fondled on arms and
-knees; and the result was a determination <i>not</i> to leave the precious
-darlings to the tender mercies of the Hawkins family. Sam Dunn was to
-take the opossum in a basket to some place where there were trees,
-a river, and other opossums, and there turn him out to unlearn his
-civilisation and acquire the habits and customs of his unsophisticated
-kinsfolk&mdash;a course of study to which your pet opossum submits himself
-very readily as a rule. The magpies were also to be left to shift for
-themselves, for they were in the habit of consorting with other magpies
-in a desultory manner, and they could "find" themselves in board and
-lodging. But the cats&mdash;O, the poor, dear, confiding old cats! O, the
-sweet little playful kitties!&mdash;the girls were distracted to know what
-to do for <i>them</i>. There were so many of them, and they would never be
-induced to leave the place&mdash;that rocky platform so barren of little
-birds, and those ancient buildings where no mouse had been allowed so
-much as to come into the world for years past. They would not be fed,
-of course, when their mistresses were gone. They would get into the
-dairy and the pantry, and steal Mrs. Hawkins's milk and meat&mdash;and it
-was easy to conjecture what would happen <i>then</i>. Mrs. Hawkins had boys
-moreover&mdash;rough boys who went to the State school, and looked capable
-of all the fiendish atrocities that young animals of their age and sex
-were supposed to delight in. Could they leave their beloved ones to the
-mercy of <i>boys?</i> They consulted Sam Dunn, and Sam's advice was&mdash;&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Never mind. Cats and kittens disappeared. And then only Dan Tucker
-was left. Him, at any rate, they declared they would never part with,
-while he had a breath in his faithful body. He should go with them to
-Melbourne, bless his precious heart!&mdash;-or, if need were, to the ends of
-the earth.</p>
-
-<p>And so, at last, all their preparations were made, and the day came
-when, with unexpected regrets and fears, they walked out of the old
-house which had been their only home into the wide world, where they
-were utter strangers. Sam Dunn came with his wood-cart to carry their
-luggage to the steamer (the conveyance they had selected, in preference
-to coach and railway, because it was cheaper, and they were more
-familiar with it); and then they shut up doors and windows, sobbing as
-they went from room to room; stood on the verandah in front of the sea
-to solemnly kiss each other, and walked quietly down to the township,
-hand in hand, and with the terrier at their heels, to have tea with Mr.
-Brion and his old housekeeper before they went on board.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Late in the evening when the sea was lit up with a young moon, Mr.
-Brion, having given them a great deal of serious advice concerning
-their money and other business affairs, escorted our three girls to
-the little jetty where the steamer that called in once a week lay at
-her moorings, ready to start for Melbourne and intermediate ports
-at five o'clock next morning. The old lawyer was a spare, grave,
-gentlemanly-looking old man, and as much a gentleman as he looked, with
-the kindest heart in the world when you could get at it: a man who
-was esteemed and respected, to use the language of the local paper,
-by all his fellow-townsmen, whether friends or foes. They Anglicised
-his name in speaking it, and they wrote it "Bryan" far more often than
-not, though nothing enraged him more than to have his precious vowels
-tampered with; but they liked him so much that they never cast it up to
-him that he was a Frenchman.</p>
-
-<p>This good old man, chivalrous as any paladin, in his shy and secret
-way, always anxious to hide his generous emotions, as the traditional
-Frenchman is anxious to display them, had done a father's part by
-our young orphans since their own father had left them so strangely
-desolate. Sam Dunn had compassed them with sweet observances, as we
-have seen; but Sam was powerless to unravel the web of difficulties,
-legal and otherwise, in which Mr. King's death had plunged them. Mr.
-Brion had done all this, and a great deal more that nobody knew of,
-to protect the girls and their interests at a critical juncture, and
-to give them a fair and clear start on their own account. And in the
-process of thus serving them he had become very much attached to them
-in his old-fashioned, reticent way; and he did not at all like having
-to let them go away alone in this lonely-looking night.</p>
-
-<p>"But Paul will be there to meet you," he said, for the twentieth time,
-laying his hand over Elizabeth's, which rested on his arm. "You may
-trust to Paul&mdash;as soon as the boat is telegraphed he will come to meet
-you&mdash;he will see to everything that is necessary&mdash;you will have no
-bother at all. And, my dear, remember what I say&mdash;let the boy advise
-you for a little while. Let him take care of you, and imagine it is
-I. You may trust him as absolutely as you trust me, and he will not
-presume upon your confidence, believe me. He is not like the young men
-of the country," added Paul's father, putting a little extra stiffness
-into his upright figure. "No, no&mdash;he is quite different."</p>
-
-<p>"I think you have instructed us so fully, dear Mr. Brion, that we shall
-get along very well without having to trouble Mr. Paul," interposed
-Patty, in her clear, quick way, speaking from a little distance.</p>
-
-<p>The steamer, with her lamps lit, was all in a clatter and bustle,
-taking in passengers and cargo. Sam Dunn was on board, having seen the
-boxes stowed away safely; and he came forward to say good-bye to his
-young ladies before driving his cart home.</p>
-
-<p>"I'll miss ye," said the brawny fisherman, with savage tenderness; "and
-the missus'll miss ye. Darned if we shall know the place with you gone
-out of it. Many's the dark night the light o' your winders has been
-better'n the lighthouse to show me the way home."</p>
-
-<p>He pointed to the great headland lying, it seemed now, so far, far
-off, ghostly as a cloud. And presently he went away; and they could
-hear him, as he drove back along the jetty, cursing his old horse&mdash;to
-which he was as much attached as if it had been a human friend&mdash;with
-blood-curdling ferocity.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion stayed with them until it seemed improper to stay any
-longer&mdash;until all the passengers that were to come on board had housed
-themselves for the night, and all the baggage had been snugly stowed
-away&mdash;and then bade them good-bye, with less outward emotion than Sam
-had displayed, but with almost as keen a pang.</p>
-
-<p>"God bless you, my dears," said he, with paternal solemnity. "Take care
-of yourselves, and let Paul do what he can for you. I will send you
-your money every quarter, and you must keep accounts&mdash;keep accounts
-strictly. And ask Paul what you want to know. Then you will get along
-all right, please God."</p>
-
-<p>"O yes, we shall get along all right," repeated Patty, whose sturdy
-optimism never failed her in the most trying moments.</p>
-
-<p>But when the old man was gone, and they stood on the tiny slip of deck
-that was available to stand on, feeling no necessity to cling to the
-railings as the little vessel heaved up and down in the wash of the
-tide that swirled amongst the piers of the jetty&mdash;when they looked at
-the lights of the town sprinkled round the shore and up the hillsides,
-at their own distant headland, unlighted, except by the white haze of
-the moon, at the now deserted jetty, and the apparently illimitable
-sea&mdash;when they realised for the first time that they were alone in this
-great and unknown world&mdash;even Patty's bold heart was inclined to sink a
-little.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," she said, "we <i>must</i> not cry&mdash;it is absurd. What is there
-to cry for? Now, all the things we have been dreaming and longing for
-are going to happen&mdash;the story is beginning. Let us go to bed and get
-a good sleep before the steamer starts so that we are fresh in the
-morning&mdash;so that we don't lose anything. Come, Nelly, let us see if
-poor Dan is comfortable, and have some supper and go to bed."</p>
-
-<p>They cheered themselves with the sandwiches and the gooseberry wine
-that Mr. Brion's housekeeper had put up for them, paid a visit to Dan,
-who was in charge of an amiable cook (whom the old lawyer had tipped
-handsomely), and then faced the dangers and difficulties of getting
-to bed. Descending the brass-bound staircase to the lower regions,
-they paused, their faces flushed up, and they looked at each other as
-if the scene before them was something unfit for the eyes of modest
-girls. They were shocked, as by some specific impropriety, at the
-noise and confusion, the rough jostling and the impure atmosphere,
-in the morsel of a ladies' cabin, from which the tiny slips of bunks
-prepared for them were divided only by a scanty curtain. This was their
-first contact with the world, so to speak, and they fled from it. To
-spend a night in that suffocating hole, with those loud women their
-fellow passengers, was a too appalling prospect. So Elizabeth went to
-the captain, who knew their story, and admired their faces, and was
-inclined to be very kind to them, and asked his permission to occupy
-a retired corner of the deck. On his seeming to hesitate&mdash;they being
-desperately anxious not to give anybody any trouble&mdash;they assured him
-that the place above all others where they would like to make their bed
-was on the wedge-shaped platform in the bows, where they would be out
-of everybody's way.</p>
-
-<p>"But, my dear young lady, there is no railing there," said the captain,
-laughing at the proposal as a joke.</p>
-
-<p>"A good eight inches&mdash;ten inches," said Elizabeth. "Quite enough for
-anybody in the roughest sea."</p>
-
-<p>"For a sailor perhaps, but not for young ladies who get giddy and
-frightened and seasick. Supposing you tumbled off in the dark, and I
-found you gone when I came to look for you in the morning."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>We</i> tumble off!" cried Eleanor. "We never tumbled off anything
-in our lives. We have lived on the cliffs like the goats and the
-gulls&mdash;nothing makes us giddy. And I don't think anything will make us
-seasick&mdash;or frightened either."</p>
-
-<p>"Certainly not frightened," said Patty.</p>
-
-<p>He let them have their way&mdash;taking a great many (as they thought)
-perfectly unnecessary precautions in fixing up their quarters in case
-of a rough sea&mdash;and himself carried out their old opossum rug and an
-armful of pillows to make their nest comfortable. So, in this quiet
-and breezy bedchamber, roofed over by the moonlit sky, they lay down
-with much satisfaction in each other's arms, unwatched and unmolested,
-as they loved to be, save by the faithful Dan Tucker, who found his
-way to their feet in the course of the night. And the steamer left her
-moorings and worked out of the bay into the open ocean, puffing and
-clattering, and danced up and down over the long waves, and they knew
-nothing about it. In the fresh air, with the familiar voice of the sea
-around them, they slept soundly under the opossum rug until the sun was
-high.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PAUL.</h4>
-
-
-<p>They slept for two nights on the tip of the steamer's nose, and they
-did not roll off. They had a long, delightful day at sea, no more
-troubled with seasickness than were the gulls to which they had
-compared themselves, and full of inquiring interest for each of the
-ports they touched at, and for all the little novelties of a first
-voyage. They became great friends with the captain and crew, and with
-some children who were amongst the passengers (the ladies of the party
-were indisposed to fraternise with them, not being able to reconcile
-themselves to the cut and quality of the faded blue gingham gowns,
-or to those eccentric sleeping arrangements, both of which seemed to
-point to impecuniosity&mdash;which is so closely allied to impropriety, as
-everybody knows). They sat down to their meals in the little cabin with
-wonderful appetites; they walked the deck in the fine salt wind with
-feet that were light and firm, and hearts that were high and hopeful
-and full of courage and enterprise. Altogether, they felt that the
-story was beginning pleasantly, and they were eager to turn over the
-pages.</p>
-
-<p>And then, on the brightest of bright summer mornings, they came to
-Melbourne.</p>
-
-<p>They did not quite know what they had expected to see, but what they
-did see astonished them. The wild things caught in the bush, and
-carried in cages to the Eastern market, could not have felt more
-surprised or dismayed by the novelty of the situation than did these
-intrepid damsels when they found themselves fairly launched into the
-world they were so anxious to know. For a few minutes after their
-arrival they stood together silent, breathless, taking it all in; and
-then Patty&mdash;yes, it <i>was</i> Patty&mdash;exclaimed:</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>where</i> is Paul Brion?"</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion was there, and the words had no sooner escaped her lips
-than he appeared before them. "How do you do, Miss King?" he said, not
-holding out his hand, but taking off his hat with one of his father's
-formal salutations, including them all. "I hope you have had a pleasant
-passage. If you will kindly tell me what luggage you have, I will take
-you to your cab; it is waiting for you just here. Three boxes? All
-right. I will see after them."</p>
-
-<p>He was a small, slight, wiry little man, with decidedly brusque, though
-perfectly polite manners; active and self-possessed, and, in a certain
-way of his own, dignified, notwithstanding his low stature. He was not
-handsome, but he had a keen and clever face&mdash;rather fierce as to the
-eyes and mouth, which latter was adorned with a fierce little moustache
-curling up at the corners&mdash;but pleasant to look at, and one that
-inspired trust.</p>
-
-<p>"He is not a bit like his father," said Patty, following him with
-Eleanor, as he led Elizabeth to the cab. Patty was angry with him for
-overhearing that "Where is Paul Brion?"&mdash;as she was convinced he had
-done&mdash;and her tone was disparaging.</p>
-
-<p>"As the mother duck said of the ugly duckling, if he is not pretty he
-has a good disposition," said Eleanor. "He is like his father in that.
-It was very kind of him to come and help us. A press man must always be
-terribly busy."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't see why we couldn't have managed for ourselves. It is nothing
-but to call a cab," said Patty with irritation.</p>
-
-<p>"And where could we have gone to?" asked her sister, reproachfully.</p>
-
-<p>"For the matter of that, where are we going now? We haven't the least
-idea. I think it was very stupid to leave ourselves in the hands of a
-chance young man whom we have hardly ever seen. We make ourselves look
-like a set of helpless infants&mdash;as if we couldn't do without him."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, we can't," said Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"Nonsense. We don't try. But," added Patty, after a pause, "we must
-begin to try&mdash;we must begin at once."</p>
-
-<p>They arrived at the cab, in which Elizabeth had seated herself, with
-the bewildered Dan in her arms, her sweet, open face all smiles and
-sunshine. Paul Brion held the door open, and, as the younger sisters
-passed him, looked at them intently with searching eyes. This was a
-fresh offence to Patty, at whom he certainly looked most. Impressions
-new and strange were crowding upon her brain this morning thick and
-fast. "Elizabeth," she said, unconscious that her brilliant little
-countenance, with that flush of excitement upon it, was enough to
-fascinate the gaze of the dullest man; "Elizabeth, he looks at us as
-if we were curiosities&mdash;he thinks we are dowdy and countryfied and it
-amuses him."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," interposed Eleanor, who, like Elizabeth, was (as she herself
-expressed it) reeking with contentment, "you could not have seen his
-face if you think that. He was as grave as a judge."</p>
-
-<p>"Then he pities us, Nelly, and that is worse. He thinks we are queer
-outlandish creatures&mdash;<i>frights</i>. So we are. Look at those women on the
-other side of the street, how differently they are dressed! We ought
-not to have come in these old clothes, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"But, my darling, we are travelling, and anything does to travel in.
-We will put on our black frocks when we get home, and we will buy
-ourselves some new ones. Don't trouble about such a trifle <i>now</i>,
-Patty&mdash;it is not like you. Oh, see what a perfect day it is! And think
-of our being in Melbourne at last! I am trying to realise it, but it
-almost stuns me. What a place it is! But Mr. Paul says our lodgings
-are in a quiet, airy street&mdash;not in this noisy part. Ah, here he is!
-And there are the three boxes all safe. Thank you so much," she said
-warmly, looking at the young man of the world, who was some five
-years older than herself, with frankest friendliness, as a benevolent
-grandmamma might have looked at an obliging schoolboy. "You are very
-good&mdash;we are very grateful to you."</p>
-
-<p>"And very sorry to have given you so much trouble," added Patty, with
-the air of a young duchess.</p>
-
-<p>He looked at her quickly, and made a slight bow. He did not say that
-what he had done had been no trouble at all, but a pleasure&mdash;he did not
-say a word, indeed; and his silence made her little heart swell with
-mortification. He turned to Elizabeth, and, resting his hands on the
-door-frame, began to explain the nature of the arrangements that he had
-made for them, with business-like brevity.</p>
-
-<p>"Your lodgings are in Myrtle Street, Miss King. That is in East
-Melbourne, you know&mdash;quite close to the gardens&mdash;quite quiet and
-retired, and yet within a short walk of Collins Street, and handy for
-all the places you want to see. You have two bedrooms and a small
-sitting-room of your own, but take your meals with the other people of
-the house; you won't mind that, I hope&mdash;it made a difference of about
-thirty shillings a week, and it is the most usual arrangement. Of
-course you can alter anything you don't like when you get there. The
-landlady is a Scotchwoman&mdash;I know her very well, and can recommend her
-highly&mdash;I think you will like her."</p>
-
-<p>"But won't you come with us?" interposed Elizabeth, putting out her
-hand. "Come and introduce us to her, and see that the cabman takes us
-to the right place. Or perhaps you are too busy to spare the time?"</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I will call on you this afternoon, if you will permit me&mdash;when
-you have had your lunch and are rested a little. Oh, I know the
-cabman quite well, and can answer for his taking you safely. This is
-your address"&mdash;hastily scribbling it on an envelope he drew from his
-pocket&mdash;"and the landlady is Mrs. M'Intyre. Good morning. I will do
-myself the pleasure of calling on you at four or five o'clock."</p>
-
-<p>He thereupon bowed and departed, and the cab rattled away in an
-opposite direction. Patty deeply resented his not coming with them,
-and wondered and wondered why he had refused. Was he too proud, or too
-shy, or too busy, or too indifferent? Did he feel that it was a trouble
-to him to have to look after them? Poor Paul! He would have liked
-to come, to see them comfortably housed and settled; but the simple
-difficulty was that he was afraid to risk giving them offence by paying
-the cab fare, and would not ride with them, a man in charge of three
-ladies, without paying it. And Patty was not educated to the point of
-appreciating that scruple. His desertion of them in the open street was
-a grievance to her. She could not help thinking of it, though there was
-so much else to think of.</p>
-
-<p>The cab turned into Collins Street and rattled merrily up that busy
-thoroughfare in the bright sunshine. They looked at the brilliant
-shop windows, at the gay crowd streaming up and down the pavements,
-and the fine equipages flashing along the road-way at the Town Hall,
-and the churches, and the statues of Burke and Wills&mdash;and were filled
-with admiration and wonder. Then they turned into quieter roads, and
-there was the Exhibition in its web of airy scaffolding, destined to be
-the theatre of great events, in which they would have their share&mdash;an
-inspiring sight. And they went round a few corners, catching refreshing
-glimpses of green trees and shady alleys, and presently arrived at
-Myrtle Street&mdash;quietest of suburban thoroughfares, with its rows of
-trim little houses, half-a-dozen in a block, each with its tiny patch
-of garden in front of it&mdash;where for the present they were to dwell.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. M'Intyre's maid came out to take the parcels, and the landlady
-herself appeared on the doorstep to welcome the new-comers. They
-whispered to themselves hurriedly, "Oh, she has a nice face!"&mdash;and then
-Patty and Elizabeth addressed themselves to the responsible business of
-settling with the cabman.</p>
-
-<p>"How much have we to pay you?" asked Patty with dignity.</p>
-
-<p>"Twelve shillings, please, miss," the man gaily replied.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked at her energetic sister, who had boasted that they
-were quite sharp enough to know when they were being cheated. Upon
-which Patty, with her feathers up, appealed to the landlady. Mrs.
-M'Intyre said the proper sum due to him was just half what he had
-asked. The cabman said that was for one passenger, and not for three.
-Mrs. M'Intyre then represented that eighteen-pence apiece was as much
-as he could claim for the remaining two, that the luggage was a mere
-nothing, and that if he didn't mind what he was about, &amp;c. So the sum
-was reduced to nine shillings, which Elizabeth paid, looking very grave
-over it, for it was still far beyond what she had reckoned on.</p>
-
-<p>Then they went into the house&mdash;the middle house of a smart little
-terrace, with a few ragged fern trees in the front garden&mdash;and Mrs.
-M'Intyre took them up to their rooms, and showed them drawers and
-cupboards, in a motherly and hospitable manner.</p>
-
-<p>"This is the large bedroom, with the two beds, and the small one opens
-off it; so that you will all be close together," said she, displaying
-the neat chambers, one of which was properly but a dressing-closet;
-and our girls, who knew no luxury but absolute cleanliness, took note
-of the whiteness of the floors and bedclothes, and were more than
-satisfied. "And this is your sitting-room," she proceeded, leading the
-way to an adjoining apartment pleasantly lighted by a French window,
-which opened upon a stone (or, rather, what looked like a stone)
-balcony. It had a little "suite" in green rep like Mrs. Hawkins's, and
-Mrs. Dunn's ideal cedar-wood chiffonnier; it had also a comfortable
-solid table with a crimson cloth, and a print of the ubiquitous Cenci
-over the mantelpiece. The carpet was a bed of blooming roses and
-lilies, the effect of which was much improved by the crumb cloth that
-was nailed all over it. It was a tiny room, but it had a cosy look, and
-the new lodgers agreed at once that it was all that could be desired.
-"And I hope you will be comfortable," concluded the amiable landlady,
-"and let me know whenever you want anything. There's a bathroom down
-that passage, and this is your bell, and those drawers have got keys,
-you see, and lunch will be ready in half-an-hour. The dining-room is
-the first door at the bottom of the stairs, and&mdash;phew! that tobacco
-smoke hangs about the place still, in spite of all my cleaning and
-airing. I never allow smoking in the house, Miss King&mdash;not in the
-general way; but a man who has to be up o' nights writing for the
-newspapers, and never getting his proper sleep, it's hard to grudge him
-the comfort of his pipe&mdash;now isn't it? And I have had no ladies here to
-be annoyed by it&mdash;in general I don't take ladies, for gentlemen are so
-much the most comfortable to do for; and Mr. Brion is so considerate,
-and gives so little trouble&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"What! Is Mr. Paul Brion lodging here?" broke in Patty impetuously,
-with her face aflame.</p>
-
-<p>"Not now," Mrs. M'Intyre replied. "He left me last week. These rooms
-that you have got were his&mdash;he has had them for over three years. He
-wanted you to come here, because he thought you would be comfortable
-with me"&mdash;smiling benignly. "He said a man could put up anywhere."</p>
-
-<p>She left them, presently; and as soon as the girls found themselves
-alone, they hurriedly assured each other that nothing should induce
-them to submit to this. It was not to be thought of for a moment. Paul
-Brion must be made to remove the mountainous obligation that he had put
-them under, and return to his rooms instantly. They would not put so
-much as a pocket handkerchief in the drawers and cupboards until this
-point had been settled with him.</p>
-
-<p>At four o'clock, when they had visited the bathroom, arranged their
-pretty hair afresh, and put on the black print gowns&mdash;when they had had
-a quiet lunch with Mrs. M'Intyre (whose other boarders being gentlemen
-in business, did not appear at the mid-day meal), prattling cheerfully
-with the landlady the while, and thinking that the cold beef and salads
-of Melbourne were the most delicious viands ever tasted&mdash;when they had
-examined their rooms minutely, and tried the sofas and easy-chairs, and
-stood for a long while on the balcony looking at the other houses in
-the quiet street&mdash;at four o'clock Paul Brion came; and the maid brought
-up his card, while he gossiped with Mrs. M'Intyre in the hall. He had
-no sooner entered the girls' sitting-room than Elizabeth hastened to
-unburden herself. Patty was burning to be the spokeswoman for the
-occasion, but she knew her place, and she remembered the small effect
-she had produced on him in the morning, and proudly held aloof. In her
-sweet and graceful way, but with as much gravity and earnestness as if
-it were a matter of life and death, Elizabeth explained her view of the
-situation. "Of course we cannot consent to such an arrangement," she
-said gently; "you must have known we could never consent to allow you
-to turn out of your own rooms to accommodate us. You must please come
-back again, Mr. Brion, and let us go elsewhere. There seem to be plenty
-of other lodgings to be had&mdash;even in this street."</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion's face wore a pleasant smile as he listened. "Oh, thank
-you," he replied lightly. "But I am very comfortable where I am&mdash;quite
-as much so as I was here&mdash;rather more, indeed. For the people at No. 6
-have set up a piano on the other side of that wall"&mdash;pointing to the
-cedar chiffonnier&mdash;"and it bothered me dreadfully when I wanted to
-write. It was the piano drove me out&mdash;not you. Perhaps it will drive
-you out too. It is a horrible nuisance, for it is always out of tune;
-and you know the sort of playing that people indulge in who use pianos
-that are out of tune."</p>
-
-<p>So their little demonstration collapsed. Paul had gone away to please
-himself. "And has left <i>us</i> to endure the agonies of a piano out of
-tune," commented Patty.</p>
-
-<p>As the day wore on, reaction from the mood of excitement and exaltation
-with which it began set in. Their spirits flagged. They felt tired and
-desolate in this new world. The unaccustomed hot dinner in the evening,
-at which they sat for nearly an hour in company with strange men who
-asked them questions, and pressed them to eat what they didn't want,
-was very uncongenial to them. And when, as soon as they could, they
-escaped to their own quarters, their little sitting-room, lighted with
-gas and full of hot upstairs air, struck them with its unsympathetic
-and unhomelike aspect. The next door piano was jingling its music-hall
-ditties faintly on the other side of the wall, and poor Dan, who had
-been banished to the back yard, was yelping so piteously that their
-hearts bled to hear him. "We must get a house of our own at once,
-Elizabeth&mdash;at <i>once</i>," exclaimed Eleanor&mdash;"if only for Dan's sake."</p>
-
-<p>"We will never have pets again&mdash;never!" said Patty, with something like
-an incipient sob in her voice, as she paced restlessly about the room.
-"Then we shall not have to ill-treat them and to part from them." She
-was thinking of her little bear, and the opossum, and the magpies, who
-were worse off than Dan.</p>
-
-<p>And Elizabeth sat down at the table, and took out pencil and note-book
-with a careworn face. She was going to keep accounts strictly, as
-Mr. Brion had advised her, and they not only meant to live within
-their income, as a matter of course, but to save a large part of
-it for future European contingencies. And, totting up the items of
-their expenditure for three days&mdash;cost of passage by steamer, cost of
-provisions on board, cab fare, and the sum paid for a week's board and
-lodging in advance&mdash;she found that they had been living for that period
-at the rate of about a thousand a year.</p>
-
-<p>So that, upon the whole, they were not quite so happy as they had
-expected to be, when they went to bed.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A MORNING WALK.</h4>
-
-
-<p>But they slept well in their strange beds, and by morning all their
-little troubles had disappeared. It was impossible not to suppose
-that the pets "at home" were making themselves happy, seeing how the
-sun shone and the sea breezes blew; and Dan, who had reached years of
-discretion, was evidently disposed to submit himself to circumstances.
-Having a good view of the back yard, they could see him lolling
-luxuriously on the warm asphalte, as if he had been accustomed to be
-chained up, and liked it. Concerning their most pressing anxiety&mdash;the
-rapid manner in which money seemed to melt away, leaving so little to
-show for it&mdash;it was pointed out that at least half the sum expended was
-for a special purpose, and chargeable to the reserve fund and not to
-their regular income, from which at present only five pounds had been
-taken, which was to provide all their living for a week to come.</p>
-
-<p>So they went downstairs in serene and hopeful spirits, and gladdened
-the eyes of the gentlemen boarders who were standing about the
-dining-room, devouring the morning's papers while they waited for
-breakfast. There were three of them, and each placed a chair promptly,
-and each offered handsomely to resign his newspaper. Elizabeth took an
-<i>Argus</i> to see what advertisements there were of houses to let; and
-then Mrs. M'Intyre came in with her coffee-pot and her cheerful face,
-and they sat down to breakfast. Mrs. M'Intyre was that rare exception
-to the rule, a boarding-house keeper who had private means as well as
-the liberal disposition of which the poorest have their share, and so
-her breakfast was a good breakfast. And the presence of strangers at
-table was not so unpleasant to our girls on this occasion as the last.</p>
-
-<p>After breakfast they had a solemn consultation, the result being that
-the forenoon was dedicated to the important business of buying their
-clothes and finding their way to and from the shops.</p>
-
-<p>"For we must have <i>bonnets</i>," said Patty, "and that immediately.
-Bonnets, I perceive, are the essential tokens of respectability. And we
-must never ride in a cab again."</p>
-
-<p>They set off at ten o'clock, escorted by Mrs. M'Intyre, who chanced
-to be going to the city to do some marketing. The landlady, being a
-very fat woman, to whom time was precious, took the omnibus, according
-to custom; but her companions with one consent refused to squander
-unnecessary threepences by accompanying her in that vehicle. They had a
-straight road before them all the way from the corner of Myrtle Street
-to the Fishmarket, where she had business; and there they joined her
-when she had completed her purchases, and she gave them a fair start at
-the foot of Collins Street before she left them.</p>
-
-<p>In Collins Street they spent the morning&mdash;a bewildering, exciting,
-anxious morning&mdash;going from shop to shop, and everywhere finding
-that the sum they had brought to spend was utterly inadequate for
-the purpose to which they had dedicated it. They saw any quantity of
-pretty soft stuffs, that were admirably adapted alike to their taste
-and means, but to get them fashioned into gowns seemed to treble their
-price at once; and, as Patty represented, they must have one, at any
-rate, that was made in the mode before they could feel it safe to
-manufacture for themselves. They ended by choosing&mdash;as a measure of
-comparative safety, for thus only could they know what they were doing,
-as Patty said&mdash;three ready-made costumes that took their fancy, the
-combined cost of which was a few shillings over the ten pounds. They
-were merely morning dresses of black woollen stuff; lady-like, and with
-a captivating style of "the world" about them, but in the lowest class
-of goods of that kind dispensed in those magnificent shops. Of course
-that was the end of their purchases for the day; the selection of
-mantles, bonnets, gloves, boots, and all the other little odds and ends
-on Elizabeth's list was reserved for a future occasion. For the idea of
-buying anything on twenty-four hours' credit was never entertained for
-a moment. To be sure, they did ask about the bonnets, and were shown a
-great number, in spite of their polite anxiety not to give unprofitable
-trouble; and not one that they liked was less than several pounds in
-price. Dismayed and disheartened, they "left it" (Patty's suggestion
-again); and they gave the rest of their morning to the dressmaker, who
-undertook to remodel the bodices of the new gowns and make them fit
-properly. This fitting was not altogether a satisfactory business,
-either; for the dressmaker insisted that a well-shaped corset was
-indispensable&mdash;especially in these days, when fit was everything&mdash;and
-they had no corsets and did not wish for any. She was, however, a
-dressmaker of decision and resource, and she sent her assistant for a
-bundle of corsets, in which she encased her helpless victims before she
-would begin the ripping and snipping and pulling and pinning process.
-When they saw their figures in the glass, with their fashionable tight
-skirts and unwrinkled waists, they did not know themselves; and I am
-afraid that Patty and Eleanor, at any rate, were disposed to regard
-corsets favourably and to make light of the discomfort they were
-sensibly conscious of in wearing them. Elizabeth, whose natural shape
-was so beautiful&mdash;albeit she is destined, if the truth must be told, to
-be immensely stout and heavy some day&mdash;was not seduced by this specious
-appearance. She ordered the dressmaker, with a quiet peremptoriness
-that would have become a carriage customer, to make the waists of the
-three gowns "free" and to leave the turnings on; and she took off the
-borrowed corset, and drew a long breath, inwardly determining never to
-wear such a thing again, even to have a dress fitted&mdash;fashion or no
-fashion.</p>
-
-<p>It was half-past twelve by this time, and at one o'clock Mrs. M'Intyre
-would expect them in to lunch. They wanted to go home by way of those
-green enclosures that Paul Brion had told them of, and of which they
-had had a glimpse yesterday&mdash;which the landlady had assured them was
-the easiest thing possible. They had but to walk right up to the top of
-Collins Street, turn to the right, where they would see a gate leading
-into gardens, pass straight through those gardens, cross a road and
-go straight through other gardens, which would bring them within a
-few steps of Myrtle Street&mdash;a way so plain that they couldn't miss
-it if they tried. Ways always do seem so to people who know them. Our
-three girls were self-reliant young women, and kept their wits about
-them very creditably amid their novel and distracting surroundings.
-Nevertheless they were at some loss with respect to this obvious route.
-Because, in the first place, they didn't know which was the top of
-Collins Street and which the bottom.</p>
-
-<p>"Dear me! we shall be reduced to the ignominious necessity of asking
-our way," exclaimed Eleanor, as they stood forlornly on the pavement,
-jostled by the human tide that flowed up and down. "If only we had Paul
-Brion here."</p>
-
-<p>It was very provoking to Patty, but he <i>was</i> there. Being a small man,
-he did not come into view till he was within a couple of yards of them,
-and that was just in time to overhear this invocation. His ordinarily
-fierce aspect, which she had disrespectfully likened to that of Dan
-when another terrier had insulted him, had for the moment disappeared.
-The little man showed all over him the pleased surprise with which he
-had caught the sound of his own name.</p>
-
-<p>"Have you got so far already?" he exclaimed, speaking in his sharp and
-rapid way, while his little moustache bristled with such a smile as
-they had not thought him capable of. "And&mdash;and can I assist you in any
-way?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth explained their dilemma; upon which he declared he was
-himself going to East Melbourne (whence he had just come, after his
-morning sleep and noontide breakfast), and asked leave to escort them
-thither. "How fortunate we are!" Elizabeth said, turning to walk up the
-street by his side; and Eleanor told him he was like his father in the
-opportuneness of his friendly services. But Patty was silent, and raged
-inwardly.</p>
-
-<p>When they had traversed the length of the street, and were come to the
-open space before the Government offices, where they could fall again
-into one group, she made an effort to get rid of him and the burden of
-obligation that he was heaping upon them.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Brion," she began impetuously, "we know where we are now quite
-well&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think you do," he interrupted her, "seeing that you were never
-here before."</p>
-
-<p>"Our landlady gave us directions&mdash;she made it quite plain to us. There
-is no necessity for you to trouble yourself any further. You were not
-going this way when we met you, but exactly in the opposite direction."</p>
-
-<p>"I am going this way now, at any rate," he said, with decision. "I am
-going to show your sisters their way through the gardens. There are a
-good many paths, and they don't all lead to Myrtle Street."</p>
-
-<p>"But we know the points of the compass&mdash;we have our general
-directions," she insisted angrily, as she followed him helplessly
-through the gates. "We are not quite idiots, though we do come from the
-country."</p>
-
-<p>"Patty," interposed Elizabeth, surprised, "I am glad of Mr. Brion's
-kind help, if you are not."</p>
-
-<p>"Patty," echoed Eleanor in an undertone, "that haughty spirit of yours
-will have a fall some day."</p>
-
-<p>Patty felt that it was having a fall now. "I know it is very kind of
-Mr. Brion," she said tremulously, "but how are we to get on and do for
-ourselves if we are treated like children&mdash;I mean if we allow ourselves
-to hang on to other people? We should make our own way, as others have
-to do. I don't suppose <i>you</i> had anyone to lead you about when <i>you</i>
-first came to Melbourne"&mdash;addressing Paul.</p>
-
-<p>"I was a man," he replied. "It is a man's business to take care of
-himself."</p>
-
-<p>"Of course. And equally it is a woman's business to take care of
-herself&mdash;if she has no man in her family."</p>
-
-<p>"Pardon me. In that case it is the business of all the men with whom
-she comes in contact to take care of her&mdash;each as he can."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, what nonsense! You talk as if we lived in the time of the
-Troubadours&mdash;as if you didn't <i>know</i> that all that stuff about women
-has had its day and been laughed out of existence long ago."</p>
-
-<p>"What stuff?"</p>
-
-<p>"That we are helpless imbeciles&mdash;a sort of angelic wax baby, good
-for nothing but to look pretty. As if we were not made of the same
-substance as you, with brains and hands&mdash;not so strong as yours,
-perhaps, but quite strong enough to rely upon when necessary. Oh!"
-exclaimed Patty, with a fierce gesture, "I do so <i>hate</i> that man's cant
-about women&mdash;I have no patience with it!"</p>
-
-<p>"You must have been severely tried," murmured Paul (he was beginning
-to think the middle Miss King a disagreeable person, and to feel
-vindictive towards her). And Eleanor laughed cruelly, and said, "Oh,
-no, she's got it all out of books."</p>
-
-<p>"A great mistake to go by books," said he, with the air of a father.
-"Experience first&mdash;books afterwards, Miss Patty." And he smiled coolly
-into the girl's flaming face.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Patty and her sisters very nearly had their first quarrel over Paul
-Brion. Patty said he was impertinent and patronising, that he presumed
-upon their friendless position to pay them insulting attentions&mdash;that,
-in short, he was a detestable young man whom she, for one, would have
-nothing more to do with. And she warned Elizabeth, in an hysterical,
-high-pitched voice, never to invite him into their house unless
-she wished to see her (Patty) walk out of it. Elizabeth, supported
-by Eleanor, took up the cudgels in his defence, and assured Patty,
-kindly, but with much firmness, that he had behaved with dignity
-and courtesy under great provocation to do otherwise. They also
-pointed out that he was his father's representative; that it would be
-ungracious and unladylike to reject the little services that it was
-certainly a pleasure to him to render, and unworthy of them to assume
-an independence that at present they were unable to support. Which was
-coming as near to "words" as was possible for them to come, and much
-nearer than any of them desired. Patty burst into tears at last, which
-was the signal for everything in the shape of discord and division to
-vanish. Her sisters kissed and fondled her, and assured her that they
-sympathised with her anxiety to be under obligations to nobody from the
-bottom of their hearts; and Patty owned that she had been captious and
-unreasonable, and consented to forgive her enemy for what he hadn't
-done and to be civil to him in future.</p>
-
-<p>And, as the days wore on, even she grew to be thankful for Paul Brion,
-though, of course, she would never own to it. Their troubles were many
-and various, and their helpless ignorance more profound and humiliating
-than they could have believed possible. I will not weary the reader
-by tracing the details of the process by which they became acquainted
-with the mode and cost of living "as other people do," and with the
-ways of the world in general; it would be too long a story. How Patty
-discovered that the cleverest fingers cannot copy a London bonnet
-without some previous knowledge of the science of millinery; how she
-and her sisters, after supplying themselves grudgingly with the mere
-necessaries of a modern outfit, found that the remainder of their
-"furniture money," to the last pound note, was spent; how, after weary
-trampings to and fro in search of a habitable house in a wholesome
-neighbourhood, they learned the ruinous rates of rent and taxes and
-(after much shopping and many consultations with Mrs. M'Intyre) the
-alarming prices of furniture and provisions; how they were driven to
-admit, in spite of Patty, that that landlady on the premises, whom
-Eleanor had declared was not to be thought of, might be a necessary
-safeguard against worse evils; and how they were brought to ask each
-other, in surprise and dismay, "Is it possible that we are poor people
-after all, and not rich, as we supposed?"&mdash;all these things can be
-better imagined than described. Suffice it to say, they passed through
-much tribulation and many bitter and humbling experiences during the
-early months of their sojourn in Melbourne; but when at last they
-reached a comparatively safe haven, and found themselves once more
-secure under their own control, able to regulate their needs and
-their expenditure, and generally to understand the conditions and
-possibilities of their position, Elizabeth and Eleanor made a solemn
-declaration that they were indebted for this happy issue to the good
-offices and faithful friendship of Paul Brion alone, and Patty&mdash;though
-she turned up her nose and said "Pooh!"&mdash;though she hated to be
-indebted to him, or to anybody&mdash;agreed with them.</p>
-
-<p>They settled down to their housekeeping by very slow degrees. For
-some time they stayed with Mrs. M'Intyre, because there really seemed
-nothing else to do that was at all within their means; and from
-this base of operations they made all those expeditions of inquiry
-into city habits and customs, commercial and domestic, which were
-such conspicuous and ignominious failures. As the sense of their
-helplessness grew upon them, they grudgingly admitted the young man
-(who was always at hand, and yet never intruded upon or pestered
-them) to their counsels, and accepted, without seeming to accept, his
-advice; and the more they condescended in this way the better they
-got on. Gradually they fell into the habit of depending on him, by
-tacit consent&mdash;which was the more easy to do because, as his father
-had promised, he did not presume upon their confidence in him. He was
-sharp and brusque, and even inclined to domineer&mdash;to be impertinent, as
-Patty called it&mdash;when they did submit their affairs to his judgment;
-but not the smallest suspicion of an unauthorised motive for his
-evident devotion to their interests appeared in his face, or voice, or
-manner, which were those of the man of business, slightly suggesting
-occasionally the imperious and impartial "nearest male relative."
-They grew to trust him&mdash;for his father's sake, they said, but there
-was nothing vicarious about it; and that they had the rare fortune
-to be justified in doing so, under such unlikely circumstances, made
-up to them for whatever ill luck they might otherwise have seemed to
-encounter in these days. It was he who finally found them their home,
-after their many futile searches&mdash;half a house in their own street and
-terrace, vacated by the marriage and departure to another colony of the
-lady who played the piano that was out of tune. No. 6, it appeared,
-had been divided into flats; the ground floor was occupied by the
-proprietor, his wife, and servant; and the upper, which had a gas stove
-and other kitchen appliances in a back room, was let unfurnished for
-£60 a year. Paul, always poking about in quest of opportunities, heard
-of this one and pounced upon it. He made immediate inquiries into the
-character and antecedents of the landlord of No. 6, the state of the
-drains and chimneys, and paint and paper, of the house; and, having
-satisfied himself that it was as nearly being what our girls wanted
-as anything they would be likely to find, called upon Elizabeth, and
-advised her to secure it forthwith. The sisters were just then adding
-up their accounts&mdash;taking stock of their affairs generally&mdash;and coming
-to desperate resolutions that something must be done; so the suggested
-arrangement, which would deliver them from bondage and from many of
-their worst difficulties, had quite a providential opportuneness about
-it. They took the rooms at once&mdash;four small rooms, including the
-improvised kitchen&mdash;and went into them, in defiance of Mrs. M'Intyre's
-protestations, before they had so much as a bedstead to sleep upon;
-and once more they were happy in the consciousness that they had
-recovered possession of themselves, and could call their souls their
-own. Slowly, bit by bit, the furniture came in&mdash;the barest necessaries
-first, and then odds and ends of comfort and prettiness (not a few
-of them discovered by Paul Brion in out-of-the-way places, where he
-"happened" to be), until the new little home grew to look as homelike
-as the old one. They sent for the bureau and the piano, which went
-a long way towards furnishing the sitting-room; and they bought a
-comfortable second-hand table and some capacious, cheap, wickerwork
-chairs; and they laid a square of matting on the floor, and made some
-chintz curtains for the window, and turned a deal packing-case into
-an ottoman, and another into a set of shelves for their books; and
-over all these little arrangements threw such an air of taste, such
-a complexion of spotless cleanliness and fastidious neatness, as are
-only seen in the homes of "nice" women, that it takes nice people to
-understand the charm of.</p>
-
-<p>One day, when their preparations for regular domestic life were fairly
-completed, Patty, tired after a long spell of amateur carpentering,
-sat down to the piano to rest and refresh herself. The piano had
-been tuned on its arrival in Melbourne; and the man who tuned it had
-stared at her when she told him that it had been made to her mother's
-order, and showed him the famous name above the key-board. He would
-have stared still more had he heard what kind of magic life she could
-summon into the exquisite mechanism boxed up in that poor-looking
-deal case. All the sisters were musicians, strange to say; taught by
-their mother in the noble and simple spirit of the German school, and
-inheriting from her the sensitive ear and heart to understand the
-dignity and mystery, if not the message (which nobody understands) of
-that wonderful language which begins where words leave off. To "play
-the piano" was no mere conventional drawing-room performance with them,
-as they themselves were no conventional drawing-room misses; a "piece"
-of the ordinary pattern would have shocked their sense of art and
-harmony almost as much as it might have shocked Mozart and Mendelssohn,
-and Schubert and Schumann, and the other great masters whose pupils
-they were; while to talk and laugh, either when playing or listening,
-would have been to them like talking and laughing over their prayers.
-But, of the three, Patty was the most truly musical, in the serious
-meaning of the word, inasmuch as her temperament was warmer than those
-of her sisters, her imagination more vivid, her senses generally more
-susceptible to delicate impressions than theirs. The "spirits of the
-air" had all their supernatural power over her receptive and responsive
-soul, and she thrilled like an Æolian harp to the west wind under the
-spell of those emotions that have no name or shape, and for which no
-imagery supplies a comparison, which belong to the ideal world, into
-which those magic spirits summon us, and where the sacred hours of our
-lives&mdash;the sweetest, the saddest, the happiest&mdash;are spent.</p>
-
-<p>To-day she sat down, suddenly prompted by the feeling that she was
-fagged and tired, and began to play mechanically a favourite Beethoven
-sonata; but in five minutes she had played her nerves to rest, and was
-as steeped in dreams as the great master himself must have been when
-he conceived the tender passages that only his spiritual ears could
-hear. Eleanor, who had been sewing industriously, by degrees let her
-fingers falter and her work fall into her lap; and Elizabeth, who had
-been arranging the books in the new book-shelves, presently put down
-her duster to come and stand behind the music-stool, and laid her
-large, cool hands on Patty's head. None of them spoke for some time,
-reverencing the Presence in their quiet room; but the touch of her
-sister's palms upon her hair brought the young musician out of her
-abstractions to a sense of her immediate surroundings again. She laid
-her head back on Elizabeth's breast and drew a long sigh, and left off
-playing. The gesture said, as plainly as words could have said it, that
-she was relieved and revived&mdash;that the spirit of peace and charity had
-descended upon her.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," she said presently, still keeping her seat on the
-music-stool, and stroking her cheek with one of her sister's hands
-while she held the other round her neck, "I begin to think that Paul
-Brion has been a very good friend to us. Don't you?"</p>
-
-<p>"I am not beginning," replied Elizabeth. "I have thought it every
-day since we have known him. And I have wondered often how you could
-dislike him so much."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't dislike him," said Patty, quite amiably.</p>
-
-<p>"I have taken particular notice," remarked Eleanor from the hearthrug,
-"and it is exactly three weeks since you spoke to him, and three weeks
-and five days since you shook hands."</p>
-
-<p>Patty smiled, not changing her position or ceasing to caress her cheek
-with Elizabeth's hand. "Well," she said, "don't you think it would be
-a graceful thing to ask him to come and have tea with us some night?
-We have made our room pretty"&mdash;looking round with contentment&mdash;"and
-we have all we want now. We might get our silver things out of the
-bureau, and make a couple of little dishes, and put some candles about,
-and buy a bunch of flowers&mdash;for once&mdash;what do you say, Nelly? He has
-<i>never</i> been here since we came in&mdash;never farther than the downstairs
-passage&mdash;and wouldn't it be pleasant to have a little house warming,
-and show him our things, and give him some music, and&mdash;and try to make
-him enjoy himself? It would be some return for what he has done for
-us, and his father would be pleased."</p>
-
-<p>That she should make the proposition&mdash;she who, from the first, had not
-only never "got on" with him, but had seemed to regard him with active
-dislike&mdash;surprised both her sisters not a little; but the proposition
-itself appeared to them, as to her, to have every good reason to
-recommend it. They thought it a most happy idea, and adopted it with
-enthusiasm. That very evening they made their plans. They designed the
-simple decorations for their little room, and the appropriate dishes
-for their modest feast. And, when these details had been settled, they
-remembered that on the following night no Parliament would be sitting,
-which meant that Paul would probably come home early (they knew his
-times of coming and going, for he was back at his old quarters now,
-having returned in consequence of the departure of the discordant
-piano, and to oblige Mrs. M'Intyre, he said); and that decided them to
-send him his invitation at once. Patty, while her complaisant mood was
-on her, wrote it herself before she went to bed, and gave it over the
-garden railing to Mrs. M'Intyre's maid.</p>
-
-<p>In the morning, as they were asking which of them should go to town to
-fetch certain materials for their little <i>fête</i>, they heard the door
-bang and the gate rattle at No. 7, and a quick step that they knew. And
-the slavey of No. 6 came upstairs with Paul Brion's answer, which he
-had left as he passed on his way to his office. The note was addressed
-to "Miss King," whose amanuensis Patty had carefully explained herself
-to be when writing her invitation.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>"<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">MY DEAR MISS KING</span>,&mdash;You are indeed very kind, but I fear
-I must deny myself the pleasure you propose&mdash;than which, I
-assure you, I could have none greater. If you will allow
-me, I will come in some day with Mrs. M'Intyre, who is very
-anxious to see your new menage. And when I come, I hope you
-will let me hear that new piano, which is such an amazing
-contrast to the old one.&mdash;Believe me, yours very truly,</p>
-
-<p style="font-size: 0.8em; margin-left: 70%;">"PAUL BRION."</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>This was Paul Brion's note. When the girls had read it, they stood
-still and looked at each other in a long, dead silence. Eleanor was
-the first to speak. Half laughing, but with her delicate face dyed in
-blushes, she whispered under her breath, "Oh&mdash;oh, don't you see what he
-means?"</p>
-
-<p>"He is quite right&mdash;we must thank him," said Elizabeth, gentle as ever,
-but grave and proud. "We ought not to have wanted it&mdash;that is all I am
-sorry for."</p>
-
-<p>But Patty stood in the middle of the room, white to the lips, and
-beside herself with passion. "That we should have made such a
-mistake!&mdash;and for <i>him</i> to rebuke us!" she cried, as if it were more
-than she could bear. "That <i>I</i> should have been the one to write that
-letter! Elizabeth, I suppose he is not to blame&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"No, my dear&mdash;quite the contrary."</p>
-
-<p>"But, all the same, I will never forgive him," said poor Patty in the
-bitterness of her soul.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>MRS. AARONS.</h4>
-
-
-<p>There was no room for doubt as to what Paul Brion had meant. When
-the evening of the next day came&mdash;on which there was no Parliament
-sitting&mdash;he returned to No. 7 to dinner, and after dinner it was
-apparent that neither professional nor other engagements would have
-prevented him from enjoying the society of his fair neighbours if he
-had had a mind for it. His sitting-room opened upon the balcony&mdash;so
-did theirs; there was but a thin partition between them, and the girls
-knew not only when he was at home, but to a great extent what he was
-doing, by the presence and pungency of the odour from his pipe. When
-only faint whiffs stole into their open window from time to time,
-he was in his room, engaged&mdash;it was supposed&mdash;upon those wonderful
-leading articles which were, to them, the great feature of the paper
-to whose staff he belonged. At such times&mdash;for the houses in Myrtle
-Street were of a very lath-and-plastery order&mdash;they were careful to
-make no noise, and especially not to open their piano, that he might
-pursue his arduous labours undisturbed. But sometimes on these "off"
-nights he sat outside his window or strolled up and down the few feet
-of space allotted to him; and they would hear the rustle of the leaves
-of books on the other side of the partition, and the smell of his pipe
-would be very strong. This indicated that he had come home to rest and
-relax himself; on which occasions, prompted by some subtle feminine
-impulse, they would now and then indulge themselves with some of their
-best music&mdash;tacitly agreeing to select the very finest movements from
-the works of those best-beloved old masters whose majestic chimes rang
-out the dark evening of the eighteenth century and rang in the new age
-of art and liberty whose morning light we see&mdash;so as not to suggest,
-except by extreme comparison, the departed lady who played conventional
-rubbish on the instrument that was out of tune. That Paul Brion did not
-know Bach and Spohr, even by name and fame (as he did not), never for
-a moment occurred to them. How were they to know that the science and
-literature of music, in which they had been so well instructed, were
-not the usual study of educated people? They heard that he ceased to
-walk up and down his enclosure when they began to play and sing, and
-they smelt that his pipe was as near their window as it could get until
-they left off. That was enough.</p>
-
-<p>To-night, then, he was strolling and sitting about his section of the
-balcony. They heard him tramping to and fro for a full hour after
-dinner, in a fidgetty manner; and then they heard him drag a chair
-through his window, and sit down on it heavily. It occurred to them
-all that he was doing nothing&mdash;except, perhaps, waiting for a chance
-to see and speak to them. A little intercourse had taken place of late
-in this way&mdash;a very little. One night, when Elizabeth had gone out
-to remonstrate with Dan for barking at inoffensive dogs that went by
-in the street below, Paul, who had been leaning meditatively on his
-balustrade, bent his head a little forward to ask her if she found the
-smell of his tobacco unpleasant. She assured him that none of them
-minded it at all, and remarked that the weather was warm. Upon which
-he replied that the thermometer was so and so, and suggested that she
-must miss the sea breezes very much. She said they missed them very
-much indeed, and inquired if he had heard from his father lately, and
-whether he was well. He was glad to inform her that his father, from
-whom he had just heard, was in excellent health, and further, that
-he had made many inquiries after her and her sisters. She thanked
-Mr. Brion sincerely, and hoped he (Mr. Paul) would give him their
-kindest regards when he wrote again and tell him they were getting on
-admirably. Mr. Paul said he would certainly not forget it. And they
-bade each other a polite good-night. Since then, both Elizabeth and
-Eleanor had had a word to say to him occasionally, when he and they
-simultaneously took the air after the day was over, and simultaneously
-happened to lean over the balustrade. Patty saw no harm in their doing
-so, but was very careful not to do it herself or to let him suppose
-that she was conscious of his near neighbourhood. She played to him
-sometimes with singular pleasure in her performance, but did not once
-put herself in the way of seeing or speaking to him.</p>
-
-<p>To-night, not only she, but all of them, made a stern though unspoken
-vow that they would never&mdash;that they <i>could</i> never&mdash;so much as say
-good-night to him on the balcony any more. The lesson that he had
-taught them was sinking deeply into their hearts; they would never
-forget it again while they lived. They sat at their needlework in the
-bright gaslight, with the window open and the venetian blind down, and
-listened to the sound of his footstep and the dragging of his chair,
-and clearly realised the certainty that it was not because he was too
-busy that he had refused to spend the evening with them, but because
-he had felt obliged to show them that they had asked him to do a thing
-that was improper. Patty's head was bent down over her sewing; her face
-was flushed, her eyes restless, her quick fingers moving with nervous
-vehemence. Breaking her needle suddenly, she looked up and exclaimed,
-"Why are we sitting here so dull and stupid, all silent, like three
-scolded children? Play something, Nellie. Put away that horrid skirt,
-and play something bright and stirring&mdash;a good rousing march, or
-something of that sort."</p>
-
-<p>"The Bridal March from 'Lohengrin,'" suggested Elizabeth, softly.</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Patty; "something that will brace us up, and not make us
-feel small and humble and sat upon." What she meant was "something that
-will make Paul Brion understand that we don't feel small and humble and
-sat upon."</p>
-
-<p>Eleanor rose, and laid her long fingers on the keyboard. She was not in
-the habit of taking things much to heart herself, and she did not quite
-understand her sister's frame of mind. The spirit of mischief prompted
-her to choose the saddest thing in the way of a march that she could
-recall on the spur of the moment&mdash;that funeral march of Beethoven's
-that Patty had always said was capable of reducing her to dust and
-ashes in her most exuberant moments. She threw the most heartbreaking
-expression that art allowed into the stately solemnity of her always
-perfectly balanced execution, partly because she could never render
-such a theme otherwise than reverently, but chiefly for the playful
-purpose of working upon Patty's feelings. Poor Patty had "kept up"
-and maintained a superficial command of herself until now, but this
-unexpected touch of pathos broke her down completely. She laid her arm
-on the table, and her pretty head upon her arm, and broke into a brief
-but passionate fit of weeping, such as she had never indulged in in
-all her life before. At the sound of the first sob Eleanor jumped up
-from the music-stool, contrite and frightened&mdash;Elizabeth in another
-moment had her darling in her arms; and both sisters were seized with
-the fear that Patty was sickening for some illness, caught, probably,
-in the vitiated atmosphere of city streets, to which she had never been
-accustomed.</p>
-
-<p>In the stillness of the night, Paul Brion, leaning over the balustrade
-of the verandah, and whitening his coat against the partition that
-divided his portion of it from theirs, heard the opening bars of
-the funeral march, the gradually swelling sound and thrill of its
-impassioned harmonies, as of a procession tramping towards him along
-the street, and the sudden lapse into untimely silence. And then
-he heard, very faintly, a low cry and a few hurried sobs, and it
-was as if a lash had struck him. He felt sure that it was Patty who
-had been playing (he thought it must always be Patty who made that
-beautiful music), and Patty who had fallen a victim to the spirit of
-melancholy that she had invoked&mdash;simply because she always <i>did</i> seem
-to him to represent the action of the little drama of the sisters'
-lives, and Elizabeth and Eleanor to be the chorus merely; and he had
-a clear conviction, in the midst of much vague surmise, that he was
-involved in the causes that had made her unhappy. For a little while
-he stood still, fixing his eyes upon a neighbouring street lamp and
-scowling frightfully. He heard the girls' open window go down with a
-sharp rattle, and presently heard it open again hastily to admit Dan,
-who had been left outside. Then he himself went back, on tiptoe, to
-his own apartment, with an expression of more than his usual alert
-determination on his face.</p>
-
-<p>Entering his room, he looked at his watch, shut his window and bolted
-it, walked into the adjoining bedchamber, and there, with the gas
-flaring noisily so as to give him as much light as possible, made a
-rapid toilet, exchanging his loose tweeds for evening dress. In less
-than ten minutes he was down in the hall, with his latch key in his
-pocket, shaking himself hurriedly into a light overcoat; and in less
-than half an hour he was standing at the door of a good-sized and
-rather imposing-looking house in the neighbouring suburb, banging it
-in his peremptory fashion with a particularly loud knocker.</p>
-
-<p>Within this house its mistress was receiving, and she was a friend
-of his, as might have been seen by the manner of their greeting when
-the servant announced him, as also by the expression of certain faces
-amongst the guests when they heard his name&mdash;as they could not well
-help hearing it. "Mr.&mdash;<i>Paul</i>&mdash;BRION," the footman shouted, with three
-distinct and well-accentuated shouts, as if his lady were entertaining
-in the Town Hall. It gave Mrs. Aarons great pleasure when her domestic,
-who was a late acquisition, exercised his functions in this impressive
-manner.</p>
-
-<p>She came sailing across the room in a very long-tailed and brilliant
-gown&mdash;a tall, fair, yellow-haired woman, carefully got up in the best
-style of conventional art (as a lady who had her clothes from Paris
-regardless of expense was bound to be)&mdash;flirting her fan coquettishly,
-and smiling an unmistakeable welcome. She was not young, but she looked
-young, and she was not pretty, but she was full of sprightly confidence
-and self-possession, which answered just as well. Least of all was
-she clever, as the two or three of her circle, who were, unwillingly
-recognised; but she was quick-witted and vivacious, accomplished in
-the art of small talk, and ready to lay down the law upon any subject,
-and somehow cleverness was assumed by herself and her world in general
-to be her most remarkable and distinguishing characteristic. And,
-finally, she had no pretensions to hereditary distinction&mdash;very much
-the contrary, indeed; but her husband was rich (he was standing in a
-retired corner, a long-nosed man with dark eyes rather close together,
-amongst a group of her admirers, admiring her as much as any of
-them), and she had known the social equivalent for money obtainable
-by good management in a community that must necessarily make a table
-of precedence for itself; and she had obtained it. She was a woman
-of fashion in her sphere, and her friends were polite enough to have
-no recollection of her antecedents, and no knowledge of the family
-connections whose existence she found it expedient to ignore. It must
-be said of her that her reputation, subject to the usual attacks of
-scandal-loving gossips who were jealous of her success, was perfectly
-untarnished; she was too cold and self-contained to be subject to the
-dangers that might have beset a less worldly woman in her position (for
-that Mr. Aarons was anything more than the minister to her ambitions
-and conveniences nobody for a moment supposed). Nevertheless, to have
-a little court of male admirers always hanging about her was the chief
-pleasure, and the attracting and retaining of their admiration the
-most absorbing pursuit of her life. Paul Brion was the latest, and at
-present the most interesting, of her victims. He had a good position
-in the press world, and had recently been talked of "in society" in
-connection with a particularly striking paper signed "P. B.," which
-had appeared in the literary columns of his journal. Wherefore, in the
-character of a clever woman, Mrs. Aarons had sought him out and added
-him to the attractions of her <i>salon</i> and the number of sympathetic
-friends. And, in spite of his hawk eyes, and his keen discernment
-generally, our young man had the ordinary man's belief that he stood
-on a pedestal among his rivals, and thought her the kindest and most
-discriminating and most charming of women.</p>
-
-<p>At least he had thought so until this moment. Suddenly, as she came
-across the room to meet him, with her long train rustling over the
-carpet in a queenly manner, and a gracious welcome in her pale blue
-eyes, he found himself looking at her critically&mdash;comparing her
-complacent demeanour with the simple dignity of Elizabeth King, and
-her artificial elegance with the wild-flower grace of Eleanor, who was
-also tall and fair&mdash;and her studied sprightliness with Patty's inspired
-vigour&mdash;and her countenance, that was wont to be so attractive, with
-Patty's beautiful and intellectual face.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" said Mrs. Aarons, shaking hands with him impressively, "you have
-remembered my existence, then, <i>at last!</i> Do you know how many weeks it
-is since you honoured me with your company?&mdash;<i>five</i>. And I wonder you
-can stand there and look me in the face."</p>
-
-<p>He said it had been his misfortune and not his fault&mdash;that he had been
-so immersed in business that he had had no time to indulge in pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't tell me. You don't have business on Friday evenings," said Mrs.
-Aarons promptly.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't I?" retorted Mr. Brion (the fact being that he had spent
-several Friday evenings on his balcony, smoking and listening to his
-neighbours' music, in the most absolute and voluptuous idleness).
-"You ladies don't know what a press-man's life is&mdash;his nose to the
-grindstone at all hours of the night and day."</p>
-
-<p>"Poor man! Well, now you are here, come and sit down and tell me what
-you have been doing."</p>
-
-<p>She took a quick glance round the room, saw that her guests were in a
-fair way to support the general intercourse by voluntary contributions,
-set the piano and a thin-voiced young lady and some "Claribel" ditties
-going, and then retired with Paul to a corner sofa for a chat. She was
-inclined to make much of him after his long absence, and he was in a
-mood to be more effusive than his wont. Nevertheless, the young man
-did not advance, as suspicious observers supposed him to be doing, in
-the good graces of his charming friend&mdash;ready as she was to meet him
-half-way.</p>
-
-<p>"Of course I wanted very much to see you&mdash;it seems an awful time since
-I was here&mdash;but I had another reason for coming to-night," said Paul,
-when they had comfortably settled themselves (he was the descendant
-of countless gentlefolk and she had not even a father that she could
-conveniently call her own, yet was she constrained to blush for his bad
-manners and his brutal deficiency in delicacy and tact). "I want to ask
-a favour of you&mdash;you are always so kind and good&mdash;and I think you will
-not mind doing it. It is not much&mdash;at least to you&mdash;but it would be
-very much to them&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"To whom?" inquired Mrs. Aarons, with a little chill of disappointment
-and disapproval already in her voice and face. This was not what
-she felt she had a right to expect under the present combination of
-circumstances.</p>
-
-<p>"Three girls&mdash;three sisters, who are orphans&mdash;in a kind of way, wards
-of my father's," explained Paul, showing a disposition to stammer
-for the first time. "Their name is King, and they have come to live
-in Melbourne, where they don't know anyone&mdash;not a single friend. I
-thought, perhaps, you would just call in and see them some day&mdash;it
-would be so awfully kind of you, if you would. A little notice from a
-woman like <i>you</i> would be just everything to them."</p>
-
-<p>"Are they nice?&mdash;that is to say, are they the sort of people whom one
-would&mdash;a&mdash;care to be responsible for&mdash;you know what I mean? Are they
-<i>ladies?</i>" inquired Mrs. Aarons, who, by virtue of her own extraction,
-was bound to be select and exclusive in her choice of acquaintances.</p>
-
-<p>"Most certainly," replied Paul, with imprudent warmth. "There can be no
-manner of doubt about that. <i>Born</i> ladies."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't ask what they were born," she said quickly, with a toss of the
-head. "What are they <i>now?</i> Who are their connections? What do they
-live on?"</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion gave a succinct and graphic sketch of the superficial
-history and circumstances of his father's "wards," omitting various
-details that instinct warned him might be accounted "low"&mdash;such, for
-instance, as the fact that the single maidservant of the house they
-lived in was nothing more to them than their medium of communication
-with the front door. He dwelt (like the straightforward blunderer
-that he was) on their personal refinement and their high culture and
-accomplishments, how they studied every day at the Public Library,
-taking their frugal lunch at the pastry-cook's&mdash;how they could talk
-French and German like "natives"&mdash;how they played the piano in a way
-that made all the blood in one's veins tingle&mdash;how, in short, they were
-in all things certain to do honour and credit to whoever would spread
-the wing of the matron and chaperon over them. It seemed to him a very
-interesting story, told by himself, and he was quite convinced that it
-must touch the tender woman's heart beating under that pretty dress
-beside him.</p>
-
-<p>"You are a mother yourself," he said (as indeed she was&mdash;the mother
-of four disappointing little Aaronses, who were <i>all</i> long-nosed and
-narrow-eyed and dark, each successive infant more the image of its
-father than the last), "and so you can understand their position&mdash;you
-know how to feel for them." He thought this an irresistible plea,
-and was unprepared for the dead silence with which it was received.
-Glancing up quickly, he saw that she was by no means in the melting
-mood that he had looked for.</p>
-
-<p>"Of course, if you don't wish it&mdash;if it will be troubling you too
-much&mdash;" he began, with his old fierce abruptness, drawing himself
-together.</p>
-
-<p>"It is not that," said she, looking at her fan. "But now I know why you
-have stayed away for five weeks."</p>
-
-<p>"Why <i>I</i> have stayed away&mdash;oh! I understand. But I told you they were
-living <i>alone</i>, did I not? Therefore I have never been into their
-house&mdash;it is quite impossible for me to have the pleasure of their
-society."</p>
-
-<p>"Then you want me to take them up, so that you can have it here? Is
-that it?"</p>
-
-<p>The little man was looking so ferocious, and his departure from her
-side appeared so imminent, that she changed her tone quickly after
-putting this question. "Never mind," she said, laying her jewelled
-fingers on his coat sleeve for a moment, "I will not be jealous&mdash;at
-least I will try not to be. I will go and call on them to-morrow, and
-as soon as they have called on me I will ask them to one of my Fridays.
-Will that do?"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't wish you for a moment to do what would be at all unpleasant to
-yourself," he said, still in a hurt, blunt tone, but visibly softening.</p>
-
-<p>"It won't be unpleasant to me," she said sentimentally, "if it will
-please you."</p>
-
-<p>And Paul went home at midnight, well satisfied with what he had done,
-believing that a woman so "awfully kind" as Mrs. Aarons would be a
-shield and buckler to those defenceless girls.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE FIRST INVITATION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mrs. Aarons kept her promise, and called upon the Kings on Saturday.
-Mrs. M'Intyre saw her get down at the gate of No. 6, at about four
-o'clock in the afternoon, watched the brougham which had brought her
-trundling slowly up and down the street for half-an-hour, and then saw
-her get into it and drive off; which facts, communicated to Paul Brion,
-gave him the greatest satisfaction.</p>
-
-<p>He did not see his neighbours for several days after. He heard their
-piano, and their footsteps and voices on the verandah; but, whenever
-he essayed to go outside his own room for a breath of fresh air, they
-were sure to retire into theirs immediately, like mice into a hole when
-the cat has frightened them. At last he came across them in an alley of
-the Fitzroy Gardens, as he and they were converging upon Myrtle Street
-from different points. They were all together as usual&mdash;the majestic
-Elizabeth in the middle, with her younger sisters on either side of
-her; and they were walking home from an organ recital in the Town Hall
-to their tea, and a cosy evening over a new book, having spent most
-of the morning at the Public Library, and had their mid-day dinner at
-Gunsler's. As he caught sight of them, he was struck by the change
-in their outward appearance that a few weeks of Melbourne experience
-had brought about, and pleased himself with thinking how much their
-distinguished aspect must have impressed that discerning woman of
-the world, who had so kindly condescended to take them up. They were
-dressed in their new gowns, and bonneted, booted, and gloved, in the
-neatest manner; a little air of the mode pervaded them now, while the
-primitive purity of their taste was still unadulterated. They had never
-looked more charming, more obviously "born ladies" than to-day, as he
-saw them after so long an interval.</p>
-
-<p>The three black figures stood the shock of the unexpected meeting
-with admirable fortitude. They came on towards him with no faltering
-of that free and graceful gait that was so noticeable in a city full
-of starched and whale-boned women, and, as he lifted his hat, bowed
-gravely&mdash;Elizabeth only giving him a dignified smile, and wishing him
-a good evening as she went by. He let them pass him, as they seemed
-to wish to pass him; then he turned sharply and followed them. It was
-a chance he might not get again for months, perhaps, and he could not
-afford to let it slip.</p>
-
-<p>"Miss King," he called in his imperative brusque way; and at the sound
-of his voice Elizabeth looked back and waited for him to join her,
-while her younger sisters, at a sign from Patty, walked on at a brisk
-pace, leaving her in command of the situation. "Miss King," said Paul
-earnestly, "I am so glad to have an opportunity of speaking to you&mdash;I
-have been wanting all the week to see you, that I might thank you for
-your kindness in asking me to tea."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," said Elizabeth, whose face was scarlet, "don't mention it, Mr.
-Brion. We thought of it merely as a&mdash;a little attention&mdash;a sort of
-acknowledgment&mdash;to your father; that it might please him, perhaps,
-for you to see that we had settled ourselves, as he could not do so
-himself."</p>
-
-<p>"It would have pleased <i>me</i>, beyond everything in the world, Miss King.
-Only&mdash;only&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I know. We forgot that it was not quite <i>de rigueur</i>&mdash;or, rather,
-we had not learned about those things. We have been so out of the
-world, you see. We were dreadfully ashamed of ourselves," she added
-candidly, with a little embarrassed laugh, "but you must set it down
-to our ignorance of the laws of propriety, and not suppose that we
-consciously disregarded them."</p>
-
-<p>"The laws of propriety!" repeated Paul hotly, his own face red and
-fierce. "It is Schiller, I think, who says that it is the experience
-of corruption which originated them. I hate to hear you speak of
-impropriety, as if you could even conceive the idea of it!"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, we are not in Arcadia now, and we must behave ourselves
-accordingly," said Elizabeth, who was beginning to feel glad in her
-gentle heart that she had been able to make this explanation. "I think
-we are getting corrupted with wonderful rapidity. We have even been
-<i>called upon</i>, quite as if we were people of fashion and consequence,
-by a lady who was dressed in the most magnificent manner, and who came
-in her carriage. Her name was Aarons&mdash;Mrs. Aarons. She said she had
-heard of of our being here, and thought she would like to make our
-acquaintance."</p>
-
-<p>"Did she?" responded Paul warmly, thinking how nice and delicate it
-was of Mrs. Aarons to respect his anxious wish that his name and
-interposition should not be mentioned, which was certainly more than he
-had expected of her. "And were you all at home when she called?"</p>
-
-<p>"As it happened&mdash;yes. It was on Saturday afternoon, when we are
-generally rather busy."</p>
-
-<p>"And have you returned her call yet?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. We don't mean to return it," said Elizabeth composedly; "we did
-not like her enough to wish to make an acquaintance of her. It is no
-good to put ourselves out, and waste our own time and theirs, for
-people whom we are sure not to care about, and who would not care about
-us, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"But I think you would like her if you knew her, Miss King," pleaded
-Paul, much disturbed by this threatened downfall of his schemes. "I
-am sure&mdash;at least, I have always heard, and I can speak a little from
-personal knowledge&mdash;that she is a particularly nice woman; thoroughly
-kind and amiable, and, at the same time, having a good position
-in society, and a remarkably pleasant house, where you might meet
-interesting people whom you <i>would</i> like. Oh, don't condemn her at
-first sight in that way! First impressions are so seldom to be trusted.
-Go and call, at any rate&mdash;indeed, you know, you ought to do that, if
-only for form's sake."</p>
-
-<p>"For politeness, do you mean? Would it be rude not to return her call?"</p>
-
-<p>"It would be thought so, of course."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, I was not sure&mdash;I will call then. I don't <i>mind</i> calling in the
-least. If she has done us a kindness, it is right to acknowledge it in
-whatever is the proper way. It was my sisters&mdash;especially Patty&mdash;who
-took a dislike to her, and particularly wished not to see her again.
-Patty thought she asked too many questions, and that she came from some
-motive of curiosity to pry into our affairs. She was certainly a little
-impertinent, I thought. But then, perhaps, ladies in 'the world' don't
-look at these things as we have been accustomed to do," added Elizabeth
-humbly.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think they do," said Paul.</p>
-
-<p>By this time they had reached the gate through which Patty and Eleanor
-had passed before them out of the gardens. As they silently emerged
-into the road, they saw the pair flitting along the pavement a
-considerable distance ahead of them, and when they turned the corner
-into Myrtle Street both the slender black figures had disappeared. Paul
-wondered to see himself so irritated by this trifling and inevitable
-circumstance. He felt that it would have done him good to speak to
-Patty, if it were only to quarrel with her.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth bade him good-night when she reached the gate of No. 6, where
-the hall door stood open&mdash;putting her warm, strong hand with motherly
-benevolence into his.</p>
-
-<p>"Good-night, Miss King. I am so glad to have seen you," he responded,
-glaring fiercely at the balcony and the blank window overhead.
-"And&mdash;and you will return that call, won't you?"</p>
-
-<p>"O yes&mdash;of course. We will walk there on Monday, as we come home from
-the Library. We are able to find our way about in Melbourne very well
-now, with the help of the map you were so kind as to give us when we
-first came. I can't tell you how useful that has been."</p>
-
-<p>So, with mutual friendship and goodwill, they parted&mdash;Elizabeth to join
-her sisters upstairs, where one was already setting the tea-kettle to
-boil on the gas stove, and the other spreading a snow-white cloth on
-the sitting-room table&mdash;Paul Brion to get half-an-hour's work and a
-hasty dinner before repairing to the reporters' gallery of "the House."</p>
-
-<p>He did not see them again for a long time, and the first news he heard
-of them was from Mrs. Aarons, whom he chanced to meet when she was
-shopping one fine morning in Collins Street.</p>
-
-<p>"You see, I remembered my promise," she said, when matters of
-more personal moment had been disposed of; "I went to see those
-extraordinary <i>protégées</i> of yours."</p>
-
-<p>"Extraordinary&mdash;how extraordinary?" he inquired stiffly.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I put it to you&mdash;<i>are</i> they not extraordinary?"</p>
-
-<p>He was silent for a few seconds, and the points of his moustache went
-up a little. "Perhaps so&mdash;now you mention it," he said. "Perhaps they
-<i>are</i> unlike the&mdash;the usual girl of the period with whom we are
-familiar. But I hope you were favourably impressed with your visit.
-Were you?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, I wasn't. I will be frank with you&mdash;I wasn't. I never expected to
-find people living in that manner&mdash;and dressing in that manner. It is
-not what I am used to."</p>
-
-<p>"But they are very lady-like&mdash;if I am any judge&mdash;and that is the chief
-thing. Very pretty too. Don't you think so?"</p>
-
-<p>"O <i>dear</i> no! The middle one has rather nice eyes perhaps&mdash;though
-she gives herself great airs, I think, considering her position. And
-the youngest is not bad looking. <i>Miss</i> King is <i>plain</i>, decidedly.
-However, I told you I would do something for them, and I have kept my
-word. They are coming to my next Friday. And I do <i>hope</i>," proceeded
-Mrs. Aarons, with an anxious face, "that they will dress themselves
-respectably for the reputation of my house. Do you know anyone who
-could speak to them about it? Could you give them a hint, do you think?"</p>
-
-<p>"<i>I!</i>&mdash;good gracious! I should like to see myself at it," said Paul,
-grimly. "But I don't think," he added, with a fatuity really pitiable
-in a man of his years and experience, "that there is any danger of
-their not looking nice. They must have had their old frocks on when you
-saw them."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>DISAPPOINTMENT.</h4>
-
-
-<p>How they should dress themselves for Mrs. Aarons's Friday was a
-question as full of interest for our girls as if they had been brought
-up in the lap of wealth and fashion. They were not so ignorant of the
-habits and customs of "the world" as not to know that evening dress
-was required of them on this occasion, and they had not seen so many
-shop windows and showrooms without learning something of its general
-features as applied to their sex and to the period. Great were the
-discussions that went on over the momentous subject. Even their studies
-at the Public Library lost their interest and importance, it is to be
-feared, for a day or two, while they were anxiously hesitating, first,
-whether they should accept the invitation, and, secondly, in what
-costume they should make their first appearance in polite society.
-The former of these questions was settled without much trouble.
-Elizabeth's yearning for "friends," the chance of discovering whom
-might be missed by missing this unusual opportunity; Patty's thirst
-for knowledge and experience in all available fields, and Eleanor's
-habit of peaceably falling in with her sisters' views, overcame the
-repugnance that all of them entertained to the idea of being patronised
-by, or beholden for attentions that they could not reciprocate to, Mrs.
-Aarons, against whom they had conceived a prejudice on the first day of
-contact with her which a further acquaintance had not tended to lessen.
-But the latter question was, as I have said, a matter of much debate.
-Could they afford themselves new frocks?&mdash;say, black grenadines that
-would do for the summer afterwards. This suggestion was inquired into
-at several shops and of several dressmakers, and then relinquished,
-but not without a struggle. "We are just recovering ourselves," said
-Elizabeth, with her note-book before her and her pencil in her hand;
-"and if we go on as we are doing now we shall be able to save enough to
-take us to Europe next year without meddling with our house-money. But
-if we break our rules&mdash;well, it will throw us back. And it will be a
-bad precedent, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Then we won't break them," said Patty valiantly. "We will go in our
-black frocks. Perhaps," she added, with some hesitation, "we can find
-something amongst our mother's things to trim us up a little."</p>
-
-<p>"She would like to see us making ourselves look pretty with her
-things," said Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, Nelly. That is what I think. Come along and let us look at
-that bundle of lace that we put in the bottom drawer of the bureau.
-Elizabeth, does lace so fine as that <i>go</i> with woollen frocks, do you
-think? We must not have any incongruities if we can help it."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth thought that plain white ruffles would, perhaps, be best,
-as there was so much danger of incongruities if they trusted to their
-untrained invention. Whereupon Patty pointed out that they would have
-to buy ruffles, while the lace would cost nothing, which consideration,
-added to their secret wish for a little special decoration, now that
-the occasion for it had arisen&mdash;the love of adornment being, though
-refined and chastened, an ingredient of their nature as of every other
-woman's&mdash;carried the day in favour of "mother's things."</p>
-
-<p>"And I think," said Patty, with dignity, when at last Friday came
-and they had spread the selected finery on their little beds, "I
-think that ladies ought to know how to dress themselves better than
-shop-people can tell them. When they want to make themselves smart,
-they should think, first, what they can afford and what will be
-suitable to their position and the occasion, and then they should think
-what would look pretty in a picture. And they should put on <i>that</i>."</p>
-
-<p>Patty, I think, was well aware that she would look pretty in a picture,
-when she had arrayed herself for the evening. Round the neck of her
-black frock she had loosely knotted a length of fine, yellow-white
-Brussels lace, the value of which, enhanced by several darns that
-were almost as invisibly woven as the texture itself, neither she nor
-her sisters had any idea of. Of course it did not "go" with the black
-frock, even though the latter was not what mourning was expected to
-be, but its delicacy was wonderfully thrown up by its contrast with
-that background, and it was a most becoming setting for the wearer's
-brilliant face. Patty had more of the priceless flounce sewn on her
-black sleeves (the little Vandal had cut it into lengths on purpose),
-half of it tucked in at the wrists out of sight; and the ends that
-hung over her breast were loosely fastened down with a quaint old
-silver brooch, in which a few little bits of topaz sparkled. Elizabeth
-was not quite so magnificent. She wore a fichu of black lace over her
-shoulders&mdash;old Spanish, that happened just then to be the desire and
-despair of women of fashion, who could not get it for love or money;
-it was big enough to be called a shawl, and in putting it on Patty had
-to fold and tack it here and there with her needle, to keep it well
-up in its proper place. This was fastened down at the waist with a
-shawl-pin shaped like a gold arrow, that her grandmother had used to
-pin her Paisley over her chest; and, as the eldest daughter, Elizabeth
-wore her mother's slender watch-chain wound round and round her neck,
-and, depending from it, an ancient locket of old red gold, containing
-on its outward face a miniature of that beautiful mother as a girl,
-with a beading of little pearls all round it. Eleanor was dressed up
-in frills of soft, thick Valenciennes, taken from the bodice of one
-of the brocaded gowns; which lace, not being too fragile to handle,
-Elizabeth, ignorant as yet of the artistic excellence of the genuine
-coffee-colour of age, had contrived to wash to a respectable whiteness.
-And to Eleanor was given, from the little stock of family trinkets,
-a string of pearls, fastened with an emerald clasp&mdash;pearls the size
-of small peas, and dingy and yellow from never having been laid out
-on the grass, as, according to a high authority, pearls should be.
-Upon the whole, their finery, turned into money, would probably have
-bought up three of the most magnificent costumes worn in Melbourne that
-night; yet it can scarcely be said to have been effective. Neither Mrs.
-Aarons nor her lady friends had the requisite experience to detect
-its quality and understand what we may call its moral value. Only one
-person amongst the company discovered that Eleanor's pearls were real,
-and perhaps only that one had been educated in lace, save rudimentally,
-in the Melbourne shops. And amongst the <i>nouveaux riches</i>, as poor
-gentlefolks well know, to have no claims to distinction but such as are
-out of date is practically to have none.</p>
-
-<p>Late in the evening, Paul Brion, who had not intended to go to this
-particular Friday, lest his presence should betray to the sisters what
-he was so anxious to conceal from them, found that he could not resist
-the temptation to see with his own eyes how they were getting on; and
-when he had entered the room, which was unusually crowded, and had
-prowled about for a few minutes amongst the unpleasantly tall men who
-obstructed his view in all directions, he was surprised and enraged
-to see the three girls sitting side by side in a corner, looking
-neglected and lonely, and to see insolent women in long-tailed satin
-gowns sweeping past them as if they had not been there. One glance
-was enough to satisfy <i>him</i> that there had been no fear of their not
-looking "nice." Patty's bright and flushed but (just now) severe
-little face, rising so proudly from the soft lace about her throat and
-bosom, seemed to him to stand out clear in a surrounding mist, apart
-and distinct from all the faces in the room&mdash;or in the world, for that
-matter. Elizabeth's dignified serenity in an uncomfortable position
-was the perfection of good breeding, and made a telling contrast to
-the effusive manners of those about her; and fair Eleanor, sitting so
-modestly at Elizabeth's side, with her hands, in a pair of white silk
-mittens, folded in her lap, was as charming to look at as heart of man
-could desire. Other men seemed to be of his opinion, for he saw several
-hovering around them and looking at them with undisguised interest; but
-the ladies, who, he thought, ought to have felt privileged to take them
-up, appeared to regard them coldly, or to turn their backs upon them
-altogether, literally as well as metaphorically. It was plain that Mrs.
-Aarons had introduced them to nobody, probably wishing (as was indeed
-the case&mdash;people of her class being morbidly sensitive to the disgrace
-of unfashionable connections) not to own to them more than she could
-help.</p>
-
-<p>He withdrew from their neighbourhood before they saw him, and went to
-seek his hostess, swelling with remonstrant wrath. He found her on a
-sofa at the other end of the room, talking volubly (she was always
-voluble, but now she was breathless in her volubility) to a lady who
-had never before honoured her Fridays, and who, by doing so to-night,
-had gratified an ambition that had long been paramount amongst the many
-ambitions which, enclosed in a narrow circle as they were, served to
-make the interest and occupation of Mrs. Aarons's life. She looked up
-at Paul as he approached her, and gave him a quick nod and smile, as if
-to say, "I see you, but you must be perfectly aware that I am unable
-to attend to you just now." Paul understood her, and, not having the
-honour of Mrs. Duff-Scott's acquaintance himself, fell back a little
-behind the sofa and waited for his opportunity. As he waited, he could
-not help overhearing the conversation of the two ladies, and deriving a
-little cynical amusement therefrom.</p>
-
-<p>"And, as soon as I heard of it, I <i>begged</i> my husband to go and see if
-it was <i>really</i> a genuine example of Derby-Chelsea; and, you see, it
-<i>was</i>," said Mrs. Aarons, with subdued enthusiasm&mdash;almost with tears of
-emotion.</p>
-
-<p>"It was, indeed," assented Mrs. Duff-Scott earnestly. "There was the
-true mark&mdash;the capital D, with the anchor in the middle of it. It is
-extremely rare, and I had no hope of ever possessing a specimen."</p>
-
-<p>"I <i>knew</i> you would like to have it. I said to Ben. '<i>Do</i> go and snatch
-it up at once for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.' And he was so pleased
-to find he was in time. We were so afraid someone might have been
-before us. But the fact is, people are so ignorant that they have no
-idea of the value of things of that sort&mdash;fortunately."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't call it fortunate at all," the other lady retorted, a little
-brusquely. "I don't like to see people ignorant&mdash;I am quite ready to
-share and share." Then she added, with a smile, "I am sure I can never
-be sufficiently obliged to Mr. Aarons for taking so much trouble on my
-account. I must get him into a corner presently, and find out how much
-I am in his debt&mdash;though, of course, no money can represent the true
-worth of such a treasure, and I shall always feel that I have robbed
-him."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, pray, pray don't talk of <i>payment</i>," the hostess implored, with a
-gesture of her heavily-ringed hands. "You will hurt him <i>dreadfully</i>
-if you think of such a thing. He feels himself richly paid, I assure
-you, by having a chance to do you a little service. And such a mere
-<i>trifle</i> as it is!"</p>
-
-<p>"No, indeed, it is not a trifle, Mrs. Aarons&mdash;very far from it. The
-thing is much too valuable for me to&mdash;to"&mdash;Mrs. Duff-Scott hesitated,
-and her face was rather red&mdash;"to deprive you of it in that way. I don't
-feel that I can take it as a present&mdash;a bit of <i>real</i> Derby-Chelsea
-that you might never find a specimen of again&mdash;really I don't."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>please</i>"&mdash;and Mrs. Aarons's voice was at once reproachful and
-persuasive&mdash;"<i>please!</i> I know you wouldn't wish to hurt us."</p>
-
-<p>A little more discussion ensued, which Paul watched with an amused
-smile; and Mrs. Duff-Scott gave in.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, if you insist&mdash;but you are really too good. It makes me quite
-uncomfortable to take such a treasure from you. However, perhaps, some
-day I may be able to contribute to <i>your</i> collection."</p>
-
-<p>Like her famous model, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins, Mrs. Aarons stalked
-her big game with all kinds of stratagems, and china was the lure with
-which she had caught Mrs. Duff-Scott. This was a lady who possessed
-not only that most essential and valuable qualification of a lady,
-riches, but had also a history that was an open page to all men. It
-had not much heraldic emblazonment about it, but it showed a fair
-and honourable record of domestic and public circumstances that no
-self-respecting woman could fail to take social credit for. By virtue
-of these advantages, and of a somewhat imperious, though generous
-and unselfish, nature, she certainly did exercise that right to be
-"proud" which, in such a case, the most democratic of communities will
-cheerfully concede. She had been quite inaccessible to Mrs. Aarons,
-whom she was wont to designate a "person," long after that accomplished
-woman had carried the out-works of the social citadel in which she
-dwelt, and no doubt she would have been inaccessible to the last. Only
-she had a weakness&mdash;she had a hobby (to change the metaphor a little)
-that ran away with her, as hobbies will, even in the case of the most
-circumspect of women; and that hobby, exposed to the seductions of a
-kindred hobby, broke down and trampled upon the barriers of caste. It
-was the Derby-Chelsea specimen that had brought Mrs. Duff-Scott to
-occupy a sofa in Mrs. Aarons's drawing-room&mdash;to their mutual surprise,
-when they happened to think of it.</p>
-
-<p>She rose from that sofa now, slightly perturbed, saying she must go
-and find Mr. Aarons and acknowledge the obligation under which he had
-placed her, while all the time she was cudgelling her brains to think
-by what means and how soon she could discharge it&mdash;regretting very
-keenly for the moment that she had put herself in the way of people
-who did not understand the fine manners which would have made such a
-dilemma impossible. Her hostess jumped up immediately, and the two
-ladies passed slowly down the room in the direction of the corner
-where our neglected girls were sitting. Paul followed at a respectful
-distance, and was gratified to see Mrs. Duff-Scott stop at the piano,
-in place of hunting for her host (who was never a conspicuous feature
-of these entertainments), and shake hands cordially with a tall German
-in spectacles who had just risen from the music-stool. He had come
-to Mrs. Aarons's Friday in a professional capacity, but he was a
-sufficiently great artist for a great lady to make an equal of him.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, my dear Herr Wüllner," she said, in a very distinct voice, "I
-was listening, and I thought I could not be mistaken in your touch.
-Heller's <i>Wanderstunden</i>, wasn't it?" And they plunged head first into
-musical talk such as musical people (who never care in the least how
-much unmusical people may be bored by it) love to indulge in whenever
-an occasion offers, while Mrs. Aarons stood by, smiling vaguely, and
-not understanding a word of it. Paul Brion listened to them for a few
-minutes, and a bright idea came into his head.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>TRIUMPH.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Our girls still sat in their corner, but a change had come over them
-within the last few minutes. A stout man sitting near them was talking
-to Elizabeth across Eleanor's lap&mdash;Eleanor lying back in her seat, and
-smiling amiably as she listened to them; and Miss King was looking
-animated and interested, and showed some signs of enjoying herself at
-last. Patty also had lost her air of angry dignity, and was leaning a
-little forward, with her hands clasped on her knees, gazing at Herr
-Wüllner's venerable face with rapt enthusiasm. Paul, regarding her for
-a moment, felt himself possessed of sufficient courage to declare his
-presence, and, waiting until he could catch her eye, bowed pleasantly.
-She looked across at him with no recognition at first, then gave a
-little start, bent her head stiffly, and resumed her attentive perusal
-of Herr Wüllner's person. "Ah," thought Paul, "the old fellow has woke
-her up. And she wants him to play again." Mrs. Duff-Scott had dropped
-into a chair by the piano, and sat there contentedly, talking to the
-delighted musician, who had been as a fish out of water since he came
-into the room, and was now swimming at large in his native element
-again. She was a distinguished looking matron of fifty or thereabouts,
-with a handsome, vivacious, intelligent face and an imposing presence
-generally; and she had an active and well-cultivated mind which
-concerned itself with many other things than china. Having no necessity
-to work, no children on whom to expend her exuberant energies, and
-being incapable of finding the ordinary woman's satisfaction in the
-ordinary routine of society pleasures, she made ardent pursuits for
-herself in several special directions. Music was one. Herr Wüllner
-thought she was the most enlightened being in female shape that he
-had ever known, because she "understood" music&mdash;what was really music
-and what was not (according to his well-trained theories). She had,
-in the first place, the wonderful good sense to know that she could
-not play herself, and she held the opinion that people in general had
-no business to set themselves up to play, but only those who had been
-"called" by Divine permission and then properly instructed in the
-science of their art. "We won't look at bad pictures, nor read trashy
-books," she would say. "Why should our artistic sense be depraved and
-demoralised through our ears any more than through our eyes? Mothers
-should know better, my dear Herr Wüllner, and keep the incapables in
-the background. All girls should learn, if they <i>like</i> learning&mdash;in
-which case it does them good, and delights the domestic circle; but
-if at sixteen they can't play&mdash;what <i>we</i> call play&mdash;after having had
-every chance given them, they should leave off, so as to use the
-time better, or confine their performances to a family audience."
-And Mrs. Duff-Scott had the courage of her convictions, and crushed
-unrelentingly those presumptuous amateurs (together with their
-infatuated mammas) who thought they could play when they couldn't, and
-who regarded music as a mere frivolous drawing-room amusement for the
-encouragement of company conversation. Herr Wüllner delighted in her.
-The two sat talking by the piano, temporarily indifferent to what was
-going on around them, turning over a roll of music sheets that had had
-a great deal of wear and tear, apparently. Mrs. Aarons sat beside them,
-fanning herself and smiling, casting about her for more entertaining
-converse. And Paul Brion stood near his hostess, listening and watching
-for his opportunity. Presently it came.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott lifted up a sheet of crabbed manuscript as yellowed by
-time as Patty's Brussels lace, and said: "This is not quite the thing
-for a mixed audience, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, no, you are right; it is the study of Haydn that a friend of mine
-asked of me yesterday, and that I propose to read to him to-night,"
-said Herr Wüllner, in that precise English and with that delicate
-pronunciation with which the cultivated foreigner so often puts us to
-shame. "It is, you perceive, an arrangement for one violin and a piano
-only&mdash;done by a very distinguished person for a lady who was for a
-short time my pupil, when I was a young man. You have heard it with
-the four-stringed instruments at your house; that was bad&mdash;bad! Ach!
-that second violin squeaked like the squeaking of a pig, and it was
-always in the wrong place. But in good hands it is sublime. This"&mdash;and
-he sighed as he added more sheets to the one she held and was steadily
-perusing&mdash;"this is but a crippled thing, perhaps; the piano, which
-should have none of it, has it all&mdash;and no one can properly translate
-that piano part&mdash;not one in ten thousand. But it is well done. Yes, it
-is very well done. And I have long been wanting my friend to try it
-with me."</p>
-
-<p>"And what about the young lady for whom it was written?&mdash;which part did
-she take?"</p>
-
-<p>"The piano&mdash;the piano. But then she had a wonderful execution and
-sympathy&mdash;it was truly wonderful for a lady, and she so young. Women
-play much better now, as a rule, but I never hear one who is an amateur
-play as she did. And so quick&mdash;so quick! It was an inspiration with
-her. Yes, this was written on purpose for that lady&mdash;I have had it ever
-since&mdash;it has never been published. The manuscript is in her own hand.
-She wrote out much of her music in her own hand. It was many, many
-years ago, and I was a young man then. We were fellow-pupils before I
-became her master, and she was my pupil only for a few weeks. It was a
-farce&mdash;a farce. She did not play the violin, but in everything else she
-was better than I. Ah, she was a great genius, that young lady. She was
-a great loss to the world of art."</p>
-
-<p>"Did she die, Herr Wüllner?"</p>
-
-<p>"She eloped," he said softly, "she ran away with a scapegrace. And the
-ship she sailed in was lost at sea."</p>
-
-<p>"Dear me! How very sad. Well, you must make your friend try it over,
-and, if you manage it all right, bring him with you to my house on
-Monday evening and let me hear it."</p>
-
-<p>"That shall give me great pleasure," said the old man, bowing low.</p>
-
-<p>"You have your violin with you, I suppose?" she asked.</p>
-
-<p>"It is in the hall, under my cloak. I do not bring it into this room,"
-he replied.</p>
-
-<p>"Why not?" she persisted. "Go and fetch it, Herr Wüllner, and let Mrs.
-Aarons hear you play it"&mdash;suddenly bethinking herself of her hostess
-and smiling upon that lady&mdash;"if she has never had that treat before."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Aarons was eager to hear the violin, and Herr Wüllner went
-himself, though reluctantly, to fetch his treasure from the old case
-that he had hidden away below. When he had tuned up his strings a
-little, and had tucked the instrument lovingly under his chin, he
-looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott and said softly, "What?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," cried Mrs. Aarons, striking in, "play that&mdash;you know&mdash;what you
-were talking of just now&mdash;what Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted so much to hear.
-<i>I</i> want to hear it too."</p>
-
-<p>"Impossible&mdash;impossible," he said quickly, almost with a shudder. "It
-has a piano part, and there is no one here to take that."</p>
-
-<p>Then Paul Brion broke in, conscious that he was running heavy risks of
-all sorts, but resolved to seize his chance.</p>
-
-<p>"I think there <i>is</i> someone who could play it," he said to Mrs. Aarons,
-speaking with elaborate distinctness. "The Miss Kings&mdash;one of them, at
-any rate&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Nonsense," interrupted Mrs. Aarons, sharply, but under her breath.
-"Not at all likely." She was annoyed by the suggestion, and wished to
-treat it as if unheard (it was unreasonable, on the face of it, of
-course); but Mrs. Duff-Scott caught at it in her direct way. "Who are
-they? Which are the Miss Kings?" she asked of Paul, putting up her
-eye-glass to see what manner of man had taken upon himself to interfere.</p>
-
-<p>"My dear lady," sighed Herr Wüllner, dropping his bow dejectedly, "it
-is out of the question, absolutely. It is not normal music at its
-best&mdash;and I have it only in manuscript. It is impossible that any lady
-can attempt it."</p>
-
-<p>"She will not attempt it if she cannot do it, Herr Wüllner," said Paul.
-"But you might ask her."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott had followed the direction of his eyes, and her
-attention was violently arrested by the figures of the three girls
-sitting together, who were so remarkably unlike the majority of Mrs.
-Aarons's guests. She took note of all their superficial peculiarities
-in a moment, and the conviction that the lace and the pearls were real
-flashed across her like an inspiration. "Is it the young lady with the
-bright eyes?" she inquired. "What a charming face! Yes, Herr Wüllner,
-we <i>will</i> ask her. Introduce her to me, Mrs. Aarons, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>She rose as she spoke and sailed towards Patty, Mrs. Aarons following;
-and Paul Brion held his breath while he waited to see how his reckless
-enterprise would turn out. In a few minutes Patty came towards the
-piano, with her head up and her face flushed, looking a little defiant,
-but as self-possessed as the great lady who convoyed her across the
-room. The events of the evening had roused her spirit, and strung up
-her nerves like Herr Wüllner's fiddle-strings, and she, too, was in a
-daring and audacious mood.</p>
-
-<p>"This is it," said the old musician, looking at her critically as he
-gave a sheet of manuscript into her hand. It was a wonderful chance, of
-course, but Patty had seen the facsimile of that manuscript many times
-before, and had played from it. It is true she had never played with
-the violin accompaniment&mdash;had never so much as seen a violin until she
-came to Melbourne; but her mother had contrived to make her understand
-how the more delicate and sensitive instrument ought to be deferred to
-in the execution of the piano part, and what the whole should sound
-like, by singing the missing air in her flexible trilling voice; and
-just now she was in that peculiar mood of exaltation that she felt
-inspired to dare anything and assured that she should succeed. "You
-will not be able to read it?" Herr Wüllner suggested persuasively,
-drawing hope from her momentary silence.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, yes," she said, looking up bravely: "I think so. You will stop me,
-please, if I do not play it right." And she seated herself at the piano
-with a quiet air of knowing what she was doing that confounded the two
-ladies who were watching her and deeply interested Mrs. Duff-Scott.
-Paul Brion's heart was beating high with anticipated triumph. Herr
-Wüllner's heart, on the contrary, sank with a mild despair.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, we will have a few bars," he sighed. "And pray, my dear young
-lady, don't bang the piano&mdash;I mean don't play over me. And try to keep
-time. But you will never do it&mdash;with the best intentions, my dear, you
-will never be able to read it from such a manuscript as that."</p>
-
-<p>Patty looked up at him with a sort of radiant calmness, and said
-gently, "Go on. You see you have an opening movement to yourself."</p>
-
-<p>Bewildered, the old man dropped his bow upon the strings, and set forth
-on his hopeless task. And at exactly the right moment the piano glided
-in, so lightly, so tenderly, and yet with such admirable precision and
-delicate clearness, that it justified, for once, its trespass upon
-ground that belonged to more aerial instruments. It was just what Paul
-Brion had counted on&mdash;though Paul Brion had not the least idea what
-a wild chance had brought about the fulfilment of his expectations.
-Patty was able to display her chief accomplishment to the very best
-advantage, and the sisters were thereby promoted to honour. The cold
-shade of neglect and obscurity was to chill them no more from this
-happy moment. It was a much greater triumph than Patty herself had any
-idea of, or than anybody had had the least reason to expect. <i>She</i>
-knew that piles of music, all in this self-same handwriting (she had
-never seen any other and supposed that all manuscript music was alike),
-were stowed away in the old bureau at home, and in the ottoman which
-she had constructed out of a packing-case, and that long familiarity
-had made it as easy to her to read as print; but Herr Wüllner was not
-in a position to make the faintest guess at such a circumstance. When
-Elizabeth moved her seat nearer to the piano, as if to support her
-sister, though he was close enough to see it, he did not recognise in
-the miniature round her neck the face of that young lady of genius who
-eloped with a scapegrace, and was supposed to have been drowned at
-sea with her husband. And yet it was that lady's face. Such wonderful
-coincidences are continually happening in our small world. It was not
-more wonderful than that Herr Wüllner, Mrs. Duff-Scott, Paul Brion, and
-Patty King should have been gathered together round one piano, and that
-piano Mrs. Aarons's.</p>
-
-<p>The guests were laughing and talking and flirting, as they were wont to
-do under cover of the music that generally prevailed at these Friday
-receptions, when an angry "Hush!" from the violinist, repeated by Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, made a little circle of silence round the performers. And
-in this silence Patty carried through her responsible undertaking
-with perfect accuracy and the finest taste&mdash;save for a shadowy mistake
-or two, which, glancing over them as if they were mere phantoms of
-mistakes, and recovering herself instantly, only served to show more
-clearly the finished quality of her execution, and the thoroughness of
-her musical experience. She was conscious herself of being in her very
-best form.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" said Herr Wüllner, drawing a long breath as he uttered the
-exclamation, and softly laying down his violin, "I was mistaken. My
-dear young lady, allow me to beg your pardon, and to thank you." And he
-bowed before Patty until his nose nearly touched his knees.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, who was a woman of impulses, as most nice women are,
-was enthusiastic. Not only had she listened to Patty's performance with
-all her intelligent ears, but she had at the same time investigated
-and appraised the various details of her personal appearance, and been
-particularly interested in that bit of lace about her neck.</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," she said, putting out her hand as the girl rose from the
-music-stool, "come here and sit by me and tell me where you learned to
-play like that."</p>
-
-<p>Patty went over to her readily, won by the kind voice and motherly
-gesture. And, in a very few minutes, Paul had the pleasure of seeing
-the great lady sitting on a sofa with all three sisters around her,
-talking to them, and they to her, as if they had known one another for
-years.</p>
-
-<p>Leaving them thus safe and cared for, he bade good-night to his
-hostess, and went home to his work, in a mood of high contentment.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PATTY IN UNDRESS.</h4>
-
-
-<p>When Paul Brion bade Mrs. Aarons good-night, he perceived that she was
-a little cold to him, and rather wondered at himself that he did not
-feel inclined either to resent or to grieve over that unprecedented
-circumstance.</p>
-
-<p>"I am going to steal away," he said in an airy whisper, coming across
-her in the middle of the room as he made his way to the door. "I have a
-good couple of hours' work to get through to-night."</p>
-
-<p>He was accustomed to speak to her in this familiar and confidential
-fashion, though she was but a recent acquaintance, and she had always
-responded in a highly gratifying way. But now she looked at him
-listlessly, with no change of face, and merely said, "Indeed."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," he repeated; "I have a lot to do before I can go to bed. It
-is delightful to be here; but I must not indulge myself any longer.
-Good-night."</p>
-
-<p>"Good-night," she said, still unsmiling, as she gave him her hand. "I
-am sorry you must go so soon." But she did not look as if she were
-sorry; she looked as if she didn't care a straw whether he went or
-stayed. However, he pressed her hand with the wonted friendly pressure,
-and slipped out of the room, unabashed by her assumed indifference and
-real change of manner, which he was at no great trouble to interpret;
-and he took a cab to his office&mdash;now a humming hive of busy bees
-improving the shining hours of the gaslit night&mdash;and walked back
-from the city through the shadowy gardens to his lodgings, singing a
-tuneless air to himself, which, if devoid of music, was a pleasant
-expression of his frame of mind.</p>
-
-<p>When he reached Myrtle Street the town clocks were striking twelve.
-He looked up at his neighbours' windows as he passed the gate of No.
-6, and saw no light, and supposed they had returned from their revels
-and gone peaceably to bed. He opened his own door softly, as if afraid
-of waking them, and went upstairs to his sitting-room, where Mrs.
-M'Intyre, who loved to make him comfortable, had left him a bit of
-supper, and a speck of gas about the size of a pea in the burner at the
-head of his arm-chair; and he pulled off his dress coat, and kicked
-away his boots, and got his slippers and his dressing-gown, and his
-tobacco and his pipe, and took measures generally for making himself at
-home. But before he had quite settled himself the idea occurred to him
-that his neighbours might <i>not</i> have returned from Mrs. Aarons's, but
-might, indeed (for he knew their frugal and unconventional habits), be
-even then out in the streets, alone and unprotected, walking home by
-night as they walked home by day, unconscious of the perils and dangers
-that beset them. He had not presumed to offer his escort&mdash;he had not
-even spoken to them during the evening, lest he should seem to take
-those liberties that Miss Patty resented so much; but now he angrily
-reproached himself for not having stayed at Mrs. Aarons's until their
-departure, so that he could, at least, have followed and watched over
-them. He put down his pipe hastily, and, opening the window, stepped
-out on the balcony. It was a dark night, and a cold wind was blowing,
-and the quarter-hour after midnight was chiming from the tower of the
-Post Office. He was about to go in for his boots and his overcoat, when
-he was relieved to hear a cab approaching at a smart pace, and to see
-it draw up at the gate of No. 6. Standing still in the shadow of the
-partition that divided his enclosure from theirs, he watched the girls
-descend upon the footpath, one by one, fitfully illuminated from the
-interior of the vehicle. First Eleanor, then Elizabeth, then Patty&mdash;who
-entered the gate and tapped softly at her street door. He expected to
-see the driver dismissed, with probably double the fare to which he was
-entitled; but to his surprise, the cab lingered, and Elizabeth stood at
-the step and began to talk to someone inside. "Thank you so much for
-your kindness," she said, in her gentle but clear tones, which were
-perfectly audible on the balcony. A voice from the cab answered, "Don't
-mention it, my dear. I am very glad to see as much of you as possible,
-for I want to know you. May I come and have a little gossip to-morrow
-afternoon?" It was the voice of Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, after keeping
-them late at Mrs. Aarons's, talking to them, had frustrated their
-intention of making their own way home. That powerful woman had "taken
-them up," literally and figuratively, and she was not one to drop them
-again&mdash;as fine ladies commonly drop interesting impecunious <i>protégées</i>
-when the novelty of their acquaintance has worn off&mdash;save for causes in
-their own conduct and circumstances that were never likely to arise.
-Paul Brion, thoroughly realising that his little schemes had been
-crowned with the most gratifying success, stole back to his rooms, shut
-the window softly, and sat down to his pipe and his manuscripts. And he
-wrote such a maliciously bitter article that, when he took it to the
-office, his editor refused to print it without modifications, on the
-ground that it would land the paper in an action for libel.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile our girls parted from their new friend with affectionate
-good-nights, and were let into their house by the landlady, who had
-herself been entertaining company to a late hour. They went upstairs
-with light feet, too excited to feel tired, and all assembled in
-Elizabeth's meagrely-appointed bedchamber to take off their finery
-and to have a little happy gossip before they went to rest. Elizabeth
-herself, who was not a gushing person, had the most to say at first,
-pouring out her ingenuous heart in grateful reminiscences of the
-unparalleled kindness of Mrs. Duff-Scott. "What a dear, dear woman!"
-she murmured, with soft rapture, as she unwound the watch-chain and
-locket from her neck and disembarrassed herself of her voluminous
-fichu. "You can <i>see</i> that what she does and says is real and
-truthful&mdash;I am certain you can trust her. I do not trust Mrs. Aarons&mdash;I
-do not understand her ways. She wanted us to go and see her, and when
-we went she was unkind to us; at least, she was not polite. I was very
-sorry we had gone to her house&mdash;until Mrs. Duff-Scott came to our sofa
-to speak to us. But now I feel so glad! For it has given us <i>her</i>. And
-she is just the kind of friend I have so often pictured to myself&mdash;so
-often longed to know."</p>
-
-<p>"I think it was Patty's playing that gave us Mrs. Duff-Scott,"
-said Eleanor, who was sitting by the dressing table with her frock
-unbuttoned. "She is fond of music, and really there was no one who
-could play at all except Herr Wüllner&mdash;which was a very strange thing,
-don't you think? And the singing was worse&mdash;such sickly, silly sort of
-songs, with such eccentric accompaniments. I could not understand it,
-unless the fashion has changed since mother was a girl. I suppose it
-has. But when Patty and Herr Wüllner got together it was like another
-atmosphere in the room. How did you come to play so well, Patty?&mdash;to be
-so collected and quiet when there was so much to frighten you? I was so
-nervous that my hands shook, and I had to squeeze them to keep myself
-still."</p>
-
-<p>"I was nervous, too, at first," said Patty, who, divested of her
-dress and laces, was lying all along on Elizabeth's bed, with her
-pretty bare arms flung up over the pillows, and her hands clasped
-one over the other at the back of her head. "When we got there, that
-impudent maid in the room where we took our things off upset me; she
-looked at our old hats and water-proofs as if she had never seen such
-things before&mdash;and they <i>did</i> seem very shabby amongst all the pretty
-cloaks and hoods that the other ladies were taking off. And then it
-was so ignominious to have to find our way to the drawing-room by
-following other people, and to have our names bawled out as if to call
-everybody's attention to us, and then not to <i>have</i> attentions. When we
-trailed about the room, so lost and lonely, with all those fine people
-watching us and staring at us, my knees were shaking under me, and I
-felt hot and cold&mdash;I don't know how I felt. The only comfort I had was
-seeing how calm Elizabeth was. She seemed to stand up for us all, and
-to carry us through it. <i>I</i> felt&mdash;I hate to think I could be such an
-idiot&mdash;so nervous and so unhinged, and so miserable altogether, that
-I should have liked to go away somewhere and have a good cry. But,"
-added Patty, suddenly sitting up in the bed, and removing her hands
-from the back of her head to her knees, "but after a little while it
-got <i>too</i> horrid. And then I got angry, and that made me feel much
-better. And by-and-bye, when they began to play and sing, and I saw how
-ridiculous they made themselves, I brightened up, and was not nervous
-any more&mdash;for I saw that they were rather ignorant people, in spite
-of their airs and their fine clothes. When the girl in that beautiful
-creamy satin dress sang her whining little song about parting and dying
-half a note flat, while she dashed her hands up and down the keyboard,
-and they all hung round her when she had done and said how charming
-it was, I felt that <i>really</i>&mdash;" Patty paused, and stared into the
-obscurity of the room with brilliant, humorous, disdainful eyes, which
-expressed her sentiments with a distinctness that made further words
-unnecessary.</p>
-
-<p>"But, you see, if people don't <i>know</i> that you are superior to them&mdash;"
-suggested Eleanor, folding up Elizabeth's best gloves, and wrapping
-them in tissue paper, with a reflective air.</p>
-
-<p>"Who would care about their knowing?" interposed Elizabeth. "We should
-not be very much superior to anyone if we could indulge in a poor
-ambition to seem so. That is not one of Patty's feelings, I think."</p>
-
-<p>"But it is, then," Patty confessed, with honest promptness. "I found
-it out to-night, Elizabeth. When I saw those conceited people sweeping
-about in their splendid trains and looking as if all Melbourne belonged
-to them&mdash;when I heard that girl singing that preposterous twaddle,
-and herself and all her friends thinking she was a perfect genius&mdash;I
-felt that I would give anything, <i>anything</i>, just to rise up and be
-very grand and magnificent for a little while and crush them all into
-vulgarity and insignificance."</p>
-
-<p>"Patty!" murmured Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, my dear, it shocks you, I know. But you wouldn't have me disguise
-the truth from you, would you? I wanted to pay them out. I saw they
-were turning up their noses at us, and I longed&mdash;I <i>raged</i>&mdash;to be in
-a position to turn up my nose at them, if only for five minutes. I
-thought to myself, oh, if the door should suddenly open and that big
-footman shout out, 'His Grace the Duke of So and So;' and they should
-all be ready to drop on their knees before such a grand person&mdash;as
-you know they would be, Elizabeth; they would <i>grovel</i>, simply&mdash;and he
-should look with a sort of gracious, ducal haughtiness over their heads
-and say to Mrs. Aarons, 'I am told that I shall find here the daughters
-of my brother, who disappeared from home when he was young, along with
-his wife, the Princess So and So.' You know, Elizabeth, our father, who
-never would talk about his family to anybody, <i>might</i> have been a duke
-or an earl in disguise, for anything we know, and our mother was the
-very image of what a princess <i>ought</i> to be&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"We should have been found out before this, if we had been such
-illustrious persons," said Elizabeth, calmly.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, of course&mdash;of course. But one needn't be so practical. You are
-free to think what you like, however improbable it may be. And that is
-what I thought of. Then I thought, suppose a telegram should be brought
-in, saying that some enormously wealthy squatter, with several millions
-of money and no children, had left us all his fortune&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I should think that kind of news would come by post," suggested
-Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"It might and it mightn't, Nelly. The old squatter might have been that
-queer old man who comes to the Library sometimes, and seems to take
-such interest in seeing us reading so hard. He might have thought that
-girls who were so studious would have serious views of life and the
-value of money. Or he might have overheard us castle-building about
-Europe, and determined to help us to realise our dreams. Or he might
-have fallen in love with Elizabeth&mdash;at a distance, you know, and in a
-humble, old-fashioned, hopeless way."</p>
-
-<p>"But that doesn't account for the telegram, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"And have felt himself dying, perhaps," continued Patty, quite
-solemnly, with her bright eyes fixed on her invisible drama, "and have
-thought he would like to see us&mdash;to speak to Elizabeth&mdash;to give some
-directions and last wishes to us&mdash;before he went. No," she added,
-checking herself with a laugh and shaking herself up, "I don't think it
-was that. I think the lawyer came himself to tell us. The lawyer had
-opened the will, and he was a friend of Mrs. Aarons's, and he came to
-tell her of the wonderful thing that had happened. 'Everyone has been
-wondering whom he would leave his money to,' he says to her, 'but no
-one ever expected this. He has left it to three poor girls whom no one
-has ever heard of, and whom he never spoke to in his life. I am now
-going to find them out, for they are living somewhere in Melbourne.
-Their name is King, and they are sisters, without father or mother, or
-friends or fortune&mdash;mere nobodies, in fact. But now they will be the
-richest women in Australia.' And Mrs. Aarons suddenly remembers us,
-away there in the corner of the room, and it flashes across her that
-<i>we</i> are the great heiresses. And she tells the other ladies, and they
-all flock round us, and&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"And you find yourself in the position to turn up your nose at them,"
-laughed Eleanor. "No one would have guessed your thoughts, Patty,
-seeing you sitting on that sofa, looking so severe and dignified."</p>
-
-<p>"But I had other thoughts," said Patty, quickly. "These were just
-passing ideas, of course. What really <i>did</i> take hold of me was an
-intense desire to be asked to play, so that I might show them how much
-better we could play than they could. Especially after I heard Herr
-Wüllner. I knew he, at least, would appreciate the difference&mdash;and
-I thought Mrs. Duff-Scott looked like a person who would, also. And
-perhaps&mdash;perhaps&mdash;Paul Brion."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, Patty!" exclaimed Elizabeth, smiling, but reproachful. "Did
-you really want to go to the piano for the sake of showing off your
-skill&mdash;to mortify those poor women who had not been taught as well as
-you had?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said Patty, hardily. "I really did. When Mrs. Duff-Scott came
-and asked me to join Herr Wüllner in that duet, I felt that, failing
-the duke and the lawyer, it was just the opportunity that I had been
-looking and longing for. And it was because I felt that I was going to
-do so much better than they could that I was in such good spirits, and
-got on&mdash;as I flatter myself I did&mdash;so splendidly."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I don't believe you," said Elizabeth. "You could never
-have rendered that beautiful music as you did simply from pure
-vindictiveness. It is not in you."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Patty, throwing herself back on the bed and flinging up
-her arms again, "no&mdash;when I come to think of it&mdash;I was not vindictive
-all the time. At first I was <i>savage</i>&mdash;O yes, there is no doubt about
-it. Then Herr Wüllner's fears and frights were so charming that I
-got amused a little; I felt jocose and mischievous. Then I felt Mrs.
-Duff-Scott looking at me&mdash;<i>studying</i> me&mdash;and that made me serious
-again, and also quieted me down and steadied me. Then I was a little
-afraid that I <i>might</i> blunder over the music&mdash;it was a long time since
-I had played that thing, and the manuscript was pale and smudged&mdash;and
-so I had to brace myself up and forget about the outside people. And
-as soon as Herr Wüllner reached me, and I began safely and found that
-we were making it, oh, so sweet! between us&mdash;then I lost sight of lots
-of things. I mean I began to see and think of lots of other things. I
-remembered playing it with mother&mdash;it was like the echo of her voice,
-that violin!&mdash;and the sun shining through a bit of the red curtain
-into our sitting-room at home, and flickering on the wall over the
-piano, where it used to stand; and the sound of the sea under the
-cliffs&mdash;<i>whish-sh-sh-sh</i>&mdash;in the still afternoon&mdash;" Patty broke off
-abruptly, with a little laugh that was half a sob, and flung herself
-from the bed with vehemence. "But it won't do to go on chattering like
-this&mdash;we shall have daylight here directly," she said, gathering up her
-frock and shoes.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>IN THE WOMB OF FATE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott came for her gossip on Saturday afternoon, and it
-was a long one, and deeply interesting to all concerned. The girls
-took her to their trustful hearts, and told her their past history
-and present circumstances in such a way that she understood them even
-better than they did themselves. They introduced her to their entire
-suite of rooms, including the infinitesimal kitchen and its gas stove;
-they unlocked the drawers and cupboards of the old bureau to show her
-their own and their mother's sketches, and the family miniatures, and
-even the jewels they had worn the night before, about which she was
-frankly curious, and which she examined with the same discriminating
-intelligence that she brought to bear upon old china. They chattered
-to her, they played to her, they set the kettle on the gas-stove and
-made tea for her, with a familiar and yet modest friendliness that
-was a pleasant contrast to the attitude in which feminine attentions
-were too often offered to her. In return, she put off that armour of
-self-defence in which she usually performed her social duties, fearing
-no danger to pride or principle from an unreserved intercourse with
-such unsophisticated and yet singularly well-bred young women; and she
-revelled in unguarded and unlimited gossip as freely as if they had
-been her own sisters or her grown-up children. She gave them a great
-deal of very plain, but very wholesome, advice as to the necessity
-that lay upon them to walk circumspectly in the new life they had
-entered upon; and they accepted it in a spirit of meek gratitude that
-would have astonished Paul Brion beyond measure. All sorts of delicate
-difficulties were touched upon in connection with the non-existent
-chaperon and the omnipotent and omnipresent Mrs. Grundy, and not only
-touched upon, but frankly discussed, between the kindly woman of the
-world who wished to serve them and the proud but modest girls who were
-but too anxious to learn of one who they felt was authorised to teach
-them. In short, they sat together for more than two hours, and learned
-in that one interview to know and trust each other better than some of
-us will do after living for two years under the same roof. When at last
-the lady called her coachman, who had been mooning up and down Myrtle
-Street, half asleep upon his box, to the gate of No. 6, she had made a
-compact with herself to "look after" the three sweet and pretty sisters
-who had so oddly fallen in her way with systematic vigilance; and
-they were unconsciously of one mind, that to be looked after by Mrs.
-Duff-Scott was the most delightful experience, by far, that Melbourne
-had yet given them.</p>
-
-<p>On the following Monday they went to her house, and spent a ravishing
-evening in a beautiful, cosy, stately, deeply-coloured, softly-lighted
-room, that was full of wonderful and historical bric-à-brac such as
-they had never seen before, listening to Herr Wüllner and three brother
-artists playing violins and a violoncello in a way that brought tears
-to their eyes and unspeakable emotions into their responsive hearts.
-Never had they had such a time as this. There was no Mr. Duff-Scott&mdash;he
-was away from home just now, looking after property in Queensland;
-and no Mrs. Aarons&mdash;she was not privileged to join any but large and
-comprehensive parties in this select "set." There were no conceited
-women to stare at and to snub them, and no girls to sing sickly
-ballads, half a note flat. Only two or three unpretentious music-loving
-ladies, who smiled on them and were kind to them, and two or three
-quiet men who paid them charmingly delicate attentions; nothing that
-was unpleasant or unharmonious&mdash;nothing to jar with the exquisite music
-of a well-trained quartette, which was like a new revelation to them
-of the possibilities of art and life. They went home that night in a
-cab, escorted by one of the quiet men, whose provincial rank was such
-that the landlady curtsied like an English rustic, when she opened
-the door to him, and paid her young lodgers marked attentions for days
-afterwards in honour of their acquaintance with such a distinguished
-individual. And Paul Brion, who was carefully informed by Mrs. M'Intyre
-of their rise and progress in the world that was not his world, said
-how glad he was that they had been recognised and appreciated for what
-they were, and went on writing smart literary and political and social
-criticisms for his paper, that were continually proving too smart for
-prudent journalism.</p>
-
-<p>Then Mrs. Duff-Scott left Melbourne for a visit to some relations
-in Brisbane, and to join her husband on his homeward journey, and
-the girls fell back into their old quiet life for a while. It was an
-exceedingly simple and homely life. They rose early every morning&mdash;not
-much after the hour at which their neighbour on the other side of the
-wall was accustomed to go to bed&mdash;and aired, and swept, and scrubbed
-their little rooms, and made their beds, and polished their furniture,
-and generally set their dwelling in an exquisite order that is not at
-all universal with housewives in these days, but must always be the
-instinct of really well-bred women. They breakfasted frugally after the
-most of this was done, and took a corresponding meal in the evening,
-the staple of both being bread and butter; and at mid-day they saved
-"messing" and the smell of cooking about their rooms, and saved also
-the precious hours of the morning for their studies, by dining at a
-restaurant in the city, where they enjoyed a comfortable and abundant
-repast for a shilling apiece. Every day at about ten o'clock they
-walked through the leafy Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, and the bright
-and busy streets that never lost their charm of novelty, to the Public
-Library, where with pencils and note-books on the table before them,
-they read and studied upon a systematic principle until the clock
-struck one; at which hour they closed their books and set off with
-never-failing appetites in search of dinner. After dinner, if it was
-Thursday, they stayed in town for the organ recital at the Town Hall;
-but on other days they generally sauntered quietly home, with a new
-novel from Mullen's (they were very fond of novels), and made up their
-fire, and had a cup of tea, and sat down to rest and chat over their
-needlework, while one read aloud or practised her music, until the time
-came to lay the cloth for the unfashionable tea-supper at night-fall.
-And these countrified young people invariably began to yawn at eight
-o'clock, and might have been found in bed and asleep, five nights out
-of six, at half-past nine.</p>
-
-<p>So the days wore on, one very much like another, and all very gentle
-and peaceful, though not without the small annoyances that beset the
-most flowery paths of this mortal life, until October came&mdash;until
-the gardens through which they passed to and from the city, morning
-and afternoon (though there were other and shorter routes to choose
-from), were thick with young green leaves and odorous with innumerable
-blossoms&mdash;until the winter was over, and the loveliest month of the
-Australian year, when the brief spring hurries to meet the voluptuous
-summer, made even Melbourne delightful. And in October the great
-event that was recorded in the annals of the colony inaugurated a new
-departure in their career.</p>
-
-<p>On the Thursday immediately preceding the opening of the Exhibition
-they did not go to the Library as usual, nor to Gunsler's for their
-lunch. Like a number of other people, their habits were deranged and
-themselves demoralised by anticipations of the impending festival. They
-stayed at home to make themselves new bonnets for the occasion, and
-took a cold dinner while at their work, and two of them did not stir
-outside their rooms from morn till dewy eve for so much as a glance
-into Myrtle Street from the balcony.</p>
-
-<p>But in the afternoon it was found that half a yard more of ribbon was
-required to complete the last of the bonnets, and Patty volunteered to
-"run into town" to fetch it. At about four o'clock she set off alone
-by way of an adjoining road which was an omnibus route, intending to
-expend threepence, for once, in the purchase of a little precious time,
-but every omnibus was full, and she had to walk the whole way. The
-pavements were crowded with hurrying folk, who jostled and obstructed
-her. Collins Street, when she turned into it, seemed riotous with
-abnormal life, and she went from shop to shop and could not get waited
-on until the usual closing hour was past, and the evening beginning
-to grow dark. Then she got what she wanted, and set off home by way
-of the Gardens, feeling a little daunted by the noise and bustle of
-the streets, and fancying she would be secure when once those green
-alleys, always so peaceful, were reached. But to-night even the gardens
-were infested by the spirit of unrest and enterprise that pervaded the
-city. The quiet walks were not quiet now, and the sense of her belated
-isolation in the growing dusk seemed more formidable here instead of
-less. For hardly had she passed through the gates into the Treasury
-enclosure than she was conscious of being watched and peered at by
-strange men, who appeared to swarm all over the place; and by the time
-she had reached the Gardens nearer home the appalling fact was forced
-upon her that a tobacco-scented individual was dogging her steps, as if
-with an intention of accosting her. She was bold, but her imagination
-was easily wrought upon; and the formless danger, of a kind in which
-she was totally inexperienced, gave a shock to her nerves. So that when
-presently, as she hurriedly pattered on, hearing the heavier tread and
-an occasional artificial cough behind her, she suddenly saw a still
-more expeditious pedestrian hastening by, and recognised Paul's light
-figure and active gait, the words seemed to utter themselves without
-conscious effort of hers&mdash;"Mr. Brion!&mdash;oh, Mr. Brion, is that you?"</p>
-
-<p>He stopped at the first sound of her voice, looked back and saw her,
-saw the man behind her, and comprehended the situation immediately.
-Without speaking, he stepped to her side and offered his arm, which
-she took for one happy moment when the delightful sense of his
-protection was too strong for her, and then&mdash;reacting violently from
-that mood&mdash;released. "I&mdash;I am <i>mortified</i> with myself for being such
-a fool," she said angrily; "but really that person did frighten me. I
-don't know what is the matter with Melbourne to-night&mdash;I suppose it is
-the Exhibition." And she went on to explain how she came to be abroad
-alone at that hour, and to explain away, as she hoped, her apparent
-satisfaction in meeting him. "It seems to promise for a fine day, does
-it not?" she concluded airily, looking up at the sky.</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion put his hands in his pockets. He was mortified, too. When he
-spoke, it was with icy composure.</p>
-
-<p>"Are you going to the opening?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said Patty. "Of course we are."</p>
-
-<p>"With your swell friends, I suppose?"</p>
-
-<p>"Whom do you mean by our swell friends? Mrs. Duff-Scott is not in
-Melbourne, I believe&mdash;if you allude to her. But she is not swell. The
-only swell person we know is Mrs. Aarons, and she is not our friend."</p>
-
-<p>He allowed the allusion to Mrs. Aarons to pass. "Well, I hope you will
-have good seats," he said, moodily. "It will be a disgusting crush and
-scramble, I expect."</p>
-
-<p>"Seats? Oh, we are not going to have seats," said Patty. "We are going
-to mingle with the common herd, and look on at the civic functions,
-humbly, from the outside. <i>We</i> are not swell"&mdash;dwelling upon the
-adjective with a malicious enjoyment of the suspicion that he had not
-meant to use it&mdash;"and we like to be independent."</p>
-
-<p>"O yes, I know you do. But you'll find the Rights of Woman not much
-good to you to-morrow in the Melbourne streets, I fancy, if you go
-there on foot without an escort. May I ask how you propose to take care
-of yourselves?"</p>
-
-<p>"We are going," said Patty, "to start very early indeed, and to take
-up a certain advantageous position that we have already selected
-before the streets fill. We shall have a little elevation above the
-heads of the crowd, and a wall at our backs, and&mdash;the three of us
-together&mdash;we shall see the procession beautifully, and be quite safe
-and comfortable."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I hope you won't find yourself mistaken," he replied.</p>
-
-<p>A few minutes later Patty burst into the room where her sisters were
-sitting, placidly occupied with their bonnet-making, her eyes shining
-with excitement. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth," she cried breathlessly, "Paul
-Brion is going to ask you to let him be our escort to-morrow. But you
-won't&mdash;oh, you <i>won't</i>&mdash;have him, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, dear," said Elizabeth, serenely; "not if you would rather not. Why
-should we? It will be broad daylight, when there can be no harm in our
-being out without an escort. We shall be much happier by ourselves."</p>
-
-<p>"Much happier than with <i>him</i>," added Patty, sharply.</p>
-
-<p>And they went on with their preparations for the great day that had
-been so long desired, little thinking what it was to bring forth.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND.</h4>
-
-
-<p>They had an early breakfast, dressed themselves with great care in
-their best frocks and the new bonnets, and, each carrying an umbrella,
-set forth with a cheerful resolve to see what was to be seen of the
-ceremonies of the day, blissfully ignorant of the nature of their
-undertaking. Paul Brion, out of bed betimes, heard their voices and the
-click of their gate, and stepped into his balcony to see them start.
-He took note of the pretty costumes, that had a gala air about them,
-and of the fresh and striking beauty of at least two of the three
-sweet faces; and he groaned to think of such women being hustled and
-battered, helplessly, in the fierce crush of a solid street crowd. But
-they had no fear whatever for themselves.</p>
-
-<p>However, they had not gone far before they perceived that the idea of
-securing a good position early in the day had occurred to a great many
-people besides themselves. Even sleepy Myrtle Street was awake and
-active, and the adjoining road, when they turned into it, was teeming
-with holiday life. They took their favourite route through the Fitzroy
-and Treasury Gardens, and found those sylvan glades alive with traffic:
-and, by the time they got into Spring Street, the crowd had thickened
-to an extent that embarrassed their progress and made it devious and
-slow. And they had scarcely passed the Treasury buildings when Eleanor,
-who had been suffering from a slight sore throat, began to cough and
-shiver, and aroused the maternal anxiety of her careful elder sister.
-"O, my dear," said Elizabeth, coming to an abrupt standstill on the
-pavement, "have you nothing but that wisp of muslin round your neck?
-And the day so cold&mdash;and looking so like rain! It will never do for you
-to stand about for hours in this wind, with the chance of getting wet,
-unless you are wrapped up better. We must run home again and fix you
-up. And I think it would be wiser if we were all to change our things
-and put on our old bonnets."</p>
-
-<p>"Now, look here, Elizabeth," said Patty, with strong emphasis; "you see
-that street, don't you?"&mdash;and she pointed down the main thoroughfare of
-the city, which was already gorged with people throughout its length.
-"You see that, and that"&mdash;and she indicated the swarming road ahead of
-them and the populous valley in the opposite direction. "If there is
-such a crowd now, what will there be in half-an-hour's time? And we
-couldn't do it in half-an-hour. Let us make Nelly tie up her throat
-in our three pocket-handkerchiefs, and push on and get our places.
-Otherwise we shall be out of it altogether&mdash;we shall see <i>nothing</i>."</p>
-
-<p>But the gentle Elizabeth was obdurate on some occasions, and this was
-one of them. Eleanor was chilled with the cold, and it was not to be
-thought of that she should run the risk of an illness from imprudent
-exposure&mdash;no, not for all the exhibitions in the world. So they
-compromised the case by deciding that Patty and Eleanor should "run"
-home together, while the elder sister awaited their return, keeping
-possession of a little post of vantage on the Treasury steps&mdash;where
-they would be able to see the procession, if not the Exhibition&mdash;in
-case the crowd should be too great by-and-bye to allow of their getting
-farther.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, make yourself as big as you can," said Patty, resignedly.</p>
-
-<p>"And, whatever you do," implored Eleanor, "don't stir an inch from
-where you are until we come back, lest we should lose you."</p>
-
-<p>Upon which they set off in hot haste to Myrtle Street.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth, when they were gone, saw with alarm the rapid growth of
-the crowd around her. It filled up the street in all directions, and
-condensed into a solid mass on the Treasury steps, very soon absorbing
-the modest amount of space that she had hoped to reserve for her
-sisters. In much less than half-an-hour she was so hopelessly wedged
-in her place that, tall and strong as she was, she was almost lifted
-off her feet; and there was no prospect of restoring communications
-with Patty and Eleanor until the show was over. In a fever of anxiety,
-bitterly regretting that she had consented to part from them, she kept
-her eyes turned towards the gate of the Gardens, whence she expected
-them to emerge; and then she saw, presently, the figure of their good
-genius and deliverer from all dilemmas, Paul Brion, fighting his way
-towards her. The little man pursued an energetic course through the
-crowd, which almost covered him, hurling himself along with a velocity
-that was out of all proportion to his bulk; and from time to time she
-saw his quick eyes flashing over other people's shoulders, and that he
-was looking eagerly in all directions. It seemed hopeless to expect him
-to distinguish her in the sea of faces around him, but he did. Sunk in
-the human tide that rose in the street above the level of his head,
-he made desperately for a footing on a higher plane, and in so doing
-caught sight of her and battled his way to her side. "Oh, <i>here</i> you
-are!" he exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "I have been so anxious about
-you. But where is Miss Patty? Where are your sisters?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, Mr. Brion," she responded, "you always seem to turn up to help us
-as soon as we get into trouble, and I am <i>so</i> thankful to see you! The
-girls had to go home for something, and were to meet me here, and I
-don't know what will become of them in this crowd."</p>
-
-<p>"Which way were they to come?" he inquired eagerly.</p>
-
-<p>"By the Gardens. But the gates are completely blocked."</p>
-
-<p>"I will go and find them," he said. "Don't be anxious about them. They
-will be in there&mdash;they will be all right. You will come too, won't you?
-I think I can manage to get you through."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't," she replied. "I promised I would not stir from this place,
-and I must not, in case they should be in the street, or we should miss
-them."</p>
-
-<p>"'The boy stood on the burning deck,'" he quoted, with a laugh. He
-could afford a little jest, though she was so serious, for he was happy
-in the conviction that the girls had been unable to reach the street,
-that he should find them disconsolate in the gardens, and compel Miss
-Patty to feel, if not to acknowledge, that he was of some use and
-comfort to her, after all. "But I hate to leave you here," he added,
-glaring upon her uncomfortable but inoffensive neighbours, "all alone
-by yourself."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't mind me," said Elizabeth, cheerfully. "If you can only find
-Patty and Nelly, and be so good as to take care of them, <i>I</i> shall be
-all right."</p>
-
-<p>And so, with apparent reluctance, but the utmost real alacrity, he left
-her, flinging himself from the steps into the crowd like a swimmer
-diving into the sea, and she saw him disappear with an easy mind.</p>
-
-<p>Then began the tramp of the procession, first in sections, then in
-imposing columns, with bands playing, and flags flying, and horses
-prancing, and the people shouting and cheering as it went by. There
-were the smart men of the Naval Reserve and the sailors of the
-warships&mdash;English and French, German and Italian, eight or nine hundred
-strong&mdash;with their merry buglers in the midst of them; and there were
-the troops of the military, with their music and accoutrements; and all
-the long procession of the trades' associations, and the fire brigades,
-with the drubbing of drums and the blare of trumpets and the shrill
-whistle of innumerable fifes accompanying their triumphal progress.
-And by-and-bye the boom of the saluting guns from the Prince's Bridge
-battery, and the seven carriages from Government House rolling slowly
-up the street and round the corner, with their dashing cavalry escort,
-amid the lusty cheers of Her Majesty's loyal subjects on the line of
-route assembled.</p>
-
-<p>But long before the Queen's representative made his appearance upon
-the scene, Elizabeth had ceased to see or care for the great spectacle
-that she had been so anxious to witness. Moment by moment the crowd
-about her grew more dense and dogged, more pitilessly indifferent to
-the comfort of one another, more evidently minded that the fittest
-should survive in the fight for existence on the Treasury steps. Rough
-men pushed her forward and backward, and from side to side, treading
-on her feet, and tearing the stitches of her gown, and knocking her
-bonnet awry, until she felt bruised and sick with the buffetings that
-she got, and the keen consciousness of the indignity of her position.
-She could scarcely breathe for the pressure around her, though the
-breath of all sorts of unpleasant people was freely poured into her
-face. She would have struggled away and gone home&mdash;convinced of the
-comforting fact that Patty and Eleanor were safely out of it in Paul
-Brion's protection&mdash;but she could not stir an inch by her own volition.
-When she did stir it was by some violent propelling power in another
-person, and this was exercised presently in such a way as to completely
-overbalance her. A sudden wave of movement broke against a stout
-woman standing immediately behind her, and the stout woman, quite
-unintentionally, pushed her to the edge of the step, and flung her upon
-the shoulder of a brawny larrikin who had fought his way backwards and
-upwards into a position whence he could see the pageant of the street
-to his satisfaction. The larrikin half turned, struck her savagely
-in the breast with his elbow, demanding, with a roar and an oath,
-where she was a-shoving to; and between her two assailants, faint and
-frightened, she lost her footing, and all but fell headlong into the
-seething mass beneath her.</p>
-
-<p>But as she was falling&mdash;a moment so agonising at the time, and so
-delightful to remember afterwards&mdash;some one caught her round the waist
-with a strong grip, and lifted her up, and set her safely on her feet
-again. It was a man who had been standing within a little distance of
-her, tall enough to overtop the crowd, and strong enough to maintain an
-upright position in it; she had noticed him for some time, and that he
-had seemed not seriously incommoded by the bustling and scuffling that
-rendered her so helpless; but she had not noticed his gradual approach
-to her side. Now, looking up with a little sob of relief, her instant
-recognition of him as a gentleman was followed by an instinctive
-identification of him as a sort of Cinderella's prince.</p>
-
-<p>In short, there is no need to make a mystery of the matter. At
-half-past ten o'clock in the morning of the first of October in the
-year 1880, when she was plunged into the most wretched and terrifying
-circumstances of her life&mdash;at the instant when she was struck by the
-larrikin's elbow and felt herself about to be crushed under the feet of
-the crowd&mdash;Elizabeth King met her happy fate. She found that friend for
-whom, hungrily if unconsciously, her tender heart had longed.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>"WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED."</h4>
-
-
-<p>"Stand here, and I can shelter you a little," he said, in a quiet tone
-that contrasted refreshingly with the hoarse excitement around them.
-He drew her close to his side by the same grip of her waist that had
-lifted her bodily when she was off her feet, and, immediately releasing
-her, stretched a strong left arm between her exposed shoulder and the
-crush of the crowd. The arm was irresistibly pressed upon her own
-arm, and bent across her in a curve that was neither more nor less
-than a vehement embrace, and so she stood in a condition of delicious
-astonishment, one tingling blush from head to foot. It would have been
-horrible had it been anyone else.</p>
-
-<p>"I am so sorry," he said, "but I cannot help it. If you don't mind
-standing as you are for a few minutes, you will be all right directly.
-As soon as the procession has passed the crowd will scatter to follow
-it."</p>
-
-<p>They looked at each other across a space of half-a-dozen inches or
-so, and in that momentary glance, upon which everything that mutually
-concerned them depended, were severally relieved and satisfied. He was
-not handsome&mdash;he had even a reputation for ugliness; but there are
-some kinds of ugliness that are practically handsomer than many kinds
-of beauty, and his was of that sort. He had a leathery, sun-dried,
-weather-beaten, whiskerless, red moustached face, and he had a
-roughly-moulded, broad-based, ostentatious nose; his mouth was large,
-and his light grey eyes deeply set and small. Yet it was a strikingly
-distinguished and attractive face, and Elizabeth fell in love with it
-there and then. Similarly, her face, at once modest and candid, was an
-open book to his experienced glance, and provisionally delighted him.
-He was as glad as she was that fate had selected him to deliver her in
-her moment of peril, out of the many who might have held out a helping
-hand to her and did not.</p>
-
-<p>"I am afraid you cannot see very well," he remarked presently. There
-were sounds in the distance that indicated the approach of the
-vice-regal carriages, and people were craning their necks over each
-other's shoulders and standing on tiptoe to catch the first glimpse of
-them. Just in front of her the exuberant larrikin was making himself as
-tall as possible.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, thank you&mdash;I don't want to see," she replied hastily.</p>
-
-<p>"But that was what you came here for&mdash;like the rest of us&mdash;wasn't it?"</p>
-
-<p>"I did not know what I was coming for," she said, desperately,
-determined to set herself right in his eyes. "I never saw anything like
-this before&mdash;I was never in a crowd&mdash;I did not know what it was like."</p>
-
-<p>"Some one should have told you, then."</p>
-
-<p>"We have not any one belonging to us to tell us things."</p>
-
-<p>"Indeed?"</p>
-
-<p>"My sisters and I have lived in the bush always, until now. We have no
-parents. We have not seen much yet. We came out this morning, thinking
-we could stand together in a corner and look on quietly&mdash;we did not
-expect this."</p>
-
-<p>"And your sisters&mdash;?"</p>
-
-<p>"They went home again. They are all right, I hope."</p>
-
-<p>"And left you here alone?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth explained the state of the case more fully, and by the time
-she had done so the Governors' carriages were in sight. The people
-were shouting and cheering; the larrikin was dancing up and down in
-his hob-nailed boots, and bumping heavily upon the arm that shielded
-her. Shrinking from him, she drew her feet back another inch or two;
-upon which the right arm as well as the left was firmly folded round
-her. And the pressure of those two arms, stretched like iron bars to
-defend her from harm, the throbbing of his heart upon her shoulder, the
-sound of his deep-chested breathing in her ear&mdash;no consideration of
-the involuntary and unromantic necessity of the situation could calm
-the tremulous excitement communicated to her by these things. Oh, how
-hideous, how simply insupportable it would have been, had she been thus
-cast upon another breast and into other arms than HIS! As it was, it
-was all right. He said he feared she was terribly uncomfortable, but,
-though she did not contradict him, she felt in the secret depths of her
-primitive soul that she had never been more comfortable. To be cared
-for and protected was a new sensation, and, though she had had to bear
-anxious responsibilities for herself and others, she had no natural
-vocation for independence. Many a time since have they spoken of this
-first half hour with pride, boasting of how they trusted each other at
-sight, needing no proofs from experience like other people&mdash;a foolish
-boast, for they were but a man and woman, and not gods. "I took you to
-my heart the first moment I saw you," he says. "And I knew, even as
-soon as that, that it was my own place," she calmly replies. Whereas
-good luck, and not their own wisdom, justified them.</p>
-
-<p>He spoke to her with studied coldness while necessarily holding her
-embraced, as it were, to protect her from the crowd; at the same
-time he put himself to some trouble to make conversation, which was
-less embarrassing to her than silence. He remarked that he was fond
-of crowds himself&mdash;found them intensely interesting&mdash;and spoke of
-Thackeray's paper on the crowd that went to see the man hanged (which
-she had never read) as illustrating the kind of interest he meant.
-He had lately seen the crowd at the opening of the Trocadero Palace,
-and that which celebrated the completion of Cologne Cathedral; facts
-which proclaimed him a "globe-trotter" and new arrival in Melbourne.
-The few words in which he described the festival at Cologne fired her
-imagination, fed so long upon dreams of foreign travel, and made her
-forget for the moment that he was not an old acquaintance.</p>
-
-<p>"It was at about this hour of the day," he said, "and I stood with the
-throng in the streets, as I am doing now. They put the last stone on
-the top of the cross on one of the towers more than six hundred years
-after the foundation stone was laid. The people were wild with joy, and
-hung out their flags all over the place. One old fellow came up to me
-and wanted to kiss me&mdash;he thought I must be as overcome as he was."</p>
-
-<p>"And were you not impressed?"</p>
-
-<p>"Of course I was. It was very pathetic," he replied, gently. And she
-thought "pathetic" an odd word to use. Why pathetic? She did not like
-to ask him. Then he made the further curious statement that this crowd
-was the tamest he had ever seen.</p>
-
-<p>"<i>I</i> don't call it tame," she said, with a laugh, as the yells of the
-larrikin and his fellows rent the air around them.</p>
-
-<p>He responded to her laugh with a pleasant smile, and his voice was
-friendlier when he spoke again. "But I am quite delighted with it,
-unimpressive as it is. It is composed of people who are not <i>wanting
-anything</i>. I don't know that I was ever in a crowd of that sort before.
-I feel, for once, that I can breathe in peace."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, I wish I could feel so!" she cried. The carriages, in their slow
-progress, were now turning at the top of Collins Street, and the hubbub
-around them had reached its height.</p>
-
-<p>"It will soon be over now," he murmured encouragingly.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she replied. In a few minutes the crush would lessen, and he
-and she would part. That was what they thought, to the exclusion of all
-interest in the passing spectacle. Even as she spoke, the noise and
-confusion that had made a solitude for their quiet intercourse sensibly
-subsided. The tail of the procession was well in sight; the heaving
-crowd on the Treasury steps was swaying and breaking like a huge wave
-upon the street; the larrikin was gone. It was time for the unknown
-gentleman to resume the conventional attitude, and for Elizabeth to
-remember that he was a total stranger to her.</p>
-
-<p>"You had better take my arm," he said, as she hastily disengaged
-herself before it was safe to do so, and was immediately caught in the
-eddy that was setting strongly in the direction of the Exhibition. "If
-you don't mind waiting here for a few minutes longer, you will be able
-to get home comfortably."</p>
-
-<p>She struggled back to his side, and took his arm, and waited; but they
-did not talk any more. They watched the disintegration and dispersion
-of the great mass that had hemmed them in together, until at last they
-stood in ease and freedom almost alone upon that coign of vantage which
-had been won with so much difficulty&mdash;two rather imposing figures,
-if anyone had cared to notice them. Then she withdrew her hand, and
-said, with a little stiff bow and a bright and becoming colour in her
-face&mdash;"<i>Thank</i> you."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't mention it," he replied, with perfect gravity. "I am very happy
-to have been of any service to you."</p>
-
-<p>Still they did not move from where they stood.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't you want to see the rest of it?" she asked timidly.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you?" he responded, looking at her with a smile.</p>
-
-<p>"O dear no, thank you! I have had quite enough, and I am very anxious
-to find my sisters."</p>
-
-<p>"Then allow me to be your escort until you are clear of the streets."
-He did not put it as a request, and he began to descend the steps
-before she could make up her mind how to answer him. So she found
-herself walking beside him along the footpath and through the Gardens,
-wondering who he was, and how she could politely dismiss him&mdash;or how
-soon he would dismiss her. Now and then she snatched a sidelong glance
-at him, and noted his great stature and the easy dignity with which he
-carried himself, and transferred one by one the striking features of
-his countenance to her faithful memory. He made a powerful impression
-upon her. Thinking of him, she had almost forgotten how anxious she
-was to find her sisters until, with a start, she suddenly caught sight
-of them sitting comfortably on a bench in an alley of the Fitzroy
-Gardens, Eleanor and Patty side by side, and Paul Brion on the other
-side of Eleanor. The three sprang up as soon as they saw her coming,
-with gestures of eager welcome.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" said Elizabeth, her face flaming with an entirely unnecessary
-blush, "there are my sisters. I&mdash;I am all right now. I need not trouble
-you any further. Thank you very much."</p>
-
-<p>She paused, and so did he. She bent her head without lifting her eyes,
-and he took off his hat to her with profound respect. And so they
-parted&mdash;for a little while.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>AFTERNOON TEA.</h4>
-
-
-<p>When he had turned and left her, Elizabeth faced her sisters with
-that vivid blush still on her cheeks, and a general appearance of
-embarrassment that was too novel to escape notice. Patty and Eleanor
-stared for a moment, and Eleanor laughed.</p>
-
-<p>"Who is he?" she inquired saucily.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "Where have you been, dears? How have
-you got on? I have been so anxious about you."</p>
-
-<p>"But who is he?" persisted Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"I have not the least idea, I tell you. Perhaps Mr. Brion knows."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Mr. Brion. "He is a perfect stranger to me."</p>
-
-<p>"He is a new arrival, I suppose," said Elizabeth, stealing a backward
-glance at her hero, whom the others were watching intently as he walked
-away. "Yes, he can have but just arrived, for he saw the last stone put
-to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and that was not more than six or
-seven weeks ago. He has come out to see the Exhibition, probably. He
-seems to be a great traveller."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," said Eleanor, turning with a grimace to Patty, "here have we been
-mooning about in the gardens, and she has been seeing everything, and
-having adventures into the bargain!"</p>
-
-<p>"It is very little I have seen," her elder sister remarked, "and this
-will tell you the nature of my adventures"&mdash;and she showed them a rent
-in her gown. "I was nearly torn to pieces by the crowd after you left.
-I am only too thankful you were out of it."</p>
-
-<p>"But we are not at all thankful," pouted Eleanor. "Are we, Patty?"
-(Patty was silent, but apparently amiable.) "It is only the stitching
-that is undone&mdash;you can mend it in five minutes. We wouldn't have
-minded little trifles of that sort&mdash;not in the least&mdash;to have seen the
-procession, and made the acquaintance of distinguished travellers. Were
-there many more of them about, do you suppose?"</p>
-
-<p>"O no," replied Elizabeth, promptly. "Only he."</p>
-
-<p>"And you managed to find him! Why shouldn't we have found him
-too&mdash;Patty and I? Do tell us his name, Elizabeth, and how you happened
-on him, and what he has been saying and doing."</p>
-
-<p>"He took care of me, dear&mdash;that's all. I was crushed almost into a
-pulp, and he allowed me to&mdash;to stand beside him until the worst of it
-was over."</p>
-
-<p>"How interesting!" ejaculated Eleanor. "And then he talked to you about
-Cologne Cathedral?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. But never mind about him. Tell me where Mr. Brion found you, and
-what you have been doing."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>we</i> have not been doing anything&mdash;far from it. I <i>wish</i> you knew
-his name, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"But, my dear, I don't. So leave off asking silly questions. I daresay
-we shall never see or hear of him again."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't you believe it! I'm <i>certain</i> we shall see him again. He
-will be at the Exhibition some day when we go there&mdash;to-morrow, very
-likely."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, well, never mind. What are we going to do now?"</p>
-
-<p>They consulted with Paul for a few minutes, and he took them where they
-could get a distant view of the crowds swarming around the Exhibition,
-and hear the confused clamour of the bands&mdash;which seemed to gratify
-the two younger sisters very much, in the absence of more pronounced
-excitement. They walked about until they saw the Royal Standard hoisted
-over the great dome, and heard the saluting guns proclaim that the
-Exhibition was open; and then they returned to Myrtle Street, with a
-sense of having had breakfast in the remote past, and of having spent
-an enormously long morning not unpleasantly, upon the whole.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. M'Intyre was standing at her gate when they reached home, and
-stopped them to ask what they had seen, and how they had enjoyed
-themselves. <i>She</i> had stayed quietly in the house, and busied herself
-in the manufacture of meringues and lemon cheese-cakes&mdash;having, she
-explained, superfluous eggs in the larder, and a new lodger coming in;
-and she evidently prided herself upon her well-spent time. "And if
-you'll stay, you shall have some," she said, and she opened the gate
-hospitably. "Now, don't say no, Miss King&mdash;don't, Miss Nelly. It's past
-one, and I've got a nice cutlet and mashed potatoes just coming on the
-table. Bring them along, Mr. Brion. I'm sure they'll come if <i>you</i> ask
-them."</p>
-
-<p>"We'll come without that," said Eleanor, walking boldly in. "At least,
-I will. <i>I</i> couldn't resist cutlets and mashed potatoes under present
-circumstances&mdash;not to speak of lemon cheese-cakes and meringues&mdash;and
-your society, Mrs. M'Intyre."</p>
-
-<p>Paul held the gate open, and Elizabeth followed Eleanor, and Patty
-followed Elizabeth. Patty did not look at him, but she was in a
-peaceable disposition; seeing which, he felt happier than he had been
-for months. They lunched together, with much enjoyment of the viands
-placed before them, and of each other's company, feeling distinctly
-that, however small had been their share in the demonstrations of the
-day, the festival spirit was with them; and when they rose from the
-table there was an obvious reluctance to separate.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, I'll tell you what," said Eleanor; "we have had dinner with you,
-Mrs. M'Intyre, and now you ought to come and have afternoon tea with
-us. You have not been in to see us for <i>years</i>."</p>
-
-<p>She looked at Elizabeth, who hastened to endorse the invitation, and
-Mrs. M'Intyre consented to think about it.</p>
-
-<p>"And may not I come too?" pleaded Paul, not daring to glance at his
-little mistress, but appealing fervently to Elizabeth. "Mayn't I come
-with Mrs. M'Intyre for a cup of tea, too?"</p>
-
-<p>"Of course you may," said Elizabeth, and Eleanor nodded acquiescence,
-and Patty gazed serenely out of the window. "Go and have your smoke
-comfortably, and come in in about an hour."</p>
-
-<p>With which the sisters left, and, as soon as they reached their
-own quarters, set to work with something like enthusiasm to make
-preparations for their expected guests. Before the hour was up, a
-bright fire was blazing in their sitting-room, and a little table
-beside it was spread comfortably with a snow-white cloth, and twinkling
-crockery and spoons. The kettle was singing on the hearth, and a
-plate of buttered muffins reposed under a napkin in the fender. The
-window was open; so was the piano. Patty was flying from place to
-place, with a duster in her hand, changing the position of the chairs,
-and polishing the spotless surfaces of the furniture generally, with
-anxious industry. <i>She</i> had not asked Paul Brion to come to see them,
-but since he was coming they might as well have the place decent, she
-said.</p>
-
-<p>When he came at last meekly creeping upstairs at Mrs. M'Intyre's heels,
-Patty was nowhere to be seen. He looked all round as he crossed the
-threshold, and took in the delicate air of cheerfulness, the almost
-austere simplicity and orderliness that characterised the little room,
-and made it quite different from any room he had ever seen; and then
-his heart sank, and a cloud of disappointment fell over his eager face.
-He braced himself to bear it. He made up his mind at once that he
-had had his share of luck for that day, and must not expect anything
-more. However, some minutes later, when Mrs. M'Intyre had made herself
-comfortable by unhooking her jacket, and untying her bonnet strings,
-and when Elizabeth was preparing to pour out the tea, Patty sauntered
-in with some needlework in her hand&mdash;stitching as she walked&mdash;and took
-a retired seat by the window. He seized upon a cup of tea and carried
-it to her, and stood there as if to secure her before she could escape
-again. As he approached she bent her head lower over her work, and
-a little colour stole into her face; and then she lifted herself up
-defiantly.</p>
-
-<p>"Here is your tea, Miss Patty," he said, humbly.</p>
-
-<p>"Thanks. Just put it down there, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>She nodded towards a chair near her, and he set the cup down on it
-carefully. But he did not go.</p>
-
-<p>"You are very busy," he remarked.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she replied, shortly. "I have wasted all the morning. Now I must
-try to make up for it."</p>
-
-<p>"Are you too busy to play something&mdash;presently, I mean, when you have
-had your tea? I must go and work too, directly. I should so enjoy to
-hear you play before I go."</p>
-
-<p>She laid her sewing on her knee, reached for her cup, and began to
-sip it with a relenting face. She asked him what kind of music he
-preferred, and he said he didn't care, but he thought he liked "soft
-things" best. "There was a thing you played last Sunday night," he
-suggested; "quite late, just before you went to bed. It has been
-running in my head ever since."</p>
-
-<p>She balanced her teaspoon in her hand, and puckered her brows
-thoughtfully. "Let me think&mdash;what was I playing on Sunday night?" she
-murmured to herself. "It must have been one of the <i>Lieder</i> surely&mdash;or,
-perhaps, a Beethoven sonata? Or Batiste's andante in G perhaps?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, I don't know the name of anything. I only remember that it was
-very lovely and sad."</p>
-
-<p>"But we shouldn't play sad things in the broad daylight, when people
-want to gossip over their tea," she said, glancing at Mrs. M'Intyre,
-who was energetically describing to Elizabeth the only proper way of
-making tomato sauce. But she got up, all the same, and went over to the
-piano, and began to play the andante just above a whisper, caressing
-the soft pedal with her foot.</p>
-
-<p>"Was that it?" she asked gently, smiling at him as he drew up a low
-wicker chair and sat down at her elbow to listen.</p>
-
-<p>"Go on," he murmured gratefully. "It was <i>like</i> that."</p>
-
-<p>And she went on&mdash;while Mrs. M'Intyre, having concluded her remarks upon
-tomato sauce, detailed the results of her wide experience in orange
-marmalade and quince jelly, and Elizabeth and Eleanor did their best
-to profit by her wisdom&mdash;playing to him alone. It did not last very
-long&mdash;a quarter of an hour perhaps&mdash;but every moment was an ecstasy
-to Paul Brion. Even more than the music, delicious as it was, Patty's
-gentle and approachable mood enchanted him. She had never been like
-that to him before. He sat on his low chair, and looked up at her
-tender profile as she drooped a little over the keys, throbbing with
-a new sense of her sweetness and beauty, and learning more about his
-own heart in those few minutes than all the previous weeks and months
-of their acquaintance had taught him. And then the spell that had been
-weaving and winding them together, as it seemed to him, was suddenly
-and rudely broken. There was a clatter of wheels and hoofs along the
-street, a swinging gate and a jangling door bell; and Eleanor, running
-to the window, uttered an exclamation that effectually wakened him from
-his dreams.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>Elizabeth&mdash;Patty&mdash;</i>it is Mrs. Duff-Scott!"</p>
-
-<p>In another minute the great lady herself stood amongst them, rustling
-over the matting in her splendid gown, almost filling the little room
-with her presence. Mrs. M'Intyre gave way before her, and edged towards
-the door with modest, deprecatory movements, but Paul stood where
-he had risen, as stiff as a poker, and glared at her with murderous
-ferocity.</p>
-
-<p>"You see I have come back, my dears," she exclaimed, cordially, kissing
-the girls one after the other. "And I am so sorry I could not get to
-you in time to make arrangements for taking you with me to see the
-opening&mdash;I quite intended to take you. But I only returned last night."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, thank you," responded Elizabeth, with warm gratitude, "it is treat
-enough for us to see you again." And then, hesitating a little as she
-wondered whether it was or was not a proper thing to do, she looked at
-her other guests and murmured their names. Upon which Mrs. M'Intyre
-made a servile curtsey, unworthy of a daughter of a free country, and
-Paul a most reluctant inclination of the head. To which again Mrs.
-Duff-Scott responded by a slight nod and a glance of good-humoured
-curiosity at them both.</p>
-
-<p>"I'll say good afternoon, Miss King," said Mr. Brion haughtily.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>good</i> afternoon," replied Elizabeth, smiling sweetly. And she and
-her sisters shook hands with him and with his landlady, and the pair
-departed in some haste, Paul in a worse temper than he had ever known
-himself to indulge in; and he was not much mollified by the sudden
-appearance of Elizabeth, as he was fumbling with the handle of the
-front door, bearing her evident if unspoken apologies for having seemed
-to turn him out.</p>
-
-<p>"You will come with Mrs. M'Intyre another time," she suggested kindly,
-"and have some more music? I would have asked you to stay longer
-to-day, but we haven't seen Mrs. Duff-Scott for such a long time&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, pray don't mention it," he interrupted stiffly. "I should have had
-to leave in any case, for my work is all behind-hand."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, that is because we have been wasting your time!"</p>
-
-<p>"Not at all. I am only too happy to be of use&mdash;in the absence of your
-other friends."</p>
-
-<p>She would not notice this little sneer, but said good-bye and turned
-to walk upstairs. Paul, ashamed of himself, made an effort to detain
-her. "Is there anything I can do for you, Miss King?" he asked, gruffly
-indeed, but with an appeal for forbearance in his eyes. "Do you want
-your books changed or anything?"</p>
-
-<p>She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, and thought for a moment;
-and then she said, dropping her eyes, "I&mdash;I think <i>you</i> have a book
-that I should like to borrow&mdash;if I might."</p>
-
-<p>"Most happy. What book is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete
-edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present.
-I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about
-a man being hanged&mdash;and a crowd&mdash;" She broke off with an embarrassed
-laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded.</p>
-
-<p>"You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled
-'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches'&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"That is the book I mean."</p>
-
-<p>"All right&mdash;I'll get it and send it in to you at once&mdash;with pleasure."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>thank</i> you. I'm <i>so</i> much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest
-care of it," she assured him fervently.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE FAIRY GODMOTHER.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying
-to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father
-was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been
-inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere
-accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions
-upon the subject.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't encourage him, my dears&mdash;don't encourage him to come again," she
-was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two
-very different people, whatever they may think."</p>
-
-<p>"We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has
-done so much for us."</p>
-
-<p>"Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls <i>can't</i> be grateful to young
-men&mdash;don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got
-<i>me</i> to do things for you."</p>
-
-<p>"But he helped us when we had no one else."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him&mdash;a
-privilege&mdash;for <i>him</i> to be grateful for rather than you. But&mdash;well,
-Elizabeth knows what I mean"&mdash;turning an expressive glance towards the
-discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and
-Elizabeth answered both of them at once.</p>
-
-<p>"You must not ask us to give up Paul Brion," she said, promptly.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. "I only ask you to keep him in his
-place. He is not the kind of person to indulge with tea and music, you
-know&mdash;that is what I mean."</p>
-
-<p>"You speak as if you knew something against him," murmured Patty, with
-heightened colour.</p>
-
-<p>"I know this much, my dear," replied the elder woman, gravely; "he is
-<i>a friend of Mrs. Aarons's</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"And is not Mrs. Aarons&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"She is very well, in her way. But she likes to have men dangling about
-her. She means no harm, I am sure," added Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, in
-the matter of scandal, prided herself on being a non-conductor, "but
-still it is not nice, you know. And I don't think that her men friends
-are the kind of friends for you. You don't mind my speaking frankly,
-my love? I am an old woman, you know, and I have had a great deal of
-experience."</p>
-
-<p>She was assured that they did not mind it, but were, on the contrary,
-indebted to her for her good advice. And the subject of Paul Brion was
-dropped. Patty was effectually silenced by that unexpected reference
-to Mrs. Aarons, and by the rush of recollections, embracing him and
-her together, which suddenly gave form and colour to the horrible
-idea of him as a victim to a married woman's fascinations. She turned
-away abruptly, with a painful blush that not only crimsoned her from
-throat to temples, but seemed to make her tingle to her toes; and,
-like the headlong and pitiless young zealot that she was, determined
-to thrust him out for ever from the sacred precincts of her regard.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was satisfied too. She was always sure of her own power
-to speak plainly without giving offence, and she found it absolutely
-necessary to protect these ingenuous maidens from their own ignorance.
-Needless to say that, since she had adopted them into her social
-circle, she had laid plans for their ultimate settlement therein. In
-her impulsive benevolence she had even gone the length of marking
-down the three husbands whom she considered respectively appropriate
-to the requirements of the case, and promised herself a great deal of
-interest and pleasure in the vicarious pursuit of them through the
-ensuing season. Wherefore she was much relieved to have come across
-this obscure writer for the press, and to have had the good chance, at
-the outset of her campaign, to counteract his possibly antagonistic
-influence. She knew her girls quite well enough to make sure that her
-hint would take its full effect.</p>
-
-<p>She leaned back in her chair comfortably, and drew off her gloves,
-while they put fresh tea in the teapot, and cut her thin shavings of
-bread and butter; and she sat with them until six o'clock, gossiping
-pleasantly. After giving them a history of the morning's ceremonies,
-as witnessed by the Government's invited guests inside the Exhibition
-building, she launched into hospitable schemes for their enjoyment of
-the gay time that had set in. "Now that I am come back," she said, "I
-shall take care that you shall go out and see everything there is to be
-seen. You have never had such a chance to learn something of the world,
-and I can't allow you to neglect it."</p>
-
-<p>"Dear Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Elizabeth, "we have already been indulging
-ourselves too much, I am afraid. We have done no reading&mdash;at least none
-worth doing&mdash;for days. We are getting all behind-hand. The whole of
-yesterday and all this morning&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"What did you do this morning?" Mrs. Duff-Scott interrupted quickly.</p>
-
-<p>They gave her a sketch of their adventures, merely suppressing
-the incident of the elder sister's encounter with the mysterious
-person whom the younger ones had begun to style "Elizabeth's young
-man"&mdash;though why they suppressed that none of them could have explained.</p>
-
-<p>"Very well," was her comment upon the little narrative, which told her
-far more than it told them. "That shows you that I am right. There are
-a great many things for you to learn that all the books in the Public
-Library could not teach you. Take my advice, and give up literary
-studies for a little while. Give them up altogether, and come and learn
-what the world and your fellow-creatures are made of. Make a school of
-the Exhibition while it lasts, and let me give you lessons in&mdash;a&mdash;what
-shall I call it&mdash;social science?&mdash;the study of human nature?"</p>
-
-<p>Nothing could be more charming than to have lessons from her, they told
-her; and they had intended to go to school to the Exhibition as often
-as they could. But&mdash;but their literary studies were their equipment for
-the larger and fuller life that they looked forward to in the great
-world beyond the seas. Perhaps she did not understand that?</p>
-
-<p>"I understand this, my dears," the matron replied, with energy. "There
-is no greater mistake in life than to sacrifice the substance of the
-present for the shadow of the future. We most of us do it&mdash;until we
-get old&mdash;and then we look back to see how foolish and wasteful we
-have been, and that is not much comfort to us. What we've got, we've
-got; what we are going to have nobody can tell. Lay in all the store
-you can, of course&mdash;take all reasonable precautions to insure as
-satisfactory a future as possible&mdash;but don't forget that the Present is
-the great time, the most important stage of your existence, no matter
-what your circumstances may be."</p>
-
-<p>The girls listened to her thoughtfully, allowing that she might be
-right, but suspending their judgment in the matter. They were all too
-young to be convinced by another person's experience.</p>
-
-<p>"You let Europe take care of itself for a bit," their friend proceeded,
-"and come out and see what Australia in holiday time is like, and what
-the fleeting hour will give you. I will fetch you to-morrow for a long
-day at the Exhibition to begin with, and then I'll&mdash;I'll&mdash;" She broke
-off and looked from one to another with an unwonted and surprising
-embarrassment, and then went on impetuously.</p>
-
-<p>"My dears, I don't know how to put it so as not to hurt or burden you,
-but you won't misunderstand me if I express myself awkwardly&mdash;you
-won't have any of that absurd conventional pride about not being
-under obligations&mdash;it is a selfish feeling, a want of trust and true
-generosity, when it is the case of a friend who&mdash;" She stammered and
-hesitated, this self-possessed empress of a woman, and was obviously at
-a loss for words wherein to give her meaning. Elizabeth, seeing what it
-was that she wanted to say, sank on her knees before her, and took her
-hands and kissed them. But over her sister's bent head Patty stood up
-stiffly, with a burning colour in her face. Mrs. Duff-Scott, absently
-fondling Elizabeth, addressed herself to Patty when she spoke again.</p>
-
-<p>"As an ordinary rule," she said, "one should not accept things
-from another who is not a relation&mdash;I know that. <i>Not</i> because it
-is improper&mdash;it ought to be the most proper thing in the world for
-people to help each other&mdash;but because in so many cases it can never
-happen without bitter mortifications afterwards. People are so&mdash;so
-superficial? But I&mdash;Patty, dear, I am an old woman, and I have a great
-deal of money, and I have no children; and I have never been able to
-fill the great gap where the children should be with music and china,
-or any interest of that sort. And you are alone in the world, and I
-have taken a fancy to you&mdash;I have grown <i>fond</i> of you&mdash;and I have
-made a little plan for having you about me, to be a sort of adopted
-daughters for whom I could feel free to do little motherly things in
-return for your love and confidence in me. You will indulge me, and let
-me have my way, won't you? It will be doing more for me, I am sure,
-than I could do for you."</p>
-
-<p>"O no&mdash;no&mdash;<i>no!</i>" said Patty, with a deep breath, but stretching her
-hands with deprecating tenderness towards their guest. "You would
-do everything for us, and we <i>could</i> do nothing for you. You would
-overwhelm us! And not only that; perhaps&mdash;perhaps, by-and-bye, you
-would not care about us so much as you do now&mdash;we might want to do
-something that you didn't like, something we felt ourselves <i>obliged</i>
-to do, however much you disliked it&mdash;and if you got vexed with us, or
-tired of us&mdash;oh, think what that would be! Think how you would regret
-that you had&mdash;had&mdash;made us seem to belong to you. And how we should
-hate ourselves."</p>
-
-<p>She looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott with a world of ardent apology in her
-eyes, before which the matron's fell, discouraged and displeased.</p>
-
-<p>"You make me feel that I am an impulsive and romantic girl, and that
-<i>you</i> are the wise old woman of the world," she said with a proud sigh.</p>
-
-<p>But at this, Patty, pierced to the heart, flung her arms round Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's neck, and crushed the most beautiful bonnet in Melbourne
-remorselessly out of shape against her young breast. That settled the
-question, for all practical purposes. Mrs. Duff-Scott went home at six
-o'clock, feeling that she had achieved her purpose, and entered into
-some of the dear privileges of maternity. It was more delightful than
-any "find" of old china. She did not go to sleep until she had talked
-both her husband and herself into a headache with her numerous plans
-for the welfare of her <i>protégées</i>, and until she had designed down to
-the smallest detail the most becoming costumes she could think of for
-them to wear, when she took them with her to the Cup.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Paul Brion was wakened from his sleep next morning by the sound of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's carriage wheels and prancing horses, and sauntering to
-his sitting-room window about ten minutes later, had the satisfaction
-of seeing his young neighbours step into the distinguished vehicle and
-drive away. There was Elizabeth reposing by her chaperon's side, as
-serene as a princess who had never set foot on common earth; and there
-were Patty and Eleanor, smiling and animated, lovelier than their wont,
-if that could be, nestling under the shadow of two tall men-servants
-in irreproachable liveries, with cockades upon their hats. It was a
-pretty sight, but it spoiled his appetite for his breakfast. He could
-no longer pretend that he was thankful for the fruition of his desires
-on their behalf. He could only feel that they were gone, and that he
-was left behind&mdash;that a great gulf had suddenly opened between them and
-him and the humble and happy circumstances of yesterday, with no bridge
-across it that he could walk over.</p>
-
-<p>The girls, for their part, practically forgot him, and enjoyed the
-difference between to-day and yesterday in the most worldly and
-womanly manner. The sensation of bowling along the streets in a
-perfectly-appointed carriage was as delicious to them as it is to most
-of us who are too poor to indulge in it as a habit; for the time being
-it answered all the purposes of happiness as thoroughly as if they had
-never had any higher ambition than to cut a dash. They went shopping
-with the fairy godmother before they went to the Exhibition, and that,
-too, was absorbingly delightful&mdash;both to Elizabeth, who went in with
-Mrs. Duff-Scott to assist her in her purchases, and to the younger
-sisters, who reposed majestically in the carriage at the door. Patty's
-quick eyes caught sight of Mrs. Aarons and a pair of her long-nosed
-children walking on the pavement, and she cheerfully owned herself a
-snob and gloried in it. It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, she said,
-to sit there and look down upon Mrs. Aarons.</p>
-
-<p>As they passed the Melbourne Club on their way to the Exhibition, the
-coachman was hailed by the elder of two gentlemen who were sauntering
-down the steps, and they were introduced for the first time to the
-fairy godmother's husband. Major Duff-Scott, an ex-officer of dragoons
-and a late prominent public man of his colony (he was prominent
-still, but for his social, and not his official qualifications), was
-a well-dressed and well-preserved old gentleman, who, having sown a
-large and miscellaneous crop of wild oats in the course of a long
-career, had been rewarded with great wealth and all the privileges
-of the highest respectability. He had been a prodigal, but he had
-enjoyed it&mdash;never knowing the bitterness of either hunger or husks.
-He had tasted dry bread at times, as a matter of course, but only
-just enough of it to give a proper relish to the abundant cakes and
-ale that were his portion; and the proverb which says you cannot eat
-your cake and have it was a perfectly dead letter in his case. He had
-been eating his all his life, and he had got it still. In person he
-was the most gentle-looking little man imaginable&mdash;about half the size
-of his imposing wife, thin and spare, and with a little stoop in his
-shoulders; but there was an alertness in his step and a brightness in
-his eye, twinkling remotely between the shadow of his hat brim and a
-bulging mass of white moustache that covered all the lower part of
-his small face, which had suggestions of youth and vigour about them
-that were lacking in the figure and physiognomy of the young man at
-his side. When he came up to the carriage door to be introduced to his
-wife's <i>protégées</i>, whom he greeted with as much cordiality as Mrs.
-Duff-Scott could have desired, they did not know why it was that they
-so immediately lost the sense of awe with which they had contemplated
-the approach of a person destined to have so formidable a relation to
-themselves. They shook hands with him, they made modest replies to his
-polite inquiries, they looked beyond his ostensible person to the eyes
-that looked at them; and then their three grave faces relaxed, and in
-half a minute were brimming over with smiles. They felt at home with
-Major Duff-Scott at once.</p>
-
-<p>"Come, come," said the fairy godmother rather impatiently, when
-something like a fine aroma of badinage was beginning to perfume
-the conversation, "you must not stop us now. We want to have a long
-morning. You can join us at the Exhibition presently, if you like,
-and bring Mr. Westmoreland." She indicated the young man who had
-been talking to her while her spouse made the acquaintance of her
-companions, and who happened to be one of the three husbands whom she
-had selected for those young ladies. He was the richest of them all,
-and the most stupid, and therefore he seemed to be cut out for Patty,
-who, being so intellectual and so enterprising, would not only make
-a good use of his money, but would make the best that was to be made
-of <i>him</i>. "My dears," she said, turning towards the girls, "let me
-introduce Mr. Westmoreland to you. Mr. Westmoreland, Miss King&mdash;Miss
-Eleanor King&mdash;Miss <i>Patty</i> King."</p>
-
-<p>The heavy young man made a heavy bow to each, and then stared straight
-at Eleanor, and studied her with calm attention until the carriage bore
-her from his sight. She, with her tender blue eyes and her yellow hair,
-and her skin like the petals of a blush rose, was what he was pleased
-to call, in speaking of her a little later to a confidential friend,
-the "girl for him." Of Patty he took no notice whatever.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to Carlton, stopped to speak to an
-acquaintance who was driving in an opposite direction, and by the time
-she reached the Exhibition, she found that her husband's hansom had
-arrived before her, and that he and Mr. Westmoreland were waiting at
-the entrance to offer their services as escort to the party. The major
-was the best of husbands, but he was not in the habit of paying her
-these small attentions; and Mr. Westmoreland had never been known,
-within her memory of him, to put himself to so much trouble for a
-lady's convenience. Wherefore the fairy godmother smiled upon them
-both, and felt that the Fates were altogether propitious to her little
-schemes. They walked up the pathway in a group, fell necessarily into
-single file in the narrow passage where they received and returned
-their tickets, and collected in a group again under the great dome,
-where they stood to look round on the twenty acres of covered space
-heaped with the treasures of those nations which Victoria welcomed in
-great letters on the walls. Mrs. Duff-Scott hooked her gold-rimmed
-glasses over her nose, and pointed out to her husband wherein the
-building was deficient, and wherein superfluous, in its internal
-arrangements and decorations. In her opinion&mdash;which placed the matter
-beyond discussion&mdash;the symbolical groups over the arches were all out
-of drawing, the colouring of the whole place vulgar to a degree, and
-the painted clouds inside the cupola enough to make one sick. The
-major endorsed her criticisms, perfunctorily, with amused little nods,
-glancing hither and thither in the directions she desired. "Ah, my
-dear," said he, "you mustn't expect everybody to have such good taste
-as yours." Mr. Westmoreland seemed to have exhausted the Exhibition,
-for his part; he had seen it all the day before, he explained, and he
-did not see what there was to make a fuss about. With the exception
-of some mysteries in the basement, into which he darkly hinted a
-desire to initiate the major presently, it had nothing about it to
-interest a man who, like him, had just returned from Europe and had
-seen the Paris affair. But to our girls it was an enchanted palace of
-delights&mdash;far exceeding their most extravagant anticipations. They
-gave no verbal expression to their sentiments, but they looked at each
-other with faces full of exalted emotion, and tacitly agreed that they
-were perfectly satisfied. The fascination of the place, as a storehouse
-of genuine samples of the treasures of that great world which they
-had never seen, laid hold of them with a grip that left a lasting
-impression. Even the <i>rococo</i> magnificence of the architecture and its
-adornments, which Mrs. Duff-Scott, enlightened by a large experience,
-despised, affected their untrained imaginations with all the force of
-the highest artistic sublimity. A longing took possession of them all
-at the same moment to steal back to-morrow&mdash;next day&mdash;as soon as they
-were free again to follow their own devices&mdash;and wander about the great
-and wonderful labyrinth by themselves and revel unobserved in their
-secret enthusiasms.</p>
-
-<p>However, they enjoyed themselves to-day beyond all expectation. After
-skimming the cream of the many sensations offered to them, sauntering
-up and down and round and round through the larger thoroughfares in
-a straggling group, the little party, fixing upon their place of
-rendezvous and lunching arrangements, paired themselves for a closer
-inspection of such works of art as they were severally inclined to.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott kept Patty by her side, partly because Mr. Westmoreland
-did not seem to want her, and partly because the girl was such an
-interesting companion, being wholly absorbed in what she had come
-to see, and full of intelligent appreciation of everything that was
-pointed out to her; and this pair went a-hunting in the wildernesses of
-miscellaneous pottery for such unique and precious "bits" as might be
-secured, on the early bird principle, for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.
-Very soon that lady's card was hanging round the necks of all sorts of
-quaint vessels that she had greedily pounced upon (and which further
-researches proved to be relatively unworthy of notice) in her anxiety
-to outwit and frustrate the birds that would come round presently;
-while Patty was having her first lesson in china, and showing herself a
-delightfully precocious pupil. Mr. Westmoreland confined his attentions
-exclusively to Eleanor, who by-and-bye found herself interested in
-being made so much of, and even inclined to be a little frivolous. She
-did not know whether to take him as a joke or in earnest, but either
-way he was amusing. He strolled heavily along by her side for awhile
-in the wake of Mrs. Duff-Scott and Patty, paying no attention to the
-dazzling wares around him, but a great deal to his companion. He kept
-turning his head to gaze at her, with solemn, ruminating eyes, until at
-last, tired of pretending she did not notice it, she looked back at him
-and laughed. This seemed to put him at his ease with her at once.</p>
-
-<p>"What are you laughing at?" he asked, with more animation than she
-thought him capable of.</p>
-
-<p>"Nothing," said she.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, but you were laughing at something. What was it? Was it because I
-was staring at you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, you <i>do</i> stare," she admitted.</p>
-
-<p>"I can't help it. No one could help staring at you."</p>
-
-<p>"Why? Am I such a curiosity?"</p>
-
-<p>"You know why. Don't pretend you don't."</p>
-
-<p>She blushed at this, making herself look prettier than ever; it was not
-in her to pretend she didn't know&mdash;nor yet to pretend that his crude
-flattery displeased her.</p>
-
-<p>"A cat may look at a king," he remarked, his heavy face quite lit up
-with his enjoyment of his own delicate raillery.</p>
-
-<p>"O yes, certainly," she retorted. "But you see I am not a king, and you
-are not a cat."</p>
-
-<p>"'Pon my word, you're awfully sharp," he rejoined, admiringly. And
-he laughed over this little joke at intervals for several minutes.
-Then by degrees they dropped away from their party, and went straying
-up and down the nave <i>tête-à-tête</i> amongst the crowd, looking at the
-exhibits and not much understanding what they looked at; and they
-carried on their conversation in much the same style as they began it,
-with, I grieve to say, considerable mutual enjoyment. By-and-bye Mr.
-Westmoreland took his young companion to the German tent, where the
-Hanau jewels were, by way of giving her the greatest treat he could
-think of. He betted her sixpence that he could tell her which necklace
-she liked the best, and he showed her the several articles (worth
-some thousands of pounds) which he should have selected for his wife,
-had he had a wife&mdash;declaring in the same breath that they were very
-poor things in comparison with such and such other things that he had
-seen elsewhere. Then they strolled along the gallery, glancing at the
-pictures as they went, Eleanor making mental notes for future study,
-but finding herself unable to study anything in Mr. Westmoreland's
-company. And then suddenly came a tall figure towards them&mdash;a
-gentlemanly man with a brown face and a red moustache&mdash;at sight of whom
-she gave a a little start of delighted recognition.</p>
-
-<p>"Hullo!" cried Mr. Westmoreland, "there's old Yelverton, I do declare.
-He <i>said</i> he'd come over to have a look at the Exhibition."</p>
-
-<p>Old Yelverton was no other than "Elizabeth's young man."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>CHINA V. THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Meanwhile, Major Duff-Scott took charge of Elizabeth, and he was
-very well satisfied with the arrangement that left her to his care.
-He always preferred a mature woman to a young girl, as being a more
-interesting and intelligent companion, and he admired her when on a
-generous scale, as is the wont of small men. Elizabeth's frank face
-and simple manners and majestic physical proportions struck him as an
-admirable combination. "A fine woman," he called her, speaking of her
-later to his wife: "reminds me of what you were when I married you,
-my dear." And when he got to know her better he called her "a fine
-creature"&mdash;which meant that he recognised other good qualities in her
-besides that of a lofty stature.</p>
-
-<p>As soon as Mrs. Duff-Scott stated her intention of going to see "what
-she could pick up," the major waved his hand and begged that he might
-be allowed to resign all his responsibilities on her behalf. "Buy what
-you like, my dear, buy what you like," he said plaintively, "but don't
-ask me to come and look on while you do it. Take Westmoreland&mdash;I'm sure
-he would enjoy it immensely."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't flatter yourselves that I shall ask either of you," retorted his
-wife. "You would be rather in the way than otherwise. I've got Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, she's got Patty!" he repeated, looking with gentle mournfulness at
-the young lady in question, while his far-off eyes twinkled under his
-hat brim. "I trust you are fond of china, Miss Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"I am fond of <i>everything</i>," Patty fervently replied.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, that's right. You and Mrs. Duff-Scott will get on together
-admirably, I foresee. Come, Miss King"&mdash;turning to Elizabeth&mdash;"let us
-go and see what <i>we</i> can discover in the way of desirable bric-à-brac.
-We'll have a look at the Murano ware for you, my dear, if you
-like"&mdash;again addressing his wife softly&mdash;"and come back and tell you
-if there is anything particularly choice. I know they have a lovely
-bonnet there, all made of the sweetest Venetian glass and trimmed with
-blue velvet. But you could take the velvet off, you know, and trim it
-with a mirror. Those wreaths of leaves and flowers, and beautiful pink
-braids&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, go along!" she interrupted impatiently. "Elizabeth, take care of
-him, and don't let him buy anything, but see what is there and tell me.
-I'm not going to put any of that modern stuff with my sixteenth century
-cup and bottle," she added, looking at nobody in particular, with a
-sudden brightening of her eyes; "but if there is anything pretty that
-will do for my new cabinet in the morning room&mdash;or for the table&mdash;I
-should like to have the first choice."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well," assented her husband, meekly. "Come along, Miss King.
-We'll promise not to buy anything." He and Elizabeth then set off on
-their own account, and Elizabeth found herself led straight to the foot
-of a staircase, where the little major offered his arm to assist her in
-the ascent.</p>
-
-<p>"But the Murano Court is not upstairs, is it?" she asked, hesitating.</p>
-
-<p>"O no," he replied; "it is over there," giving a little backward nod.</p>
-
-<p>"And are we not going to look at the glass?"</p>
-
-<p>"Not at present," he said, softly. "That will keep. We'll look at it
-by-and-bye. First, I am going to show you the pictures. You are fond of
-pictures, are you not?"</p>
-
-<p>"I am, indeed."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I was certain of it. Come along, then, I can show you a few
-tolerably good ones. Won't you take my arm?"</p>
-
-<p>She took his arm, as he seemed to expect it, though it would have
-been more reasonable if he had taken hers; and they marched upstairs,
-slowly, in face of the crowd that was coming down.</p>
-
-<p>"My wife," said the major, sententiously, "is one of the best women
-that ever breathed."</p>
-
-<p>"I am <i>sure</i> she is," assented Elizabeth, with warmth.</p>
-
-<p>"No," he said, "<i>you</i> can't be sure; that is why I tell you. I have
-known her a long time, and experience has proved it to me. She is one
-of the best women that ever lived. But she has her faults. I think I
-ought to warn you, Miss King, that she has her faults."</p>
-
-<p>"I think you ought not," said Elizabeth, with instinctive propriety.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," he went on, "it is a point of honour. I owe it to you, as the
-head of my house&mdash;the nominal head, you understand&mdash;the responsible
-head&mdash;not to let you labour under any delusion respecting us. It
-is best that you should know the truth at once. Mrs. Duff-Scott is
-<i>energetic</i>. She is fearfully, I may say abnormally, energetic."</p>
-
-<p>"I think," replied Elizabeth, with decision, "that that is one of the
-finest qualities in the world."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, do you?" he rejoined sadly. "That is because you are young. I
-used to think so, too, when I was young. But I don't now&mdash;experience
-has taught me better. What I object to in my wife is that experience
-doesn't teach her anything. She <i>won't</i> learn. She persists in keeping
-all her youthful illusions, in the most obstinate and unjustifiable
-manner."</p>
-
-<p>Here they reached the gallery and the pictures, but the major saw two
-empty chairs, and, sitting down on one of them, bade his companion
-rest herself on the other until she had recovered from the fatigue of
-getting upstairs.</p>
-
-<p>"There is no hurry," he said wearily; "we have plenty of time." And
-then he looked at her with that twinkle in his eye, and said gently,
-"Miss King, you are very musical, I hear. Is that a fact?"</p>
-
-<p>"We are very, very fond of music," she said, smiling. "It is rather a
-hobby with us, I think."</p>
-
-<p>"A hobby! Ah, that's delightful. I'm so glad it is a hobby. You don't,
-by happy chance, play the violin, do you?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. We only know the piano."</p>
-
-<p>"You all play the piano?&mdash;old masters, and that sort of thing?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. My sister Patty plays best. Her touch and expression are
-beautiful."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" he exclaimed again, softly, as if with much inward satisfaction.
-He was sitting languidly on his chair, nursing his knee, and gazing
-through the balustrade of the gallery upon the crowd below. Elizabeth
-was on the point of suggesting that they might now go and look at the
-pictures, when he began upon a fresh topic.</p>
-
-<p>"And about china, Miss King? Tell me, do you know anything about china?"</p>
-
-<p>"I'm afraid not," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"You don't know the difference between Chelsea and Derby-Chelsea, for
-instance?"</p>
-
-<p>"No."</p>
-
-<p>"Nor between old Majolica and modern?"</p>
-
-<p>"No."</p>
-
-<p>"Nor between a Limoges enamel of the sixteenth century&mdash;everything
-<i>good</i> belongs to the sixteenth century, you must remember&mdash;and what
-they call Limoges now-a-days?"</p>
-
-<p>"No."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, well, I think very few people do," said the major, resignedly.
-"But, at any rate"&mdash;speaking in a tone of encouragement&mdash;"you <i>do</i> know
-Sèvres and Dresden when you see them?&mdash;you could tell one of <i>them</i>
-from the other?"</p>
-
-<p>"Really," Elizabeth replied, beginning to blush for her surpassing
-ignorance, "I am very sorry to have to confess it, but I don't believe
-I could."</p>
-
-<p>The major softly unclasped his knees and leaned back in his chair, and
-sighed.</p>
-
-<p>"But I could learn," suggested Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, so you can," he responded, brightening. "You can learn, of course.
-<i>Will</i> you learn? You can't think what a favour it would be to me if
-you would learn. Do promise me that you will."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I will not promise. I should do it to please myself&mdash;and, of
-course, because it is a thing that Mrs. Duff-Scott takes an interest
-in," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"That is just what I mean. It is <i>because</i> Mrs. Duff-Scott takes such
-an interest in china that I want you to cultivate a taste for it.
-You see it is this way," he proceeded argumentatively, again, still
-clasping his knees, and looking up at her with a quaint smile from
-under his hat brim. "I will be frank with you, Miss King&mdash;it is this
-way. I want to induce you to enter into an alliance with me, offensive
-and defensive, against that terrible energy which, as I said, is my
-wife's alarming characteristic. For her own good, you understand&mdash;for
-my comfort incidentally, but for her own good in the first place, I
-want you to help me to keep her energy within bounds. As long as she
-is happy with music and china we shall be all right, but if she goes
-beyond things of that sort&mdash;well, I tremble for the consequences. They
-would be fatal&mdash;fatal!"</p>
-
-<p>"Where are you afraid she should go to?" asked Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"I am afraid she should go into <i>philanthropy</i>," the major solemnly
-rejoined. "That is the bug-bear&mdash;the spectre&mdash;the haunting terror of
-my life. I never see a seedy man in a black frock coat, nor an elderly
-female in spectacles, about the house or speaking to my wife in the
-street, that I don't shake in my shoes&mdash;literally shake in my shoes, I
-do assure you. I can't think how it is that she has never taken up the
-Cause of Humanity," he proceeded reflectively. "If we had not settled
-down in Australia, she <i>must</i> have done it&mdash;she could not have helped
-herself. But even here she is beset with temptations. <i>I</i> can see them
-in every direction. I can't think how it is that she doesn't see them
-too."</p>
-
-<p>"No doubt she sees them," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"O no, she does not. The moment she sees them&mdash;the moment she casts
-a serious eye upon them&mdash;that moment she will be a lost woman, and I
-shall be a desperate man."</p>
-
-<p>The major shuddered visibly, and Elizabeth laughed at his distress.
-"Whenever it happens that Mrs. Duff-Scott goes into philanthropy," she
-said, a little in joke and a great deal in earnest, "I shall certainly
-be proud to accompany her, if she will have me." And, as she spoke,
-there flashed into her mind some idea of the meaning of certain little
-sentences that were breathed into her ear yesterday. The major talked
-on as before, and she tried to attend to what he said, but she found
-herself thinking less of him now than of her unknown friend&mdash;less
-occupied with the substantial figures upon the stage of action around
-her than with the delusive scene-painting in the background of her own
-imagination. Beyond the crowd that flowed up and down the gallery, she
-saw a dim panorama of other crowds&mdash;phantom crowds&mdash;that gradually
-absorbed her attention. They were in the streets of Cologne, looking
-up at those mighty walls and towers that had been six centuries
-a-building, shouting and shaking hands with each other; and in the
-midst of them <i>he</i> was standing, grave and critical, observing their
-excitement and finding it "pathetic"&mdash;nothing more. They were in
-London streets in the early daylight&mdash;daylight at half-past three
-in the morning! that was a strange thing to think of&mdash;a "gentle and
-good-humoured" mob, yet full of tragic interest for the philosopher
-watching its movements, listening to its talk, speculating upon its
-potential value in the sum of humankind. It was the typical crowd that
-he was in the habit of studying&mdash;not like the people who thronged
-the Treasury steps this time yesterday. Surely it was the <i>Cause of
-Humanity</i> that had laid hold of <i>him</i>. That was the explanation of the
-interest he took in some crowds, and of the delight that he found in
-the uninterestingness of others. That was what he meant when he told
-her she ought to read Thackeray's paper to help her to understand him.</p>
-
-<p>Pondering over this thought, fitfully, amid the distractions of the
-conversation, she raised her head and saw Eleanor coming towards her.</p>
-
-<p>"There's Westmoreland and your sister," said the major. "And one of
-those strangers who are swarming all about the place just now, and
-crowding us out of our club. It's Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton he
-calls himself. He is rather a swell when he's at home, they tell me;
-but Westmoreland has no business to foist his acquaintance on your
-sister. He'll have my wife about him if he is not more careful than
-that."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth saw them approaching, and forgot all about the crowd under
-Cologne Cathedral and the crowd that went to see the man hanged.
-She remembered only the crowd of yesterday, and how that stately
-gentleman&mdash;could it be possible?&mdash;had stood with her amid the crush and
-clamour, holding her in his arms. For the first time she was able to
-look at him fairly and see what he was like; and it seemed to her that
-she had never seen a man of such a noble presence. His eyes were fixed
-upon her as she raised hers to his face, regarding her steadily, but
-with inscrutable gravity and absolute respect. The major rose to salute
-him in response to Mr. Westmoreland's rather imperious demand. "My old
-friend, whom I met in Paris," said Mr. Westmoreland; "come over to have
-a look at us. Want you to know him, major. We must do our best to make
-him enjoy himself, you know."</p>
-
-<p>"Didn't I tell you?" whispered Eleanor, creeping round the back of her
-sister's chair. "Didn't I tell you he would be here?"</p>
-
-<p>And at the same moment Elizabeth heard some one murmur over her head,
-"Miss King, allow me to introduce Mr. Yelverton&mdash;my friend, whom I knew
-in Paris&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>And so he and she not only met again, but received Mrs. Grundy's
-gracious permission to make each other's acquaintance.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE "CUP."</h4>
-
-
-<p>Out of the many Cup Days that have gladdened the hearts of countless
-holiday-makers on the Flemington course assembled, perhaps that of
-1880 was the most "all round" satisfactory and delightful to everybody
-concerned&mdash;except the bookmakers, and nobody grieves much over their
-disasters (though there are several legitimate and highly respected
-lines of business that are conducted on precisely the same system as
-governs their nefarious practices). It was, indeed, considered that
-the discomfiture of the bookmakers was a part of the brilliant success
-of the occasion. In the capricious spring-time of the year, when cold
-winds, or hot winds, or storms of rain, or clouds of dust, might any of
-them have been expected, this second of November displayed a perfect
-pattern of the boasted Australian climate to the foreigners of all
-nations who had been invited to enjoy it&mdash;a sweet blue sky, a fresh and
-delicate air, a broad glow of soft and mellow sunshine, of a quality
-to sufficiently account for the holiday-making propensities of the
-Australian people, and for the fascination that draws them home, in
-spite of all intentions to the contrary, when they have gone to look
-for happiness in other lands. The great racing-ground was in its finest
-order, the running track sanded and rolled, the lawns watered to a
-velvet greenness, the promenade level and speckless and elastic to the
-feet as a ball-room floor; and by noon more than a hundred thousand
-spectators, well-dressed and well-to-do&mdash;so orderly in their coming
-and going, and when congregated in solid masses together, that the
-policeman, though doubtless ubiquitous, was forgotten&mdash;were waiting
-to see the triumph of Grand Flâneur. At which time, and throughout
-the afternoon, Melbourne city was as a city of the dead; shops and
-warehouses deserted, and the empty streets echoing to a passing
-footfall with the hollow distinctness of midnight or the early hours of
-Sunday morning.</p>
-
-<p>While a full half of the crowd was being conveyed to the course by
-innumerable trains, the sunny road was alive with vehicles of every
-description&mdash;spring-carts and lorries, cabs and buggies, broughams
-and landaus, and four-in-hand coaches&mdash;all filled to their utmost
-capacity, and displaying the sweetest things in bonnets and parasols.
-And amongst the best-appointed carriages Major Duff-Scott's was
-conspicuous, not only for its build and finish, and the excellence of
-the horses that drew it, and the fit of the livery of the coachman
-who drove it, but for the beauty and charming costumes of the ladies
-inside. The major himself, festive in light grey, with his member's
-card in his button-hole and his field-glass slung over his shoulder,
-occupied the place of the usual footman on the box seat in order that
-all the three sisters should accompany his wife; and Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-having set her heart on dressing her girls for the occasion, had been
-allowed to have her own way, with the happiest results. The good woman
-sat back in her corner, forgetting her own Parisian elegance and how
-it would compare with the Cup Day elegance of rival matrons in the
-van of rank and fashion, while she revelled in the contemplation of
-the young pair before her, on whom her best taste had been exercised.
-Elizabeth, by her side, was perfectly satisfactory in straw-coloured
-Indian silk, ruffled with some of her own fine old lace, and wearing
-a delicate French bonnet and parasol to match, with a bunch of
-Camille de Rohan roses at her throat for colour; but Elizabeth was
-not a striking beauty, nor of a style to be experimented on. Patty
-and Eleanor were; and they had been "treated" accordingly. Patty was
-a harmony in pink&mdash;the faintest shell-pink&mdash;and Eleanor a study in
-the softest, palest shade of china-blue; both their dresses being of
-muslin, lightly frilled, and tied round the waist with sashes; while
-they wore bewitching little cap-like bonnets, with swathes of tulle
-under their chins. The effect&mdash;designed for a sunny morning, and to
-be set off by the subdued richness of her own olive-tinted robes&mdash;was
-all that Mrs. Duff-Scott anticipated. The two girls were exquisitely
-sylph-like, and harmonious, and refined&mdash;looking prettier than they had
-ever done in their lives, because they knew themselves that they were
-looking so&mdash;and it was confidently expected by their chaperon that they
-would do considerable execution before the day was over. At the back
-of the carriage was strapped a hamper containing luncheon sufficient
-for all the potential husbands that the racecourse might produce, and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was prepared to exercise discriminating but extensive
-hospitality.</p>
-
-<p>It was not more than eleven o'clock when they entered the carriage
-enclosure and were landed at the foot of the terrace steps, and already
-more carriages than one would have imagined the combined colonies could
-produce were standing empty and in close order in the paddock on one
-hand, while on the other the grand stand was packed from end to end.
-Lawn and terrace were swarming with those brilliant toilets which are
-the feature of our great annual <i>fête</i> day, and the chief subject of
-interest in the newspapers of the day after.</p>
-
-<p>"Dear me, what a crowd!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott, as her horses drew
-up on the smooth gravel, and she glanced eagerly up the steps. "We
-shall not be able to find anyone."</p>
-
-<p>But they had no sooner alighted and shaken out their skirts than
-down from the terrace stepped Mr. Westmoreland, the first and most
-substantial instalment of expected cavaliers, to assist the major to
-convoy his party to the field. Mr. Westmoreland was unusually alert
-and animated, and he pounced upon Eleanor, after hurriedly saluting
-the other ladies, with such an open preference that Mrs. Duff-Scott
-readjusted her schemes upon the spot. If the young man insisted upon
-choosing the youngest instead of the middle one, he must be allowed to
-do so, was the matron's prompt conclusion. She would rather have begun
-at the top and worked downwards, leaving fair Eleanor to be disposed of
-after the elder sisters were settled; but she recognised the wisdom of
-taking the goods the gods provided as she could get them.</p>
-
-<p>"I do declare," said Mr. Westmoreland, looking straight at the girl's
-face, framed in the soft little bonnet, and the pale blue disc of her
-parasol, "I do declare I never saw anybody look so&mdash;so&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Come, come," interrupted the chaperon, "I don't allow speeches of
-that sort." She spoke quite sharply, this astute diplomatist, so that
-the young man who was used to being allowed, and even encouraged, to
-make speeches of that sort, experienced the strange sensation of being
-snubbed, and was half inclined to be sulky over it; and at the same
-moment she quietly seconded his manoeuvres to get to Eleanor's side,
-and took care that he had his chances generally for the rest of the day.</p>
-
-<p>They joined the two great streams of gorgeous promenaders slowly pacing
-up and down the long green lawn. Every seat in the stand was occupied
-and the gangways and gallery so tightly packed that when the Governor
-arrived presently, driving his own four-in-hand, with the Duke of
-Manchester beside him, there was some difficulty in squeezing out a
-path whereby he and his party might ascend to their box. But there were
-frequent benches on the grass, and it was of far more consequence to
-have freedom to move and display one's clothes, and opportunities of
-meeting one's friends, and observing the social aspect of the affair
-generally, than it was to see the racing to the best advantage&mdash;since
-one had to choose between the two. At least, that was understood to
-be the opinion of the ladies present; and Cup Day, notwithstanding
-its tremendous issues, is a ladies' day. The major, than whom no man
-better loved a first-class race, had had a good time at the Derby on
-the previous Saturday, and looked forward to enjoying himself as a man
-and a sportsman when Saturday should come again; but to-day, though
-sharing a warm interest in the great event with those who thronged
-the betting and saddling paddock, he meekly gave himself up to be his
-wife's attendant and to help her to entertain her <i>protégées</i>. He did
-not find this task a hard one, nor wanting in abundant consolations. He
-took off Elizabeth, in the first place, to show her the arrangements
-of the course, of which, by virtue of the badge in his button-hole, he
-was naturally proud; and it pleased him to meet his friends at every
-step, and to note the grave respect with which they saluted him out of
-compliment to the lady at his side&mdash;obviously wondering who was that
-fine creature with Duff-Scott. He showed her the scratching-house, with
-its four-faced clock in its tall tower, and made erasures on his own
-card and hers from the latest corrected lists that it displayed; and he
-taught her the rudiments of betting as practised by her sex. Then he
-initiated her into the mysteries of the electric bells and telegraphs,
-and all the other V.R.C. appliances for conducting business in an
-enlightened manner; showed her the bookmakers noisily pursuing their
-ill-fated enterprises; showed her the beautiful horses pacing up and
-down and round and round, fresh and full of enthusiasm for their day's
-work. And he had much satisfaction in her intelligent and cheerful
-appreciation of these new experiences.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Duff-Scott, in the care of Mr. Westmoreland, awaited
-their return on the lawn, slowly sweeping to and fro, with her train
-rustling over the grass behind her, and feeling that she had never
-enjoyed a Cup Day half so much before. Her girls were admired to her
-heart's content, and she literally basked in the radiance of their
-success. She regarded them, indeed, with an enthusiasm of affection and
-interest that her husband felt to be the most substantial safeguard
-against promiscuous philanthropy that had yet been afforded her. How
-hungrily had she longed for children of her own! How she had envied
-other women their grown-up daughters!&mdash;always with the sense that hers
-would have been, like her cabinets of china, so much more choice and
-so much better "arranged" than theirs. And now that she had discovered
-these charming orphans, who had beauty, and breeding, and culture,
-and not a relative or connection in the world, she did not know how
-to restrain the extravagance of her satisfaction. As she rustled
-majestically up and down the lawn, with one fair girl on one side of
-her and one on the other, while men and women turned at every step to
-stare at them, her heart swelled and throbbed with the long-latent
-pride of motherhood, and a sense that she had at last stumbled upon
-the particular "specimen" that she had all her life been hunting for.
-The only drawback to her enjoyment in them was the consciousness that,
-though they were nobody else's, they were not altogether hers. She
-would have given half her fortune to be able to buy them, as she would
-buy three bits of precious crockery, for her absolute possession, body
-and soul&mdash;to dress, to manage, to marry as she liked.</p>
-
-<p>The major kept Elizabeth walking about with him until the hour
-approached for the Maiden Plate race and luncheon. And when at last
-they joined their party they found that Mrs. Duff-Scott was already
-getting together her guests for the latter entertainment. She was
-seated on a bench, between Eleanor and Patty, and before her stood a
-group of men, in various attitudes of animation and repose, conspicuous
-amongst whom was the tall form of Mr. Kingscote Yelverton. Elizabeth
-had only had distant glimpses of him during the four weeks that had
-passed since he was introduced to her, her chaperon not having seemed
-inclined to cultivate his acquaintance&mdash;probably because she had not
-sought it for herself; but now the girl saw, with a quickened pulse,
-that the happiness of speaking to him again was in store for her. He
-seemed to be aware of her approach as soon as she was within sight,
-and lifted his head and turned to watch her&mdash;still sustaining his
-dialogue with Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had singled him out to talk to; and
-Elizabeth, feeling his eyes upon her, had a sudden sense of discomfort
-in her beautiful dress and her changed surroundings. She was sure that
-he would draw comparisons, and she did not feel herself elevated by the
-new dignities that had been conferred upon her.</p>
-
-<p>Coming up to her party, she was introduced to several
-strangers&mdash;amongst others, to the husband Mrs. Duff-Scott had selected
-for her, a portly widower with a grey beard&mdash;and in the conversation
-that ensued she quite ignored the only person in the group of whose
-presence she was distinctly conscious. She neither looked at him nor
-spoke to him, though aware of every word and glance and movement of
-his; until presently they were all standing upon the slope of grass
-connecting the terrace with the lawn to see the first race as best
-they could, and then she found herself once more by his side. And not
-only by his side, but, as those who could not gain a footing upon the
-stand congregated upon the terrace elevation, gradually wedged against
-him almost as tightly as on the former memorable occasion. Below them
-stood Mrs. Duff-Scott, protected by Mr. Westmoreland, and Patty and
-Eleanor, guarded vigilantly by the little major. It was Mr. Yelverton
-himself who had quietly seen and seized upon his chance of renewing his
-original relations with Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Miss King," he said, in a low tone of authority, "take my arm&mdash;it will
-steady you."</p>
-
-<p>She took his arm, and felt at once that she was in shelter and safety.
-Strong as she was, her impulse to lean on him was almost irresistible.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, give me your parasol," he said. The noonday sun was pouring down,
-but at this critical juncture the convenience of the greatest number
-had to be considered, and unselfish women were patiently exposing their
-best complexions to destruction. Of course Elizabeth declared she
-should do very well until the race was over. Whereupon her companion
-took her parasol gently from her hand, opened it, and held it&mdash;as from
-his great height he was able to do&mdash;so that it shaded her without
-incommoding other people. And so they stood, in silent enjoyment,
-both thinking of where and how something like this&mdash;and yet something
-so very different&mdash;had happened before, but neither of them saying a
-word to betray their thoughts, until the first race was run, and the
-excitement of it cooled down, and they were summoned by Mrs. Duff-Scott
-to follow her to the carriage-paddock for lunch.</p>
-
-<p>Down on the lawn again they sauntered side by side, finding themselves
-<i>tête-à-tête</i> without listeners for the first time since they had been
-introduced to each other. Elizabeth made a tremendous effort to ignore
-the secret intimacy between them. "It is a lovely day, is it not?" she
-lightly remarked, from under the dome of her straw-coloured parasol. "I
-don't think there has been such a fine Cup Day for years."</p>
-
-<p>"Lovely," he assented. "Have you often been here before?"</p>
-
-<p>"I?&mdash;oh, no. I have never been here before."</p>
-
-<p>He was silent a moment, while he looked intently at what he could see
-of her. She had no air of rustic inexperience of the world to-day. "You
-are beginning to understand crowds," he said.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;I am, a little." Then, glancing up at him, she said, "How does
-<i>this</i> crowd affect you? Do you find it all interesting?"</p>
-
-<p>He met her eyes gravely, and then lifted his own towards the hill above
-the grand stand, which was now literally black with human beings, like
-a swarming ant-hill.</p>
-
-<p>"I think it might be more interesting up yonder," he said; and then
-added, after a pause&mdash;"if we could be there."</p>
-
-<p>Eleanor was walking just in front of them, chatting airily with her
-admirer, Mr. Westmoreland, who certainly was making no secret of
-his admiration; and she turned round when she heard this. "Ah, Mr.
-Yelverton," she said, lightly, "you are very disappointing. You don't
-care for our great Flemington show. You are not a connoisseur in
-ladies' dresses, I suppose."</p>
-
-<p>"I know when a lady's dress is becoming, Miss Eleanor," he promptly
-responded, with a smile and bow. At which she blushed and laughed, and
-turned her back again. For the moment he was a man like other men who
-enjoy social success and favour&mdash;ready to be all things to all women;
-but it was only for the moment. Elizabeth noted, with a swelling sense
-of pride and pleasure, that he was not like that to her.</p>
-
-<p>"I am out of my element in an affair of this kind," he said, in the
-undertone that was meant for her ear alone.</p>
-
-<p>"What is your element?"</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps I oughtn't to call it my element&mdash;the groove I have got
-into&mdash;my 'walk of life,' so to speak."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes?"</p>
-
-<p>"I'll tell you about it some day&mdash;if I ever get the chance. I can't
-here."</p>
-
-<p>"I should like to know. And I can guess a little. You don't spend life
-wholly in getting pleasure for yourself&mdash;you help others."</p>
-
-<p>"What makes you think that?"</p>
-
-<p>"I am sure of it."</p>
-
-<p>"Thank you."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth blushed, and could not think of a remark to make, though she
-tried hard.</p>
-
-<p>"Just at present," he went on, "I am on pleasure bent entirely. I am
-taking several months' holiday&mdash;doing nothing but amusing myself."</p>
-
-<p>"A holiday implies work."</p>
-
-<p>"I suppose we all work, more or less."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no, we don't. Not voluntarily&mdash;not disinterestedly&mdash;in that way."</p>
-
-<p>"You mean in my way?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, I see that Westmoreland has been romancing."</p>
-
-<p>"I have not heard a word from Mr. Westmoreland&mdash;he has never spoken of
-you to me."</p>
-
-<p>"Who, then?"</p>
-
-<p>"Nobody."</p>
-
-<p>"These are your own conjectures?"</p>
-
-<p>She made no reply, and they crossed the gravelled drive and entered the
-labyrinth of carriages where the major's servants had prepared luncheon
-in and around his own spacious vehicle, which was in a position to
-lend itself to commissariat purposes. They all assembled there, the
-ladies in the carriage, the gentlemen outside, and napkins and plates
-were handed round and champagne uncorked; and they ate and drank
-together, and were a very cheerful party. Mr. Yelverton contributed
-witty nothings to the general entertainment&mdash;with so much happy tact
-that Mrs. Duff-Scott was charmed with him, and said afterwards that
-she had never met a man with finer manners. While the other men waited
-upon their hostess and the younger sisters, he stood for the most part
-quietly at Elizabeth's elbow, joining freely in the badinage round him
-without once addressing her&mdash;silently replenishing her plate and her
-glass when either required it with an air of making her his special
-charge that was too unobtrusive to attract outside attention, but
-which was more eloquent than any verbal intercourse could have been to
-themselves. Elizabeth attempted no analysis of her sweet and strange
-sensations. She took them from his hand, as she took her boned turkey
-and champagne, without question or protest. She only felt that she was
-happy and satisfied as she had never been before.</p>
-
-<p>Later in the afternoon, when the great Cup race and all the excitement
-of the day was over, Mrs. Duff-Scott gathered her brood together and
-took leave of her casual male guests.</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Good</i>-bye, Mr. Yelverton," she said cordially, when his turn came to
-bid her adieu; "you will come and see me at my own house, I hope?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked up at him when she heard the words. She could not
-help it&mdash;she did not know what she did. And in her eyes he read the
-invitation that he declared gravely he would do himself the honour to
-accept.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>CROSS PURPOSES.</h4>
-
-
-<p>While Elizabeth was thus happily absorbed in her "young man," and
-Eleanor making an evident conquest of Mr. Westmoreland, Patty, who was
-rather accustomed to the lion's share of whatever interesting thing
-was going on, had very little enjoyment. For the first hour or two she
-was delighted with the beauty of the scene and the weather and her own
-personal circumstances, and she entered into the festive spirit of the
-day with the ardour of her energetic temperament. But in a little while
-the glamour faded. A serpent revealed itself in Paradise, and all her
-innocent pleasure was at an end.</p>
-
-<p>That serpent was Mrs. Aarons. Or, rather, it was a hydra-headed
-monster, consisting of Mrs. Aarons and Paul Brion combined. Poor Paul
-had come to spend a holiday afternoon at the races like everybody
-else, travelling to the course by train along with the undistinguished
-multitude, with the harmless intention of recruiting his mind, and, at
-the same time, storing it with new impressions. He had meant to enjoy
-himself in a quiet and independent fashion, strolling amongst the crowd
-and studying its various aspects from the point of view of a writer
-for the press to whom men and women are "material" and "subjects," and
-then to go home as soon as the Cup race was over, and, after an early
-dinner, to spend a peaceful solitary evening, embodying the results of
-his observations in a brilliant article for his newspaper. But, before
-he had well thought out the plan of his paper, he encountered Mrs.
-Aarons; and to her he was a helpless captive for the whole live-long
-afternoon. Mrs. Aarons had come to the course in all due state, attired
-in one of the few real amongst the many reputed Worth dresses of the
-day, and reclining in her own landau, with her long-nosed husband
-at her side. But after her arrival, having lost the shelter of her
-carriage, and being amongst the many who were shut out from the grand
-stand, she had felt just a little unprotected and uncared-for. The
-first time she stopped to speak to a friend, Mr. Aarons took the
-opportunity to slip off to the saddling paddock, where the astute
-speculator was speedily absorbed in a more congenial occupation than
-that of idling up and down the promenade; and the other gentlemen who
-were so assiduous in their attendance upon her in the ordinary way
-had their own female relatives to look after on this extraordinary
-occasion. She joined one set and then another of casual acquaintances
-whom she chanced to meet, but her hold upon them all was more or less
-precarious; so that when by-and-bye she saw Paul Brion, threading his
-way alone amongst the throng, she pounced upon him thankfully, and
-confided herself to his protection. Paul had no choice but to accept
-the post of escort assigned to him under such circumstances, nor was
-he at all unwilling to become her companion. He had been rather out
-in the cold lately. Patty, though nominally at home in Myrtle Street,
-had been practically living with Mrs. Duff-Scott for the last few
-weeks, and he had scarcely had a glimpse of her, and he had left off
-going to Mrs. Aarons's Fridays since the evening that she snubbed him
-for Patty's sake. The result was that he was in a mood to appreciate
-women's society and to be inclined to melt when the sunshine of his old
-friend's favour was poured upon him again.</p>
-
-<p>They greeted each other amicably, therefore, and made up the intangible
-quarrel that was between them. Mrs. Aarons justified her reputation as
-a clever woman by speedily causing him to regard her as the injured
-party, and to wonder how he could have been such a brute as to wound
-her tender susceptibilities as he had done. She insinuated, with
-the utmost tact, that she had suffered exceedingly from the absence
-of his society, and was evidently in a mood to revive the slightly
-sentimental intercourse that he had not found disagreeable in earlier
-days. Paul, however, was never less inclined to be sentimental in her
-company than he was to-day, in spite of his cordial disposition. He
-was changed from what he was in those earlier days; he felt it as soon
-as she began to talk to him, and perfectly understood the meaning of
-it. After a little while she felt, too, that he was changed, and she
-adapted herself to him accordingly. They fell into easy chat as they
-strolled up and down, and were very friendly in a harmless way. They
-did not discuss their private feelings at all, but only the topics that
-were in every-day use&mdash;the weather, the races, the trial of Ned Kelly,
-the wreck of the Sorata, the decay of Berryism&mdash;anything that happened
-to come into their heads or to be suggested by the scene around them.
-Nevertheless, they had a look of being very intimate with each other
-to the superficial eye of Mrs. Grundy. People with nothing better to
-do stared at them as they meandered in and out amongst the crowd, he
-and she <i>tête-à-tête</i> by their solitary selves; and those who knew they
-were legally unrelated were quick to discover a want of conventional
-discretion in their behaviour. Mrs. Duff-Scott, for instance, who
-abhorred scandal, made use of them to point a delicate moral for the
-edification of her girls.</p>
-
-<p>Paul, who was a good talker, was giving his companion an animated
-account of the French plays going on at one of the theatres just
-then&mdash;which she had not yet been to see&mdash;and describing with great
-warmth the graceful and finished acting of charming Madame Audrée,
-when he was suddenly aware of Patty King passing close beside him.
-Patty was walking at her chaperon's side, with her head erect, and her
-white parasol, with its pink lining, held well back over her shoulder,
-a vision of loveliness in her diaphanous dress. He caught his breath
-at sight of her, looking so different from her ordinary self, and was
-about to raise his hat, when&mdash;to his deep dismay and surprise&mdash;she
-swept haughtily past him, meeting his eyes fairly, with a cold disdain,
-but making no sign of recognition.</p>
-
-<p>The blood rushed into his face, and he set his teeth, and walked on
-silently, not seeing where he went. For a moment he felt stunned with
-the shock. Then he was brought to himself by a harsh laugh from Mrs.
-Aarons. "Dear me," said she, in a high tone, "the Miss Kings have
-become so grand that we are beneath their notice. You and I are not
-good enough for them now, Mr. Brion. We must hide our diminished heads."</p>
-
-<p>"I see," he assented, with savage quietness. "Very well. I am quite
-ready to hide mine."</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Patty, at the farther end of the lawn, was overwhelmed
-with remorse for what she had done. At the first sight of him, in
-close intercourse with that woman who, Mrs. Duff-Scott again reminded
-her, was not "nice"&mdash;who, though a wife and mother, liked men to
-"dangle" round her&mdash;she had arraigned and judged and sentenced him
-with the swift severity of youth, that knows nothing of the complex
-trials and sufferings which teach older people to bear and forbear
-with one another. But when it was over, and she had seen his shocked
-and bewildered face, all her instinctive trust in him revived, and
-she would have given anything to be able to make reparation for her
-cruelty. The whole afternoon she was looking for him, hoping for a
-chance to show him somehow that she did not altogether "mean it," but,
-though she saw him several times&mdash;eating his lunch with Mrs. Aarons
-under the refreshment shed close by the Duff-Scott carriage, watching
-Grand Flâneur win the greatest of his half-dozen successive victories
-from the same point of view as that taken by the Duff-Scott party&mdash;he
-never turned his head again in her direction or seemed to have the
-faintest consciousness that she was there.</p>
-
-<p>And next day, when no longer in her glorious apparel, but walking
-quietly home from the Library with Eleanor, she met him unexpectedly,
-face to face, in the Fitzroy Gardens. And then <i>he</i> cut <i>her</i>&mdash;dead.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>MR. YELVERTON'S MISSION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>On a Thursday evening in the race week&mdash;two days after the "Cup,"
-Mrs. Duff-Scott took her girls to the Town Hall to one of a series of
-concerts that were given at that time by Henri Ketten, the Hungarian
-pianist, and the Austrian band that had come out to Melbourne to give
-<i>éclat</i> to the Exhibition.</p>
-
-<p>It was a fine clear night, and the great hall was full when they
-arrived, notwithstanding the fact that half-a-dozen theatres were
-open and displaying their most attractive novelties, for music-loving
-souls are pretty numerous in this part of the world, taking all things
-into consideration. Australians may not have such an enlightened
-appreciation of high-class music as, say, the educated Viennese,
-who live and breathe and have their being in it. There are, indeed,
-sad instances on record of a great artist, or a choice combination
-of artists, having appealed in vain for sympathy to the Melbourne
-public&mdash;that is to say, having found not numbers of paying and
-applauding listeners, but only a select and fervent few. But such
-instances are rare, and to be accounted for as the result, not of
-indifference, but of inexperience. The rule is&mdash;as I think most of
-our distinguished musical visitors will testify&mdash;that we are a people
-peculiarly ready to recognise whatever is good that comes to us, and
-to acknowledge and appreciate it with ungrudging generosity. And so
-the Austrian band, though it had many critics, never played to a thin
-audience or to inattentive ears; and no city in Europe (according
-to his own death-bed testimony) ever offered such incense of loving
-enthusiasm to Ketten's genius as burnt steadily in Melbourne from the
-moment that he laid his fingers on the keyboard, at the Opera House,
-until he took his reluctant departure. This, I hasten to explain (lest
-I should be accused of "blowing"), is not due to any exceptional virtue
-of discrimination on our part, but to our good fortune in having
-inherited an enterprising and active intelligence from the brave men
-who had the courage and energy to make a new country, and to that
-country being such a land of plenty that those who live in it have easy
-times and abundant leisure to enjoy themselves.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott sailed into the hall, with her girls around her, and
-many eyes were turned to look at them and to watch their progress to
-their seats. By this time "the pretty Miss Kings" had become well-known
-and much talked about, and the public interest in what they wore,
-and what gentlemen were in attendance on them, was apt to be keen on
-these occasions. To-night the younger girls, with their lovely hair
-lifted from their white necks and coiled high at the back of their
-heads, wore picturesque flowered gowns of blue and white stuff, while
-the elder sister was characteristically dignified in black. And the
-gentlemen in attendance upon them were Mr. Westmoreland, still devoted
-to Eleanor, and the portly widower, whom Mrs. Duff-Scott had intended
-for Elizabeth, but who was perversely addicted to Patty. The little
-party took their places in the body of the hall, in preference to the
-gallery, and seated themselves in two rows of three&mdash;the widower behind
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, Patty next him behind Eleanor, and Elizabeth behind
-Mr. Westmoreland. And when the concert began there was an empty chair
-beside Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-bye, when the overture was at an end&mdash;when the sonorous tinkling
-and trumpeting of the orchestra had ceased, and she was listening, in
-soft rapture, to Ketten's delicate improvisation, at once echo and
-prelude, reminiscent of the idea that the band had been elaborating,
-and prophetic of the beautiful Beethoven sonata that he was thus
-tenderly approaching, Elizabeth was aware that the empty chair was
-taken, and knew, without turning her head, by whom. She tried not to
-blush and feel fluttered&mdash;she was too old, she told herself, for that
-nonsense&mdash;but for half a minute or so it was an effort to control
-these sentimental tendencies. He laid his light overcoat over the back
-of his chair, and sat down quietly. Mrs. Duff-Scott looked over her
-shoulder, and gave him a pleasant nod. Mr. Westmoreland said, "Hullo!
-Got back again?" And then Elizabeth felt sufficiently composed to turn
-and hold out her hand, which he took in a strong clasp that was not
-far removed from a squeeze. They did not speak to each other; nor did
-they look at each other, though Mr. Yelverton was speedily informed of
-all the details of his neighbour's appearance, and she took no time to
-ascertain that he looked particularly handsome in his evening dress
-(but <i>she</i> always thought him handsome; big nose, leather cheeks, red
-moustache, and all), and that his well-cut coat and trousers were not
-in their first freshness. Then the concert went on as before&mdash;but
-not as before&mdash;and they sat side by side and listened. Elizabeth's
-programme lay on her knee, and he took it up to study it, and laid it
-lightly on her knee again. Presently she pointed to one and another of
-the selections on the list, about which she had her own strong musical
-feelings, and he looked down at them and nodded, understanding what
-she meant. And again they sat back in their chairs, and gazed serenely
-at the stage under the great organ, at Herr Wildner cutting the air
-with his baton, or at poor Ketten, with his long, white, solemn face,
-sitting at the piano in a bower of votive wreaths and bouquets, raining
-his magic finger-tips like a sparkling cascade upon the keyboard,
-and wrinkling the skin of his forehead up and down. But they had no
-audible conversation throughout the whole performance. When, between
-the two divisions of the programme, the usual interval occurred for the
-relaxation and refreshment of the performers and their audience, Mr.
-Westmoreland turned round, with his elbow over the back of his chair,
-and appropriated an opportunity to which they had secretly been looking
-forward. "So you've got back?" he remarked for the second time. "I
-thought you were going to make a round of the country?"</p>
-
-<p>"I shall do it in instalments," replied Mr. Yelverton.</p>
-
-<p>"You won't have time to do much that way, if you are going home again
-next month. Will you?"</p>
-
-<p>"I can extend my time a little, if necessary."</p>
-
-<p>"Can you? Oh, I thought there was some awfully urgent business that you
-had to get back for&mdash;a new costermonger's theatre to open, or a street
-Arab's public-house&mdash;eh?"</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Westmoreland laughed, as at a good joke that he had got hold
-of, but Mr. Yelverton was imperturbably grave. "I have business in
-Australia just now," he said, "and I'm going to finish that first."</p>
-
-<p>Here the portly widower, who had overheard the dialogue, leaned over
-Patty to join in the conversation. He was a wealthy person of the
-name of Smith, who, like Mr. Phillips's father in the <i>Undiscovered
-Country</i>, had been in business "on that obscure line which divides
-the wholesale merchant's social acceptability from the lost condition
-of the retail trader," but who, on his retirement with a fortune, had
-safely scaled the most exclusive heights of respectability. "I say," he
-called out, addressing Mr. Yelverton, "you're not going to write a book
-about us, I hope, like Trollope and those fellows? We're suspicious
-of people who come here utter strangers, and think they can learn all
-about us in two or three weeks."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton reassured him upon this point, and then Mrs. Duff-Scott
-broke in. "You have not been to call on me yet, Mr. Yelverton."</p>
-
-<p>"No. I hope to have that pleasure to-morrow," he replied. "I am told
-that Friday is your reception day."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, you needn't have waited for that. Any day before four. Come
-to-morrow and dine with us, will you? We are going to have a few
-friends and a little music in the evening. I suppose you are fond of
-music&mdash;being here."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton said he was very fond of music, though he did not
-understand much about it, and that he would be very happy to dine with
-her next day. Then, after a little more desultory talk, the orchestra
-returned to the stage and began the second overture&mdash;from Mozart this
-time&mdash;and they all became silent listeners again.</p>
-
-<p>When at last the concert was over, Elizabeth and her "young man" found
-themselves once more navigating a slow course together through a
-crowd. Mrs. Duff-Scott, with Mr. Westmoreland and Eleanor, moved off
-in advance; Mr. Smith offered his arm to Patty and followed; and so,
-by the favour of fate and circumstances, the remaining pair were left
-with no choice but to accompany each other. "Wait a moment," said Mr.
-Yelverton, as she stepped out from her seat, taking her shawl&mdash;a soft
-white Rampore chuddah, that was the fairy godmother's latest gift&mdash;from
-her arms. "You will feel it cold in the passages." She stood still
-obediently, and he put the shawl over her shoulders and folded one end
-of it lightly round her throat. Then he held his arm, and her hand
-was drawn closely to his side; and so they set forth towards the door,
-having put a dozen yards between themselves and the rest of their party.</p>
-
-<p>"You are living with Mrs. Duff-Scott, are you not?" he asked abruptly.</p>
-
-<p>"Not quite that," she replied. "Mrs. Duff-Scott would like us to be
-there always, but we think it better to be at home sometimes."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;I should think it is better," he replied.</p>
-
-<p>"But we are with her very often&mdash;nearly every day," she added.</p>
-
-<p>"Shall you be there to-morrow?" he asked, not looking at her. "Shall I
-see you there in the evening?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think so," she replied rather unsteadily. And, after a little while,
-she felt emboldened to ask a few questions of him. "Are you really only
-making a flying visit to Australia, Mr. Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>"I had intended that it should be very short," he said; "but I shall
-not go away quite yet."</p>
-
-<p>"You have many interests at home&mdash;to call you back?" she ventured to
-say, with a little timidity about touching on his private affairs.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. You are thinking of what Westmoreland said? He is a scoffer&mdash;he
-doesn't understand. You mustn't mind what he says. But I should like,"
-he added, as they drew near the door and saw Mrs. Duff-Scott looking
-back for them, "I should very much like to tell you something about it
-myself. I think&mdash;I feel sure&mdash;it would interest you. Perhaps I may have
-an opportunity to-morrow night."</p>
-
-<p>Here Mrs. Duff-Scott's emissary, Mr. Smith, who had been sent back
-to his duty, claimed Elizabeth on her chaperon's behalf. She and her
-lover had no time to say anything more, except good-night. But that
-good-night&mdash;and their anticipations&mdash;satisfied them.</p>
-
-<p>On reaching Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, where the girls were to sleep,
-they found the major awaiting their return, and were hospitably
-invited&mdash;along with Mr. Westmoreland, who had been allowed to "see them
-safely home," on the box-seat of the carriage&mdash;into the library, where
-they found a bright little fire in the grate, and refreshments on the
-table. The little man, apparently, was as paternal in his dispositions
-towards the orphans as his wife could desire, and was becoming quite
-weaned from his bad club habits under the influence of his new
-domestic ties.</p>
-
-<p>"Dear me, <i>how</i> nice!&mdash;<i>how</i> comfortable!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-sailing up to the hearth and seating herself in a deep leather chair.
-"Come in, Mr. Westmoreland. Come along to the fire, dears." And she
-called her brood around her. Eleanor, who had caressing ways, knelt
-down at her chaperon's feet on the soft oriental carpet, and she pulled
-out the frills of lace round the girl's white neck and elbows with a
-motherly gesture.</p>
-
-<p>"Dear child!" she ejaculated fondly, "doesn't she"&mdash;appealing to her
-husband&mdash;"remind you exactly of a bit of fifteenth century Nankin?"</p>
-
-<p>"I should like to see the bit of porcelain, Nankin or otherwise, that
-would remind me exactly of Miss Nelly," replied the gallant major,
-bowing to the kneeling girl. "I would buy that bit, whatever price it
-was."</p>
-
-<p>"That's supposing you could get it," interrupted Mr. Westmoreland, with
-a laugh.</p>
-
-<p>"It is the very shade of blue, with that grey tinge in it," murmured
-Mrs. Duff-Scott. But at the same time she was thinking of a new topic.
-"I have asked Mr. Yelverton to dine with us to-morrow, my dear," she
-remarked, suddenly, to her spouse. "We wanted another man to make up
-our number."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, have you? All right. I shall be very glad to see him. He's a
-gentlemanly fellow, is Yelverton. Very rich, too, they tell me. But we
-don't see much of him."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Mr. Westmoreland, withdrawing his eyes from the
-contemplation of Eleanor and her æsthetic gown, "he's not a society
-man. He don't go much into clubs, Yelverton. He's one of the richest
-commoners in Great Britain&mdash;give you my word, sir, he's got a princely
-fortune, all to his own cheek&mdash;and he lets his places and lives in
-chambers in Piccadilly, and spends nearly all his time when he's at
-home in the slums and gutters of Whitechapel. He's got a mania for
-philanthropy, unfortunately. It's an awful pity, for he really <i>would</i>
-be a good fellow."</p>
-
-<p>At the word "philanthropy," the major made a clandestine grimace to
-Elizabeth, but composed his face immediately, seeing that she was not
-regarding him, but gazing with serious eyes at the narrator of Mr.
-Yelverton's peculiarities.</p>
-
-<p>"He's been poking into every hole and corner," continued Mr.
-Westmoreland, "since he came here, overhauling the factory places, and
-finding out the prices of things, and the land regulations, and I don't
-know what. He's just been to Sandhurst, to look at the mines&mdash;doing a
-little amateur emigration business, I expect. Seems a strange thing,"
-concluded the young man, thoughtfully, "for a rich swell of his class
-to be bothering himself about things of that sort."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott had been listening attentively, and at this she
-roused herself and sat up in her chair. "It is the rich who <i>should</i>
-do it," said she, with energy. "And I admire him&mdash;I admire him, that
-he has given up his own selfish ease to help those whose lives are
-hard and miserable. I believe the squalid wretchedness of places
-like Whitechapel&mdash;though I have never been there&mdash;is something
-dreadful&mdash;dreadful! I admire him," she repeated defiantly. "I think
-it's a pity a few more of us are not like him. I shall talk to him
-about it. I&mdash;I shall see if I can't help him."</p>
-
-<p>This time Elizabeth did look at the major, who was making a feint of
-putting his handkerchief to his eyes. She smiled at him sweetly, and
-then she walked over to Mrs. Duff-Scott, put her strong arms round the
-matron's shoulders, and kissed her fervently.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>AN OLD STORY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room, at nine or ten o'clock on Friday
-evening, was a pleasant sight. Very spacious, very voluptuous, in
-a subdued, majestic, high-toned way; very dim&mdash;with splashes of
-richness&mdash;as to walls and ceilings; very glowing and splendid&mdash;with
-folds of velvety darkness&mdash;as to window curtains and portières.
-The colouring of it was such as required a strong light to show
-how beautiful it was, but with a proud reserve, and to mark its
-unostentatious superiority over the glittering salons of the
-uneducated <i>nouveaux riches</i>, it was always more or less in a warm
-and mellow twilight, veiling its sombre magnificence from the vulgar
-eye. Just now its main compartment was lit by wax candles in archaic
-candlesticks amongst the flowers and <i>bric-à-brac</i> of an <i>étagère</i> over
-the mantelpiece, and by seven shaded and coloured lamps, of various
-artistic devices, judiciously distributed over the abundant table-space
-so as to suffuse with a soft illumination the occupants of most of
-the wonderfully stuffed and rotund chairs and lounges grouped about
-the floor; and yet the side of the room was decidedly bad for reading
-in. "It does not light up well," was the consolation of women of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's acquaintance, who still clung to pale walls and primary
-colours and cut-glass chandeliers, either from necessity or choice.
-"Pooh!" Mrs. Duff-Scott used to retort, hearing of this just criticism;
-"as if I <i>wanted</i> it to light up!" But she had compromised with her
-principles in the arrangement of the smaller division of the room,
-where, between and beyond a pair of vaguely tinted portières, stood the
-piano, and all other material appliances for heightening the spiritual
-enjoyment of musical people. Here she had grudgingly retained the
-gas-burner of utilitarian Philistinism. It hung down from the ceiling
-straight over the piano, a circlet of gaudy yellow flames, that made
-the face of every plaque upon the wall to glitter. But the brilliant
-corona was borne in no gas-fitter's vehicle; its shrine was of dull
-brass, mediæval and precious, said to have been manufactured, in the
-first instance, for either papal or imperial purposes&mdash;it didn't matter
-which.</p>
-
-<p>In this bright music-room was gathered to-night a little company of
-the elect&mdash;Herr Wüllner and his violin, together with three other
-stringed instruments and their human complement. Patty at the piano,
-Eleanor, Mrs. Duff-Scott, and half-a-dozen more enthusiasts&mdash;with a
-mixed audience around them. In the dim, big room beyond, the major
-entertained the inartistic, outlawed few who did not care, nor pretend
-to care, for aught but the sensual comfort of downy chairs and after
-dinner chit-chat. And, at the farthest end, in a recess of curtained
-window that had no lamps about it, sat Elizabeth and Mr. Yelverton,
-side by side, on a low settee&mdash;not indifferent to the pathetic wail of
-the far-distant violins, but finding more entertainment in their own
-talk than the finest music could have afforded them.</p>
-
-<p>"I had a friend who gave up everything to go and work amongst the
-London poor&mdash;in the usual clerical way, you know, with schools and
-guilds and all the right and proper things. He used to ask me for
-money, and insist on my helping him with a lecture or a reading now
-and then, and I got drawn in. I had always had an idea of doing
-something&mdash;taking a line of some sort&mdash;and somehow this got hold of me.
-I couldn't see all that misery&mdash;you've no idea of it, Miss King&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I have read of it," she said.</p>
-
-<p>"You would have to see it to realise it in the least. After I saw it I
-couldn't turn my back and go home and enjoy myself as if nothing had
-happened. And I had no family to consider. I got drawn in."</p>
-
-<p>"And <i>that</i> is your work?" said Elizabeth. "I <i>knew</i> it."</p>
-
-<p>"No. My friend talks of 'his work'&mdash;a lot of them have 'their
-work'&mdash;it's splendid, too&mdash;but they don't allow me to use that word,
-and I don't want it. What I do is all wrong, they say&mdash;not only
-useless, but mischievous."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't believe it," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Nor I, of course&mdash;though they may be right. We can only judge
-according to our lights. To me, it seems that when things are as bad
-as possible, a well meaning person can't make them worse and <i>may</i>
-make them better. They say 'no,' and argue it all out as plainly as
-possible. Yet I stick to my view&mdash;I go on in my own line. It doesn't
-interfere with theirs, though they say it does."</p>
-
-<p>"And what is it?" she asked, with her sympathetic eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, you'll hardly understand, for you don't know the class&mdash;the
-lowest deep of all&mdash;those who can't be dealt with by the Societies&mdash;the
-poor wretches whom nothing will raise, and who are abandoned as
-hopeless, outside the pale of everything. They are my line."</p>
-
-<p>"Can there be any abandoned as hopeless?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. They really are so, you know. Neither religion nor political
-economy can do anything for them, though efforts are made for the
-children. Poor, sodden, senseless, vicious lumps of misery, with the
-last spark of soul bred out of them&mdash;a sort of animated garbage that
-cumbers the ground and makes the air stink&mdash;given up as a bad job, and
-only wanted out of the way&mdash;from the first they were on my mind more
-than all the others. And when I saw them left to rot like that, I felt
-I might have a free hand."</p>
-
-<p>"And can you succeed where so many have failed?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, what I do doesn't involve success or failure. It's outside all
-that, just as they are. They're only brutes in human shape&mdash;hardly
-human shape either; but I have a feeling for brutes. I love horses
-and dogs&mdash;I can't bear to see things suffer. So that's all I do&mdash;just
-comfort them where I can, in their own way; not the parson's
-way&mdash;that's no use. I wouldn't mock them by speaking of religion&mdash;I
-suppose religion, as we know it, has had a large hand in making them
-what they are; and to go and tell them that God ordained their
-miserable pariah-dog lot would be rank blasphemy. I leave all that. I
-don't bother about their souls, because I know they haven't got any; I
-see their wretched bodies, and that's enough for me. It's something not
-to let them go out of the world without <i>ever</i> knowing what it is to be
-physically comfortable. It eases my conscience, as a man who has never
-been hungry, except for the pleasure of it."</p>
-
-<p>"And do they blame you for that?"</p>
-
-<p>"They say I pauperise them and demoralise them," he answered, with
-a sudden laugh; "that I disorganise the schemes of the legitimate
-workers&mdash;that I outrage every principle of political economy. Well, I
-do <i>that</i>, certainly. But that I make things worse&mdash;that I retard the
-legitimate workers&mdash;I won't believe. If I do," he concluded, "I can't
-help it."</p>
-
-<p>"No," breathed Elizabeth, softly.</p>
-
-<p>"There's only one thing in which I and the legitimate workers are
-alike&mdash;everybody is alike in that, I suppose&mdash;the want of money. Only
-in the matter of beer and tobacco, what interest I could get on a few
-hundred pounds! What I could do in the way of filling empty stomachs
-and easing aches and pains if I had control of large means! What a good
-word 'means' is, isn't it? We want 'means' for all the ends we seek&mdash;no
-matter what they are."</p>
-
-<p>"I thought," said Elizabeth, "that you were rich. Mr. Westmoreland told
-us so."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, in a way, I am," he rejoined. "I hold large estates in my own
-name, and can draw fifty or sixty thousand a year interest from them if
-I like. But there have been events&mdash;there are peculiar circumstances
-in connection with the inheritance of the property, which make me
-feel myself not quite entitled to use it freely&mdash;not yet. I <i>will</i>
-use it, after this year, if nothing happens. I think I <i>ought</i> to;
-but I have put it off hitherto so as to make as sure as possible
-that I was lawfully in possession. I will tell you how it is," he
-proceeded, leaning forward and clasping his knee with his big brown
-hands. "I am used to speaking of the main facts freely, because I am
-always in hopes of discovering something as I go about the world. A
-good many years ago my father's second brother disappeared, and was
-never heard of afterwards. He and the eldest brother, at that time
-the head of the family, and in possession of the property, quarrelled
-about&mdash;well, about a woman whom both were in love with; and the elder
-one was found dead&mdash;shot dead&mdash;in a plantation not far from the house
-on the evening of the day of the quarrel, an hour after the total
-disappearance of the other. My uncle Kingscote&mdash;I was named after him,
-and he was my godfather&mdash;was last seen going out towards the plantation
-with his gun; he was traced to London within the next few days; and
-it was almost&mdash;but just not quite certainly&mdash;proved that he had there
-gone on board a ship that sailed for South America and was lost. He
-was advertised for in every respectable newspaper in the world, at
-intervals, for twenty years afterwards&mdash;during which time the estate
-was in Chancery, before they would grant it to my father, from whom it
-descended to me&mdash;and I should think the agony columns of all countries
-never had one message cast into such various shapes. But he never gave
-a sign. All sorts of apparent clues were followed up, but they led to
-nothing. If alive he must have known that it was all right, and would
-have come home to take his property. He <i>must</i> have gone down in that
-ship."</p>
-
-<p>"But&mdash;oh, surely he would never have come back to take the property of
-a murdered brother!" exclaimed Elizabeth, in a shocked voice.</p>
-
-<p>"His brother was not murdered," Mr. Yelverton replied. "Many people
-thought so, of course&mdash;people have a way of thinking the worst in
-these cases, not from malice, but because it is more interesting&mdash;and
-a tradition to that effect survives still, I am afraid. But my
-uncle's family never suspected him of such a crime. The thing was not
-legally proved, one way or the other. There were strong indications
-in the position of the gun which lay by his side, and in the general
-appearance of the spot where he was found, that my uncle, Patrick
-Yelverton, accidentally shot himself; that was the opinion of the
-coroner's jury, and the conviction of the family. But poor Kingscote
-evidently assumed that he would be accused of murder. Perhaps&mdash;it is
-very possible&mdash;some rough-tempered action of his might have caused
-the catastrophe, and his remorse have had the same effect as fear in
-prompting him to efface himself. Anyway, no one who knew him well
-believed him capable of doing his brother a mischief wilfully. His
-innocence was, indeed, proved by the fact that he married the lady
-who had been at the bottom of the trouble&mdash;by no fault of hers, poor
-soul!&mdash;after he escaped to London; and, wherever he went to, he took
-her with him. She disappeared a few days after he did, and was lost
-as completely, from that time. The record and circumstances of their
-marriage were discovered; and that was all. He would not have married
-her&mdash;she would not have married him&mdash;had he been a murderer."</p>
-
-<p>"Do you think not?" said Elizabeth. "That is always assumed as a
-matter of course, in books&mdash;that murder and&mdash;and other disgraces are
-irrevocable barriers between those who love each other, when they
-discover them. But I do not understand why. With such an awful misery
-to bear, they would want all that their love could give them so much
-<i>more</i>&mdash;not less."</p>
-
-<p>"You see," said Mr. Yelverton, regarding her with great interest, "it
-is a sort of point of honour with the one in misfortune not to drag the
-other down. When we are married, as when we are dead, 'it is for a long
-time.'"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth made no answer, but there was a quiet smile about her lips
-that plainly testified to her want of sympathy with this view. After
-a silence of a few seconds, her companion leaned forward and looked
-directly into her face. "Would <i>you</i> stick to the man you loved if he
-had forfeited his good name or were in risk of the gallows?&mdash;I mean if
-he were really a criminal, and not only a suspected one?" he asked with
-impressive slowness.</p>
-
-<p>"If I had found him worthy to be loved before that," she replied,
-speaking collectedly, but dismayed to find herself growing crimson,
-"and if he cared for me&mdash;and leant on me&mdash;oh, yes! It might be wrong,
-but I should do it. Surely any woman would. I don't see how she could
-help herself."</p>
-
-<p>He changed his position, and looked away from her face into the room
-with a light in his deep-set eyes. "You ought to have been Elizabeth
-Leigh's daughter," he said. "I did not think there were any more women
-like her in the world."</p>
-
-<p>"I am like other women," said Elizabeth, humbly, "only more ignorant."</p>
-
-<p>He made no comment&mdash;they both found it rather difficult to speak
-at this point&mdash;and, after an expressive pause, she went on, rather
-hurriedly, "Was Elizabeth Leigh the lady who married your uncle?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," he replied, bringing himself back to his story with an effort,
-"she was. She was a lovely woman, bright and clever, fond of dress and
-fun and admiration, like other women; but with a solid foundation to
-her character that you will forgive my saying is rare to your sex&mdash;as
-far, at least, as I am able to judge. I saw her when I was a little
-schoolboy, but I can picture her now, as if it were but yesterday.
-What vigour she had! What a wholesome zest for life! And yet she gave
-up everything to go into exile and obscurity with the man she loved.
-Ah, <i>what</i> a woman! She <i>ought</i> not to have died. She should have lived
-and reigned at Yelverton, and had a houseful of children. It is still
-possible&mdash;barely, barely possible&mdash;that she did live, and that I shall
-some day stumble over a handsome young cousin who will tell me that he
-is the head of the family."</p>
-
-<p>"O no," said Elizabeth, "not after all these years. Give up thinking
-of such a thing. Take your own money now, as soon as you go home,
-and"&mdash;looking up with a smile&mdash;"buy all the beer and tobacco that you
-want."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>OUT IN THE COLD.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Paul Brion, meanwhile, plodded on in his old groove, which no longer
-fitted him as it used to do, and vexed the soul of his benevolent
-landlady with the unprecedented shortness of his temper. She didn't
-know how to take him, she said, he was that cantankerous and
-"contrairy:" but she triumphantly recognised the result that she had
-all along expected would follow a long course of turning night into
-day, and therefore was not surprised at the change in him. "Your brain
-is over-wrought," she said, soothingly, when one day a compunctious
-spirit moved him to apologise for his moroseness; "your nervous system
-is unstrung. You've been going on too long, and you want a spell. You
-just take a holiday straight off, and go right away, and don't look
-at an ink-bottle for a month. It will save you a brain fever, mark
-my words." But Paul was consistent in his perversity, and refused to
-take good advice. He did think, for a moment, that he might as well
-have a little run and see how his father was getting on; and for
-several days he entertained the more serious project of "cutting" the
-colony altogether and going to seek his fortune in London. All the
-same, he stayed on with Mrs. M'Intyre, producing his weekly tale of
-political articles and promiscuous essays, and sitting up all night,
-and sleeping all the morning, with his habitual irregular regularity.
-But the flavour had gone out of work and recreation alike, and not
-all Mrs. Aarons's blandishments, which were now exercised upon him for
-an hour or two every Friday evening, were of any avail to coax it back
-again. Those three Miss Kings, whom his father had sent to him, and
-whom Mrs. Duff-Scott had taken away from him, had spoiled the taste
-of life. That was the fact, though he would not own it. "What care I?
-They are nothing to me," he used to say to himself when fighting an
-occasional spasm of rage or jealousy. He really persuaded himself very
-often that they were nothing to him, and that his bitter feeling was
-caused solely by the spectacle of their deterioration. To see them
-exchanging all their great plans and high aspirations for these vulgar
-social triumphs&mdash;giving up their studies at the Library to attend
-dancing classes, and to dawdle about the Block, and gossip in the
-Exhibition&mdash;laying aside their high-bred independence to accept the
-patronage of a fine lady who might drop them as suddenly as she took
-them up&mdash;was it not enough to make a man's heart bleed?</p>
-
-<p>As for Patty, he made up his mind that he could never forgive <i>her</i>.
-Now and then he would steal out upon his balcony to listen to a
-Schubert serenade or a Beethoven sonata in the tender stillness of a
-summer night, and then he would have that sensation of bleeding at the
-heart which melted, and unnerved, and unmanned him; but, for the most
-part, every sight and sound and reminiscence of her were so many fiery
-styptics applied to his wound, scorching up all tender emotions in one
-great angry pain. Outwardly he shunned her, cut her&mdash;withered her up,
-indeed&mdash;with his ostentatiously expressed indifference; but secretly
-he spent hours of the day and night dogging her from place to place,
-when he ought to have been at work or in his bed, merely that he might
-get a glimpse of her in a crowd, and some notion of what she was doing.
-He haunted the Exhibition with the same disregard for the legitimate
-attractions of that social head-centre as prevailed with the majority
-of its visitors, to whom it was a daily trysting-place; and there
-he had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing her every now and then.
-Once she was in the Indian Court, so fragrant with sandalwood, and
-she was looking with ardent eyes at gossamer muslins and embroidered
-cashmeres, while young Westmoreland leaned on the glass case beside
-her in an attitude of insufferable familiarity. It was an indication,
-to the jealous lover, that the woman who had elevated her sex from
-the rather low place that it had held in his estimation before he
-knew her, and made it sacred to him for her sake, was, after all,
-"no better than the rest of them." He had dreamed of her as a man's
-true helpmate and companion, able to walk hand in hand with him on
-the high roads of human progress, and finding her vocation and her
-happiness in that spiritual and intellectual fellowship; and here she
-was lost in the greedy contemplation of a bit of fine embroidery that
-had cost some poor creature his eyesight already, and was presently
-to cost again what would perhaps provision a starving family for a
-twelvemonth&mdash;just like any other ignorant and frivolous female who
-had sold her soul to the demon of fashion. He marched home to Myrtle
-Street with the zeal of the reformer (which draws its inspiration from
-such unsuspected sources) red-hot in his busy brain. He lit his pipe,
-spread out his paper, dipped his pen in the ink-bottle, and began to
-deal with the question of "Woman's Clothes in Relation to her Moral
-and Intellectual Development" in what he conceived to be a thoroughly
-impersonal and benevolent temper. His words should be brief, he said
-to himself, but they should be pregnant with suggestive truth. He
-would lay a light touch upon this great sore that had eaten so deeply
-into one member of the body politic, causing all the members to suffer
-with it; but he would diagnose it faithfully, without fear or favour,
-and show wherein it had hindered the natural advancement of the race,
-and to what fatal issues its unchecked development tended. It was a
-serious matter, that had too long been left unnoticed by the leaders
-of the thought of the day. "It is a <i>problem</i>," he wrote, with a
-splutter of his pen, charging his grievance full tilt with his most
-effective term; "it is, we conscientiously believe, one of the great
-problems of this problem-haunted and problem-fighting age&mdash;one of the
-wrongs that it is the mission of the reforming Modern Spirit to set
-right&mdash;though the subject is so inextricably entangled and wrapped up
-in its amusing associations that at present its naked gravity is only
-recognised by the philosophic few. It is all very well to make fun of
-it; and, indeed, it is a very good thing to make fun of it&mdash;for every
-reform must have a beginning, and there is no better weapon than just
-and judicious ridicule wherewith Reason can open her attack upon the
-solid and solemn front of time-honoured Prejudice. The heavy artillery
-of argument has no effect until the enemy has contracted an internal
-weakness by being made to imbibe the idea that he is absurd. A little
-wit, in the early stage of the campaign, is worth a deal of logic. But
-still there it stands&mdash;this great, relentless, crushing, cruel <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">CUSTOM</span>
-(which requires capital letters to emphasise it suitably)&mdash;and there
-are moments when we <i>can't</i> be witty about it&mdash;when our hearts burn
-within us at the spectacle of our human counterpart still, with a few
-bright exceptions, in the stage of intellectual childhood, while we
-fight the battle of the world's progress alone&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>Here the typical strong-minded female, against whom he had fulminated
-in frequent wrath, suddenly appeared before him, side by side with a
-vision of Patty in her shell-pink Cup dress; and his sword arm failed
-him. He paused, and laid down his pen, and leaned his head on his hand;
-and he was thereupon seized with a raging desire to be rich, in order
-that he might buy Indian embroideries for his beloved, and clothe her
-like a king's daughter in glorious apparel. Somehow that remarkable
-paper which was to inaugurate so vast a revolution in the social system
-never got written. At least, it did not for two or three years, and
-then it came forth in so mild a form that its original design was
-unrecognisable. (N.B.&mdash;In this latest contribution to the Dress Reform
-Question, women, to the peril of their immortal intellects, were
-invited to make themselves as pretty as they could, no hard condition
-being laid upon them, save that they should try to dress to please the
-eyes of men instead of to rival and outshine each other&mdash;that they
-should cultivate such sense of art and reason as might happily have
-survived in them&mdash;and, above all, from the high principles of religion
-and philanthropy, that they should abstain from bringing in new
-fashions violently&mdash;or, indeed, at all&mdash;leaving the spirit of beauty
-and the spirit of usefulness to produce their healthy offspring by the
-natural processes. In the composition of this paper he had the great
-advantage of being able to study both his own and the woman's point of
-view.)</p>
-
-<p>The next day he went to the Exhibition again, and again he saw Patty,
-with no happier result than before. She was standing amongst the
-carriages with Mr. Smith&mdash;popularly believed to have been for years on
-the look-out for a pretty young second wife&mdash;who was pointing out to
-her the charms of a seductive little lady's phaeton, painted lake and
-lined with claret, with a little "dickey" for a groom behind; no doubt
-tempting her with the idea of driving such a one of her own some day.
-This was even more bitter to Paul than the former encounter. He could
-bear with Mr. Westmoreland, whose youth entitled him to place himself
-somewhat on an equality with her, and whom, moreover, his rival (as
-he thought himself) secretly regarded as beneath contempt; but this
-grey-bearded widower, whose defunct wife might almost have been her
-grandmother, Paul felt he could <i>not</i> bear, in any sort of conjunction
-with his maiden queen, who, though in such dire disgrace, was his queen
-always. He went hastily away that he might not see them together, and
-get bad thoughts into his head&mdash;such as, for instance, that Patty might
-be contemplating the incredible degradation of matrimony with the
-widower, in order to be able to drive the prettiest pony carriage in
-town.</p>
-
-<p>He went away, but he came back again in a day or two. And then he saw
-her standing in the nave, with Mr. Smith again, looking at Kate Kelly,
-newly robed in black, and prancing up and down, in flowing hair and
-three-inch veil, and high heels and furbelows, putting on all sorts
-of airs and graces because, a few hours before, Ned had crowned his
-exploits and added a new distinction to the family by being hung in
-gaol; and she (Patty) could not only bear that shabby and shameless
-spectacle, but was even listening while Mr. Smith cut jokes about
-it&mdash;this pitiful demolishment of our imagined Kate Kelly, our Grizell
-Hume of the bush&mdash;and smiling at his misplaced humour. The fact being
-that poor Patty was aware of her lover's proximity, and was moved to
-unnatural and hysteric mirth in order that he might not carry away the
-mistaken notion that she was fretting for him. But Paul, who could see
-no further through a stone wall than other men, was profoundly shocked
-and disgusted.</p>
-
-<p>And yet once more he saw his beloved, whom he tried so hard to hate.
-On the night of the 17th&mdash;a Wednesday night&mdash;he had yawned through
-an uninteresting, and to him unprofitable, session of the Assembly,
-dealing with such mere practical matters as the passing in committee
-of clauses of railway bills and rabbit bills, which neither enlivened
-the spirits and speeches of honourable members nor left a press critic
-anything in particular to criticise; and at a few minutes after
-midnight he was sauntering through the streets to his office, and
-chanced to pass the Town Hall, where the great ball of the Exhibition
-year was going on. It was not chance, perhaps, that led him that
-way&mdash;along by the chief entrance, round which carriages and cabs were
-standing in a dense black mass, and where even the pavements were too
-much crowded by loiterers to be comfortable to the pedestrian abroad
-on business. But it was chance that gave him a glimpse of Patty at
-the only moment of the night when he could have seen her. As he
-went by he looked up at the lighted vestibule with a sneer. He was
-not himself of the class which went to balls of that description&mdash;he
-honestly believed he had no desire to be, and that, as a worker for
-his bread, endowed with brains instead of money, he was at an infinite
-advantage over those who did; but he knew that the three Miss Kings
-would be numbered with the elect. He pictured Patty in gorgeous array,
-bare-necked and bare-armed, displaying her dancing-class acquirements
-for the edification of the gilded youth of the Melbourne Club, whirling
-round and round, with flushed cheeks and flying draperies, in the
-arms of young Westmoreland and his brother hosts, intoxicated with
-flattery and unwholesome excitement, and he made up his mind that
-she was only beginning the orgy of the night, and might be expected
-to trail home, dishevelled, when the stars grew pale in the summer
-dawn. However, as this surmise occurred to him it was dispelled by the
-vision of Mrs. Duff-Scott coming out of the light and descending the
-flight of steps in front of him. He recognised her majestic figure in
-spite of its wraps, and the sound of her voice directing the major
-to call the carriage up. She had a regal&mdash;or, I should rather say,
-vice-regal&mdash;habit of leaving a ball-room early (generally after having
-been amongst the first to be taken to supper), as he might have known
-had he known a little more about her. It was one of the trivial little
-customs that indicated her rank. Paul looked up at her for a moment, to
-make sure that she had all her party with her; and then he drew into
-the shadow of a group of bystanders to watch them drive off.</p>
-
-<p>First came the chaperon herself, with Eleanor leaning lightly on her
-arm, and a couple of hosts in attendance. Eleanor was not bare-armed
-and necked, nor was she dishevelled; she had just refreshed herself
-with chicken and champagne, and was looking as composed and fair
-and refined as possible in her delicate white gown and unruffled
-yellow hair&mdash;like a tall lily, I feel I ought (and for a moment was
-tempted) to add, only that I know no girl ever did look like a lily
-since the world was made, nor ever will, no matter what the processes
-of evolution may come to. This pair, or quartette, were followed by
-Elizabeth, escorted on one side by the little major and on the other by
-big Mr. Yelverton. She, too, had neither tumbled draperies nor towsled
-head, but looked serene and dignified as usual, holding a bouquet to
-her breast with the one hand, and with the other thriftily guarding her
-skirts from contact with the pavement. But Mr. Brion took no notice of
-her. His attention was concentrated on his Patty, who appeared last of
-all, under the charge of that ubiquitous widower (whom he was beginning
-to hate with a deadly hatred), Mr. Smith. She was as beautiful
-as&mdash;whatever classical or horticultural object the reader likes to
-imagine&mdash;in the uncertain light and in her jealous lover's estimation,
-when she chanced, after stepping down to his level, to stand within a
-couple of yards of him to wait for the carriage. No bronze, or dead
-leaf, or half-ripe chestnut (to which I inadvertently likened it) was
-fit to be named in the same breath with that wavy hair that he could
-almost touch, and not all the jewellers' shops in Melbourne could have
-furnished a comparison worthy of her lovely eyes. She, too, was dressed
-in snowy, foamy, feathery white (I use these adjectives in deference to
-immemorial custom, and not because they accurately describe the finer
-qualities of Indian muslin and Mechlin lace), ruffled round her white
-throat and elbows in the most delicately modest fashion; and not a
-scrap of precious stone or metal was to be seen anywhere to vulgarise
-the maidenly simplicity of her attire. He had never seen her look so
-charming&mdash;he had never given himself so entirely to the influence of
-her beauty. And she stood there, so close that he could see the rise
-and fall of the laces on her breast with her gentle breathing, silent
-and patient, paying no attention to the blandishments of her cavalier,
-looking tired and pre-occupied, and as far as possible from the
-condition in which he had pictured her. Yet, when presently he emerged
-from his obscurity, and strode away, he felt that he had never been in
-such a rage of wrath against her. And why, may it be asked? What had
-poor Patty done this time? <i>She had not known that he was there beside
-her.</i> It was the greatest offence of all that she had committed, and
-the culmination of his wrongs.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>WHAT PAUL COULD NOT KNOW.</h4>
-
-
-<p>It was a pity that Paul Brion, looking at Patty's charming figure in
-the gaslight, could not have looked into her heart. It is a pity, for
-us all, that there is no Palace of Truth amongst our sacred edifices,
-into which we could go&mdash;say, once a week&mdash;and show ourselves as we
-are to our neighbours and ourselves. If we could know our friends from
-our enemies, whom to trust and whom to shun&mdash;if we could vindicate
-ourselves from the false testimony of appearances in the eyes of
-those whom we love and by whom we desire to be loved&mdash;not to speak of
-larger privileges&mdash;what a different world it would be! But we can't,
-unfortunately. And so Paul carried away with him the impression that
-his Patty had become a fine lady&mdash;too fine to have any longer a thought
-for him&mdash;than which he had never conceived a baser calumny in his life.</p>
-
-<p>Nor was he the only one who misread her superficial aspect that night.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, the most discerning of women, had a fixed belief
-that her girls, all of them, thoroughly enjoyed their first ball.
-From the moment that they entered the room, a few minutes in advance
-of the Governor's party, received by a dozen or two of hosts drawn
-up in line on either side of the doorway, it was patent to her that
-they would do her every sort of credit; and this anticipation, at any
-rate, was abundantly realised. For the greater part of the evening
-she herself was enthroned under the gallery, which roofed a series of
-small drawing-rooms on this occasion, eminently adapted to matronly
-requirements; and from her arm-chair or sofa corner she looked out
-through curtains of æsthetic hues upon the pretty scene which had
-almost as fresh an interest for her to-night as it had for them. And
-no mother could have been more proud than she when one or other was
-taken from her side by the most eligible and satisfactory partners,
-or when for brief minutes they came back to her and gave her an
-opportunity to pull out a fold or a frill that had become disarranged,
-or when at intervals during their absence she caught sight of them
-amongst the throng, looking so distinguished in their expensively
-simple toilettes&mdash;those unpretending white muslins upon which she had
-not hesitated to spend the price of her own black velvet and Venetian
-point, whereof the costly richness was obvious to the least instructed
-observer&mdash;and evidently receiving as much homage and attention as they
-well knew what to do with. Now it was Eleanor going by on the arm of
-a naval foreigner, to whom she was chatting in that pure German (or
-equally pure French) that was one of her unaccountable accomplishments,
-or dancing as if she had danced from childhood with a more important
-somebody else. Now it was Patty, sitting bowered in azaleas on the
-steps under the great organ, while the Austrian band (bowered almost
-out of sight) discoursed Strauss waltzes over her head, and Mr. Smith
-sat in a significant attitude on the crimson carpet at her feet. And
-again it was Elizabeth, up in the gallery, which was a forest of fern
-trees to-night, sitting under the shade of the great green fronds with
-Mr. Yelverton, who had such an evident partiality for her society.
-Strange to say, Mrs. Duff-Scott, acute as she was in such matters, had
-never thought of Mr. Yelverton as a possible husband, and did not so
-think of him now&mdash;while noting his proceedings. She was taking so deep
-an interest in him as a philanthropist and social philosopher that
-she forgot he might have other and less exceptional characteristics;
-and she left off scheming for Elizabeth when Mr. Smith made choice
-of Patty, and was fully occupied in her manoeuvres and anxieties for
-the welfare of the younger sisters. That Patty should be the second
-Mrs. Smith she had quite made up her mind, and that Eleanor should be
-Mrs. Westmoreland was equally a settled thing. With these two affairs
-approaching a crisis together, she had quite enough to think of; and,
-with the prospect of losing two of her children so soon after becoming
-possessed of them, she was naturally in no hurry to deprive herself
-of the third. She was beginning to regard Elizabeth as destined to
-be her surviving comfort when the others were gone, and therefore
-abandoned all matrimonial projects on her behalf. Concerning Patty,
-the fairy godmother felt that her mind was at rest; half-a-dozen times
-in an hour and a half did she see the girl in some sort of association
-with Mr. Smith&mdash;who finally took her in to supper, and from supper
-to the cloak-room and carriage. For her she had reached the question
-of the trousseau and whom she would invite for bridesmaids. About
-Eleanor she was not so easy. It did not seem that Mr. Westmoreland
-lived up to his privileges; he did not dance with her at all, and was
-remarkably attentive to a plain heiress in a vulgar satin gown and
-diamonds. However, that was nothing. The bachelors of the club had all
-the roomful to entertain, and were obliged to lay aside their private
-preferences for the occasion. He had made his attentions to Eleanor
-so conspicuous that his proposal was only required as a matter of
-form; and Mrs. Duff-Scott felt that she would rather get the fuss of
-one engagement over before another came on. So, when the dissipations
-of the night were past, she retired from the field with a pleasant
-sense of almost unalloyed success, and fondly believed that her pretty
-<i>protégées</i> were as satisfied with the situation as she was.</p>
-
-<p>But she was wrong. She was mistaken about them all&mdash;and most of all
-about Patty. When she first came into the room, and the fairy-land
-effect of the decorations burst upon her&mdash;when she passed up the
-lane of bachelor hosts, running the gauntlet of their respectful but
-admiring observation, like a young queen receiving homage&mdash;when the
-little major took her for a slow promenade round the hall and made
-her pause for a moment in front of one of the great mirrors that
-flanked the flowery orchestra, to show her herself in full length and
-in the most charming relief against her brilliant surroundings&mdash;the
-girl certainly did enjoy herself in a manner that bordered closely
-upon intoxication. She said very little, but her eyes were radiant
-and her whole face and figure rapturous, all her delicate soul spread
-out like a flower opened to the sunshine under the sensuous and
-artistic influences thus suddenly poured upon her. And then, after an
-interval of vague wonder as to what it was that was missing from the
-completeness of her pleasure&mdash;what it was that, being absent, spoiled
-the flavour of it all&mdash;there came an overpowering longing for her
-lover's presence and companionship, that lover without whom few balls
-are worth the trouble of dressing for, unless I am much mistaken. And
-after she found out that she wanted Paul Brion, who was not there,
-her gaiety became an excited restlessness, and her enjoyment of the
-pretty scene around her changed to passionate discontent. Why was
-he not there? She curled her lip in indignant scorn. Because he was
-poor, and a worker for his bread, and therefore was not accounted the
-equal of Mr. Westmoreland and Mr. Smith. She was too young and ardent
-to take into account the multitudes of other reasons which entirely
-removed it from the sphere of social grievances; like many another
-woman, she could see only one side of a subject at a time, and looked
-at that through a telescope. It seemed to her a despicably vulgar
-thing, and an indication of the utter rottenness of the whole fabric
-of society, that a high-born man of distinguished attainments should
-by common consent be neglected and despised simply because he was not
-rich. That was how she looked at it. And if Paul Brion had not been
-thought good enough for a select assembly, why had <i>she</i> been invited?
-Her answer to this question was a still more painful testimony to the
-generally improper state of things, and brought her to long for her
-own legitimate and humble environment, in which she could enjoy her
-independence and self-respect, and (which was the idea that tantalised
-her most just now) solace her lover with Beethoven sonatas when he
-was tired of writing, and wanted a rest. From the longing to see
-him in the ballroom, to have him with her as other girls had their
-natural counterparts, to share with her in the various delights of
-this great occasion, she fell to longing to go home to him&mdash;to belong
-to Myrtle Street and obscurity again, just as he did, and because he
-did. Why should she be listening to the Austrian band, eating ices
-and strawberries, rustling to and fro amongst the flowers and fine
-ladies, flaunting herself in this dazzling crowd of rich and idle
-people, while he plodded at his desk or smoked a lonely pipe on his
-balcony, out of it all, and with nothing to cheer him? Then the memory
-of their estrangement, and how it had come about, and how little chance
-there seemed now of any return to old relations and those blessed
-opportunities that she had so perversely thrown away, wrought upon her
-high-strung nerves, and inspired her with a kind of heroism of despair.
-Poor, thin-skinned Patty! She was sensitive to circumstances to a
-degree that almost merited the term "morbid," which is so convenient
-as a description of people of that sort. A ray of sunshine would light
-up the whole world, and show her her own pathway in it, shining into
-the farthest future with a divine effulgence of happiness and success;
-and the patter of rain upon the window on a dark day could beat down
-hope and discourage effort as effectually as if its natural mission
-were to bring misfortune. At one moment she would be inflated with a
-proud belief in herself and her own value and dignity, that gave her
-the strength of a giant to be and do and suffer; and then, at some
-little touch of failure, some discovery that she was mortal and a woman
-liable to blunder, as were other women, she would collapse into nothing
-and fling herself into the abysses of shame and self-condemnation as
-a worthless and useless thing. When this happened, her only chance of
-rescue and restoration in her own esteem was to do penance in some
-striking shape&mdash;to prove herself to herself as having some genuineness
-of moral substance in her, though it were only to own honestly how
-little it was. It was above all things necessary to her to have her
-own good opinion; what others thought of her was comparatively of no
-consequence.</p>
-
-<p>She had been dancing for some time before the intercourse with Mr.
-Smith, that so gratified Mrs. Duff-Scott, set in. The portly widower
-found her fanning herself on a sofa in the neighbourhood of her
-chaperon, for the moment unattended by cavaliers; and, approaching
-her with one of the frequent little plates and spoons that were
-handed about, invited her favour through the medium of three colossal
-strawberries veiled in sugar and cream.</p>
-
-<p>"I am so grieved that I am not a dancing man," he sighed as she refused
-his offering on the ground that she had already eaten strawberries
-twice; "I would ask leave to inscribe my humble name on your programme,
-Miss Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't see anything to grieve about," she replied, "in not being a
-dancing man. I am sure I don't want to dance. And you may inscribe your
-name on my programme and welcome"&mdash;holding it out to him. "It will keep
-other people from doing it."</p>
-
-<p>The delighted old fellow felt that this was indeed meeting him half
-way, and he put his name down for all the available round dances that
-were to take place before morning, with her free permission. Then, as
-the band struck up for the first of them, and the people about them
-began to crystallise into pairs and groups, and the smart man-o'-wars
-men stretched their crimson rope across the hall to divide the crowd,
-Mr. Smith took his young lady on his arm and went off to enjoy himself.
-First to the buffet, crowned with noble icebergs to cool the air, and
-groaning with such miscellaneous refreshment that supper, in its due
-course, came to her as a surprise and a superfluity, where he insisted
-that she should support her much-tried strength (as he did his own)
-with a sandwich and champagne. Then up a narrow staircase to the groves
-above&mdash;where already sat Elizabeth in a distant and secluded bower with
-Mr. Yelverton, lost, apparently, to all that went on around her. Here
-Mr. Smith took a front seat, that the young men might see and envy him,
-and set himself to the improvement of his opportunity.</p>
-
-<p>"And so you don't care about dancing," he remarked tenderly; "you, with
-these little fairy feet! I wonder why that is?"</p>
-
-<p>"Because I am not used to it," said Patty, leaning her white arms on
-the ledge in front of her and looking down at the shining sea of heads
-below. "I have been brought up to other accomplishments."</p>
-
-<p>"Music," he murmured; "and&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"And scrubbing and sweeping, and washing and ironing, and churning and
-bread-making, and cleaning dirty pots and kettles," said Patty, with
-elaborate distinctness.</p>
-
-<p>"Ha-ha!" chuckled Mr. Smith. "I should like to see you cleaning pots
-and kettles! Cinderella after twelve o'clock, eh?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said she; "you have expressed it exactly. After twelve
-o'clock&mdash;what time is it now?&mdash;after twelve o'clock, or it may be a
-little later, I shall be Cinderella again. I shall take off my glass
-slippers, and go back to my kitchen." And she had an impulse to rise
-and run round the gallery to beg Elizabeth to get permission for their
-return to their own lodgings after the ball; only Elizabeth seemed to
-be enjoying her <i>tête-à-tête</i> so much that she had not the heart to
-disturb her. Then she looked up at Mr. Smith, who stared at her in a
-puzzled and embarrassed way. "You don't seem to believe me," she said,
-with a defiant smile. "Did you think I was a fine lady, like all these
-other people?"</p>
-
-<p>"I have always thought you the most lovely&mdash;the most charming&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Nonsense. I see you don't understand at all. So just listen, and I
-will tell you." Whereupon Patty proceeded to sketch herself and her
-domestic circumstances in what, had it been another person, would have
-been a simply brutal manner. She made herself out to be a Cinderella
-indeed, in her life and habits, a parasite, a sycophant, a jay in
-borrowed plumage&mdash;everything that was sordid and "low," and calculated
-to shock the sensibilities of a "new rich" man; making her statement
-with calm energy and in the most terse and expressive terms. It was her
-penance, and it did her good. It made her feel that she was genuine in
-her unworthiness, which was the great thing just now; and it made her
-feel, also, that she was set back in her proper place at Paul Brion's
-side&mdash;or, rather, at his feet. It also comforted her, for some reason,
-to be able, as a matter of duty, to disgust Mr. Smith.</p>
-
-<p>But Mr. Smith, though he was a "new rich" man, and not given to tell
-people who did not know it what he had been before he got his money,
-was still a man, and a shrewd man too. And he was not at all disgusted.
-Very far, indeed, from it. This admirable honesty, so rare in a young
-person of her sex and charms&mdash;this touching confidence in him as a
-lover and a gentleman&mdash;put the crowning grace to Patty's attractions
-and made her irresistible. Which was not what she meant to do at all.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>SLIGHTED.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Some hours earlier on the same evening, Eleanor, dressing for dinner
-and the ball in her spacious bedroom at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, felt
-that <i>she</i>, at any rate, was arming herself for conquest. No misgivings
-of any sort troubled the serene and rather shallow waters of that
-young lady's mind. While her sisters were tossing to and fro in the
-perturbations of the tender passion, she had calmly taken her bearings,
-so to speak, and was sailing a straight course. She had summed up her
-possibilities and arranged her programme accordingly. In short, she had
-made up her mind to marry Mr. Westmoreland&mdash;who, if not all that could
-be desired in a man and a husband, was well enough&mdash;and thereby to
-take a short cut to Europe, and to all those other goals towards which
-her feet were set. As Mr. Westmoreland himself boasted, some years
-afterwards, Eleanor was not a fool; and I feel sure that this negative
-excellence, herein displayed, will not fail to commend itself to the
-gentle reader of her little history.</p>
-
-<p>She had made up her mind to marry Mr. Westmoreland, and to-night she
-meant that he should ask her. Looking at her graceful person in the
-long glass, with a soft smile on her face, she had no doubt of her
-power to draw forth that necessary question at any convenient moment.
-It had not taken her long to learn her power; nor had she failed to see
-that it had its limitations, and that possibly other and greater men
-might be unaffected by it. She was a very sensible young woman, but I
-would not have any one run off with the idea that she was mercenary
-and calculating in the sordid sense. No, she was not in love, like
-Elizabeth and Patty; but that was not her fault. And in arranging her
-matrimonial plans she was actuated by all sorts of tender and human
-motives. In the first place, she liked her admirer, who was fond of her
-and a good comrade, and whom she naturally invested with many ideal
-excellences that he did not actually possess; and she liked (as will
-any single woman honestly tell me that she does not?) the thought of
-the dignities and privileges of a wife, and of that dearer and deeper
-happiness that lay behind. She was in haste to snatch at them while
-she had the chance, lest the dreadful fate of a childless old maid
-should some day overtake her&mdash;as undoubtedly it did overtake the very
-prettiest girls sometimes. And she was in love with the prospect of
-wealth at her own disposal, after her narrow experiences; not from any
-vulgar love of luxury and display, but for the sake of the enriched
-life, bright and full of beauty and knowledge, that it would make
-possible for her sisters as well as herself. If these motives seem
-poor and inadequate, in comparison with the great motive of all (as
-no doubt they are), we must remember that they are at the bottom of a
-considerable proportion of the marriages of real life, and not perhaps
-the least successful ones. It goes against me to admit so much, but one
-must take things as one finds them.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth came in to lace up her bodice&mdash;Elizabeth, whose own soft eyes
-were shining, and who walked across the floor with an elastic step,
-trailing her long robes behind her; and Eleanor vented upon her some of
-the fancies which were seething in her small head. "Don't we look like
-brides?" she said, nodding at their reflections in the glass.</p>
-
-<p>"Or bridesmaids," said Elizabeth. "Brides wear silks and satins mostly,
-I believe."</p>
-
-<p>"If they only knew it," said Eleanor reflectively, "muslin and lace are
-much more becoming to the complexion. When I am married, Elizabeth,
-I think I shall have my dress made of that 'woven dew' that we were
-looking at in the Exhibition the other day."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear girl, when you are married you will do nothing so
-preposterous. Do you suppose we are always going to let Mrs. Duff-Scott
-squander her money on us like this? I was telling her in her room just
-now that we must begin to draw the line. It is <i>too</i> much. The lace on
-these gowns cost a little fortune. But lace is always family property,
-and I shall pick it off and make her take it back again. So just be
-very careful not to tear it, dear."</p>
-
-<p>"She won't take it back," said Eleanor, fingering it delicately;
-"she looks on us as her children, for whom nothing is too good. And
-perhaps&mdash;perhaps some day we may have it in our power to do things for
-<i>her</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"I wish I could think so. But there is no chance of that."</p>
-
-<p>"How can you tell? When we are married, we may be very well off&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"That would be to desert her, Nelly, and to cut off all our
-opportunities for repaying her."</p>
-
-<p>"No. It would please her more than anything. We might settle down
-close to her&mdash;one of us, at any rate&mdash;and she could advise us about
-furnishing and housekeeping. To have the choosing of the colours for
-our drawing-rooms, and all that sort of thing, would give her ecstasies
-of delight."</p>
-
-<p>"Bless her!" was Elizabeth's pious and fervent rejoinder.</p>
-
-<p>Then Eleanor laid out her fan and gloves for the evening, and the
-girls went down to dinner. Patty was in the music-room, working off
-her excitement in one of Liszt's rhapsodies, to which Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was listening with critical approval&mdash;the girl very seldom putting her
-brilliant powers of execution to such evident proof; and the major was
-smiling to himself as he paced gently up and down the Persian carpeted
-parquet of the long drawing-room beyond, waiting for the sound of the
-dinner bell, and the appearance of his dear Elizabeth. As soon as she
-came in, he went up to her, still subtly smiling, carrying a beautiful
-bouquet in his hand. It was composed almost entirely of that flower
-which is so sweet and lovely, but so rare in Australia, the lily of
-the valley (and lest the reader should say it was impossible, I can
-tell him or her that I saw it and smelt it that very night, and in that
-very Melbourne ballroom where Elizabeth disported herself, with my own
-eyes and nose), the great cluster of white bells delicately thinned and
-veiled in the finest and most ethereal feathers of maiden-hair. "For
-you," said the major, looking at her with his sagacious eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh!" she cried, taking it with tremulous eagerness, and inhaling its
-delicious perfume in a long breath. "Real lilies of the valley, and I
-have never seen them before. But not for me, surely," she added; "I
-have already the beautiful bouquet you told the gardener to cut for me."</p>
-
-<p>"You may make that over to my wife," said the major, plaintively. "I
-thought she was above carrying flowers about with her to parties&mdash;she
-used to say it was bad art&mdash;you did, my dear, so don't deny it; you
-told me distinctly that that was not what flowers were meant for. But
-she says she will have your bouquet, Elizabeth, so that you may not be
-afraid of hurting my feelings by taking this that is so much better.
-Where the fellow got it from I can't imagine. I only know of one place
-where lilies of the valley grow, and they are not for sale <i>there</i>."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked at him with slowly-crimsoning cheeks. "What fellow?"
-she asked.</p>
-
-<p>He returned her look with one that only Major Duff-Scott's eyes could
-give. "I don't know," he said softly.</p>
-
-<p>"He <i>does</i> know," his wife broke in; "I can see by his manner that he
-knows perfectly well."</p>
-
-<p>"I assure you, on my word of honour, that I don't," protested the
-little major, still with a distant sparkle in his quaint eyes. "It was
-brought to the door just now by somebody, who said it was for Miss
-King&mdash;that's all."</p>
-
-<p>"It might be for any of them," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, slightly put out
-by the liberty that somebody had taken without her leave. "They are all
-Miss Kings to outside people. It was a very stupid way of sending it."</p>
-
-<p>"Will you take it for yourself?" said Elizabeth, holding it out to her
-chaperon. "Let me keep my own, and you take this."</p>
-
-<p>"O no," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, flinging out her hands. "That would never
-do. It was meant for one of you, of course&mdash;not for me. <i>I</i> think Mr.
-Smith sent it. It must have been either he or Mr. Westmoreland, and I
-fancy Mr. Westmoreland would not choose lilies of the valley, even if
-he could get them. I think you had better draw lots for it, pending
-further information."</p>
-
-<p>Patty, rising from the piano with a laugh, declared that <i>she</i> would
-not have it, on any account. Eleanor believed that it was meant for
-her, and that Mr. Westmoreland had better taste than people gave him
-credit for; and she had a mind to put in her claim for it. But the
-major set her aside gently. "No," he said, "it belongs to Elizabeth.
-I don't know who sent it&mdash;you may shake your head at me, my dear; I
-can't help it if you don't believe me&mdash;but I am convinced that it is
-Elizabeth's lawful property."</p>
-
-<p>"As if that didn't <i>prove</i> that you know!" retorted Mrs. Duff-Scott.</p>
-
-<p>He was still looking at Elizabeth, who was holding her lilies of the
-valley to her breast. His eyes asked her whether she did not endorse
-his views, and when she lifted her face at the sound of the dinner
-bell, she satisfied him, without at all intending to do so, that she
-did. <i>She</i> knew that the bouquet had been sent for her.</p>
-
-<p>It was carefully set into the top of a cloisonné pot in a cool corner
-until dinner was over, and until the girls were wrapped up and the
-carriage waiting for them at the hall door. Then the elder sister
-fetched it from the drawing-room, and carried it out into the balmy
-summer night, still held against her breast as if she were afraid it
-might be taken from her; and the younger sister gazed at it smilingly,
-convinced that it was Mr. Westmoreland's tribute to herself, and
-magnanimously determined to beg him not to let Elizabeth know it.
-Thus the evening began happily for both of them. And by-and-bye their
-carriage slowly ploughed its way to the Town Hall entrance, and they
-went up the stone stairs to the vestibule and the cloak-room and the
-ball-room, and had their names shouted out so that every ear listening
-for them should hear and heed, and were received by the hospitable
-bachelors and passed into the great hall that was so dazzlingly
-splendid to their unsophisticated eyes; and the first face that Eleanor
-was aware of was Mr. Westmoreland's, standing out solidly from the
-double row of them that lined the doorway. She gave him a side-long
-glance as she bowed and passed, and then stood by her chaperon's side
-in the middle of the room, and waited for him to come to her. But he
-did not come. She waited, and watched, and listened, with her thanks
-and explanations all ready, chatting smilingly to her party the while
-in perfect ease of mind; but, to her great surprise, she waited in
-vain. Perhaps he had to stand by the door till the Governor came;
-perhaps he had other duties to perform that kept him from her and his
-private pursuits; perhaps he had forgotten that he had asked her for
-the first dance two days ago; perhaps he had noticed her bouquet, and
-had supposed that she had given it away, and was offended with her.
-She had a serene and patient temperament, and did not allow herself to
-be put out; it would all be explained presently. And in the meantime
-the major introduced his friends to her, and she began to fill her
-programme rapidly.</p>
-
-<p>The evening passed on. Mrs. Duff-Scott settled herself in the
-particular one of the series of boudoirs under the gallery that struck
-her as having a commanding prospect. The Governor came, the band
-played, the guests danced, and promenaded, and danced again; and Mr.
-Westmoreland was nowhere to be seen. Eleanor was beset with other
-partners, and thought it well to punish him by letting them forestall
-him as they would; and, provisionally, she captivated a couple of naval
-officers by her proficiency in foreign languages, and made various men
-happy by her graceful and gay demeanour. By-and-bye, however, she came
-across her recreant admirer&mdash;as she was bound to do some time. He was
-leaning against a pillar, his dull eyes roving over the crowd before
-him, evidently looking for some one. She thought he was looking for her.</p>
-
-<p>"Well?" she said, archly, pausing before him, on the arm of an
-Exhibition commissioner with whom she was about to plunge into the
-intricacies of the lancers. Mr. Westmoreland looked at her with a start
-and in momentary confusion.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh&mdash;er," he stammered, hurriedly, "<i>here</i> you are! Where have you been
-hiding yourself all the evening?" Then, after a pause, "Got any dances
-saved for me?"</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Saved</i>, indeed!" she retorted. "What next? When you don't take the
-trouble to come and ask for them!"</p>
-
-<p>"I am so engaged to-night, Miss Eleanor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I see you are. Never mind&mdash;I can get on without you." She walked on a
-step, and turned back. "Did you send me a pretty bouquet just now?" she
-whispered, touching his arm. "I think you did, and it was so good of
-you, but there was some mistake about it&mdash;" She checked herself, seeing
-a blank look in his face, and blushed violently. "Oh, it was <i>not</i>
-you!" she exclaimed, in a shocked voice, wishing the ball-room floor
-would open and swallow her up.</p>
-
-<p>"Really," he said, "I&mdash;I was very remiss&mdash;I'm awfully sorry." And he
-gave her to understand, to her profound consternation, that he had
-fully intended to send her a bouquet, but had forgotten it in the rush
-of his many important engagements.</p>
-
-<p>She passed on to her lancers with a wan smile, and presently saw him,
-under those seductive fern trees upstairs, with the person whom he
-had been looking for when she accosted him. "There's Westmoreland and
-his old flame," remarked her then partner, a club-frequenting youth
-who knew all about everybody. "<i>He</i> calls her the handsomest woman
-out&mdash;because she's got a lot of money, I suppose. All the Westmorelands
-are worshippers of the golden calf, father and son&mdash;a regular set of
-screws the old fellows were, and he's got the family eye to the main
-chance. Trust him! <i>I</i> can't see anything in her; can you? She's as
-round as a tub, and as swarthy as a gipsy. I like women"&mdash;looking at
-his partner&mdash;"to be tall, and slender, and fair. That's <i>my</i> style."</p>
-
-<p>This was how poor Eleanor's pleasure in her first ball was spoiled.
-I am aware that it looks a very poor and shabby little episode, not
-worthy of a chapter to itself; but then things are not always what they
-seem, and, as a matter of fact, the life histories of a large majority
-of us are made up of just such unheroic passages.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>"WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW MEN."</h4>
-
-
-<p>When Elizabeth went into the room, watchfully attended by the major,
-who was deeply interested in her proceedings, she was perhaps the
-happiest woman of all that gala company. She was in love, and she was
-going to meet her lover&mdash;which things meant to her something different
-from what they mean to girls brought up in conventional habits of
-thought. Eve in the Garden of Eden could not have been more pure and
-unsophisticated, more absolutely natural, more warmly human, more
-blindly confiding and incautious than she; therefore she had obeyed her
-strongest instinct without hesitation or reserve, and had given herself
-up to the delight of loving without thought of cost or consequences.
-Where her affections were concerned she was incapable of compromise or
-calculation; it was only the noble and simple rectitude that was the
-foundation of her character and education which could "save her from
-herself," as we call it, and that only in the last extremity. Just
-now she was in the full flood-tide, and she let herself go with it
-without an effort. Adam's "graceful consort" could not have had a more
-primitive notion of what was appropriate and expected of her under the
-circumstances. She stood in the brilliant ball-room, without a particle
-of self-consciousness, in an attitude of unaffected dignity, and with a
-radiance of gentle happiness all over her, that made her beautiful to
-look at, though she was not technically beautiful. The major watched
-her with profound interest, reading her like an open book; he knew what
-was happening, and what was going to happen (he mostly did), though
-he had a habit of keeping his own counsel about his own discoveries.
-He noted her pose, which, besides being so admirably graceful, so
-evidently implied expectancy; the way she held her flowers to her
-breast, her chin just touched by the fringes of maiden-hair, while she
-gently turned her head from side to side. And he saw her lift her eyes
-to the gallery, saw at the same moment a light spread over her face
-that had a superficial resemblance to a smile, though her sensitive
-mouth never changed its expression of firm repose; and, chuckling
-silently to himself, he walked away to find a sofa for his wife.</p>
-
-<p>Presently Mrs. Duff-Scott, suitably enthroned, and with her younger
-girls already carried off by her husband from her side, saw Mr.
-Yelverton approaching her, and rejoiced at the prospect of securing his
-society for herself and having the tedium of the chaperon's inactivity
-relieved by sensible conversation. "Ah, so you are here!" she exclaimed
-cordially; "I thought balls were things quite out of your line."</p>
-
-<p>"So they are," he said, shaking hands with her and Elizabeth
-impartially, without a glance at the latter. "But I consider it a duty
-to investigate the customs of the country. I like to look all round
-when I am about it."</p>
-
-<p>"Quite right. This is distinctly one of our institutions, and I am very
-glad you are not above taking notice of it."</p>
-
-<p>"I am not above taking notice of anything, I hope."</p>
-
-<p>"No, of course not. You are a true philosopher. There is no
-dilettantism about you. That is what I like in you," she added frankly.
-"Come and sit down here between Miss King and me, and talk to us. I
-want to know how the emigration business is getting on."</p>
-
-<p>He sat down between the two ladies, Elizabeth drawing back her white
-skirts.</p>
-
-<p>"I have been doing no business, emigration or other," he said; "I have
-been spending my time in pleasure."</p>
-
-<p>"Is it possible? Well, I am glad to hear it. I should very much like
-to know what stands for pleasure with you, only it would be too rude a
-question."</p>
-
-<p>"I have been in the country," he said, smiling.</p>
-
-<p>"H&mdash;m&mdash;that's not saying much. You don't mean to tell me, I see.
-Talking of the country&mdash;look at Elizabeth's bouquet. Did you think we
-could raise lilies of the valley like those?"</p>
-
-<p>He bent his head slightly to smell them. "I heard that they did grow
-hereabouts," he said; and his eyes and Elizabeth's met for a moment
-over the fragrant flowers that she held between them, while Mrs.
-Duff-Scott detailed the negligent circumstances of their presentation,
-which left it a matter of doubt where they came from and for whom they
-were intended.</p>
-
-<p>"I want to find Mr. Smith," said she; "I fancy he can give us
-information."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think so," said Mr. Yelverton; "he was showing me a lily of
-the valley in his button-hole just now as a great rarity in these
-parts."</p>
-
-<p>Then it flashed across Mrs. Duff-Scott that Paul Brion might have been
-the donor, and she said no more.</p>
-
-<p>For some time the trio sat upon the sofa, and the matron and the
-philanthropist discussed political economy in its modern developments.
-They talked about emigration; they talked about protection&mdash;and wherein
-a promising, but inexperienced, young country was doing its best to
-retard the wheels of progress&mdash;as if they were at a committee meeting
-rather than disporting themselves at a ball. The major found partners
-for the younger girls, but he left Elizabeth to her devices; at least
-he did so for a long time&mdash;until it seemed to him that she was being
-neglected by her companions. Then he started across the room to rescue
-her from her obscurity. At the moment that he came in sight, Mr.
-Yelverton turned to her. "What about dancing, Miss King?" he said,
-quickly. "May I be allowed to do my best?"</p>
-
-<p>"I cannot dance," said Elizabeth. "I began too late&mdash;I can't take to
-it, somehow."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, "that is nonsense. All you want is
-practice. And I am not going to allow you to become a wall-flower." She
-turned her head to greet some newly-arrived friends, and Mr. Yelverton
-rose and offered his arm to Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Let us go and practise," he said, and straightway they passed down the
-room, threading a crowd once more, and went upstairs to the gallery,
-which was a primeval forest in its solitude at this comparatively
-early hour. "There is no reason why you should dance if you don't like
-it," he remarked; "we can sit here and look on." Then, when she was
-comfortably settled in her cushions under the fern trees, he leaned
-forward and touched her bouquet with a gesture that was significant of
-the unacknowledged but well-understood intimacy between them. "I am so
-glad I was able to get them for you," he said; "I wanted you to know
-what they were really like&mdash;when you told me how much your mother had
-loved them."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't thank you," she replied.</p>
-
-<p>"Do not," he said. "It is for me to thank you for accepting them. I
-wish you could see them in my garden at Yelverton. There is a dark
-corner between two gables of the house where they make a perfect carpet
-in April."</p>
-
-<p>She lifted those she held to her face, and sniffed luxuriously.</p>
-
-<p>"There is a room in that recess," he went on, "a lady's sitting-room.
-Not a very healthy spot, by the way, it is too dank and dark. It was
-fitted up for poor Elizabeth Leigh when my two uncles, Patrick and
-Kingscote, expected her to come and live there, each wanting her for
-his wife&mdash;so my grandmother used to say. It has never been altered,
-though nearly all the rest of the house has been turned inside out. I
-think the lilies of the valley were planted there for her. I wish you
-could see that room. You would like sitting by the open window&mdash;it is
-one of those old diamond-paned casements, and has got some interesting
-stained glass in it&mdash;and seeing the sun shine on the grey walls
-outside, and smelling the lilies in that green well that the sun cannot
-reach down below. It is just one of those things that would suit you."</p>
-
-<p>She listened silently, gazing at the great organ opposite, towering out
-of the groves of flowers at its base, without seeing what it was she
-looked at. After a pause he went on, still leaning forward, with his
-arms resting on his knees. "I can think of nothing now but how much I
-want you to see and know everything that makes my life at home," he
-said.</p>
-
-<p>"Tell me about it," she said, with the woman's instinctive desire for
-delay at this juncture, not because she didn't want to hear the rest,
-but to prolong the sweetness of anticipation; "tell me what your life
-at Yelverton is like."</p>
-
-<p>"I have not had much of it at present," he replied, after a brief
-pause. "The place was let for a long while. Then, when I took it over
-again, I made it into a sort of convalescent home, and training-place,
-and general starting-point for girls and children&mdash;<i>protégées</i> of my
-friend who does slumming in the orthodox way. Though he disapproves
-of me he makes use of me, and, of course, I don't disapprove of him,
-and am very glad to help him. The house is too big for me alone, and
-it seems the best use I can put it to. Of course I keep control of
-it; I take the poor things in on the condition that they are to be
-disciplined after my system and not his&mdash;his may be the best, but they
-don't enjoy it as they do mine&mdash;and when I am at home I run down once a
-week or so to see how they are getting on."</p>
-
-<p>"And how is it now?"</p>
-
-<p>"Now the house is just packed, I believe, from top to bottom. I got
-a letter a few days ago from my faithful lieutenant, who looks after
-things for me, to say that it couldn't hold many more, and that the
-funds of the institution are stretched to their utmost capacity to
-provide supplies."</p>
-
-<p>"The funds? Oh, you must certainly use that other money now!"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I shall use it now. I have, indeed, already appropriated a small
-instalment. I told Le Breton to draw on it, rather than let one child
-go that we could take&mdash;rather than let one opportunity be lost."</p>
-
-<p>"You have other people working with you, then?"</p>
-
-<p>"A good many&mdash;yes, and a very miscellaneous lot you would think them.
-Le Breton is the one I trust as I do myself. I could not have been here
-now if it had not been for him. He is my right hand."</p>
-
-<p>"Who is he?" she asked, fascinated, in spite of her preoccupations, by
-this sketch of a life that had really found its mission in the world,
-and one so beneficent and so satisfying.</p>
-
-<p>"He is a very interesting man," said Mr. Yelverton, who still leaned
-towards her, touching her flowers occasionally with a tender audacity;
-"a man to respect and admire&mdash;a brave man who would have been burnt at
-the stake had he lived a few centuries ago. He was once a clergyman,
-but he gave that up."</p>
-
-<p>"He gave it up!" repeated Elizabeth, who had read "Thomas à Kempis" and
-the <i>Christian Year</i> daily since she was a child, as her mother had
-done before her.</p>
-
-<p>"He couldn't stand it," said Mr. Yelverton, simply. "You see he was a
-man with a very literal, and straight-going, and independent mind&mdash;a
-mind that could nohow bend itself to the necessities of the case. I
-don't suppose he ever really gave himself up out of his own control,
-but, at any rate, when he got to know the world and the kind of time
-that we had come to, he couldn't pretend to shut his eyes. He couldn't
-make-believe that he was all the same as he had been when a mere lad
-of three-and-twenty, and that nothing had happened to change things
-while he had been learning and growing. And once he fell out with
-his conscience there was no patching up the breach with compromises
-for <i>him</i>. He tried it, poor fellow&mdash;he had a tough tussle before he
-gave in. It was a great step to take, you know&mdash;a martyrdom with all
-the pain and none of the glory&mdash;that nobody could sympathise with or
-understand."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth was sitting very still, watching with unseeing eyes the
-glitter of a conspicuous diamond tiara in the moving crowd below. She,
-at any rate, could neither sympathise nor understand.</p>
-
-<p>"He was in the thick of his troubles when I first met him," Mr.
-Yelverton went on. "He was working hard in one of the East End
-parishes, doing his level best, as the Yankees say, and tormented all
-the time, not only by his own scruples and self-accusations, but by a
-perfect hornet's nest of ecclesiastical persecutors. I said to him. 'Be
-an honest man, and give up being a parson&mdash;'"</p>
-
-<p>"Isn't it possible to be <i>both?</i>" Elizabeth broke in.</p>
-
-<p>"No doubt it is. But it was not possible for him. Seeing that, I
-advised him to let go, and leave those that could to hold on&mdash;as I am
-glad they do hold on, for we want the brake down at the rate we are
-going. He was in agonies of dread about the future, because he had a
-wife and children, so I offered him a salary equal to the emoluments
-of his living to come and work with me. 'You and I will do what good
-we can together,' I said, 'without pretending to be anything more than
-what we <i>know</i> we are.' And so he cast in his lot with me, and we have
-worked together ever since. They call him all sorts of bad names, but
-he doesn't care&mdash;at least not much. It is such a relief to him to be
-able to hold his head up as a free man&mdash;and he does work with such a
-zest compared to what he did!"</p>
-
-<p>"And you," said Elizabeth, drawing short breaths, "what are you?&mdash;are
-you a Dissenter, too?"</p>
-
-<p>"Very much so, I think," he said, smiling at a term that to him, an
-Englishman, was obsolete, while to her, an Australian born, it had
-still its ancient British significance (for she had been born and
-reared in her hermit home, the devoutest of English-churchwomen).</p>
-
-<p>"And yet, in one sense, no one could be less so."</p>
-
-<p>"But <i>what</i> are you?" she urged, suddenly revealing to him that she was
-frightened by this ambiguity.</p>
-
-<p>"Really, I don't know," he replied, looking at her gravely. "I think
-if I had to label my religious faith in the usual way, with a motto, I
-should say I was a Humanitarian. The word has been a good deal battered
-about and spoiled, but it expresses my creed better than any other."</p>
-
-<p>"A Humanitarian!" she ejaculated with a cold and sinking heart. "Is
-that all?" To her, in such a connection, it was but another word for an
-infidel.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PATTY CONFESSES.</h4>
-
-
-<p>A little group of their male attendants stood in the lobby, while Mrs.
-Duff-Scott and the girls put on their wraps in the cloak-room. When the
-ladies reappeared, they fell into the order in which Paul, unseen in
-the shadows of the street, saw them descend the steps to the pavement.</p>
-
-<p>"May I come and see you to-morrow morning?" asked Mr. Yelverton of
-Elizabeth, whom he especially escorted.</p>
-
-<p>"Not&mdash;not to-morrow," she replied. "We shall be at Myrtle Street, and
-we never receive any visitors there."</p>
-
-<p>"At Myrtle Street!" exclaimed the major, who also walked beside her.
-"Surely you are not going to run off to Myrtle Street to-morrow?"</p>
-
-<p>"We are going there now," said she, "if we can get in. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-knows."</p>
-
-<p>"Let them alone," said the chaperon, looking back over her shoulder.
-"If they have a fancy to go home they shall go. I won't have them
-persuaded." She was as reluctant to leave them at Myrtle Street as the
-major could be, but she carefully abstained, as she always did, from
-interfering with their wishes when nothing of importance was involved.
-She was wise enough to know that she would have the stronger hold on
-them by seeming to leave them their liberty.</p>
-
-<p>They were put into the carriage by their attentive cavaliers, the major
-taking his now frequent box seat in order to accompany them; and Mr.
-Smith and Mr. Yelverton were left standing on the pavement. Arrived
-at Myrtle Street, it was found that the house was still open, and the
-girls bade the elder couple an effusively affectionate and compunctious
-good-night.</p>
-
-<p>"And when shall I see you again?" Mrs. Duff-Scott inquired, with a
-carefully composed smile and cheerful air.</p>
-
-<p>"To-morrow," said Elizabeth, eagerly; "to-morrow, of course, some of
-us will come." All three girls had a painful feeling that they were
-ungrateful, while under obligations to be grateful, in spite of their
-friend's effort to prevent it, as they stood a moment in the warm night
-at their street door, and watched the carriage roll away. And yet they
-were so glad to be on their own "tauri" to-night&mdash;even Eleanor, who had
-grown more out of tune with the old frugal life than any of them.</p>
-
-<p>They were let in by the ground-floor landlady, with whom they chatted
-for a few minutes, arranging about the materials for their breakfast;
-then they went upstairs to their lonely little bedrooms, where they
-lit their candles and began at once to prepare for bed. They were dead
-tired, they said, and wanted to sleep and not to talk.</p>
-
-<p>But a full hour after their separation for the night, each one was as
-wide awake as she had been all day. Elizabeth was kneeling on the floor
-by her bedside, still half-dressed&mdash;she had not changed her attitude
-for a long time, though the undulations of her body showed how far from
-passive rest she was&mdash;when Patty, clothed only in her night-gown, crept
-in, making no noise with her bare feet.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," she whispered, laying her hand on her sister's shoulder,
-"are you asleep?&mdash;or are you saying your prayers?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth, startled, lifted up her head, and disclosed to Patty's gaze
-in the candle-light a pale, and strained, and careworn face, "I was
-saying my prayers," she replied, with a dazed look. "Why are you out of
-bed, my darling? What is the matter?"</p>
-
-<p>"That is what I want to know," said Patty, sitting down on the bed.
-"What is the matter with us all? What has come to us? Nelly has been
-crying ever since I put the light out&mdash;she thought I couldn't hear her,
-but she was mistaken&mdash;sobbing and sniffing under the bedclothes, and
-blowing her nose in that elaborately cautious way&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, poor, dear child!" interrupted the maternal elder sister, making a
-start towards the door.</p>
-
-<p>"No, don't go to her," said Patty, putting out her hand; "leave her
-alone&mdash;she is quiet now. Besides, you couldn't do her any good. Do you
-know what she is fretting about? Because Mr. Westmoreland has been
-neglecting her. Would you believe it? She is caring about it, after
-all&mdash;and we thought it was only fun. She doesn't care about <i>him</i>, she
-couldn't do that&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"We can't tell," interrupted Elizabeth. "It is not for us to say.
-Perhaps she does, poor child!"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, she <i>couldn't</i>," Patty scornfully insisted. "That is quite
-impossible. No, she has got fond of this life that we are living now
-with Mrs. Duff-Scott&mdash;I have seen it, how it has laid hold of her&mdash;and
-she would like to marry him so that she could have it always. That is
-what <i>she</i> has come to. Oh, Elizabeth, don't you wish we had gone to
-Europe at the very first, and never come to Melbourne at all!" Here
-Patty herself broke down, and uttered a little shaking, hysterical sob.
-"Everything seems to be going wrong with us here! It does not look so,
-I know, but at the bottom of my heart I feel it. Why did we turn aside
-to waste and spoil ourselves like this, instead of going on to the life
-that we had laid out&mdash;a real life, that we should never have had to be
-ashamed of?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth was silent for a few minutes, soothing her sister's
-excitement with maternal caresses, and at the same time thinking with
-all her might. "We must try not to get confused," she said presently.
-"Life is life, you know, Patty, wherever you are&mdash;all the other things
-are incidental. And we need not try to struggle with everything at
-once. I think we have done our best, when we have had anything to
-do&mdash;any serious step to take&mdash;since we came to Melbourne; and in Europe
-we could have done no more. It seemed right to please Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-and to accept such a treasure as her friendship when it came to us in
-what seemed such a providential way&mdash;did it not? It seemed so to me. It
-would have been ungenerous to have held out against her&mdash;and we were
-always a little given to be too proud of standing alone. It makes her
-happy to have us. I don't know what work we could have done that would
-have been more profitable than that. Patty"&mdash;after another thoughtful
-pause&mdash;"I don't think it is that <i>things</i> are going wrong, dear. It is
-only that we have to manage them, and to steer our way, and to take
-care of ourselves, and that is so trying and perplexing. God knows <i>I</i>
-find it difficult! So, I suppose, does everyone."</p>
-
-<p>"You, Elizabeth? <i>You</i> always seem to know what is right. And you are
-so good that you never ought to have troubles."</p>
-
-<p>"If Nelly is susceptible to such a temptation as Mr. Westmoreland&mdash;Mr.
-Westmoreland, because he is rich&mdash;she would not have gone far with us,
-in any case," Elizabeth went on, putting aside the allusion to herself.
-"Europe would not have strengthened her. It would have been all the
-same. While, as for you, my darling&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I!" broke in Patty excitedly. "I should have been happy now, and
-not as I am! I should have been saved from making a fool of myself if I
-had gone to Europe! I should have been worth something, and able to do
-something, there!"</p>
-
-<p>"How can you tell, dear child? And why do you suppose you have been
-foolish? <i>I</i> don't think so. On the contrary, it has often seemed to me
-that you have been the sensible one of us all."</p>
-
-<p>"O, Elizabeth, don't laugh at me!" wailed Patty, reproachfully.</p>
-
-<p>"I laugh at you, my darling! What an idea! I mean it, every word. You
-see everything in a distorted and exaggerated way just now, because
-you are tired and your nerves are over-wrought. You are not yourself
-to-night, Patty. You will cheer up&mdash;we shall all cheer up&mdash;when we
-have had a good sleep and a little quiet time to think things over."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I am not myself, indeed," assented Patty, with moody passion. "I
-am not myself at all&mdash;to be made to feel so weak and miserable!" She
-put her face down in her hands and began to cry with more abandonment
-at the thought of how weak she had become.</p>
-
-<p>"But Patty, dearest, there must be something the matter with you," her
-motherly elder sister cried, much distressed by this abnormal symptom.
-"Are you feeling ill? Don't frighten me like this."</p>
-
-<p>The girl laid her head upon her sister's shoulder, and there let
-herself loose from all restraint. "You <i>know</i> what is the matter," she
-sobbed; "you know as well as I do what is the matter&mdash;that it is Paul
-Brion who worries me so and makes me so utterly wretched."</p>
-
-<p>"Paul Brion! <i>He</i> worry you, Patty&mdash;<i>he</i> make you wretched?"</p>
-
-<p>"You have always been delicate and considerate, Elizabeth&mdash;you have
-never said anything&mdash;but I know you know all about it, and how spoiled
-I am, and how spoiled everything is because of him. I hate to talk of
-it&mdash;I can't bear even you to see that I am fretting about him&mdash;but I
-can't help it! and I know you understand. When I have had just one good
-cry," she concluded, with a fresh and violent burst of tears, "perhaps
-I shall get on better."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth stared at the wall over her sister's head in dumb amazement,
-evidently not deserving the credit for perspicacity accorded to her.
-"Do you mean," she said slowly, "do you really mean&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," sobbed Patty, desperate, for the moment dead to shame.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, how blind&mdash;how wickedly blind&mdash;how stupid&mdash;how selfish I have
-been!" Elizabeth exclaimed, after another pause in which to collect
-her shocked and bewildered faculties. "I never dreamt about it, my
-darling&mdash;never, for a single moment. I thought&mdash;I always had the
-settled impression that you did not like him."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't like him," said Patty, fiercely, lifting herself up. "I love
-him&mdash;I <i>love</i> him! I must say it right out once, if I never speak
-another word," and she bent her head back a little, and stretched out
-her arms with an indescribable gesture as if she saw him standing
-before her. "He is a man&mdash;a real, true, strong man&mdash;who works, and
-thinks, and lives&mdash;lives! It is all serious with him, as I wanted
-it to be with me&mdash;and I <i>might</i> have been worthy of him! A little
-while ago we were so near to each other&mdash;so near that we almost
-<i>touched</i>&mdash;and now no two people could be farther apart. I have done
-him wrong&mdash;I have been a wicked fool, but I am punished for it out of
-all proportion. <i>He</i> flirt with a married woman! What could I have
-been dreaming of? Oh, how <i>disgusting</i> I must be to have allowed such
-an idea to come into my head! And yet it was only a little thing,
-Elizabeth, when you come to think of it relatively&mdash;the only time I
-ever really did him injustice, and it was only for a moment. No one can
-always do what is right and fair without making a mistake sometimes&mdash;it
-was just a mistake for want of thinking. But it has taken him from me
-as completely as if I had committed suicide, and was dead and buried
-and done with. It has made him <i>hate</i> me. No wonder! If he cared about
-me, I wouldn't be too proud to beg his pardon, but he doesn't&mdash;he
-doesn't! And so I must face it out, or else he will think I am running
-after him, and he will despise me more than he does already."</p>
-
-<p>"But if he was doing no harm," said Elizabeth, soothingly, "he could
-not suppose that you thought he was."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Patty, "he will never think I was so disgusting as to think
-<i>that</i> of him. But it is as bad as if he did. That at least was a
-great, outrageous, downright wrong, worth fighting about, and not the
-pitiful shabby thing that it appears to him. For, of course, he thinks
-I did it because I was too grand to notice him while I was wearing a
-fine dress and swelling about with great people. It never occurred
-to me that it would be possible for him or anybody to suspect me of
-<i>that</i>," said Patty, proudly, drawing herself up; "but afterwards I
-saw that he could not help doing it. And ever since then it has been
-getting worse and worse&mdash;everything has seemed to point to its being
-so. Haven't you noticed? I never see him except I am with people who
-<i>are</i> above noticing him; and Mr. Smith&mdash;oh, what I have suffered from
-Mr. Smith to-night, Elizabeth!&mdash;has all this time been thinking I was
-going to marry him, and I can see now how it must have looked to other
-people as if I was. Just think of it!"&mdash;with a gesture of intense
-disgust. "As if any girl could stoop to that, after having had such a
-contrast before her eyes! No wonder he hates me and despises me&mdash;no
-wonder he looks at me as if I were the dirt beneath his feet. I wish I
-were," she added, with reckless passion; "oh, my dear love, I only wish
-I were!"</p>
-
-<p>When she was about it, Patty cleansed her stuffed bosom thoroughly.
-It was not her way to do things by halves. She rhapsodised about her
-love and her lover with a wild extravagance that was proportionate
-to the strained reserve and restraint that she had so long put upon
-her emotions. After which came the inevitable reaction. The fit being
-over, she braced herself up again, and was twice as strong-minded and
-self-sufficient as before. When the morning came, and she and Elizabeth
-busied themselves with housework&mdash;Eleanor being relegated to the sofa
-with a sick headache&mdash;the girl who had dissolved herself in tears and
-given way to temporary insanity, as she chose herself to call it, so
-recently, was bright, and brusque, and cheerful, in spite of sultry
-weather; and not only did she pretend, even to her confidante, that the
-young man on the other side of the wall had no place in her thoughts,
-but she hardened her heart to adamant against <i>him</i>, for having been
-the cause of her humiliating lapse from dignity. It was quite a lucky
-chance, indeed, that she did not straightway go and accept the hand
-and fortune of Mr. Smith, by way of making reparation for the outrage
-committed vicariously by Paul Brion on her self-respect.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE OLD AND THE NEW.</h4>
-
-
-<p>The weather was scorchingly hot and a thunderstorm brewing when the
-girls sat down to their frugal lunch at mid-day. It was composed of
-bread and butter and pickled fish, for which, under the circumstances,
-they had not appetite enough. They trifled with the homely viands for
-awhile, in a manner quite unusual with them, in whatever state of the
-atmosphere; and then they said they would "make up" at tea time, if
-weather permitted, and cleared the table. Eleanor was sent to lie down
-in her room, Patty volunteered to read a pleasant novel to the invalid,
-and Elizabeth put on her bonnet to pay her promised visit to Mrs.
-Duff-Scott.</p>
-
-<p>She found her friend in the cool music-room, standing by the piano, on
-which some loose white sheets were scattered. The major sat on a sofa,
-surveying the energetic woman with a sad and pensive smile.</p>
-
-<p>"Are you looking over new music?" asked Elizabeth, as she walked in.</p>
-
-<p>"O my dear, is that you? How good of you to venture out in this
-heat!&mdash;but I knew you would," exclaimed the lady of the house, coming
-forward with outstretched arms of welcome. "Music, did you say?&mdash;O
-<i>dear</i> no!" as if music were the last thing likely to interest her. "It
-is something of far more importance."</p>
-
-<p>"Yelverton has been here," said the major, sadly; "and he has been
-sketching some plans for Whitechapel cottages. My wife thinks they are
-most artistic."</p>
-
-<p>"So they are," she insisted, hardly, "though I don't believe I used the
-word; for things are artistic when they are suitable for the purpose
-they are meant for, and only pretend to be what they are. Look at
-this, Elizabeth. You see it is of no use to build Peabody houses in
-these frightfully low neighbourhoods, where half-starved creatures are
-packed together like herrings in a barrel&mdash;Mr. Yelverton has explained
-that quite clearly. The better class of poor come to live in them, and
-the poorest of all are worse off instead of better, because they have
-less room than they had before. You <i>must</i> take into consideration
-that there is only a certain amount of space, and if you build model
-lodgings here, and a school there, and a new street somewhere else, you
-do good, of course, but you herd the poor street-hawkers and people of
-that class more and more thickly into their wretched dens, where they
-haven't enough room to breathe as it is&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I think I'll go, my dear, if you'll excuse me," interrupted the major,
-humbly, in tones of deep dejection.</p>
-
-<p>"And therefore," proceeded Mrs. Duff-Scott, taking no notice of her
-husband, "the proper and reasonable thing to do&mdash;if you want to help
-those who are most in need of help&mdash;is to let fine schemes alone. Mr.
-Yelverton expects to come into a large property soon, and he means to
-buy into those wretched neighbourhoods, where he can, and to build
-for one-room tenants&mdash;for cheapness and low rents. He will get about
-four per cent. on his money, but that he will use to improve with&mdash;I
-mean for putting them in the way of sanitary habits, poor creatures.
-He makes a great point of teaching them sanitation. He seems to think
-more of that than about teaching them the Bible, and really one
-can hardly wonder at it when one sees the frightful depravity and
-general demoralisation that come of ignorance and stupidity in those
-matters&mdash;and he sees so much of it. He seems to be always rooting
-about in those sewers and dunghills, as he calls them&mdash;he is rather
-addicted to strong expressions, if you notice&mdash;and turning things out
-from the very bottom. He is queer in some of his notions, but he is a
-good man, Elizabeth. One can forgive him his little crotchets, for the
-sake of all the good he does&mdash;it must be incalculable! He shrinks from
-nothing, and spends himself trying to better the things that are so bad
-that most people feel there is nothing for it but to shut their eyes to
-them&mdash;without making any fuss about it either, or setting himself up
-for a saint. Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott, throwing a contemptuous
-glance around her museum of precious curiosities, "how inconceivably
-petty and selfish it seems to care for rubbish like this, when there
-are such miseries in the world that we might lighten, as he does, if we
-would only set ourselves to it in the same spirit."</p>
-
-<p><i>Rubbish!</i>&mdash;those priceless pots and plates, those brasses and ivories
-and enamels, those oriental carpets and tapestries, those unique
-miscellaneous relics of the mediæval prime! Truly the Cause of Humanity
-had taken hold of Mrs. Duff-Scott at last.</p>
-
-<p>She sat down in an arm-chair, having invited Elizabeth to take off
-her hat and make herself as comfortable as the state of the weather
-permitted, and began to wave a large fan to and fro while she looked
-into vacant space with shining eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"He is a strange man," she said musingly. "A most interesting,
-admirable man, but full of queer ideas&mdash;not at all like any man I ever
-met before. He has been lunching with us, Elizabeth&mdash;he came quite
-early&mdash;and we have had an immense deal of talk. I wish you had been
-here to listen to him&mdash;though I don't know that it would have been very
-good for you, either. He is extremely free, and what you might call
-revolutionary, in his opinions; he treats the most sacred subjects as
-if they were to be judged and criticised like common subjects. He talks
-of the religions of the world, for instance, as if they were all on
-the same foundation, and calls the Bible our Veda or Koran&mdash;says they
-are all alike inspired writings because they respectively express the
-religious spirit, craving for knowledge of the mystery of life and the
-unseen, that is an integral part of man's nature, and universal in
-all races, though developed according to circumstances. He says all
-mankind are children of God, and brothers, and that he declines to make
-invidious distinctions. And personal religion to him seems nothing more
-than the most rudimentary morality&mdash;simply to speak the truth and to
-be unselfish&mdash;just as to be selfish or untrue are the only sins he
-will acknowledge that we are responsible for out of the long catalogue
-of sins that stain this unhappy world. He won't call it an unhappy
-world, by the way, in spite of the cruel things he sees; he is the most
-optimistic of unbelievers. It will all come right some day&mdash;and our
-time will be called the dark ages by our remote descendants. Ever since
-men and women came first, they have been getting better and higher&mdash;the
-world increases in human goodness steadily, and will go on doing so as
-long as it is a world&mdash;and that because of the natural instincts and
-aspirations of human nature, and not from what we have always supposed
-all our improvement came from&mdash;rather in spite of that, indeed."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott poured out this information, which had been seething in
-her active mind, volubly and with a desire to relieve herself to some
-one; but here she checked herself, feeling that she had better have
-left it all unsaid, not less for Elizabeth's sake than for her own. She
-got up out of her seat and began to pace about the room with a restless
-air. She was genuinely troubled. It was as if a window in a closed
-chamber had been opened, letting in a too strong wind that was blowing
-the delicate furniture all about; now, with the woman's instinctive
-timidity and fear (that may be less a weakness than a safeguard), she
-was eager to shut it to again, though suspecting that it might be
-too late to repair the damage done. Now that she took time to think
-about it, she felt particularly guilty on Elizabeth's account, who had
-not had her experience, and was not furnished with her ripe judgment
-and powers of discrimination as a preservative against the danger of
-contact with heterodox ideas.</p>
-
-<p>"I ought not to repeat such things," she exclaimed, vexedly, beginning
-to gather up the plans of the Whitechapel cottages, but observing
-only her companion's strained and wistful face. "The mere independent
-hypotheses and speculations of one man, when no two seem ever to think
-alike! I suppose those who study ancient history and literatures,
-and the sciences generally, get into the habit of pulling things to
-pieces&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Those who learn most <i>ought</i> to know most," suggested Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"They ought, my dear; but it doesn't follow."</p>
-
-<p>"Not when they are so earnest in trying to find out?"</p>
-
-<p>"No; that very earnestness is against them&mdash;they over-reach themselves.
-They get confused, too, with learning so much, and mixing so many
-things up together." Mrs. Duff-Scott was a little reckless as to means
-so long as she could compass the desired end&mdash;which was the shutting
-of that metaphorical window which she had incautiously set (or left)
-open.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, he believes in God&mdash;that all men are God's children," the
-girl continued, clinging where she could. "That seems like religion
-to me&mdash;it is a good and loving way to think of God, that He gave His
-spirit to all alike from the beginning&mdash;that He is so just and kind to
-all, and not only to a few."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, he believes in God. He believes in the Bible, too, in a sort of
-a way. He says he would have the lessons of the New Testament and the
-life of Christ disseminated far and wide, but not as they are now, with
-the moral left out, and not as if those who wrote them were wise enough
-for all time. But, whatever his beliefs may be," said Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-"they are not what will satisfy us, Elizabeth. You and I must hold fast
-to our faith in Christ, dear child, or I don't know what would become
-of us. We will let 'whys' alone&mdash;we will not trouble ourselves to try
-and find out mysteries that no doubt are wisely withheld from us, and
-that anyhow we should never be able to understand."</p>
-
-<p>Here the servant entered with a gliding step, opened a little
-Sutherland table before his mistress's chair, spread the æsthetic
-cloth, and set out the dainty tea service. Outside the storm had burst,
-and was now spending itself and cooling the hot air in a steady shower
-that made a rushing sound on the gravel. Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had
-reseated herself, leant back silently with an air of reaction after her
-strong emotion in the expression of her handsome face and form, and
-Elizabeth mechanically got up to pour out the tea. Presently, as still
-in silence they began to sip and munch their afternoon repast, the girl
-saw on the piano near which she stood a photograph that arrested her
-attention. "What is this?" she asked. "Did he bring this too?" It was a
-copy of Luke Fildes' picture of "The Casuals." Mrs. Duff-Scott took it
-from her hand.</p>
-
-<p>"No, it is mine," she said. "I have had it here for some time, in a
-portfolio amongst others, and never took any particular notice of it. I
-just had an idea that it was an unpleasant and disagreeable subject. I
-never gave it a thought&mdash;what it really meant&mdash;until this morning, when
-he was talking to me, and happened to mention it. I remembered that I
-had it, and I got it out to look at it. Oh!" setting down her teacup
-and holding it fairly in both hands before her&mdash;"isn't it a terrible
-sermon? Isn't it heartbreaking to think that it is <i>true?</i> And he says
-the truth is understated."</p>
-
-<p>Like the great Buddha, when he returned from his first excursion beyond
-his palace gates, Elizabeth's mind was temporarily darkened by the new
-knowledge of the world that she was acquiring, and she looked at the
-picture with a fast-beating heart. "Sphinxes set up against that dead
-wall," she quoted from a little printed foot-note, "and none likely to
-be at the pains of solving them until the general overthrow." She was
-leaning over her friend's shoulder, and the tears were dropping from
-her eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"They are Dickens's words," said Mrs. Duff-Scott.</p>
-
-<p>"Why is it like this, I wonder?" the girl murmured, after a long,
-impressive pause. "We must not think it is God's fault&mdash;that can't
-be. It must be somebody else's fault. It cannot have been <i>intended</i>
-that a great part of the human race should be forced, from no fault of
-their own, to accept such a cruel lot&mdash;to be made to starve, when so
-many roll in riches&mdash;to be driven to crime because they cannot help
-it&mdash;to be driven to <i>hell</i> when they <i>need not</i> have gone there&mdash;if
-there is such a place&mdash;if there is any truth in what we have been
-taught. But"&mdash;with a kind of sad indignation&mdash;"if religion has been
-doing its best for ever so many centuries, and this is all that there
-is to show for it&mdash;doesn't that seem to say that <i>he</i> may be right,
-and that religion has been altogether misinterpreted&mdash;that we have all
-along been making mistakes&mdash;" She checked herself, with a feeling of
-dismay at her own words; and Mrs. Duff-Scott made haste to put away
-the picture, evidently much disturbed. Both women had taken the "short
-views" of life so often advocated, not from philosophical choice, but
-from disinclination, and perhaps inability, to take long ones; and
-they had the ordinary woman's conception of religion as exclusively
-an ecclesiastical matter. This rough disturbance of old habits of
-thought and sentiments of reverence and duty was very alarming; but
-while Elizabeth was rashly confident, because she was inexperienced,
-and because she longed to put faith in her beloved, Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was seized with a sort of panic of remorseful misgiving. To shut that
-window had become an absolute necessity, no matter by what means.</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," she said, in desperation, "whatever you do, you must not
-begin to ask questions of that sort. We can never find out the answers,
-and it leads to endless trouble. God's ways are not as our ways&mdash;we
-are not in the secrets of His providence. It is for us to trust Him
-to know what is best. If you admit one doubt, Elizabeth, you will see
-that everything will go. Thousands are finding that out now-a-days,
-to their bitter cost. Indeed, I don't know what we are coming to&mdash;the
-'general overthrow,' I suppose. I hope I, at any rate, shall not live
-to see it. What would life be worth to us&mdash;<i>any</i> of us, even the best
-off&mdash;if we lost our faith in God and our hope of immortality? Just try
-to imagine it for a moment."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked at her mentor, who had again risen and was walking
-about the room. The girl's eyes were full of solemn thought. "Not
-much," she replied, gravely. "But I was never afraid of losing faith in
-God."</p>
-
-<p>"It is best to be afraid," replied Mrs. Duff-Scott, with decision.
-"It is best not to run into temptation. Don't think about these
-difficulties, Elizabeth&mdash;leave them, leave them. You would only
-unsettle yourself and become wretched and discontented, and you would
-never be any the wiser."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth thought over this for a few minutes, while Mrs. Duff-Scott
-mechanically took up a brass lota and dusted it with her handkerchief.</p>
-
-<p>"Then you think one ought not to read books, or to talk to people&mdash;to
-try to find out the ground one stands on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"No, no, no&mdash;let it alone altogether. You know the ground you ought to
-stand on quite well. You don't want to see where you are if you can
-feel that God is with you. Blessed are they that have not seen and
-yet have believed!" she ended in a voice broken with strong feeling,
-clasping her hands with a little fervent, prayerful gesture.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth drew a long breath, and in her turn began to walk restlessly
-up and down the room. She had one more question to ask, but the asking
-of it almost choked her. "Then you would say&mdash;I suppose you think
-it would be wrong&mdash;for one who was a believer to marry one who was
-not?&mdash;however good, and noble, and useful he or she might be&mdash;however
-religious <i>practically</i>&mdash;however blameless in character?"</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, forgetting for the moment that there was such a person
-as Mr. Yelverton in the world, sat down once more in an arm-chair,
-and addressed herself to the proposition on its abstract merits. She
-had worked herself up, by this time, into a state of highly fervid
-orthodoxy. Her hour of weakness was past, and she was fain to put forth
-and test her reserves of strength. Wherefore she had very clear views
-as to the iniquity of an unequal yoking together with unbelievers, and
-the peril of touching the unclean thing; and she stated them plainly
-and with all her wonted incisive vigour.</p>
-
-<p>When it was all over, Elizabeth put on her hat and walked back through
-the pattering rain to Myrtle Street, heavy-hearted and heavy-footed, as
-if a weight of twenty years had been laid on her since the morning.</p>
-
-<p>"Patty," she said, when her sister, warmly welcoming her return,
-exclaimed at her pale face and weary air, and made her take the sofa
-that Eleanor had vacated, "Patty, let us go away for a few weeks, shall
-we? I want a breath of fresh air, and to be in peace and quiet for a
-little, to think things over."</p>
-
-<p>"So do I," said Patty. "So does Nelly. Let us write to Sam Dunn to find
-us lodgings."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>IN RETREAT.</h4>
-
-
-<p>"Is it possible that we have only been away for nine months?"
-murmured Elizabeth, as the little steamer worked its way up to the
-well-remembered jetty, and she looked once more on surf and headland,
-island rock and scattered township, lying under the desolate moorlands
-along the shore. "Doesn't it seem <i>at least</i> nine years?"</p>
-
-<p>"Or ninety," replied Patty. "I feel like a new generation. How exactly
-the same everything is! Here they have all been going on as they always
-did. There is Mrs. Dunn, dear old woman!&mdash;in the identical gown that
-she had on the day we went away."</p>
-
-<p>Everything was the same, but they were incredibly changed. There was no
-sleeping on the nose of the vessel now; no shrinking from association
-with their fellow-passengers. The skipper touched his cap to them,
-which he never used to do in the old times; and the idlers on the
-pier, when the vessel came in, stared at them as if they had indeed
-been away for ninety years. Mrs. Dunn took in at a glance the details
-of their travelling costumes, which were of a cut and quality not
-often seen in those parts; and, woman-like, straightway readjusted her
-smiles and manners, unconsciously becoming at once more effusive and
-more respectful than (with the ancient waterproofs in her mind's eye)
-she had prepared herself to be. But Sam saw only the three fair faces,
-that were to him as unchanged as his own heart; and he launched himself
-fearlessly into the boat as soon as it came alongside, with horny hand
-outstretched, and boisterous welcomes.</p>
-
-<p>"So y'are come back again?" he cried, "and darn glad I am to see yer,
-and no mistake." He added a great deal more in the way of greeting
-and congratulation before he got them up the landing stage and into
-the capacious arms of Mrs. Dunn&mdash;who was quite agreeably surprised to
-be hugged and kissed by three such fashionable young ladies. Then he
-proceeded to business with a triumphant air. "Now, Miss 'Lisbeth, yer
-see here's the cart&mdash;that's for the luggage. Me and the old hoss is
-going to take it straight up. And there is a buggy awaiting for you.
-And Mr. Brion told me to say as he was sorry he couldn't come down to
-the boat, but it's court day, yer see, and he's got a case on, and he's
-obliged to stop till he's done wi' that."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," exclaimed Elizabeth, hastily, "did you tell Mr. Brion that we
-were coming?"</p>
-
-<p>"Why, of course, miss. I went and told him the very first thing&mdash;'twas
-only right, him being such a friend&mdash;your only friend here, as one may
-say."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no, Sam, we have you."</p>
-
-<p>"Me!"&mdash;with scornful humility&mdash;"I'm nothing. Yes, of course I went and
-told him. And he wouldn't let us get no lodgings; he said you was just
-to go and stay wi' Mrs. Harris and him. He would ha' wrote to tell yer,
-but there worn't time."</p>
-
-<p>"And much more comfortable you'll be than at them lodging places," put
-in Mrs. Dunn. "There's nothing empty now that's at all fit for you. The
-season is just a-coming on, you see, and we're like to be pretty full
-this year."</p>
-
-<p>"But we wanted to be away from the town, Mrs. Dunn."</p>
-
-<p>"And so you will be away from the town. Why, bless me, you can't be
-much farther away&mdash;to be anywhere at all&mdash;than up there," pointing to
-the headland where their old home was dimly visible in the November
-sunshine. "There's only Mrs. Harris and the gal, and <i>they</i> won't
-interfere with you."</p>
-
-<p>"Up <i>there!</i>" exclaimed the sisters in a breath. And Mr. and Mrs. Dunn
-looked with broad grins at one another.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the fisherman. "You don't mean as Master
-Paul never let on about his pa and him buying the old place, do you?
-Why, they've had it, and the old man has been living there&mdash;he comes
-down every morning and goes up every night&mdash;walks both ways, he do,
-like a young chap&mdash;this two or three months past. Mrs. Hawkins she
-couldn't bear the lonesomeness of it when the winter come on, and was
-right down glad to get out of it. They gave Hawkins nearly double what
-<i>you</i> got for it. I told yer at the time that yer was a-throwing of it
-away."</p>
-
-<p>The girls tried to look as if they had known all about it, while they
-digested their surprise. It was a very great surprise, almost amounting
-to a shock.</p>
-
-<p>"And how <i>is</i> Mr. Paul?" asked Mrs. Dunn of Patty. "Dear young man,
-it's a long time since we've seen anything of him! I hope he's keeping
-his health well!"</p>
-
-<p>"I think so&mdash;I hope so," said Patty gently. "He works very hard, you
-know, writing things for the papers. He is wanted too much to be able
-to take holidays like ordinary people. They couldn't get on without
-him."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth turned round in astonishment: she had expected to see her
-sister in a blaze of wrath over Sam's unexpected communications. "I'm
-afraid you won't like this arrangement, dearie," she whispered. "What
-had we better do?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, go&mdash;go," replied Patty, with a tremulous eagerness that she vainly
-tried to hide. "I don't mind it. I&mdash;I am glad to see Mr. Brion. It will
-be very nice to stay with him&mdash;and in our own dear old house too. Oh, I
-wouldn't refuse to go for anything! Besides we <i>can't</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I don't see how we can," acquiesced Elizabeth, cheerfully. Patty
-having no objection, she was delighted with the prospect.</p>
-
-<p>They walked up the little pier in a group, the "hoss" following them
-with the reins upon his neck; and, while Elizabeth and Patty mounted
-the buggy provided by Mr. Brion, Eleanor gratified the old fisherman
-and his wife by choosing to stay with them and ride up in the cart. It
-was a lovely morning, just approaching noon, the sky as blue as&mdash;no,
-<i>not</i> as a turquoise or a sapphire&mdash;but as nothing save itself can be
-in a climate like ours, saturated with light and lucent colour, and
-giving to the sea its own but an intenser hue. I can see it all in my
-mind's eye&mdash;as my bodily eyes have seen it often&mdash;that dome above, that
-plain below, the white clouds throwing violet shadows on the water, the
-white gulls dipping their red legs in the shining surf and reflecting
-the sunlight on their white wings; but I cannot describe it. It is
-beyond the range of pen and ink, as of brush and pigments. As the buggy
-lightly climbed the steep cliff, opening the view wider at every step,
-the sisters sat hand in hand, leaning forward to take it all in; but
-they, too, said nothing&mdash;only inhaled long draughts of the delicious
-salt air, and felt in every invigorated fibre of them that they had
-done well to come. Reaching the crest of the bluff, and descending into
-the broken basin&mdash;or saucer, rather&mdash;in which Seaview Villa nestled,
-they uttered simultaneously an indignant moan at the spectacle of Mrs.
-Hawkins's devastations. There was the bright paint, and the whitewash,
-and the iron roof, and the fantastic trellis; and there was <i>not</i> the
-ivy that had mantled the eaves and the chimney stacks, nor the creepers
-that had fought so hard for existence, nor the squat verandah posts
-which they had bountifully embraced&mdash;nor any of the features that had
-made the old house distinct and characteristic.</p>
-
-<p>"Never mind," said Patty, who was the first to recover herself. "It
-looks very smart and tidy. I daresay it wanted doing up badly. After
-all, I'd sooner see it look as unlike home as possible, now that it
-isn't home."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Harris came out and warmly welcomed them in Mr. Brion's name.
-She took them into the old sitting-room, now utterly transformed, but
-cosy and inviting, notwithstanding, with the lawyer's substantial old
-leather chairs and sofas about it, and a round table in the middle
-set out for lunch, and the sea and sky shining in through the open
-verandah doors. She pressed them to have wine and cake to "stay" them
-till Eleanor and lunch time arrived; and she bustled about with them in
-their rooms&mdash;their own old bedrooms, in one of which was a collection
-of Paul's schoolboy books and treasures, while they took off their hats
-and washed their hands and faces; and was very motherly and hospitable,
-and made them feel still more pleased that they had come. They feasted,
-with fine appetites, on fish and gooseberry-fool at one o'clock, while
-Sam and Mrs. Dunn were entertained by the housekeeper in the kitchen;
-and in the afternoon, the cart and "hoss" having departed, they sat on
-the verandah in basket chairs, and drank tea, and idled, and enjoyed
-the situation thoroughly. Patty got a dog's-eared novel of Mayne
-Reid's from the book-case in her bedroom, and turned over the pages
-without reading them to look at the pencil marks and thumb stains; and
-Eleanor dozed and fanned herself; and Elizabeth sewed and thought. And
-then their host came home, riding up from the township on a fast and
-panting steed, quite thrown off his balance by emotion. He was abject
-in his apologies for having been deterred by cruel fate and business
-from meeting them at the steamer and conducting them in person to his
-house, and superfluous in expressions of delight at the honour they had
-conferred on him.</p>
-
-<p>"And how did you leave my boy?" he asked presently, when due inquiries
-after their own health and welfare had been satisfied. He spoke as
-if they and Paul had all been living under one roof. "And when is he
-coming to see his old father again?"</p>
-
-<p>Patty, who was sitting beside her host&mdash;"in his pocket," Nelly
-declared&mdash;and was simply servile in her affectionate demonstrations,
-undertook to describe Paul's condition and circumstances, and she
-implied a familiar knowledge of them which considerably astonished her
-sisters. She also gave the father a full history of all the son's good
-deeds in relation to themselves&mdash;described how he had befriended them
-in this and that emergency, and asserted warmly, and with a grave face,
-that she didn't know what they <i>should</i> have done without him.</p>
-
-<p>"That's right&mdash;that's right!" said the old man, laying her hand on his
-knee and patting it fondly. "I was sure he would&mdash;I knew you'd find out
-his worth when you came to know him. We must write to him to-morrow,
-and tell him you have arrived safely. He doesn't know I have got you,
-eh? We must tell him. Perhaps we can induce him to take a little
-holiday himself&mdash;I am sure it is high time he had one&mdash;and join us for
-a few days. What do you think?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, I am <i>sure</i> he can't come away just now," protested Patty, pale
-with eagerness and horror. "In the middle of the Exhibition&mdash;and a
-parliamentary crisis coming on&mdash;it would be quite impossible!"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know&mdash;I don't know. I fancy 'impossible' is not a word you
-will find in his dictionary," said the old gentleman encouragingly.
-"When he hears of our little arrangement, he'll want to take a hand, as
-the Yankees say. He won't like to be left out&mdash;no, no."</p>
-
-<p>"But, dear Mr. Brion," Patty strenuously implored&mdash;for this was really
-a matter of life and death, "do think what a critical time it is! They
-never <i>can</i> spare him now."</p>
-
-<p>"Then they ought to spare him. Because he is the best man they have,
-that is no reason why they should work him to death. They don't
-consider him sufficiently. He gives in to them too much. He is not a
-machine."</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps he would come," said Patty, "but it would be against his
-judgment&mdash;it would be at a heavy cost to his country&mdash;it would be just
-to please us&mdash;oh, don't let us tempt him to desert his post, which <i>no</i>
-one could fill in his absence! Don't let us unsettle and disturb him at
-such a time, when he is doing so much good, and when he wants his mind
-kept calm. Wait for a little while; he might get away for Christmas
-perhaps."</p>
-
-<p>"But by Christmas, I am afraid, you would be gone."</p>
-
-<p>"Never mind. We see him in Melbourne. And we came here to get away from
-all Melbourne associations."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, well, we'll see. But I am afraid you will be very dull with only
-an old fellow like me to entertain you."</p>
-
-<p>"Dull!" they all exclaimed in a breath. It was just what they wanted,
-to be so peaceful and quiet&mdash;and, above all things, to have him (Mr.
-Brion, senior) entirely to themselves.</p>
-
-<p>The polite old man looked as if he were scarcely equal to the weight
-of the honour and pleasure they conferred upon him. He was excessively
-happy. As the hours and days went on, his happiness increased. His
-punctilious courtesy merged more and more into a familiar and paternal
-devotion that took all kinds of touching shapes; and he felt more
-and more at a loss to express adequately the tender solicitude and
-profound satisfaction inspired in his good old heart by the sojourn of
-such charming guests within his gates. To Patty he became especially
-attached; which was not to be wondered at, seeing how susceptible he
-was and how lavishly she exercised her fascinations upon him. She
-walked to his office with him in the morning; she walked to meet him
-when he came hastening back in the afternoon; she read the newspaper
-(containing Paul's peerless articles) to him in the evening, and mixed
-his modest glass of grog for him before he went to bed. In short,
-she made him understand what it was to have a charming and devoted
-daughter, though she had no design in doing so&mdash;no motive but to
-gratify her affection for Paul in the only way open to her. So the old
-gentleman was very happy&mdash;and so were they. But still it seemed to
-him that he must be happier than they were, and that, being a total
-reversal of the proper order of things, troubled him. He had a pang
-every morning when he wrenched himself away from them&mdash;leaving them,
-as he called it, alone&mdash;though loneliness was the very last sensation
-likely to afflict them. It seemed so inhospitable, so improper, that
-they should be thrown upon their own resources, and the company of a
-housekeeper of humble status, for the greater part of the day&mdash;that
-they should be without a male attendant and devotee, while a man
-existed who was privileged to wait on them. If only Paul had been at
-home! Paul would have taken them for walks, for drives, for boating
-excursions, for pic-nics; he would have done the honours of Seaview
-Villa as the best of hosts and gentlemen. However, Paul, alas! was tied
-to his newspaper in Melbourne, and the old man had a business that he
-was cruelly bound to attend to&mdash;at any rate, sometimes. But at other
-times he contrived to shirk his business and then he racked his brains
-for projects whereby he might give them pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>"Let's see," he said one evening, a few days after their arrival; "I
-suppose you have been to the caves too often to care to go again?"</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Elizabeth; "we have never been to the caves at all."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>What</i>&mdash;living within half-a-dozen miles of them all your lives! Well,
-I believe there are many more like you. If they had been fifty miles
-away, you would have gone about once a twelvemonth."</p>
-
-<p>"No, Mr. Brion; we were never in the habit of going sight-seeing. My
-father seldom left the house, and my mother only when necessary; and we
-had no one else to take us."</p>
-
-<p>"Then I'll take you, and we will go to-morrow. Mrs. Harris shall pack
-us a basket for lunch, and we'll make a day of it. Dear, dear, what a
-pity Paul couldn't be here, to go with us!"</p>
-
-<p>The next morning, which was brilliantly fine, brought the girls an
-anxiously-expected letter from Mrs. Duff-Scott. Sam Dunn, who was an
-occasional postman for the solitary house, delivered it, along with
-a present of fresh fish, while Mr. Brion was absent in the township,
-negotiating for a buggy and horses for his expedition. The fairy
-godmother had given but a grudging permission for this <i>villeggiatura</i>
-of theirs, and they were all relieved to have her assurance that she
-was not seriously vexed with them. Her envelope was inscribed to "Miss
-King," but the long letter enclosed was addressed to her "dearest
-children" collectively, tenderly inquiring how they were getting
-on and when they were coming back, pathetically describing her own
-solitude&mdash;so unlike what it was before she knew the comfort of their
-companionship&mdash;and detailing various items of society news. Folded in
-this, however, was the traditional lady's postscript, scribbled on
-a small half-sheet and marked "private," which Elizabeth took away
-to read by herself. She wondered, with a little alarm, what serious
-matter it was that required a confidential postscript, and this was
-what she read:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"I have been thinking over our talk the other day, dear. Perhaps I
-spoke too strongly. One is apt to make arbitrary generalisations on the
-spur of the moment, and to forget how circumstances may alter cases.
-There is another side to the question that should not be overlooked.
-The believing wife or husband may be the salvation of <i>the other</i>, and
-when the other is <i>honest</i> and <i>earnest</i>, though <i>mistaken</i>, there is
-the strongest hope of this. It requires thinking of on <i>all</i> sides, my
-darling, and I fear I spoke without thinking enough. Consult your own
-heart&mdash;I am sure it will advise you well."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth folded up the note, and put it into her pocket. Then&mdash;for
-she was alone in her own little bedroom&mdash;she sat down to think of it;
-to wonder what had reminded Mrs. Duff-Scott of their conversation the
-"other day"&mdash;what had induced her to temporise with the convictions
-which then appeared so sincere and absolute. But she could make nothing
-of it. It was a riddle without the key.</p>
-
-<p>Then she heard the sound of buggy wheels, hurried steps on the
-verandah, and the voice of Mr. Brion calling her.</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," said the old man when she went out to him, speaking in some
-haste and agitation, "I have just met at the hotel a friend of yours
-from Melbourne&mdash;Mr. Yelverton. He came by the coach last night. He
-says Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him up to see how you are getting on, and to
-report to her. He is going away again to-morrow, and I did not like to
-put off our trip, so I have asked him to join us. I hope I have not
-done wrong"&mdash;looking anxiously into her rapidly changing face&mdash;"I hope
-you won't think that I have taken a liberty, my dear."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.</h4>
-
-
-<p>He was talking to Patty and Eleanor in the garden when Elizabeth went
-out to him, looking cool and colonial in a silk coat and a solar
-topee. The girls were chatting gaily; the old lawyer was sketching a
-programme of the day's proceedings, and generally doing the honours
-of his neighbourhood with polite vivacity. Two buggies, one single
-and one double, in charge of a groom from the hotel, were drawn up by
-the gate, and Mrs. Harris and "the gal" were busily packing them with
-luncheon baskets and rugs. There was a cloudless summer sky overhead&mdash;a
-miracle of loveliness spread out before them in the shining plain of
-the sea; and the delicate, fresh, salt air, tremulous with the boom of
-subterranean breakers, was more potent than any wine to make glad the
-heart of man and to give him a cheerful countenance.</p>
-
-<p>Very cheerfully did Mr. Yelverton come forward to greet his beloved,
-albeit a little moved with the sentiment of the occasion. He had parted
-from her in a ball-room, with a half-spoken confession of&mdash;something
-that she knew all about quite as well as he did&mdash;on his lips; and he
-had followed her now to say the rest, and to hear what she had to reply
-to it. This was perfectly understood by both of them, as they shook
-hands, with a little conventional air of unexpectedness, and he told
-her that he had come at Mrs. Duff-Scott's orders.</p>
-
-<p>"She could not rest," he said, gravely, "until she was sure that you
-had found pleasant quarters, and were comfortable. She worried about
-you&mdash;and so she sent me up."</p>
-
-<p>"It was troubling you too much," Elizabeth murmured, evading his direct
-eyes, but quite unable to hide her agitation from him.</p>
-
-<p>"You say that from politeness, I suppose? No, it was not troubling
-me at all&mdash;quite the contrary. I am delighted with my trip. And I am
-glad," he concluded, dropping his voice, "to see the place where you
-were brought up. This was your home, was it not?" He looked all round
-him.</p>
-
-<p>"It was not like this when we were here," she replied. "The house was
-old then&mdash;now it is new. They have done it up."</p>
-
-<p>"I see. Have you a sketch of it as it used to be? You draw, I know.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott has been showing me your drawings."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I have one. It hangs in the Melbourne sitting-room."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion broke in upon this dialogue. "Now, my dears, I think we are
-all ready," he said. "Elizabeth, you and I will go in the little buggy
-and lead the way. Perhaps Mr. Yelverton will be good enough to take
-charge of the two young ladies. Will you prefer to drive yourself, Mr.
-Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton said he preferred to be driven, as he was not acquainted
-with the road; and Elizabeth, throned in the seat of honour in the
-little buggy, looked back with envious eyes to watch his arrangements
-for her sisters' comfort. He put Patty beside the groom on the front
-seat, and carefully tucked her up from the dust; and then he placed
-Eleanor at the back, climbed to her side, and opened a large umbrella
-which he held so that it protected both of them. In this order the
-two vehicles set forth, and for the greater part of the way, owing to
-the superior lightness of the smaller one, they were not within sight
-of each other; during which time Elizabeth was a silent listener to
-her host's amiable prattle, and reproaching herself for not feeling
-interested in it. She kept looking through the pane of glass behind
-her, and round the side of the hood, and wondering where the others
-were, and whether they were keeping the road.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, they can't miss it," was Mr. Brion's invariable comment. "They
-will follow our tracks. If not, the man knows our destination."</p>
-
-<p>For the old lawyer was making those short cuts which are so dear to
-all Jehus of the bush; preferring a straight mile of heavy sand to a
-devious mile and a quarter of metal, and ploughing through the stiff
-scrub that covered the waste moors of the district rather by the sun's
-than by the surveyor's direction. It made the drive more interesting,
-of course. The bushes that rustled through the wheels and scratched the
-horses' legs were wonderful with wild flowers of every hue, and the
-orchids that were trampled into the sand, and gathered by handfuls to
-die in the buggy, were remarkable for their fantastic variety. And then
-there were lizards and butterflies, and other common objects of the
-country, not so easily discerned on a beaten track. But Elizabeth could
-not bring herself to care much for these things to-day.</p>
-
-<p>They reached high land after a while, whence, looking back, they saw
-the other buggy crawling towards them a mile or two away, and, looking
-forward, saw, beyond a green and wild foreground, the brilliant sea
-again, with a rocky cape jutting out into it, sprinkled with a few
-white houses on its landward shoulder&mdash;a scene that was too beautiful,
-on such a morning, to be disregarded. Here the girl sat at ease, while
-the horses took breath, thoroughly appreciating her opportunities;
-wondering, not what Mr. Yelverton was doing or was going to do, but how
-it was that she had never been this way before. Then Mr. Brion turned
-and drove down the other side of the hill, and exclaimed "Here we are!"
-in triumph.</p>
-
-<p>It was a shallow basin of a dell, in the midst of romantic glens,
-sandy, and full of bushes and wild flowers, and bracken and tussocky
-grass, and shady with tall-stemmed gum trees. As the buggy bumped
-and bounced into the hollow, shaving the dead logs that lay about in
-a manner which reflected great credit upon the lawyer's navigation,
-Elizabeth, feeling the cool shadows close over her head, and aware
-that they had reached their destination, looked all round her for the
-yawning cavern that she had specially come to see.</p>
-
-<p>"Where are the caves?" she inquired&mdash;to Mr. Brion's intense
-gratification.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, where are they?" he retorted, enjoying his little joke. "Well, we
-have just been driving over them."</p>
-
-<p>"But the mouth, I mean?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, the mouth&mdash;the mouth is here. We were very nearly driving over
-that too. But we'll have lunch first, my dear, before we investigate
-the caves&mdash;if it's agreeable to you. I will take the horses out, and
-we'll find a nice place to camp before they come."</p>
-
-<p>Presently the other buggy climbed over the ridge and down into the
-hollow; and Mr. Yelverton beheld Elizabeth kneeling amongst the bracken
-fronds, with the dappled sun and shade on her bare head and her blue
-cotton gown, busily trying to spread a table-cloth on the least uneven
-piece of ground that she could find, where it lay like a miniature
-snow-clad landscape, all hills except where the dishes weighed it to
-the earth. He hastened to help her as soon as he had lifted Patty and
-Eleanor from their seats.</p>
-
-<p>"You are making yourself hot," he said, with his quiet air of authority
-and proprietorship. "You sit down, and let me do it. I am quite used
-to commissariat business, and can set a table beautifully." He took
-some tumblers from her hand, and, looking into her agitated face, said
-suddenly, "I could not help coming, Elizabeth&mdash;I could not leave it
-broken off like that&mdash;I wanted to know why you ran away from me&mdash;and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott gave me leave. You will let me talk to you presently?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, not now&mdash;not now!" she replied, in a hurried, low tone, turning
-her head from side to side. "I must have time to think&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Time to think!" he repeated, with just a touch of reproach in his
-grave surprise. And he put down the tumblers carefully, got up, and
-walked away. Upon which, Elizabeth, reacting violently from the mood
-in which she had received him, had an agonising fear that he would
-impute her indecision to want of love for him, or insensibility to his
-love for her&mdash;though, till now, that had seemed an impossibility. In
-a few minutes he returned with her sisters and Mr. Brion, all bearing
-dishes and bottles, and buggy cushions and rugs; and, when the luncheon
-was ready, and the groom had retired to feed and water his horses, she
-lifted her eyes to her tall lover's face with a look that he understood
-far better than she did. He quietly came round from the log on which he
-had been about to seat himself, and laid his long limbs on the sand and
-bracken at her side.</p>
-
-<p>"What will you have?" he asked carelessly; "roast beef and salad, or
-chicken pie? I can recommend the salad, which has travelled remarkably
-well." And all the time he was looking at her with happy contentment, a
-little smile under his red moustache; and her heart was beating so that
-she could not answer him.</p>
-
-<p>The luncheon was discussed at leisure, and, as far as Mr. Brion could
-judge, was a highly successful entertainment. The younger girls,
-whatever might be going to happen to-morrow, could not help enjoying
-themselves to-day&mdash;could not help getting a little intoxicated with the
-sweetness of the summer air and the influences of the scene generally,
-and breaking out in fun and laughter; even Elizabeth, with her
-desperate anxieties, was not proof against the contagion of their good
-spirits now and then. The travelled stranger, who talked a great deal,
-was the most entertaining of guests, and the host congratulated himself
-continually on having added him to the party. "We only want Paul now
-to make it all complete," said the happy old man, as he gave Patty,
-who had a dreadful appetite after her long drive, a second helping of
-chicken pie.</p>
-
-<p>When the sylvan meal was ended, and the unsightly remnants cleared
-away, the two men smoked a soothing cigarette under the trees, while
-the girls tucked up their clean gowns a little and tied handkerchiefs
-over their heads, and then Mr. Brion, armed with matches and a pound
-of candles, marched them off to see the caves. He took them but a
-little way from where they had camped, and disclosed in the hillside
-what looked like a good-sized wombat or rabbit hole. "Now, you stay
-here while I go and light up a bit," he said, impressively, and he
-straightway slid down and disappeared into the hole. They stooped and
-peered after him, and saw a rather muddy narrow shaft slanting down
-into the earth, through which the human adult could only pass "end on."
-The girls were rather dismayed at the prospect.</p>
-
-<p>"It is a case of faith," said Mr. Yelverton. "We must trust ourselves
-to Mr. Brion entirely or give it up."</p>
-
-<p>"We will trust Mr. Brion," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>A few minutes later the old man's voice was heard from below. "Now,
-come along! Just creep down for a step or two, and I will reach your
-hand. Who is coming first?"</p>
-
-<p>They looked at each other for a moment, and Patty's quick eye caught
-something from Mr. Yelverton's. "I will go first," she said; "and you
-can follow me, Nelly." And down she went, half sliding, half sitting,
-and when nearly out of sight stretched up her arm to steady her sister.
-"It's all right," she cried; "there's plenty of room. Come along!"</p>
-
-<p>When they had both disappeared, Mr. Yelverton took Elizabeth's
-unlighted candle from her hand and put it into his pocket. "There is no
-need for you to be bothered with that," he said: "one will do for us."
-And he let himself a little way down the shaft, and put up his hand to
-draw her after him.</p>
-
-<p>In a few seconds they stood upright, and were able, by the light of
-the three candles just dispersing into the interior, to see what
-kind of place they had come to. They were limestone caves, ramifying
-underground for a quarter of a mile or so in direct length, and
-spreading wide on either side in a labyrinth of chambers and passages.
-The roof was hung with a few stalactites, but mostly crusted with soft
-bosses, like enormous cauliflowers, that yielded to the touch; lofty
-in places, so that the candle-light scarcely reached it, and in places
-so low that one could not pass under it. The floor, if floor it could
-be called, was a confusion of hills and vales and black abysses, stony
-here, and dusty there, and wet and slippery elsewhere&mdash;altogether an
-uncanny place, full of weird suggestions. The enterprising and fearless
-Patty was far ahead, exploring on her own account, and Mr. Brion,
-escorting Eleanor, dwindling away visibly into a mere pin's point,
-before Mr. Yelverton and Elizabeth had got their candle lighted and
-begun their investigations. A voice came floating back to them through
-the immense darkness, duplicated in ever so many echoes: "Are you all
-right, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," shouted Mr. Yelverton instantly, like a soldier answering to the
-roll-call. Then he took her hand, and, holding the candle high, led her
-carefully in the direction of the voice. She was terribly nervous and
-excited by the situation, which had come upon her unawares, and she
-had an impulse to move on hastily, as if to join her sisters. Bat her
-lover held her back with a turn of his strong wrist.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't hurry," he said, in a tone that revealed to her how he
-appreciated his opportunity, and how he would certainly turn it to
-account; "it is not safe in such a place as this. And you can trust
-<i>me</i> to take care of you as well as Mr. Brion, can't you?"</p>
-
-<p>She did not answer, and he did not press the question. They crept
-up, and slid down, and leapt over, the dark obstructions in their
-devious course for a little while in silence&mdash;two lonely atoms in the
-vast and lifeless gloom. Fainter and fainter grew the voices in the
-distance&mdash;fainter and fainter the three tiny specks of light, which
-seemed as far away as the stars in heaven. There was something dreadful
-in their isolation in the black bowels of the earth, but an unspeakably
-poignant bliss in being thus cast away together. There was no room for
-thought of anything outside that.</p>
-
-<p>Groping along hand in hand, they came to a chasm that yawned,
-bridgeless, across their path. It was about three feet wide, and
-perhaps it was not much deeper, but it looked like the bottomless pit,
-and was very terrifying. Bidding Elizabeth to wait where she was,
-Mr. Yelverton leaped over by himself, and, dropping some tallow on a
-boulder near him, fixed his candle to the rock. Then he held out his
-arms and called her to come to him.</p>
-
-<p>For a moment she hesitated, knowing what awaited her, and then she
-leaped blindly, fell a little short, and knocked the candle from its
-insecure socket into the gulf beneath her. She uttered a sharp cry as
-she felt herself falling, and the next instant found herself dragged up
-in her lover's strong arms, and folded with a savage tenderness to his
-breast. <i>This</i> time he held her as if he did not mean to let her go.</p>
-
-<p>"Hush!&mdash;you are quite safe," he whispered to her in the pitch darkness.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE DRIVE HOME.</h4>
-
-
-<p>The girls were boiling a kettle and making afternoon tea, while the men
-were getting their horses and buggy furniture together, at about four
-o'clock. Elizabeth was on her knees, feeding the gipsy fire with dry
-sticks, when Mr. Yelverton came to her with an alert step.</p>
-
-<p>"I am going to drive the little buggy back," he said, "and you are
-coming with me. The others will start first, and we will follow."</p>
-
-<p>She looked up with a startled expression that puzzled and disappointed
-him.</p>
-
-<p>"<i>What!</i>" he exclaimed, "do you mean to say that you would rather not?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no, I did not mean that," she faltered hurriedly; and into her
-averted face, which had been deadly pale since she came out of the
-cave, the hot blood flushed, remembering how long he and she had stood
-there together in a profound and breathless solitude, and the very
-blackest night that ever Egypt knew, after he took her into his arms,
-and before they remembered that they had a second candle and matches
-to light it with. In that interval, when she laid her head upon his
-shoulder, and he his red moustache upon her responsive lips, she had
-virtually accepted him, though she had not meant to do so. "No," she
-repeated, as he silently watched her, "you know it is not that."</p>
-
-<p>"What then? Do you think it is improper?"</p>
-
-<p>"Of course not."</p>
-
-<p>"You would really like it, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;yes. I will come with you. We can talk as we go home."</p>
-
-<p>"We can. That was precisely my object in making the arrangement."</p>
-
-<p>Eleanor, presiding over her crockery at a little distance, called to
-them to ask whether the water boiled&mdash;and they perceived that it did.
-Mr. Yelverton carried the kettle to the teapot, and presently busied
-himself in handing the cups&mdash;so refreshing at the close of a summer
-picnic, when exercise and sun and lunch together have resulted in
-inevitable lassitude and incipient headaches&mdash;and doling out slices of
-thin bread and butter as Patty deftly shaved them from the loaf. They
-squatted round amongst the fern fronds and tussocks, and poured their
-tea vulgarly into their saucers&mdash;being warned by Mr. Brion that they
-had no time to waste&mdash;and then packed up, and washed their hands, and
-tied on their hats, and shook out their skirts, and set forth home
-again, declaring they had had the most beautiful time. The large buggy
-started first, the host driving; and Mr. Yelverton was informed that
-another track would be taken for the return journey, and that he was
-to be very careful not to lose himself.</p>
-
-<p>"If we do lose ourselves," said Mr. Yelverton, as his escort
-disappeared over the crest of the hill, and he still stood in the
-valley&mdash;apparently in no haste to follow&mdash;tucking a light rug over his
-companion's knees, "it won't matter very much, will it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, yes, it will," she replied anxiously. "I don't know the way at
-all."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well; then we will keep them in sight. But only just in sight&mdash;no
-more. Will you have the hood up or down?"</p>
-
-<p>"Down," she said. "The day is too lovely to be shut out."</p>
-
-<p>"It is, it is. I think it is just about the most lovely day I ever
-knew&mdash;not even excepting the first of October."</p>
-
-<p>"The first of October was not a lovely day at all. It was cold and
-dismal."</p>
-
-<p>"That was its superficial appearance." He let down the hood and
-climbed to his seat beside her, taking the reins from her hand. He had
-completely laid aside his sedate demeanour, and, though self-contained
-still, had a light in his eyes that made her tremble. "On your
-conscience," he said, looking at her, "can you say that the first of
-October was a dismal day? We may as well begin as we mean to go on,"
-he added, as she did not answer; "and we will make a bargain, in the
-first place, never to say a word that we don't mean, nor to keep back
-one that we do mean from each other. You will agree to that, won't you,
-Elizabeth?"&mdash;his disengaged arm was round her shoulder and he had drawn
-her face up to his. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth,"&mdash;repeating the syllables
-fondly&mdash;"what a sweet and honest name it is! Kiss me, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>Instead of kissing him she began to sob. "Oh, don't, don't!" she cried,
-making a movement to free herself&mdash;at which he instantly released
-her. "Let us go on&mdash;they will be wondering where we are. I am very
-foolish&mdash;I can't help it&mdash;I will tell you presently!"</p>
-
-<p>She took out her handkerchief, and tried to calm herself as she sat
-back in the buggy; and he, without speaking, touched his horses
-with his whip and drove slowly out of the shady dell into the clear
-sunshine. For a mile or more of up-and-down tracking, where the wheels
-of the leading vehicle had left devious ruts in sand and grass to
-guide them, they sat side by side in silence&mdash;she fighting with and
-gradually overcoming her excitement, and he gravely waiting, with a
-not less strong emotion, until she had recovered herself. And then
-he turned to her, and laid his powerful hand on hers that had dropped
-dejectedly into her lap, and said gently, though with decision&mdash;"Now
-tell me, dear. What is the matter? I <i>must</i> know. It is not&mdash;it is
-<i>not</i>"&mdash;contracting his fingers sharply&mdash;"that you don't mean what you
-have been telling me, after all? For though not in words, you <i>have</i>
-been telling me, have you not?"</p>
-
-<p>"No," she sighed; "it is not that."</p>
-
-<p>"I knew it. I was sure it could not be. Then what else can
-matter?&mdash;what else should trouble you? Is it about your sisters? You
-<i>know</i> they will be all right. They will not lose you&mdash;they will gain
-me. I flatter myself they will be all the better for gaining me,
-Elizabeth. I hoped you would think so?"</p>
-
-<p>"I do think so."</p>
-
-<p>"What then? Tell me."</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Yelverton, it is so hard to tell you&mdash;I don't know how to do it.
-But I am afraid&mdash;I am afraid&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Of what? Of <i>me?</i>"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no! But I want to do what is right. And it seems to me that to let
-myself be happy like this would be wrong&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Wrong to let yourself be happy? Good heavens! Who has been teaching
-you such blasphemy as that?"</p>
-
-<p>"No one has taught me anything, except my mother. But she was so good,
-and she had so many troubles, and she said that she would never have
-been able to bear them&mdash;to have borne life&mdash;had she not been stayed
-up by her religious faith. She told us, when it seemed to her that we
-might some day be cast upon the world to shift for ourselves, never
-to let go of that&mdash;to suffer and renounce everything rather than be
-tempted to give up that."</p>
-
-<p>"Who has asked you to give it up?" he responded, with grave and gentle
-earnestness. "Not I. I would be the last man to dream of such a thing."</p>
-
-<p>"But you&mdash;<i>you</i> have given up religion!" she broke forth, despairingly.</p>
-
-<p>"Have I? I don't think so. Tell me what you mean by religion?"</p>
-
-<p>"I mean what we have been brought up to believe."</p>
-
-<p>"By the churches?"</p>
-
-<p>"By the Church&mdash;the English Church&mdash;which I have always held to be the
-true Church."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear child, every Church holds itself to be the true Church, and
-all the others to be false ones. Why should yours be right any more
-than other people's?"</p>
-
-<p>"My mother taught us so," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. Your mother made it true, as she would have made any other true,
-by the religious spirit that she brought into it. They are <i>all</i>
-true&mdash;not only those we know of, but Buddhism and Mohammedanism, and
-even the queer faiths and superstitions of barbarian races, for they
-all have the same origin and object; and at the same time they are all
-so adulterated with human errors and vices, according to the sort of
-people who have had the charge of them, that you can't say any one of
-them is pure. No more pure than we are, and no less. For you to say
-that the rest are mistaken is just the pot calling the kettle black,
-Elizabeth. You may be a few degrees nearer the truth than those are who
-are less educated and civilised, but even that at present does not look
-so certain that you are justified in boasting about it&mdash;I mean your
-Church, you know, not you."</p>
-
-<p>"But we go by our Bible&mdash;we trust, not in ourselves, but in <i>that</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"So do the 'Dissenters,' as you call them."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I am speaking of all of us&mdash;all who are Christian people. What
-guide should we have if we let our Bible go?"</p>
-
-<p>"Why should you let it go? I have not let it go. If you read it
-intelligently it is truly a Holy Scripture&mdash;far more so than when you
-make a sort of charm and fetish of it. You should study its origin
-and history, and try to get at its meaning as you would at that of
-any other book. It has a very wonderful history, which in its turn is
-derived from other wonderful histories, which people will perversely
-shut their eyes to; and because of this undiscriminating ignorance,
-which is the blindness of those who won't see or who are afraid to see,
-it remains to this day the least understood of all ancient records.
-Some parts of it, you know, are a collection of myths and legends,
-which you will find in the same shape in older writings&mdash;the first dim
-forms of human thought about God and man and the mysteries of creation;
-and a great many good people read <i>these</i> as gospel truth, in spite
-of the evidence of all their senses to the contrary, and take them
-as being of the same value and importance as the beautiful books of
-the later time. And there are other Bibles in the world besides ours,
-whether we choose to acknowledge them or not."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth listened with terror. "And do you say it is <i>not</i> the light
-of the world after all?" she cried in a shaken voice.</p>
-
-<p>"There should be no preaching to the heathen, and spreading the good
-tidings over all lands?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, there should," he replied; "oh, yes, certainly there should.
-But it should be done as it was by Christ, to whom all were with Him
-who were not against Him, and with a feeling that we should share all
-we know, and help each other to find out the best way. Not by rudely
-wrenching from the heathen, as we call him, all his immemorial moral
-standards, which, if you study them closely, are often found, rough as
-they are, to be thoroughly effective and serviceable, and giving him
-nothing in their places except outworn myths, and senseless hymns, and
-a patter of Scripture phrases that he can't possibly make head or tail
-of. That, I often think, is beginning the work of salvation by turning
-him from a religious man into an irreligious one. Your Church creed,"
-he went on, "is just the garment of religion, and you wear finely-woven
-stuffs while the blacks wear blankets and 'possum-skins; they are all
-little systems that have their day and cease to be&mdash;that change and
-change as the fashion of the world changes. But the spirit of man&mdash;the
-indestructible intelligence that makes him apprehend the mystery of his
-existence and of the great Power that surrounds it&mdash;which in the early
-stages makes him cringe and fear, and later on to love and trust&mdash;that
-is the <i>body</i>. That is religion, as I take it. It is in the nature of
-man, and not to be given or taken away. Only the more freely we let
-that inner voice speak and guide us, the better we are, and the better
-we make the world and help things on. That's my creed, Elizabeth. You
-confuse things," he went on, after a pause, during which she kept an
-attentive silence, "when you confound religion and churchism together,
-as if they were identical. I have given up churchism, in your sense,
-because, though I have hunted the churches through and through, one
-after another, I have found in them no adequate equipment for the
-work of my life. The world has gone on, and they have not gone on.
-The world has discovered breechloaders, so to speak, and they go to
-the field with the old blunderbusses of centuries ago. Centuries!&mdash;of
-the prehistoric ages, it seems, now. My dear, I have lived over forty
-years&mdash;did you know I was so old as that?&mdash;seeking and striving to get
-hold of what I could in the way of a light and a guide to help me to
-make the best of my life and to do what little I might to better the
-world and brighten the hard lot of the poor and miserable. Is that
-giving up religion? I am not a churchman&mdash;I would be if I could, it
-is not my fault&mdash;but if I can't accept those tests, which revolt the
-reason and consciousness of a thinking man, am I therefore irreligious?
-<i>Am</i> I, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"You bewilder me," she said; "I have never made these distinctions. I
-have been taught in the Church&mdash;I have found comfort there and help. I
-am afraid to begin to question the things that I have been taught&mdash;I
-should get lost altogether, trying to find a new way."</p>
-
-<p>"Then don't begin," he said. "<i>I</i> will not meddle with your faith&mdash;God
-forbid! Keep it while you can, and get all possible help and comfort
-out of it."</p>
-
-<p>"But you have meddled with it already," she said, sighing. "The little
-that you have said has shaken it like an earthquake."</p>
-
-<p>"If it is worth anything," he responded, "it is not shaken so easily."</p>
-
-<p>"And <i>you</i> may be able to do good in your own strength," she went on,
-"but how could I?&mdash;a woman, so weak, so ignorant as I?"</p>
-
-<p>"Do you want a policeman to keep you straight? I have a better opinion
-of you. Oh, you will be all right, my darling; don't fear. If you only
-honestly believe what you <i>do</i> believe, and follow the truth as it
-reveals itself to you, no matter in what shape, and no matter where it
-leads you, you will be all right. Be only sincere with yourself, and
-don't pretend&mdash;don't, whatever you do, pretend to <i>anything</i>. Surely
-that is the best religion, whether it enables you to keep within church
-walls or drives you out into the wilderness. Doesn't it stand to
-reason? We can only do our best, Elizabeth, and leave it." He put his
-arm round her again, and drew her head down to his shoulder. They were
-driving through a lone, unpeopled land, and the leading buggy was but a
-speck on the horizon.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh!" she sighed, closing her eyes wearily, "if I only knew <i>what</i> was
-best!"</p>
-
-<p>"Well," he said, "I will not ask you to trust me since you don't seem
-equal to it. You must decide for yourself. But, Elizabeth, if you
-<i>knew</i> what a life it was that I had planned! We were to be married
-at once&mdash;within a few weeks&mdash;and I was to take you home to <i>my</i> home.
-Patty and Nelly were to follow us later on, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, who
-wants to come over to see my London work, which she thinks will help
-her to do something here when she returns. You and I were to go away
-alone&mdash;wouldn't you have liked that, my love?&mdash;to be always with me,
-and taken care of and kept from harm and trouble, as I kept you to-day
-and on that Exhibition morning. Yes, and we were to take up that
-fortune that has been accumulating so long, and take Yelverton, and
-make our home and head-quarters there; and we were to live a great deal
-in London, and go backwards and forwards and all about amongst those
-unhappy ones, brightening up their lives because our own were so bright
-and sweet. You were to help me, as only a woman like you&mdash;the woman
-I have been looking for all my life&mdash;could help; but I was not going
-to let you work too hard&mdash;you were to be cared for and made happy,
-first of all&mdash;before all the world. And I <i>could</i> make you happy&mdash;I
-could, I could&mdash;if you would let me try." He was carried away for the
-moment with the rush of his passionate desire for that life that he was
-contemplating, and held her and kissed her as if he would compel her to
-come to him. Then with a strong effort he controlled himself, and went
-on quietly, though in a rather unsteady voice: "Don't you think we can
-be together without harming each other? We shall both have the same
-aims&mdash;to live the best life and do the most good that we can&mdash;what will
-the details matter? We could not thwart each other really&mdash;it would be
-impossible. The same spirit would be in us; it is only the letter we
-should differ about."</p>
-
-<p>"If we were together," she said, "we should not differ about anything.
-Spirit or letter, I should grow to think as you did."</p>
-
-<p>"I believe you would, Elizabeth&mdash;I believe you would. And I should grow
-to think as you did. No doubt we should influence each other&mdash;it would
-not be all on one side. Can't you trust me, my dear? Can't we trust
-each other? You will have temptations, wherever you go, and with me,
-at least, you will always know where you are. If your faith is a true
-faith it will stand all that I shall do to it, and if your love for me
-is a true love&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>He paused, and she looked up at him with a look in her swimming eyes
-that settled that doubt promptly.</p>
-
-<p>"Then you will do it, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," she said, "you know you can <i>make</i> me do it, whether it is right
-or wrong!"</p>
-
-<p>It was a confession of her love, and of its power over her that
-appealed to every sentiment of duty and chivalry in him. "No," he said,
-very gravely and with a great effort, "I will not make you do anything
-wrong. You shall feel that it is not wrong before you do it."</p>
-
-<p>An hour later they had reached the shore again, and were in sight of
-the headland and the smoke from the kitchen chimney of Seaview Villa,
-and in sight of their companions dismounting at Mr. Brion's garden
-gate. They had not lost themselves, though they had taken so little
-heed of the way. The sun was setting as they climbed the cliff, and
-flamed gloriously in their faces and across the bay. Sea and sky were
-bathed in indescribable colour and beauty. Checking their tired horses
-to gaze upon the scene, on the eve of an indefinite separation, the
-lovers realised to the full the sweetness of being together and what it
-would be to part.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>SUSPENSE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mr. Brion stood at his gate when the little buggy drove up, beaming
-with contentment and hospitality. He respectfully begged that Mr.
-Yelverton would grant them the favour of his company a little
-longer&mdash;would take pot-luck and smoke an evening pipe before he
-returned to his hotel in the town, whither he, Mr. Brion, would be
-only too happy to drive him. Mr. Yelverton declared, and with perfect
-truth, that nothing would give him greater pleasure. Whereupon the
-hotel servant was dismissed in charge of the larger vehicle, and the
-horses of the other were put into the stable. The girls went in to wash
-and dress, and the housekeeper put forth her best efforts to raise the
-character of the dinner from the respectable to the genteel in honour
-of a guest who was presumably accustomed to genteel dining.</p>
-
-<p>The meal was served in the one sitting-room of the house, by the
-light of a single lamp on the round table and a flood of moonlight
-that poured in from the sea through the wide-open doors. After the
-feasts and fatigues of the day, no one had any appetite to speak of
-for the company dishes that Mrs. Harris hastily compounded, course by
-course, in the kitchen; but everyone felt that the meal was a pleasant
-one, notwithstanding. Mr. Yelverton, his host, and Patty, who was
-unusually sprightly, had the conversation to themselves. Patty talked
-incessantly. Nelly was amiable and charming, but decidedly sleepy;
-and Elizabeth, at her lover's side, was not, perhaps, unhappy, but
-visibly pale and noticeably silent. After dinner they went out upon
-the verandah, and sat there in a group on the comfortable old chairs
-and about the floor, and drank coffee, and chatted in subdued tones,
-and looked at the lovely water shining in the moonlight, and listened
-to it booming and splashing on the beach below. The two men, by virtue
-of their respective and yet common qualities, "took to" each other,
-and, by the time the girls had persuaded them to light the soothing
-cigarette, Mr. Brion was talking freely of his clever lad in Melbourne,
-and Mr. Yelverton of the mysterious disappearance of his uncle, as if
-it were quite a usual thing with them to confide their family affairs
-to strangers. Eleanor meanwhile swayed herself softly to and fro in
-a ragged rocking chair, half awake and half asleep; Elizabeth, still
-irresistibly attracted to the neighbourhood of her beloved, sat in the
-shadow of his large form, listening and pondering, with her eyes fixed
-on the veiled horizon, and all her senses on the alert; Patty squatted
-on the edge of the verandah, leaning against a post and looking up into
-the sky. She was the leading spirit of the group to-night. It was a
-long time since she had been so lively and entertaining.</p>
-
-<p>"I wonder," she conjectured, in a pause of the conversation, "whether
-the inhabitants of any of those other worlds are sitting out on their
-verandahs to-night, and looking at <i>us</i>. I suppose we are not so
-absolutely insignificant but that <i>some</i> of them, our own brother
-and sister planets, at any rate, can see us if they use their best
-telescopes&mdash;are we, Mr. Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>"We will hope not," said Mr. Yelverton.</p>
-
-<p>"To think that the moon&mdash;miserable impostor that she is!&mdash;should
-be able to put them out," continued Patty, still gazing at the
-palely-shining stars. "The other Sunday we heard a clergyman liken her
-to something or other which on its appearance quenched the ineffectual
-fires of the <i>lesser</i> luminaries&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"He said the sun," corrected Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, it's all the same. What's the sun? The stars he hides are
-better suns than he is&mdash;not to speak of their being no end to them. It
-shows how easily we allow ourselves to be taken in by mere superficial
-appearances."</p>
-
-<p>"The sun and moon quench the stars for <i>us</i>, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Pooh! That's a very petty parish-vestry sort of way to look at things.
-Just what you might expect in a little bit of a world like this. In
-Jupiter now"&mdash;she paused, and turned her bright eyes upon a deep-set
-pair that were watching her amusedly. "Mr. Yelverton, I hope you are
-not going to insist upon it that Jupiter is too hot to do anything but
-blaze and shine and keep life going on his little satellites&mdash;are you?"</p>
-
-<p>"O dear no!" he replied. "I wouldn't dream of such a thing."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well. We will assume, then, that Jupiter is a habitable world, as
-there is no reason why he shouldn't be that <i>I</i> can see&mdash;-just for the
-sake of enlarging Elizabeth's mind. And, having assumed that, the least
-we can suppose&mdash;seeing that a few billions of years are of no account
-in the chronology of the heavenly bodies&mdash;is that a world on such a
-superior scale was fully up to <i>our</i> little standard before we began.
-I mean our present standard. Don't you think we may reasonably suppose
-that, Mr. Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>"In the absence of information to the contrary, I think we may," he
-said. "Though I would ask to be allowed to reserve my own opinion."</p>
-
-<p>"Certainly. I don't ask for anybody's opinion. I am merely throwing
-out suggestions. I want to extend Elizabeth's vision in these matters
-beyond the range of the sun and moon. So I say that Jupiter&mdash;and if not
-Jupiter, one of the countless millions of cooler planets, perhaps ever
-so much bigger than he is, which lie out in the other sun-systems&mdash;was
-well on with his railways and telegraphs when we began to get a crust,
-and to condense vapours. You will allow me to say as much as that, for
-the sake of argument?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think you argue beautifully," said Mr. Yelverton.</p>
-
-<p>"Very well then. Millions of years ago, if you had lived in Jupiter,
-you could have travelled in luxury as long as your life lasted, and
-seen countries whose numbers and resources never came to an end. Think
-of the railway system, and the shipping interest, of a world of that
-size!"</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Don't</i>, Patty," interposed Elizabeth. "Think what a little, little
-life it would have been, by comparison! If we can't make it do us now,
-what would its insufficiency be under such conditions?"</p>
-
-<p>Patty waved her hand to indicate the irrelevancy of the suggestion.
-"In a planet where, we are told, there are no vicissitudes of climate,
-people can't catch colds, Elizabeth; and colds, all the doctors say,
-are the primary cause of illness, and it is because they get ill that
-people die. That is a detail. Don't interrupt me. So you see, Mr.
-Yelverton, assuming that they knew all that we know, and did all that
-we do, before the fire and the water made our rocks and seas, and the
-chalk beds grew, and the slimy things crawled, and primitive man began
-to chip stones into wedges to kill the saurians with&mdash;just imagine for
-a moment the state of civilisation that must exist in Jupiter, <i>now</i>.
-Not necessarily our own Jupiter&mdash;any of the older and more improved
-Jupiters that must be spinning about in space."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't," said Mr. Yelverton. "My imagination is not equal to such a
-task."</p>
-
-<p>"I want Elizabeth to think of it," said Patty. "She is a little
-inclined to be provincial, as you see, and I want to elevate her ideas."</p>
-
-<p>"Thank you, dear," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"It is a pity," Patty went on, "that we can't have a Federal
-Convention. That's what we want. If only the inhabited planets
-could send representatives to meet and confer together somewhere
-occasionally, then we should all have broad views&mdash;then we might find
-out at once how to set everything right, without any more trouble."</p>
-
-<p>"Space would have to be annihilated indeed, Miss Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I know&mdash;I know. Of course I know it can't be done&mdash;at any
-rate, not <i>yet</i>&mdash;not in the present embryonic stage of things. If a
-meteor takes a million years to travel from star to star, going at
-the rate of thousands of miles per second&mdash;and keeps on paying visits
-indefinitely&mdash;Ah, what was that?"</p>
-
-<p>She sprang from her low seat suddenly, all her celestial fancies
-scattered to the mundane winds, at the sound of a wakeful magpie
-beginning to pipe plaintively on the house roof. She thought she
-recognised one of the dear voices of the past. "<i>Can</i> it be Peter?" she
-cried, breathlessly. "Oh, Elizabeth, I do believe it is Peter! Do come
-out and let us call him down!"</p>
-
-<p>They hurried, hand in hand, down to the shelving terrace that divided
-the verandah from the edge of the cliff, and there called and cooed and
-coaxed in their most seductive tones. The magpie looked at them for a
-moment, with his head cocked on one side, and then flew away.</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Patty, with a groan, "it is <i>not</i> Peter! They are all gone,
-every one of them. I have no doubt the Hawkins boys shot them&mdash;little
-bloodthirsty wretches! Come down to the beach, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>They descended the steep and perilous footpath zig-zagging down the
-face of the cliff, with the confidence of young goats, and reaching the
-little bathing-house, sat down on the threshold. The tide was high, and
-the surf seething within a few inches of the bottom step of the short
-ladder up and down which they had glided bare-footed daily for so many
-years. The fine spray damped their faces; the salt sea-breezes fanned
-them deliciously. Patty put her arms impulsively round her sister's
-neck.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, Elizabeth," she said, "I am so glad for you&mdash;I <i>am</i> so glad! It
-has crossed my mind several times, but I was never sure of it till
-to-day, and I wouldn't say anything until I was sure, or until you told
-me yourself."</p>
-
-<p>"My darling," said Elizabeth, responding to the caress, "don't be sure
-yet. <i>I</i> am not sure."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>You</i> are not!" exclaimed Patty, with derisive energy. "Don't try to
-make me believe you are a born idiot, now, because I know you too well.
-Why, a baby in arms could see it!"</p>
-
-<p>"I see it, dear, of course; both of us see it. We understand each
-other. But&mdash;but I don't know yet whether I shall accept him, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't you?" responded Patty. She had taken her arms from her sister's
-neck, and was clasping her knees with them in a most unsympathetic
-attitude. "Do you happen to know whether you love him, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," whispered Elizabeth, blushing in the darkness; "I know that."</p>
-
-<p>"And whether he loves you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"Of course you do. You can't help knowing it. Nobody could. And if,"
-proceeded Patty sternly, fixing the fatuous countenance of the man in
-the moon with a baleful eye, "if, under those circumstances, you don't
-accept him, you deserve to be a miserable, lonely woman for all the
-rest of your wretched life. That's my opinion if you ask me for it."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked at the sea in tranquil contemplation for a few
-seconds. Then she told Patty the story of her perplexity from the
-beginning to the end.</p>
-
-<p>"Now <i>what</i> would you do?" she finally asked of her sister, who had
-listened with the utmost interest and intelligent sympathy. "If it were
-your own case, my darling, and you wanted to do what was right, <i>how</i>
-would you decide?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, Elizabeth," said Patty; "I'll tell you the truth. I should not
-stop to think whether it was right or wrong."</p>
-
-<p>"Patty!"</p>
-
-<p>"No. A year ago I would not have said so&mdash;a year ago I might have been
-able to give you the very best advice. But now&mdash;but now"&mdash;the girl
-stretched out her hands with the pathetic gesture that Elizabeth had
-seen and been struck with once before&mdash;"now, if it were my own case, I
-should take the man I loved, no matter <i>what</i> he was, if he would take
-me."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth heaved a long sigh from the bottom of her troubled heart. She
-felt that Patty, to whom she had looked for help, had made her burden
-of responsibility heavier instead of lighter. "Let us go up to the
-house again," she said wearily. "There is no need to decide to-night."</p>
-
-<p>When they reached the house, they found Eleanor gone to bed, and the
-gentlemen sitting on the verandah together, still talking of Mr.
-Yelverton's family history, in which the lawyer was professionally
-interested. The horses were in the little buggy, which stood at the
-gate.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, here they are!" said Mr. Brion. "Mr. Yelverton is waiting to say
-good-night, my dears. He has to settle at the hotel, and go on board
-to-night."</p>
-
-<p>Patty bade her potential brother-in-law an affectionate farewell, and
-then vanished into her bedroom. The old man bustled off at her heels,
-under pretence of speaking to the lad-of-all-work who held the horses;
-and Elizabeth and her lover were left for a brief interval alone.</p>
-
-<p>"You will not keep me in suspense longer than you can help, will you?"
-Mr. Yelverton said, holding her hands. "Won't a week be long enough?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she said; "I will decide it in a week."</p>
-
-<p>"And may I come back to you here, to learn my fate? Or will you come to
-Melbourne to me?"</p>
-
-<p>"Had I not better write?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. Certainly not."</p>
-
-<p>"Then I will come to you," she said.</p>
-
-<p>He drew her to him and kissed her forehead gravely. "Good-night, my
-love," he said. "You will be my love, whatever happens."</p>
-
-<p>And so he departed to the township, accompanied by his hospitable host,
-and she went miserable to bed. And at the first pale streak of dawn
-the little steamer sounded her whistle and puffed away from the little
-jetty, carrying him back to the world, and she stood on the cliff, a
-mile away from Seaview Villa, to watch the last whiff of smoke from its
-funnels fade like a breath upon the horizon.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>HOW ELIZABETH MADE UP HER MIND.</h4>
-
-
-<p>If we could trace back the wonderful things that happen to us "by
-accident," or, as some pious souls believe, by the operation of a
-special Providence or in answer to prayer, to their remote origin,
-how far should we not have to go? Into the mists of antiquity, and
-beyond&mdash;even to the primal source whence the world was derived, and
-the consideration of the accident of its separation from its parent
-globe; nay, of the accident which separated our sun itself from the
-countless dust of other suns that strew the illimitable ether&mdash;still
-leaving the root of the matter in undiscoverable mystery. The chain of
-causes has no beginning for us, as the sequence of effects has no end.
-These considerations occurred to me just now, when I sat down, cheerful
-and confident, to relate how it came to pass (and what multitudinous
-trifles could have prevented it from coming to pass) that an
-extraordinary accident happened to the three Miss Kings in the course
-of the week following Mr. Yelverton's departure. Thinking it over, I
-find that I cannot relate it. It would make this chapter like the first
-half-dozen in the book of Chronicles, only much worse. If Mr. King
-had not inherited a bad temper from his great-great-grandfathers&mdash;I
-could get as far as that. But the task is beyond me. I give it up,
-and content myself with a narration of the little event (in the
-immeasurable chain of events) which, at this date of which I am
-writing&mdash;in the ephemeral summer time of these three brief little
-lives&mdash;loomed so large, and had such striking consequences.</p>
-
-<p>It happened&mdash;or, as far as my story is concerned, it began to
-happen&mdash;while the steamer that carried away Mr. Yelverton was still
-ploughing the ocean waves, with that interesting passenger on board.
-Seaview Villa lay upon the headland, serene and peaceful in the
-sunshine of as perfect a morning as visitors to the seaside could
-wish to see, all its door-windows open to the south wind, and the
-sibilant music of the little wavelets at its feet. The occupants of
-the house had risen from their beds, and were pursuing the trivial
-round and common task of another day, with placid enjoyment of its
-atmospheric charms, and with no presentiment of what was to befall
-them. The girls went down to their bath-house before breakfast, and
-spent half an hour in the sunny water, diving, and floating, and
-playing all the pranks of childhood over again; and then they attacked
-a dish of fried flathead with appetites that a schoolboy might have
-envied. After breakfast the lawyer had to go to his office, and his
-guests accompanied him part of the way. On their return, Sam Dunn
-came to see them, with the information that his best boat, which bore
-the inappropriate title of "The Rose in June," was moored on the
-beach below, and an invitation to his young ladies to come out for
-a sail in her while the sea was so calm and the wind so fair. This
-invitation Elizabeth declined for herself; she was still wondering in
-which direction the right path lay&mdash;whether towards the fruition of
-her desires or the renunciation of all that now made life beautiful
-and valuable to her&mdash;and finding no solution to the problem either in
-meditation or prayer; and she had little inclination to waste any of
-the short time that remained to her for making up her mind. But to
-Patty and Eleanor it was irresistible. They scampered off to their
-bedrooms to put on their oldest frocks, hats, and boots, rushed into
-the kitchen to Mrs. Harris to beg for a bundle of sandwiches, and set
-forth on their expedition in the highest spirits&mdash;as if they had never
-been away from Sam Dunn and the sea, to learn life, and love, and
-trouble, and etiquette amongst city folks.</p>
-
-<p>When they were gone, the house was very still for several hours.
-Elizabeth sat on the verandah, sewing and thinking, and watching the
-white sail of "The Rose in June" through a telescope; then she had her
-lunch brought to her on a white-napkined tray; after eating which in
-solitude she went back to her sewing, and thinking, and watching again.
-So four o'clock&mdash;the fateful hour&mdash;drew on. At a little before four,
-Mr. Brion came home, hot and dusty from his long walk, had a bath and
-changed his clothes, and sat down to enjoy himself in his arm-chair.
-Mrs. Harris brought in the afternoon tea things, with some newly-baked
-cakes; Elizabeth put down her work and seated herself at the table to
-brew the refreshing cup. Then home came Patty and Eleanor, happy and
-hungry, tanned and draggled, and in the gayest temper, having been
-sailing Sam's boat for him all the day and generally roughing it with
-great ardour. They were just in time for the tea and cakes, and sat
-down as they were, with hats tilted back on their wind-roughened heads,
-to regale themselves therewith.</p>
-
-<p>When Patty was in the middle of her third cake, she suddenly remembered
-something. She plunged her hand into her pocket, and drew forth a
-small object. It was as if one touched the button of that wonderful
-electric apparatus whereby the great ships that are launched by
-princesses are sent gliding out of dock into the sea. "Look," she said,
-opening her hand carefully, "what he has given me. It is a Queensland
-opal. A mate of his, he says, gave it to him, but I have a terrible
-suspicion that the dear fellow bought it. Mates don't give such things
-for nothing. Is it not a beauty?"&mdash;and she held between her thumb and
-finger a silky-looking flattened stone, on which, when it caught the
-light, a strong blue sheen was visible. "I shall have it cut and made
-into something when we go back to town, and I shall keep it <i>for ever</i>,
-in memory of Sam Dunn," said Patty with enthusiasm.</p>
-
-<p>And then, when they had all examined and appraised it thoroughly, she
-carried it to the mantelpiece, intending to place it there in safety
-until she went to her own room. But she had no sooner laid it down,
-pushing it gently up to the wall, than there was a little click and a
-faint rattle, and it was gone.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," she exclaimed, "what <i>shall</i> I do? It has fallen behind the
-mantelpiece! I <i>quite</i> forgot that old hole&mdash;and it is there still.
-Surely," she continued angrily, stamping her foot, "when Mr. Hawkins
-took the trouble to do all this"&mdash;and she indicated the surface of the
-woodwork, which had been painted in a wild and ghastly imitation of
-marble&mdash;"he might have taken a little more, and fixed the thing close
-up to the wall?"</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion examined the mantelpiece, pushed it, shook it, peered
-behind it with one eye, and said that he had himself lost a valuable
-paper-knife in the same distressing manner, and had long intended to
-have the aperture closed up. "And I will get a carpenter to-morrow
-morning, my dear," he boldly declared, "and he shall take the whole
-thing to pieces and fix it again properly. Yes, I will&mdash;as well now as
-any other time&mdash;and we will find your opal."</p>
-
-<p>Having pledged himself to which tremendous purpose, he and they
-finished their tea, and afterwards had their dinner, and afterwards sat
-on the verandah and gossiped, and afterwards went to bed&mdash;and in due
-time got up again&mdash;as if nothing out of the common way had happened!</p>
-
-<p>In the morning Fate sent another of her humble emissaries from the
-township to Seaview Villa, with a bag of tools over his shoulder&mdash;tools
-that were keys to unlock one of her long-kept secrets. And half an
-hour after his arrival they found the opal, and several things
-besides. When, after Mrs. Harris had carefully removed the furniture
-and hearthrug, and spread cornsacks over the carpet, the carpenter
-wrenched the mantelpiece from its fastenings, such a treasure-trove
-was discovered in the rough hollows of the wall and floor as none of
-them had dreamed of. It did not look much at the first glance. There
-were the opal and the paper-knife, half a dozen letters (circulars and
-household bills of Mrs. King's), several pens and pencils, a pair of
-scissors, a silver fruit-knife, a teaspoon, a variety of miscellaneous
-trifles, such as bodkins and corks, and a vast quantity of dust. That
-seemed all. But, kneeling reverently to grope amongst these humble
-relics of the past, Elizabeth found, quite at the bottom of everything,
-a little card. It was an old, old card, dingy and fretted with age,
-and dried and curled up like a dead leaf, and it had a little picture
-on it that had almost faded away. She carefully wiped the dust from it
-with her handkerchief, and looked at it as she knelt; it was a crude
-and youthful water-colour drawing of an extensive Elizabethan house,
-with a great many gables and fluted chimney-stacks, and much exuberance
-of architectural fancy generally. It had been minutely outlined by
-a hand trained to good draughtsmanship, and then coloured much as a
-child would colour a newspaper print from a sixpenny paint-box, and
-less effectively, because there was no light and shade to go upon.
-It was flat and pale, like a builder's plan, only that it had some
-washy grass and trees about it, and a couple of dogs running a race
-in the foreground, which showed its more ambitious pretensions; and
-the whole thing had evidently been composed with the greatest care.
-Elizabeth, studying it attentively, and thinking that she recognised
-her father's hand in certain details, turned the little picture over
-in search of the artist's signature. And there, in a corner, written
-very fine and small, but with elaborate distinctness, she read these
-words:&mdash;"<i>Elizabeth Leigh, from Kingscote Yelverton, Yelverton, June</i>,
-1847."</p>
-
-<p>She stared at the legend&mdash;in which she recognised a peculiar capital
-K of his own invention that her father always used&mdash;with the utmost
-surprise, and with no idea of its tremendous significance. "Why&mdash;why!"
-she gasped, holding it up, "it belongs to <i>him</i>&mdash;it has Mr. Yelverton's
-name upon it! How in the world did it come here? What does it mean?
-Did he drop it here the other day? But, no, that is impossible&mdash;it was
-quite at the bottom&mdash;it must have been lying here for ages. Mr. Brion,
-<i>what</i> does it mean?"</p>
-
-<p>The old man was already stooping over her, trying to take it from her
-hand. "Give it to me, my dear, give it to me," he cried eagerly. "Don't
-tear it&mdash;oh, for God's sake, be careful!&mdash;let me see what it is first."
-He took it from her, read the inscription over and over and over again,
-and then drew a chair to the table and sat down with the card before
-him, his face pale, and his hands shaking. The sisters gathered round
-him, bewildered; Elizabeth still possessed with her first impression
-that the little picture was her lover's property, Eleanor scarcely
-aware of what was going on, and Patty&mdash;always the quickest to reach
-the truth&mdash;already beginning dimly to discern the secret of their
-discovery. The carpenter and the housekeeper stood by, open-mouthed and
-open-eyed; and to them the lawyer tremulously addressed himself.</p>
-
-<p>"You had better go for a little while," he said; "we will put the
-mantelpiece up presently. Yet, stay&mdash;we have found a very important
-document, as I believe, and you are witnesses that we have done so. You
-had better examine it carefully before you go, that you may know it
-when you see it again." Whereupon he solemnly proceeded to print the
-said document upon their memories, and insisted that they should each
-take a copy of the words that made its chief importance, embodying it
-in a sort of affidavit, to which they signed their names. Then he sent
-them out of the room, and confronted the three sisters, in a state of
-great excitement. "I must see Paul," he said hurriedly. "I must have my
-son to help me. We must ransack that old bureau of yours&mdash;there must be
-more in it than we found that time when we looked for the will. Tell
-me, my dears, did your father let you have the run of the bureau, when
-he was alive?"</p>
-
-<p>No, they told him; Mr. King had been extremely particular in allowing
-no one to go to it but himself.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah," said the old man, "we must hunt it from top to bottom&mdash;we must
-break it into pieces, if necessary. I will telegraph to Paul. We must
-go to town at once, my dears, and investigate this matter&mdash;before Mr.
-Yelverton leaves the country."</p>
-
-<p>"He will not leave the country yet," said Elizabeth. "What is it, Mr.
-Brion?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think I see what it is," broke in Patty. "Mr. Brion thinks
-that father was Mr. Yelverton's uncle, who was lost so long ago.
-King&mdash;King&mdash;Mr. Yelverton told us the other day that they called <i>him</i>
-'King,' for short&mdash;and he was named Kingscote Yelverton, like his
-uncle. Mother's name was Elizabeth. I believe Mr. Brion is right And,
-if so&mdash;"</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>"And, if so," Patty repeated, when that wonderful, bewildering day
-was over, and she and her elder sister were packing for their return
-to Melbourne in the small hours of the next morning&mdash;"if so, we are
-the heiresses of all those hundreds of thousands that are supposed
-to belong to our cousin Kingscote. Now, Elizabeth, do you feel like
-depriving him of everything, and stopping his work, and leaving his
-poor starved costermongers to revert to their original condition&mdash;or do
-you not?"</p>
-
-<p>"I would not take it," said Elizabeth, passionately.</p>
-
-<p>"Pooh!&mdash;as if we should be allowed to choose! People can't do as they
-like where fortunes and lawyers are concerned. For Nelly's sake&mdash;not to
-speak of mine&mdash;they will insist on our claim, if we have one; and then
-do you suppose <i>he</i> would keep your money? Of course not&mdash;it's a most
-insulting idea. Therefore the case lies in a nutshell. You will have to
-make up your mind quickly, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"I have made up my mind," said Elizabeth, "if it is a question of which
-of us is most worthy to have wealth, and knows best how to use it."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>INVESTIGATION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>They did not wait for the next steamer, but hurried back to Melbourne
-by train and coach, and reached Myrtle Street once more at a little
-before midnight, the girls dazed with sleep and weariness and the
-strain of so much excitement as they had passed through. They had sent
-no message to Mrs. Duff-Scott at present, preferring to make their
-investigations, in the first place, as privately as possible; and Mr.
-Brion had merely telegraphed to his son that they were returning with
-him on important business. Paul was at the house when they arrived,
-but Mrs. M'Intyre had made hospitable preparations at No. 6 as well
-as at No. 7; and the tired sisters found their rooms aired and their
-beds arranged, a little fire lit, gas burning, kettle boiling, and
-a tempting supper laid out for them when they dragged their weary
-limbs upstairs. Mrs. M'Intyre herself was there to give them welcome,
-and Dan, who had been reluctantly left behind when they went into the
-country, was wild with rapture, almost tearing them to pieces in the
-vehemence of his delight at seeing them again, long past the age of
-gambols as he was. Mr. Brion was consoled for the upsetting of his
-own arrangements, which had been to take his charges to an hotel for
-the night, and there luxuriously entertain them; and he bade them
-an affectionate good-night, and went off contentedly to No. 7 under
-the wing of Paul's landlady, to doze in Paul's arm-chair until that
-brilliant ornament of the press should be released from duty.</p>
-
-<p>Cheered by their little fire&mdash;for, summer though it was, their fatigues
-had made them chilly&mdash;and by Mrs. M'Intyre's ham and chicken and hot
-coffee, the girls sat, talking and resting, for a full hour before they
-went to bed; still dwelling on the strange discovery of the little
-picture behind the mantelpiece, which Mr. Brion had taken possession
-of, and wondering if it would really prove them to be the three Miss
-Yelvertons instead of the three Miss Kings, and co-heiresses of one of
-the largest properties in England.</p>
-
-<p>As they passed the old bureau on their way to their rooms, Elizabeth
-paused and laid her hand on it thoughtfully. "It hardly seems to me
-possible," she said, "that father should have kept such a secret
-all these years, and died without telling us of it. He must have
-seen the advertisements&mdash;he must have known what difficulties he was
-making for everybody. Perhaps he did not write those names on the
-picture&mdash;handwriting is not much to go by, especially when it is so
-old as that; you may see whole schools of boys or girls writing in one
-style. Perhaps father was at school with Mr. Yelverton's uncle. Perhaps
-mother knew Elizabeth Leigh. Perhaps she gave her the sketch&mdash;or
-she might have come by it accidentally. One day she must have found
-it&mdash;slipped in one of her old music-books, maybe&mdash;and taken it out to
-show father; and she put it up on the mantelpiece, and it slipped down
-behind, like Patty's opal. If it had been of so much consequence as it
-seems to us&mdash;if they had desired to leave no trace of their connection
-with the Yelverton family&mdash;surely they would have pulled the house down
-but what they would have recovered it. And then we have hunted the
-bureau over&mdash;we have turned it out again and again&mdash;and never found
-anything."</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Brion thinks there are secret drawers," said Eleanor, who, of all
-the three, was most anxious that their golden expectations should be
-realised. "It is just the kind of cabinet work, he says, that is always
-full of hidden nooks and corners, and he is blaming himself that he did
-not search it more thoroughly in the first instance."</p>
-
-<p>"And he thinks," continued Patty, "that father seemed like a man with
-things on his mind, and believes he <i>would</i> have told us had he had
-more warning of his death. But you know he was seized so suddenly, and
-could not speak afterwards."</p>
-
-<p>"Poor father&mdash;poor father!" sighed Elizabeth, pitifully. They thought
-of his sad life, in the light of this possible theory, with more tender
-compassion than they had ever felt for him before; but the idea that
-he might have murdered his brother, accidentally or otherwise&mdash;and for
-that reason had effaced himself and done bitter penance for the rest of
-his days&mdash;never for a moment occurred to them. "Well, we shall know by
-to-morrow night," said the elder sister, gently. "If the bureau does
-not yield fresh evidence, there is none that we can allow Mr. Brion, or
-anyone else, to act upon. The more I think it over, the more I see how
-easily the whole thing could be explained&mdash;to mean nothing so important
-as Mr. Brion thinks. And, for myself, I should not be disappointed if
-we found ourselves only Miss Kings, without fortune or pedigree, as we
-have always been. We are very happy as we are."</p>
-
-<p>"That is how I felt at first," said Patty. "But I must say I am growing
-more and more in love with the idea of being rich. The delightful
-things that you can do with plenty of money keep flashing into my mind,
-one after the other, till I feel that I never understood what being
-poor meant till now, and that I could not content myself with a hundred
-a year and Mrs. Duff-Scott's benefactions any more. No; the wish may be
-father to the thought, Elizabeth, but I <i>do</i> think it, honestly, that
-we shall turn out to be Mr. Yelverton's cousins&mdash;destined to supersede
-him, to a certain extent."</p>
-
-<p>"I think so, too," said Eleanor, anxiously. "I can't&mdash;I
-<i>won't</i>&mdash;believe that Mr. Brion is mistaken."</p>
-
-<p>So they went, severally affected by their strange circumstances, to
-bed. And in the morning they were up early, and made great haste to get
-their breakfast over, and their sitting-room in order, in readiness for
-the lawyer's visit. They were very much agitated by their suspense and
-anxiety, especially Patty, to whom the impending interview with Paul
-had become of more pressing consequence, temporarily, than even the
-investigations that he was to assist. She had had no communication
-with him whatever since she cut him on the racecourse when he was
-innocently disporting himself with Mrs. Aarons; and her nerves were
-shaken by the prospect of seeing and speaking to him again, and by
-the vehemence of her conflicting hopes and fears. She grew cold and
-hot at the recollection of one or two accidental encounters that had
-taken place <i>since</i> Cup Day, and at the picture of his contemptuous,
-unrecognising face that rose up vividly before her. Elizabeth noticed
-her unusual pallor and restless movements, and how she hovered about
-the window, straining her ears to catch a chance sound of the men's
-voices next door, and made an effort to divert her thoughts. "Come and
-help me, Patty," she said, putting her hand on her sister's shoulder.
-"We have nothing more to do now, so we may as well turn out some of the
-drawers before they come. We can look over dear mother's clothes, and
-see if they have any marks on them that we have overlooked. Mr. Brion
-will want to have everything examined."</p>
-
-<p>So they began to work at the bureau with solemn diligence, and a fresh
-set of emotions were evolved by that occupation, which counteracted,
-without effacing, those others that were in Patty's mind. She became
-absorbed and attentive. They took out all Mrs. King's gowns, and her
-linen, and her little everyday personal belongings, searched them
-carefully for indications of ownership, and, finding none, laid them
-aside in the adjoining bedroom. Then they exhumed all those relics of
-an olden time which had a new significance at the present juncture&mdash;the
-fine laces, the faded brocades, the Indian shawl and Indian muslins,
-the quaint fans and little bits of jewellery&mdash;and arranged them
-carefully on the table for the lawyer's inspection.</p>
-
-<p>"We know <i>now</i>," said Patty, "though we didn't know a few mouths ago,
-that these are things that could only belong to a lady who had been
-rich once."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said Elizabeth. "But there is another point to be considered.
-Elizabeth Leigh ran away with her husband secretly and in haste, and
-under circumstances that make it seem <i>most</i> unlikely that she should
-have hampered herself and him with luggage, or bestowed a thought on
-such trifles as fans and finery."</p>
-
-<p>The younger sisters were a little daunted for a moment by this view of
-the case. Then Eleanor spoke up. "How you do love to throw cold water
-on everything!" she complained, pettishly. "Why shouldn't she think
-of her pretty things? I'm sure if I were going to run away&mdash;no matter
-under what circumstances&mdash;I should take all <i>mine</i>, if I had half
-an hour to pack them up. So would you. At least, I don't know about
-you&mdash;but Patty would. Wouldn't you, Patty?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well," said Patty, thoughtfully, sitting back on her heels and folding
-her hands in her lap, "I really think I should, Elizabeth. If you come
-to think of it, it is the heroines of novels who do those things. They
-throw away lovers, and husbands, and fortunes, and everything else, on
-the slightest provocation; it is a matter of course&mdash;it is the correct
-thing in novels. But in real life girls are fond of all nice things&mdash;at
-least, that is my experience&mdash;and they don't feel like throwing them
-away. Girls in novels would never let Mrs. Duff-Scott give them gowns
-and bonnets, for instance&mdash;they would be too proud; and they would
-burn a bureau any day rather than rummage in it for a title to money
-that a nice man, whom they cared for, was in possession of. Don't tell
-me. You are thinking of the heroines of fiction, Elizabeth, and not of
-Elizabeth Leigh. <i>She</i>, I agree with Nelly&mdash;however much she might have
-been troubled and bothered&mdash;did not leave her little treasures for the
-servants to pawn. Either she took them with her, or someone able to
-keep her destination a secret sent them after her."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, well," said Elizabeth, who had got out her mother's jewellery
-and was gazing fondly at the miniature in the pearl-edged locket, "we
-shall soon know. Get out the books and music, dear."</p>
-
-<p>They were turning over a vast pile of music, which required at least
-half a day to examine properly, when the servant of the house tapped
-at the door to ask, with Mr. Brion's compliments, when it would be
-convenient to Miss King to receive that gentleman. In a few minutes
-father and son were in the room, the former distributing hasty and
-paternal greetings all around, and the latter quietly shaking hands
-with an air of almost aggressive deliberation. Paul was quite polite,
-and to a certain extent friendly, but he was terribly, uncompromisingly
-business-like. Not a moment did he waste in mere social amenities,
-after shaking hands with Patty&mdash;which he did as if he were a wooden
-automaton, and without looking at her&mdash;but plunged at once into the
-matter of the discovered picture, as if time were money and nothing
-else of any consequence. Patty's heart sank, but her spirit rose;
-she determined not to "let herself down" or in any way to "make an
-exhibition of herself," if she could help it. She drew a little aside
-from the bureau, and went on turning over the music&mdash;which presently
-she was able to report valueless as evidence, except negative evidence,
-the name, wherever it had been written at the head of a sheet, having
-been cut out or erased; while Elizabeth took the remaining articles
-from their drawers and pigeon-holes, and piled them on the table and in
-Nelly's arms.</p>
-
-<p>For some time they were all intent upon their search, and very silent;
-and it still seemed that they were to find nothing in the shape of that
-positive proof which Elizabeth, as the head of the family, demanded
-before she would give permission for any action to be taken. There were
-no names in the old volumes of music, and the fly-leaves had been torn
-from the older books. Some pieces of ancient silver plate&mdash;a pair of
-candlesticks, a pair of salt-cellars, a teapot and sugar basin (now
-in daily use), a child's mug, some Queen Anne spoons and ladles&mdash;were
-all unmarked by crest or monogram; and two ivory-painted miniatures
-and three daguerreotypes, representing respectively one old lady in
-high-crowned cap and modest kerchief, one young one with puffs all
-over her head, and a classic absence of bodice to her gown, one little
-fair-haired child, similarly scanty in attire, and one middle-aged
-gentleman with a large shirt frill and a prodigious quantity of
-neck-cloth&mdash;likewise failed to verify themselves by date or inscription
-when carefully prised out of their frames and leather cases with Paul
-Brion's pen-knife. These family portraits, understood by the girls to
-belong to the maternal side of the house, were laid aside, however,
-along with the pearl-rimmed locket and other jewels, and the picture
-that was found behind the mantelpiece; and then, nothing else being
-left, apparently, the two men began an inspection of the papers.</p>
-
-<p>While this was going on, Patty, at a sign from Elizabeth, set up
-the leaves of a little tea-table by the window, spread it with a
-white cloth, and fetched in such a luncheon as the slender larder
-afforded&mdash;the remains of Mrs. M'Intyre's chicken and ham, some bread
-and butter, a plate of biscuits, and a decanter of sherry&mdash;for it was
-past one o'clock, and Mr. Brion and Paul had evidently no intention
-of going away until their investigations were complete. The room was
-quite silent. Her soft steps and the brush of her gown as she passed
-to and fro were distinctly audible to her lover, who would not so much
-as glance at her, but remained sternly intent upon the manuscripts
-before him. These were found to be very interesting, but to have no
-more bearing upon the matter in hand than the rest of the relics that
-had been overhauled; for the most part, they were studies in various
-arts and sciences prepared by Mr. and Mrs. King for their daughters
-during the process of their education, and such odds and ends of
-literature as would be found in a clever woman's common-place books.
-They had all been gone over at the time of Mr. King's death, in a vain
-hunt for testamentary documents; and Elizabeth, looking into the now
-bare shelves and apertures of the bureau, began to think how she could
-console her sisters for the disappointment of their hopes.</p>
-
-<p>"Come and have some lunch," she said to Paul (Mr. Brion was already at
-the table, deprecating the trouble that his dear Patty was taking). "I
-don't think you will find anything more."</p>
-
-<p>The young man stood up with his brows knitted over his keen eyes,
-and glanced askance at the group by the window. "We have not done
-yet," he said decisively; "and we have learned quite enough, in what
-we <i>haven't</i> found, to justify us in consulting Mr. Yelverton's
-solicitors."</p>
-
-<p>"No," she said, "I'll have nothing said to Mr. Yelverton, unless the
-whole thing is proved first."</p>
-
-<p>Never thinking that the thing would be proved, first or last, she
-advanced to the extemporised lunch table, and dispensed the modest
-hospitalities of the establishment with her wonted simple grace. Mr.
-Brion was accommodated with an arm-chair and a music-book to lay
-across his knees, whereon Patty placed the tit-bits of the chicken
-and the knobby top-crust of the loaf, waiting upon him with that
-tender solicitude to which he had grown accustomed, but which was so
-astonishing, and so interesting also, to his son.</p>
-
-<p>"She has spoiled me altogether," said the old man fondly, laying his
-hand on her bright head as she knelt before him to help him to mustard
-and salt. "I don't know how I shall ever manage to get along without
-her now."</p>
-
-<p>"Has this sad fate overtaken you in one short week?" inquired Paul,
-rather grimly. "Your sister should be labelled like an explosive
-compound, Miss King&mdash;'dangerous,' in capital letters." Paul was sitting
-in a low chair by Elizabeth, with his plate on his knee, and he thawed
-a good deal, in spite of fierce intentions to the contrary, under the
-influence of food and wine and the general conversation. He looked at
-Patty now and then, and by-and-bye went so far as to address a remark
-to her. "What did she think of the caves?" he asked, indifferently,
-offering her at the same moment a glass of sherry, which, though
-unaccustomed to fermented liquors, she had not the presence of mind
-to refuse&mdash;and which she took with such a shaking hand that she
-spilled some of it over her apron. And she plunged at once into rapid
-and enthusiastic descriptions of the caves and the delights of their
-expedition thereto, absurdly uplifted by this slight token of interest
-in her proceedings.</p>
-
-<p>When luncheon was over, Elizabeth culled Eleanor&mdash;who, too restless
-to eat much herself, was hovering about the bureau, tapping it here
-and there with a chisel&mdash;to take her turn to be useful by clearing
-the table; and then, as if business were of no consequence, bade her
-guests rest themselves for a little and smoke a cigarette if they felt
-inclined.</p>
-
-<p>"Smoke!" exclaimed Paul, with a little sarcastic laugh. "Oh, no, Miss
-King, that would never do. What would Mrs. Duff-Scott say if she were
-to smell tobacco in your sitting-room?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, what would she say?" returned Elizabeth, gently&mdash;she was very
-gentle with Paul to-day. "Mrs. Duff-Scott, I believe, is rather fond of
-the smell of tobacco, when it is good."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion having satisfied the demands of politeness with profuse
-protestations, suffered himself to indulge in a mild cigarette; but
-Paul would not be persuaded. He resumed his study of the manuscripts
-with an air of determination, as of a man who had idled away precious
-time. He conscientiously endeavoured to fix his attention on the
-important business that he had undertaken, and to forget everything
-else until he had finished it. For a little while Patty wandered up and
-down in an aimless manner, making neat heaps of the various articles
-scattered about the room and watching him furtively; then she softly
-opened the piano, and began to play, just above a whisper, the "Sonata
-Pathetique."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>DISCOVERY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>It was between two and three o'clock; Mr. Brion reposed in his
-arm-chair, smoking a little, talking a little to Elizabeth who sat
-beside him, listening dreamily to the piano, and feeling himself
-more and more inclined to doze and nod his head in the sleepy warmth
-of the afternoon, after his glass of sherry and his recent severe
-fatigues. Elizabeth, by way of entertaining him, sat at his elbow,
-thinking, thinking, with her fingers interlaced in her lap and her
-gaze fixed upon the floor. Patty, intensely alert and wakeful, but
-almost motionless in her straight back and delicately poised head,
-drooped over the keyboard, playing all the "soft things" that she could
-remember without notes; and Paul, who had resisted her enchantments
-as long as he could, leaned back in his chair, with his hand over his
-eyes, having evidently ceased to pay any attention to his papers. And,
-suddenly, Eleanor, who was supposed to be washing plates and dishes in
-the kitchen, flashed into the room, startling them all out of their
-dreams.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth, dear," she exclaimed tremulously, "forgive me for meddling
-with your things. But I was thinking and thinking what else there was
-that we had not examined, and mother's old Bible came into my head&mdash;the
-little old Bible that she always used, and that you kept in your top
-drawer. I could not help looking at it, and here"&mdash;holding out a small
-leather-bound volume, frayed at the corners and fastened with silver
-clasps&mdash;"here is what I have found. The two first leaves are stuck
-together&mdash;I remembered that&mdash;but they are only stuck round the edges;
-there is a little piece in the middle that is loose and rattles, and,
-see, there is writing on it." The girl was excited and eager, and
-almost pushed the Bible into Paul Brion's hands. "Look at it, look
-at it," she cried. "Undo the leaves with your knife and see what the
-writing is."</p>
-
-<p>Paul examined the joined leaves attentively, saw that Eleanor was
-correct in her surmise, and looked at Elizabeth. "May I, Miss King?" he
-asked, his tone showing that he understood how sacred this relic must
-be, and how much it would go against its present possessor to see it
-tampered with.</p>
-
-<p>"I suppose you had better," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>He therefore sat down, laid the book before him, and opened his sharp
-knife. A sense that something was really going to happen now&mdash;that
-the secret of all this careful effacement of the little chronicles
-common and natural to every civilised family would reveal itself in the
-long-hidden page which, alone of all the records of the past, their
-mother had lacked the heart to destroy&mdash;fell upon the three girls; and
-they gathered round to watch the operation with pale faces and beating
-hearts. Paul was a long time about it, for he tried to part the leaves
-without cutting them, and they were too tightly stuck together. He had
-at last to make a little hole in which to insert his knife, and then
-it was a most difficult matter to cut away the plain sheet without
-injuring the written one. Presently, however, he opened a little door
-in the middle of the page, held the flap up, glanced at what was behind
-it for a moment, looked significantly at his father, and silently
-handed the open book to Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, trembling with
-excitement and apprehension, lifting up the little flap in her turn,
-read this clear inscription&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="center">
-"To my darling child, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">ELIZABETH</span>,<br />
-From her loving mother,<br />
-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">ELEANOR D'ARCY LEIGH.</span><br />
-Bradenham Abbey. Christmas, 1839.<br />
-Psalm xv., 1, 2."<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>There was a dead silence while they all looked at the fine brown
-writing&mdash;that delicate caligraphy which, like fine needlework, went
-out of fashion when our grandmothers passed away&mdash;of which every
-letter, though pale, was perfectly legible. A flood of recollection
-poured into the minds of the three girls, especially the elder ones,
-at the sight of those two words, "Bradenham Abbey," in the corner of
-the uncovered portion of the page. "Leigh" and "D'Arcy" were both
-unfamiliar names&mdash;or had been until lately&mdash;but Bradenham had a place
-in the archives of memory, and came forth at this summons from its
-dusty and forgotten nook. When they were children their mother used
-to tell them stories by the firelight in winter evenings, and amongst
-those stories were several whose scenes were laid in the tapestried
-chambers and ghostly corridors, and about the parks and deer-drives
-and lake-shores of a great "place" in an English county&mdash;a place that
-had once been a famous monastery, every feature and aspect of which
-Mrs. King had at various times described so minutely that they were
-almost as familiar with it as if they had seen it for themselves.
-These stories generally came to an untimely end by the narrator
-falling into an impenetrable brown study or being overtaken by an
-unaccountable disposition to cry&mdash;which gave them, of course, a special
-and mysterious fascination for the children. While still little things
-in pinafores, they were quick enough to perceive that mother had a
-personal interest in that wonderful place of which they never tired
-of hearing, and which evidently did not belong to the realms of
-Make-believe, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty and Blue-beard's
-castle; and therefore they were always, if unconsciously, trying to
-understand what that interest was. And when, one day when she was
-painting a wreath of forget-me-nots on some little trifle intended for
-a bazaar, and, her husband coming to look over her, she said to him
-impulsively, "Oh, do you remember how they grew in the sedges round the
-Swan's Pool at Bradenham?"&mdash;and when he sternly bade her hush, and not
-speak of Bradenham unless she wished to drive him mad&mdash;then Patty and
-Elizabeth, who heard them both, knew that Bradenham was the name of the
-great house where monks had lived, in the grounds of which, as they
-had had innumerable proofs, pools and swans abounded. It was the first
-time they had heard it, but it was too important a piece of information
-to be forgotten. On this memorable day, so many years after, when they
-read "Bradenham Abbey" in the well-worn Bible, they looked at each
-other, immediately recalling that long-ago incident; but their hearts
-were too full to speak. It was Mr. Brion who broke the silence that had
-fallen upon them all.</p>
-
-<p>"This, added to our other discoveries, is conclusive, I think,"
-said the old lawyer, standing up in order to deliver his opinion
-impressively, and resting his hands on the table. "At any rate, I
-must insist on placing the results of our investigation before Mr.
-Yelverton&mdash;yes, Elizabeth, you must forgive me, my dear, if I take
-the matter into my own hands. Paul will agree with me that we have
-passed the time for sentiment. We will have another look into the
-bureau&mdash;because it seems incredible that any man should deliberately
-rob his children of their rights, even if he repudiated his own, and
-therefore I think there <i>must</i> be legal instruments <i>somewhere</i>; but,
-supposing none are with us, it will not be difficult, I imagine, to
-supply what is wanting to complete our case from other sources&mdash;from
-other records of the family, in fact. Mr. Yelverton himself, in
-five minutes, would be able to throw a great deal of light upon our
-discoveries. It is absolutely necessary to consult him."</p>
-
-<p>"I would not mind so much," said Elizabeth, who was deadly pale, "if it
-were to be fought out with strangers. But <i>he</i> would give it all up at
-once, without waiting to see&mdash;without asking us to prove&mdash;that we had a
-strictly legal title."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't you believe it," interposed Paul sententiously.</p>
-
-<p>She rose from her chair in majestic silence, and moved towards the
-bureau. She would not bandy her lover's name nor discuss his character
-with those who did not know him as she did. Paul followed her, with his
-chisel in his hand.</p>
-
-<p>"Let us look for that secret drawer, at any rate," he said. "I feel
-pretty certain there must be one, now. Mr. King took great pains to
-prevent identification during his lifetime, but, as my father says,
-that is a very different thing from disinheriting <i>you</i>. If you will
-allow me, I'll take every moveable part out first."</p>
-
-<p>He did so, while she watched and assisted him. All the brass-handled
-drawers, and sliding shelves, and partitions were withdrawn from their
-closely-fitting sockets, leaving a number of holes and spaces each
-differing in size and shape from the rest. Then he drew up a chair in
-front of the exposed skeleton, and gazed at it thoughtfully; after
-which he began to make careful measurements inside and out, to tap the
-woodwork in every direction, and to prise some of its strong joints
-asunder. This work continued until four o'clock, when, notwithstanding
-the highly stimulating excitement of the day's proceedings, the girls
-began to feel that craving for a cup of tea which is as strong upon the
-average woman at this time as the craving for a nobbler of whisky is
-upon the&mdash;shall I say average man?&mdash;when the sight of a public-house
-appeals to his nobler appetite. Not that they wanted to eat and
-drink&mdash;far from it; the cup of tea was the symbol of rest and relief
-for a little while from the stress and strain of labour and worry, and
-that was what they were in need of. Elizabeth looked at her watch and
-then at Patty, and the two girls slipped out of the room together,
-leaving Eleanor to watch operations at the bureau. Reaching their
-little kitchen, they mechanically lit the gas in the stove, and set
-the kettle on to boil; and then they went to the open window, which
-commanded an unattractive view of the back yard, and stood there side
-by side, leaning on each other.</p>
-
-<p>"In 1839," said Patty, "she must have been a girl, a child, and living
-at Bradenham <i>at home</i>. Think of it, Elizabeth&mdash;with a mother loving
-her and petting her as she did us. She was twenty-five when she
-married; she must have been about sixteen when that Bible was given
-to her&mdash;ever so much younger than any of us are now. <i>She</i> lived in
-those beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish leather on the walls&mdash;<i>she</i>
-danced in that long gallery with the painted windows and the slippery
-oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a row&mdash;no doubt
-she rode about herself with those hunting parties in the winter, and
-rowed and skated on the lake&mdash;I can imagine it, what a life it must
-have been. Can't you see her, before she grew stout and careworn,
-and her bright hair got dull, and her pretty hands rough with hard
-work&mdash;young, and lovely, and happy, and petted by everybody&mdash;wearing
-beautiful clothes, and never knowing what it was to have to do anything
-for herself? I can. And it seems dreadful to think that she had to
-remember all that, living as she did afterwards. If only he had made it
-up to her!&mdash;but I don't think he did, Elizabeth&mdash;I don't think he did.
-He used to be so cross to her sometimes. Oh, bless her, bless her! Why
-didn't she tell <i>us</i>, so that <i>we</i> could have done more to comfort her?"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think she ever repented," said Elizabeth, who remembered more
-about her mother than Patty could do. "She did it because she loved him
-better than Bradenham and wealth and her own personal comfort; and she
-loved him like that always, even when he was cross. Poor father! No
-wonder he was cross!"</p>
-
-<p>"Why didn't he go back&mdash;for her sake, if not for ours&mdash;when he saw the
-advertisements? Elizabeth, my idea is that the death of his brother
-gave a permanent shock to his brain. I think he could never have been
-quite himself afterwards. It was a sort of mania with him to disconnect
-himself from everything that could suggest the tragedy&mdash;to get as far
-away as possible from any association with it."</p>
-
-<p>"I think so, too," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>Thus they talked by the kitchen window until the kettle bubbled on the
-stove; and then, recalled to the passing hour and their own personal
-affairs, they collected cups and saucers, sugar-basin and milk-jug,
-and cut bread and butter for the afternoon repast. Just as their
-preparations were completed, Eleanor came flying along the passage from
-the sitting-room. "They have found a secret drawer," she cried in an
-excited whisper. "At least not a drawer, but a double partition that
-seems to have been glued up; and Mr. Brion is sure, by the dull sound
-of the wood, that there are things in it. Come and see!"</p>
-
-<p>She flew back again, not even waiting to help her sisters with the tea.
-Silently Elizabeth took up the tray of cups and saucers, and Patty the
-teapot and the plate of bread and butter; and they followed her with
-beating hearts. This was the crisis of their long day's trial. Paul
-was tearing at the intestines of the bureau like a cat at the wainscot
-that has just given sanctuary to a mouse, and his father was too much
-absorbed in helping him to notice their return.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, pull, pull!" cried the old man, at the moment when the sisters
-closed the door behind them. "Break it, if it won't come. A&mdash;a&mdash;ah!" as
-a sudden crash of splintered wood resounded through the room, "there
-they are at last! I <i>thought</i> they must be here somewhere!"</p>
-
-<p>"What is it?" inquired Elizabeth, setting down her tea-tray, and
-hastily running to his side. He was stripping a pink tape from a thin
-bundle of blue papers in a most unprofessional state of excitement and
-agitation.</p>
-
-<p>"What is it?" he echoed triumphantly. "This is what it is, my
-dear"&mdash;and he began in a loud voice to read from the outside of the
-blue packet, to which he pointed with a shaking finger&mdash;"The will
-of Kingscote Yelverton, formerly of Yelverton, in the county of
-Kent&mdash;Elizabeth Yelverton, sole executrix."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE TIME FOR ACTION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Yes, it was their father's will&mdash;the will they had vainly hunted for
-a year ago, little thinking what manner of will it was; executed when
-Eleanor was a baby in long clothes, and providing for their inheritance
-of that enormous English fortune. When they were a little recovered
-from the shock of this last overwhelming surprise, Mr. Brion broke
-the seal of the document, and formally and solemnly read it to them.
-It was very short, but perfectly correct in form, and the testator
-(after giving to his wife, in the event of her surviving him, the sole
-control of the entire property, which was unentailed, for her lifetime)
-bequeathed to his younger daughters, and to any other children who
-might have followed them, a portion of thirty thousand pounds apiece,
-and left the eldest, Elizabeth, heiress of Yelverton and residuary
-legatee. Patty and Eleanor were thus to be made rich beyond <i>their</i>
-dreams of avarice, but Elizabeth, who had been her father's favourite,
-was to inherit a colossal fortune. That was, of course, supposing such
-wealth existed in fact as well as in the imagination of this incredible
-madman. Paul and his father found themselves unable to conceive of such
-a thing as that any one in his senses should possess these rare and
-precious privileges, so passionately desired and so recklessly sought
-and sinned for by those who had them not, and should yet abjure, them
-voluntarily, and against every natural temptation and moral obligation
-to do otherwise. It was something wholly outside the common course of
-human affairs, and unintelligible to men of business. Both of them
-felt that they must get out of the region of romance and into the
-practical domain of other lawyers' offices before they could cope
-effectively with the anomalies of the case. As it stood, it was beyond
-their grasp. While the girls, sitting together by the table, strove to
-digest the meaning of the legal phrases that had fallen so strangely on
-their ears, Mr. Brion and Paul exchanged <i>sotto voce</i> suggestions and
-opinions over the parchment spread out before them. Then presently the
-old man opened a second document, glanced silently down the first page,
-cleared his throat, and looking over his spectacles, said solemnly, "My
-dears, give me your attention for a few minutes."</p>
-
-<p>Each changed her position a little, and looked at him steadily. Paul
-leaned back in his chair, and put his hand over his eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"What I have just been reading to you," said Mr. Brion, "is your
-father's last will and testament, as I believe. It appears that his
-surname was Yelverton, and that King was only an abbreviation of his
-Christian name&mdash;assumed as the surname for the purpose of eluding the
-search made for him by his family. Now, certain circumstances have come
-to our knowledge lately, referring, apparently, to this inexplicable
-conduct on your father's part." He paused, coughed, and nervously
-smoothed out the sheets before him, glancing hither and thither
-over their contents. "Elizabeth, my dear," he went on, "I think you
-heard Mr. Yelverton's account of his uncle's strange disappearance
-after&mdash;ahem&mdash;after a certain unfortunate catastrophe?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said Elizabeth. "We all know about that."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, it seems&mdash;of course we must not jump at conclusions too hastily,
-but still it appears to me a reasonable conjecture&mdash;that your father
-and Mr. Yelverton's lost uncle <i>were</i> one and the same person. The
-affair altogether is so extraordinary, so altogether unaccountable, on
-the face of it, that we shall require a great deal of proof&mdash;and of
-course Mr. Yelverton himself will require the very fullest and most
-absolute legal proof&mdash;before we can accept the theory as an established
-fact&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Did I not say so?" Elizabeth interrupted eagerly, surprised by
-the old man's sudden assumption of scepticism now that all doubt
-and uncertainty seemed to be over. "I wish that nothing should be
-done&mdash;that no steps of any sort should be taken&mdash;until it is all proved
-to the last letter."</p>
-
-<p>"Well," said Mr. Brion, at once abandoning his cautious attitude, "we
-must take steps to obtain proof before we <i>can</i> obtain it. And, as it
-providentially happens, we have received the most opportune and, as I
-believe, the most unimpeachable testimony from Mr. Yelverton himself,
-who is the loser by our gain, and who gave us the information which is
-so singularly corroborated in these documents before the existence of
-such documents was known to anybody. But if more were wanted&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"More <i>is</i> wanted," urged Elizabeth. "We cannot take advantage of his
-own admissions to ruin him."</p>
-
-<p>"If more were wanted," Mr. Brion repeated, with growing solemnity
-of manner, "we have here a paper under your father's hand, and duly
-witnessed by the same persons who witnessed the will&mdash;where are you
-going, Paul?" For at this point Paul rose and walked quietly towards
-the door.</p>
-
-<p>"Go on," said the young man. "I will come back presently."</p>
-
-<p>"But where are you going?" his father repeated with irritation. "Can't
-you wait until this business is finished?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think," said Paul, "that the Miss Kings&mdash;the Miss Yelvertons, I
-suppose I ought to say&mdash;would rather be by themselves while you read
-that paper. It is not just like the will, you know; it is a private
-matter&mdash;not for outsiders to listen to."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth rose promptly and went towards him, laying her hand on
-his arm. "Do you think we consider <i>you</i> an outsider?" she said,
-reproachfully. "You are one of us&mdash;you are in the place of our
-brother&mdash;we want you to help us now more than we have ever done. Come
-and sit down&mdash;that is, of course, if you can spare time for our affairs
-when you have so many important ones of your own."</p>
-
-<p>He went and sat down, taking the seat by Patty to which Elizabeth
-pointed him. Patty looked up at him wistfully, and then leaned her
-elbows on the table and put her face in her hands. Her lover laid his
-arm gently on the back of her chair.</p>
-
-<p>"Shall I begin, my dear?" asked the lawyer hesitatingly. "I am afraid
-it will be painful to you, Elizabeth. Perhaps, as Paul says, it would
-be better for you to read it by yourselves. I will leave it with you
-for a little while, if you promise faithfully to be very careful with
-it."</p>
-
-<p>But Elizabeth wished it to be read as the will was read, and the old
-man, vaguely suspecting that she might be illegally generous to the
-superseded representative of the Yelverton name and property, was
-glad to keep the paper in his own hands, and proceeded to recite its
-contents. "I, Kingscote Yelverton, calling myself John King, do hereby
-declare," &amp;c.</p>
-
-<p>It was the story of Kingscote Yelverton's unfortunate life, put on
-record in the form of an affidavit for the benefit of his children,
-apparently with the intention that they should claim their inheritance
-when he was gone. The witnesses were an old midwife, long since
-dead, and a young Scripture reader, now a middle-aged and prosperous
-ecclesiastic in a distant colony; both of whom the lawyer remembered
-as features of the "old days" when he himself was a new-comer to the
-out-of-the-world place that counted Mr. King as its oldest inhabitant.
-It was a touching little document, in the sad story that it told
-and the severe formality of the style of telling it. Kingscote
-Yelverton, it was stated, was the second of three brothers, sons of
-a long line of Yelvertons of Yelverton, of which three, however,
-according to hereditary custom, only one was privileged to inherit
-the ancestral wealth. This one, Patrick, a bachelor, had already come
-into his kingdom; the youngest, a briefless barrister in comfortable
-circumstances, had married a farmer's daughter in very early youth
-(while reading for university honours during a long vacation spent in
-the farmer's house), and was the father of a sturdy schoolboy while
-himself not long emancipated from the rule of pastors and masters;
-and Kingscote was a flourishing young captain in the Guards&mdash;when
-the tragedy which shattered the family to pieces, and threw its vast
-property into Chancery, took place. Bradenham Abbey was neighbour to
-Yelverton, and Cuthbert Leigh of Bradenham was kin to the Yelvertons of
-Yelverton. Cuthbert Leigh had a beautiful daughter by his first wife,
-Eleanor D'Arcy; when this daughter was sixteen her mother died, and a
-stepmother soon after took Eleanor D'Arcy's place; and not long after
-the stepmother came to Bradenham Cuthbert Leigh himself died, leaving
-an infant son and heir; and not long after <i>that</i> Mrs. Cuthbert Leigh
-married again, and her new husband administered Bradenham&mdash;in the
-interest of the heir eventually, but of himself and his own children in
-the meantime. So it happened that Elizabeth Leigh was rather elbowed
-out of her rights and privileges as her father's daughter; which being
-the case, her distant cousin and near friend, Mrs. Patrick Yelverton,
-mother of the ill-fated brothers (who lived, poor soul, to see her
-house left desolate), fetched the girl away from the home which was
-hers no more, and took her to live under her own wing at Yelverton.
-Then the troubles began. Elizabeth was young and fair; indeed, all
-accounts of her agreed in presenting the portrait of a woman who must
-have been irresistible to the normal and unappropriated man brought
-into close contact with her. At Yelverton she was the daily companion
-of the unwedded master of the house, and he succumbed accordingly.
-As an impartial chronicler, I may hazard the suggestion that she
-enjoyed a flirtation within lady-like limits, and was not without some
-responsibility in the matter. It was clear also that the dowager Mrs.
-Patrick, anxious to see her first-born suitably married and settled,
-and placed safely beyond the reach of designing farmers' daughters,
-contrived her best to effect a union between the two. But while
-Patrick was over head and ears in love, and Elizabeth was dallying
-with him, and the old mother planning new furniture for the stately
-rooms where the queen was to reign who should succeed her, Kingscote
-the guardsman&mdash;Kingscote, the handsome, strong-willed, fiery-tempered
-second son&mdash;came home. To him the girl's heart, with the immemorial and
-incurable perversity of hearts, turned forthwith, like a flower to the
-sun; and a very short furlough had but half run out when she was as
-deeply over head and ears in love with Kingscote as Patrick was with
-her. Kingscote also loved her passionately&mdash;on his own testimony, he
-loved her as never man loved before, though he made a proud confession
-that he had still been utterly unworthy of her; and so the materials
-for the tragedy were laid, like a housemaid's fire, ready for the match
-that kindled them. Elizabeth found her position untenable amid the
-strenuous and conflicting attentions bestowed on her by the mother and
-sons, and went away for a time to visit some of her other relatives;
-and when her presence and influence were withdrawn from Yelverton, the
-smothered enmity of the brothers broke out, and they had their first
-and last and fatal quarrel about her. She had left a miniature of
-herself hanging in their mother's boudoir; this miniature Patrick laid
-hands on, and carried off to his private rooms; wherefrom Kingscote,
-in a violent passion (as Elizabeth's accepted lover), abstracted it by
-force. Then the master of the house, always too much inclined to assert
-himself as such, being highly incensed in his turn at the liberty that
-had been taken with him, marched into his brother's bedroom, where
-the disputed treasure was hidden, found it, and put it in his breast
-until he could discover a safer place for it. They behaved like a
-pair of ill-regulated schoolboys, in short, as men do when love and
-jealousy combine to derange their nervous systems, and wrought their
-own irreparable ruin over this miserable trifle. Patrick, flushed with
-a lurid triumph at his temporary success, strolled away from the house
-for an aimless walk, but afterwards went to a gamekeeper's cottage to
-give some instructions that occurred to him. The gamekeeper was not at
-home, and the squire returned by way of a lonely track through a thick
-plantation, where some of the keeper's work had to be inspected. Here
-he met Kingscote, striding along with his gun over his shoulder. The
-guardsman had discovered his loss, and was in search of his brother,
-intending to make a calm statement of his right to the possession of
-the picture by virtue of his rights in the person of the fair original,
-but at the same time passionately determined that this sort of thing
-should be put a stop to. There was a short parley, a brief but fierce
-altercation, a momentary struggle&mdash;on one side to keep, on the other
-to take, the worthless little bone of contention&mdash;and it was all over.
-Patrick, sent backward by a sweep of his strong brother's arm, fell
-over the gun that had been carelessly propped against a sapling; the
-stock of the gun, flying up, was caught by a tough twig which dragged
-across the hammers, and as the man and the weapon tumbled to the ground
-together one hammer fell, and the exploded charge entered the squire's
-neck, just under the chin, and, passing upward to the brain, killed
-him. It was an accident, as all the family believed; but to the author
-of the mischance it was nothing less than murder. He was guilty of his
-brother's blood, and he accepted the portion of Cain&mdash;to be a fugitive
-and a vagabond on the face of the earth&mdash;in expiation of it. Partly
-with the idea of sparing pain and disgrace to his family (believing
-that the only evidence available would convict him of murder in a court
-of law), and partly because he felt that, if acquitted, it would be
-too horrible and impossible to take an inheritance that had come to
-him by such means, in the overwhelming desperation of his remorse and
-despair he took that determination to blot himself out which was never
-afterwards revoked. Returning to the house, he collected some money
-and a few valuables, and, unsuspected and unnoticed, took leave of his
-home, and his name, and his place in the world, and was half way to
-London, and beyond recall, before the dead body in the plantation was
-discovered. In London Elizabeth Leigh was staying with an old Miss
-D'Arcy, quietly studying her music and taking a rest while the society
-which was so fond of her was out of town; and the stricken man could
-not carry out his resolve without bidding farewell to his beloved. He
-had a clandestine interview with Elizabeth, to whom alone he confided
-the circumstances of his wretched plight. The girl, of course, advised
-him to return to Yelverton, and bravely meet and bear whatever might
-befall; and it would have been well for him and for her if he had taken
-that advice. But he would not listen to it, nor be turned from his
-fixed purpose to banish and efface himself, if possible, for the rest
-of his life; seeing which, the devoted woman chose to share his fate.
-Whether he could and should have spared her that enormous sacrifice,
-or whether she was happier in making it than she would otherwise have
-been, only themselves ever knew. She did her woman's part in helping
-and sustaining and consoling him through all the blighted years that he
-was suffered to live and fret her with his brooding melancholy and his
-broken-spirited moroseness, and doubtless she found her true vocation
-in that thorny path of love.</p>
-
-<p>The story, as told by himself for the information of his children (who,
-as children ever do, came in time to have interests of their own that
-transcended in importance those that were merely personal to their
-parents), was much more brief and bald than this, and the reading of it
-did not take many minutes. When he had finished it, in dead silence,
-the lawyer took from the packet of papers a third and smaller document,
-which he also proceeded to read aloud to those whom it concerned. This
-proved to be a certificate of the marriage of Kingscote Yelverton and
-Elizabeth Leigh, celebrated in an obscure London parish by a curate
-who had been the bridegroom's Eton and Oxford chum, and witnessed by
-a pair of humble folk who had had great difficulty in composing their
-respective signatures, on the 25th of November in the year 1849. And,
-finally, half-folded round the packet, there was a slip of paper, on
-which was written&mdash;"Not to be opened until my death."</p>
-
-<p>"And it might never have been opened until you were <i>all</i> dead!"
-exclaimed the lawyer, holding up his hands. "He must have meant to give
-it to you at the last, and did not reckon on being struck helpless in a
-moment when his time came."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, poor father!" sobbed Elizabeth, whose head lay on the table,
-crushed down in her handkerchief. And the other sisters put their arms
-about her, Patty with a set white face and Eleanor whimpering a little.
-But Mr. Brion and Paul were incensed with the dead man, and could not
-pity him at present.</p>
-
-<p>It was late before the two friendly advisers, summoned to dinner by
-their landlady, went back to No. 7, and they did not like going. It
-did not seem to them at all right that the three girls should be
-left alone under present circumstances. Mr. Brion wanted to summon
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, or even Mrs. M'Intyre, to bear them company and see
-that they did not faint, or have hysterics, or otherwise "give way,"
-under the exceptional strain put upon their nervous systems. Then he
-wanted them to come next door for that dinner which he felt they must
-certainly stand much in need of, and for which they did not seem to
-have adequate materials; or to let him take them to the nearest hotel,
-or to Mrs. Duff-Scott's; or, at least, to permit him to give them some
-brandy and water; and he was genuinely distressed because they refused
-to be nourished and comforted and appropriately cared for in any of
-these ways.</p>
-
-<p>"We want to be quiet for a little, dear Mr. Brion, that we may talk
-things over by ourselves&mdash;if you don't mind," Elizabeth said; and
-the tone of her voice silenced all his protests. The old man kissed
-them, for the first time in his life, uttering a few broken words of
-congratulation on the wonderful change in their fortunes; and Paul
-shook hands with great gravity and without saying anything at all, even
-though Patty, looking up into his inscrutable face, mutely asked for
-his sympathy with her wistful, wet eyes. And they went away.</p>
-
-<p>As they were letting themselves out of the house, assisted by the
-ground-floor domestic, who, scenting mystery in the air, politely
-volunteered to open the hall door in order that she might investigate
-the countenances of the Miss Kings' visitors and perchance gather some
-enlightenment therefrom, Patty, dry-eyed and excited, came flying
-downstairs, and pounced upon the old man.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Brion, Mr. Brion, Elizabeth says she hopes you will be <i>sure</i>
-not to divulge what we have discovered to <i>anybody</i>," she panted
-breathlessly (at the same time glancing at her lover's back as he stood
-on the door-step). "It is of the utmost consequence to her to keep it
-quiet for a little longer."</p>
-
-<p>"But, my dear, what object can Elizabeth have in waiting <i>now?</i> Surely
-it is better to have it over at once, and settled. I thought of walking
-up to the club by-and-bye, with the papers, and having a word with Mr.
-Yelverton."</p>
-
-<p>"Of course it is better to have it over," assented Patty.</p>
-
-<p>"I know your time is precious, and I myself am simply frantic till I
-can tell Mrs. Duff-Scott. So is Elizabeth. But there is something she
-must do first&mdash;I can't tell you the particulars&mdash;but she <i>must</i> have a
-few hours' start&mdash;say till to-morrow evening&mdash;before you speak to Mr.
-Yelverton or take any steps. I am sure she will do <i>whatever</i> you wish,
-after that."</p>
-
-<p>The lawyer hesitated, suspicious of the wisdom of the delay, but not
-seeing how much harm could happen, seeing that he had all the precious
-documents in his own breast pocket; then he reluctantly granted Patty's
-request, and the girl went upstairs again with feet not quite so light
-as those that had carried her down. Upstairs, however, she subordinated
-her own interests to the consideration of her sister's more pressing
-affairs.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," she said, with fervid and portentous solemnity, "this
-is a crisis for you, and you must be bold and brave. It is no time
-for shilly-shallying&mdash;you have twenty-four hours before you, and you
-must <i>act</i>. If you don't, you will see that he will just throw up
-everything, and be too proud to take it back. He will lose all his
-money and the influence for good that it gives him, and <i>you</i> will lose
-<i>him</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"How shall I act?" asked Elizabeth, leaning instinctively upon this
-more courageous spirit.</p>
-
-<p>"How?" echoed Patty, looking at her sister with brilliant eyes. "Oh!"
-drawing a long breath, and speaking with a yearning passion that it was
-beyond the power of good grammar to express&mdash;"oh, if it was only <i>me!</i>"</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>AN ASSIGNATION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>That evening Mr. Yelverton was leisurely finishing his dinner at the
-club when a note was brought to him. He thought he knew the writing,
-though he had never seen it before, and put it into his pocket until he
-could politely detach himself from three semi-hosts, semi-guests, with
-whom he was dining. Then he went upstairs rather quickly, tearing open
-his letter as he went, and, arrived at the reading-room, sat down at
-a table, took pen in hand, and dashed off an immediate reply. "I will
-certainly be there," he wrote, in a hand more vigorous than elegant.
-"I will wait for you in the German picture gallery. Come as early as
-possible, while the place is quiet." And, having closed his missive
-and consigned it to the bag, he remained in a comfortable arm-chair
-in the quiet room, all by himself, meditating. He felt he had a great
-deal to think about, and it indisposed him for convivialities. The week
-since his parting with Elizabeth, long as it had seemed to him, had
-not quite run out, and she had made an assignation which, though it
-might have appeared unequivocal to the casual eye, was to him extremely
-perplexing. She had come back, and she wanted to see him, and she
-wanted to see him alone, and she asked him if he would meet her at the
-Exhibition in the morning. And she addressed him as her dearest friend,
-and signed herself affectionately his. He tried very hard, but he could
-not extract his expected comfort from such a communication, made under
-such circumstances.</p>
-
-<p>In the morning he was amongst the first batch of breakfasters in the
-club coffee-room, and amongst the first to represent the public at
-the ticket-windows of the Carlton Palace. When he entered the great
-building, it was in the possession of officials and workmen, and
-echoed in a hollow manner to his solid footfall. Without a glance to
-right or left, he walked upstairs to the gallery and into that cosiest
-nook of the whole Exhibition, the German room, and there waited for
-his mistress. This restful room, with its carpeted floor and velvety
-settees (so grateful to the weary), its great Meissen vases in the
-middle, and casts of antique statues all round, was quite empty of
-visitors, and looked as pleasant and convenient a place of rendezvous
-as lovers could desire. If only Elizabeth would come quickly, he
-thought, they might have the most delicious quiet talk, sitting side
-by side on a semi-circular ottoman opposite to Lindenschmidt's "Death
-of Adonis"&mdash;not regarding that unhappy subject, of course, nor any
-other object but themselves. He would not sit down until she came,
-but strolled round and round, pausing now and then to investigate a
-picture, but thinking of nothing but his beloved, for whose light step
-he was listening. If his bodily eyes were fixed on the "Cloister Pond"
-or "Evening," or any other of the tranquil landscapes pictured on the
-wall, he thought of Elizabeth resting with him under green trees, far
-from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, absolutely his own, and in a
-world that (practically) held nobody but him and her. If he looked at
-autumnal rain slanting fiercely across the canvas, he thought how he
-would protect and shield her in all the storms that might visit her
-life&mdash;"My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter
-thee!" And visions of a fair morning in Thuringia, of a lake in the
-Bavarian mountains, of a glacier in the Engadine, and of Venice in
-four or five aspects of sunlight and moonlight, suggested his wedding
-journey and how beautiful the world she had so longed to see&mdash;the world
-that he knew so well&mdash;would look henceforth, if&mdash;if&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>There was a step upon the corridor outside, and he turned sharply from
-his contemplation of a little picture of an Isle of Wight sunrise to
-meet her as she came in. She had been walking hurriedly, but in the
-doorway she paused, seeing him striding towards her, and stood for a
-moment confused and hesitating, overcome with embarrassment. It was a
-bright morning, and she had dressed herself in a delicate linen gown,
-fitting easily to the sweeping curves of her noble figure&mdash;a gown
-over which Mrs. Duff-Scott had spent hours of careful thought and a
-considerable amount of money, but which was so simple and unpretending
-in its effects as to suggest the domestic needle and the judicious
-outlay of a few shillings to those admirable critics of the other sex
-who have so little knowledge of such matters and so much good taste;
-and all the details of her costume were in harmony with this central
-feature&mdash;her drooping straw hat, tied with soft Indian muslin under
-the chin, her Swedish gloves, her neat French shoes, her parasol&mdash;and
-the effect was insidious but impressive. She had got herself up
-carefully for her lover's eyes, and nobody could have looked less got
-up than she. Mr. Yelverton thought how much more charming was a homely
-every-day style than the elaborate dressing of the ball-room and the
-block, and that it was certainly evident to any sensible person that
-a woman like Elizabeth needed no arts of the milliner to make her
-attractive. He took her hand in a strong clasp, and held it in silence
-for a moment, his left hand laid over her fine unwrinkled glove, while
-he looked into her downcast face for some sign of the nature of her
-errand.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, my love," he murmured eagerly, "what is it? Don't keep me in
-suspense. Is it yes or no, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>Her embarrassment melted away before the look he bent upon her, as a
-morning mist before the sun. She lifted her eyes to his&mdash;those honest
-eyes that he could read like a book&mdash;and her lips parted in an effort
-to speak. The next instant, before a word was said, he had her in
-his arms, and her mouth met his under the red moustache in a long,
-and close, and breathless kiss; and both of them knew that they were
-to part no more till their lives' end. While that brief ceremony of
-betrothal lasted, they might have been in the black grotto where they
-kissed each other first, so oblivious were they of their surroundings;
-but they took in presently the meaning of certain sounds in the gallery
-on the other side of the curtain, and resumed their normal attitudes.
-"Come and sit down," said Mr. Yelverton, drawing her into the room.
-"Come and let's have a talk." And he set her down on the velvet ottoman
-and took a seat beside her&mdash;leaning forward with an arm on his knee
-to barricade her from an invasion of the public as far as possible.
-His thoughts turned, naturally enough, to their late very important
-interview in the caves.</p>
-
-<p>"We will go back there," he said, expressing his desire frankly. "When
-we are married, Elizabeth, we will go to your old home again together,
-before we set out on longer travels, and you and I will have a picnic
-to the caves all alone by ourselves, in that little buggy that we drove
-the other day. Shall we?"</p>
-
-<p>"We might tumble into one of those terrible black holes," she replied,
-"if we went there again."</p>
-
-<p>"True&mdash;we might. And when we are married we must not run any
-unnecessary risks. We will live together as long as we possibly can,
-Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>She had drawn off her right glove, and now slipped her hand into
-his. He grasped it fervently, and kneaded it like a lump of stiff
-dough (excuse the homely simile, dear reader&mdash;it has the merit of
-appropriateness, which is more than you can say for the lilies and
-jewellery) between his two strong palms. How he did long for that dark
-cave!&mdash;for any nook or corner that would have hidden him and her from
-sight for the next half hour.</p>
-
-<p>"Why couldn't you have told me a week ago?" he demanded, with a thrill
-in his deep voice. "You must have known you would take me then, or
-you would not have come to me like this to-day. Why didn't you give
-yourself to me at first? Then we should have been together all this
-time&mdash;all these precious days that we have wasted&mdash;and we should have
-been by the sea at this moment, sitting under those big rocks, or
-wandering away into the bush, where nobody could interfere with us."</p>
-
-<p>As he spoke, a party of ladies strolled into the court, and he leaned
-back upon his cushioned seat to wait until they were gone again. They
-looked at the pictures, with one eye on him, dawdled up and down for
-five minutes, trying to assert their right to be there if they chose;
-and then, too uncomfortably conscious of being <i>de trop</i>, departed.
-After which the lovers were alone again for a little while. Mr.
-Yelverton resumed possession of Elizabeth's hand, and repeated his
-rather cruel question.</p>
-
-<p>"Didn't you know all along that it must come to this?"</p>
-
-<p>"A week ago I did not know what I know now," she replied.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, my dear, you knew it in your heart, but you would not listen to
-your heart."</p>
-
-<p>He thought he understood it all, perfectly. He pictured her regret and
-hungry longing for him after he was gone, how she had fought against
-it for a time, and how it had precipitately driven her to Melbourne at
-last, and driven her to summon him in this importunate fashion to her
-side. It was exactly what he would have done, he thought, had he been
-in her place.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Yelverton&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>She was beginning to speak seriously, but he stopped her. "No," he
-said, "I am not going to be called Mr. Yelverton by <i>you</i>. Never again,
-remember. My name is Kingscote, if you wish to know. My people at home,
-when I had any people, called me King. I think you might as well call
-me King&mdash;it will keep your dear name alive in the family when you no
-longer answer to it yourself. Now"&mdash;as she paused, and was looking at
-him rather strangely&mdash;"what were you going to say?"</p>
-
-<p>"I was going to say that I have not wasted this week since you went
-away. A great deal has happened&mdash;a great many changes&mdash;and I was helped
-by something outside myself to make up my mind."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't believe it&mdash;I don't believe it, Elizabeth. You know you love
-me, and you know that, whatever your religious sentiments may be,
-you would not do violence to them for anything <i>less</i> than that. You
-are taking me because you love me too well to give me up&mdash;for any
-consideration whatever. So don't say you are not."</p>
-
-<p>She touched his shoulder for a moment with her cheek. "Oh, I do love
-you, I do love you!" she murmured, drawing a long, sighing breath.</p>
-
-<p>He knew it well, and he did not know how to bear to sit there, unable
-to respond to her touching confession. He could only knead her hand
-between his palms.</p>
-
-<p>"And you are going to trust me, my love&mdash;me and yourself? You are not
-afraid now?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, I don't think I am afraid." She caught her breath a little, and
-looked grave and anxious as she said it, haunted still by the feeling
-that duty meant sacrifice and that happiness meant sin in some more or
-less insidious shape; a habit of thought in which she, like so many
-more of us, had been educated until it had taken the likeness of a
-natural instinct. "I don't think I am afraid. Religion, as you say,
-is a living thing, independent of the creeds that it is dressed in.
-And&mdash;and&mdash;you <i>must</i> be a good man!"</p>
-
-<p>"Don't begin by making that an article of faith," he returned promptly.
-"To set up for being a good man is the last thing I would dream of.
-Like other men, I am good as far as I was born and have been made so,
-and neither more nor less. All I can take credit for on my own account
-is that I try to live up to the light that has been given me."</p>
-
-<p>"What can anyone do more?" she said, eagerly. "It is better than
-believing at haphazard and not trying at all&mdash;which is what so many
-good people are content with."</p>
-
-<p>"It seems better to me," he said.</p>
-
-<p>"I will trust you&mdash;I will trust you," she went on, leaning towards
-him as he sat beside her. "You are doing more good in the world than
-I had even thought of until I knew you. It is I who will not be up to
-the mark&mdash;not you. But I will help you as much as you will let me&mdash;I
-am going to give my life to helping you. And at least&mdash;at least&mdash;you
-believe in God," she concluded, yearning for some tangible and definite
-evidence of faith, as she had understood faith, wherewith to comfort
-her conscientious soul. "We are together in <i>that</i>&mdash;the chief thing of
-all&mdash;are we not?"</p>
-
-<p>He was a scrupulously truthful man, and he hesitated for a moment.
-"Yes, my dear," he said, gravely. "I believe in God&mdash;that is to say,
-I <i>feel</i> Him&mdash;I lean my littleness on a greatness that I know is all
-around me and upholding me, which is Something that even God seems a
-word too mean for. I think," he added, "that God, to me, is not what He
-has been taught to seem to you."</p>
-
-<p>"Never mind," she said, in a low voice, responding to the spirit rather
-than the letter of his words. "Whatever you believe you are sure to
-believe thoroughly, and if you believe in God, your God must be a true
-God. I feel it, though I don't know it."</p>
-
-<p>"You feel that things will all come right for us if we have faith in
-our own hearts, and love and trust each other. So do I, Elizabeth."
-There was nobody looking, and he put his arm round her shoulder for a
-moment. "And we may consider our religious controversy closed then? We
-need not trouble ourselves about that any more?"</p>
-
-<p>"I would not say 'closed.' Don't you think we ought to talk of <i>all</i>
-our thoughts&mdash;and especially those that trouble us&mdash;to each other?"</p>
-
-<p>"I do&mdash;I do, indeed. And so we shall. Ours is going to be a real
-marriage. We shall be, not two, but one. Only for the present we may
-put this topic aside, as being no longer an obstruction in the way of
-our arrangements, mayn't we?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she said. And the die was cast.</p>
-
-<p>"Very well, then." He seemed to pull himself together at this point,
-and into his fine frame and his vigorous face a new energy was infused,
-the force of which seemed to be communicated to the air around her, and
-made her heart beat more strongly to the quicker pulse of his. "Very
-well, then. Now tell me, Elizabeth&mdash;without any formality, while you
-and I are here together&mdash;when shall we be married?"</p>
-
-<p>The question had a tone of masterful command about it, for, though
-he knew how spontaneous and straightforward she was, her natural
-delicacy unspoiled by artificial sentiment, he yet prepared himself
-to encounter a certain amount of maidenly reluctance to meet a man's
-reasonable views upon this matter. But she answered him without delay
-or hesitation, impelled by the terrors that beset her and thinking of
-Patty's awful warnings and prophesyings&mdash;"I will leave you to say when."</p>
-
-<p>"Will you really? Do you mean you will <i>really?</i>" His deep-set eyes
-glowed, and his voice had a thrilling tremor in it as he made this
-incredulous inquiry. "Then I say we will be married soon&mdash;<i>very</i>
-soon&mdash;so as not to lose a day more than we can help. Will you agree to
-that?"</p>
-
-<p>She looked a little frightened, but she stood her ground. "If you
-wish," she whispered, all the tone shaken out of her voice.</p>
-
-<p>"If <i>I</i> wish!" A palpitating silence held them for a moment. Then "What
-do you say to <i>to-morrow?</i>" he suggested.</p>
-
-<p>She looked up at him, blushing violently.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, you are thinking how forward I am!" she exclaimed, drawing her
-hand from his.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," he remonstrated, with swift energy, "did I not ask
-you, ever so long ago, not to be conventional? Why should I think
-you forward? How can you be forward&mdash;with <i>me?</i> You are the most
-delicate-minded woman I ever knew, and I think you are showing yourself
-so at this moment&mdash;when anything short of perfect truth and candour
-would have disappointed me. Now, I am quite serious&mdash;will you marry
-me to-morrow? There is no reason why you should not, that I can see.
-Just think of it, calmly. Mrs. Duff-Scott gave her consent a fortnight
-ago&mdash;yes, she gave it privately, to <i>me</i>; and Patty and Nelly, I know,
-would be delighted. As for you and me, what have we&mdash;honestly, what
-<i>have</i> we&mdash;to wait for? Each of us is without any tie to be broken by
-it. Those who look to us will all be better off. I want to get home
-soon, and you have taken me, Elizabeth&mdash;it will be all the same in the
-end&mdash;you know that no probation will prove us unfit or unwilling to
-marry&mdash;the <i>raison d'être</i> of an engagement does not exist for us. And
-I am not young, my love, and life is short and uncertain; while you&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I am not young either," she interrupted. "I shall soon be thirty."</p>
-
-<p>"Shall you? I am glad of it. Well, think of it then&mdash;<i>why</i> should we
-not do it, so exceptionally circumstanced as we are? We can take the
-afternoon train to somewhere&mdash;say to Macedon, to live up there amongst
-the mountains for a little while&mdash;till we decide what next to do, while
-our sisters enjoy themselves with Mrs. Duff-Scott. I can make all
-arrangements to-day, except for wedding cake and bridesmaids&mdash;and we
-would rather be without them. Come here to-morrow morning, my darling,
-as soon as the place is open, in that same pretty gown that you have
-got on now; and we will take a cab and go and get married peaceably,
-without all the town staring at us. I will see Mrs. Duff-Scott and make
-it all right. She shall meet us at the church, with the girls, and the
-major to give you away. Will you? Seriously, <i>will</i> you?"</p>
-
-<p>She was silent for some time, while he leaned forward and watched her
-face. He saw, to his surprise, that she was actually thinking over
-it, and he did not interrupt her. She was, indeed, possessed by the
-idea that this wild project offered safety to them both in face of the
-impending catastrophe. If she could not secure him in the possession of
-his property before he was made aware that he had lost it, she might
-anticipate his possible refusal to let her be his benefactor, and the
-hindrances and difficulties that seemed likely to sunder them after
-having come so near to each other. She lifted her eyes from the carpet
-presently, and looked into his.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you mean that you <i>will?</i>" he exclaimed, the fierceness of his
-delight tempered by a still evident incredulity.</p>
-
-<p>"I will," she said, "if&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Hush&mdash;hush! Don't let there be any ifs, Elizabeth!"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;listen. If Mrs. Duff-Scott will freely consent and approve&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"You may consider <i>that</i> settled, anyhow. I know she will."</p>
-
-<p>"And if you will see Mr. Brion to-night&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Brion? What do we want with Mr. Brion? Settlements?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. But he has something to tell you about me&mdash;about my
-family&mdash;something that you <i>must</i> know before we can be married."</p>
-
-<p>"What is it? Can't <i>you</i> tell me what it is?" He looked surprised and
-uneasy. "Don't frighten me, Elizabeth&mdash;it is nothing to matter, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know. I hope not. I cannot tell you myself. He will explain
-everything if you will see him this evening. He came back to Melbourne
-with us, and he is waiting to see you."</p>
-
-<p>"Tell me this much, at any rate," said Mr. Yelverton, anxiously; "it is
-no just cause or impediment to our being married to-morrow, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. At least, I don't think so. I hope you won't."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>I</i> shan't if <i>you</i> don't, you may depend upon that." He made up
-his mind on the spot that there were some shady pages in her family
-history that a sense of honour prompted her to reveal to him before
-he married her, and congratulated himself that she was not like the
-conventional heroine, who would have been too proud to make him happy
-under such circumstances. "I am not afraid of Mr. Brion, if you are
-not," he repeated. "And we will shunt him for the present, with your
-permission. Somehow I can't bring myself to think of anybody just now
-except you and me." The picture galleries were pretty full by this
-time, and the public was invading the privacy of the German Court
-rather freely. "Come and let us walk about a little," he said, rising
-from the ottoman, "and enjoy the sensation of being alone in a crowd."
-And they sauntered out into the corridor, and down the stairs, and up
-and down the long nave, side by side&mdash;a distinguished and imposing if
-not strictly handsome couple&mdash;passing shoals of people, and bowing now
-and then to an acquaintance; mixing unsuspected with the common herd,
-and hugging the delicious consciousness that in secret they were alone
-and apart from everybody. They talked with more ease and freedom than
-when <i>tête-à-tête</i> on their settee upstairs.</p>
-
-<p>"And so, by this time to-morrow, we shall be man and wife," Mr.
-Yelverton said, musingly. "Doesn't your head swim a little when you
-think of that, Elizabeth? <i>I</i> feel as if I had been drinking, and I
-am terribly afraid of finding myself sober presently. No, I am not
-afraid," he continued, correcting himself. "You have given me your
-promise, and you won't go back on it, as the Yankees say, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>"If either of us goes back," said Elizabeth, unblushingly; "it won't be
-me."</p>
-
-<p>"You seem to think it possible that <i>I</i> may go back? Don't you flatter
-yourself, my young friend. When you come here to-morrow, as you will,
-in that pretty cool gown&mdash;I stipulate for that gown remember&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Even if it is a cold day?&mdash;or pouring with rain?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I don't know. Couldn't you put a warm jacket over it? When you
-come here to-morrow, I say, you will find me waiting for you, the
-embodiment of relentless fate, with the wedding ring in my pocket. By
-the way&mdash;that reminds me&mdash;how am I to know the size of your finger? And
-you have not got your engagement ring yet! I'll tell you what we'll do,
-Elizabeth; we'll choose a ring out of the Exhibition, and we'll cheat
-the customs for once. The small things are smuggled out of the place
-all day long, and every day, as you may see by taking stock of the show
-cases occasionally. We'll be smugglers too&mdash;it is in a good cause&mdash;and
-I'll go so far as to use bribery and corruption, if necessary, to get
-possession of that ring to-day. I'll say, 'Let me have it now, or I
-won't have it at all,' and you will see they'll let me have it. I will
-then put it on your finger, and you shall wear it for a little while,
-and then I will borrow it to get the size of your wedding ring from it.
-By-and-bye, you know, when we are at home at Yelverton&mdash;years hence,
-when we are old people&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't talk of our being old people!" she interrupted, quickly.</p>
-
-<p>"No, I won't&mdash;it will be a long time yet, dear. By-and-bye, when we are
-at home at Yelverton, you will look at your ring, and think of this
-day, and of the German picture gallery&mdash;of the dear Exhibition which
-brought us together, and where you gave yourself to me&mdash;long after I
-had given myself to <i>you</i>, Elizabeth! It is most appropriate that your
-engagement ring should be got here. Come along and let us choose it.
-What stones do you like best?"</p>
-
-<p>They spent nearly an hour amongst the jewellery of all nations before
-Mr. Yelverton could decide on what he liked. At last he selected from
-a medley of glittering trinkets a sober ring that did not glitter,
-and yet was rare and valuable&mdash;a broad, plain band of gold set with
-a lovely cameo carved out of an opal stone. "There is some little
-originality about it," he said, as he tried it on her finger, which it
-fitted perfectly, "and, though the intaglio looks so delicate, it will
-stand wear and tear, and last for ever. That is the chief thing. Do you
-like it? Or would you rather have diamonds?"</p>
-
-<p>She had no words to say how much she liked it, and how much she
-preferred it to diamonds. And so, after a few severe struggles, carried
-on in a foreign tongue, he obtained immediate possession of his
-purchase, and she carried it away on her finger.</p>
-
-<p>"Now," said he, looking at his watch, "are you in any great hurry to
-get home?"</p>
-
-<p>She thought of her non-existent trousseau, and the packing of her
-portmanteau for her wedding journey; nevertheless, she intimated her
-willingness to stay a little while longer.</p>
-
-<p>"Very well. We will go and have our lunch then. We'll join the <i>table
-d'hôte</i> of the Exhibition, Elizabeth&mdash;that will give us a foretaste
-of our Continental travels. To-morrow we shall have lunch&mdash;where? At
-Mrs. Duff-Scott's, I suppose&mdash;it would be too hard upon her to leave
-her literally at the church door. Yes, we shall have lunch at Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's, and I suppose the major will insist our drinking our
-healths in champagne, and making us a pretty speech. Never mind, we
-will have our dinner in peace. To-morrow evening we shall be at home,
-Elizabeth, and you and I will dine <i>tête-à-tête</i>, without even a single
-parlourmaid to stand behind our chairs. I don't quite know yet where
-I shall discover those blessed four walls that we shall dine in, nor
-what sort of dinner it will be&mdash;but I will find out before I sleep
-to-night."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>MRS. DUFF-SCOTT HAS TO BE RECKONED WITH.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Prosaic as were their surroundings and their occupation&mdash;sitting at
-a long table, he at the end and she at the corner on his left hand,
-amongst a scattered crowd of hungry folk, in the refreshment room of
-the Exhibition, eating sweetbreads and drinking champagne and soda
-water&mdash;it was like a dream to Elizabeth, this foretaste of Continental
-travels. In the background of her consciousness she had a sense of
-having acted madly, if not absurdly, in committing herself to the
-programme that her audacious lover had drawn out; but the thoughts and
-fancies floating on the surface of her mind were too absorbing for the
-present to leave room for serious reflections. Dreaming as she was,
-she not only enjoyed the homely charm of sitting at meat with him in
-this informal, independent manner, but she enjoyed her lunch as well,
-after her rather exhausting emotions. It is commonly supposed, I know,
-that overpowering happiness takes away the appetite; but experience has
-taught me that it is not invariably the case. The misery of suspense
-and dread can make you sicken at the sight of food, but the bliss of
-rest and security in having got what you want has an invigorating
-effect, physically as well as spiritually, if you are a healthy person.
-So I say that Elizabeth was unsentimentally hungry, and enjoyed her
-sweetbreads. They chatted happily over their meal, like truant children
-playing on the edge of a precipice. Mr. Yelverton had the lion's share
-in the conversation, and talked with distracting persistence of the
-journey to-morrow, and the lighter features of the stupendous scheme
-that they had so abruptly adopted. Elizabeth smiled and blushed and
-listened, venturing occasionally upon a gentle repartee. Presently,
-however, she started a topic on her own account "Tell me," she said,
-"do you object to first cousins marrying?"</p>
-
-<p>"Dear child, I don't object to anything to-day," he replied. "As long
-as I am allowed to marry you, I am quite willing to let other men
-please themselves."</p>
-
-<p>"But tell me seriously&mdash;do you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Must I be serious? Well, let me think. No, I don't know that I
-object&mdash;there is so very little that I object to, you see, in the way
-of things that people want to do&mdash;but I think, perhaps, that, all
-things being equal, a man would not <i>choose</i> to marry so near a blood
-relation."</p>
-
-<p>"You <i>do</i> think it wrong, then?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think it not only wrong but utterly preposterous and indefensible,"
-he said, "that it should be lawful and virtuous for a man to marry his
-first cousin and wicked and indecent to marry his sister-in-law&mdash;or
-his aunt-in-law for the matter of that&mdash;or any other free woman who
-has no connection with him except through other people's marriages.
-If a legal restriction in such matters can ever be necessary or
-justifiable, it should be in the way of preventing the union of people
-of the same blood. Sense and the laws of physiology have something to
-say to <i>that</i>&mdash;they have nothing whatever to say to the relations that
-are of no kin to each other. Them's my sentiments, Miss King, if you
-particularly wish to know them."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth put her knife and fork together on her plate softly. It was a
-gesture of elaborate caution, meant to cover her conscious agitation.
-"Then you would not&mdash;if it were your own case&mdash;marry your cousin?" she
-asked, after a pause, in a very small and gentle voice. He was studying
-the <i>menu</i> on her behalf, and wondering if the strawberries and cream
-would be fresh. Consequently he did not notice how pale she had grown,
-all of a sudden.</p>
-
-<p>"Well," he said, "you see I have no cousin, to begin with. And if I had
-I could not possibly want to marry her, since I am going to marry you
-to-morrow, and a man is only allowed to have one wife at a time. So my
-own case doesn't come in."</p>
-
-<p>"But if <i>I</i> had been your cousin?" she urged, breathlessly, but with
-her eyes on her plate. "Supposing, for the sake of argument, that <i>I</i>
-had been of your blood&mdash;would you still have had me?"</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" he said, laughing, "that is, indeed, a home question."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Would</i> you?" she persisted.</p>
-
-<p>"Would I?" he echoed, putting a hand under the table to touch hers. "I
-really think I would, Elizabeth. I'm afraid that nothing short of your
-having been my own full sister could have saved you."</p>
-
-<p>After that she regained her colour and brightness, and was able to
-enjoy the early strawberries and cream&mdash;which did happen to be fresh.</p>
-
-<p>They did not hurry themselves over their lunch, and when they left the
-refreshment-room they went and sat down on two chairs by the Brinsmead
-pianos and listened to a little music (in that worst place that ever
-was for hearing it). Then Mr. Yelverton took his <i>fiancée</i> to get a cup
-of Indian tea. Then he looked at his watch gravely.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you know," he said, "I really have an immense deal of business to
-get through before night if we are to be married to-morrow morning."</p>
-
-<p>"There is no reason why we should be married to-morrow morning," was
-her immediate comment "Indeed&mdash;indeed, it is far too soon."</p>
-
-<p>"It may be soon, Elizabeth, but I deny that it is too soon, reluctant
-as I am to contradict you. And, whether or no, the date is fixed,
-<i>irrevocably</i>. We have only to consider"&mdash;he broke off, and consulted
-his watch again, thinking of railway and telegraph arrangements. "Am I
-obliged to see Mr. Brion to-day?" he asked, abruptly. "Can't I put him
-off till another time? Because, you know, he may say just whatever he
-likes, and it won't make the smallest particle of difference."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," she replied earnestly, "you <i>must</i> see him. I can't marry
-you till he has told you everything. I wish I could!" she added,
-impulsively.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, if I must I must&mdash;though I know it doesn't matter the least bit.
-Will he keep me long, do you suppose?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think, very likely, he will."</p>
-
-<p>"Then, my darling, we must go. Give me your ring&mdash;you shall have it
-back to-night. Go and pack your portmanteau this afternoon, so that you
-have a little spare time for Mrs. Duff-Scott. She will be sure to want
-you in the evening. You need not take much, you know&mdash;just enough for a
-week or two. She will be only too delighted to look after your clothes
-while you are away, and"&mdash;with a smile&mdash;"we'll buy the trousseau in
-Paris on our way home. I am credibly informed that Paris is the proper
-place to go to for the trousseau of a lady of quality."</p>
-
-<p>"Trousseaus are nonsense," said Elizabeth, who perfectly understood
-his motives for this proposition, "in these days of rapidly changing
-fashions, unless the bride cannot trust her husband to give her enough
-pocket money."</p>
-
-<p>"Precisely. That is just what I think. And I don't want to be deprived
-of the pleasure of dressing you. But for a week or two, Elizabeth, we
-are going out of the world just as far as we can get, where you won't
-want much dressing. Take only what is necessary for comfort, dear,
-enough for a fortnight&mdash;or say three weeks. That will do. And tell me
-where I shall find Mr. Brion."</p>
-
-<p>They were passing out of the Exhibition building&mdash;passing that noble
-group of listening hounds and huntsman that stood between the front
-entrance and the gate&mdash;and Elizabeth was wondering how she should
-find Mr. Brion at once and make sure of that evening interview, when
-she caught sight of the old lawyer himself coming into the flowery
-enclosure from the street. "Why, there he is!" she exclaimed. "And my
-sisters are with him."</p>
-
-<p>"We are taking him out for an airing," exclaimed Eleanor, who was
-glorious in her Cup-day costume, and evidently in an effervescence of
-good spirits, when she recognised the engaged pair. "Mr. Paul was too
-busy to attend to him, and he had nobody but us, poor man! So we are
-going to show him round. Would you believe that he has never seen the
-Exhibition, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>They had scarcely exchanged greetings with each other when, out of an
-open carriage at the gate, stepped Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to that
-extensive kettle-drum which was held in the Exhibition at this hour.
-When she saw her girls, their festive raiment, and their cavaliers, the
-fairy godmother's face was a study.</p>
-
-<p>"What!" she exclaimed, with heart-rending reproach, "you are back in
-Melbourne! You are walking about with&mdash;with your friends"&mdash;hooking on
-her eye-glass the better to wither poor Mr. Brion, who wasted upon her
-a bow that would have done credit to Lord Chesterfield&mdash;"and <i>I</i> am not
-told!"</p>
-
-<p>Patty came forward, radiant with suppressed excitement. "She must be
-told," exclaimed the girl, breathlessly. "Elizabeth, we are all here
-now. And it is Mrs. Duff-Scott's <i>right</i> to know what we know. And Mr.
-Yelverton's too."</p>
-
-<p>"You may tell them now," said Elizabeth, who was as white as the muslin
-round her chin. "Take them all to Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, and explain
-everything, and get it over&mdash;while I go home."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>MR. YELVERTON STATES HIS INTENTIONS.</h4>
-
-
-<p>"I don't think you know Mr. Brion," said Mr. Yelverton, first lifting
-his hat and shaking hands with Mrs. Duff-Scott, and then, with an airy
-and audacious cheerfulness, introducing the old man (whose name and
-association with her <i>protégées</i> she immediately recalled to mind);
-"Mr. Brion&mdash;Mrs. Duff-Scott."</p>
-
-<p>The fairy godmother bowed frigidly, nearly shutting her eyes as she
-did so, and for a moment the little group kept an embarrassed silence,
-while a sort of electric current of intelligence passed between Patty
-and her new-found cousin. Mr. Yelverton was, as we say, not the same
-man that he had been a few hours before. Quiet in his manner, as he
-ever was, there was yet an aspect of glowing energy about him, an air
-of being at high pressure, that did not escape the immediate notice of
-the girl's vigilant and sympathetic eyes. I have described him very
-badly if I have not made the reader understand the virile breadth and
-strength of his emotional nature, and how it would be affected by his
-present situation. The hot blue blood and superfine culture of that
-ardent young aristocrat who became his father at such an early age,
-and the wholesome physical and moral solidity of the farmer's fair and
-rustic daughter who was his mother, were blended together in him; with
-the result that he was a man at all points, having all the strongest
-human instincts alive and active in him. He was not the orthodox
-philanthropist, the half-feminine, half-neuter specialist with a hobby,
-the foot-rule reformer, the prig with a mission to set the world
-right; his benevolence was simply the natural expression of a sense of
-sympathy and brotherhood between him and his fellows, and the spirit
-which produced that was not limited in any direction. From the same
-source came a passionately quick and keen apprehension of the nature of
-the closest bond of all, not given to the selfish and narrow-hearted.
-Amongst his abstract brothers and sisters he had been looking always
-for his own concrete mate, and having found her and secured her, he was
-as a king newly anointed, whose crown had just been set upon his head.</p>
-
-<p>"Will you come?" said Patty to him, trying not to look too conscious
-of the change she saw in him. "It is time to have done with all our
-secrets now."</p>
-
-<p>"I agree with you," he replied. "And I will come with pleasure." Mrs.
-Duff-Scott was accordingly made to understand, with some difficulty,
-that the mystery which puzzled her had a deep significance, and that
-she was desired to take steps at once whereby she might be made
-acquainted with it. Much bewildered, but without relaxing her offended
-air&mdash;for she conceived that no explanation would make any difference in
-the central fact that Mr. Yelverton and Mr. Brion had taken precedence
-of her in the confidence of her own adopted daughters&mdash;she returned to
-her carriage, all the little party following meekly at her heels. The
-girls were put in first&mdash;even Elizabeth, who, insisting upon detaching
-herself from the assembling council, had to submit to be conveyed to
-Myrtle Street; and the two men, lifting their hats to the departing
-vehicle, were left on the footpath together. The lawyer was very grave,
-and slightly nervous and embarrassed. To his companion he had all the
-air of a man with a necessary but disagreeable duty to perform.</p>
-
-<p>"What is all this about?" Mr. Yelverton demanded with a little anxious
-irritation in his tone. "Nothing of any great consequence, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I'm afraid you will think it rather a serious matter," the lawyer
-replied, with hesitation. "Still," he added, earnestly, "if you
-are their friend, as I believe you are&mdash;knowing that they have no
-responsibility in the matter&mdash;you will not let it make any difference
-in your feeling for them&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"There is not the <i>faintest</i> danger of that," Mr. Yelverton promptly
-and haughtily interposed.</p>
-
-<p>"I am sure of it&mdash;I am sure of it. Well, you shall know all in half
-an hour. If you will kindly find Major Duff-Scott&mdash;he has constituted
-himself their guardian, in a way, and ought to be present&mdash;I will just
-run round to my lodgings in Myrtle Street."</p>
-
-<p>"Are you going to fetch your son?" asked Mr. Yelverton, quickly. "Don't
-you think that, under the circumstances&mdash;supposing matters have to be
-talked of that will be painful to the Miss Kings&mdash;the fewer present the
-better?"</p>
-
-<p>"Certainly. I am not going to fetch my son, who, by the way, already
-knows all there is to know, but some documents relating to the affair,
-which he keeps in his strong-box for safety. Major Duff-Scott is the
-only person whose presence we require, since&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Since what?"</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion was going to say, "Since your solicitors are not at hand,"
-but checked himself. "Never mind," he said, "never mind. I cannot say
-any more now."</p>
-
-<p>"All right. I'll go and find the major. Thank Heaven, he's no gossip,
-and I think he is too real a friend of the Miss Kings to care what he
-hears any more than I do." But Mr. Yelverton got anxious about this
-point after it occurred to him, and went off thoughtfully to the club,
-congratulating himself that, thanks to his sweetheart's reasonableness,
-he was in a position which gave him the privilege of protecting them
-should the issue of this mysterious business leave them in need of
-protection.</p>
-
-<p>At the club he found the major, talking desultory politics with other
-ex-guardians of the State now shelved in luxurious irresponsibility
-with him; and the little man was quite ready to obey his friend's
-summons to attend the family council.</p>
-
-<p>"The Miss Kings are back," said Mr. Yelverton, "and old Brion, the
-lawyer, is with them, and there are some important matters to be talked
-over this afternoon, and you must come and hear."</p>
-
-<p>The major said that he was at the Miss Kings' service, and got his
-hat. He asked no questions as he passed through the lobby and down
-the steps to Mr. Yelverton's cab, which waited in the street. In his
-own mind he concluded that Elizabeth's engagement had "come off," and
-this legal consultation had some more or less direct reference to
-settlements, and the relations of the bride-elect's sisters to her
-new lot in life. What chiefly occupied his thoughts was the fear that
-he was going to be asked to give up Patty and Eleanor, and all the
-way from the club to his house he was wondering how far his and his
-wife's rights in them extended, and how far his energetic better half
-might be relied upon to defend and maintain them. At the house they
-found that Mr. Brion had already arrived, and that Mrs. Duff-Scott was
-assembling her party in the library, as being an appropriate place for
-the discussion of business in which men were so largely concerned. It
-was a spacious, pleasant room; the books ranging all round from the
-floor to about a third of the way up the wall, like a big dado; the top
-shelf supporting bric-à-brac of a stately and substantial order, and
-the deep red walls, which had a Pompeian frieze that was one of the
-artistic features of the house, bearing those pictures in oils which
-were the major's special pride as a connoisseur and man of family, and
-which held their permanent place of honour irrespective of the waves of
-fashion that ebbed and flowed around them. There was a Turkey carpet
-on the polished floor, and soft, thick oriental stuffs on the chairs
-and sofas and in the drapery of the wide bow-window&mdash;stuffs of dim but
-richly-coloured silk and wool, with tints of gold thread where the
-light fell. There was a many-drawered and amply-furnished writing table
-in that bow-window, the most comfortable and handy elbow tables by the
-hearth, and another and substantial one for general use in the centre
-of the floor. And altogether it was a pleasant place both to use and to
-look at, and was particularly pleasant in its shadowed coolness this
-summer afternoon. At the centre table sat the lady of the house, with
-an air of reproachful patience, talking surface talk with the girls
-about their country trip. Eleanor stood near her, looking very charming
-in her pale blue gown, with her flushed cheeks, and brightened eyes.
-Patty supported Mr. Brion, who was not quite at home in this strange
-atmosphere, and she watched the door with a face of radiant excitement.</p>
-
-<p>"Where is Elizabeth?" asked the major, having hospitably shaken hands
-with the lawyer, whom he had never seen before.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," said Mr. Yelverton, using the name familiarly, as if he
-had never called her by any other, "is not coming."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, indeed. Well, I suppose we are to go on without her, eh?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I suppose so." They were all seating themselves at the table,
-and as he took a chair by Patty's side he looked round and caught a
-significant glance passing between the major and his wife. "It is not
-of <i>my</i> convening, this meeting," he explained; "whatever business is
-on hand, I know nothing of it at present."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Don't</i> you?" cried his hostess, opening her eyes.</p>
-
-<p>The major smiled; he, too, was thrown off the scent and puzzled, but
-did not show it as she did.</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Mr. Brion, clearing his throat and putting his hand into his
-breast pocket to take out his papers, "what Mr. Yelverton says is true.
-He knows nothing of it at present. I am very sorry, for his sake, that
-it is so. I may say I am very sorry for everybody's sake, for it is a
-very painful thing to&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>Here Mr. Yelverton rose to his feet abruptly, nipping the exordium in
-the bud. "Allow me one moment," he said with some peremptoriness. "I
-don't know what Mr. Brion means by saying he is sorry for <i>my</i> sake. I
-don't know whether he alludes to a&mdash;a special attachment on my part,
-but I cannot conceive how any revelation he may make can affect me. As
-far as I am concerned&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"My dear sir," interrupted the lawyer in his turn, "if you will wait
-until I have made my explanation, you will understand what I mean."</p>
-
-<p>"Sit down," said Patty, putting a hand on his arm. "You have no idea
-what he is going to say. Sit down and listen."</p>
-
-<p>"I do not want to listen, dear," he said, giving her a quick look. "It
-cannot be anything painful to me unless it is painful to you, and if it
-is painful to you I would rather not hear it."</p>
-
-<p>The major was watching them all, and ruminating on the situation.
-"Wait a bit, Yelverton," he said in his soft voice. "If it's their
-doing there's some good reason for it. Just hear what it is that Mr.
-Brion has to say. I see he has got some legal papers. We must pay
-attention to legal papers, you know."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, for goodness sake, go on!" cried Mrs. Duff-Scott, whose nerves
-were chafed by this delay. "If anything is the matter, let us know the
-worst at once."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well. Mr. Brion shall go on. But before he does so," said Mr.
-Yelverton, still standing, leaning on the table, and looking round
-on the little group with glowing eyes, "I will ask leave to make a
-statement. I am so happy&mdash;Mrs. Duff-Scott would have known it in an
-hour or two&mdash;I am so happy as to be Miss King's promised husband, and I
-hope to be her husband actually by this time to-morrow." Patty gave a
-little hysterical cry, and snatched at her handkerchief, in which her
-face was immediately buried. Mrs. Duff-Scott leaned back in her chair
-with a stoical composure, as if inured to thunderbolts, and waited for
-what would happen next. "I know it is very short notice," he went on,
-looking at the elder lady with a half-tender, half-defiant smile, "but
-my available time here is limited, and Elizabeth and I did not begin to
-care for each other yesterday. I persuaded her this morning to consent
-to an early and quiet marriage, for various reasons that I do not need
-to enter into now; and she has given her consent&mdash;provided only that
-Mrs. Duff-Scott has no objection."</p>
-
-<p>"But I have the greatest objection," said that lady, emphatically.
-"Not to your marrying Elizabeth&mdash;you know I am quite agreeable to
-<i>that</i>&mdash;but to your doing it in such an unreasonable way. To-morrow!
-you must be joking. It is preposterous, on the face of it."</p>
-
-<p>"You are thinking of clothes, of course."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I am not thinking of clothes. I am thinking of what people will
-say. You can have no idea of the extraordinary tales that will get
-about. I must consider Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>I</i> consider Elizabeth," he said. "And before Mr. Brion makes his
-communication, whatever it may be, I should like to have it settled and
-understood that the arrangements she and I have made will be permitted
-to stand." He paused, and stood looking at Mrs. Duff-Scott, with an air
-that impressed her with the hopelessness of attempting to oppose such a
-man as that.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know what to say," she said. "We will talk it over presently."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I want it settled now. Elizabeth will do whatever you desire, but
-I want her to please me." The major chuckled, and, hearing him, Mr.
-Yelverton laughed for a moment, and then bent his emphatic eyes upon
-the old man sitting silent before his unopened papers. "I want you and
-everybody to understand that whatever is to be said concerns my wife
-and sisters, Mr. Brion."</p>
-
-<p>"Very good, sir," said Mr. Brion. "I am delighted to hear it. At the
-same time I would suggest that it might be wiser not to hurry things
-quite so much."</p>
-
-<p>At this point Patty, who had been laughing and crying in her
-handkerchief, and clinging to Eleanor, who had come round the table
-and was hanging over her, suddenly broke into the discussion. "Oh, let
-them, let them, let them!" she exclaimed eagerly, to the bewilderment
-of the uninitiated, who were quite sure that some social disability
-was about to be attached to the bride elect, from which her lover
-was striving to rescue her. "Do let them be married to-morrow, dear
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, if Mr. Yelverton wishes it. Elizabeth knows why she
-consents&mdash;I know, too&mdash;so does Nelly. Give them your permission now, as
-he says, before Mr. Brion goes on&mdash;how can anyone say anything against
-it if <i>you</i> approve? Let it be all settled now&mdash;absolutely settled&mdash;so
-that no one can undo it afterwards." She turned and looked at the
-major with such a peculiar light and earnestness in her face that
-the little man, utterly adrift himself, determined at once to anchor
-himself to her. "Look here," he said, in his gentle way, but with no
-sign of indecision, "I am the head of the house, and if anybody has any
-authority over Elizabeth here, it is I. Forgive me, my dear"&mdash;to his
-wife at the other end of the table&mdash;"if I seem to take too much upon
-myself, but it appears to me that I ought to act in this emergency. Mr.
-Yelverton, we have every reason to trust your motives and conduct, and
-Elizabeth's also; and she is her own mistress in every way. So you may
-tell her from my wife and me that we hope she will do whatever seems
-right to herself, and that what makes her happy will make us so."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott got up from her chair proudly, as if to leave the room
-where this outrage had been put upon her; but she sat down again and
-wept a few tears instead. At the unwonted sight of which Patty flew
-round to her and took her majestic head into her young arms. "Ah! how
-ungrateful we <i>seem</i> to hurt and vex you," she murmured, in the tone of
-a mother talking to a suffering child, "but you don't know how it is
-all going to turn out. If you give them your consent now, you will see
-how glad you will be in a little while."</p>
-
-<p>"It doesn't seem that anybody cares much whether I give my consent or
-not," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. But she wiped away her tears, kissed her
-consoler, and made an effort to be cheerful and business-like. "There,
-there&mdash;we have wasted enough time," she said, brusquely. "Go on, Mr.
-Brion, or we shall have dinner time here before we begin."</p>
-
-<p>"Shall I go on?" asked Mr. Brion, looking round.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton, who was very grave, nodded.</p>
-
-<p>And Mr. Brion went on.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>HER LORD AND MASTER.</h4>
-
-
-<p>It was not much after three o'clock when Elizabeth walked slowly
-upstairs to her room, bearing single-handed her own responsibilities.
-Now that she was alone and undisturbed, she began to realise how
-great they were. She sat down on her little bed to think what she was
-doing&mdash;to look back upon the past, and forward into the future&mdash;until
-her head spun round. When she could think no more, she slid down
-upon her knees and prayed a fervent, wordless prayer&mdash;rested her
-over-weighted soul on the pillars of the universe, which bore up the
-strange little world in which she was but an infinitesimal atom&mdash;and,
-feeling that there was a strong foundation somewhere, and perhaps
-even feeling dimly that she had touched her point of contact with it
-only just now when she touched her true love's lips, she felt less
-intolerably burdened with the charge of herself. She rose up with her
-nerves steadied and her brain composed. What was done was done, and
-it had been done for the best. "We can but do our best, and leave
-it," he had said; and, thinking of his words, a sense of his robust
-faith, which she did not call faith, permeated her unsettled mind
-and comforted her with the feeling that she would have support and
-strength in him. She could not repent. She could not wish anything to
-be altered. She loved him and needed him; and he loved and needed her,
-and had a right to her. Yes, he had a right to her, independently of
-that fortune which was hers and which she dared not take away from him
-while he was using it so much better than she could, he was her mate
-and lord, and she belonged to him. What reason was there against her
-marrying him? Only one; Mrs. Duff-Scott's reason, which even she had
-abandoned, apparently&mdash;one obligation of duty, which conscience, left
-to its own delicate sense of good and evil, refused to insist upon as
-such. And what reason was there against marrying him to-morrow, if he
-desired it, and by doing which, while they would be made so happy, no
-one else could be made unhappy? She was unlearned in the social views
-and customs concerning such matters, and said in her simple heart there
-was no reason whatever&mdash;none, none.</p>
-
-<p>So she set to work on her preparations, her eyes shining and her hands
-trembling with the overwhelming bliss of her anticipations, which
-awed and dazzled her; beset at intervals with chill misgivings, and
-thrills of panic, dread and fear, as to what effect upon her blessed
-fortune that afternoon's work at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house might have.
-She took off her pretty gown, which he had sanctified by his approval,
-and laid it tenderly on the bed; put on a loose wrapper, pulled out
-drawers and opened cupboards, and proceeded to pack her portmanteau
-for that wedding journey which she still could not believe was to be
-taken to-morrow. If such a sudden demand upon the resources of her
-wardrobe had been made a few months ago, she would have been greatly
-perplexed to meet it. Now she had, not only a commodious portmanteau
-(procured for their country visit), but drawers full of fine linen,
-piles of handkerchiefs, boxes of gloves, everything that she could need
-for an indefinite sojourn either in the world or out of it. When Mrs.
-Duff-Scott had gained their consent to be allowed to become a mother
-to them, she had lost no time in fitting them all out as became her
-adopted daughters, in defiance of any scruples or protests that they
-might make. Elizabeth's trousseau, it seemed to her, as she filled one
-side of the portmanteau with dainty underclothes delicately stitched
-and embroidered and frilled with lace, had been already provided for
-her, and while her heart went out in gratitude to her munificent
-friend, she could not help feeling that one of the dearest privileges
-of being rich was to have the power to acknowledge that munificence
-suitably. Only that very day, for the first time, she had seen an
-indication that tended to confirm her and Patty's instinctive sense
-that they had made a mistake in permitting themselves to accept so
-many favours. Eleanor, feeling herself already rich and the potential
-possessor of unlimited fine clothes, had put on her Cup dress and
-bonnet to walk out with Mr. Brion; and Mrs. Duff-Scott, when she
-met her in the Exhibition grounds, and while thrown for a moment off
-her usual even balance, had looked at the girl with a disapproving
-eye, which plainly accused her of extravagance&mdash;in other words, of
-wasting her (Mrs. Duff-Scott's) substance in riotous living. That
-little incident, so slight and momentary as it was, would have been
-as terrible a blow to them as was Paul Brion's refusal of their
-invitation to tea, had it not been that they were no longer poor, but
-in a position to discharge their obligations. She thought how Mrs.
-Duff-Scott would come to Yelverton by-and-bye, and to the London house,
-and how she (Elizabeth) would lavish the best of everything upon her.
-It was a delightful thought.</p>
-
-<p>While she was building air castles, she sorted and folded her clothes
-methodically, and with motherly care turned over those belonging to
-her sisters, to see that they were well provided for and in need
-of nothing for the time of her brief absence. While investigating
-Patty's wardrobe, she thought much of her dear companion and that
-next-door neighbour, still in their unreconciled trouble, and still
-so far from the safe haven to which she was drawing nigh; and she was
-not too selfish in her own happiness to be unable to concern herself
-anxiously about theirs. Well, even this was to be set right now. She
-and Kingscote, with their mutually augmented wisdom and power, would
-be able to settle that matter, one way or another, when they returned
-from their wedding journey. Kingscote, who was never daunted by any
-difficulties, would find a way to solve this one, and to do what
-was best for Patty. Then it occurred to her that if Patty and Paul
-were married, Paul might want to keep his wife in Australia, and the
-sisters, who had never been away from each other, might be doomed
-to live apart. But she persuaded herself that this also would be
-prevented, and that Paul, stiff-necked as he was, would not let Patty
-be unhappy, as she certainly would be if separated by the width of the
-world from herself&mdash;not if Kingscote were at hand, to point it out
-to him in his authoritative and convincing manner. As for Nelly, she
-was to comfort Mrs. Duff-Scott for awhile, and then she was to come,
-bringing the fairy godmother with her, to Yelverton, to live under her
-brother-cousin's protection until she, too, was married&mdash;to someone
-better, far better, than Mr. Westmoreland. Perhaps the Duff-Scotts
-themselves would be tempted (by the charms of West-End and Whitechapel
-society, respectively) to settle in England too. In which case there
-would be nothing left to wish for.</p>
-
-<p>At five o'clock she had finished her packing, put on her dress&mdash;not
-the wedding dress, which was laid smoothly on a cupboard shelf&mdash;and
-sat down by the sitting-room window to wait for her sisters, or for
-somebody, to come to her. This half-hour of unoccupied suspense was
-a very trying time; all her tremulous elation died down, all her
-blissful anticipations became overcast with chill forebodings, as
-a sunny sky with creeping clouds, while she bent strained eyes and
-ears upon the street, watching for the news that did not come. In
-uncontrollable excitement and restlessness, she abandoned her post
-towards six o'clock, and set herself to prepare tea in the expectation
-of her sisters' return. She spread the cloth and set out the cups and
-saucers, the bread and butter, the modest tin of sardines. As the warm
-day was manifestly about to close with a keen south wind, she thought
-she would light a fire in the sitting-room and make some toast. It
-was better to have something to do to distract her from her fierce
-anxieties, and, moreover, she wished the little home nest to be as cosy
-and comfortable as possible to-night, which might be the last night
-that the sisters would be there together&mdash;the closing scene of their
-independent life. So she turned up her cuffs, put on gloves and apron,
-and fetched wood and coals from their small store in the back-yard;
-and then she laid and lit a fire, blew it into as cheerful a blaze as
-the unsatisfactory nature of city fuel and a city grate permitted,
-and, having shaken down her neat dress and washed her hands, proceeded
-to make the toast. She was at this work, kneeling on the hearthrug,
-and staring intently into the fire over a newly-cut slice of bread
-that she had just put upon the fork, when she heard a sound that made
-her heart stand still. It was the sound of a cab rattling into the
-street and bumping against the kerb at her own gate. Springing to her
-feet and listening breathlessly, she heard the gate open to a quiet,
-strong hand that belonged to neither of her sisters, and a solid tread
-on the flags that paved a footpath through the little garden to the
-door. At the door a quick rapping, at once light and powerful, brought
-the servant from her underground kitchen, and a sonorous, low voice
-spoke in the hall and echoed up the stairs&mdash;the well-known voice of
-Kingscote Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton, unaccompanied by anybody
-else&mdash;paying his first visit to this virgin retreat, where, as he knew
-very well, his sweetheart at this moment was alone, and where, as he
-also knew, the unchaperoned male had no business to be. Evidently his
-presence announced a crisis that transcended all the circumstances and
-conventionalities of every-day life.</p>
-
-<p>He walked upstairs to her sitting-room, and rapped at the door. She
-could not tell him to come in, for her heart seemed to be beating in
-her throat, and she felt too suffocated to speak; she stumbled across
-to the door, and, opening it, looked at him dumbly, with a face as
-white as the white frills of her gown. He, for his part, neither spoke
-to her nor kissed her; his whole aspect indicated strong emotion,
-but he was so portentously grave, and almost stern, that her heart,
-which had fluttered so wildly at the sight of him, collapsed and sank.
-Taking her hand gently, he shut the door, led her across the room to
-the hearthrug, and stood, her embodied fate, before her. She was so
-overwhelmed with fear of what he might be going to say that she turned
-and hid her face in her hands against the edge of the mantelpiece, that
-she might brace herself to bear it without showing him how stricken she
-was.</p>
-
-<p>"Well," he said, after a little pause, "I have been having a great
-surprise, Elizabeth. I little thought what you were letting me in for
-when you arranged that interview with Mr. Brion. I never was so utterly
-out of my reckoning as I have found myself to-day."</p>
-
-<p>She did not speak, but waited in breathless anguish for the sentence
-that she foreboded was to be passed upon her&mdash;condemning her to keep
-that miserable money in exchange for him.</p>
-
-<p>"I know all about the great discovery now," he went on. "I have read
-all the papers. I can testify that they are perfectly genuine. I have
-seen the marriage register that that one was copied from&mdash;I can verify
-all those dates, and names, and places&mdash;there is not a flaw anywhere
-in Mr. Brion's case. You are really my cousins, and you&mdash;<i>you</i>,
-Elizabeth&mdash;are the head of the family now. There was no entail&mdash;it was
-cut off before my uncle Patrick's time, and he died before he made a
-will: so everything is yours." After a pause, he added, brokenly, "I
-wish you joy, my dear. I should be a hypocrite if I said I was glad,
-but&mdash;but I wish you joy all the same."</p>
-
-<p>She gave a short, dry sob, keeping her face hidden; evidently, even to
-him, she was not having much joy in her good fortune just now. He moved
-closer to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.</p>
-
-<p>"I have come now to fetch you," he said, in a low, grave tone, that was
-still unsteady. "Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted to come herself, but I asked
-her to let me come alone, because I have something to say to you that
-is only between ourselves."</p>
-
-<p>Then her nervous terrors found voice. "Oh, tell me what it is!" she
-cried, trembling like a leaf. "Don't keep me in suspense. If you have
-anything cruel to say, say it quickly."</p>
-
-<p>"Anything cruel?" he repeated. "I don't think you are really afraid
-of that&mdash;from me. No, I haven't anything cruel to say&mdash;only a simple
-question to ask&mdash;which you will have to answer me honestly, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>She waited in silence, and he went on. "Didn't you tell
-me"&mdash;emphasising each word heavily&mdash;"that you had been induced by
-something outside yourself to decide in my favour?"</p>
-
-<p>"Not altogether induced," she protested; "helped perhaps."</p>
-
-<p>"Helped, then&mdash;influenced&mdash;by outside considerations?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she assented, with heroic truthfulness.</p>
-
-<p>"You were alluding to this discovery, of course?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"And you have consented to marry me in order that I may not be deprived
-of my property?" She did not speak immediately, from purely physical
-incapacity, and he went on with a hardening voice. "I will not be
-married on those grounds, Elizabeth. You must have <i>known</i> that I would
-not."</p>
-
-<p>For a moment she stood with her face hidden, struggling with a rising
-tide of tears that, when these terrible words were spoken, would not
-be kept in check; then she lifted her head, and flung out her arms,
-and clasped him round his great shoulders. (It is not, I own, what a
-heroine should have done, whose duty was to carry a difficulty of this
-sort through half a volume at least, but I am nevertheless convinced
-that my real Elizabeth did it, though I was not there to see&mdash;standing,
-as she did, within a few inches of her lover, and with nothing to
-prevent their coming to a reasonable understanding.) "Oh," she cried,
-between her long-drawn sobs, "<i>don't</i> cast me off because of that
-horrid money! I could not bear it <i>now!</i>"</p>
-
-<p>"What!" he responded, stooping over her and holding her to his breast,
-speaking in a voice as shaken as her own, "is it really so? Is it for
-love of me only, my darling, my darling?"&mdash;pouring his long pent-up
-passion over her with a force that seemed to carry her off her feet and
-make the room spin round. "Would you have me if there was no property
-in the question, simply because you feel, as I do, that we could not do
-without each other? Then we will be married to-morrow, Elizabeth, and
-all the world shall be welcome to brand me a schemer and fortune-hunter
-if it likes."</p>
-
-<p>She got her breath in a few seconds, and recovered sufficient
-consciousness to grasp the vanishing tail of those last words.</p>
-
-<p>"A fortune-hunter! Oh, how <i>preposterous!</i> A fortune-hunter!"</p>
-
-<p>"That is what I shall seem," he insisted, with a smile, "to that worthy
-public for whose opinion some people care so much."</p>
-
-<p>"But you don't care?"</p>
-
-<p>"No; I don't care."</p>
-
-<p>She considered a moment, with her tall head at rest on his tall
-shoulder; then new lights dawned on her. "But I must care for you," she
-said, straightening herself. "I must not allow anything so unjust&mdash;so
-outrageous&mdash;to be said of you&mdash;of <i>you</i>, and through my fault. Look
-here"&mdash;very seriously&mdash;"let us put off our marriage for a while&mdash;for
-just so long as may enable me to show the world, as I very easily can,
-that it is <i>I</i> who am seeking <i>you</i>&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Like a queen selecting her prince consort?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, like Esther&mdash;seeking favour of her king. I would not be too proud
-to run after you&mdash;" She broke off, with a hysterical laugh, as she
-realised the nature of her proposal.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, my darling, that would be very sweet," said he, drowning her
-once more in ineffable caresses, "but to be married to-morrow will
-be sweeter still. No, we won't wait&mdash;I <i>can't</i>&mdash;unless there is an
-absolute necessity for it. That game would certainly not be worth the
-candle. What is the world to me if I have got you? I said we would be
-married to-morrow; I told Mrs. Duff-Scott so, and got her consent&mdash;not
-without some difficulty, I must own&mdash;before Mr. Brion opened his
-budget. I would not hear what he had to say&mdash;little thinking what it
-was I was going to hear!&mdash;until I had announced my intentions and the
-date of our wedding. Think of my cheek! Conceive of such unparalleled
-impudence! But now that everything is square between us, that date
-shall be kept&mdash;it shall be faithfully kept. Come, then, I must take you
-away. Have you done your packing? Mrs. Duff-Scott says we are to bring
-that portmanteau with us, that she may see for herself if you have
-furnished it properly. And you are not to come back here&mdash;you are not
-to come to me to the Exhibition to-morrow. She was terribly scandalised
-at that item in our programme."</p>
-
-<p>"In yours," said Elizabeth, ungenerously.</p>
-
-<p>"In mine. I accept it cheerfully. So she is going to take charge of you
-from this hour until you are Mrs. Yelverton, and in my sole care for
-the rest of your life&mdash;or mine. Poor woman, she is greatly cut up by
-the loss of that grand wedding that she would have had if we had let
-her."</p>
-
-<p>"I am sure she must be cut up," said Elizabeth, whose face was suffused
-with blushes, and whose eyes looked troubled. "She must be shocked and
-vexed at such&mdash;such precipitancy. It really does not seem decorous,"
-she confessed, with tardy scrupulousness; "do you think it does?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, yes, I think it is quite decorous. It may not be conventional, but
-that is quite another thing."</p>
-
-<p>"It is like a clandestine marriage&mdash;almost like an elopement. It <i>must</i>
-vex her to see me acting so&mdash;so&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"So what? No, I don't think it does. She <i>was</i> a little vexed at first,
-but she has got over it. In her heart of hearts I believe she would be
-disappointed now if we didn't do it. She likes a little bit of innocent
-unconventionalism as well as anybody, and the romance of the whole
-thing has taken hold of her. Besides," added Mr. Yelverton, "you know
-she intended us for each other, sooner or later."</p>
-
-<p>"You have said as much before, but <i>I</i> don't know anything about it,"
-laughed Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, she told me I might have you&mdash;weeks ago."</p>
-
-<p>"She was very generous."</p>
-
-<p>"She was. She was more generous than she knew. Well"&mdash;catching himself
-up suddenly&mdash;"we really must go to her now, Elizabeth. I told her I
-would only come in here, where I have no business to be to-day, for
-half a minute, and I have stayed more than half an hour. It is nearly
-dinner time, and I have a great deal to do this evening. I have more to
-do even than I bargained for."</p>
-
-<p>"Why more?" she asked, apprehensively.</p>
-
-<p>"I am going to have some papers prepared by Mr. Brion and the major's
-lawyers, which you will have to sign before you surrender your
-independence to-morrow."</p>
-
-<p>"I won't sign anything," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, won't you! We'll see about that."</p>
-
-<p>"I know what it means. You will make me sign away your freedom to use
-that money as your own&mdash;and I won't do it."</p>
-
-<p>"We'll see," he repeated, smiling with an air which said plainly that
-if she thought herself a free agent she was very much mistaken.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING.</h4>
-
-
-<p>"Now, where is that portmanteau?"</p>
-
-<p>"It is in my room."</p>
-
-<p>"Strapped up?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"Let me take it down to the cab. Have you anything else to do?"</p>
-
-<p>"Only to change my dress."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't be long about it; it is seven o'clock. I will wait for you
-downstairs."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton walked into the passage, possessed himself of the
-portmanteau, and descended the stairs to the little hall below. The
-wide-eyed maid-of-all-work hastened to offer her services. She had
-never volunteered to carry luggage for the Miss Kings, but she seemed
-horrified at the sight of this stalwart gentleman making a porter of
-himself. "Allow me, sir," she said, sweetly, with her most engaging
-smile.</p>
-
-<p>"Thank you, my girl; I think I am better able to carry it than you
-are," he said, pleasantly. But he scrutinised her face with his keen
-eyes for a moment, and then took a sovereign from his pocket and
-slipped it into her hand. "Go and see if you can help Miss King," he
-said. "And ask her if there is anything you can do for her while she is
-away from home."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, sir"&mdash;simpering and blushing&mdash;"I'm sure&mdash;<i>anything</i>&mdash;" and
-she rushed upstairs and offered her services to Elizabeth in such
-acceptable fashion that the bride-elect was touched almost to tears, as
-by the discovery of a new friend. It seemed to her that she had never
-properly appreciated Mary Ann before.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton meanwhile paced a few steps to and fro on the footpath
-outside the gate, looking at his watch frequently. Paul Brion was at
-home, listening to his father's account of the afternoon's events and
-the news of the imminent marriage, with moody brow and heavy heart; it
-was the end of the romance for <i>him</i>, he felt, and he was realising
-what a stale and flat residuum remained in his cup of life. He had seen
-Mr. Yelverton go to No. 6 with fierce resentment of the liberty that
-the fortunate lover permitted himself to take with those sacred rights
-of single womanhood which he, Paul, had been so scrupulous to observe;
-now he watched the tall man pacing to and fro in the street below,
-waiting for his bride, with a sense of the inequalities of fortune that
-made him almost bloodthirsty. He saw the portmanteau set on end by the
-cabdriver's seat; he saw Elizabeth come forth with a bag in one hand
-and an umbrella in the other, followed by the servant with an ulster
-and a bonnet-box. He watched the dispossessed master of Yelverton, who,
-after all, had lost nothing, and had gained so much, and the great
-heiress who was to know Myrtle Street and obscurity no more, as they
-took their seats in the vehicle, she handed in by him with such tender
-and yet masterful care. He had an impulse to go out upon the balcony
-to bid her good-bye and God-speed, but he checked it proudly; and,
-surveying her departure from the window of his sitting-room, convinced
-himself that she was too much taken up with her own happiness to so
-much as remember his existence. It was the closing scene of the Myrtle
-Street drama&mdash;the last chapter of the charming little homely story
-which had been the romance of his life. No more would he see the girls
-going in and out of the gate of No. 7, nor meet them in the gardens
-and the street, nor be privileged to offer them his assistance and
-advice. No more would he sit on his balcony of nights to listen to
-Beethoven sonatas and Schubert serenades. The sponge had been passed
-over all those pleasant things, and had wiped them out as if they had
-never been. There were no longer any Miss Kings. And for Paul there
-was no longer anything left in life but arid and flavourless newspaper
-work&mdash;the ceaseless grinding of his brains in the great mill of the
-Press, which gave to the world its daily bread of wisdom, but had no
-guerdon for the producers of that invaluable grist.</p>
-
-<p>In truth, Elizabeth <i>did</i> forget all about him. She did not lift her
-eyes to the window where he sat; she could see and think of nothing but
-herself and her lover, and the wonderful circumstances that immediately
-surrounded them. When the cabman closed the door upon them, and they
-rattled away down the quiet street, it was borne in upon her that she
-really <i>was</i> going to be married on the morrow; and that circumstance
-was far more than enough to absorb her whole attention. In the suburbs
-through which they passed it was growing dusk, and the lamps were
-lighted. A few carriages were taking people out to dinner. It was
-already evening&mdash;the day was over. Mrs. Duff-Scott was standing on her
-doorstep as they drove up to the house, anxiously looking out for them.
-She had not changed her morning dress; nor had Patty, who stood beside
-her. All the rules of daily life were suspended at this crisis. A grave
-footman came to the door of the cab, out of which Mr. Yelverton helped
-Elizabeth, and then led her into the hall, where she was received in
-the fairy godmother's open arms.</p>
-
-<p>"Take care of her," he said to Patty, "and make her rest herself. I
-will come back about nine or ten o'clock."</p>
-
-<p>Patty nodded. Mrs. Duff-Scott tried to keep him to dinner, but he
-said he had no time to stay. So the cab departed with him, and his
-betrothed was hurried upstairs to her bedroom, where there ensued a
-great commotion. Even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had tried to stand upon
-her dignity a little, was unable to do so, and shared the feverish
-excitement that possessed the younger sisters. They were all a little
-off their heads&mdash;as, indeed, they must have been more than women
-not to be. The explanations and counter-explanations, the fervid
-congratulations, the irrepressible astonishment, the loving curiosity,
-the tearful raptures, the wild confusion of tongues and miscellaneous
-caresses, were very bewildering and upsetting. They did, in fact, bring
-on that attack of hysterics, the first and last in Elizabeth's life,
-which had been slowly generating in her healthy nervous system under
-the severe and various trials of the day. This little accident sobered
-them down, and reminded them of Mr. Yelverton's command that Elizabeth
-was to be made to rest herself. The heiress was accordingly laid upon
-a sofa, much against her wish, and composed with sal-volatile, and
-eau-de-cologne, and tea, and fans, and a great deal of kissing and
-petting.</p>
-
-<p>"But I <i>cannot</i> understand this excessive, this abnormal haste," Mrs.
-Duff-Scott said, when the girl seemed strong enough to bear being
-mildly argued with. "Mr. Yelverton explains it very plausibly, but
-still I can't understand it, from <i>your</i> point of view. Patty's theory
-is altogether untenable."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't understand it either," the bride-elect replied. "I think I had
-an idea that it might prevent him from knowing or realising that I was
-giving him the money instead of his giving it to me&mdash;I wanted to be
-beforehand with Mr. Brion. But of course that was absurd. And if you
-can persuade him to put it off for a few weeks&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"O dear no!&mdash;I know him too well. He is not a man to be persuaded.
-Well, I am thankful he is going to let you be married in church. I
-expected he would insist on the registry office. And he has promised to
-bring you back to me at the end of a fortnight or so, to stay here all
-the time till you go home. That is something." The fairy godmother was
-certainly a little huffy&mdash;for all these wonderful things had come to
-pass without her permission or assistance&mdash;but in her heart of hearts,
-as Mr. Yelverton had suspected, she was charmed with the situation, and
-as brimful of sympathy for the girl in her extraordinary circumstances
-as her own mother could have been.</p>
-
-<p>They had a quiet dinner at eight o'clock, for which the major, who had
-been despatched to his solicitors (to see about the drawing up of that
-"instrument" which Miss Yelverton's <i>fiancé</i> and cousin required her to
-sign on her own behalf before her individuality was irrevocably merged
-in his), returned too late to dress, creeping into the house gently
-as if he had no business to be there; and Elizabeth sat at her host's
-right hand, the recipient of the tenderest attentions and tit-bits.
-The little man, whose twinkling eye had lost its wonted humour, was
-profoundly touched by the events that had transpired, and saddened by
-the prospect of losing that sister of the three whom he had made his
-own particular chum, and with the presentiment that her departure would
-mean the loss of the others also. He could not even concern himself
-about the consequences to his wife of their removal from the circle
-of her activities, so possessed was he by the sad vision of his house
-left desolate. Perhaps the major felt himself getting old at last, and
-realised that cakes and ale could not be heaped upon his board for
-ever. He was certainly conscious of a check in his prosperous career,
-by the translation of the Miss Kings, and a feeling of injury in that
-Providence had not given him children that he <i>could</i> have kept around
-him for the solace of his declining years. It was hard to have just
-learned what it was to have charming daughters, and then to be bereaved
-of them like this, at a moment's notice. Yet he bore his disappointment
-with admirable grace; for the little major, despite all the traditions
-of his long-protracted youth, was the most unselfish of mortals, and a
-gentleman to the marrow of his bones.</p>
-
-<p>In the evening he went to town again, to find Mr. Yelverton. Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, when dinner was over, had a consultation with her cook,
-and made arrangements for a festive luncheon for the following day.
-The girls went upstairs again, and thither their adopted mother
-presently followed them, and they spent an hour together in Elizabeth's
-bedroom, absorbed in the sad but delightful business of overhauling
-her portmanteau. By this time they were able to discuss the situation
-with sobriety&mdash;a sobriety infused with much chastened emotion, to be
-sure, but still far removed from the ferment of hysterics. Patty, in
-particular, had a very bracing air about her.</p>
-
-<p>"Now I call this <i>life</i>," she said, flourishing open the skirt of one
-of Elizabeth's dresses to see if it was fit to be worn on a wedding
-journey; "I call this really <i>living</i>. One feels as if one's faculties
-were given for some purpose. After all, it is not necessary to go
-to Europe to see the world. It is not necessary to travel to gain
-experience and to have adventures. Is not this frock too shabby, Mrs.
-Duff-Scott&mdash;all things considered?"</p>
-
-<p>"Certainly," assented that lady, promptly. "Put in her new cashmere and
-the Indian silk, and throw away those old things now."</p>
-
-<p>"Go and get the Indian silk, Nelly. It is in the wardrobe. And don't
-hang over Elizabeth in that doleful manner, as if she were going to
-have her head cut off, like Lady Jane Grey. She is one of the happiest
-women on the face of the earth&mdash;or, if she isn't, she ought to be&mdash;with
-such a prospect before her. Think of it! It is enough to make one gnash
-one's teeth with envy."</p>
-
-<p>"Let us hope she will indeed realise her prospects," said Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, feeling called upon to reprove and moderate the pagan
-spirit that breathed in Patty's words. "Let us hope she will be as
-happy in the future as she is now."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, she will&mdash;she will! Let us hope she will have enough troubles to
-keep her from being <i>too</i> happy&mdash;too happy to last," said the girl
-audaciously; "that is the danger she will want preserving from."</p>
-
-<p>"You may say what you like, but it is a rash venture," persisted the
-matron, shaking her head. "She has known him but for such a <i>very</i>
-short time. Really, I feel that I am much to blame to let her run into
-it like this&mdash;with so little knowledge of what she is undertaking.
-And he <i>has</i> a difficult temperament, Elizabeth. There is no denying
-it&mdash;good and nice as he is, he is terribly obstinate about getting
-his own way. And if he is so <i>now</i>, what will he be, do you suppose,
-presently?"</p>
-
-<p>Patty, sitting on her heels on the floor, with her sister's clothes
-spread around her, looked up and laughed.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah! that is one safeguard against too much happiness, perhaps. I do
-think, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, that you have met your master, my dear."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think it," replied Elizabeth, serenely. "I know I have."</p>
-
-<p>"And you are quite content to be mastered?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;by him."</p>
-
-<p>"Of course you are. Who would marry a chicken-hearted milksop if she
-could get a splendid tyrant like that?" exclaimed Patty, fervently,
-for the moment forgetting there were such things as woman's rights
-in the world. "I wouldn't give a straw for a man who let you have
-your own way&mdash;unless, of course, he was no wiser than you. A man who
-sets up to domineer when he can't carry it out thoroughly is the most
-detestable and contemptible of created beings, but there is no want of
-thoroughness about <i>him</i>. To see him standing up at the table in the
-library this afternoon and defying Mrs. Duff-Scott to prevent him from
-marrying you to-morrow did one's heart good. It did indeed."</p>
-
-<p>"I daresay," said the fairy godmother. "But I should like to see <i>you</i>
-with a man like that to deal with. It is really a pity he did not take
-to you instead of Elizabeth. I should have liked to see what would have
-happened. The 'Taming of the Shrew' would have been a trifle to it."</p>
-
-<p>"Well," said Patty, "he will be my brother and lawful guardian
-to-morrow, and I suppose I shall have to accept his authority to a
-certain extent. Then you will see what will happen." She was silent
-for a few minutes, folding the Indian silk into the portmanteau, and a
-slow smile spread over her face. "We shall have some fights," she said,
-laughing softly. "But it will be worth while to fight with him."</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth will never fight with him," said Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth!" echoed Patty. "She will be wax&mdash;she will be
-butter&mdash;simply. She would spoil him if he could be spoiled. But I don't
-think he is spoilable. He is too tough. He is what we may call an ash
-tree man. And what isn't ash-tree is leather."</p>
-
-<p>"You are not complimentary," said Nelly, fearing that Elizabeth's
-feelings might be hurt by what seemed an allusion to the bridegroom's
-complexion.</p>
-
-<p>"Pooh! He is not the sort of man to compliment. Elizabeth knows what
-I mean. I feel inclined to puff myself out when I think of his being
-our own kith and kin&mdash;a man like that. I shall have ever so much more
-confidence in myself now that I know I have his blood in my veins;
-one can't be so near a relation without sharing some of the virtue of
-it&mdash;and a little of that sort ought to go a long way. Ha!"&mdash;lifting her
-finger for silence as she heard a sound in the hall below&mdash;"there he
-is."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott's maid came running upstairs to say, "Please'm, could
-you and the young ladies come down to the library for a few minutes?"
-She was breathless and fluttered, scenting mystery in the air, and she
-looked at Elizabeth with intense interest. "The major and Mr. Yelverton
-is 'ome," she added, "and some other gentlemen 'ave come. Shall I just
-put your 'air straight, Miss?"</p>
-
-<p>She was a little Cockney who had waited on fine ladies in London, and
-was one of Mrs. Duff-Scott's household treasures. In a twinkling she
-had "settled up" Elizabeth's rather dishevelled braids and twitched
-her frills and draperies into trim order; then, without offering to
-straighten any one else, she withdrew into the background until she
-could safely watch them go downstairs to the hall, where she knew Mr.
-Yelverton was waiting. Looking over the balustrade presently, she
-saw the four ladies join him; three of them were passing on to the
-library, as feeling themselves <i>de trop</i>, but were called back. She
-could not hear what was said, but she saw what was done, to the very
-best advantage. Mr. Yelverton fitted a substantial wedding-ring upon
-Miss King's finger, and then, removing it, put another ring in its
-place; a deeply-interested and sympathetic trio standing by to witness
-the little ceremony. The maid slipped down by the back-stairs to the
-servants' hall, and communicated the result of her observations to
-her fellow-servants. Mr. Yelverton meanwhile led Elizabeth into the
-library, where were seated at the same table where Mr. Brion had read
-his documents earlier in the day, three sedate gentlemen, Mr. Brion
-being one of them, with other documents spread out before them. The
-major was languidly fetching pens and ink from the writing-table in the
-window, and smiling furtively. He seemed to be amused by this latest
-phase of the Yelverton affair. His eyes twinkled with sagacious humour
-politely repressed, when he saw the betrothed couple enter the room
-together.</p>
-
-<p>He hastened forward to put a chair for the interesting "client,"
-for this one night his ward, at the head of the table; the girls and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott grouped themselves before the hearth to watch the
-proceedings, and whisper their comments thereupon. The bridegroom took
-his stand at Elizabeth's elbow, and intimated that it was his part to
-direct her what to do.</p>
-
-<p>"Why should I do anything?" she inquired, looking round her from face
-to face with a vague idea of seeking protection in legal quarters. "It
-cannot make the least difference. I know that a woman's property, if
-you don't meddle with it, is her husband's when she is married"&mdash;this
-was before the late amendment of the law on this matter, and she was,
-as one of the lawyers advised her, correctly informed&mdash;"and if ever it
-should be so, it should be so in <i>our</i> case. I cannot, I will not, have
-any separate rights. No"&mdash;as Mr. Yelverton laid a paper before her&mdash;"I
-don't want to read it."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, you need not read it," he said, laughing. "Mr. Brion does that
-for you. But I want you to sign. It is nothing to what you will have to
-do before we get this business settled."</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Yelverton is an honourable man, my dear," said Mr. Brion, with
-some energy&mdash;and his brother lawyers nodded in acquiescence&mdash;as he gave
-her a pen.</p>
-
-<p>"You need not tell me that," she replied, superbly. And, seeing no help
-for it, she took the pen and signed "Elizabeth Yelverton" (having to
-be reminded of her true name on each occasion) with the most reckless
-unconcern, determined that if she had signed away her husband's liberty
-to use her property as he liked, she would sign it back again when she
-had married him.</p>
-
-<p>And this was the last event of that eventful day. At midnight, lawyers
-and lover went away, and the tired girls to bed, and Elizabeth and
-Patty spent their last night together in each other's arms.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE WEDDING DAY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>After all, Elizabeth's wedding ceremonies, though shorn of much
-customary state, were not so wildly unconventional as to shock the
-feelings of society. Save in the matter of that excessive haste&mdash;which
-Mr. Yelverton took pains to show was not haste at all, seeing that,
-on the one hand, his time was limited, and that, on the other, there
-was absolutely nothing to wait for&mdash;all things were done decently
-and in order; and Mrs. Duff-Scott even went so far as to confess,
-when the bride and bridegroom had departed, that the fashion of their
-nuptials was "good art;" and that these were not the days to follow
-stereotyped customs blindfold. There was no unnecessary secrecy about
-it. Overnight, just, and only just, before she went to bed, the
-mistress of the house had explained the main facts of the case to her
-head servants, who, she knew, would not be able to repeat the story
-until too late for the publication of it to cause any inconvenience.
-She told them how the three Miss Kings&mdash;who had never been Miss Kings
-after all&mdash;had come in for large fortunes, under a will that had been
-long mislaid and accidentally recovered; and how Miss Elizabeth, who
-had been engaged for some considerable time (O, mendacious matron!),
-was to be married to her cousin, Mr. Yelverton, in the morning&mdash;very
-quietly, because both of them had a dislike to publicity and fuss. And
-in the morning the little Cockney lady's-maid, bringing them their
-tea, brought a first instalment of congratulations to the bride and
-her sisters, who had to hold a <i>levée</i> in the servants' hall as soon
-as they went downstairs. The household, if not boiling over with the
-excitement inseparable from a marriage <i>à la mode</i>, was in a pleasant
-simmer of decorous enjoyment; and the arrangements for the domestic
-celebration of the event lacked nothing in either completeness or
-taste. The gardener brought his choicest flowers for the table and
-for the bride's bouquet, which was kept in water until her return
-from church; and the cook surpassed himself in his efforts to provide
-a wedding breakfast that should be both faultless and unique. The
-men servants wore bits of strong-scented orange blossom in their
-button-holes, and the women white ribbons in their caps. They did what
-they could, in short, to honour the occasion and the young lady who had
-won their affection before she came into her inheritance of wealth, and
-the result to themselves and the family was quite satisfactory.</p>
-
-<p>There was a great deal of cold weather in the last month of 1880,
-summer time though it was, and this special morning was very cold.
-Elizabeth had not the face to come down to the early breakfast and
-a blazing fire in the gown she had worn the day before, and Mrs.
-Duff-Scott would not hear of her going to church in it. "Do you
-suppose he is quite an idiot?" she indignantly demanded (forgetting
-the absolute indifference to weather shown in the conventional bridal
-costume), when the bride gave an excuse for her own unreasonableness.
-"Do you suppose he wants you to catch your death of cold on your
-wedding day?"</p>
-
-<p>"What does it matter?" said Patty. "He won't care what you have on. Put
-it in the portmanteau and wear it at dinner every night, if he likes to
-see you in it. This morning you had better make yourself warm. He never
-expected the day to turn out so cold as this."</p>
-
-<p>And while they were talking of it Mr. Yelverton himself appeared,
-contrary to etiquette and his own arrangements. "Good morning," he
-said, shaking hands impartially all round. "I just came in to tell you
-that it is exceedingly cold, and that Elizabeth had better put a warm
-dress on. One would think it was an English December day by the feel of
-the wind."</p>
-
-<p>She got up from the breakfast-table and went out of the room, hurried
-away by Mrs. Duff-Scott; but in a minute she came back again.</p>
-
-<p>"Did you come for anything in particular?" she asked, anxiously.</p>
-
-<p>"No," he said, "only to take care that you did not put on that thin
-dress. And to see that you were alive," he added, dropping his voice.</p>
-
-<p>"And we really are to be married this morning?"</p>
-
-<p>"We really are, Elizabeth. In three quarters of an hour, if you can be
-at the church so soon. I am on my way there now. I am just going round
-to Myrtle Street to pick up old Brion."</p>
-
-<p>"Pick up young Brion, too," she urged earnestly, thinking of Patty.
-"Tell him I specially wished it."</p>
-
-<p>"He won't come," said Mr. Yelverton; "I asked him yesterday. His father
-says his liver must be out of order, he has grown so perverse and
-irritable lately. He won't do anything that he is wanted to do."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, poor boy! We must look after him, you and I, when we come back.
-Where are we going, Kingscote?"</p>
-
-<p>"My darling, I fear you will think my plans very prosaic. I think we
-are just going to Geelong&mdash;till to-morrow or next day. You see it is
-so cold, and I don't want you to be fagged with a long journey. Mount
-Macedon would have been charming, but I could not get accommodation.
-At Geelong, where we are both strangers, we shall be practically to
-ourselves, and it is better to make sure of a good hotel than of
-romantic scenery, if you have to choose between the two&mdash;for the
-present, at any rate&mdash;vulgar and sordid as that sentiment may appear.
-We can go where we like afterwards. I have just got a telegram to say
-that things will be ready for us. You left it to me, you know."</p>
-
-<p>"I am only too happy to leave everything to you," she said, at once.
-"And I don't care where we go&mdash;-it will be the same everywhere."</p>
-
-<p>"I think it will, Elizabeth&mdash;I think we shall be more independent
-of our circumstances than most people. Still I am glad to have made
-sure of a warm fire and a good dinner for you at your journey's end.
-We start at twenty minutes past four, I may tell you, and we are to
-get home&mdash;<i>home</i>, my dear, which will be wherever you and I can be
-together, henceforth&mdash;at about half-past six. That will give you time
-to rest before dinner. And you will not be very tired, after such a
-little journey, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth!" called a voice from the corridor above their heads, "send
-Mr. Yelverton away, and come upstairs at once."</p>
-
-<p>So Mr. Yelverton departed in his cab, to pick up old Brion and await
-his bride at the nearest church; and he was presently followed by
-the major in his brougham, and a little later by Mrs. Duff-Scott's
-capacious open carriage, containing herself and the three sisters, all
-in woollen walking dresses and furs. And Elizabeth really was married,
-still to her own great surprise. She stood in the cold and silent
-church, and took Kingscote, her lover, to be her lawful husband, and
-legally ratified that irrevocable contract in the clearest handwriting.
-He led her out into the windy road, when it was over, and put her into
-the brougham&mdash;the major taking her place in the other carriage, and on
-their way back both bride and bridegroom were very serious over their
-exploit.</p>
-
-<p>"You have the most wonderful trust in me," he said to her, holding
-her still ungloved hand, and slipping the wedding ring round on her
-finger&mdash;"the most amazing trust."</p>
-
-<p>"I have," she assented, simply.</p>
-
-<p>"It rather frightens me," he went on, "to see you taking me so
-absolutely for granted. Do you really think I am quite perfect,
-Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"No," she replied, promptly.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I am glad of that. For I am far from it, I assure you." Then he
-added, after a pause, "What are the faults you have to find with me,
-then?"</p>
-
-<p>"None&mdash;none," she responded fervently. "Your faults are no faults to
-me, for they are part of you. I don't want you perfect&mdash;I only want you
-to be always as I know you now."</p>
-
-<p>"I think I am rather a tyrant," he said, beginning to criticise himself
-freely, now that she showed no disposition to do it, "and perhaps I
-shall bully you if you allow me too much latitude. I am too fond of
-driving straight at everything I want, Elizabeth&mdash;I might drive over
-you, without thinking, some day, if you give me my own way always."</p>
-
-<p>"You may drive over me, if you like, and welcome," she said, smiling.</p>
-
-<p>"You have no consideration for your rights as a woman and a matron?&mdash;no
-proper pride?&mdash;no respect for your dignity, at all?"</p>
-
-<p>"None whatever&mdash;now."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, well, after all, I think it is a good thing for you that I have
-got you. You might have fallen into worse hands. You are just made to
-be a victim. And you will be better off as my victim than you might
-have been as another man's victim."</p>
-
-<p>"Much better," she said. "But I don't think I should have been another
-man's victim."</p>
-
-<p>When they reached Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, Patty and Eleanor, who had
-arrived a few minutes earlier, met their brother and sister, kissed
-them both, and took Elizabeth upstairs, where they tenderly drew
-off her furs and her bonnet, and waited upon her with a reverential
-recognition of her new and high estate. During their absence, Mr.
-Yelverton, Mr. Brion, and their host and hostess stood round the
-drawing-room fire, talking over a plan they had hatched between them,
-prior to taking leave of the old lawyer, who had to depart for his
-country home and business by an afternoon boat. This plan provided for
-a temporary disposal of that home and business at an early date, in
-order that Mr. Brion might accompany the entire party&mdash;the major and
-his wife, Mr. Yelverton and the three sisters&mdash;to England as the legal
-adviser of the latter, it having been deemed expedient to take these
-measures to facilitate the conveyance and distribution of the great
-Yelverton property. The old man was delighted at the prospect of his
-trip, which it was intended should be made both profitable and pleasant
-to him, and at the certainty of being identified for some time longer
-with the welfare of his young friends. Mrs. Duff-Scott was also ardent
-in her anticipation of seeing Elizabeth installed at Yelverton, of
-investigating the philanthropical enterprises of Elizabeth's husband,
-and of keeping, during the most critical and most interesting period
-of their career, the two unappropriated heiresses under her wing. The
-major was pleased to join this family party, and looked forward with
-some avidity to the enjoyment of certain London experiences that he had
-missed from his cup of blessings of late years.</p>
-
-<p>"And the dear girls will not be separated, except for this little week
-or two," said the fairy godmother, wiping away a surreptitious tear.
-"How happy that will make them!"</p>
-
-<p>They entered the room as she spoke, clinging together; and they sat
-down round the hearthrug, and were drawn into the discussion. Yes, it
-did make them happy, they said; it was the sweetest and brightest of
-plans and prospects. Only Patty, thinking of Elizabeth and Nelly going
-and Paul Brion left behind, felt her heart torn in two.</p>
-
-<p>The wedding breakfast was the mid-day lunch, to which they were
-summoned by the butler with his bridal favour in his button-hole. The
-little party of seven, when they went into the dining-room, found
-that apartment decorated with flowers and evergreens in a manner
-wonderful to behold, considering the short notice that had been given.
-The table was glorious with white blossoms of every description, the
-orange predominating and saturating the air with its almost too strong
-fragrance; and the dishes and the wines would have done honour to the
-bridal banquet of a princess. Little did anyone care for dishes and
-wines, except the host and hostess, who would have been less than
-mortal had they not felt interested therein; and most of them were glad
-to get the meal over. Some healths were drunk in the major's best dry
-champagne, and three little speeches were delivered; and then Mr. Brion
-respectfully begged to be excused, said good-bye all round, made his
-Grandisonian bow, and departed.</p>
-
-<p>"Tell Paul," said Elizabeth (she could call him Paul now), "that we
-have missed him to-day."</p>
-
-<p>"I will, my dear, I will," said the old man. And when he delivered that
-message half-an-hour later, he was hurt to see in what a bad spirit it
-was received. "I daresay!" was Paul's cynical comment.</p>
-
-<p>When Mr. Brion was gone, the little family returned to the
-drawing-room, and again sat round the bright fire, and behaved
-themselves as if nothing had happened. Elizabeth spread out her hands
-to the warmth, and gazed at her thick wedding ring meditatively: and
-the girls, who hung about her, gazed at it also with fascinated eyes.
-Mr. Yelverton sat a little apart, and watched his wife furtively. Mrs.
-Duff-Scott chatted, recalling the topography and notable features of
-Geelong. They had afternoon tea, as usual (only earlier than usual),
-in the familiar precious teacups, out of the familiar Queen Anne
-teapot. There was an every-day homeliness about this quiet hour, and
-yet it seemed that years had come and gone since yesterday. Presently
-Mr. Yelverton's watch-case was heard to shut with a sharp click, and
-the bride turned her head quickly and looked at him. He nodded. And
-as she rose from her low chair, holding out her hand to the faithful
-Patty, the wheels of the brougham crunched over the gravel in front of
-the windows. It was time to go.</p>
-
-<p>And in ten minutes more they were gone. Like that monarch who went
-into his own kingdom and shut the door, Elizabeth went into hers&mdash;to
-assume the crown and sceptre of a sovereignty than which no woman
-can boast a greater, let her be who she may&mdash;passing wholly into her
-strong husband's keeping without one shadow of regret or mistrust left
-in her heart, either for herself or him. They were driven to Spencer
-Street, where, while they waited a few minutes for their train, people
-who knew them stared at them, recognising the situation. They paced
-up and down the platform, side by side, she in her modest cloth dress
-and furs; and, far from avoiding observation, they rather courted it
-unconsciously, in a quiet way. They were so proud of belonging to each
-other, and from the enclosure of their own kingdom the outside world
-seemed such an enormous distance off. They went to Geelong in a saloon
-car full of people&mdash;what did it matter to them?&mdash;and at the seaside
-station found a carriage waiting for them. And by half-past six, as
-her husband said, Elizabeth reached home. There was a bright and cosy
-sitting-room, with a table prettily set for their <i>tête-à-tête</i> dinner,
-and a bright fire (of wood and not coal&mdash;a real bush fire) crackling
-on the hearth. In an inner room there was a fire too; and here, when
-her portmanteau had been unstrapped, and while Kingscote was consulting
-with the landlord, she hastily threw off her wraps and travelling
-dress, twisted up her fine hair afresh, put on that delicate gown that
-she had worn yesterday morning&mdash;could it possibly, she asked herself,
-have been <i>only</i> yesterday morning?&mdash;and made herself as fair to look
-upon as she knew how. And, when she opened the door softly, trembling
-with excitement and happiness, he was waiting for her, standing on the
-hearthrug, with his back to the fire&mdash;looking at her as he had looked
-that day, not so very long ago, when they were in the cave together,
-he on one side of the gulf and she on the other. He held out his arms
-again, and this time she sprang into them, and lifted her own to clasp
-his neck. And so they stood, without moving or speaking&mdash;"resting
-before dinner"&mdash;until the waiter, heralding his approach by a discreet
-tap at the door, came in with the soup-tureen.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>IN SILK ATTIRE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>The bride and bridegroom did not return to Melbourne until the day
-before Christmas&mdash;Friday the 24th, which was a warm, and bright, and
-proper summer day, but working up for a spell of north winds and bush
-fires before the year ran out. They had been wandering happily amongst
-the lovely vales and mountains of that sequestered district of Victoria
-which has become vaguely known as the "Kelly Country," and finding out
-before they left it, to their great satisfaction, that Australia could
-show them scenery so variously romantic as to put the charms of the
-best hotels into the shade. Even that terrestrial paradise on the ferny
-slopes of Upper Macedon was, if not eclipsed, forgotten, in the beauty
-of the wilder woodland of the far Upper Murray, which was beyond the
-reach of railways. They had also been again to visit the old house by
-the sea and Mr. Brion; had dawdled along the familiar shore in twilight
-and moonlight; had driven to the caves and eaten lunch once more in the
-green dell among the bracken fronds; had visited the graves of that
-other pair of married lovers&mdash;that Kingscote and Elizabeth of the last
-generation&mdash;and made arrangements for the perpetual protection from
-disturbance and desecration of that sadly sacred spot. And it was only
-on receipt of an urgent telegram from Mrs. Duff-Scott, to remind them
-that Christmas was approaching, and that she had devised festivities
-which were to be more in honour of them than of the season, that they
-remembered how long they had been away, and that it had become time to
-return to their anxious relatives.</p>
-
-<p>They arrived in Melbourne by the 3.41 train from Ballarat, where
-they had broken a long journey the evening before, and found Patty
-and Eleanor and the major's servants waiting for them at Spencer
-Street. The meeting between the sisters, after their first separation,
-was silent, but intensely impressive. On the platform though they
-were, they held each other's hands and gazed into each other's eyes,
-unconscious of the attention they attracted, unable to find words
-to express how much they had missed each other and how glad they
-were to be reunited. They drove home together in a state of absolute
-happiness; and at home Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major were standing on
-their doorstep as the carriage swept up the broad drive to the house,
-as full of tender welcomes for the bride as any father or mother could
-have been, rejoicing over a recovered child. Elizabeth thought of
-the last Christmas Eve which she and her sisters, newly orphaned and
-alone in the world, poor in purse and destitute of kith and kin, spent
-in that humble little bark-roofed cottage on the solitary cliff; and
-she marvelled at the wonderful and dazzling changes that the year had
-brought. Only one year out of twenty-nine!&mdash;and yet it seemed to have
-held the whole history of her life. She was taken into the drawing-room
-and put into a downy chair, and fed with bread and butter and tea and
-choice morsels of news, while Patty knelt on the floor beside her,
-and her husband stood on the hearthrug watching her, with, his air
-of quiet but proud proprietorship, as he chatted of their travels to
-the major. It was very delightful. She wondered if it were really
-herself&mdash;Elizabeth King that used to be&mdash;whose lines had fallen on
-these pleasant places.</p>
-
-<p>While the afternoon tea was in progress, Eleanor fidgetted impatiently
-about the room. She was so graceful and undulating in her movements
-that her fidgetting was only perceived to be such by those who knew
-her ways; but Elizabeth marked her gentle restlessness, in spite of
-personal preoccupations.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you want me to go upstairs with you?" she inquired with her kind
-eyes, setting down her teacup; and Nelly almost flew to escort her out
-of the room. There was to be a large dinner party at Mrs. Duff-Scott's
-to-night, to "meet Mr. and Mrs. Yelverton on their return," all
-Melbourne having been made acquainted with the romance of their
-cousinship and marriage, and the extent of their worldly possessions,
-during their absence.</p>
-
-<p>"It is to be so large," said Patty, as her brother-in-law shut the
-drawing-room door upon the trio, "that even Mrs. Aarons will be
-included in it."</p>
-
-<p>"Mrs. Aarons!" echoed Elizabeth, who knew that the fairy godmother had
-repaid that lady's hospitality and attentions with her second-best
-bit of sang-de-boeuf crackle and her sole specimen of genuine Rose
-du Barry&mdash;dear and precious treasures sacrificed to the demands of
-conscience which proclaimed Mrs. Aarons wronged and insulted by being
-excluded from the Duff-Scott dinner list. "And she is really coming?"</p>
-
-<p>"She really is&mdash;though it is her own right to receive, as I
-think Mrs. Duff-Scott perfectly remembered when she sent her
-invitation&mdash;accompanied, of course, by Mr. Aarons."</p>
-
-<p>"And now," said Nelly, looking back, "Patty has got her old wish&mdash;she
-really <i>is</i> in a position to turn up her nose, at last."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," said Patty, vehemently, "don't remind me of that wicked, vulgar,
-indecent speech! Poor woman, who am I that I should turn up my nose at
-her? I am very glad she is coming&mdash;I think she ought to have been asked
-long ago. Why not? She is just as good as we are, every bit."</p>
-
-<p>Eleanor laughed softly. "Ah, what a difference in one's sentiments does
-a large fortune make&mdash;doesn't it, Elizabeth? Patty doesn't want to
-turn up her nose at Mrs. Aarons, because, don't you see, she knows she
-can crush her quite naturally and comfortably by keeping it down. And,
-besides, when one has got one's revenge&mdash;when one has paid off one's
-old score&mdash;one doesn't want to be mean and barbarous. Oh," exclaimed
-Nelly, rapturously, "I never thought that being rich was so delicious
-as it is!"</p>
-
-<p>"I hope it won't spoil you," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"I hope it won't spoil <i>you</i>," retorted the girl, saucily. "You are in
-far greater danger than I am."</p>
-
-<p>By this time they had reached the top of the stairs, and Eleanor, who
-had led the way, opened the door, not of Elizabeth's old bedroom, but
-of the state guest-chamber of the house; and she motioned the bride
-to enter with a low bow. Here was the explanation of that impatience
-to get her upstairs. Elizabeth took a few steps over the threshold
-and then stood still, while the tears rushed into her eyes. The room
-had been elaborately dressed in white lace and white ribbons; the
-dressing-table was decorated with white flowers; the bed was covered
-with an æsthetic satin quilt, and on the bed was spread out a bridal
-robe&mdash;white brocade, the bodice frilled with Brussels lace&mdash;with white
-shoes, white gloves, white silk stockings, white feather fan, white
-everything <i>en suite</i>.</p>
-
-<p>"This is your dress for to-night," said Patty, coaxing it with soft
-hands. "And you will find lots more in the wardrobe. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-has been fitting you up while you have been away."</p>
-
-<p>Upon which Nelly threw open the doors of the wardrobe and pulled out
-the drawers, and displayed with great pride the piles and layers of new
-clothes that the fairy godmother had laboriously gathered together;
-the cream, or, to speak more correctly (if less poetically), the
-butter, churned from the finest material that the Melbourne shops
-could produce, and "made up" by a Collins Street mademoiselle, whose
-handiwork was as recognisable to the local initiated as that of Elise
-herself. The bride had been allowed no choice in the matter of her own
-trousseau, but she did not feel that she had missed anything by that.
-She stood and gazed at the beautiful garments, which were all dim and
-misty as seen through her tears, with lips and hands trembling, and a
-sense of misgiving lest such extravagant indulgence of all a woman's
-possible desires should tempt Fate to lay hands prematurely upon her.
-Then she went to find her friend&mdash;who had had so much enjoyment in the
-preparation of her surprise&mdash;and did what she could by dumb caresses to
-express her inexpressible sentiments.</p>
-
-<p>Then in course of time these upsetting incidents were got over, and
-cheerful calmness supervened. As the night drew on, Mrs. Duff-Scott
-retired to put on her war paint. Nelly also departed to arrange her
-own toilet, which was a matter of considerable importance to her in
-these days. The girl who had worn cotton gloves to keep the sun from
-her hands, a year ago, had developed a great faculty for taking care of
-her beauty and taking pains with her clothes. Patty lingered behind to
-wait on Elizabeth. And in the interval before the bridegroom came up,
-these two had a little confidential chat. "What have you been doing, my
-darling," said the elder sister, "while I have been away?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, nothing much," said Patty, rather drearily. "Shopping about your
-things most of the time, and getting ready for our voyage. They say
-we are to go as far as Italy next month, because January is the best
-time for the Red Sea. And they want the law business settled. It is
-dreadfully soon, isn't it?" This was not the tone of voice in which
-Italy was talked of a year ago.</p>
-
-<p>"And you haven't&mdash;seen anybody?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, I haven't seen anybody. Except once&mdash;and then he took off his hat
-without looking at me."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth sighed. She was herself so safe and happy with her beloved
-that she could not bear to think of this other pair estranged and
-apart, making themselves so miserable.</p>
-
-<p>"And what about Nelly and Mr. Westmoreland?" she inquired presently.</p>
-
-<p>"Nelly is a baby," said Patty, with lofty scorn, "and Mr. Westmoreland
-is a great lout. You have no idea what a spectacle they are making of
-themselves."</p>
-
-<p>"What&mdash;is it going on again?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, it is going on&mdash;but not in the old style. Mr. Westmoreland
-has fallen in love with her really now&mdash;as far as such a brainless
-hippopotamus is capable of falling in love, that is to say. I suppose,
-the fact of her having a great fortune and high connections makes all
-the difference. And she is really uncommonly pretty. It is only in
-these last weeks that I have fully understood how much prettier she
-is than other girls, and I believe he, to do him justice, has always
-understood it in his stupid, coarse way."</p>
-
-<p>"And Nelly?"</p>
-
-<p>"Nelly," said Patty, "has been finding out a great deal lately. She
-knows well enough how pretty she is, and she knows what money and all
-the other things are worth. She is tasting the sweets of power, and
-she likes it&mdash;she likes it too much, I think&mdash;she will grow into a
-bit of a snob, if she doesn't mind. She is 'coming the swell' over
-Mr. Westmoreland, to use one of his own choice idioms&mdash;not exactly
-rudely, because she has such pretty manners, but with the most superb
-impertinence, all the same&mdash;and practising coquetry as if she had been
-beset with abject lovers all her life. She sits upon him and teases him
-and aggravates him till he doesn't know how to contain himself. It is
-<i>too</i> ridiculous."</p>
-
-<p>"I should have thought he was the last man to let himself be sat upon."</p>
-
-<p>"So should I. But he courts it&mdash;he obtrudes his infatuated
-servility&mdash;he goes and asks her, as it were, to sit upon him. It has
-the charm of novelty and difficulty, I suppose. People must get tired
-of having their own way always."</p>
-
-<p>"But I can't understand Nelly."</p>
-
-<p>"You soon will. You will see to-night how she goes on, for he is coming
-to dinner. She will tantalise him till he will forget where he is, and
-lose all sense of decency, and be fit to stamp and roar like a great
-buffalo. She says it is 'taking it out of him.' And she will look at
-the time so sweet and serene and unconscious&mdash;bah! I could box her
-ears," concluded Patty.</p>
-
-<p>"And Mrs. Duff-Scott encourages him still, then?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. That is another change. Mrs. Duff-Scott has withdrawn her gracious
-favour. She doesn't want him now. She thinks she will make a pair
-of duchesses of us when she gets us to London, don't you see? Dear
-woman, I'm afraid she will be grievously disappointed, so far as I am
-concerned. No, ever since the day you went away&mdash;which was the very day
-that Mr. Westmoreland began to come back&mdash;she has given him the cold
-shoulder. You know <i>what</i> a cold shoulder it can be! There is not a man
-alive who could stand up against it, except him. But he doesn't care.
-He can't, or won't, see that he is not wanted. I suppose it doesn't
-occur to him that <i>he</i> can possibly be unwelcome anywhere. He loafs
-about the house&mdash;he drops on us at Alston and Brown's&mdash;he turns up
-at the theatre&mdash;at the Exhibition&mdash;at Mullen's&mdash;everywhere. We can't
-escape him. Nelly likes it. If a day passes without her seeing him, she
-gets quite restless. She is like a horrid schoolboy with a cockroach
-on a pin&mdash;it is her great amusement in life to see him kicking and
-struggling."</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps she really does care about him, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Not she. She is just having her revenge&mdash;heartless little monkey!
-I believe she will be a duchess, after all, with a miserable old
-toothless creature for her husband. It would be no more than she
-deserves. Oh, Elizabeth!"&mdash;suddenly changing her voice from sharps to
-flats&mdash;"how <i>beautiful</i> you do look! Nelly may be a duchess, and so
-might I, and neither of us would ever beat you for <i>presence</i>. I heard
-Mrs. Duff-Scott the other day congratulating herself that the prettiest
-of her three daughters were still left to dispose of. I don't believe
-we are the prettiest, but, if we are, what is mere prettiness compared
-with having a head set on like yours and a figure like a Greek statue?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth had been proceeding with her toilet, in order to have
-leisure to gossip with her husband when he came up; and now she stood
-before her long glass in her bridal dress, which had been composed by
-Mrs. Duff-Scott with an unlimited expenditure of taste and care. The
-material of it was exceptionally, if not obtrusively, rich&mdash;like a
-thick, dull, soft silk cloth, covered all over with a running pattern
-of flowers severely conventionalised; and it was made as plain as plain
-could be, falling straight to her feet in front, and sweeping back in
-great heavy folds behind, and fitting like a pliant glove to the curves
-of her lovely shape. Only round the bodice, cut neither low nor high,
-and round her rather massive elbows, had full ruffles of the lace that
-was its sole trimming been allowed; and altogether Mrs. Yelverton's
-strong points were brought out by her costume in a marvellously
-effective manner.</p>
-
-<p>There was a sound at this moment in the adjoining room, on hearing
-which Patty abruptly departed; and the bride stood listening to her
-lord's footsteps, and still looking at herself in the glass. He
-entered her room, and she did not turn or raise her eyes, but a soft
-smile spread over her face as if a sun had risen and covered her with
-sudden light and warmth. She tried to see if the waist of her gown was
-wrinkled, or the set of it awry, but it was no use. When he came close
-to her and stooped to kiss her white neck, she lost all recollection of
-details.</p>
-
-<p>"You want," he said, about ten minutes afterwards, when he had himself
-turned her round and round, and fingered the thick brocade and the lace
-critically, "you want diamonds with such a stately dress."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no," she said; "I won't have any diamonds."</p>
-
-<p>"You <i>won't</i>, did you say? This language to <i>me</i>, Elizabeth!"</p>
-
-<p>"The diamonds shall go in beer and tobacco, Kingscote."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear, they can't."</p>
-
-<p>"Why not?"</p>
-
-<p>"Because the Yelverton diamonds are heirlooms."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, dear me! Are there Yelverton diamonds too?"</p>
-
-<p>"There are, I grieve to say. They have been laid up under lock and key
-for about forty years, and they must be very old-fashioned. But they
-are considered rather fine, and they are yours for the present, and as
-you can't make any use of them they may as well fulfil their purpose of
-being ornamental. You must wear them by-and-by, you know, when you go
-to Court."</p>
-
-<p>"To Court?" reproachfully. "Is that the kind of life we are going to
-lead?"</p>
-
-<p>"Just occasionally. We are going to combine things, and our duties to
-ourselves and to society. It is not going to be all Buckingham Palace,
-nor yet all Whitechapel, but a judicious blending of the two."</p>
-
-<p>"And Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>"And Yelverton of course. Yelverton is to be always there&mdash;our place of
-rest&mdash;our base of operations&mdash;our workshop&mdash;our fortress&mdash;our home with
-a capital H."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," she said, "we seem to have the shares of so many poor people
-besides our own. It overwhelms me to think of it."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't think of it," he said, as she laid her head on his shoulder, and
-he smoothed her fine brown hair with his big palm. "Don't be afraid
-that we are destined to be too happy. We shall be handicapped yet."</p>
-
-<p>They did not go down until the carriages had begun to arrive, and then
-they descended the wide stairs dawdlingly, she leaning on him, with her
-two white-gloved hands clasped round his coat sleeve, and he bending
-his tall head towards her&mdash;talking still of their own affairs, and
-quite indifferent to the sensation they were about to make. When they
-entered the dim-coloured drawing-room, which was suffused with a low
-murmur of conversation, and by the mild radiance of many wax candles
-and coloured lamps, Elizabeth was made to understand by hostess and
-guests the exceptional position of Mrs. Yelverton of Yelverton, and
-wherein and how enormously it differed from that of Elizabeth King.
-But she was not so much taken up with her own state and circumstance
-as to forget those two who had been her charge for so many years. She
-searched for Nelly first. And Nelly was in the music-room, sitting at
-the piano, and looking dazzlingly fair under the gaslight in the white
-dress that she had worn at the club ball, and with dark red roses at
-her throat and in her yellow hair. She was playing Schubert's A Minor
-Sonata ravishingly&mdash;for the benefit of Mr. Smith, apparently, who sat,
-the recipient of smiles and whispers, beside her, rapt in ecstasies
-of appreciation; and she was taking not the slightest notice of Mr.
-Westmoreland, who, leaning over the other end of the piano on his
-folded arms, was openly sighing his soul into his lady's face. Then
-Elizabeth looked for Patty. And Patty she found on that settee within
-the alcove at the opposite end of the big room&mdash;also in her white ball
-dress, and also looking charming&mdash;engaged in what appeared to be an
-interesting and animated dialogue with the voluble Mrs. Aarons.</p>
-
-<p>The young matron sighed as she contrasted her own blessed lot with
-theirs&mdash;with Nelly's, ignorant of what love was, and with Patty's,
-knowing it, and yet having no comfort in the knowing. She did not know
-which to pity most.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PATTY CHOOSES HER CAREER.</h4>
-
-
-<p>The dinner party on Christmas Eve was the first of a series of
-brilliant festivities, extending all through the hot last week of
-1880, and over the cool new year (for which fires were lighted and
-furs brought out again), and into the sultry middle of January, and up
-to the memorable anniversary of the day on which the three Miss Kings
-had first arrived in Melbourne; and when they were over this was the
-state of the sisters' affairs:&mdash;Elizabeth a little tired with so much
-dissipation, but content to do all that was asked of her, since she was
-not asked to leave her husband's side; Eleanor, still revelling in the
-delights of wealth and power, and in Mr. Westmoreland's accumulating
-torments; and Patty worn and pale with sleepless nights and heart-sick
-with hope deferred, longing to set herself straight with Paul Brion
-before she left Australia, and seeing her chances of doing so dwindling
-and fading day by day. And now they were beginning to prepare for their
-voyage to a world yet larger and fuller than the one in which they had
-lived and learned so much.</p>
-
-<p>One afternoon, while Mrs. Duff-Scott and Eleanor paid calls, Elizabeth
-and Patty went for the last time to Myrtle Street, to pack up the
-bureau and some of their smaller household effects in preparation
-for the men who were to clear the rooms on the morrow. Mr. Yelverton
-accompanied them, and lingered in the small sitting-room for awhile,
-helping here and there, or pretending to do so. For his entertainment
-they boiled the kettle and set out the cheap cups and saucers, and they
-had afternoon tea together, and Patty played the Moonlight Sonata; and
-then Elizabeth bade her husband go and amuse himself at his club and
-come back to them in an hour's time. He went, accordingly; and the two
-sisters pinned up their skirts and tucked up their sleeves, and worked
-with great diligence when he was no longer there to distract them. They
-worked so well that at the end of half an hour they had nothing left
-to do, except a little sorting of house linen and books. Elizabeth
-undertaking this business, Patty pulled down her sleeves and walked to
-the window; and she stood there for a little while, leaning her arm on
-the frame and her head on her arm.</p>
-
-<p>"Paul Brion is at home, Elizabeth," she said, presently.</p>
-
-<p>"Is he, dear?" responded the elder sister, who had begun to think
-(because her husband thought it) that it was a pity Paul Brion, being
-so hopelessly cantankerous, should be allowed to bother them any more.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. And, Elizabeth, I hope you won't mind&mdash;it is very improper, I
-know&mdash;but <i>I shall go and see him.</i> It is my last chance. I will go and
-say good-bye to Mrs. M'Intyre, and then I will run up to his room and
-speak to him&mdash;just for one minute. It is my last chance," she repeated;
-"I shall never have another."</p>
-
-<p>"But, my darling&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't be afraid"&mdash;drawing herself up haughtily&mdash;"I am not going to
-be <i>quite</i> a fool. I shall not throw myself into his arms. I am simply
-going to apologise for cutting him on Cup Day. I am simply going to set
-myself right with him before I go away&mdash;for his father's sake."</p>
-
-<p>"It is a risky experiment, my dear, whichever way you look at it. I
-think you had better write."</p>
-
-<p>"No. I have no faith in writing. You cannot make a letter say what
-you mean. And he will not come to us&mdash;he will not share his father's
-friendship for Kingscote&mdash;he was not at home when you and Kingscote
-called on him&mdash;he was not even at Mrs. Aarons's on Friday. There is no
-way to get at him but to go and see him now. I hear him in his room,
-and he is alone. I will not trouble him long&mdash;I will let him see that
-I can do without him quite as well as he can do without me&mdash;but I must
-and will explain the horrible mistake that I know he has fallen into
-about me, before I lose the chance for the rest of my life."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear, how can you? How can you tell him your true reason for
-cutting him? How can you do it at all, without implying more than you
-would like to imply? You had better leave it, Patty. Or let me go for
-you, my darling."</p>
-
-<p>But Patty insisted upon going herself, conscientiously assuring her
-sister that she would do it in ten minutes, without saying anything
-improper about Mrs. Aarons, and without giving the young man the
-smallest reason to suppose that she cared for him any more than she
-cared for his father, or was in the least degree desirous of being
-cared for by him. And this was how she did it.</p>
-
-<p>Paul was sitting at his table, with papers strewn before him. He had
-been writing since his mid-day breakfast, and was half way through
-a brilliant article on "Patronage in the Railway Department," when
-the sound of the piano next door, heard for the first time after a
-long interval, scattered his political ideas and set him dreaming and
-meditating for the rest of the afternoon. He was leaning back in his
-chair, with his pipe in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, and his
-legs stretched out rigidly under the table, when he heard a tap at the
-door. He said "Come in," listlessly, expecting Betsy's familiar face;
-and when, instead of an uninteresting housemaid, he saw the beautiful
-form of his beloved standing on the threshold, he was so stunned with
-astonishment that at first he could not speak.</p>
-
-<p>"Miss&mdash;Miss Yelverton!" he exclaimed, flinging his pipe aside and
-struggling to his feet.</p>
-
-<p>"I hope I am not disturbing you," said Patty, very stiffly. "I have
-only come for a moment&mdash;because we are going away, and&mdash;and&mdash;and I had
-something to say to you before we went. We have been so unfortunate&mdash;my
-sister and brother-in-law were so unfortunate&mdash;as to miss seeing you
-the other day. I&mdash;we have come this afternoon to do some packing,
-because we are giving up our old rooms, and I thought&mdash;I thought&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>She was stammering fearfully, and her face was scarlet with confusion
-and embarrassment. She was beginning already to realise the difficulty
-of her undertaking.</p>
-
-<p>"Won't you sit down?" he said, wheeling his tobacco-scented arm-chair
-out of its corner. He, too, was very much off his balance and
-bewildered by the situation, and his voice, though grave, was shaken.</p>
-
-<p>"No, thank you," she replied, with what she intended to be a haughty
-and distant bow. "I only came for a moment&mdash;as I happened to be saying
-good-bye to Mrs. M'Intyre. My sister is waiting for me. We are going
-home directly. I just wanted&mdash;I only wanted"&mdash;she lifted her eyes, full
-of wistful appeal, suddenly to his&mdash;"I wanted just to beg your pardon,
-that's all. I was very rude to you one day, and you have never forgiven
-me for it. I wanted to tell you that&mdash;that it was not what you thought
-it was&mdash;that I had a reason you did not know of for doing it, and that
-the moment after I was sorry&mdash;I have been sorry every hour of my life
-since, because I knew I had given you a wrong impression, and I have
-not been able to rectify it."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't quite understand&mdash;" he began.</p>
-
-<p>"No, I know&mdash;I know. And I can't explain. Don't ask me to explain.
-Only <i>believe</i>," she said earnestly, standing before him and leaning
-on the table, "that I have never, never been ungrateful for all the
-kindness you showed us when we came here a year ago&mdash;I have always
-been the same. It was not because I forgot that you were our best
-friend&mdash;the best friend we ever had&mdash;that I&mdash;that I"&mdash;her voice was
-breaking, and she was searching for her pocket-handkerchief&mdash;"that I
-behaved to you as I did."</p>
-
-<p>"Can't you tell me how it was?" he asked, anxiously. "You have nothing
-to be grateful for, Miss Patty&mdash;Miss Yelverton, I ought to say&mdash;and
-I cannot feel that I have anything to forgive. But I should like to
-know&mdash;yes, now that you have spoken of it, I think you ought to tell
-me&mdash;why you did it."</p>
-
-<p>"I cannot&mdash;I cannot. It was something that had been said of you. I
-believed it for a moment, because&mdash;because it looked as if it were
-true&mdash;but only for a moment. When I came to think of it I knew it was
-impossible."</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion's keen face, that had been pale and strained, cleared
-suddenly, and his dark eyes brightened. He was quite satisfied with
-this explanation. He knew what Patty meant as well as if there had been
-but one word for a spade, and she had used it&mdash;as well, and even better
-than she could have imagined; for she forgot that she had no right or
-reason to resent his shortcomings, save on the ground of a special
-interest in him, and he was quick to remember it.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, do sit down a moment," he said, pushing the arm-chair a few inches
-forward. He was trying to think what he might dare to say to her to
-show how thankful he was. It was impossible for her to help seeing the
-change in him.</p>
-
-<p>"No," she replied, hastily pulling herself together. "I must go
-now. I had no business to come here at all&mdash;it was only because it
-seemed the last chance of speaking to you. I have said what I came to
-say, and now I must go back to my sister." She looked all round the
-well-remembered room&mdash;at the green rep suite, and the flowery carpet,
-and the cedar chiffonnier, and the Cenci over the fire-place&mdash;at Paul's
-bookshelves and littered writing-table, and his pipes and letters on
-the chimney-piece, and his newspapers on the floor; and then she looked
-at him with eyes that <i>would</i> cry, though she did her very best to help
-it. "Good-bye," she said, turning towards the door.</p>
-
-<p>He took her outstretched hand and held it "Good-bye&mdash;if it must be so,"
-he said. "You are really going away by the next mail?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"And not coming back again?"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know."</p>
-
-<p>"Well," he said, "you are rich, and a great lady now. I can only wish
-with all my heart for your happiness&mdash;I cannot hope that I shall ever
-be privileged to contribute to it again. I am out of it now, Miss
-Patty."</p>
-
-<p>She left her right hand in his, and with the other put her handkerchief
-to her eyes. "Why should you be out of it?" she sobbed. "Your father
-is not out of it. It is you who have deserted us&mdash;we should never have
-deserted you."</p>
-
-<p>"I thought you threw me over that day on the racecourse, and I have
-only tried to keep my place."</p>
-
-<p>"But I have told you I never meant that."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, thank God! Whatever happens, I shall have this day to
-remember&mdash;that you came to me voluntarily to tell me that you had never
-been unworthy of yourself. You have asked me to forgive you, but it is
-I that want to be forgiven&mdash;for insulting you by thinking that money
-and grandeur and fine clothes could change you."</p>
-
-<p>"They will never change me," said Patty, who had broken down
-altogether, and was making no secret of her tears. In fact, they were
-past making a secret of. She had determined to have no tender sentiment
-when she sought this interview, but she found herself powerless to
-resist the pathos of the situation. To be parting from Paul Brion&mdash;and
-it seemed as if it were really going to be a parting&mdash;was too
-heartbreaking to bear as she would have liked to bear it.</p>
-
-<p>"When you were poor," he said, hurried along by a very strong current
-of emotions of various kinds, "when you lived here on the other side of
-the wall&mdash;if you had come to me&mdash;if you had spoken to me, and treated
-me like this <i>then</i>&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>She drew her hand from his grasp, and tried to collect herself.
-"Hush&mdash;we must not go on talking," she said, with a flurried air; "you
-must not keep me here now."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I will not keep you&mdash;I will not take advantage of you now," he
-replied, "though I am horribly tempted. But if it had been as it used
-to be&mdash;if we were both poor alike, as we were then&mdash;if you were Patty
-King instead of Miss Yelverton&mdash;I would not let you out of this room
-without telling me something more. Oh, why did you come at all?" he
-burst out, in a sudden rage of passion, quivering all over as he looked
-at her with the desire to seize her and kiss her and satisfy his
-starving heart.</p>
-
-<p>"You have been hard to me always&mdash;from first to last&mdash;but this is the
-very cruellest thing you have ever done. To come here and drive me
-wild like this, and then go and leave me us if I were Mrs. M'Intyre or
-the landlord you were paying off next door. I wonder what you think
-I am made of? I have stood everything&mdash;I have stood all your snubs,
-and slights, and hard usage of me&mdash;I have been humble and patient as
-I never was to anybody who treated me so in my life before&mdash;but that
-doesn't mean that I am made of wood or stone. There are limits to
-one's powers of endurance, and though I have borne so much, I <i>can't</i>
-bear <i>this</i>. I tell you fairly it is trying me too far." He stood at
-the table fluttering his papers with a hand as unsteady as that of
-a drunkard, and glaring at her, not straight into her eyes&mdash;which,
-indeed, were cast abjectly on the floor&mdash;but all over her pretty,
-forlorn figure, shrinking and cowering before him. "You are kind enough
-to everybody else," he went on; "you might at least show some common
-humanity to me. I am not a coxcomb, I hope, but I know you can't have
-helped knowing what I have felt for you&mdash;no woman can help knowing when
-a man cares for her, though he never says a word about it. A dog who
-loves you will get some consideration for it, but you are having no
-consideration for me. I hope I am not rude&mdash;I'm afraid I am forgetting
-my manners, Miss Patty&mdash;but a man can't think of manners when he is
-driven out of his senses. Forgive me, I am speaking to you too roughly.
-It was kind of you to come and tell me what you have told me&mdash;I am not
-ungrateful for that&mdash;but it was a cruel kindness. Why didn't you send
-me a note&mdash;a little, cold, formal note? or why did you not send Mrs.
-Yelverton to explain things? That would have done just as well. You
-have paid me a great honour, I know; but I can't look at it like that.
-After all, I was making up my mind to lose you, and I think I could
-have borne it, and got on somehow, and got something out of life in
-spite of it. But now how can I bear it?&mdash;how can I bear it <i>now?</i>"</p>
-
-<p>Patty bowed like a reed to this unexpected storm, which, nevertheless,
-thrilled her with wild elation and rapture, through and through. She
-had no sense of either pride or shame; she never for a moment regretted
-that she had not written a note, or sent Mrs. Yelverton in her
-place. But what she said and what she did I will leave the reader to
-conjecture. There has been too much love-making in these pages of late.
-Tableau. We will ring the curtain down.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Elizabeth sat alone when her work was done, wondering what
-was happening at Mrs. M'Intyre's, until her husband came to tell her
-that it was past six o'clock, and time to go home to dress for dinner.
-"The child can't possibly be with <i>him</i>," said Mr. Yelverton, rather
-severely. "She must be gossiping with the landlady."</p>
-
-<p>"I think I will go and fetch her," said Elizabeth. But as she was
-patting on her bonnet, Patty came upstairs, smiling and preening her
-feathers, so to speak&mdash;bringing Paul with her.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOUR.</h4>
-
-
-<p>When Mrs. Duff-Scott came to hear of all this, she was terribly vexed
-with Patty. Indeed, no one dared to tell her the whole truth, and to
-this day she does not know that the engagement was made in the young
-bachelor's sitting-room, whither Patty had sought him because he would
-not seek her. She thinks the pair met at No. 6, under the lax and
-injudicious chaperonage of Elizabeth; and, in the first blush of her
-disappointment and indignation, she was firmly convinced, though too
-well bred to express her conviction, that the son had taken advantage
-of the father's privileged position to entrap the young heiress for
-the sake of her thirty thousand pounds. Things did not go smoothly
-with Patty, as they had done with her sister. Elizabeth herself was a
-rock of shelter and a storehouse of consolation from the moment that
-the pair came up to the dismantled room where she and her husband were
-having a lovers' <i>tête-à-tête</i> of their own, and she saw that the long
-misunderstanding was at an end; but no one else except Mrs. M'Intyre
-(who, poor woman, was held of no account), took kindly to the alliance
-so unexpectedly proposed. Quite the contrary, in fact. Mr. Yelverton,
-notwithstanding his late experiences, had no sympathy whatever for
-the young fellow who had flattered him by following his example. The
-philanthropist, with all his full-blown modern radicalism, was also a
-man of long descent and great connections, and some subtle instinct
-of race and habit rose up in opposition to the claims of an obscure
-press writer to enter his distinguished family. It was one thing for a
-Yelverton man to marry a humbly-circumstanced woman, as he had himself
-been prepared to do, but quite another thing for a humbly-circumstanced
-man to aspire to the hand of a Yelverton woman, and that woman rich and
-beautiful, his own ward and sister. He was not aware of this strong
-sentiment, but believed his objections arose from a proper solicitude
-for Patty's welfare. Paul had been rude and impertinent, wanting in
-respect for her and hers; he had an ill-conditioned, sulky temper;
-he lived an irregular life, from hand to mouth; he had no money; he
-had no reputable friends. Therefore, when Paul (with some defiance of
-mien, as one who knew that it was a merely formal courtesy) requested
-the consent of the head of the house to his union with the lady of his
-choice, the head of the house, though elaborately polite, was very
-high and mighty, and&mdash;Patty and Elizabeth being out of the way, shut
-up together to kiss in comfort in one of the little bedrooms at the
-back&mdash;made some very plain statements of his views to the ineligible
-suitor, which fanned the vital spark in that young man's ardent spirit
-to a white heat of wrath. By-and-by Mr. Yelverton modified those views,
-like the just and large-hearted student of humanity that he was, and
-was brought to see that a man can do no more for a woman than love
-her, be he who he may, and that a woman, whether queen or peasant,
-millionaire or pauper, can never give more than value for that "value
-received." And by-and-by Paul learned to respect his brother-in-law for
-a man whose manhood was his own, and to trust his motives absolutely,
-even when he did not understand his actions. But just at first things
-were unpleasant. Mr. Yelverton touched the young man's sensitive pride,
-already morbidly exercised by his consciousness of the disparity
-between Patty's social position and fortunes and his own, by some
-indirect allusion to that painful circumstance, and brought upon
-himself a revengeful reminder that his (Mr. Yelverton's) marriage with
-Elizabeth might not be considered by superficial persons to be entirely
-above suspicion. Things were, indeed, very unpleasant. Paul, irritated
-in the first rapture of happiness, used more bad language (in thought
-if not in speech) than he had done since Cup Day, when he went back to
-his unfinished article on Political Patronage; Patty drove home with a
-burning sense of being of age and her own mistress; and Elizabeth sat
-in the carriage beside her, silent and thoughtful, feeling that the
-first little cloud (that first one which, however faint and small, is
-so incredible and so terrible) had made its appearance on the hitherto
-stainless horizon of her married life.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, when they got home, received the blow with a stern
-fortitude that was almost worse than Mr. Yelverton's prompt resistance,
-and much worse than the mild but equally decided opposition of that
-punctilious old gentleman at Seaview Villa, who, by-and-by, used all
-his influence to keep the pair apart whom he would have given his
-heart's blood to see united, out of a fastidious sense of what he
-conceived to be his social and professional duty. Between them all,
-they nearly drove the two high-spirited victims into further following
-the example of the head of the house&mdash;the imminent danger of which
-became apparent to Patty's confidante Elizabeth, who gave timely
-warning of it to her husband. This latter pair, who had themselves
-carried matters with such a very high hand, were far from desiring
-that Paul and Patty should make assignations at the Exhibition with a
-view to circumventing their adversaries by a clandestine or otherwise
-untimely marriage (such divergence of opinion with respect to one's own
-affairs and other people's being very common in this world, the gentle
-reader may observe, even in the case of the most high-minded people).</p>
-
-<p>"Kingscote," said Elizabeth, when one night she sat brushing her hair
-before the looking-glass, and he, still in his evening dress, lounged
-in an arm-chair by the dressing-table, talking to her, "Kingscote, I
-am afraid you are too hard on Patty&mdash;you and the Duff-Scotts&mdash;keeping
-her from Paul still, though she has but three days left, and I don't
-believe she will stand it."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear, we are not hard upon her, are we? It is for her sake. If we
-can tide over these few days and get her away all right, a year or two
-of absence, and all the new interests that she will find in Europe and
-in her changed position, will probably cure her of her fancy for a
-fellow who is not good enough for her."</p>
-
-<p>"That shows how little you know her," said Elizabeth, with a melancholy
-smile. "She is not a girl to take 'fancies' in that direction, and
-having given her heart&mdash;and she has not given it so easily as you
-imagine&mdash;she will be as faithful to him&mdash;as faithful"&mdash;casting about
-for an adequate illustration&mdash;"as I should have been to you, Kingscote."</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps so, dear. I myself think it very likely. And in such a case
-no harm is done. They will test each other, and if they both stand the
-test it will be better and happier for them to have borne it, and we
-shall feel then that we are justified in letting them marry. But at
-present they know so little of each other&mdash;she has had no fair choice
-of a husband&mdash;and she is too good to be thrown away. I feel responsible
-for her, don't you see? And I only want her to have all her chances. I
-will be the last to hinder the course of true love when once it proves
-itself to <i>be</i> true love."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>We</i> did not think it necessary to prove <i>our</i> love&mdash;and I don't think
-we should have allowed anybody else to prove it&mdash;by a long probation,
-Kingscote."</p>
-
-<p>"My darling, we were different," he said, promptly.</p>
-
-<p>She did not ask him to explain wherein they were different, he and she,
-who had met for the first time less than four months ago; she shared
-the usual unconscious prejudice that we all have in favour of our own
-sincerity and trustworthiness, and wisdom and foresight, and assumed as
-a matter of course that their case was an exceptional one. Still she
-had faith in others as well as in herself and her second self.</p>
-
-<p>"I know Patty," she said, laying her hair brush on her knee and
-looking with solemn earnestness into her husband's rough-hewn but
-impressive face&mdash;a face that seemed to her to contain every element
-of noble manhood, and that would have been weakened and spoiled by
-mere superficial beauty&mdash;"I know Patty, Kingscote, better than anyone
-knows her except herself. She is like a little briar rose&mdash;sweet and
-tender if you are gentle and sympathetic with her, but certain to
-prick if you handle her roughly. And so strong in the stem&mdash;so tough
-and strong&mdash;that you cannot root her out or twist her any way that she
-doesn't feel naturally inclined to grow&mdash;not if you use all your power
-to make her."</p>
-
-<p>"Poor little Patty!" he said, smiling. "That is a very pathetic image
-of her. But I don't like to figure in your parable as the blind
-genius of brute force&mdash;a horny-handed hedger and ditcher with a smock
-frock and a bill-hook. I am quite capable of feeling the beauty, and
-understanding the moral qualities of a wild rose&mdash;at least, I thought I
-was. Perhaps I am mistaken. Tell me what you would do, if you were in
-my place?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth slipped from her chair and down upon her knees beside him,
-with her long hair and her long dressing-gown flowing about her, and
-laid her head where it was glad of any excuse to be laid&mdash;a locality
-at this moment indicated by the polished and unyielding surface of
-his starched shirt front. "You know I never likened you to a hedger
-and ditcher," she said, fondly. "No one is so wise and thoughtful
-and far-sighted as you. It is only that you don't know Patty quite
-yet&mdash;you will do soon&mdash;and what might be the perfect management of
-such a crisis in another girl's affairs is likely not to succeed with
-her&mdash;just simply and only for the reason that she is a little peculiar,
-and you have not yet had time to learn that."</p>
-
-<p>"It is time that I should learn," he said, lifting her into a restful
-position and settling himself for a comfortable talk. "Tell me what you
-think and know yourself, and what, in your judgment, it would be best
-to do."</p>
-
-<p>"In my judgment, then, it would be best," said Elizabeth, brief
-interval given up to the enjoyment of a wordless <i>tête-à-tête</i>, "to
-let Patty and Paul be together a little before they part. For this
-reason&mdash;that they <i>will</i> be together, whether they are let or not.
-Isn't it preferable to make concessions before they are ignominiously
-extorted from you? And if Patty has much longer to bear seeing her
-lover, as she thinks, humiliated and insulted, by being ignored as her
-lover in this house, she will go to the other extreme&mdash;she will go away
-from us to him&mdash;by way of making up to him for it. It is like what you
-say of the smouldering, poverty-bred anarchy in your European national
-life&mdash;that if you don't find a vent for the accumulating electricity
-generating in the human sewer&mdash;how do you put it?&mdash;it is no use to try
-to draw it off after the storm has burst."</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," said her husband, reproachfully, "that is worse than being
-called a hedger and ditcher."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, you know what I mean."</p>
-
-<p>"Tell me what you mean in the vulgar tongue, my dear. Do you want me to
-go and call on Mr. Paul Brion and tell him that we have thought better
-of it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Not exactly that. But if you would persuade Mrs. Duff-Scott to be
-nice about it&mdash;no one can be more enchantingly nice than she, when she
-likes, but when she doesn't like she is enough to drive a man&mdash;a proud
-man like Paul Brion&mdash;simply frantic. And Patty will never stand it&mdash;she
-will not hold out&mdash;she will not go away leaving things as they are now.
-We could not expect it of her."</p>
-
-<p>"Well? And how should Mrs. Duff-Scott show herself nice to Mr. Brion?"</p>
-
-<p>"She might treat him as&mdash;as she did you, Kingscote, when you were
-wanting me."</p>
-
-<p>"But she approved of me, you see. She doesn't approve of him."</p>
-
-<p>"You are both gentlemen, anyhow&mdash;though he is poor. <i>I</i> would have
-been the more tender and considerate to him, because he is poor. He is
-not too poor for Patty&mdash;nor would he have been if she had no fortune
-herself. As it is, there is abundance. And, Kingscote, though I don't
-mean for a moment to disparage you&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I should hope not, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"Still I can't help thinking that to have brains as he has is to be
-essentially a rich and distinguished man. And to be a writer for a
-high-class newspaper, which you say yourself is the greatest and best
-educator in the world&mdash;to spend himself in making other men see what is
-right and useful&mdash;in spreading light and knowledge that no money could
-pay for, and all the time effacing himself, and taking no reward of
-honour or credit for it&mdash;surely that must be the noblest profession,
-and one that should make a man anybody's equal&mdash;even yours, my love!"</p>
-
-<p>She lifted herself up to make this eloquent appeal, and dropped back on
-his shoulder again, and wound her arm about his neck and his bent head
-with tender deprecation. He was deeply touched and stirred, and did not
-speak for a moment. Then he said gruffly, "I shall go and see him in
-the morning, Elizabeth. Tell me what I shall say to him, my dear."</p>
-
-<p>"Say," said Elizabeth, "that you would rather not have a fixed
-engagement at first, in order that Patty may be unhampered during
-the time she is away&mdash;in order that she may be free to make other
-matrimonial arrangements when she gets into the great world, if she
-<i>likes</i>&mdash;but that you will leave that to him. Tell him that if love is
-not to be kept faithful without vows and promises, it is not love nor
-worth keeping&mdash;but I daresay he knows that. Tell him that, except for
-being obliged to go to England just now on the family affairs, Patty is
-free to do exactly as she likes&mdash;which she is by law, you know, for she
-is over three-and-twenty&mdash;and that we will be happy to see her happy,
-whatever way she chooses. And then let him come here and see her. Ask
-Mrs. Duff-Scott to be nice and kind, and to give him an invitation&mdash;she
-will do anything for you&mdash;and then treat them both as if they were
-engaged for just this little time until we leave. It will comfort them
-so much, poor things! It will put them on their honour. It will draw
-off the electricity, you know, and prevent catastrophes. And it will
-make not the slightest difference in the final issue. But, oh," she
-added impulsively, "you don't want me to tell you what to do, you are
-so much wiser than I am."</p>
-
-<p>"I told you we should give and take," he responded; "I told you we
-should teach and lead each other&mdash;sometimes I and sometimes you. That
-is what we are doing already&mdash;it is as it should be. I shall go and see
-Paul Brion in the morning. Confound him!" he added, as he got up out of
-his chair to go to his dressing-room.</p>
-
-<p>And so it came to pass that the young press writer, newly risen from
-his bed, and meditating desperate things over his coffee and cutlet,
-received a friendly embassy from the great powers that had taken up
-arms against him. Mr. Yelverton was the bearer of despatches from
-his sovereign, Mrs. Duff-Scott, in the shape of a gracious note of
-invitation to dinner, which&mdash;after a long discussion of the situation
-with her envoy&mdash;Mr. Paul Brion permitted himself to accept politely.
-The interview between the two men was productive of a strong sense
-of relief and satisfaction on both sides, and it brought about the
-cessation of all open hostilities.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PROBATION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton did not return home from his mission until Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's farewell kettle-drum was in full blast. He found the two
-drawing-rooms filled with a fashionable crowd; and the hum of sprightly
-conversation, the tinkle of teaspoons, the rustle of crisp draperies,
-the all-pervading clamour of soft feminine voices, raised in staccato
-exclamations and laughter, were such that he did not see his way to
-getting a word in edgeways. Round each of the Yelverton sisters the
-press of bland and attentive visitors was noticeably great. They were
-swallowed up in the compact groups around them. This I am tempted to
-impute to the fact of their recent elevation to rank and wealth, and to
-a certain extent it may be admitted that that fact was influential. And
-why not? But in justice I must state that the three pretty Miss Kings
-had become favourites in Melbourne society while the utmost ignorance
-prevailed as to their birth and antecedents, in conjunction with the
-most exact knowledge as to the narrowness of their incomes. Melbourne
-society, if a little too loosely constituted to please the tastes of
-a British prig, born and bred to class exclusiveness, is, I honestly
-believe, as free as may be from the elaborate snobbishness with which
-that typical individual (though rather as his misfortune than his
-fault) must be credited.</p>
-
-<p>In Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room were numerous representatives of
-this society&mdash;its most select circle, in fact&mdash;numbering amongst them
-women of all sorts; women like Mrs. Duff-Scott herself, who busied
-themselves with hospitals and benevolent schemes, conscious of natural
-aspirations and abilities for better things than dressing and gossiping
-and intriguing for social triumphs; women like Mrs. Aarons, who had
-had to struggle desperately to rise with the "cream" to the top of the
-cup, and whose every nerve was strained to retain the advantages so
-hardly won; women to whom scandal was the breath of their nostrils,
-and the dissemination thereof the occupation of their lives; women
-whose highest ambition was to make a large waist into a small one;
-women with the still higher ambition to have a house that was more
-pleasant and popular than anybody else's. All sorts and conditions of
-women, indeed; including a good proportion of those whose womanhood
-was unspoiled and unspoilable even by the deteriorating influences
-of luxury and idleness, and whose intellect and mental culture and
-charming qualities generally were such as one would need to hunt well
-to find anything better in the same line elsewhere. These people had
-all accepted the Miss Kings cordially when Mrs. Duff-Scott brought them
-into their circle and enabled the girls to do their duty therein by
-dressing well, and looking pretty, and contributing a graceful element
-to fashionable gatherings by their very attractive manners. That was
-all that was demanded of them, and, as Miss Kings only, they would
-doubtless have had a brilliant career and never been made to feel the
-want of either pedigree or fortune. Now, as representatives of a great
-family and possessors of independent wealth, they were overwhelmed with
-attentions; but this, I maintain, was due to the interesting nature
-of the situation rather than to that worship of worldly prosperity
-which (because he has plenty of it) is supposed to characterise the
-successful colonist.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton looked round, and dropped into a chair near the door,
-to talk to a group of ladies with whom he had friendly relations
-until he could find an opportunity to rejoin his family. The hostess
-was dispensing tea, with Nelly's assistance&mdash;Nelly being herself
-attended by Mr. Westmoreland, who dogged her footsteps with patient and
-abject assiduity&mdash;other men straying about amongst the crowd with the
-precious little fragile cups and saucers in their hands. Elizabeth was
-surrounded by young matrons fervently interested in her new condition,
-and pouring out upon her their several experiences of European life,
-in the form of information and advice for her own guidance. The best
-shops, the best dressmakers, the best hotels, the best travelling
-routes, and generally the best things to do and see, were emphatically
-and at great length impressed upon her, and she made notes of them on
-the back of an envelope with polite gratitude, invariably convinced
-that her husband knew all about such things far better than anybody
-else could do. Patty was in the music-room, not playing, but sitting
-at the piano, and when Kingscote turned his head in her direction he
-met a full and glowing look of inquiry from her bright eyes that told
-him she knew or guessed the nature of his recent errand. There was such
-an invitation in her face that he found himself drawn from his chair
-as by a strong magnet. He and she had already had those "fights" which
-she had prophetically anticipated. Lately their relations had been such
-that he had permitted himself to call her a "spitfire" in speaking of
-her to her own sister. But they were friends, tacitly trusting each
-other at heart even when most openly at war, and the force that drew
-them apart was always returned in the rebound that united them when
-their quarrels were over. They seemed to be all over for the present.
-As he approached her she resumed her talk with the ladies beside her,
-and dropped her eyes as if taking no notice of him; but she had the
-greatest difficulty to keep herself down on the music-stool and resist
-an inclination to kiss him that for the first time beset her. She
-did, indeed, suddenly put out her hand to him&mdash;her left hand&mdash;with a
-vigour of intention that called faint smiles to the faces of the fair
-spectators; who concluded that Mr. Yelverton had been out of town and
-was receiving a welcome home after a too long absence. Then Patty was
-seized with an ungovernable restlessness. She quivered all over; she
-fidgetted in her seat; she did not know who spoke to her or what she
-was talking about; her fingers went fluttering up and down the keyboard.</p>
-
-<p>"Play us something, dear Miss Yelverton," said a lady sitting by. "Let
-us hear your lovely touch once more."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think I can," said Patty, falteringly&mdash;the first time she had
-ever made such a reply to such a demand. She got up and began to turn
-over some loose music that lay about on the piano. Her brother-in-law
-essayed to help her; he saw what an agony of suspense and expectation
-she was in.</p>
-
-<p>"You know where I have been?" he inquired in a careless tone, speaking
-low, so that only she could hear.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes"&mdash;breathlessly&mdash;"I think so."</p>
-
-<p>"I went to take an invitation from Mrs. Duff-Scott."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes?"</p>
-
-<p>"I had a pleasant talk. I am very glad I went. He is coming to dine
-here to-night."</p>
-
-<p>"Is he?"</p>
-
-<p>"Mrs. Duff-Scott thought you would all like to see him before you went
-away. Let us have the 'Moonlight Sonata,' shall we? Beauty fades and
-mere goodness is apt to pall, as Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins would say,
-but one never gets tired of the 'Moonlight Sonata,' when it is played
-as you play it. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Aarons?"</p>
-
-<p>"I do, indeed," responded that lady, fervently. She agreed with
-everybody in his rank of life. And she implored Patty to give them the
-"Moonlight Sonata."</p>
-
-<p>Patty did&mdash;disdaining "notes," and sitting at the piano like a
-young queen upon her throne. She laid her fingers on the keyboard
-with a touch as light as thistle-down, but only so light because
-it was so strong, and played with a hushed passion and subdued
-power that testified to the effect on her of her brother-in-law's
-communication&mdash;her face set and calm, but radiant in its sudden
-peacefulness. Her way, too, as well as Elizabeth's, was opening before
-her now. She lost sight of the gorgeous ladies around her for a little
-while, and saw only the comfortable path which she and Paul would tread
-together thenceforth. She played the "Moonlight Sonata" to <i>him</i>,
-sitting in his own chamber corner, with his pipe, resting himself after
-his work. "I will never," she said to herself, with a little remote
-smile that nobody saw, "I will never have a room in my house that he
-shall not smoke in, if he likes. When he is with me, he shall enjoy
-himself." In those sweet few minutes she sketched the entire programme
-of her married life.</p>
-
-<p>The crowd thinned by degrees, and filtered away; the drawing-rooms
-were deserted, save for the soft-footed servants who came in to set
-them in order, and light the wax candles and rosy lamps, and the
-great gas-burner over the piano, which was as the sun amongst his
-planet family. Night came, and the ladies returned in their pretty
-dinner costumes; and the major stole downstairs after them, and smiled
-and chuckled silently over the new affair as he had done over the
-old&mdash;looking on like a benevolent, superannuated Jove upon these simple
-little romances from the high Olympus of his own brilliant past; and
-then (preceded by no carriage wheels) there was a step on the gravel
-and a ring at the door bell, and the guest of the evening was announced.</p>
-
-<p>When Paul came in, correctly appointed, and looking so fierce and
-commanding that Patty's heart swelled with pride as she gazed at him,
-seeing how well&mdash;how almost too well, indeed&mdash;he upheld his dignity
-and hers, which had been subjected to so many trials, he found himself
-received with a cordiality that left him nothing to find fault with.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was an impulsive, and generous, and well-bred woman,
-not given to do things by halves. She still hoped that Patty would not
-marry this young man, and did not mean to let her if she could help it;
-but, having gone the length of inviting him to her house, she treated
-him accordingly. She greeted him as if he were an old friend, and she
-chatted to him pleasantly while they waited for dinner, questioning him
-with subtle flattery about his professional affairs, and implying that
-reverence for the majesty of the press which is so gratifying to all
-enlightened people. Then she took his arm into dinner, and continued
-to talk to him throughout the meal as only one hostess in a hundred,
-really nice and clever, with a hospitable soul, and a warm heart, and
-abundant tact and good taste, can talk, and was surprised herself to
-find how much she appreciated it. She intended to make the poor young
-fellow enjoy his brief taste of Paradise, since she had given herself
-leave to do so, and Paul responded by shining for her entertainment
-with a mental effulgence that astonished and charmed her. He put forth
-his very best wares for her inspection, and at the same time, in a
-difficult position, conducted himself with irreproachable propriety. By
-the time she left the table she was ready to own herself heartily sorry
-that fickle fortune had not endowed him according to his deserts.</p>
-
-<p>"I <i>do</i> so like really interesting and intellectual young men, who
-don't give themselves any airs about it," she said to nobody in
-particular, when she strolled back to the drawing-room with her three
-girls; "and one does so <i>very</i> seldom meet with them!" She threw
-herself into a low chair, snatched up a fan, and began to fan herself
-vigorously. The discovery that a press writer of Paul Brion's standing
-meant a cultured man of the world impressed her strongly; the thought
-of him as a new son for herself, clever, enterprising, active-minded
-as she was&mdash;a man to be governed, perhaps, in a motherly way, and
-to be proud of whether he let himself be governed or not&mdash;danced
-tantalisingly through her brain. She felt it necessary to put a very
-strong check upon herself to keep her from being foolish.</p>
-
-<p>She escaped that danger, however. A high sense of duty to Patty held
-her back from foolishness. Still she could not help being kind to
-the young couple while she had the opportunity; turning her head
-when they strolled into the conservatory after the men came in from
-the dining-room, and otherwise shutting her eyes to their joint
-proceedings. And they had a peaceful and sad and happy time, by her
-gracious favour, for two days and a half&mdash;until the mail ship carried
-one of them to England, and left the other behind.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>YELVERTON.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Patty went "home," and stayed there for two years; but it was never
-home to her, though all her friends and connections, save one, were
-with her&mdash;because that one was absent. She saw "the great Alps and the
-Doge's palace," and all the beauty and glory of that great world that
-she had so ardently dreamed of and longed for; travelling in comfort
-and luxury, and enjoying herself thoroughly all the while. She was
-presented at Court&mdash;"Miss Yelverton, by her sister, Mrs. Kingscote
-Yelverton"&mdash;and held a distinguished place in the <i>Court Journal</i> and
-in the gossip of London society for the better part of two seasons. She
-was taught to know that she was a beauty, if she had never known it
-before; she was made to understand the value of a high social position
-and the inestimable advantage of large means (and she did understand it
-perfectly, being a young person abundantly gifted with common sense);
-and she was offered these good things for the rest of her life, and a
-coronet into the bargain. Nevertheless, she chose to abide by her first
-choice, and to remain faithful to her penniless press writer under all
-temptations. She passed through the fire of every trying ordeal that
-the ingenuity of Mrs. Duff-Scott could devise; her unpledged constancy
-underwent the severest tests that, in the case of a girl of her tastes
-and character, it could possibly be subjected to; and at the end of a
-year and a half, when the owner of the coronet above-mentioned raised
-the question of her matrimonial prospects, she announced to him, and
-subsequently to her family, that they had been irrevocably settled
-long ago; that she was entirely unchanged in her sentiments and
-relations towards Paul Brion; and that she intended, moreover, if they
-had no objection, to return to Australia to marry him.</p>
-
-<p>It was in September when she thus declared herself&mdash;after keeping
-a hopeful silence, for the most part, concerning her love affairs,
-since she disgraced herself before a crowd of people by weeping in
-her sweetheart's arms on the deck of the mail steamer at the moment
-when she was bidden by a cruel fate to part from him. The Yelverton
-family had spent the previous winter in the South of Europe, "doing"
-the palaces, and churches, and picture galleries that were such an
-old story to most people of their class, but to the unsophisticated
-sisters so fresh and wonderful an experience&mdash;an experience that
-fulfilled all expectations, moreover, which such realisations of young
-dreams so seldom do. Generally, when at last one has one's wish of
-this sort, the spirit that conceived the charms and pleasures of it
-is quenched by bodily wearinesses and vexations and the thousand and
-one petty accidents that circumvent one's schemes. One is burdened
-and fretted with uncongenial companions, perhaps, or one is worried
-and hampered for want of money; or one is nervous or bilious, or one
-is too old and careworn to enjoy as one might once have done; in some
-way or other one's heart's desire comes to one as if only to show the
-"leanness withal" in the soul that seemed (until thus proved) to have
-such power to assimilate happiness and enrich itself thereby. But with
-the Yelverton sisters there was no disillusionment of this sort. They
-had their little drawbacks, of course. Elizabeth was not always in
-good health; Patty pined for her Paul; Eleanor sprained her ankle and
-had to lie on Roman sofas while the others were exploring Roman ruins
-out of doors; and there were features about the winter, even in those
-famous climes, which gave them sensible discomfort and occasionally
-set them on the verge of discontent. But, looking back upon their
-travels, they have no recollection of these things. Young, and strong,
-and rich, with no troubles to speak of and the keenest appetites to
-see and learn, they had as good a time as pleasure-seeking mortals
-can hope for in this world; the memories of it, tenderly stored up to
-the smallest detail, will be a joy for ever to all of them. On their
-return to England they took up their abode in the London house, and for
-some weeks they revelled delightedly in balls, drums, garden parties,
-concerts, and so on, under the supervision and generalship of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott; and they also made acquaintance with the widely-ramifying
-Whitechapel institutions. Early in the summer Elizabeth and her husband
-went to Yelverton, which in their absence had been prepared for "the
-family" to live in again. A neighbouring country house and several
-cottages had been rented and fitted up for the waifs and strays, where
-they had been made as comfortable as before, and were still under the
-eye of their protector; and the ancestral furniture that had been
-removed for their convenience and its own safety was put back in its
-place, and bright (no, not bright&mdash;Mrs. Duff-Scott undertook the task
-of fitting them up&mdash;but eminently artistic and charming) rooms were
-newly decorated and made ready for Elizabeth's occupation.</p>
-
-<p>She went there early in June&mdash;she and her husband alone, leaving Mrs.
-Duff-Scott and the girls in London. Mr. Yelverton had always a little
-jealousy about keeping his wife to himself on these specially sacred
-occasions, and he invited no one to join them during their first days
-at home, and instructed Mr. Le Breton to repress any tendency that
-might be apparent in tenants or <i>protégés</i> to make a public festival of
-their arrival there. The <i>rôle</i> of squire was in no way to his taste,
-nor that of Lady Bountiful to hers. And yet he had planned for their
-home-coming with the utmost care and forethought, that nothing should
-be wanting to make it satisfying and complete&mdash;as he had planned for
-their wedding journey on the eve of their hurried marriage.</p>
-
-<p>It is too late in my story to say much about Yelverton. It merits a
-description, but a description would be out of place, and serve no
-purpose now. Those who are familiar with old Elizabethan country seats,
-and the general environment of a hereditary dweller therein, will
-have a sufficient idea of Elizabeth's home; and those who have never
-seen such things&mdash;who have not grown up in personal association with
-the traditions of an "old family"&mdash;will not care to be told about it.
-In the near future (for, though his brother magnates of the county,
-hearing of the restoration of the house, congratulated themselves that
-Yelverton's marriage had cured him of his crack-brained fads, he only
-delivered her property intact to his wife in order that they might be
-crack-brained together, at her instance and with her legal permission
-in new and worse directions afterwards) Yelverton will lose many of
-its time-honoured aristocratic distinctions; oxen and sheep will take
-the place of its antlered herds, and the vulgar plough and ploughman
-will break up the broad park lawns, where now the pheasant walks in
-the evening, and the fox, stealing out from his cover, haunts for his
-dainty meal. But when Elizabeth saw it that tender June night, just
-when the sun was setting, as in England it only sets in June, all its
-old-world charm of feudal state and beauty, jealously walled off from
-the common herd outside as one man's heritage by divine right and for
-his exclusive enjoyment, lay about it, as it had lain for generations
-past. Will she ever forget that drive in the summer evening from the
-little country railway station to her ancestral home?&mdash;the silent road,
-with the great trees almost meeting overhead; the snug farm-houses, old
-and picturesque, and standing behind their white gates amongst their
-hollyhocks and bee-hives; the thatched cottages by the roadside, with
-groups of wide-eyed children standing at the doors to see the carriage
-pass; the smell of the hay and the red clover in the fields, and the
-honeysuckle and the sweet-briar in the hedges; the sound of the wood
-pigeons cooing in the plantations; the first sight of her own lodge
-gates, with their great ramping griffins stonily pawing the air, and of
-those miles and miles of shadow-dappled sward within, those mysterious
-dark coverts, whence now and then a stag looked out at her and went
-crashing back to his ferny lair, and those odorous avenues of beech
-and lime, still haunted by belated bees and buzzing cockchafers, under
-which she passed to the inner enclosure of lawns and gardens where the
-old house stood, with open doors of welcome, awaiting her. What an old
-house! She had seen such in pictures&mdash;in the little prints that adorned
-old-fashioned pocket-books of her mother's time&mdash;-but the reality, as
-in the case of the Continental palaces, transcended all her dreams.
-White smoke curled up to the sky from the fluted chimney-stacks; the
-diamond-paned casements&mdash;little sections of the enormous mullioned
-windows&mdash;were set wide to the evening breezes and sunshine; on the
-steps before the porch a group of servants, respectful but not
-obsequious, stood ready to receive their new mistress, and to efface
-themselves as soon as they had made her welcome.</p>
-
-<p>"It is more than my share," she said, almost oppressed by all these
-evidences of her prosperity, and thinking of her mother's different
-lot. "It doesn't seem fair, Kingscote."</p>
-
-<p>"It is not fair," he replied. "But that is not your fault, nor mine.
-We are not going to keep it all to ourselves, you and I&mdash;because a
-king happened to fall in love with one of our grandmothers, who was
-no better than she should be&mdash;which is our title to be great folks, I
-believe. We are going to let other people have a share. But just for
-a little while we'll be selfish, Elizabeth; it's a luxury we don't
-indulge in often."</p>
-
-<p>So he led her into the beautiful house, after giving her a solemn kiss
-upon the threshold; and passing through the great hall, she was taken
-to a vast but charming bedroom that had been newly fitted up for her
-on the ground floor, and thence to an adjoining sitting-room, looking
-out upon a shady lawn&mdash;a homely, cosy little room that he had himself
-arranged for her private use, and which no one was to be allowed to
-have the run of, he told her, except him.</p>
-
-<p>"I want to feel that there is one place where we can be together,"
-he said, "whenever we want to be together, sure of being always
-undisturbed. It won't matter how full the house is, nor how much bustle
-and business goes on, if we can keep this nest for ourselves, to come
-to when we are tired and when we want to talk. It is not your boudoir,
-you know&mdash;that is in another place&mdash;and it is not your morning room; it
-is a little sanctuary apart, where nobody is to be allowed to set foot,
-save our own two selves and the housemaid."</p>
-
-<p>"It shall be," said his wife, with kindling eyes. "I will take care of
-that."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well. That is a bargain. We will take possession to-night. We
-will inaugurate our occupation by having our tea here. You shall not be
-fatigued by sitting up to dinner&mdash;you shall have a Myrtle Street tea,
-and I will wait on you."</p>
-
-<p>She was placed in a deep arm-chair, beside a hearth whereon burned the
-first wood fire that she had seen since she left Australia&mdash;billets
-of elm-wood split from the butts of dead and felled giants that had
-lived their life out on the Yelverton acres&mdash;with her feet on a rug
-of Tasmanian opossum skins, and a bouquet of golden wattle blossoms
-(procured with as much difficulty in England as the lilies of the
-valley had been in Australia) on a table beside her, scenting the room
-with its sweet and familiar fragrance. And here tea was brought in&mdash;a
-dainty little nondescript meal, with very little about it to remind her
-of Myrtle Street, save its comfortable informality; and the servant was
-dismissed, and the husband waited upon his wife&mdash;helping her from the
-little savoury dishes that she did not know, nor care to ask, the name
-of&mdash;pouring the cream into the cup that for so many years had held her
-strongest beverage, dusting the sugar over her strawberries&mdash;all the
-time keeping her at rest in her soft chair, with the sense of being
-at home and in peace and safety under his protection working like a
-delicious opiate on her tired nerves and brain.</p>
-
-<p>This was how they came to Yelverton. And for some days thereafter they
-indulged in the luxury of selfishness&mdash;they took their happiness in
-both hands, and made all they could of it, conscious they were well
-within their just rights and privileges&mdash;gaining experiences that all
-the rest of their lives would be the better for, and putting off from
-day to day, and from week to week, that summons to join them, which the
-matron and girls in London were ready to obey at a moment's notice.
-Husband and wife sat in their gable room, reading, resting, talking,
-love-making. They explored all the nooks and corners of their old
-house, investigated its multifarious antiquities, studied its bygone
-history, exhumed the pathetic memorials of the Kingscote and Elizabeth
-whose inheritance had come to them in so strange a way. They rambled
-in the beautiful summer woods, she with her needlework, he with his
-book&mdash;sometimes with a luncheon basket, when they would stay out all
-day; and they took quiet drives, all by themselves in a light buggy,
-as if they were in Australia still&mdash;apparently with no consciousness
-of that toiling and moiling world outside their park-gates which had
-once been of so much importance to them. And then one day Elizabeth
-complained of feeling unusually tired. The walks and drives came to an
-end, and the sitting-room was left empty. There was a breathless hush
-all over the great house for a little while; whispers and rustlings to
-and fro; and then a little cry&mdash;which, weak and small as it was, and
-shut in with double doors and curtains, somehow managed to make itself
-heard from the attic to the basement&mdash;announced that a new generation
-of Yelvertons of Yelverton had come into the world.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott returned home from a series of Belgravian
-entertainments, with that coronet of Patty's capture on her mind,
-in the small hours of the morning following this eventful day; and
-she found a telegram on her hall table, and learned, to her intense
-indignation, that Elizabeth had dared to have a baby without her (Mrs.
-Duff-Scott) being there to assist at the all-important ceremony.</p>
-
-<p>"It's just like him," she exclaimed to the much-excited sisters, who
-were ready to melt into tears over the good news. "It is just what I
-expected he would do when he took her off by herself in that way. It
-is the marriage over again. He wants to manage everything in his own
-fashion, and to have no interference from anybody. But this is really
-carrying independence too far. Supposing anything had gone wrong
-with Elizabeth? And how am I to know that her nurse is an efficient
-person?&mdash;and that the poor dear infant will be properly looked after?"</p>
-
-<p>"You may depend," said Patty, who did not grudge her sister her new
-happiness, but envied it from the bottom of her honest woman's heart,
-"You may depend he has taken every care of that. He is not a man to
-leave things to chance&mdash;at any rate, not where <i>she</i> is concerned."</p>
-
-<p>"Rubbish!" retorted the disappointed matron, who, though she had had
-no children of her own&mdash;perhaps because she had had none&mdash;had looked
-forward to a vicarious participation in Elizabeth's experiences at
-this time with the strongest interest and eagerness; "as if a man has
-any business to take upon himself to meddle at all in such matters! It
-is not fair to Elizabeth. She has a right to have us with her. I gave
-way about the wedding, but here I must draw the line. She is in her
-own house, and I shall go to her at once. Tell your maid to pack up,
-dears&mdash;we will start to-morrow."</p>
-
-<p>But they did not. They stayed in London, with what patience they could,
-subsisting on daily letters and telegrams, until the season there was
-over, and the baby at Yelverton was three weeks old. Then, though no
-explanations were made, they became aware that they would be no longer
-considered <i>de trop</i> by the baby's father, and rushed from the town to
-the country house with all possible haste.</p>
-
-<p>"You are a tyrant," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, when the master came forth to
-meet her. "I always said so, and now I know it."</p>
-
-<p>"I was afraid she would get talking and exerting herself too much if
-she had you all about her," he replied, with his imperturbable smile.</p>
-
-<p>"And you didn't think that <i>we</i> might possibly have a grain of sense,
-as well as you?"</p>
-
-<p>"I didn't think of anything," he said coolly, "except to make sure of
-her safety as far as possible."</p>
-
-<p>"O yes, I know"&mdash;laughing and brushing past him&mdash;"all you think of is
-to get your own way. Well, let us see the poor dear girl now we are
-here. I know how she must have been pining to show her baby to her
-sisters all this while, when you wouldn't let her."</p>
-
-<p>The next time he found himself alone with his wife, Mr. Yelverton asked
-her, with some conscientious misgiving, whether she <i>had</i> been pining
-for this forbidden pleasure, and whether he really was a tyrant.
-Of course, Elizabeth scouted any suggestion of such an idea as most
-horrible and preposterous, but the fact was&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Never mind. We all have our little failings, and the intelligent reader
-will not expect to find the perfect man any more than the perfect
-woman in this present world. And if he&mdash;or, I should say, she&mdash;<i>could</i>
-find him, no doubt she would be dreadfully disappointed, and not like
-him half so well as the imperfect ones. Elizabeth, who, as Patty had
-predicted, was "butter" in his hands, would not have had her husband
-less fond of his own way on any account.</p>
-
-<p>For some time everybody was taken up with the baby, who was felt to be
-the realisation of that ideal which Dan and the magpies had faintly
-typified in the past. Dan himself lay humbly on the hem of the mother's
-skirts, or under her chair, resting his disjointed nose on his paws,
-and blinking meditatively at the rival who had for ever superseded
-him. Like a philosophical dog as he was, he accepted superannuation
-without a protest as the inevitable and universal lot, and, when no one
-took any notice of him, coiled himself on the softest thing he could
-find and went to sleep, or if he couldn't go to sleep, amused himself
-snapping at the English flies. The girls forgot, or temporarily laid
-aside, their own affairs, in the excitement of a constant struggle
-for possession of the person of the little heir, whom they regarded
-with passionate solicitude or devouring envy and jealousy according
-as they were successful or otherwise. The nurse's post was a sinecure
-at this time. The aunts hushed the infant to sleep, and kept watch by
-his cradle, and carried him up and down the garden terraces with a
-parasol over his head. The mother insisted upon performing his toilet,
-and generally taking a much larger share of him than was proper for
-a mother in her rank of life; and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, for whom
-china had lost its remaining charms, assumed privileges as a deputy
-grandmother which it was found expedient to respect. In this absorbing
-domesticity the summer passed away. The harvest of field and orchard
-was by-and-by gathered in; the dark-green woods and avenues turned
-red, and brown, and orange under the mellow autumn sun; the wild
-fruits in the hedgerows ripened; the swallows took wing. To Yelverton
-came a party of guests&mdash;country neighbours and distinguished public
-men, of a class that had not been there a-visiting for years past;
-who shot the well-stocked covers, and otherwise disported themselves
-after the manner of their kind. And amongst the nobilities was that
-coronet, that incarnation of dignity and magnificence, which had been
-singled out as an appropriate mate for Patty. It, or he, was offered
-in form, and with circumstances of state and ceremony befitting the
-great occasion; and Patty was summoned to a consultation with her
-family&mdash;every member of which, not even excepting Elizabeth herself,
-was anxious to see the coronet on Patty's brow (which shows how
-hereditary superstitions and social prejudices linger in the blood,
-even after they seem to be eradicated from the brain)&mdash;for the purpose
-of receiving their advice, and stating her own intentions.</p>
-
-<p>"My intention," said Patty, firmly, with her little nose uplifted,
-and a high colour in her face, "is to put an end to this useless and
-culpable waste of time. The man I love and am <i>engaged to</i> is working,
-and slaving, and waiting for me; and I, like the rest of you, am
-neglecting him, and sacrificing him, as if he were of no consequence
-whatever. <i>This</i> shows me how I have been treating him. I will not
-do it any more. I did not become Miss Yelverton to repudiate all I
-undertook when I was only Patty King. I am Yelverton by name, but I am
-King by nature, still. I don't want to be a great swell. I have seen
-the world, and I am satisfied. Now I want to go home to Paul&mdash;as I
-ought to have done before. I will ask you, if you please, Kingscote, to
-take my passage for me at once. I shall go back next month, and I shall
-marry Paul Brion as soon as the steamer gets to Melbourne."</p>
-
-<p>Her brother-in-law put out his hand, and drew her to him, and kissed
-her. "Well done," he said, speaking boldly from his honest heart. "So
-you shall."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>"THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE."</h4>
-
-
-<p>Patty softened down the terms in which she made her declaration of
-independence, when she found that it was received in so proper a
-spirit. She asked them if they had <i>any objection</i>&mdash;which, after
-telling them that it didn't matter whether they had or not, was a
-graceful act, tending to make things pleasant without committing
-anybody. But if they had objections (as of course they had) they
-abandoned them at this crisis. It was no use to fight against Paul
-Brion, so they accepted him, and made the best of him. The head of
-the family suddenly and forcibly realised that he should have been
-disappointed in his little sister-in law if she had acted otherwise;
-and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who would always so much rather help than
-hinder a generous project, no matter how opposed to the ethics of her
-class, was surprised herself by the readiness with which she turned her
-back on faded old lords and dissipated young baronets, and gave herself
-up to the pleasant task of making true lovers happy. Elizabeth repented
-swiftly of her own disloyalty to plighted love, temporary and shadowy
-as it was; and, seeing how matters really stood, acquiesced in the
-situation with a sense of great thankfulness that her Patty was proved
-so incorruptible by the tests she had gone through. Mrs. Yelverton's
-only trouble was the fear of separation in the family, which the
-ratification of the engagement seemed likely to bring about.</p>
-
-<p>But Patty was dissuaded from her daring enterprise, as first proposed;
-and Paul was written to by her brother and guardian, and adjured to
-detach himself from his newspaper for a while and come to England
-for a holiday&mdash;which, it was delicately hinted, might take the form
-of a bridal tour. And in that little sitting-room, sacred to the
-private interviews of the master and mistress of the house, great
-schemes were conceived and elaborated for the purpose of seducing Mrs.
-Brion's husband to remain in England for good and all. They settled
-his future for him in what seemed to them an irresistibly attractive
-way. He was to rent a certain picturesque manor-house in the Yelverton
-neighbourhood, and there, keeping Patty within her sister's reach,
-take up that wholesome, out-door country life which they were sure
-would be so good for his health and his temper. He could do a little
-high farming, and "whiles" write famous books; or, if his tastes and
-habits unfitted him for such a humdrum career, he could live in the
-world of London art and intellect, and be a "power" on behalf of those
-social reforms for which his brother-in-law so ardently laboured.
-Mr. Brion, senior, who had long ago returned to Seaview Villa, was,
-of course, to be sent for back again, to shelter himself under the
-broad Yelverton wing. The plan was all arranged in the most harmonious
-manner, and Elizabeth's heart grew more light and confident every time
-she discussed it.</p>
-
-<p>Paul received his pressing invitation&mdash;which he understood to mean,
-as it did, a permission to go and marry Patty from her sister's
-house&mdash;-just after having been informed by Mrs. Aarons, "as a positive
-fact," that Miss Yelverton was shortly to be made a countess. He
-did not believe this piece of news, though Mrs. Aarons, who had an
-unaccountably large number of friends in the highest circles of London
-society, was ready to vouch for its authenticity with her life, if
-necessary; but, all the same, it made him feel moody, and surly, and
-ill-used, and miserable. It was his dark hour before the dawn. In
-Australia the summer was coming on. It was the middle of November. The
-"Cup" carnival was over for another year. The war in Egypt was also
-over, and the campaign of Murdoch's cricketers in England&mdash;two events
-which it seemed somehow natural to bracket together. The Honourable
-Ivo Bligh and his team had just arrived in Melbourne. The Austral had
-just been sunk in Sydney Harbour. It was early summer with us here,
-the brightest and gayest time of the whole year. In England the bitter
-winter was at hand&mdash;that dreaded English winter which the Australian
-shudders to think of, but which the Yelverton family had agreed to
-spend in their ancestral house, in order to naturalise and acclimatise
-the sisters, and that duty might be done in respect of those who had to
-bear the full extent of its bitterness, in hunger, and cold, and want.
-When Mr. Yelverton wrote to Paul to ask him to visit them, Patty wrote
-also to suggest that his precious health might suffer by coming over at
-such a season, and to advise him to wait until February or March. But
-the moment her lover had read those letters, he put on his hat and went
-forth to his office to demand leave for six months, and in a few days
-was on board the returning mail steamer on his way to England. He did
-not feel like waiting now&mdash;after waiting for two years&mdash;and she was not
-in the least afraid that he would accept her advice.</p>
-
-<p>Paul's answers arrived by post, as he was himself speeding through
-Europe&mdash;not so much absorbed in his mission as to neglect note-making
-by the way, and able to write brilliant articles on Gambetta's death,
-and other affairs of the moment, while waiting for boat or train to
-carry him to his beloved; and it was still only the first week in
-January when they received a telegram at Yelverton announcing his
-imminent arrival. Mr. Yelverton himself went to London to meet him,
-and Elizabeth rolled herself in furs and an opossum rug in her snug
-brougham and drove to the country railway station to meet them both,
-leaving Patty sitting by the wood fire in the hall. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was in town, and Eleanor with her, trying to see Rossetti's pictures
-through the murky darkness of the winter days, but in reality bent on
-giving the long-divided lovers as much as possible of their own society
-for a little while. The carriage went forth early in the afternoon,
-with its lamps lighted, and it returned when the cold night had settled
-down on the dreary landscape at five o'clock. Paul, ulstered and
-comfortered, walked into the dimly-lighted, warm, vast space, hung
-round with ghostly banners and antlers, and coats of mail, and pictures
-whereof little was visible but the frames, and marched straight into
-the ruddy circle of the firelight, where the small figure awaited him
-by the twinkling tea-table, herself only an outline against the dusk
-behind her; and the pair stood on the hearthrug and kissed each other
-silently, while Elizabeth, accompanied by her husband, went to take her
-bonnet off, and to see how Kingscote junior was getting on.</p>
-
-<p>After that Paul and Patty parted no more. They had a few peaceful
-weeks at Yelverton, during which the newspaper in Melbourne got
-nothing whatever from the fertile brain of its brilliant contributor
-(which, Patty thought, must certainly be a most serious matter for the
-proprietors); and in which interval they made compensation for all past
-shortcomings as far as their opportunities, which were profuse and
-various, allowed. It delighted Paul to cast up at Patty the several
-slights and snubs that she had inflicted on him in the old Myrtle
-Street days, and it was her great luxury in life to make atonement for
-them all&mdash;to pay him back a hundredfold for all that he had suffered on
-her account. The number of "soft things" that she played upon the piano
-from morning till night would alone have set him up in "Fridays" for
-the two years that he had been driven to Mrs. Aarons for entertainment;
-and the abject meekness of the little spitfire that he used to know
-was enough to provoke him to bully her, if he had had anything of the
-bully in him. The butter-like consistency to which she melted in this
-freezing English winter time was such as to disqualify her for ever
-from sitting in judgment upon Elizabeth's conjugal attitude. She fell
-so low, indeed, that she became, in her turn, a mark for Eleanor's
-scoffing criticism.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I never thought to see you grovel to any living being&mdash;let alone
-a <i>man</i>&mdash;as you do to him," said that young lady on one occasion, with
-an impudent smile. "The citizens of Calais on their knees to Edward the
-Third were truculent swaggerers by comparison."</p>
-
-<p>"You mind your own business," retorted Patty, with a flash of her
-ancient spirit.</p>
-
-<p>Whereat Nelly rejoined that she would mind it by keeping her <i>fiancé</i>
-in his proper place when <i>her</i> time came to have a <i>fiancé. She</i> would
-not let him put a rope round her neck and tie it to his button-hole
-like a hat-string. She'd see him farther first.</p>
-
-<p>February came, and Mrs. Duff-Scott returned, and preparations for the
-wedding were set going. The fairy godmother was determined to make up
-for the disappointment she had suffered in Elizabeth's case by making a
-great festival of the second marriage of the family, and they let her
-have her wish, the result being that the bride of the poor press-writer
-had a <i>trousseau</i> worthy of that coronet which she had extravagantly
-thrown away, and presents the list and description of which filled a
-whole column of the <i>Yelverton Advertiser</i>, and made the hearts of all
-the local maidens to burn with envy. In March they were married in
-Yelverton village church. They went to London for a week, and came back
-for a fortnight; and in April they crossed the sea again, bound for
-their Melbourne home.</p>
-
-<p>For all the beautiful arrangements that had been planned for them fell
-through. The Yelvertons had reckoned without their host&mdash;as is the
-incurable habit of sanguine human nature&mdash;with the usual result. Paul
-had no mind to abandon his chosen career and the country that, as a
-true Australian, he loved and served as he could never love and serve
-another, because he had married into a great English family; and Patty
-would not allow him to be persuaded. Though her heart was torn in
-two at the thought of parting with Elizabeth, and with that precious
-baby who was Elizabeth's rival in her affections, she promptly and
-uncomplainingly tore herself from both of them to follow her husband
-whithersoever it seemed good to him to go.</p>
-
-<p>"One cannot have everything in this world," said Patty philosophically,
-"and you and I, Elizabeth, have considerably more than our fair share.
-If we hadn't to pay something for our happiness, how could we expect it
-to last?"</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI">CHAPTER LI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PATIENCE REWARDED.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Eleanor, like Patty, withstood the seductions of English life and
-miscellaneous English admirers, and lived to be Miss Yelverton in her
-turn, unappropriated and independent. And, like both her sisters,
-though more by accident than of deliberate intention, she remained
-true to her first love, and, after seeing the world and supping
-full of pleasure and luxury, returned to Melbourne and married Mr.
-Westmoreland. That is to say, Mr. Westmoreland followed her to England,
-and followed her all over Europe&mdash;dogging her from place to place with
-a steadfast persistence that certainly deserved reward&mdash;until the
-major and Mrs. Duff-Scott, returning home almost immediately after
-Patty's marriage and departure, brought their one ewe lamb, which the
-Yelvertons had not the conscience to immediately deprive them of, back
-to Australia with them; when her persevering suitor promptly took his
-passage in the same ship. All this time Mr. Westmoreland had been
-as much in love as his capacity for the tender passion&mdash;much larger
-than was generally supposed&mdash;permitted. Whether it was that she was
-the only woman who dared to bully him and trample on him, and thereby
-won his admiration and respect&mdash;or whether his passion required that
-the object of it should be difficult of attainment&mdash;or whether her
-grace and beauty were literally irresistible to him&mdash;or whether he
-was merely the sport of that unaccountable fate which seems to govern
-or misgovern these affairs, it is not necessary to conjecture. No one
-asks for reasons when a man or woman falls a victim to this sort of
-infatuation. Some said it was because she had become rich and grand,
-but that was not the case&mdash;except in so far as the change in her
-social circumstances had made her tyrannical and impudent, in which
-sense wealth and consequence had certainly enhanced her attractions in
-his eyes. Thirty thousand pounds, though a very respectable marriage
-portion in England, is not sufficient to make a fortune-hunter of an
-Australian suitor in his position; and let me do the Australian suitor
-of all ranks justice and here state that fortune hunting, through the
-medium of matrimony, is a weakness that his worst enemy cannot accuse
-him of&mdash;whatever his other faults may be. Mr. Westmoreland, being fond
-of money, as a constitutional and hereditary peculiarity&mdash;if you
-can call that a peculiarity&mdash;was tempted to marry it once, when that
-stout and swarthy person in the satin gown and diamonds exercised her
-fascinations on him at the club ball, and he could have married it at
-any time of his bachelor life, the above possessor of it being, like
-Barkis, "willin'", and even more than "willin'". Her fortune was such
-that Eleanor's thirty thousand was but a drop in the bucket compared
-with it, and yet even he did not value it in comparison with the favour
-of that capricious young lady. So he followed her about from day to
-day and from place to place, as if he had no other aim in life than
-to keep her within sight, making himself an insufferable nuisance to
-her friends very often, but apparently not offending her by his open
-and inveterate pursuit. She was not kind, but she was not cruel, and
-yet she was both in turn to a distracting degree. She made his life
-an ecstasy of miserable longing for her, keeping him by her side like
-a big dog on a chain, and feeding him with stones (in the prettiest
-manner) when he asked for bread. But she grew very partial to her
-big dog in the process of tormenting him and witnessing his touching
-patience under it. She was "used to him," she said; and when, from
-some untoward circumstance over which he had no control, he was for a
-little while absent from her, she felt the gap he left. She sensibly
-missed him. Moreover, though she trampled on him herself, it hurt her
-to see others do it; and when Mrs. Duff-Scott and Kingscote Yelverton
-respectively aired their opinions of his character and conduct, she
-instantly went over to his side, and protested in her heart, if not in
-words, against the injustice and opprobrium that he incurred for her
-sake. So, when Elizabeth became the much-occupied mother of a family,
-and when Patty was married and gone off into the world with her Paul,
-Eleanor, left alone in her independence, began to reckon up what it was
-worth. The spectacle of her sisters' wedded lives gave her pleasant
-notions of matrimony, and the state of single blessedness, as such,
-never had any particular charms for her. Was it worth while, she asked
-herself, to be cruel any more?&mdash;and might she not just as well have a
-house and home of her own as Elizabeth and Patty? Her lover was only
-a big dog upon a chain, but then why shouldn't he be? Husbands were
-not required to be all of the same pattern. She didn't want to be
-domineered over. And she didn't see anybody she liked better. She might
-go farther and fare worse. And&mdash;she was getting older every day.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott broke in upon these meditations with the demand that
-she (Eleanor) should return with her to Melbourne, if only for a year
-or two, so that she should not be entirely bereft and desolate.</p>
-
-<p>"I must start at once," said the energetic woman, suddenly seized with
-a paroxysm of home sickness and a sense of the necessity to be doing
-something now that at Yelverton there seemed nothing more to do, and in
-order to shake off the depressing effect of the first break in their
-little circle. "I have been away too long&mdash;it is time to be looking
-after my own business. Besides, I can't allow Patty to remain in that
-young man's lodgings&mdash;full of dusty papers and tobacco smoke, and
-where, I daresay, she hasn't so much as a peg to hang her dresses on.
-She must get a house at once, and I must be there to see about it, and
-to help her to choose the furniture. Elizabeth, my darling, you have
-your husband and child&mdash;I am leaving you happy and comfortable&mdash;and
-I will come and see you again in a year or two, or perhaps you and
-Kingscote will take a trip over yourselves and spend a winter with us.
-But I must go now. And do, do&mdash;oh, <i>do</i> let me keep Nelly for a little
-while longer! You know I will take care of her, and I couldn't bear the
-sight of my house with none of you in it!"</p>
-
-<p>So she went, and of course she took Eleanor, who secretly longed for
-the land of sunshine after her full dose of "that horrid English
-climate," and who, with a sister at either end of the world, perhaps
-missed Patty, who had been her companion by night as well as by day,
-more than she would miss Elizabeth. The girl was very ready to go. She
-wept bitterly when the actual parting came, but she got over it in a
-way that gave great satisfaction to Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major, and
-relieved them of all fear that they had been selfish about bringing
-her away. They joined the mail steamer at Venice, and there found Mr.
-Westmoreland on board. He had been summoned by his agent at home he
-explained; one of his partners wanted to retire, and he had to be there
-to sign papers. And since it had so happened that he was obliged to
-go back by this particular boat, he hoped the ladies would make him
-useful, and let him look after their luggage and things. Eleanor was
-properly and conventionally astonished by the curious coincidence,
-but had known that it would happen just as well as he. The chaperon,
-for her part, was indignant and annoyed by it&mdash;for a little while;
-afterwards she, too, reflected that Eleanor had spent two unproductive
-years in England and was growing older every day. Also that she might
-certainly go farther and fare worse. So Mr. Westmoreland was accepted
-as a member of the travelling party. All the heavy duties of escort
-were relegated to him by the major, and Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him hither
-and thither in a way that he had never been accustomed to. But he was
-meek and biddable in these days, and did not mind what uses he put
-his noble self to for his lady's sake. And she was very gracious. The
-conditions of ship life, at once so favourable and so very unfavourable
-for the growth of tender relations, suited his requirements in every
-way. She could not snub him under the ever-watchful eyes of their
-fellow-passengers. She could not send him away from her. She was even a
-little tempted, by that ingrained vanity of the female heart, to make a
-display before the other and less favoured ladies of the subject-like
-homage which she, queen-like, received. Altogether, things went on
-in a very promising manner. So that when, no farther than the Red
-Sea&mdash;while life seemed, as it does in that charming locality, reduced
-to its simple elements, and the pleasure of having a man to fan her was
-a comparatively strong sensation&mdash;when at this propitious juncture,
-Mr. Westmoreland bewailed his hard fate for the thousandth time, and
-wondered whether he should ever have the good fortune to find a little
-favour in her sight, it seemed to her that this sort of thing had gone
-on long enough, and that she might as well pacify him and have done
-with it. So she said, looking at him languidly with her sentimental
-blue eyes&mdash;"Well, if you'll promise not to bother me any more, I'll
-think about it."</p>
-
-<p>He promised faithfully not to bother her any more, and he did not. But
-he asked her presently, after fanning her in silence for some minutes,
-what colour she would like her carriage painted, and she answered
-promptly, "Dark green."</p>
-
-<p>While they were yet upon the sea, a letter&mdash;three letters, in
-fact&mdash;were despatched to Yelverton, to ask the consent of the head of
-the family to the newly-formed engagement, and not long after the party
-arrived in Melbourne the desired permission was received, Mr. and Mrs.
-Yelverton having learned the futility of opposition in these matters,
-and having no serious objection to Nelly's choice. And then again Mrs.
-Duff-Scott plunged into the delight of preparation for trousseau and
-wedding festivities&mdash;quite willing that the "poor dear fellow," as
-she now called him (having taken him to her capacious heart), should
-receive the reward of his devotion without unnecessary delay. The house
-was already there, a spick and span family mansion in Toorak, built
-by Mr. Westmoreland's father, and inherited by himself ere the first
-gloss was off the furniture; there was nothing to do to that but to
-arrange the chairs and sofas, and scatter Eleanor's wedding presents
-over the tables. There was nothing more <i>possible</i>. It was "hopeless,"
-Mrs. Duff-Scott said, surveying the bright and shining rooms through
-her double eye-glass. Unless it were entirely cleared out, and you
-started afresh from the beginning, she would defy you to make anything
-of it. So, as the bridegroom was particularly proud of his furniture,
-which was both new and costly, and would have scouted with indignation
-any suggestion of replacing it, Mrs. Duff-Scott abandoned Eleanor
-æsthetically to her fate. There was nothing to wait for, so the pair
-were made one with great pomp and ceremony not long after their return
-to Australia. Eleanor had the grandest wedding of them all, and really
-did wear "woven dew" on the occasion&mdash;with any quantity of lace about
-it of extravagant delicacy and preciousness. And now she has settled
-herself in her great, gay-coloured, handsome house, and is already
-a very fashionable and much-admired and much-sought-after lady&mdash;so
-overwhelmed with her social engagements and responsibilities sometimes
-that she says she doesn't know what she should do if she hadn't Patty's
-quiet little house to slip into now and then. But she enjoys it. And
-she enjoys leading her infatuated husband about with her, like a tame
-bear on a string, to show people how very, very infatuated he is. It is
-her idea of married happiness&mdash;at present.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII">CHAPTER LII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>While Mrs. Westmoreland thus disports herself in the gay world, Mrs.
-Brion pursues her less brilliant career in much peace and quietness.
-When she and Paul came back to Australia, a bride and bridegroom, free
-to follow their own devices unhampered by any necessity to consider the
-feelings of relatives and friends, nothing would satisfy her but to go
-straight from the ship to Mrs. M'Intyre's, and there temporarily abide
-in those tobacco-perfumed rooms which had once been such forbidden
-ground to her. She scoffed at the Oriental; she turned up her nose at
-the Esplanade; she would not hear of any suites of apartments, no
-matter how superior they might be. Her idea of perfect luxury was to
-go and live as Paul had lived, to find out all the little details of
-his old solitary life which aforetime she had not dared to inquire
-into, to rummage boldly over his bookshelves and desk and cupboards,
-which once it would have been indelicate for her to so much as look
-at, to revel in the sense that it was improper no longer for her to
-make just as free as she liked with his defunct bachelorhood, the
-existing conditions of which had had so many terrors for her. When Paul
-represented that it was not a fit place for her to go into, she told
-him that there was no place in the world so fit, and begged so hard to
-be taken there, if only for a week or two, that he let her have her
-way. And a very happy time they spent at No. 7, notwithstanding many
-little inconveniences. And even the inconveniences had their charm.
-Then Mrs. Duff-Scott and Eleanor came out, when it was felt to be time
-to say good-bye to these humble circumstances&mdash;to leave the flowery
-carpet, now faded and threadbare, the dingy rep suite, and the smirking
-Cenci over the mantelpiece, for the delectation of lodgers to whom
-such things were appropriate; and to select a house and furnish it
-as befitted the occupation of Miss Yelverton that was and her (now)
-distinguished husband.</p>
-
-<p>By good fortune (they did not say it was good fortune, but they thought
-it), the old landlord next door saw fit to die at this particular
-juncture, and No. 6 was advertised to be let. Mr. and Mrs. Brion at
-once pounced upon the opportunity to secure the old house, which,
-it seemed to them, was admirably suited to their present modest
-requirements; and, by the joint exercise of Mrs. Duff-Scott's and
-Patty's own excellent taste, educated in England to the last degree
-of modern perfectibility, the purveyors of art furniture in our
-enlightened city transformed the humble dwelling of less than a dozen
-rooms into a little palace of esoteric delights. Such a subdued,
-harmonious brightness, such a refined simplicity, such an unpretentious
-air of comfort pervades it from top to bottom; and as a study of
-colour, Mrs. Duff-Scott will tell you, it is unique in the Australian
-colonies. It does her good&mdash;even her&mdash;to go and rest her eyes and her
-soul in the contemplation of it. Paul has the bureau in his study (and
-finds it very useful), and Patty has the piano in her drawing-room,
-its keyboard to a retired corner behind a portière (draped where once
-was a partition of folding doors), and its back, turned outwards,
-covered with a piece of South Kensington needlework. In this cosy nest
-of theirs, where Paul, with a new spur to his energies, works his
-special lever of the great machine that makes the world go on (when
-it would fain be lazy and sit down), doing great things for other men
-if gaining little glory for himself&mdash;and where Patty has afternoon
-teas and evenings that gather together whatever genuine exponents
-of intellectual culture may be going about, totally eclipsing the
-attractions of Mrs. Aarons's Fridays to serious workers in the fields
-of art and thought, without in any way dimming the brilliancy of those
-entertainments&mdash;the married pair seem likely to lead as happy a life
-as can be looked for in this world of compromises. It will not be
-all cakes and ale, by any means. The very happiest lives are rarely
-surfeited with these, perhaps, unwholesome delicacies, and I doubt if
-theirs will even be amongst the happiest. They are too much alike to be
-the ideal match. Patty is thin-skinned and passionate, too ready to be
-hurt to the heart by the mere little pin-pricks and mosquito bites of
-life; and Paul is proud and crotchety, and, like the great Napoleon,
-given to kick the fire with his boots when he is put out. There will
-be many little gusts of temper, little clouds of misunderstanding,
-disappointments, and bereavements, and sickness of mind and body; but,
-with all this, they will find their lot so blessed, by reason of the
-mutual love and sympathy that, through all vicissitudes, will surely
-grow deeper and stronger every day they live together, that they will
-not know how to conceive a better one. And, after all, that is the most
-one can ask or wish for in this world.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, being thus deprived of all her children, and finding
-china no longer the substantial comfort to her that it used to be,
-has fulfilled her husband's darkest predictions and "gone in" for
-philanthropy. In London she served a short but severe apprenticeship to
-that noble cause which seeks to remove the curse of past ignorance and
-cruelty from those to whom it has come down in hereditary entail&mdash;those
-on whose unhappy and degraded lives all the powers of evil held
-mortgages (to quote a thoughtful writer) before ever the deeds were
-put into their hands&mdash;and who are now preached at and punished for the
-crimes that, not they, but their tyrants of the past committed. She
-took a lesson in that new political economy which is to the old science
-what the spirit of modern religion is to the ecclesiasticism which
-has been its unwilling mother, and has learned that the rich <i>are</i>
-responsible for the poor&mdash;that, let these interesting debating clubs
-that call themselves the people's parliaments say what they like, the
-moral of the great social problem is that the selfishness of the past
-must be met by unselfishness in the present, if any of us would hope to
-see good days in the future.</p>
-
-<p>"It will not do," says Mrs. Duff-Scott to her clergyman, who deplores
-the dangerous opinions that she has imbibed, "to leave these matters to
-legislation. Of what use is legislation? Here are a lot of ignorant,
-vain men who know nothing about it, fighting with one another for what
-they can get, and the handful amongst them who are really anxious for
-the public good are left nowhere in the scrimmage. It is <i>we</i> who must
-put our shoulders to the wheel, my dear sir&mdash;and the sooner we set
-about it the better. Look at the state of Europe"&mdash;she waves her hand
-abroad&mdash;"and see what things are coming to! The very heart of those
-countries is being eaten out by the cancer-growths of Nihilism and
-all sorts of dreadful isms, because the poor are getting educated to
-understand <i>why</i> they are so poor. Look at wealthy England, with more
-than a million paupers, and millions and millions that are worse than
-paupers&mdash;England is comparatively quiet and orderly under it, and why?
-Because a number of good people like Mr. Yelverton"&mdash;the clergyman
-shakes his head at the mention of this wicked sinner's name&mdash;"have
-given themselves up to struggle honestly and face to face with the
-evils that nothing but a self-sacrificing and independent philanthropy
-can touch. I believe that if England escapes the explosion of this
-fermenting democracy, which is brewing such a revolution as the world
-has never seen, it will be owing to neither Church nor State&mdash;unless
-Church and State both mend their ways considerably&mdash;but to the
-self-denying work that is being done outside of them by those who have
-a single-hearted desire to help, to <i>really</i> help, their wronged and
-wretched fellow-creatures."</p>
-
-<p>Thus this energetic woman, in the headlong ardour of her new
-conversion. And (if a woman, ready to admit her disabilities as
-such, may say so) it is surely better to be generous in the cause of
-a possibly mistaken conviction of your own, than to be selfish in
-deference to the opinions of other people, which, though they be the
-product of the combined wisdom of all the legislatures of the world,
-find no response in the instincts of your human heart. At any rate, I
-believe we shall be brought to think so some day&mdash;that great Someday
-which looms not far ahead of us, when, as a Cornish proverb puts it,
-if we have not ruled ourselves by the rudder we shall be ruled by
-the rock. And so Mrs. Duff-Scott works, and thinks, and writes and
-(of course) talks, and bothers her husband and her acquaintances for
-the public weal, and leads her clergyman a life that makes him wish
-sometimes that he had chosen a less harassing profession; economising
-her money, and her time, and all she has of this world's goods, that
-she may fulfil her sacred obligations to her fellow-creatures and help
-the fortunate new country in which she lives to keep itself from the
-evil ways that have wrought such trouble and danger to the old ones.</p>
-
-<p>And the man who set her to this good work pursues it himself, not in
-haste or under fitful and feverish impulses of what we call enthusiasm,
-but with refreshed energy and redoubled power, by reason of the great
-"means" that are now at his disposal, the faithful companionship that
-at once lightens and strengthens the labour of his hands and brain,
-and the deep passion of love for wife and home which keeps his heart
-warm with vital benevolence for all the world. Mr. Yelverton has
-not become more orthodox since his marriage; but that was not to be
-expected. In these days orthodoxy and goodness are not synonymous
-terms. It is doubtful, indeed, if orthodoxy has not rather become the
-synonym for the opposite of goodness, in the eyes of those who judge
-trees by their fruits and whose ideal of goodness is to love one's
-neighbour as one's self. While it is patent to the candid observer
-that the men who have studied the new book of Genesis which latter-day
-science has written for us, and have known that Exodus from the land of
-bondage which is the inevitable result of such study, conscientiously
-pursued, are, as a rule, distinguished by a large-minded justice and
-charity, sympathy and self-abnegation, a regard for the sacred ties
-of brotherhood binding man with man, which, being incompatible with
-the petty meannesses and cruelties so largely practised in sectarian
-circles, make their unostentatious influence to be felt like sweet and
-wholesome leaven all around them. Such a man is Elizabeth's husband,
-and as time goes on she ceases to wish for any change in him save that
-which means progression in his self-determined course. It was not
-lightly that he flew in the face of the religious traditions of his
-youth; rather did he crawl heavily and unwillingly away from them, in
-irresistible obedience to a conscience so sensitive and well-balanced
-that it ever pointed in the direction of the truth, like the magnetic
-needle to the pole, and in which he dared to trust absolutely, no
-matter how dark the outlook seemed. And now that, after much search,
-he has found his way, as far as he may hope to find it in this world,
-he is too intently concerned to discover what may be ahead of him,
-and in store for those who will follow him, to trouble himself and
-others with irrelevant trifles&mdash;to indulge in spites and jealousies,
-in ambitions that lead nowhere, in quarrels and controversies about
-nothing&mdash;to waste his precious strength and faculties in the child's
-play that with so many of us is the occupation of life, and like other
-child's play, full of pinches and scratches and selfish squabbling
-over trumpery toys. To one who has learned that "the hope of nature is
-in man," and something of what great nature is, and what man should
-be, there no longer exists much temptation to envy, hatred, malice,
-and uncharitableness, or any other of the vulgar vices of predatory
-humanity, not yet cured of its self-seeking propensities. He is
-educated above that level. His recognition of the brotherhood of men,
-and their common interests and high destiny, makes him feel for others
-in their differences with him, and patient and forbearing with those
-whose privileges have been fewer and whose light is less than his. He
-takes so wide an outlook over life that the little features of the
-foreground, which loom so large to those who cannot or will not look
-beyond them, are dwarfed to insignificance; or, rather, he can fix
-their just relation to the general design in human affairs, and so
-reads them with their context, as it were, and by the light of truth
-and justice spread abroad in his own heart&mdash;thus proving how different
-they are in essential value from what they superficially appear. So
-Mr. Yelverton, despite his constitutional imperiousness, is one of
-the most tolerant, fine-tempered, and generous of men; and he goes on
-his way steadily, bending circumstances to his will, but hurting no
-one in the process&mdash;rather lifting up and steadying and strengthening
-those with whom he comes in contact by the contagion of his bold spirit
-and his inflexible and incorruptible honesty; and proving himself in
-private life, as such men mostly do, a faithful exponent and practical
-illustration of all the domestic virtues.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth is a happy woman, and she knows it well. It seems to her
-that all the prosperity and comfort that should have been her mother's
-has, like the enormous wealth that she inherits, been accumulating
-at compound interest, through the long years representing the lapsed
-generation, for her sole profit and enjoyment. She strolls often
-through the old plantation, where, in a remote nook, a moss-grown
-column stands to mark the spot where a little twig, a hair's breadth
-lack of space, was enough to destroy one strong life and ruin another,
-and to entail such tremendous consequences upon so many people, living
-and unborn; and she frequently drives to Bradenham Abbey to call on or
-to dine with her step-uncle's wife, and sees the stately environment
-of her mother's girlhood&mdash;the "beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish
-leather on the walls," the "long gallery with the painted windows and
-the slippery oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a
-row"&mdash;which she contrasts with the bark-roofed cottage on the sea-cliff
-within whose narrow walls that beautiful and beloved woman afterwards
-lived and died. And then she goes home to Yelverton to her husband and
-baby, and asks what she has done to deserve to be so much better off
-than those who went before her?</p>
-
-<p>And yet, perhaps, if all accounts were added up, the sum total of loss
-and profit on those respective investments that we make, or that are
-made for us, of our property in life, would not be found to differ
-so very much, one case with another. We can neither suffer nor enjoy
-beyond a certain point. Elizabeth is rich beyond the dreams of avarice
-in all that to such a woman is precious and desirable, and happy in her
-choice and lot beyond her utmost expectations. Yet not so happy as to
-have nothing to wish for&mdash;which we know, as well as Patty, means "too
-happy to last." There is that hunger for her absent sisters, which
-tries in vain to satisfy itself in weekly letters of prodigious length,
-left as a sort of hostage to fortune, a valuable if not altogether
-trustworthy security for the safety of her dearest possessions.</p>
-
-
-<h4>THE END.</h4>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Miss Kings, by Ada Cambridge
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Three Miss Kings
-       An Australian Story
-
-Author: Ada Cambridge
-
-Release Date: November 18, 2015 [EBook #50476]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE MISS KINGS ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Clare Graham and Marc D'Hooghe at
-http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made
-available by the Internet Archive.]
-
-
-
-
-
-THE THREE MISS KINGS
-
-An Australian Story
-
-
-BY
-
-ADA CAMBRIDGE
-
-
-AUTHOR OF MY GUARDIAN
-
-
-NEW YORK
-
-D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
-
-1891
-
-
-
-    CONTENTS
-
-
-          I.  A DISTANT VIEW
-         II.  A LONELY EYRIE
-        III.  PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT
-         IV.  DEPARTURE
-          V.  ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP
-         VI.  PAUL
-        VII.  A MORNING WALK
-       VIII.  AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY
-         IX.  MRS. AARONS
-          X.  THE FIRST INVITATION
-         XI.  DISAPPOINTMENT
-        XII.  TRIUMPH
-       XIII.  PATTY IN UNDRESS
-        XIV.  IN THE WOMB OF FATE
-         XV.  ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND
-        XVI.  "WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED"
-       XVII.  AFTERNOON TEA
-      XVIII.  THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
-        XIX.  A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION
-         XX.  CHINA _v._ THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY
-        XXI.  THE "CUP"
-       XXII.  CROSS PURPOSES
-      XXIII.  MR. YELVERTON'S MISSION
-       XXIV.  AN OLD STORY
-        XXV.  OUT IN THE COLD
-       XXVI.  WHAT PAUL COULD NOT KNOW
-      XXVII.  SLIGHTED
-     XXVIII.  "WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW-MEN"
-       XXIX.  PATTY CONFESSES
-        XXX.  THE OLD AND THE NEW
-       XXXI.  IN RETREAT
-      XXXII.  HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
-     XXXIII.  THE DRIVE HOME
-      XXXIV.  SUSPENSE
-       XXXV.  HOW ELIZABETH MADE UP HER MIND
-      XXXVI.  INVESTIGATION
-     XXXVII.  DISCOVERY
-    XXXVIII.  THE TIME FOR ACTION
-      XXXIX.  AN ASSIGNATION
-         XL.  MRS. DUFF-SCOTT HAS TO BE RECKONED WITH
-        XLI.  MR. YELVERTON STATES HIS INTENTIONS
-       XLII.  HER LORD AND MASTER
-      XLIII. THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING
-       XLIV. THE WEDDING DAY
-        XLV. IN SILK ATTIRE
-       XLVI. PATTY CHOOSES HER CAREER
-      XLVII. A FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOUR
-     XLVIII. PROBATION
-       XLIX. YELVERTON
-          L. "THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE"
-         LI. PATIENCE REWARDED
-        LII. CONCLUSION
-
-
-
-
-THE THREE MISS KINGS.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-
-A DISTANT VIEW.
-
-
-On the second of January, in the year 1880, three newly-orphaned
-sisters, finding themselves left to their own devices, with an income
-of exactly one hundred pounds a year a-piece, sat down to consult
-together as to the use they should make of their independence.
-
-The place where they sat was a grassy cliff overlooking a wide bay
-of the Southern Ocean--a lonely spot, whence no sign of human life
-was visible, except in the sail of a little fishing boat far away.
-The low sun, that blazed at the back of their heads, and threw their
-shadows and the shadow of every blade of grass into relief, touched
-that distant sail and made it shine like bridal satin; while a certain
-island rock, the home of sea-birds, blushed like a rose in the same
-necromantic light. As they sat, they could hear the waves breaking and
-seething on the sands and stones beneath them, but could only see the
-level plain of blue and purple water stretching from the toes of their
-boots to the indistinct horizon. That particular Friday was a terribly
-hot day for the colony, as weather records testify, but in this
-favoured spot it had been merely a little too warm for comfort, and,
-the sea-breeze coming up fresher and stronger as the sun went down, it
-was the perfection of an Australian summer evening at the hour of which
-I am writing.
-
-"What I want," said Patty King (Patty was the middle one), "is to
-make a dash--a straight-out plunge into the world, Elizabeth--no
-shilly-shallying and dawdling about, frittering our money away before
-we begin. Suppose we go to London--we shall have enough to cover our
-travelling expenses, and our income to start fair with--surely we could
-live anywhere on three hundred a year, in the greatest comfort--and
-take rooms near the British Museum?--or in South Kensington?--or
-suppose we go to one of those intellectual German towns, and study
-music and languages? What do you think, Nell? I am sure we could do it
-easily if we tried."
-
-"Oh," said Eleanor, the youngest of the trio, "I don't care so long as
-we go _somewhere_, and do _something_."
-
-"What do you think, Elizabeth?" pursued the enterprising Patty, alert
-and earnest. "Life is short, and there is so much for us to see and
-learn--all these years and years we have been out of it so utterly! Oh,
-I wonder how we have borne it! How _have_ we borne it--to hear about
-things and never to know or do them, like other people! Let us get
-into the thick of it at once, and recover lost time. Once in Europe,
-everything would be to our hand--everything would be possible. What do
-you think?"
-
-"My dear," said Elizabeth, with characteristic caution, "I think we are
-too young and ignorant to go so far afield just yet."
-
-"We are all over twenty-one," replied Patty quickly, "and though we
-have lived the lives of hermits, we are not more stupid than other
-people. We can speak French and German, and we are quite sharp enough
-to know when we are being cheated. We should travel in perfect safety,
-finding our way as we went along. And we _do_ know something of those
-places--of Melbourne we know nothing."
-
-"We should never get to the places mother knew--the sort of life we
-have heard of. And Mr. Brion and Paul are with us here--they will tell
-us all we want to know. No, Patty, we must not be reckless. We might
-go to Europe by-and-bye, but for the present let Melbourne content us.
-It will be as much of the world as we shall want to begin with, and
-we ought to get some experience before we spend our money--the little
-capital we have to spend."
-
-"You don't call two hundred and thirty-five pounds a little, do you?"
-interposed Eleanor. This was the price that a well-to-do storekeeper in
-the neighbouring township had offered them for the little house which
-had been their home since she was born, and to her it seemed a fortune.
-
-"Well, dear, we don't quite know yet whether it is little or much,
-for, you see, we don't know what it costs to live as other people do.
-We must not be reckless, Patty--we must take care of what we have, for
-we have only ourselves in the wide world to depend on, and this is
-all our fortune. I should think no girls were ever so utterly without
-belongings as we are now," she added, with a little break in her gentle
-voice.
-
-She was half lying on the grass, leaning on her elbow and propping her
-head in her hand. The light behind her was growing momentarily less
-fierce, and the breeze from the quiet ocean more cool and delicious;
-and she had taken off her hat in order to see and breathe in freedom.
-A noble figure she was, tall, strong, perfect in proportion, fine in
-texture, full of natural dignity and grace--the product of several
-generations of healthy and cultured people, and therefore a truly
-well-bred woman. Her face was a little too grave and thoughtful for
-her years, perhaps--she was not quite eight-and-twenty--and it was
-not at all handsome, in the vulgar sense of the word. But a sweeter,
-truer, kinder face, with its wide, firm mouth and its open brows, and
-its candid grey eyes, one could not wish to see. She had smooth brown
-hair of excessive fineness and brightness (a peculiarity of good blood
-shared by all the sisters), and it was closely coiled in a knot of
-braids at the back of her head, without any of those curls and fringes
-about the temples that have since become the prevailing fashion. And
-she was dressed in a very common, loosely-made, black print gown,
-with a little frill of crape at her throat, and a leather belt round
-her by no means slender waist. Her feet were encased in large and
-clumsy boots, and her shapely hands, fine-skinned and muscular, were
-not encased at all, but were brown with constant exposure to sun and
-wind, and the wear and tear of miscellaneous housework. The impetuous
-Patty, who sat bolt upright clasping her knees, was like her, but with
-marked differences. She was smaller and slighter in make, though she
-had the same look of abundant health and vigour. Her figure, though it
-had never worn stays, was more after the pattern of modern womanhood
-than Elizabeth's, and her brilliant little face was exquisite in
-outline, in colour, in all the charms of bright and wholesome youth.
-Patty's eyes were dark and keen, and her lips were delicate and red,
-and her hair had two or three ripples in it, and was the colour of
-a half-ripe chestnut. And altogether, she was a very striking and
-unmistakeably handsome girl. She, too, wore a black print gown, and a
-straw sailor hat, with a black ribbon, tilted back on her bead, and
-the same country-made boots, and the same brown and gloveless hands.
-Eleanor, again, with the general family qualities of physical health
-and refinement, had her own characteristics. She was slim and tall--as
-slim as Patty, and nearly as tall as Elizabeth, as was shown in her
-attitude as she lay full length on the grass, with her feet on the
-edge of the cliff, and her head on her elder sister's knee. She had a
-pure white skin, and sentimental blue eyes, and lovely yellow hair,
-just tinged with red; and her voice was low and sweet, and her manners
-gentle and graceful, and altogether she was one of the most pleasing
-young women that ever blushed unseen like a wild flower in the savage
-solitudes of the bush. This young person was not in black--because, she
-said, the weather was too hot for black. She wore an old blue gingham
-that had faded to a faint lavender in course of numerous washings, and
-she had a linen handkerchief loosely tied round her neck, and cotton
-gloves on her hands. She was the only one of the sisters to whom it had
-occurred that, having a good complexion, it was worth while to preserve
-it.
-
-The parents of these three girls had been a mysterious couple, about
-whose circumstances and antecedents people knew just as much as they
-liked to conjecture, and no more. Mr. King had been on the diggings
-in the old days--that much was a fact, to which he had himself been
-known to testify; but where and what he had been before, and why he
-had lived like a pelican in the wilderness ever since, nobody knew,
-though everybody was at liberty to guess. Years and years ago, he
-came to this lone coast--a region of hopeless sand and scrub, which
-no squatter or free selector with a grain of sense would look at--and
-here on a bleak headland he built his rude house, piece by piece, in
-great part with his own hands, and fenced his little paddock, and made
-his little garden; and here he had lived till the other day, a morose
-recluse, who shunned his neighbours as they shunned him, and never was
-known to have either business or pleasure, or commerce of any kind
-with his fellow-men. It was supposed that he had made some money at
-the diggings, for he took up no land (there was none fit to take up,
-indeed, within a dozen miles of him), and he kept no stock--except a
-few cows and pigs for the larder; and at the same time there was never
-any sign of actual poverty in his little establishment, simple and
-humble as it was. And it was also supposed--nay, it was confidently
-believed--that he was not, so to speak, "all there." No man who was not
-"touched" would conduct himself with such preposterous eccentricity as
-that which had marked his long career in their midst--so the neighbours
-argued, not without a show of reason. But the greatest mystery in
-connection with Mr. King was Mrs. King. He was obviously a gentleman,
-in the conventional sense of the word, but she was, in every sense,
-the most beautiful and accomplished lady that ever was seen, according
-to the judgment of those who knew her--the women who had nursed her in
-her confinements, and washed and scrubbed for her, and the tradesmen
-of the town to whom she had gone in her little buggy for occasional
-stores, and the doctor and the parson, and the children whom she had
-brought up in such a wonderful manner to be copies (though, it was
-thought, poor ones) of herself. And yet she had borne to live all
-the best years of her life, at once a captive and an exile, on that
-desolate sea-shore--and had loved that harsh and melancholy man with
-the most faithful and entire devotion--and had suffered her solitude
-and privations, the lack of everything to which she _must_ have been
-once accustomed, and the fret and trouble of her husband's bitter
-moods--without a murmur that anybody had ever heard.
-
-Both of them were gone now from the cottage on the cliff where they had
-lived so long together. The idolised mother had been dead for several
-years, and the harsh, and therefore not much loved nor much mourned,
-father had lain but a few weeks in his grave beside her; and they had
-left their children, as Elizabeth described it, more utterly without
-belongings than ever girls were before. It was a curious position
-altogether. As far as they knew, they had no relations, and they had
-never had a friend. Not one of them had left their home for a night
-since Eleanor was born, and not one invited guest had slept there
-during the whole of that period. They had never been to school, or had
-any governess but their mother, or any experience of life and the ways
-of the world save what they gained in their association with her, and
-from the books that she and their father selected for them. According
-to all precedent, they ought to have been dull and rustic and stupid
-(it was supposed that they were, because they dressed themselves so
-badly), but they were only simple and truthful in an extraordinary
-degree. They had no idea what was the "correct thing" in costume or
-manners, and they knew little or nothing of the value of money; but
-they were well and widely read, and highly accomplished in all the
-household arts, from playing the piano to making bread and butter, and
-as full of spiritual and intellectual aspirations as the most advanced
-amongst us.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-
-A LONELY EYRIE.
-
-
-"Then we will say Melbourne to begin with. Not for a permanence, but
-until we have gained a little more experience," said Patty, with
-something of regret and reluctance in her voice. By this time the sun
-had set and drawn off all the glow and colour from sea and shore. The
-island rock was an enchanted castle no longer, and the sails of the
-fishing-boats had ceased to shine. The girls had been discussing their
-schemes for a couple of hours, and had come to several conclusions.
-
-"I think so, Patty. It would be unwise to hurry ourselves in making
-our choice of a home. We will go to Melbourne and look about us. Paul
-Brion is there. He will see after lodgings for us and put us in the
-way of things generally. That will be a great advantage. And then the
-Exhibition will be coming--it would be a pity to miss that. And we
-shall feel more as if we belonged to the people here than elsewhere,
-don't you think? They are more likely to be kind to our ignorance and
-help us."
-
-"Oh, we don't want anyone to help us."
-
-"Someone must teach us what we don't know, directly or indirectly--and
-we are not above being taught."
-
-"But," insisted Patty, "there is no reason why we should be beholden
-to anybody. Paul Brion may look for some lodgings for us, if he
-likes--just a place to sleep in for a night or two--and tell us where
-we can find a house--that's all we shall want to ask of him or of
-anybody. We will have a house of our own, won't we?--so as not to be
-overlooked or interfered with."
-
-"Oh, of course!" said Eleanor promptly. "A landlady on the premises is
-not to be thought of for a moment. Whatever we do, we don't want to be
-interfered with, Elizabeth."
-
-"No, my dear--you can't desire to be free from interference--unpleasant
-interference--more than I do. Only I don't think we shall be able to be
-so independent as Patty thinks. I fancy, too, that we shall not care to
-be, when we begin to live in the world with other people. It will be so
-charming to have friends!"
-
-"Oh--friends!" Patty exclaimed, with a little toss of the head. "It is
-too soon to think about friends--when we have so much else to think
-about! We must have some lessons in Melbourne, Elizabeth. We will go
-to that library every day and read. We will make our stay there a
-preparation for England and Germany and Italy. Oh, Nell, Nell! think of
-seeing the great Alps and the Doge's Palace before we die!"
-
-"Ah!" responded Eleanor, drawing a long breath.
-
-They all rose from the grass and stood still an instant, side by side,
-for a last look at the calm ocean which had been the background of
-their simple lives. Each was sensible that it was a solemn moment, in
-view of the changes to come, but not a word was spoken to imply regret.
-Like all the rest of us, they were ungrateful for the good things of
-the present and the past, and were not likely to understand how much
-they loved the sea, that, like the nurse of Rorie Mhor, had lulled them
-to sleep every night since they were born, while the sound of its many
-waters was still in their ears.
-
-"Sam Dunn is out late," said Eleanor, pointing to a dark dot far away,
-that was a glittering sail a little while ago.
-
-"It is a good night for fishing," said Patty.
-
-And then they turned their faces landward, and set forth on their road
-home. Climbing to the top of the cliff on the slope of which they had
-been sitting, they stood upon a wide and desolate heath covered in all
-directions with a short, stiff scrub, full of wonderful wild-flowers
-(even at this barren season of the year), but without a tree of any
-sort; a picturesque desert, but still a desert, though with fertile
-country lying all around it--as utterly waste as the irreclaimable
-Sahara. Through this the girls wended their way by devious tracks
-amongst the bushes, ankle deep in the loose sand; and then again
-striking the cliff, reached a high point from which they had a distant
-view of human habitations--a little township, fringing a little bay;
-a lighthouse beyond it, with its little star shining steadily through
-the twilight; a little pier, running like a black thread through the
-silvery surf; and even a little steamer from Melbourne lying at the
-pier-head, veiling the rock-island, that now frowned like a fortress
-behind it, in a thin film of grey smoke from its invisible little
-funnels. But they did not go anywhere near these haunts of their
-fellow-men. Hugging the cliff, which was here of a great height,
-and honeycombed with caves in which the green sea-water rumbled and
-thundered like a great drum in the calm weather, and like a furious
-bombardment in a storm, they followed a slender track worn in the scant
-grass by their own light feet, until they came to a little depression
-in the line of the coast--a hollow scooped out of the great headland
-as if some Titanic monster of a prehistoric period had risen up out of
-the waves and bitten it--where, sheltered and hidden on three sides by
-grassy banks, sloping gently upward until they overtopped the chimneys,
-and with all the great plain of the sea outspread beneath the front
-verandah, stood the house which had been, but was to be no more, their
-home.
-
-It was well worth the money that the storekeeper had offered for it. It
-was a really charming house, though people had not been accustomed to
-look at it in that light--though it was built of roughest weatherboard
-that had never known a paint-brush, and heavily roofed with great
-sheets of bark that were an offence to the provincial eye, accustomed
-to the chaste elegance of corrugated zinc. A strong, and sturdy,
-and genuine little house--as, indeed, it had to be to hold its own
-against the stormy blasts that buffeted it; mellowed and tanned with
-time and weather, and with all its honest, rugged features softened
-under a tender drapery of hardy English ivy and climbing plants that
-patient skill and care had induced to grow, and even to thrive in
-that unfriendly air. The verandah, supported on squat posts, was a
-continuation of the roof; and that roof, with green leaves curling
-upward over it, was so conspicuously solid, and so widely overspread
-and over-shadowed the low walls, that it was about all that could be
-seen of the house from the ridges of the high land around it. But
-lower down, the windows--nearly all set in rude but substantial door
-frames--opened like shy eyes in the shadow of the deep eaves of the
-verandah, like eyes that had expression in them; and the retiring
-walls bore on numerous nails and shelves a miscellaneous but orderly
-collection of bird-cages, flower boxes, boating and fishing apparatus,
-and odds and ends of various kinds, that gave a charming homely
-picturesqueness to the quaint aspect of the place. The comparatively
-spacious verandah, running along the front of the house (which had been
-made all front, as far as possible), was the drawing-room and general
-living room of the family during the greater part of the year. Its
-floor, of unplaned hardwood, dark with age and wear, but as exquisitely
-clean as sweeping and scrubbing could make it, was one of the loveliest
-terraces in the country for the view that it afforded--so our girls
-will maintain, at any rate, to their dying day. Now that they see it no
-more, they have passionate memories of their beloved bay, seen through
-a frame of rustling leaves from that lofty platform--how it looked in
-the dawn and sunrise, in the intensely blue noon, in the moonlight
-nights, and when gales and tempests were abroad, and how it sounded
-in the hushed darkness when they woke out of their sleep to listen
-to it--the rhythmic fall of breaking waves on the rocks below, the
-tremulous boom that filled the air and seemed to shake the foundations
-of the solid earth. They have no wish to get back to their early home
-and their hermit life there now--they have tasted a new wine that is
-better than the old; but, all the same, they think and say that from
-the lonely eyrie where they were nursed and reared they looked out
-upon such a scene as the wide world would never show them any more.
-In the foreground, immediately below the verandah, a little grass, a
-few sturdy shrubs, and such flowers as could keep their footing in so
-exposed a place, clothed the short slope of the edge of the cliff,
-down the steep face of which a breakneck path zig-zagged to the beach,
-where only a narrow strip of white sand, scarcely more than a couple of
-yards wide, was uncovered when the tide was out. Behind the house was a
-well-kept, if rather sterile, kitchen garden; and higher up the cliff,
-but still partly sheltered in the hollow, a very small farm-yard and
-one barren little paddock.
-
-Through a back gate, by way of the farm-yard and kitchen garden, the
-sisters entered their domain when it was late enough to be called
-night, though the twilight lingered, and were welcomed with effusion
-by an ugly but worthy little terrier which had been bidden to keep
-house, and had faithfully discharged that duty during their absence. As
-they approached the house, a pet opossum sprang from the dairy roof to
-Eleanor's shoulder, and a number of tame magpies woke up with a sleepy
-scuffle and gathered round her. A little monkey-bear came cautiously
-down from the only gum tree that grew on the premises, grunting and
-whimpering, and crawled up Patty's skirts; and any quantity of cats
-and kittens appealed to Elizabeth for recognition. The girls spoke to
-them all by name, as if they had been so many children, cuffed them
-playfully for their forward manners, and ordered them to bed or to
-whatever avocations were proper to the hour. When a match was struck
-and the back-door opened, the opossum took a few flying leaps round
-the kitchen, had his ears boxed, and was flung back again upon the
-dairy roof. The little bear clung whining to his mistress, but was
-also put outside with a firm hand; and the cats and magpies were swept
-over the threshold with a broom. "_Brats!_" cried Patty with ferocious
-vehemence, as she closed the kitchen door sharply, at the risk of
-cutting off some of their noses; "what _are_ we to do with them? They
-seem as if they _knew_ we were going away, the aggravating little
-wretches. There, there"--raising the most caressing voice in answer
-to the whine of the monkey-bear--"don't cry, my pet! Get up your tree,
-darling, and have a nice supper and go to sleep."
-
-Then, having listened for a few seconds at the closed door, she
-followed Elizabeth through the kitchen to the sitting-room, and, while
-her sister lit the lamp, stepped through the French window to sniff
-the salt sea air. For some time the humble members of the family were
-heard prowling disconsolately about the house, but none of them, except
-the terrier, appeared upon the verandah, where the ghost of their evil
-genius still sat in his old armchair with his stick by his side. They
-had been driven thence so often and with such memorable indignities
-that it would never occur to them to go there any more. And so the
-sisters were left in peace. Eleanor busied herself in the kitchen for
-awhile, setting her little batch of bread by the embers of the hearth,
-in view of a hot loaf for their early breakfast, while she sang some
-German ballads to herself with an ear for the refinements of both
-language and music that testified to the thoroughness of her mother's
-culture, and of the methods by which it had been imparted. Patty went
-to the dairy for a jug of milk for supper, which frugal meal was
-otherwise prepared by Elizabeth's hands; and at nine o'clock the trio
-gathered round the sitting-room table to refresh themselves with thick
-slices of bread and jam, and half-an-hour's gossip before they went to
-bed.
-
-A pretty and pathetic picture they made as they sat round that
-table, with the dim light of one kerosene lamp on their strikingly
-fair faces--alone in the little house that was no longer theirs,
-and in the wide world, but so full of faith and hope in the unknown
-future--discussing ways and means for getting their furniture
-to Melbourne. That time-honoured furniture, and their immediate
-surroundings generally, made a poor setting for such a group--a long,
-low, canvas-lined room, papered with prints from the _Illustrated
-London News_ (a pictorial European "history of our own times"), from
-the ceiling to the floor, the floor being without a carpet, and the
-glass doors furnished only with a red baize curtain to draw against
-the sea winds of winter nights. The tables and chairs were of the
-same order of architecture as the house; the old mahogany bureau,
-with its brass mounting and multitudinous internal ramifications, was
-ridiculously out of date and out of fashion (as fashion was understood
-in that part of the world); the ancient chintz sofa, though as easy
-as a feather bed, and of a capacity equal to the accommodation of
-Giant Blunderbore, was obviously home-made and not meant to be
-too closely criticised; and even the piano, which was a modern and
-beautiful instrument in itself, hid its music in a stained deal case
-than which no plain egg of a nightingale could be plainer. And yet this
-odd environment for three beautiful and cultured women had a certain
-dignity and harmoniousness about it--often lacking in later and more
-luxurious surroundings. It was in tune with those simple lives, and
-with the majestic solitude of the great headland and the sea.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-
-PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT.
-
-
-Melbourne people, when they go to bed, chain up their doors carefully,
-and bar all their windows, lest the casual burglar should molest them.
-Bush people, no more afraid of the night than of the day, are often
-quite unable to tell you whether there is such a thing as an effective
-lock upon the premises. So our girls, in their lonely dwelling on the
-cliff, slept in perfect peace and security, with the wind from the sea
-blowing over their faces through the open door-windows at the foot of
-their little beds. Dan Tucker, the terrier, walked softly to and fro
-over their thresholds at intervals in the course of the night, and kept
-away any stray kitten that had not yet learned its proper place; that
-was all the watch and ward that he or they considered necessary.
-
-At five o'clock in the morning, Elizabeth King, who had a little slip
-of a room to herself, just wide enough to allow the leaves of the
-French window at the end of it to be held back, when open, by buttons
-attached to the side walls, stirred in her sleep, stretched herself,
-yawned, and then springing up into a sitting posture, propped herself
-on her pillows to see the new day begin. It was a sight to see, indeed,
-from that point of view; but it was not often that any of them woke
-from their sound and healthy slumber at this time of the year, until
-the sun was high enough to shoot a level ray into their eyes. At five
-o'clock the surface of the great deep had not begun to shine, but it
-was light enough to see the black posts and eaves of the verandah, and
-the stems and leaves that twined about them, outlined sharply upon the
-dim expanse. Elizabeth's bed had no footrail, and there was no chair
-or dressing-table in the way to impede a clear view of sea and sky.
-As she lay, the line of the horizon was drawn straight across the
-doorway, about three feet above the edge of the verandah floor; and
-there a faint pink streak, with fainter flushes on a bank of clouds
-above it, showed where the sun was about to rise. The waves splashed
-heavily on the beach, and boomed in the great caves of the rocks below;
-the sea-gulls called to each other with their queer little cry, at
-once soft and shrill; and the magpies piped and chattered all around
-the house, and more cocks than could anyhow be accounted for crowed
-a mutual defiance far and near. And yet, oh, how still--how solemnly
-still--it was! I am not going to describe that sunrise, though I saw
-one exactly like it only this very morning. I have seen people take out
-their tubes and brushes, and sit down with placid confidence to paint
-sun-kissed hills, and rocks, and seas; and, if you woke them up early
-enough, they would "sketch" the pink and golden fire of this flaming
-dawn without a moment's hesitation. But I know better.
-
-Ere the many-coloured transformation scene had melted in dazzle
-of daylight, Elizabeth was dressing herself by her still open
-window--throwing long shadows as she moved to and fro about the now
-sun-flooded room. Patty was busy in her dairy churning, with a number
-of her pets round the door, hustling each other to get at the milk
-dish set down for their breakfast--the magpies tugging at the cats and
-kittens by ears and tail, and the cats and kittens cuffing the magpies
-smartly. Eleanor, singing her German ballads still, was hard at work
-in the kitchen, baking delicate loaves for breakfast, and attending to
-kitchen matters generally. The elder sister's office on this occasion
-was to let out and feed the fowls, to sweep and dust, and to prepare
-the table for their morning meal. Never since they had grown out of
-childhood had they known the sensation of being waited upon by a
-servant, and as yet their system of education had been such that they
-did not know what the word "menial" meant. To be together with no one
-to interfere with them, and independent of everybody but themselves,
-was a habit whose origin was too remote for inquiry, and that had
-become a second nature and a settled theory of life--a sort of instinct
-of pride and modesty, moreover, though an instinct too natural to be
-aware of its own existence.
-
-When the little loaves were done and the big ones put in the oven,
-Eleanor fetched a towel, donned a broad hat, and, passing out at the
-front of the house, ran lightly down the steep track on the face of
-the cliff to their bath-house on the beach--a little closet of rough
-slabs built in the rock above high water; whence she presently emerged
-in a scanty flannel garment, with her slender white limbs bare, and
-flung herself like a mermaid into the sea. There were sharks in that
-bay sometimes, and there were devil-fish too (Sam Dunn had spread one
-out, star-wise, on a big boulder close by, and it lay there still,
-with its horrible arms dangling from its hideous bag of a body, to be
-a warning to these venturesome young ladies, who, he fully expected,
-would be "et up" some day like little flies by a spider); but they
-found their safety in the perfect transparency of the water, coming
-in from the great pure ocean to the unsullied rocks, and kept a wary
-watch for danger. While Eleanor was disporting herself, Patty joined
-her, and after Patty, Elizabeth; and one by one they came up, glowing
-and dripping, like--no, I _won't_ be tempted to make that familiar
-classical comparison--like nothing better than themselves for artistic
-purposes. As Elizabeth, who was the last to leave the water, walked
-up the short flight of steps to her little dressing closet, straight
-and stately, with her full throat and bust and her nobly shaped limbs,
-she was the very model that sculptors dream of and hunt for (as
-many more might be, if brought up as she had been), but seldom are
-fortunate enough to find. In her gown and leather belt, her beauty of
-figure, of course, was not so obvious: the raiment of civilisation,
-however simple, levelled it from the standard of Greek art to that of
-conventional comparison with other dressed-up women--by which, it must
-be confessed, she suffered.
-
-Having assumed this raiment, she followed her sisters up the cliff
-path to the house; and there she found them talking volubly with Mrs.
-Dunn, who had brought them, with Sam's best respects, a freshly caught
-schnapper for their breakfast. Mrs. Dunn was their nearest neighbour,
-their only help in domestic emergencies, and of late days their devoted
-and confidential friend. Sam, her husband, had for some years been a
-ministering angel in the back yard, a purveyor of firewood and mutton,
-a killer of pigs, and so on; and he also had taken the orphan girls
-under his protection, so far as he could, since they had been "left."
-
-"Look at this!" cried Eleanor, holding it up--it took both hands to
-hold it, for it weighed about a dozen pounds; "did you ever see such
-a fish, Elizabeth? Breakfast indeed! Yes, we'll have it to breakfast
-to-day and to-morrow too, and for dinner and tea and supper. Oh, how
-stupid Sam is! Why didn't he send it to market? Why didn't he take it
-down to the steamer? He's not a man of business a bit, Mrs. Dunn--he'll
-never make his fortune this way. Get the pan for me, Patty, and set the
-fat boiling. We'll fry a bit this very minute, and you shall stay and
-help us to eat it, Mrs. Dunn."
-
-"Oh, my dear Miss Nelly--"
-
-"Elizabeth, take charge of her, and don't let her go. Don't listen to
-her. We have not seen her for three whole days, and we want her to
-tell us about the furniture. Keep her safe, and Patty and I will have
-breakfast ready in a minute."
-
-And in a short time the slice of schnapper was steaming on the table--a
-most simply appointed breakfast table, but very clean and dainty in
-its simplicity--and Mrs. Dunn sat down with her young _protégées,_ and
-sipped her tea and gave them matronly advice, with much enjoyment of
-the situation.
-
-Her advice was excellent, and amounted to this--"Don't you go for to
-take a stick o' that there furniture out o' the place." They were
-to have an auction, she said; and go to Melbourne with the proceeds
-in their pockets. Hawkins would be glad o' the beds, perhaps, with
-his large family; as Mrs. Hawkins had a lovely suite in green rep,
-she wouldn't look at the rest o' the things, which, though very
-comf'able, no doubt--very nice indeed, my dears--were not what _ladies
-and gentlemen_ had in their houses _now-a-days_. "As for that there
-bureau"--pointing to it with her teaspoon--"if you set that up in a
-Melbourne parlour, why, you'd just have all your friends laughing at
-you."
-
-The girls looked around the room with quick eyes, and then looked at
-each other with half-grave and half amused dismay. Patty spoke up with
-her usual promptness.
-
-"It doesn't matter in the least to us what other people like to have
-in their houses," said she. "And that bureau, as it happens, is very
-valuable, Mrs. Dunn: it belonged to one of the governors before we had
-it, and Mr. Brion says there is no such cabinet work in these days. He
-says it was made in France more than a hundred years ago."
-
-"Yes, my dear. So you might say that there was no such stuff now-a-days
-as what them old gowns was made of, that your poor ma wore when she was
-a girl. But you wouldn't go for to wear them old gowns now. I daresay
-the bureau was a grand piece o' furniture once, but it's out o' fashion
-now, and when a thing is out o' fashion it isn't worth anything. Sell
-it to Mr. Brion if you can; it would be a fine thing for a lawyer's
-office, with all them little shelves and drawers. He might give you
-a five-pound note for it, as he's a friend like, and you could buy a
-handsome new cedar chiffonnier for that."
-
-"Mrs. Dunn," said Eleanor, rising to replenish the worthy matron's
-plate, with Patty's new butter and her own new bread, "we are not going
-to sell that bureau--no, not to anybody. It has associations, don't you
-understand?--and also a set of locks that no burglar could pick if he
-tried ever so. We are not going to sell our bureau--nor our piano--"
-
-"Oh, but, my dear Miss Nelly--"
-
-"My dear Mrs. Dunn, it cost ninety guineas, I do assure you, only five
-years ago, and it is as modern and fashionable as heart could wish."
-
-"Fashionable! why, it might as well be a cupboard bedstead, in that
-there common wood. Mrs. Hawkins gave only fifty pounds for hers, and it
-is real walnut and carved beautiful."
-
-"We are not going to sell that piano, my dear woman." Though Nelly
-appeared to wait meekly upon her elder sisters' judgment, it often
-happened that she decided a question that was put before them in this
-prompt way. "And I'll tell you for why," she continued playfully. "You
-shut your eyes for five minutes--wait, I'll tie my handkerchief over
-them"--and she deftly blindfolded the old woman, whose stout frame
-shook with honest giggles of enjoyment at this manifestation of Miss
-Nelly's fun. "Now," said Nelly, "don't laugh--don't remember that you
-are here with us, or that there is such a thing as a cupboard bedstead
-in the world. Imagine that you are floating down the Rhine on a
-moonlight night--no, by the way, imagine that you are in a drawing-room
-in Melbourne, furnished with a lovely green rep suite, and a handsome
-new cedar chiffonnier, and a carved walnut piano--and that a beautiful,
-fashionable lady, with scent on her pocket-handkerchief, is sitting at
-that piano. And--and listen for a minute."
-
-Whereupon, lifting her hands from the old woman's shoulders, she
-crossed the room, opened the piano noiselessly, and began to play her
-favourite German airs--the songs of the people, that seem so much
-sweeter and more pathetic and poetic than the songs of any other
-people--mixing two or three of them together and rendering them with a
-touch and expression that worked like a spell of enchantment upon them
-all. Elizabeth sat back in her chair and lost herself in the visions
-that appeared to her on the ceiling. Patty spread her arms over the
-table and leaned towards the piano, breathing a soft accompaniment
-of German words in tender, sighing undertones, while her warm pulses
-throbbed and her eyes brightened with the unconscious passion that was
-stirred in her fervent soul. Even the weather-beaten old charwoman fell
-into a reverent attitude as of a devotee in church.
-
-"There," said Eleanor, taking her hands from the keys and shutting up
-the instrument, with a suddenness that made them jump. "Now I ask you,
-Mrs. Dunn, as an honest and truthful woman--_can_ you say that that is
-a piano to be _sold?_"
-
-"Beautiful, my dear, beautiful--it's like being in heaven to hear the
-like o' that," the old woman responded warmly, pulling the bandage
-from her eyes. "But you'd draw music from an old packing case, I
-do believe." And it was found that Mrs. Dunn was unshaken in her
-conviction that pianos were valuable in proportion to their external
-splendour, and their tone sweet and powerful by virtue solely of the
-skill of the fingers that played upon them. If Mr. King had given
-ninety guineas for "that there"--about which she thought there must be
-some mistake--she could only conclude that his rural innocence had been
-imposed upon by wily city tradesmen.
-
-"Well," said Nelly, who was now busy collecting the crockery on the
-breakfast table, "we must see if we can't furbish it up, Mrs. Dunn.
-We can paint a landscape on the front, perhaps, and tie some pink
-satin ribbons on the handles. Or we might set it behind a curtain, or
-in a dark corner, where it will be heard and not seen. But keep it
-we must--both that and the bureau. You would not part with those two
-things, Elizabeth?"
-
-"My dear," said Elizabeth, "it would grieve me to part with anything."
-
-"But I think," said Patty, "Mrs. Dunn may be right about the other
-furniture. What would it cost to take all our things to Melbourne, Mrs.
-Dunn?"
-
-"Twice as much as they are worth, Miss Patty--three times as much.
-Carriage is awful, whether by sea or land."
-
-"It is a great distance," said Patty, thoughtfully, "and it would be
-very awkward. We cannot take them with us, for we shall want first
-to find a place to put them in, and we could not come back to fetch
-them. I think we had better speak to Mr. Hawkins, Elizabeth, and, if
-he doesn't want them, have a little auction. We must keep some things,
-of course; but I am sure Mr. Hawkins would let them stay till we could
-send for them, or Mr. Brion would house them for us."
-
-"We should feel very free that way, and it would be nice to buy new
-things," said Eleanor.
-
-"Or we might not have to buy--we might put this money to the other,"
-said Patty. "We might find that we did not like Melbourne, and then we
-could go to Europe at once without any trouble."
-
-"And take the pianner to Europe along with you?" inquired Mrs. Dunn.
-"And that there bureau?"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-
-DEPARTURE.
-
-
-They decided to sell their furniture--with the exception of the piano
-and the bureau, and sundry treasures that could bestowed away in the
-latter capacious receptacle; and, on being made acquainted with the
-fact, the obliging Mr. Hawkins offered to take it as it stood for a
-lump sum of £50, and his offer was gratefully accepted. Sam Dunn was
-very wroth over this transaction, for he knew the value of the dairy
-and kitchen utensils and farm-yard appliances, which went to the new
-tenant along with the household furniture that Mrs. Dunn, as a candid
-friend, had disparaged and despised; and he reproached Elizabeth,
-tenderly, but with tears in his eyes, for having allowed herself to
-be "done" by not taking Mr. Brion's advice upon the matter, and shook
-his head over the imminent fate of these three innocent and helpless
-lambs about to fling themselves into the jaws of the commercial
-wolves of Melbourne. Elizabeth told him that she did not like to be
-always teasing Mr. Brion, who had already done all the legal business
-necessary to put them in possession of their little property, and had
-refused to take any fee for his trouble; that, as they had nothing more
-to sell, no buyer could "do" them again; and that, finally, they all
-thought fifty pounds a great deal of money, and were quite satisfied
-with their bargain. But Sam, as a practical man, continued to shake his
-head, and bade her remember him when she was in trouble and in need
-of a faithful friend--assuring her, with a few strong seafaring oaths
-(which did not shock her in the least, for they were meant to emphasise
-the sincerity of his protestations), that she and her sisters should
-never want, if he knew it, while he had a crust of bread and a breath
-in his body.
-
-And so they began to pack up. And the fuss and confusion of that
-occupation--which becomes so irksome when the charm of novelty is
-past--was full of enjoyment for them all. It would have done the
-travel-worn cynic good to see them scampering about the house, as
-lightly as the kittens that frisked after them, carrying armfuls of
-house linen and other precious chattels to and fro, and prattling the
-while of their glorious future like so many school children about to
-pay a first visit to the pantomime. It was almost heartless, Mrs.
-Dunn thought--dropping in occasionally to see how they were getting
-on--considering what cause had broken up their home, and that their
-father had been so recently taken from them that she (Mrs. Dunn) could
-not bring herself to walk without hesitation into the house, still
-fancying she should see him sitting in his arm-chair and looking at her
-with those hard, unsmiling eyes, as if to ask her what business she had
-there. But Mr. King had been a harsh father, and this is what harsh
-fathers must expect of children who have never learned how to dissemble
-for the sake of appearances. They reverenced his memory and held it
-dear, but he had left them no associations that could sadden them like
-the sight of their mother's clothes folded away in the long unopened
-drawers of the wardrobe in her room--the room in which he had slept and
-died only a few weeks ago.
-
-These precious garments, smelling of lavender, camphor, and sandalwood,
-were all taken out and looked at, and tenderly smoothed afresh, and
-laid in a deep drawer of the bureau. There were treasures amongst them
-of a value that the girls had no idea of--old gowns of faded brocade
-and embroidered muslin, a yellow-white Indian shawl so soft that it
-could be drawn through a wedding ring, yellower lace of still more
-wonderful texture, and fans, and scarfs, and veils, and odds and ends
-of ancient finery, that would have been worth considerably more than
-their weight in gold to a modern art collector. But these reminiscences
-of their mother's far-off girlhood, carefully laid in the bottom of the
-drawer, were of no account to them compared with the half-worn gowns
-of cheap stuff and cotton--still showing the print of her throat and
-arms--that were spread so reverently on the top of them; and compared
-with the numerous other memorials of her last days--her workbox, with
-its unfinished bit of needlework, and scissors and thimble, and tapes
-and cottons, just as she had left it--her Prayer-Book and Bible--her
-favourite cup, from which she drank her morning tea--her shabby velvet
-slippers, her stiff-fingered gardening gloves--all the relics that her
-children had cherished of the daily, homely life that they had been
-privileged to share with her; the bestowal of which was carried on in
-silence, or with tearful whispers, while all the pets were locked out
-of the room, as if it had been a religious function. When this drawer
-was closed, and they had refreshed their saddened spirits with a long
-walk, they set themselves with light hearts to fill the remainder of
-the many shelves and niches of the bureau with piles of books and
-music, painting materials, collections of wild flowers and shells and
-seaweeds, fragments of silver plate that had lain there always, as
-far as they knew, along with some old miniatures and daguerreotypes
-in rusty leather cases, and old bundles of papers that Mr. Brion had
-warned them to take care of--and with their own portfolios of sketches
-and little personal treasures of various kinds, their father's watch,
-and stick, and spurs, and spectacles--and so on, and so on.
-
-After this, they had only to pack up their bed and table linen and
-knives and forks, which were to go with them to Melbourne, and to
-arrange their own scanty wardrobes to the best advantage.
-
-"We shall certainly want some clothes," said Eleanor, surveying their
-united stock of available wearing apparel on Elizabeth's bedroom floor.
-"I propose that we appropriate--say £5--no, that might not be enough;
-say £10--from the furniture money to settle ourselves up each with a
-nice costume--dress, jacket, and bonnet complete--so that we may look
-like other people when we get to Melbourne."
-
-"We'll get there first," said Patty, "and see what is worn, and the
-price of things. Our black prints are very nice for everyday, and we
-can wear our brown homespuns as soon as we get away from Mrs. Dunn. She
-said it was disrespectful to poor father's memory to put on anything
-but black when she saw you in your blue gingham, Nelly. Poor old soul!
-one would think we were a set of superstitious heathen pagans. I wonder
-where she got all those queer ideas from?"
-
-"She knows a great deal more than we do, Patty," said wise Elizabeth,
-from her kneeling posture on the floor.
-
-They packed all their clothes into two small but weighty brass-bound
-trunks, leaving out their blue ginghams, their well-worn water-proofs,
-and their black-ribboned sailor hats to travel in. Then they turned
-their attention to the animals, and suffered grievous trouble in their
-efforts to secure a comfortable provision for them after their own
-departure. The monkey-bear, the object of their fondest solicitude,
-was entrusted to Sam Dunn, who swore with picturesque energy that he
-would cherish it as his own child. It was put into a large cage with
-about a bushel of fresh gum leaves, and Sam was adjured to restore
-it to liberty as soon as he had induced it to grow fond of him. Then
-Patty and Eleanor took the long walk to the township to call on Mrs.
-Hawkins, in order to entreat her good offices for the rest of their
-pets. But Mrs. Hawkins seized the precious opportunity that they
-offered her for getting the detailed information, such as only women
-could give, concerning the interior construction and capabilities of
-her newly-acquired residence, and she had no attention to spare for
-anything else. The girls left, after sitting on two green rep chairs
-for nearly an hour, with the depressing knowledge that their house was
-to be painted inside and out, and roofed with zinc, and verandahed with
-green trellis-work; and that there was to be a nice road made to it, so
-that the family could drive to and from their place of business; and
-that it was to have "Sea View Villa" painted on the garden gate posts.
-But whether their pets were to be allowed to roam over the transformed
-premises (supposing they had the heart to do so) was more than they
-could tell. So they had an anxious consultation with Elizabeth, all
-the parties concerned being present, cuddled and fondled on arms and
-knees; and the result was a determination _not_ to leave the precious
-darlings to the tender mercies of the Hawkins family. Sam Dunn was to
-take the opossum in a basket to some place where there were trees,
-a river, and other opossums, and there turn him out to unlearn his
-civilisation and acquire the habits and customs of his unsophisticated
-kinsfolk--a course of study to which your pet opossum submits himself
-very readily as a rule. The magpies were also to be left to shift for
-themselves, for they were in the habit of consorting with other magpies
-in a desultory manner, and they could "find" themselves in board and
-lodging. But the cats--O, the poor, dear, confiding old cats! O, the
-sweet little playful kitties!--the girls were distracted to know what
-to do for _them_. There were so many of them, and they would never be
-induced to leave the place--that rocky platform so barren of little
-birds, and those ancient buildings where no mouse had been allowed so
-much as to come into the world for years past. They would not be fed,
-of course, when their mistresses were gone. They would get into the
-dairy and the pantry, and steal Mrs. Hawkins's milk and meat--and it
-was easy to conjecture what would happen _then_. Mrs. Hawkins had boys
-moreover--rough boys who went to the State school, and looked capable
-of all the fiendish atrocities that young animals of their age and sex
-were supposed to delight in. Could they leave their beloved ones to the
-mercy of _boys?_ They consulted Sam Dunn, and Sam's advice was----
-
-Never mind. Cats and kittens disappeared. And then only Dan Tucker
-was left. Him, at any rate, they declared they would never part with,
-while he had a breath in his faithful body. He should go with them to
-Melbourne, bless his precious heart!---or, if need were, to the ends of
-the earth.
-
-And so, at last, all their preparations were made, and the day came
-when, with unexpected regrets and fears, they walked out of the old
-house which had been their only home into the wide world, where they
-were utter strangers. Sam Dunn came with his wood-cart to carry their
-luggage to the steamer (the conveyance they had selected, in preference
-to coach and railway, because it was cheaper, and they were more
-familiar with it); and then they shut up doors and windows, sobbing as
-they went from room to room; stood on the verandah in front of the sea
-to solemnly kiss each other, and walked quietly down to the township,
-hand in hand, and with the terrier at their heels, to have tea with Mr.
-Brion and his old housekeeper before they went on board.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-
-ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.
-
-
-Late in the evening when the sea was lit up with a young moon, Mr.
-Brion, having given them a great deal of serious advice concerning
-their money and other business affairs, escorted our three girls to
-the little jetty where the steamer that called in once a week lay at
-her moorings, ready to start for Melbourne and intermediate ports
-at five o'clock next morning. The old lawyer was a spare, grave,
-gentlemanly-looking old man, and as much a gentleman as he looked, with
-the kindest heart in the world when you could get at it: a man who
-was esteemed and respected, to use the language of the local paper,
-by all his fellow-townsmen, whether friends or foes. They Anglicised
-his name in speaking it, and they wrote it "Bryan" far more often than
-not, though nothing enraged him more than to have his precious vowels
-tampered with; but they liked him so much that they never cast it up to
-him that he was a Frenchman.
-
-This good old man, chivalrous as any paladin, in his shy and secret
-way, always anxious to hide his generous emotions, as the traditional
-Frenchman is anxious to display them, had done a father's part by
-our young orphans since their own father had left them so strangely
-desolate. Sam Dunn had compassed them with sweet observances, as we
-have seen; but Sam was powerless to unravel the web of difficulties,
-legal and otherwise, in which Mr. King's death had plunged them. Mr.
-Brion had done all this, and a great deal more that nobody knew of,
-to protect the girls and their interests at a critical juncture, and
-to give them a fair and clear start on their own account. And in the
-process of thus serving them he had become very much attached to them
-in his old-fashioned, reticent way; and he did not at all like having
-to let them go away alone in this lonely-looking night.
-
-"But Paul will be there to meet you," he said, for the twentieth time,
-laying his hand over Elizabeth's, which rested on his arm. "You may
-trust to Paul--as soon as the boat is telegraphed he will come to meet
-you--he will see to everything that is necessary--you will have no
-bother at all. And, my dear, remember what I say--let the boy advise
-you for a little while. Let him take care of you, and imagine it is
-I. You may trust him as absolutely as you trust me, and he will not
-presume upon your confidence, believe me. He is not like the young men
-of the country," added Paul's father, putting a little extra stiffness
-into his upright figure. "No, no--he is quite different."
-
-"I think you have instructed us so fully, dear Mr. Brion, that we shall
-get along very well without having to trouble Mr. Paul," interposed
-Patty, in her clear, quick way, speaking from a little distance.
-
-The steamer, with her lamps lit, was all in a clatter and bustle,
-taking in passengers and cargo. Sam Dunn was on board, having seen the
-boxes stowed away safely; and he came forward to say good-bye to his
-young ladies before driving his cart home.
-
-"I'll miss ye," said the brawny fisherman, with savage tenderness; "and
-the missus'll miss ye. Darned if we shall know the place with you gone
-out of it. Many's the dark night the light o' your winders has been
-better'n the lighthouse to show me the way home."
-
-He pointed to the great headland lying, it seemed now, so far, far
-off, ghostly as a cloud. And presently he went away; and they could
-hear him, as he drove back along the jetty, cursing his old horse--to
-which he was as much attached as if it had been a human friend--with
-blood-curdling ferocity.
-
-Mr. Brion stayed with them until it seemed improper to stay any
-longer--until all the passengers that were to come on board had housed
-themselves for the night, and all the baggage had been snugly stowed
-away--and then bade them good-bye, with less outward emotion than Sam
-had displayed, but with almost as keen a pang.
-
-"God bless you, my dears," said he, with paternal solemnity. "Take care
-of yourselves, and let Paul do what he can for you. I will send you
-your money every quarter, and you must keep accounts--keep accounts
-strictly. And ask Paul what you want to know. Then you will get along
-all right, please God."
-
-"O yes, we shall get along all right," repeated Patty, whose sturdy
-optimism never failed her in the most trying moments.
-
-But when the old man was gone, and they stood on the tiny slip of deck
-that was available to stand on, feeling no necessity to cling to the
-railings as the little vessel heaved up and down in the wash of the
-tide that swirled amongst the piers of the jetty--when they looked at
-the lights of the town sprinkled round the shore and up the hillsides,
-at their own distant headland, unlighted, except by the white haze of
-the moon, at the now deserted jetty, and the apparently illimitable
-sea--when they realised for the first time that they were alone in this
-great and unknown world--even Patty's bold heart was inclined to sink a
-little.
-
-"Elizabeth," she said, "we _must_ not cry--it is absurd. What is there
-to cry for? Now, all the things we have been dreaming and longing for
-are going to happen--the story is beginning. Let us go to bed and get
-a good sleep before the steamer starts so that we are fresh in the
-morning--so that we don't lose anything. Come, Nelly, let us see if
-poor Dan is comfortable, and have some supper and go to bed."
-
-They cheered themselves with the sandwiches and the gooseberry wine
-that Mr. Brion's housekeeper had put up for them, paid a visit to Dan,
-who was in charge of an amiable cook (whom the old lawyer had tipped
-handsomely), and then faced the dangers and difficulties of getting
-to bed. Descending the brass-bound staircase to the lower regions,
-they paused, their faces flushed up, and they looked at each other as
-if the scene before them was something unfit for the eyes of modest
-girls. They were shocked, as by some specific impropriety, at the
-noise and confusion, the rough jostling and the impure atmosphere,
-in the morsel of a ladies' cabin, from which the tiny slips of bunks
-prepared for them were divided only by a scanty curtain. This was their
-first contact with the world, so to speak, and they fled from it. To
-spend a night in that suffocating hole, with those loud women their
-fellow passengers, was a too appalling prospect. So Elizabeth went to
-the captain, who knew their story, and admired their faces, and was
-inclined to be very kind to them, and asked his permission to occupy
-a retired corner of the deck. On his seeming to hesitate--they being
-desperately anxious not to give anybody any trouble--they assured him
-that the place above all others where they would like to make their bed
-was on the wedge-shaped platform in the bows, where they would be out
-of everybody's way.
-
-"But, my dear young lady, there is no railing there," said the captain,
-laughing at the proposal as a joke.
-
-"A good eight inches--ten inches," said Elizabeth. "Quite enough for
-anybody in the roughest sea."
-
-"For a sailor perhaps, but not for young ladies who get giddy and
-frightened and seasick. Supposing you tumbled off in the dark, and I
-found you gone when I came to look for you in the morning."
-
-"_We_ tumble off!" cried Eleanor. "We never tumbled off anything
-in our lives. We have lived on the cliffs like the goats and the
-gulls--nothing makes us giddy. And I don't think anything will make us
-seasick--or frightened either."
-
-"Certainly not frightened," said Patty.
-
-He let them have their way--taking a great many (as they thought)
-perfectly unnecessary precautions in fixing up their quarters in case
-of a rough sea--and himself carried out their old opossum rug and an
-armful of pillows to make their nest comfortable. So, in this quiet
-and breezy bedchamber, roofed over by the moonlit sky, they lay down
-with much satisfaction in each other's arms, unwatched and unmolested,
-as they loved to be, save by the faithful Dan Tucker, who found his
-way to their feet in the course of the night. And the steamer left her
-moorings and worked out of the bay into the open ocean, puffing and
-clattering, and danced up and down over the long waves, and they knew
-nothing about it. In the fresh air, with the familiar voice of the sea
-around them, they slept soundly under the opossum rug until the sun was
-high.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-
-PAUL.
-
-
-They slept for two nights on the tip of the steamer's nose, and they
-did not roll off. They had a long, delightful day at sea, no more
-troubled with seasickness than were the gulls to which they had
-compared themselves, and full of inquiring interest for each of the
-ports they touched at, and for all the little novelties of a first
-voyage. They became great friends with the captain and crew, and with
-some children who were amongst the passengers (the ladies of the party
-were indisposed to fraternise with them, not being able to reconcile
-themselves to the cut and quality of the faded blue gingham gowns,
-or to those eccentric sleeping arrangements, both of which seemed to
-point to impecuniosity--which is so closely allied to impropriety, as
-everybody knows). They sat down to their meals in the little cabin with
-wonderful appetites; they walked the deck in the fine salt wind with
-feet that were light and firm, and hearts that were high and hopeful
-and full of courage and enterprise. Altogether, they felt that the
-story was beginning pleasantly, and they were eager to turn over the
-pages.
-
-And then, on the brightest of bright summer mornings, they came to
-Melbourne.
-
-They did not quite know what they had expected to see, but what they
-did see astonished them. The wild things caught in the bush, and
-carried in cages to the Eastern market, could not have felt more
-surprised or dismayed by the novelty of the situation than did these
-intrepid damsels when they found themselves fairly launched into the
-world they were so anxious to know. For a few minutes after their
-arrival they stood together silent, breathless, taking it all in; and
-then Patty--yes, it _was_ Patty--exclaimed:
-
-"Oh, _where_ is Paul Brion?"
-
-Paul Brion was there, and the words had no sooner escaped her lips
-than he appeared before them. "How do you do, Miss King?" he said, not
-holding out his hand, but taking off his hat with one of his father's
-formal salutations, including them all. "I hope you have had a pleasant
-passage. If you will kindly tell me what luggage you have, I will take
-you to your cab; it is waiting for you just here. Three boxes? All
-right. I will see after them."
-
-He was a small, slight, wiry little man, with decidedly brusque, though
-perfectly polite manners; active and self-possessed, and, in a certain
-way of his own, dignified, notwithstanding his low stature. He was not
-handsome, but he had a keen and clever face--rather fierce as to the
-eyes and mouth, which latter was adorned with a fierce little moustache
-curling up at the corners--but pleasant to look at, and one that
-inspired trust.
-
-"He is not a bit like his father," said Patty, following him with
-Eleanor, as he led Elizabeth to the cab. Patty was angry with him for
-overhearing that "Where is Paul Brion?"--as she was convinced he had
-done--and her tone was disparaging.
-
-"As the mother duck said of the ugly duckling, if he is not pretty he
-has a good disposition," said Eleanor. "He is like his father in that.
-It was very kind of him to come and help us. A press man must always be
-terribly busy."
-
-"I don't see why we couldn't have managed for ourselves. It is nothing
-but to call a cab," said Patty with irritation.
-
-"And where could we have gone to?" asked her sister, reproachfully.
-
-"For the matter of that, where are we going now? We haven't the least
-idea. I think it was very stupid to leave ourselves in the hands of a
-chance young man whom we have hardly ever seen. We make ourselves look
-like a set of helpless infants--as if we couldn't do without him."
-
-"Well, we can't," said Eleanor.
-
-"Nonsense. We don't try. But," added Patty, after a pause, "we must
-begin to try--we must begin at once."
-
-They arrived at the cab, in which Elizabeth had seated herself, with
-the bewildered Dan in her arms, her sweet, open face all smiles and
-sunshine. Paul Brion held the door open, and, as the younger sisters
-passed him, looked at them intently with searching eyes. This was a
-fresh offence to Patty, at whom he certainly looked most. Impressions
-new and strange were crowding upon her brain this morning thick and
-fast. "Elizabeth," she said, unconscious that her brilliant little
-countenance, with that flush of excitement upon it, was enough to
-fascinate the gaze of the dullest man; "Elizabeth, he looks at us as
-if we were curiosities--he thinks we are dowdy and countryfied and it
-amuses him."
-
-"My dear," interposed Eleanor, who, like Elizabeth, was (as she herself
-expressed it) reeking with contentment, "you could not have seen his
-face if you think that. He was as grave as a judge."
-
-"Then he pities us, Nelly, and that is worse. He thinks we are queer
-outlandish creatures--_frights_. So we are. Look at those women on the
-other side of the street, how differently they are dressed! We ought
-not to have come in these old clothes, Elizabeth."
-
-"But, my darling, we are travelling, and anything does to travel in.
-We will put on our black frocks when we get home, and we will buy
-ourselves some new ones. Don't trouble about such a trifle _now_,
-Patty--it is not like you. Oh, see what a perfect day it is! And think
-of our being in Melbourne at last! I am trying to realise it, but it
-almost stuns me. What a place it is! But Mr. Paul says our lodgings
-are in a quiet, airy street--not in this noisy part. Ah, here he is!
-And there are the three boxes all safe. Thank you so much," she said
-warmly, looking at the young man of the world, who was some five
-years older than herself, with frankest friendliness, as a benevolent
-grandmamma might have looked at an obliging schoolboy. "You are very
-good--we are very grateful to you."
-
-"And very sorry to have given you so much trouble," added Patty, with
-the air of a young duchess.
-
-He looked at her quickly, and made a slight bow. He did not say that
-what he had done had been no trouble at all, but a pleasure--he did not
-say a word, indeed; and his silence made her little heart swell with
-mortification. He turned to Elizabeth, and, resting his hands on the
-door-frame, began to explain the nature of the arrangements that he had
-made for them, with business-like brevity.
-
-"Your lodgings are in Myrtle Street, Miss King. That is in East
-Melbourne, you know--quite close to the gardens--quite quiet and
-retired, and yet within a short walk of Collins Street, and handy for
-all the places you want to see. You have two bedrooms and a small
-sitting-room of your own, but take your meals with the other people of
-the house; you won't mind that, I hope--it made a difference of about
-thirty shillings a week, and it is the most usual arrangement. Of
-course you can alter anything you don't like when you get there. The
-landlady is a Scotchwoman--I know her very well, and can recommend her
-highly--I think you will like her."
-
-"But won't you come with us?" interposed Elizabeth, putting out her
-hand. "Come and introduce us to her, and see that the cabman takes us
-to the right place. Or perhaps you are too busy to spare the time?"
-
-"I--I will call on you this afternoon, if you will permit me--when
-you have had your lunch and are rested a little. Oh, I know the
-cabman quite well, and can answer for his taking you safely. This is
-your address"--hastily scribbling it on an envelope he drew from his
-pocket--"and the landlady is Mrs. M'Intyre. Good morning. I will do
-myself the pleasure of calling on you at four or five o'clock."
-
-He thereupon bowed and departed, and the cab rattled away in an
-opposite direction. Patty deeply resented his not coming with them,
-and wondered and wondered why he had refused. Was he too proud, or too
-shy, or too busy, or too indifferent? Did he feel that it was a trouble
-to him to have to look after them? Poor Paul! He would have liked
-to come, to see them comfortably housed and settled; but the simple
-difficulty was that he was afraid to risk giving them offence by paying
-the cab fare, and would not ride with them, a man in charge of three
-ladies, without paying it. And Patty was not educated to the point of
-appreciating that scruple. His desertion of them in the open street was
-a grievance to her. She could not help thinking of it, though there was
-so much else to think of.
-
-The cab turned into Collins Street and rattled merrily up that busy
-thoroughfare in the bright sunshine. They looked at the brilliant
-shop windows, at the gay crowd streaming up and down the pavements,
-and the fine equipages flashing along the road-way at the Town Hall,
-and the churches, and the statues of Burke and Wills--and were filled
-with admiration and wonder. Then they turned into quieter roads, and
-there was the Exhibition in its web of airy scaffolding, destined to be
-the theatre of great events, in which they would have their share--an
-inspiring sight. And they went round a few corners, catching refreshing
-glimpses of green trees and shady alleys, and presently arrived at
-Myrtle Street--quietest of suburban thoroughfares, with its rows of
-trim little houses, half-a-dozen in a block, each with its tiny patch
-of garden in front of it--where for the present they were to dwell.
-
-Mrs. M'Intyre's maid came out to take the parcels, and the landlady
-herself appeared on the doorstep to welcome the new-comers. They
-whispered to themselves hurriedly, "Oh, she has a nice face!"--and then
-Patty and Elizabeth addressed themselves to the responsible business of
-settling with the cabman.
-
-"How much have we to pay you?" asked Patty with dignity.
-
-"Twelve shillings, please, miss," the man gaily replied.
-
-Elizabeth looked at her energetic sister, who had boasted that they
-were quite sharp enough to know when they were being cheated. Upon
-which Patty, with her feathers up, appealed to the landlady. Mrs.
-M'Intyre said the proper sum due to him was just half what he had
-asked. The cabman said that was for one passenger, and not for three.
-Mrs. M'Intyre then represented that eighteen-pence apiece was as much
-as he could claim for the remaining two, that the luggage was a mere
-nothing, and that if he didn't mind what he was about, &c. So the sum
-was reduced to nine shillings, which Elizabeth paid, looking very grave
-over it, for it was still far beyond what she had reckoned on.
-
-Then they went into the house--the middle house of a smart little
-terrace, with a few ragged fern trees in the front garden--and Mrs.
-M'Intyre took them up to their rooms, and showed them drawers and
-cupboards, in a motherly and hospitable manner.
-
-"This is the large bedroom, with the two beds, and the small one opens
-off it; so that you will all be close together," said she, displaying
-the neat chambers, one of which was properly but a dressing-closet;
-and our girls, who knew no luxury but absolute cleanliness, took note
-of the whiteness of the floors and bedclothes, and were more than
-satisfied. "And this is your sitting-room," she proceeded, leading the
-way to an adjoining apartment pleasantly lighted by a French window,
-which opened upon a stone (or, rather, what looked like a stone)
-balcony. It had a little "suite" in green rep like Mrs. Hawkins's, and
-Mrs. Dunn's ideal cedar-wood chiffonnier; it had also a comfortable
-solid table with a crimson cloth, and a print of the ubiquitous Cenci
-over the mantelpiece. The carpet was a bed of blooming roses and
-lilies, the effect of which was much improved by the crumb cloth that
-was nailed all over it. It was a tiny room, but it had a cosy look, and
-the new lodgers agreed at once that it was all that could be desired.
-"And I hope you will be comfortable," concluded the amiable landlady,
-"and let me know whenever you want anything. There's a bathroom down
-that passage, and this is your bell, and those drawers have got keys,
-you see, and lunch will be ready in half-an-hour. The dining-room is
-the first door at the bottom of the stairs, and--phew! that tobacco
-smoke hangs about the place still, in spite of all my cleaning and
-airing. I never allow smoking in the house, Miss King--not in the
-general way; but a man who has to be up o' nights writing for the
-newspapers, and never getting his proper sleep, it's hard to grudge him
-the comfort of his pipe--now isn't it? And I have had no ladies here to
-be annoyed by it--in general I don't take ladies, for gentlemen are so
-much the most comfortable to do for; and Mr. Brion is so considerate,
-and gives so little trouble--"
-
-"What! Is Mr. Paul Brion lodging here?" broke in Patty impetuously,
-with her face aflame.
-
-"Not now," Mrs. M'Intyre replied. "He left me last week. These rooms
-that you have got were his--he has had them for over three years. He
-wanted you to come here, because he thought you would be comfortable
-with me"--smiling benignly. "He said a man could put up anywhere."
-
-She left them, presently; and as soon as the girls found themselves
-alone, they hurriedly assured each other that nothing should induce
-them to submit to this. It was not to be thought of for a moment. Paul
-Brion must be made to remove the mountainous obligation that he had put
-them under, and return to his rooms instantly. They would not put so
-much as a pocket handkerchief in the drawers and cupboards until this
-point had been settled with him.
-
-At four o'clock, when they had visited the bathroom, arranged their
-pretty hair afresh, and put on the black print gowns--when they had had
-a quiet lunch with Mrs. M'Intyre (whose other boarders being gentlemen
-in business, did not appear at the mid-day meal), prattling cheerfully
-with the landlady the while, and thinking that the cold beef and salads
-of Melbourne were the most delicious viands ever tasted--when they had
-examined their rooms minutely, and tried the sofas and easy-chairs, and
-stood for a long while on the balcony looking at the other houses in
-the quiet street--at four o'clock Paul Brion came; and the maid brought
-up his card, while he gossiped with Mrs. M'Intyre in the hall. He had
-no sooner entered the girls' sitting-room than Elizabeth hastened to
-unburden herself. Patty was burning to be the spokeswoman for the
-occasion, but she knew her place, and she remembered the small effect
-she had produced on him in the morning, and proudly held aloof. In her
-sweet and graceful way, but with as much gravity and earnestness as if
-it were a matter of life and death, Elizabeth explained her view of the
-situation. "Of course we cannot consent to such an arrangement," she
-said gently; "you must have known we could never consent to allow you
-to turn out of your own rooms to accommodate us. You must please come
-back again, Mr. Brion, and let us go elsewhere. There seem to be plenty
-of other lodgings to be had--even in this street."
-
-Paul Brion's face wore a pleasant smile as he listened. "Oh, thank
-you," he replied lightly. "But I am very comfortable where I am--quite
-as much so as I was here--rather more, indeed. For the people at No. 6
-have set up a piano on the other side of that wall"--pointing to the
-cedar chiffonnier--"and it bothered me dreadfully when I wanted to
-write. It was the piano drove me out--not you. Perhaps it will drive
-you out too. It is a horrible nuisance, for it is always out of tune;
-and you know the sort of playing that people indulge in who use pianos
-that are out of tune."
-
-So their little demonstration collapsed. Paul had gone away to please
-himself. "And has left _us_ to endure the agonies of a piano out of
-tune," commented Patty.
-
-As the day wore on, reaction from the mood of excitement and exaltation
-with which it began set in. Their spirits flagged. They felt tired and
-desolate in this new world. The unaccustomed hot dinner in the evening,
-at which they sat for nearly an hour in company with strange men who
-asked them questions, and pressed them to eat what they didn't want,
-was very uncongenial to them. And when, as soon as they could, they
-escaped to their own quarters, their little sitting-room, lighted with
-gas and full of hot upstairs air, struck them with its unsympathetic
-and unhomelike aspect. The next door piano was jingling its music-hall
-ditties faintly on the other side of the wall, and poor Dan, who had
-been banished to the back yard, was yelping so piteously that their
-hearts bled to hear him. "We must get a house of our own at once,
-Elizabeth--at _once_," exclaimed Eleanor--"if only for Dan's sake."
-
-"We will never have pets again--never!" said Patty, with something like
-an incipient sob in her voice, as she paced restlessly about the room.
-"Then we shall not have to ill-treat them and to part from them." She
-was thinking of her little bear, and the opossum, and the magpies, who
-were worse off than Dan.
-
-And Elizabeth sat down at the table, and took out pencil and note-book
-with a careworn face. She was going to keep accounts strictly, as
-Mr. Brion had advised her, and they not only meant to live within
-their income, as a matter of course, but to save a large part of
-it for future European contingencies. And, totting up the items of
-their expenditure for three days--cost of passage by steamer, cost of
-provisions on board, cab fare, and the sum paid for a week's board and
-lodging in advance--she found that they had been living for that period
-at the rate of about a thousand a year.
-
-So that, upon the whole, they were not quite so happy as they had
-expected to be, when they went to bed.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-
-A MORNING WALK.
-
-
-But they slept well in their strange beds, and by morning all their
-little troubles had disappeared. It was impossible not to suppose
-that the pets "at home" were making themselves happy, seeing how the
-sun shone and the sea breezes blew; and Dan, who had reached years of
-discretion, was evidently disposed to submit himself to circumstances.
-Having a good view of the back yard, they could see him lolling
-luxuriously on the warm asphalte, as if he had been accustomed to be
-chained up, and liked it. Concerning their most pressing anxiety--the
-rapid manner in which money seemed to melt away, leaving so little to
-show for it--it was pointed out that at least half the sum expended was
-for a special purpose, and chargeable to the reserve fund and not to
-their regular income, from which at present only five pounds had been
-taken, which was to provide all their living for a week to come.
-
-So they went downstairs in serene and hopeful spirits, and gladdened
-the eyes of the gentlemen boarders who were standing about the
-dining-room, devouring the morning's papers while they waited for
-breakfast. There were three of them, and each placed a chair promptly,
-and each offered handsomely to resign his newspaper. Elizabeth took an
-_Argus_ to see what advertisements there were of houses to let; and
-then Mrs. M'Intyre came in with her coffee-pot and her cheerful face,
-and they sat down to breakfast. Mrs. M'Intyre was that rare exception
-to the rule, a boarding-house keeper who had private means as well as
-the liberal disposition of which the poorest have their share, and so
-her breakfast was a good breakfast. And the presence of strangers at
-table was not so unpleasant to our girls on this occasion as the last.
-
-After breakfast they had a solemn consultation, the result being that
-the forenoon was dedicated to the important business of buying their
-clothes and finding their way to and from the shops.
-
-"For we must have _bonnets_," said Patty, "and that immediately.
-Bonnets, I perceive, are the essential tokens of respectability. And we
-must never ride in a cab again."
-
-They set off at ten o'clock, escorted by Mrs. M'Intyre, who chanced
-to be going to the city to do some marketing. The landlady, being a
-very fat woman, to whom time was precious, took the omnibus, according
-to custom; but her companions with one consent refused to squander
-unnecessary threepences by accompanying her in that vehicle. They had a
-straight road before them all the way from the corner of Myrtle Street
-to the Fishmarket, where she had business; and there they joined her
-when she had completed her purchases, and she gave them a fair start at
-the foot of Collins Street before she left them.
-
-In Collins Street they spent the morning--a bewildering, exciting,
-anxious morning--going from shop to shop, and everywhere finding
-that the sum they had brought to spend was utterly inadequate for
-the purpose to which they had dedicated it. They saw any quantity of
-pretty soft stuffs, that were admirably adapted alike to their taste
-and means, but to get them fashioned into gowns seemed to treble their
-price at once; and, as Patty represented, they must have one, at any
-rate, that was made in the mode before they could feel it safe to
-manufacture for themselves. They ended by choosing--as a measure of
-comparative safety, for thus only could they know what they were doing,
-as Patty said--three ready-made costumes that took their fancy, the
-combined cost of which was a few shillings over the ten pounds. They
-were merely morning dresses of black woollen stuff; lady-like, and with
-a captivating style of "the world" about them, but in the lowest class
-of goods of that kind dispensed in those magnificent shops. Of course
-that was the end of their purchases for the day; the selection of
-mantles, bonnets, gloves, boots, and all the other little odds and ends
-on Elizabeth's list was reserved for a future occasion. For the idea of
-buying anything on twenty-four hours' credit was never entertained for
-a moment. To be sure, they did ask about the bonnets, and were shown a
-great number, in spite of their polite anxiety not to give unprofitable
-trouble; and not one that they liked was less than several pounds in
-price. Dismayed and disheartened, they "left it" (Patty's suggestion
-again); and they gave the rest of their morning to the dressmaker, who
-undertook to remodel the bodices of the new gowns and make them fit
-properly. This fitting was not altogether a satisfactory business,
-either; for the dressmaker insisted that a well-shaped corset was
-indispensable--especially in these days, when fit was everything--and
-they had no corsets and did not wish for any. She was, however, a
-dressmaker of decision and resource, and she sent her assistant for a
-bundle of corsets, in which she encased her helpless victims before she
-would begin the ripping and snipping and pulling and pinning process.
-When they saw their figures in the glass, with their fashionable tight
-skirts and unwrinkled waists, they did not know themselves; and I am
-afraid that Patty and Eleanor, at any rate, were disposed to regard
-corsets favourably and to make light of the discomfort they were
-sensibly conscious of in wearing them. Elizabeth, whose natural shape
-was so beautiful--albeit she is destined, if the truth must be told, to
-be immensely stout and heavy some day--was not seduced by this specious
-appearance. She ordered the dressmaker, with a quiet peremptoriness
-that would have become a carriage customer, to make the waists of the
-three gowns "free" and to leave the turnings on; and she took off the
-borrowed corset, and drew a long breath, inwardly determining never to
-wear such a thing again, even to have a dress fitted--fashion or no
-fashion.
-
-It was half-past twelve by this time, and at one o'clock Mrs. M'Intyre
-would expect them in to lunch. They wanted to go home by way of those
-green enclosures that Paul Brion had told them of, and of which they
-had had a glimpse yesterday--which the landlady had assured them was
-the easiest thing possible. They had but to walk right up to the top of
-Collins Street, turn to the right, where they would see a gate leading
-into gardens, pass straight through those gardens, cross a road and
-go straight through other gardens, which would bring them within a
-few steps of Myrtle Street--a way so plain that they couldn't miss
-it if they tried. Ways always do seem so to people who know them. Our
-three girls were self-reliant young women, and kept their wits about
-them very creditably amid their novel and distracting surroundings.
-Nevertheless they were at some loss with respect to this obvious route.
-Because, in the first place, they didn't know which was the top of
-Collins Street and which the bottom.
-
-"Dear me! we shall be reduced to the ignominious necessity of asking
-our way," exclaimed Eleanor, as they stood forlornly on the pavement,
-jostled by the human tide that flowed up and down. "If only we had Paul
-Brion here."
-
-It was very provoking to Patty, but he _was_ there. Being a small man,
-he did not come into view till he was within a couple of yards of them,
-and that was just in time to overhear this invocation. His ordinarily
-fierce aspect, which she had disrespectfully likened to that of Dan
-when another terrier had insulted him, had for the moment disappeared.
-The little man showed all over him the pleased surprise with which he
-had caught the sound of his own name.
-
-"Have you got so far already?" he exclaimed, speaking in his sharp and
-rapid way, while his little moustache bristled with such a smile as
-they had not thought him capable of. "And--and can I assist you in any
-way?"
-
-Elizabeth explained their dilemma; upon which he declared he was
-himself going to East Melbourne (whence he had just come, after his
-morning sleep and noontide breakfast), and asked leave to escort them
-thither. "How fortunate we are!" Elizabeth said, turning to walk up the
-street by his side; and Eleanor told him he was like his father in the
-opportuneness of his friendly services. But Patty was silent, and raged
-inwardly.
-
-When they had traversed the length of the street, and were come to the
-open space before the Government offices, where they could fall again
-into one group, she made an effort to get rid of him and the burden of
-obligation that he was heaping upon them.
-
-"Mr. Brion," she began impetuously, "we know where we are now quite
-well--"
-
-"I don't think you do," he interrupted her, "seeing that you were never
-here before."
-
-"Our landlady gave us directions--she made it quite plain to us. There
-is no necessity for you to trouble yourself any further. You were not
-going this way when we met you, but exactly in the opposite direction."
-
-"I am going this way now, at any rate," he said, with decision. "I am
-going to show your sisters their way through the gardens. There are a
-good many paths, and they don't all lead to Myrtle Street."
-
-"But we know the points of the compass--we have our general
-directions," she insisted angrily, as she followed him helplessly
-through the gates. "We are not quite idiots, though we do come from the
-country."
-
-"Patty," interposed Elizabeth, surprised, "I am glad of Mr. Brion's
-kind help, if you are not."
-
-"Patty," echoed Eleanor in an undertone, "that haughty spirit of yours
-will have a fall some day."
-
-Patty felt that it was having a fall now. "I know it is very kind of
-Mr. Brion," she said tremulously, "but how are we to get on and do for
-ourselves if we are treated like children--I mean if we allow ourselves
-to hang on to other people? We should make our own way, as others have
-to do. I don't suppose _you_ had anyone to lead you about when _you_
-first came to Melbourne"--addressing Paul.
-
-"I was a man," he replied. "It is a man's business to take care of
-himself."
-
-"Of course. And equally it is a woman's business to take care of
-herself--if she has no man in her family."
-
-"Pardon me. In that case it is the business of all the men with whom
-she comes in contact to take care of her--each as he can."
-
-"Oh, what nonsense! You talk as if we lived in the time of the
-Troubadours--as if you didn't _know_ that all that stuff about women
-has had its day and been laughed out of existence long ago."
-
-"What stuff?"
-
-"That we are helpless imbeciles--a sort of angelic wax baby, good
-for nothing but to look pretty. As if we were not made of the same
-substance as you, with brains and hands--not so strong as yours,
-perhaps, but quite strong enough to rely upon when necessary. Oh!"
-exclaimed Patty, with a fierce gesture, "I do so _hate_ that man's cant
-about women--I have no patience with it!"
-
-"You must have been severely tried," murmured Paul (he was beginning
-to think the middle Miss King a disagreeable person, and to feel
-vindictive towards her). And Eleanor laughed cruelly, and said, "Oh,
-no, she's got it all out of books."
-
-"A great mistake to go by books," said he, with the air of a father.
-"Experience first--books afterwards, Miss Patty." And he smiled coolly
-into the girl's flaming face.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-
-AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY.
-
-
-Patty and her sisters very nearly had their first quarrel over Paul
-Brion. Patty said he was impertinent and patronising, that he presumed
-upon their friendless position to pay them insulting attentions--that,
-in short, he was a detestable young man whom she, for one, would have
-nothing more to do with. And she warned Elizabeth, in an hysterical,
-high-pitched voice, never to invite him into their house unless
-she wished to see her (Patty) walk out of it. Elizabeth, supported
-by Eleanor, took up the cudgels in his defence, and assured Patty,
-kindly, but with much firmness, that he had behaved with dignity
-and courtesy under great provocation to do otherwise. They also
-pointed out that he was his father's representative; that it would be
-ungracious and unladylike to reject the little services that it was
-certainly a pleasure to him to render, and unworthy of them to assume
-an independence that at present they were unable to support. Which was
-coming as near to "words" as was possible for them to come, and much
-nearer than any of them desired. Patty burst into tears at last, which
-was the signal for everything in the shape of discord and division to
-vanish. Her sisters kissed and fondled her, and assured her that they
-sympathised with her anxiety to be under obligations to nobody from the
-bottom of their hearts; and Patty owned that she had been captious and
-unreasonable, and consented to forgive her enemy for what he hadn't
-done and to be civil to him in future.
-
-And, as the days wore on, even she grew to be thankful for Paul Brion,
-though, of course, she would never own to it. Their troubles were many
-and various, and their helpless ignorance more profound and humiliating
-than they could have believed possible. I will not weary the reader
-by tracing the details of the process by which they became acquainted
-with the mode and cost of living "as other people do," and with the
-ways of the world in general; it would be too long a story. How Patty
-discovered that the cleverest fingers cannot copy a London bonnet
-without some previous knowledge of the science of millinery; how she
-and her sisters, after supplying themselves grudgingly with the mere
-necessaries of a modern outfit, found that the remainder of their
-"furniture money," to the last pound note, was spent; how, after weary
-trampings to and fro in search of a habitable house in a wholesome
-neighbourhood, they learned the ruinous rates of rent and taxes and
-(after much shopping and many consultations with Mrs. M'Intyre) the
-alarming prices of furniture and provisions; how they were driven to
-admit, in spite of Patty, that that landlady on the premises, whom
-Eleanor had declared was not to be thought of, might be a necessary
-safeguard against worse evils; and how they were brought to ask each
-other, in surprise and dismay, "Is it possible that we are poor people
-after all, and not rich, as we supposed?"--all these things can be
-better imagined than described. Suffice it to say, they passed through
-much tribulation and many bitter and humbling experiences during the
-early months of their sojourn in Melbourne; but when at last they
-reached a comparatively safe haven, and found themselves once more
-secure under their own control, able to regulate their needs and
-their expenditure, and generally to understand the conditions and
-possibilities of their position, Elizabeth and Eleanor made a solemn
-declaration that they were indebted for this happy issue to the good
-offices and faithful friendship of Paul Brion alone, and Patty--though
-she turned up her nose and said "Pooh!"--though she hated to be
-indebted to him, or to anybody--agreed with them.
-
-They settled down to their housekeeping by very slow degrees. For
-some time they stayed with Mrs. M'Intyre, because there really seemed
-nothing else to do that was at all within their means; and from
-this base of operations they made all those expeditions of inquiry
-into city habits and customs, commercial and domestic, which were
-such conspicuous and ignominious failures. As the sense of their
-helplessness grew upon them, they grudgingly admitted the young man
-(who was always at hand, and yet never intruded upon or pestered
-them) to their counsels, and accepted, without seeming to accept, his
-advice; and the more they condescended in this way the better they
-got on. Gradually they fell into the habit of depending on him, by
-tacit consent--which was the more easy to do because, as his father
-had promised, he did not presume upon their confidence in him. He was
-sharp and brusque, and even inclined to domineer--to be impertinent, as
-Patty called it--when they did submit their affairs to his judgment;
-but not the smallest suspicion of an unauthorised motive for his
-evident devotion to their interests appeared in his face, or voice, or
-manner, which were those of the man of business, slightly suggesting
-occasionally the imperious and impartial "nearest male relative."
-They grew to trust him--for his father's sake, they said, but there
-was nothing vicarious about it; and that they had the rare fortune
-to be justified in doing so, under such unlikely circumstances, made
-up to them for whatever ill luck they might otherwise have seemed to
-encounter in these days. It was he who finally found them their home,
-after their many futile searches--half a house in their own street and
-terrace, vacated by the marriage and departure to another colony of the
-lady who played the piano that was out of tune. No. 6, it appeared,
-had been divided into flats; the ground floor was occupied by the
-proprietor, his wife, and servant; and the upper, which had a gas stove
-and other kitchen appliances in a back room, was let unfurnished for
-£60 a year. Paul, always poking about in quest of opportunities, heard
-of this one and pounced upon it. He made immediate inquiries into the
-character and antecedents of the landlord of No. 6, the state of the
-drains and chimneys, and paint and paper, of the house; and, having
-satisfied himself that it was as nearly being what our girls wanted
-as anything they would be likely to find, called upon Elizabeth, and
-advised her to secure it forthwith. The sisters were just then adding
-up their accounts--taking stock of their affairs generally--and coming
-to desperate resolutions that something must be done; so the suggested
-arrangement, which would deliver them from bondage and from many of
-their worst difficulties, had quite a providential opportuneness about
-it. They took the rooms at once--four small rooms, including the
-improvised kitchen--and went into them, in defiance of Mrs. M'Intyre's
-protestations, before they had so much as a bedstead to sleep upon;
-and once more they were happy in the consciousness that they had
-recovered possession of themselves, and could call their souls their
-own. Slowly, bit by bit, the furniture came in--the barest necessaries
-first, and then odds and ends of comfort and prettiness (not a few
-of them discovered by Paul Brion in out-of-the-way places, where he
-"happened" to be), until the new little home grew to look as homelike
-as the old one. They sent for the bureau and the piano, which went
-a long way towards furnishing the sitting-room; and they bought a
-comfortable second-hand table and some capacious, cheap, wickerwork
-chairs; and they laid a square of matting on the floor, and made some
-chintz curtains for the window, and turned a deal packing-case into
-an ottoman, and another into a set of shelves for their books; and
-over all these little arrangements threw such an air of taste, such
-a complexion of spotless cleanliness and fastidious neatness, as are
-only seen in the homes of "nice" women, that it takes nice people to
-understand the charm of.
-
-One day, when their preparations for regular domestic life were fairly
-completed, Patty, tired after a long spell of amateur carpentering,
-sat down to the piano to rest and refresh herself. The piano had
-been tuned on its arrival in Melbourne; and the man who tuned it had
-stared at her when she told him that it had been made to her mother's
-order, and showed him the famous name above the key-board. He would
-have stared still more had he heard what kind of magic life she could
-summon into the exquisite mechanism boxed up in that poor-looking
-deal case. All the sisters were musicians, strange to say; taught by
-their mother in the noble and simple spirit of the German school, and
-inheriting from her the sensitive ear and heart to understand the
-dignity and mystery, if not the message (which nobody understands) of
-that wonderful language which begins where words leave off. To "play
-the piano" was no mere conventional drawing-room performance with them,
-as they themselves were no conventional drawing-room misses; a "piece"
-of the ordinary pattern would have shocked their sense of art and
-harmony almost as much as it might have shocked Mozart and Mendelssohn,
-and Schubert and Schumann, and the other great masters whose pupils
-they were; while to talk and laugh, either when playing or listening,
-would have been to them like talking and laughing over their prayers.
-But, of the three, Patty was the most truly musical, in the serious
-meaning of the word, inasmuch as her temperament was warmer than those
-of her sisters, her imagination more vivid, her senses generally more
-susceptible to delicate impressions than theirs. The "spirits of the
-air" had all their supernatural power over her receptive and responsive
-soul, and she thrilled like an Æolian harp to the west wind under the
-spell of those emotions that have no name or shape, and for which no
-imagery supplies a comparison, which belong to the ideal world, into
-which those magic spirits summon us, and where the sacred hours of our
-lives--the sweetest, the saddest, the happiest--are spent.
-
-To-day she sat down, suddenly prompted by the feeling that she was
-fagged and tired, and began to play mechanically a favourite Beethoven
-sonata; but in five minutes she had played her nerves to rest, and was
-as steeped in dreams as the great master himself must have been when
-he conceived the tender passages that only his spiritual ears could
-hear. Eleanor, who had been sewing industriously, by degrees let her
-fingers falter and her work fall into her lap; and Elizabeth, who had
-been arranging the books in the new book-shelves, presently put down
-her duster to come and stand behind the music-stool, and laid her
-large, cool hands on Patty's head. None of them spoke for some time,
-reverencing the Presence in their quiet room; but the touch of her
-sister's palms upon her hair brought the young musician out of her
-abstractions to a sense of her immediate surroundings again. She laid
-her head back on Elizabeth's breast and drew a long sigh, and left off
-playing. The gesture said, as plainly as words could have said it, that
-she was relieved and revived--that the spirit of peace and charity had
-descended upon her.
-
-"Elizabeth," she said presently, still keeping her seat on the
-music-stool, and stroking her cheek with one of her sister's hands
-while she held the other round her neck, "I begin to think that Paul
-Brion has been a very good friend to us. Don't you?"
-
-"I am not beginning," replied Elizabeth. "I have thought it every
-day since we have known him. And I have wondered often how you could
-dislike him so much."
-
-"I don't dislike him," said Patty, quite amiably.
-
-"I have taken particular notice," remarked Eleanor from the hearthrug,
-"and it is exactly three weeks since you spoke to him, and three weeks
-and five days since you shook hands."
-
-Patty smiled, not changing her position or ceasing to caress her cheek
-with Elizabeth's hand. "Well," she said, "don't you think it would be
-a graceful thing to ask him to come and have tea with us some night?
-We have made our room pretty"--looking round with contentment--"and
-we have all we want now. We might get our silver things out of the
-bureau, and make a couple of little dishes, and put some candles about,
-and buy a bunch of flowers--for once--what do you say, Nelly? He has
-_never_ been here since we came in--never farther than the downstairs
-passage--and wouldn't it be pleasant to have a little house warming,
-and show him our things, and give him some music, and--and try to make
-him enjoy himself? It would be some return for what he has done for
-us, and his father would be pleased."
-
-That she should make the proposition--she who, from the first, had not
-only never "got on" with him, but had seemed to regard him with active
-dislike--surprised both her sisters not a little; but the proposition
-itself appeared to them, as to her, to have every good reason to
-recommend it. They thought it a most happy idea, and adopted it with
-enthusiasm. That very evening they made their plans. They designed the
-simple decorations for their little room, and the appropriate dishes
-for their modest feast. And, when these details had been settled, they
-remembered that on the following night no Parliament would be sitting,
-which meant that Paul would probably come home early (they knew his
-times of coming and going, for he was back at his old quarters now,
-having returned in consequence of the departure of the discordant
-piano, and to oblige Mrs. M'Intyre, he said); and that decided them to
-send him his invitation at once. Patty, while her complaisant mood was
-on her, wrote it herself before she went to bed, and gave it over the
-garden railing to Mrs. M'Intyre's maid.
-
-In the morning, as they were asking which of them should go to town to
-fetch certain materials for their little _fête_, they heard the door
-bang and the gate rattle at No. 7, and a quick step that they knew. And
-the slavey of No. 6 came upstairs with Paul Brion's answer, which he
-had left as he passed on his way to his office. The note was addressed
-to "Miss King," whose amanuensis Patty had carefully explained herself
-to be when writing her invitation.
-
-    "MY DEAR MISS KING,--You are indeed very kind, but I fear
-    I must deny myself the pleasure you propose--than which, I
-    assure you, I could have none greater. If you will allow
-    me, I will come in some day with Mrs. M'Intyre, who is very
-    anxious to see your new menage. And when I come, I hope you
-    will let me hear that new piano, which is such an amazing
-    contrast to the old one.--Believe me, yours very truly,
-
-    "PAUL BRION."
-
-This was Paul Brion's note. When the girls had read it, they stood
-still and looked at each other in a long, dead silence. Eleanor was
-the first to speak. Half laughing, but with her delicate face dyed in
-blushes, she whispered under her breath, "Oh--oh, don't you see what he
-means?"
-
-"He is quite right--we must thank him," said Elizabeth, gentle as ever,
-but grave and proud. "We ought not to have wanted it--that is all I am
-sorry for."
-
-But Patty stood in the middle of the room, white to the lips, and
-beside herself with passion. "That we should have made such a
-mistake!--and for _him_ to rebuke us!" she cried, as if it were more
-than she could bear. "That _I_ should have been the one to write that
-letter! Elizabeth, I suppose he is not to blame--"
-
-"No, my dear--quite the contrary."
-
-"But, all the same, I will never forgive him," said poor Patty in the
-bitterness of her soul.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-
-MRS. AARONS.
-
-
-There was no room for doubt as to what Paul Brion had meant. When
-the evening of the next day came--on which there was no Parliament
-sitting--he returned to No. 7 to dinner, and after dinner it was
-apparent that neither professional nor other engagements would have
-prevented him from enjoying the society of his fair neighbours if he
-had had a mind for it. His sitting-room opened upon the balcony--so
-did theirs; there was but a thin partition between them, and the girls
-knew not only when he was at home, but to a great extent what he was
-doing, by the presence and pungency of the odour from his pipe. When
-only faint whiffs stole into their open window from time to time,
-he was in his room, engaged--it was supposed--upon those wonderful
-leading articles which were, to them, the great feature of the paper
-to whose staff he belonged. At such times--for the houses in Myrtle
-Street were of a very lath-and-plastery order--they were careful to
-make no noise, and especially not to open their piano, that he might
-pursue his arduous labours undisturbed. But sometimes on these "off"
-nights he sat outside his window or strolled up and down the few feet
-of space allotted to him; and they would hear the rustle of the leaves
-of books on the other side of the partition, and the smell of his pipe
-would be very strong. This indicated that he had come home to rest and
-relax himself; on which occasions, prompted by some subtle feminine
-impulse, they would now and then indulge themselves with some of their
-best music--tacitly agreeing to select the very finest movements from
-the works of those best-beloved old masters whose majestic chimes rang
-out the dark evening of the eighteenth century and rang in the new age
-of art and liberty whose morning light we see--so as not to suggest,
-except by extreme comparison, the departed lady who played conventional
-rubbish on the instrument that was out of tune. That Paul Brion did not
-know Bach and Spohr, even by name and fame (as he did not), never for
-a moment occurred to them. How were they to know that the science and
-literature of music, in which they had been so well instructed, were
-not the usual study of educated people? They heard that he ceased to
-walk up and down his enclosure when they began to play and sing, and
-they smelt that his pipe was as near their window as it could get until
-they left off. That was enough.
-
-To-night, then, he was strolling and sitting about his section of the
-balcony. They heard him tramping to and fro for a full hour after
-dinner, in a fidgetty manner; and then they heard him drag a chair
-through his window, and sit down on it heavily. It occurred to them
-all that he was doing nothing--except, perhaps, waiting for a chance
-to see and speak to them. A little intercourse had taken place of late
-in this way--a very little. One night, when Elizabeth had gone out
-to remonstrate with Dan for barking at inoffensive dogs that went by
-in the street below, Paul, who had been leaning meditatively on his
-balustrade, bent his head a little forward to ask her if she found the
-smell of his tobacco unpleasant. She assured him that none of them
-minded it at all, and remarked that the weather was warm. Upon which
-he replied that the thermometer was so and so, and suggested that she
-must miss the sea breezes very much. She said they missed them very
-much indeed, and inquired if he had heard from his father lately, and
-whether he was well. He was glad to inform her that his father, from
-whom he had just heard, was in excellent health, and further, that
-he had made many inquiries after her and her sisters. She thanked
-Mr. Brion sincerely, and hoped he (Mr. Paul) would give him their
-kindest regards when he wrote again and tell him they were getting on
-admirably. Mr. Paul said he would certainly not forget it. And they
-bade each other a polite good-night. Since then, both Elizabeth and
-Eleanor had had a word to say to him occasionally, when he and they
-simultaneously took the air after the day was over, and simultaneously
-happened to lean over the balustrade. Patty saw no harm in their doing
-so, but was very careful not to do it herself or to let him suppose
-that she was conscious of his near neighbourhood. She played to him
-sometimes with singular pleasure in her performance, but did not once
-put herself in the way of seeing or speaking to him.
-
-To-night, not only she, but all of them, made a stern though unspoken
-vow that they would never--that they _could_ never--so much as say
-good-night to him on the balcony any more. The lesson that he had
-taught them was sinking deeply into their hearts; they would never
-forget it again while they lived. They sat at their needlework in the
-bright gaslight, with the window open and the venetian blind down, and
-listened to the sound of his footstep and the dragging of his chair,
-and clearly realised the certainty that it was not because he was too
-busy that he had refused to spend the evening with them, but because
-he had felt obliged to show them that they had asked him to do a thing
-that was improper. Patty's head was bent down over her sewing; her face
-was flushed, her eyes restless, her quick fingers moving with nervous
-vehemence. Breaking her needle suddenly, she looked up and exclaimed,
-"Why are we sitting here so dull and stupid, all silent, like three
-scolded children? Play something, Nellie. Put away that horrid skirt,
-and play something bright and stirring--a good rousing march, or
-something of that sort."
-
-"The Bridal March from 'Lohengrin,'" suggested Elizabeth, softly.
-
-"No," said Patty; "something that will brace us up, and not make us
-feel small and humble and sat upon." What she meant was "something that
-will make Paul Brion understand that we don't feel small and humble and
-sat upon."
-
-Eleanor rose, and laid her long fingers on the keyboard. She was not in
-the habit of taking things much to heart herself, and she did not quite
-understand her sister's frame of mind. The spirit of mischief prompted
-her to choose the saddest thing in the way of a march that she could
-recall on the spur of the moment--that funeral march of Beethoven's
-that Patty had always said was capable of reducing her to dust and
-ashes in her most exuberant moments. She threw the most heartbreaking
-expression that art allowed into the stately solemnity of her always
-perfectly balanced execution, partly because she could never render
-such a theme otherwise than reverently, but chiefly for the playful
-purpose of working upon Patty's feelings. Poor Patty had "kept up"
-and maintained a superficial command of herself until now, but this
-unexpected touch of pathos broke her down completely. She laid her arm
-on the table, and her pretty head upon her arm, and broke into a brief
-but passionate fit of weeping, such as she had never indulged in in
-all her life before. At the sound of the first sob Eleanor jumped up
-from the music-stool, contrite and frightened--Elizabeth in another
-moment had her darling in her arms; and both sisters were seized with
-the fear that Patty was sickening for some illness, caught, probably,
-in the vitiated atmosphere of city streets, to which she had never been
-accustomed.
-
-In the stillness of the night, Paul Brion, leaning over the balustrade
-of the verandah, and whitening his coat against the partition that
-divided his portion of it from theirs, heard the opening bars of
-the funeral march, the gradually swelling sound and thrill of its
-impassioned harmonies, as of a procession tramping towards him along
-the street, and the sudden lapse into untimely silence. And then
-he heard, very faintly, a low cry and a few hurried sobs, and it
-was as if a lash had struck him. He felt sure that it was Patty who
-had been playing (he thought it must always be Patty who made that
-beautiful music), and Patty who had fallen a victim to the spirit of
-melancholy that she had invoked--simply because she always _did_ seem
-to him to represent the action of the little drama of the sisters'
-lives, and Elizabeth and Eleanor to be the chorus merely; and he had
-a clear conviction, in the midst of much vague surmise, that he was
-involved in the causes that had made her unhappy. For a little while
-he stood still, fixing his eyes upon a neighbouring street lamp and
-scowling frightfully. He heard the girls' open window go down with a
-sharp rattle, and presently heard it open again hastily to admit Dan,
-who had been left outside. Then he himself went back, on tiptoe, to
-his own apartment, with an expression of more than his usual alert
-determination on his face.
-
-Entering his room, he looked at his watch, shut his window and bolted
-it, walked into the adjoining bedchamber, and there, with the gas
-flaring noisily so as to give him as much light as possible, made a
-rapid toilet, exchanging his loose tweeds for evening dress. In less
-than ten minutes he was down in the hall, with his latch key in his
-pocket, shaking himself hurriedly into a light overcoat; and in less
-than half an hour he was standing at the door of a good-sized and
-rather imposing-looking house in the neighbouring suburb, banging it
-in his peremptory fashion with a particularly loud knocker.
-
-Within this house its mistress was receiving, and she was a friend
-of his, as might have been seen by the manner of their greeting when
-the servant announced him, as also by the expression of certain faces
-amongst the guests when they heard his name--as they could not well
-help hearing it. "Mr.--_Paul_--BRION," the footman shouted, with three
-distinct and well-accentuated shouts, as if his lady were entertaining
-in the Town Hall. It gave Mrs. Aarons great pleasure when her domestic,
-who was a late acquisition, exercised his functions in this impressive
-manner.
-
-She came sailing across the room in a very long-tailed and brilliant
-gown--a tall, fair, yellow-haired woman, carefully got up in the best
-style of conventional art (as a lady who had her clothes from Paris
-regardless of expense was bound to be)--flirting her fan coquettishly,
-and smiling an unmistakeable welcome. She was not young, but she looked
-young, and she was not pretty, but she was full of sprightly confidence
-and self-possession, which answered just as well. Least of all was
-she clever, as the two or three of her circle, who were, unwillingly
-recognised; but she was quick-witted and vivacious, accomplished in
-the art of small talk, and ready to lay down the law upon any subject,
-and somehow cleverness was assumed by herself and her world in general
-to be her most remarkable and distinguishing characteristic. And,
-finally, she had no pretensions to hereditary distinction--very much
-the contrary, indeed; but her husband was rich (he was standing in a
-retired corner, a long-nosed man with dark eyes rather close together,
-amongst a group of her admirers, admiring her as much as any of
-them), and she had known the social equivalent for money obtainable
-by good management in a community that must necessarily make a table
-of precedence for itself; and she had obtained it. She was a woman
-of fashion in her sphere, and her friends were polite enough to have
-no recollection of her antecedents, and no knowledge of the family
-connections whose existence she found it expedient to ignore. It must
-be said of her that her reputation, subject to the usual attacks of
-scandal-loving gossips who were jealous of her success, was perfectly
-untarnished; she was too cold and self-contained to be subject to the
-dangers that might have beset a less worldly woman in her position (for
-that Mr. Aarons was anything more than the minister to her ambitions
-and conveniences nobody for a moment supposed). Nevertheless, to have
-a little court of male admirers always hanging about her was the chief
-pleasure, and the attracting and retaining of their admiration the
-most absorbing pursuit of her life. Paul Brion was the latest, and at
-present the most interesting, of her victims. He had a good position
-in the press world, and had recently been talked of "in society" in
-connection with a particularly striking paper signed "P. B.," which
-had appeared in the literary columns of his journal. Wherefore, in the
-character of a clever woman, Mrs. Aarons had sought him out and added
-him to the attractions of her _salon_ and the number of sympathetic
-friends. And, in spite of his hawk eyes, and his keen discernment
-generally, our young man had the ordinary man's belief that he stood
-on a pedestal among his rivals, and thought her the kindest and most
-discriminating and most charming of women.
-
-At least he had thought so until this moment. Suddenly, as she came
-across the room to meet him, with her long train rustling over the
-carpet in a queenly manner, and a gracious welcome in her pale blue
-eyes, he found himself looking at her critically--comparing her
-complacent demeanour with the simple dignity of Elizabeth King, and
-her artificial elegance with the wild-flower grace of Eleanor, who was
-also tall and fair--and her studied sprightliness with Patty's inspired
-vigour--and her countenance, that was wont to be so attractive, with
-Patty's beautiful and intellectual face.
-
-"Ah!" said Mrs. Aarons, shaking hands with him impressively, "you have
-remembered my existence, then, _at last!_ Do you know how many weeks it
-is since you honoured me with your company?--_five_. And I wonder you
-can stand there and look me in the face."
-
-He said it had been his misfortune and not his fault--that he had been
-so immersed in business that he had had no time to indulge in pleasure.
-
-"Don't tell me. You don't have business on Friday evenings," said Mrs.
-Aarons promptly.
-
-"Oh, don't I?" retorted Mr. Brion (the fact being that he had spent
-several Friday evenings on his balcony, smoking and listening to his
-neighbours' music, in the most absolute and voluptuous idleness).
-"You ladies don't know what a press-man's life is--his nose to the
-grindstone at all hours of the night and day."
-
-"Poor man! Well, now you are here, come and sit down and tell me what
-you have been doing."
-
-She took a quick glance round the room, saw that her guests were in a
-fair way to support the general intercourse by voluntary contributions,
-set the piano and a thin-voiced young lady and some "Claribel" ditties
-going, and then retired with Paul to a corner sofa for a chat. She was
-inclined to make much of him after his long absence, and he was in a
-mood to be more effusive than his wont. Nevertheless, the young man
-did not advance, as suspicious observers supposed him to be doing, in
-the good graces of his charming friend--ready as she was to meet him
-half-way.
-
-"Of course I wanted very much to see you--it seems an awful time since
-I was here--but I had another reason for coming to-night," said Paul,
-when they had comfortably settled themselves (he was the descendant
-of countless gentlefolk and she had not even a father that she could
-conveniently call her own, yet was she constrained to blush for his bad
-manners and his brutal deficiency in delicacy and tact). "I want to ask
-a favour of you--you are always so kind and good--and I think you will
-not mind doing it. It is not much--at least to you--but it would be
-very much to them--"
-
-"To whom?" inquired Mrs. Aarons, with a little chill of disappointment
-and disapproval already in her voice and face. This was not what
-she felt she had a right to expect under the present combination of
-circumstances.
-
-"Three girls--three sisters, who are orphans--in a kind of way, wards
-of my father's," explained Paul, showing a disposition to stammer
-for the first time. "Their name is King, and they have come to live
-in Melbourne, where they don't know anyone--not a single friend. I
-thought, perhaps, you would just call in and see them some day--it
-would be so awfully kind of you, if you would. A little notice from a
-woman like _you_ would be just everything to them."
-
-"Are they nice?--that is to say, are they the sort of people whom one
-would--a--care to be responsible for--you know what I mean? Are they
-_ladies?_" inquired Mrs. Aarons, who, by virtue of her own extraction,
-was bound to be select and exclusive in her choice of acquaintances.
-
-"Most certainly," replied Paul, with imprudent warmth. "There can be no
-manner of doubt about that. _Born_ ladies."
-
-"I don't ask what they were born," she said quickly, with a toss of the
-head. "What are they _now?_ Who are their connections? What do they
-live on?"
-
-Paul Brion gave a succinct and graphic sketch of the superficial
-history and circumstances of his father's "wards," omitting various
-details that instinct warned him might be accounted "low"--such, for
-instance, as the fact that the single maidservant of the house they
-lived in was nothing more to them than their medium of communication
-with the front door. He dwelt (like the straightforward blunderer
-that he was) on their personal refinement and their high culture and
-accomplishments, how they studied every day at the Public Library,
-taking their frugal lunch at the pastry-cook's--how they could talk
-French and German like "natives"--how they played the piano in a way
-that made all the blood in one's veins tingle--how, in short, they were
-in all things certain to do honour and credit to whoever would spread
-the wing of the matron and chaperon over them. It seemed to him a very
-interesting story, told by himself, and he was quite convinced that it
-must touch the tender woman's heart beating under that pretty dress
-beside him.
-
-"You are a mother yourself," he said (as indeed she was--the mother
-of four disappointing little Aaronses, who were _all_ long-nosed and
-narrow-eyed and dark, each successive infant more the image of its
-father than the last), "and so you can understand their position--you
-know how to feel for them." He thought this an irresistible plea,
-and was unprepared for the dead silence with which it was received.
-Glancing up quickly, he saw that she was by no means in the melting
-mood that he had looked for.
-
-"Of course, if you don't wish it--if it will be troubling you too
-much--" he began, with his old fierce abruptness, drawing himself
-together.
-
-"It is not that," said she, looking at her fan. "But now I know why you
-have stayed away for five weeks."
-
-"Why _I_ have stayed away--oh! I understand. But I told you they were
-living _alone_, did I not? Therefore I have never been into their
-house--it is quite impossible for me to have the pleasure of their
-society."
-
-"Then you want me to take them up, so that you can have it here? Is
-that it?"
-
-The little man was looking so ferocious, and his departure from her
-side appeared so imminent, that she changed her tone quickly after
-putting this question. "Never mind," she said, laying her jewelled
-fingers on his coat sleeve for a moment, "I will not be jealous--at
-least I will try not to be. I will go and call on them to-morrow, and
-as soon as they have called on me I will ask them to one of my Fridays.
-Will that do?"
-
-"I don't wish you for a moment to do what would be at all unpleasant to
-yourself," he said, still in a hurt, blunt tone, but visibly softening.
-
-"It won't be unpleasant to me," she said sentimentally, "if it will
-please you."
-
-And Paul went home at midnight, well satisfied with what he had done,
-believing that a woman so "awfully kind" as Mrs. Aarons would be a
-shield and buckler to those defenceless girls.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-
-THE FIRST INVITATION.
-
-
-Mrs. Aarons kept her promise, and called upon the Kings on Saturday.
-Mrs. M'Intyre saw her get down at the gate of No. 6, at about four
-o'clock in the afternoon, watched the brougham which had brought her
-trundling slowly up and down the street for half-an-hour, and then saw
-her get into it and drive off; which facts, communicated to Paul Brion,
-gave him the greatest satisfaction.
-
-He did not see his neighbours for several days after. He heard their
-piano, and their footsteps and voices on the verandah; but, whenever
-he essayed to go outside his own room for a breath of fresh air, they
-were sure to retire into theirs immediately, like mice into a hole when
-the cat has frightened them. At last he came across them in an alley of
-the Fitzroy Gardens, as he and they were converging upon Myrtle Street
-from different points. They were all together as usual--the majestic
-Elizabeth in the middle, with her younger sisters on either side of
-her; and they were walking home from an organ recital in the Town Hall
-to their tea, and a cosy evening over a new book, having spent most
-of the morning at the Public Library, and had their mid-day dinner at
-Gunsler's. As he caught sight of them, he was struck by the change
-in their outward appearance that a few weeks of Melbourne experience
-had brought about, and pleased himself with thinking how much their
-distinguished aspect must have impressed that discerning woman of
-the world, who had so kindly condescended to take them up. They were
-dressed in their new gowns, and bonneted, booted, and gloved, in the
-neatest manner; a little air of the mode pervaded them now, while the
-primitive purity of their taste was still unadulterated. They had never
-looked more charming, more obviously "born ladies" than to-day, as he
-saw them after so long an interval.
-
-The three black figures stood the shock of the unexpected meeting
-with admirable fortitude. They came on towards him with no faltering
-of that free and graceful gait that was so noticeable in a city full
-of starched and whale-boned women, and, as he lifted his hat, bowed
-gravely--Elizabeth only giving him a dignified smile, and wishing him
-a good evening as she went by. He let them pass him, as they seemed
-to wish to pass him; then he turned sharply and followed them. It was
-a chance he might not get again for months, perhaps, and he could not
-afford to let it slip.
-
-"Miss King," he called in his imperative brusque way; and at the sound
-of his voice Elizabeth looked back and waited for him to join her,
-while her younger sisters, at a sign from Patty, walked on at a brisk
-pace, leaving her in command of the situation. "Miss King," said Paul
-earnestly, "I am so glad to have an opportunity of speaking to you--I
-have been wanting all the week to see you, that I might thank you for
-your kindness in asking me to tea."
-
-"Oh," said Elizabeth, whose face was scarlet, "don't mention it, Mr.
-Brion. We thought of it merely as a--a little attention--a sort of
-acknowledgment--to your father; that it might please him, perhaps,
-for you to see that we had settled ourselves, as he could not do so
-himself."
-
-"It would have pleased _me_, beyond everything in the world, Miss King.
-Only--only--"
-
-"Yes, I know. We forgot that it was not quite _de rigueur_--or, rather,
-we had not learned about those things. We have been so out of the
-world, you see. We were dreadfully ashamed of ourselves," she added
-candidly, with a little embarrassed laugh, "but you must set it down
-to our ignorance of the laws of propriety, and not suppose that we
-consciously disregarded them."
-
-"The laws of propriety!" repeated Paul hotly, his own face red and
-fierce. "It is Schiller, I think, who says that it is the experience
-of corruption which originated them. I hate to hear you speak of
-impropriety, as if you could even conceive the idea of it!"
-
-"Well, we are not in Arcadia now, and we must behave ourselves
-accordingly," said Elizabeth, who was beginning to feel glad in her
-gentle heart that she had been able to make this explanation. "I think
-we are getting corrupted with wonderful rapidity. We have even been
-_called upon_, quite as if we were people of fashion and consequence,
-by a lady who was dressed in the most magnificent manner, and who came
-in her carriage. Her name was Aarons--Mrs. Aarons. She said she had
-heard of of our being here, and thought she would like to make our
-acquaintance."
-
-"Did she?" responded Paul warmly, thinking how nice and delicate it
-was of Mrs. Aarons to respect his anxious wish that his name and
-interposition should not be mentioned, which was certainly more than he
-had expected of her. "And were you all at home when she called?"
-
-"As it happened--yes. It was on Saturday afternoon, when we are
-generally rather busy."
-
-"And have you returned her call yet?"
-
-"No. We don't mean to return it," said Elizabeth composedly; "we did
-not like her enough to wish to make an acquaintance of her. It is no
-good to put ourselves out, and waste our own time and theirs, for
-people whom we are sure not to care about, and who would not care about
-us, is it?"
-
-"But I think you would like her if you knew her, Miss King," pleaded
-Paul, much disturbed by this threatened downfall of his schemes. "I
-am sure--at least, I have always heard, and I can speak a little from
-personal knowledge--that she is a particularly nice woman; thoroughly
-kind and amiable, and, at the same time, having a good position
-in society, and a remarkably pleasant house, where you might meet
-interesting people whom you _would_ like. Oh, don't condemn her at
-first sight in that way! First impressions are so seldom to be trusted.
-Go and call, at any rate--indeed, you know, you ought to do that, if
-only for form's sake."
-
-"For politeness, do you mean? Would it be rude not to return her call?"
-
-"It would be thought so, of course."
-
-"Ah, I was not sure--I will call then. I don't _mind_ calling in the
-least. If she has done us a kindness, it is right to acknowledge it in
-whatever is the proper way. It was my sisters--especially Patty--who
-took a dislike to her, and particularly wished not to see her again.
-Patty thought she asked too many questions, and that she came from some
-motive of curiosity to pry into our affairs. She was certainly a little
-impertinent, I thought. But then, perhaps, ladies in 'the world' don't
-look at these things as we have been accustomed to do," added Elizabeth
-humbly.
-
-"I don't think they do," said Paul.
-
-By this time they had reached the gate through which Patty and Eleanor
-had passed before them out of the gardens. As they silently emerged
-into the road, they saw the pair flitting along the pavement a
-considerable distance ahead of them, and when they turned the corner
-into Myrtle Street both the slender black figures had disappeared. Paul
-wondered to see himself so irritated by this trifling and inevitable
-circumstance. He felt that it would have done him good to speak to
-Patty, if it were only to quarrel with her.
-
-Elizabeth bade him good-night when she reached the gate of No. 6, where
-the hall door stood open--putting her warm, strong hand with motherly
-benevolence into his.
-
-"Good-night, Miss King. I am so glad to have seen you," he responded,
-glaring fiercely at the balcony and the blank window overhead.
-"And--and you will return that call, won't you?"
-
-"O yes--of course. We will walk there on Monday, as we come home from
-the Library. We are able to find our way about in Melbourne very well
-now, with the help of the map you were so kind as to give us when we
-first came. I can't tell you how useful that has been."
-
-So, with mutual friendship and goodwill, they parted--Elizabeth to join
-her sisters upstairs, where one was already setting the tea-kettle to
-boil on the gas stove, and the other spreading a snow-white cloth on
-the sitting-room table--Paul Brion to get half-an-hour's work and a
-hasty dinner before repairing to the reporters' gallery of "the House."
-
-He did not see them again for a long time, and the first news he heard
-of them was from Mrs. Aarons, whom he chanced to meet when she was
-shopping one fine morning in Collins Street.
-
-"You see, I remembered my promise," she said, when matters of
-more personal moment had been disposed of; "I went to see those
-extraordinary _protégées_ of yours."
-
-"Extraordinary--how extraordinary?" he inquired stiffly.
-
-"Well, I put it to you--_are_ they not extraordinary?"
-
-He was silent for a few seconds, and the points of his moustache went
-up a little. "Perhaps so--now you mention it," he said. "Perhaps they
-_are_ unlike the--the usual girl of the period with whom we are
-familiar. But I hope you were favourably impressed with your visit.
-Were you?"
-
-"No, I wasn't. I will be frank with you--I wasn't. I never expected to
-find people living in that manner--and dressing in that manner. It is
-not what I am used to."
-
-"But they are very lady-like--if I am any judge--and that is the chief
-thing. Very pretty too. Don't you think so?"
-
-"O _dear_ no! The middle one has rather nice eyes perhaps--though
-she gives herself great airs, I think, considering her position. And
-the youngest is not bad looking. _Miss_ King is _plain_, decidedly.
-However, I told you I would do something for them, and I have kept my
-word. They are coming to my next Friday. And I do _hope_," proceeded
-Mrs. Aarons, with an anxious face, "that they will dress themselves
-respectably for the reputation of my house. Do you know anyone who
-could speak to them about it? Could you give them a hint, do you think?"
-
-"_I!_--good gracious! I should like to see myself at it," said Paul,
-grimly. "But I don't think," he added, with a fatuity really pitiable
-in a man of his years and experience, "that there is any danger of
-their not looking nice. They must have had their old frocks on when you
-saw them."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-
-DISAPPOINTMENT.
-
-
-How they should dress themselves for Mrs. Aarons's Friday was a
-question as full of interest for our girls as if they had been brought
-up in the lap of wealth and fashion. They were not so ignorant of the
-habits and customs of "the world" as not to know that evening dress
-was required of them on this occasion, and they had not seen so many
-shop windows and showrooms without learning something of its general
-features as applied to their sex and to the period. Great were the
-discussions that went on over the momentous subject. Even their studies
-at the Public Library lost their interest and importance, it is to be
-feared, for a day or two, while they were anxiously hesitating, first,
-whether they should accept the invitation, and, secondly, in what
-costume they should make their first appearance in polite society.
-The former of these questions was settled without much trouble.
-Elizabeth's yearning for "friends," the chance of discovering whom
-might be missed by missing this unusual opportunity; Patty's thirst
-for knowledge and experience in all available fields, and Eleanor's
-habit of peaceably falling in with her sisters' views, overcame the
-repugnance that all of them entertained to the idea of being patronised
-by, or beholden for attentions that they could not reciprocate to, Mrs.
-Aarons, against whom they had conceived a prejudice on the first day of
-contact with her which a further acquaintance had not tended to lessen.
-But the latter question was, as I have said, a matter of much debate.
-Could they afford themselves new frocks?--say, black grenadines that
-would do for the summer afterwards. This suggestion was inquired into
-at several shops and of several dressmakers, and then relinquished,
-but not without a struggle. "We are just recovering ourselves," said
-Elizabeth, with her note-book before her and her pencil in her hand;
-"and if we go on as we are doing now we shall be able to save enough to
-take us to Europe next year without meddling with our house-money. But
-if we break our rules--well, it will throw us back. And it will be a
-bad precedent, Patty."
-
-"Then we won't break them," said Patty valiantly. "We will go in our
-black frocks. Perhaps," she added, with some hesitation, "we can find
-something amongst our mother's things to trim us up a little."
-
-"She would like to see us making ourselves look pretty with her
-things," said Eleanor.
-
-"Yes, Nelly. That is what I think. Come along and let us look at
-that bundle of lace that we put in the bottom drawer of the bureau.
-Elizabeth, does lace so fine as that _go_ with woollen frocks, do you
-think? We must not have any incongruities if we can help it."
-
-Elizabeth thought that plain white ruffles would, perhaps, be best,
-as there was so much danger of incongruities if they trusted to their
-untrained invention. Whereupon Patty pointed out that they would have
-to buy ruffles, while the lace would cost nothing, which consideration,
-added to their secret wish for a little special decoration, now that
-the occasion for it had arisen--the love of adornment being, though
-refined and chastened, an ingredient of their nature as of every other
-woman's--carried the day in favour of "mother's things."
-
-"And I think," said Patty, with dignity, when at last Friday came
-and they had spread the selected finery on their little beds, "I
-think that ladies ought to know how to dress themselves better than
-shop-people can tell them. When they want to make themselves smart,
-they should think, first, what they can afford and what will be
-suitable to their position and the occasion, and then they should think
-what would look pretty in a picture. And they should put on _that_."
-
-Patty, I think, was well aware that she would look pretty in a picture,
-when she had arrayed herself for the evening. Round the neck of her
-black frock she had loosely knotted a length of fine, yellow-white
-Brussels lace, the value of which, enhanced by several darns that
-were almost as invisibly woven as the texture itself, neither she nor
-her sisters had any idea of. Of course it did not "go" with the black
-frock, even though the latter was not what mourning was expected to
-be, but its delicacy was wonderfully thrown up by its contrast with
-that background, and it was a most becoming setting for the wearer's
-brilliant face. Patty had more of the priceless flounce sewn on her
-black sleeves (the little Vandal had cut it into lengths on purpose),
-half of it tucked in at the wrists out of sight; and the ends that
-hung over her breast were loosely fastened down with a quaint old
-silver brooch, in which a few little bits of topaz sparkled. Elizabeth
-was not quite so magnificent. She wore a fichu of black lace over her
-shoulders--old Spanish, that happened just then to be the desire and
-despair of women of fashion, who could not get it for love or money;
-it was big enough to be called a shawl, and in putting it on Patty had
-to fold and tack it here and there with her needle, to keep it well
-up in its proper place. This was fastened down at the waist with a
-shawl-pin shaped like a gold arrow, that her grandmother had used to
-pin her Paisley over her chest; and, as the eldest daughter, Elizabeth
-wore her mother's slender watch-chain wound round and round her neck,
-and, depending from it, an ancient locket of old red gold, containing
-on its outward face a miniature of that beautiful mother as a girl,
-with a beading of little pearls all round it. Eleanor was dressed up
-in frills of soft, thick Valenciennes, taken from the bodice of one
-of the brocaded gowns; which lace, not being too fragile to handle,
-Elizabeth, ignorant as yet of the artistic excellence of the genuine
-coffee-colour of age, had contrived to wash to a respectable whiteness.
-And to Eleanor was given, from the little stock of family trinkets,
-a string of pearls, fastened with an emerald clasp--pearls the size
-of small peas, and dingy and yellow from never having been laid out
-on the grass, as, according to a high authority, pearls should be.
-Upon the whole, their finery, turned into money, would probably have
-bought up three of the most magnificent costumes worn in Melbourne that
-night; yet it can scarcely be said to have been effective. Neither Mrs.
-Aarons nor her lady friends had the requisite experience to detect
-its quality and understand what we may call its moral value. Only one
-person amongst the company discovered that Eleanor's pearls were real,
-and perhaps only that one had been educated in lace, save rudimentally,
-in the Melbourne shops. And amongst the _nouveaux riches_, as poor
-gentlefolks well know, to have no claims to distinction but such as are
-out of date is practically to have none.
-
-Late in the evening, Paul Brion, who had not intended to go to this
-particular Friday, lest his presence should betray to the sisters what
-he was so anxious to conceal from them, found that he could not resist
-the temptation to see with his own eyes how they were getting on; and
-when he had entered the room, which was unusually crowded, and had
-prowled about for a few minutes amongst the unpleasantly tall men who
-obstructed his view in all directions, he was surprised and enraged
-to see the three girls sitting side by side in a corner, looking
-neglected and lonely, and to see insolent women in long-tailed satin
-gowns sweeping past them as if they had not been there. One glance
-was enough to satisfy _him_ that there had been no fear of their not
-looking "nice." Patty's bright and flushed but (just now) severe
-little face, rising so proudly from the soft lace about her throat and
-bosom, seemed to him to stand out clear in a surrounding mist, apart
-and distinct from all the faces in the room--or in the world, for that
-matter. Elizabeth's dignified serenity in an uncomfortable position
-was the perfection of good breeding, and made a telling contrast to
-the effusive manners of those about her; and fair Eleanor, sitting so
-modestly at Elizabeth's side, with her hands, in a pair of white silk
-mittens, folded in her lap, was as charming to look at as heart of man
-could desire. Other men seemed to be of his opinion, for he saw several
-hovering around them and looking at them with undisguised interest; but
-the ladies, who, he thought, ought to have felt privileged to take them
-up, appeared to regard them coldly, or to turn their backs upon them
-altogether, literally as well as metaphorically. It was plain that Mrs.
-Aarons had introduced them to nobody, probably wishing (as was indeed
-the case--people of her class being morbidly sensitive to the disgrace
-of unfashionable connections) not to own to them more than she could
-help.
-
-He withdrew from their neighbourhood before they saw him, and went to
-seek his hostess, swelling with remonstrant wrath. He found her on a
-sofa at the other end of the room, talking volubly (she was always
-voluble, but now she was breathless in her volubility) to a lady who
-had never before honoured her Fridays, and who, by doing so to-night,
-had gratified an ambition that had long been paramount amongst the many
-ambitions which, enclosed in a narrow circle as they were, served to
-make the interest and occupation of Mrs. Aarons's life. She looked up
-at Paul as he approached her, and gave him a quick nod and smile, as if
-to say, "I see you, but you must be perfectly aware that I am unable
-to attend to you just now." Paul understood her, and, not having the
-honour of Mrs. Duff-Scott's acquaintance himself, fell back a little
-behind the sofa and waited for his opportunity. As he waited, he could
-not help overhearing the conversation of the two ladies, and deriving a
-little cynical amusement therefrom.
-
-"And, as soon as I heard of it, I _begged_ my husband to go and see if
-it was _really_ a genuine example of Derby-Chelsea; and, you see, it
-_was_," said Mrs. Aarons, with subdued enthusiasm--almost with tears of
-emotion.
-
-"It was, indeed," assented Mrs. Duff-Scott earnestly. "There was the
-true mark--the capital D, with the anchor in the middle of it. It is
-extremely rare, and I had no hope of ever possessing a specimen."
-
-"I _knew_ you would like to have it. I said to Ben. '_Do_ go and snatch
-it up at once for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.' And he was so pleased
-to find he was in time. We were so afraid someone might have been
-before us. But the fact is, people are so ignorant that they have no
-idea of the value of things of that sort--fortunately."
-
-"I don't call it fortunate at all," the other lady retorted, a little
-brusquely. "I don't like to see people ignorant--I am quite ready to
-share and share." Then she added, with a smile, "I am sure I can never
-be sufficiently obliged to Mr. Aarons for taking so much trouble on my
-account. I must get him into a corner presently, and find out how much
-I am in his debt--though, of course, no money can represent the true
-worth of such a treasure, and I shall always feel that I have robbed
-him."
-
-"Oh, pray, pray don't talk of _payment_," the hostess implored, with a
-gesture of her heavily-ringed hands. "You will hurt him _dreadfully_
-if you think of such a thing. He feels himself richly paid, I assure
-you, by having a chance to do you a little service. And such a mere
-_trifle_ as it is!"
-
-"No, indeed, it is not a trifle, Mrs. Aarons--very far from it. The
-thing is much too valuable for me to--to"--Mrs. Duff-Scott hesitated,
-and her face was rather red--"to deprive you of it in that way. I don't
-feel that I can take it as a present--a bit of _real_ Derby-Chelsea
-that you might never find a specimen of again--really I don't."
-
-"Oh, _please_"--and Mrs. Aarons's voice was at once reproachful and
-persuasive--"_please!_ I know you wouldn't wish to hurt us."
-
-A little more discussion ensued, which Paul watched with an amused
-smile; and Mrs. Duff-Scott gave in.
-
-"Well, if you insist--but you are really too good. It makes me quite
-uncomfortable to take such a treasure from you. However, perhaps, some
-day I may be able to contribute to _your_ collection."
-
-Like her famous model, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins, Mrs. Aarons stalked
-her big game with all kinds of stratagems, and china was the lure with
-which she had caught Mrs. Duff-Scott. This was a lady who possessed
-not only that most essential and valuable qualification of a lady,
-riches, but had also a history that was an open page to all men. It
-had not much heraldic emblazonment about it, but it showed a fair
-and honourable record of domestic and public circumstances that no
-self-respecting woman could fail to take social credit for. By virtue
-of these advantages, and of a somewhat imperious, though generous
-and unselfish, nature, she certainly did exercise that right to be
-"proud" which, in such a case, the most democratic of communities will
-cheerfully concede. She had been quite inaccessible to Mrs. Aarons,
-whom she was wont to designate a "person," long after that accomplished
-woman had carried the out-works of the social citadel in which she
-dwelt, and no doubt she would have been inaccessible to the last. Only
-she had a weakness--she had a hobby (to change the metaphor a little)
-that ran away with her, as hobbies will, even in the case of the most
-circumspect of women; and that hobby, exposed to the seductions of a
-kindred hobby, broke down and trampled upon the barriers of caste. It
-was the Derby-Chelsea specimen that had brought Mrs. Duff-Scott to
-occupy a sofa in Mrs. Aarons's drawing-room--to their mutual surprise,
-when they happened to think of it.
-
-She rose from that sofa now, slightly perturbed, saying she must go
-and find Mr. Aarons and acknowledge the obligation under which he had
-placed her, while all the time she was cudgelling her brains to think
-by what means and how soon she could discharge it--regretting very
-keenly for the moment that she had put herself in the way of people
-who did not understand the fine manners which would have made such a
-dilemma impossible. Her hostess jumped up immediately, and the two
-ladies passed slowly down the room in the direction of the corner
-where our neglected girls were sitting. Paul followed at a respectful
-distance, and was gratified to see Mrs. Duff-Scott stop at the piano,
-in place of hunting for her host (who was never a conspicuous feature
-of these entertainments), and shake hands cordially with a tall German
-in spectacles who had just risen from the music-stool. He had come
-to Mrs. Aarons's Friday in a professional capacity, but he was a
-sufficiently great artist for a great lady to make an equal of him.
-
-"Ah, my dear Herr Wüllner," she said, in a very distinct voice, "I
-was listening, and I thought I could not be mistaken in your touch.
-Heller's _Wanderstunden_, wasn't it?" And they plunged head first into
-musical talk such as musical people (who never care in the least how
-much unmusical people may be bored by it) love to indulge in whenever
-an occasion offers, while Mrs. Aarons stood by, smiling vaguely, and
-not understanding a word of it. Paul Brion listened to them for a few
-minutes, and a bright idea came into his head.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-
-TRIUMPH.
-
-
-Our girls still sat in their corner, but a change had come over them
-within the last few minutes. A stout man sitting near them was talking
-to Elizabeth across Eleanor's lap--Eleanor lying back in her seat, and
-smiling amiably as she listened to them; and Miss King was looking
-animated and interested, and showed some signs of enjoying herself at
-last. Patty also had lost her air of angry dignity, and was leaning a
-little forward, with her hands clasped on her knees, gazing at Herr
-Wüllner's venerable face with rapt enthusiasm. Paul, regarding her for
-a moment, felt himself possessed of sufficient courage to declare his
-presence, and, waiting until he could catch her eye, bowed pleasantly.
-She looked across at him with no recognition at first, then gave a
-little start, bent her head stiffly, and resumed her attentive perusal
-of Herr Wüllner's person. "Ah," thought Paul, "the old fellow has woke
-her up. And she wants him to play again." Mrs. Duff-Scott had dropped
-into a chair by the piano, and sat there contentedly, talking to the
-delighted musician, who had been as a fish out of water since he came
-into the room, and was now swimming at large in his native element
-again. She was a distinguished looking matron of fifty or thereabouts,
-with a handsome, vivacious, intelligent face and an imposing presence
-generally; and she had an active and well-cultivated mind which
-concerned itself with many other things than china. Having no necessity
-to work, no children on whom to expend her exuberant energies, and
-being incapable of finding the ordinary woman's satisfaction in the
-ordinary routine of society pleasures, she made ardent pursuits for
-herself in several special directions. Music was one. Herr Wüllner
-thought she was the most enlightened being in female shape that he
-had ever known, because she "understood" music--what was really music
-and what was not (according to his well-trained theories). She had,
-in the first place, the wonderful good sense to know that she could
-not play herself, and she held the opinion that people in general had
-no business to set themselves up to play, but only those who had been
-"called" by Divine permission and then properly instructed in the
-science of their art. "We won't look at bad pictures, nor read trashy
-books," she would say. "Why should our artistic sense be depraved and
-demoralised through our ears any more than through our eyes? Mothers
-should know better, my dear Herr Wüllner, and keep the incapables in
-the background. All girls should learn, if they _like_ learning--in
-which case it does them good, and delights the domestic circle; but
-if at sixteen they can't play--what _we_ call play--after having had
-every chance given them, they should leave off, so as to use the
-time better, or confine their performances to a family audience."
-And Mrs. Duff-Scott had the courage of her convictions, and crushed
-unrelentingly those presumptuous amateurs (together with their
-infatuated mammas) who thought they could play when they couldn't, and
-who regarded music as a mere frivolous drawing-room amusement for the
-encouragement of company conversation. Herr Wüllner delighted in her.
-The two sat talking by the piano, temporarily indifferent to what was
-going on around them, turning over a roll of music sheets that had had
-a great deal of wear and tear, apparently. Mrs. Aarons sat beside them,
-fanning herself and smiling, casting about her for more entertaining
-converse. And Paul Brion stood near his hostess, listening and watching
-for his opportunity. Presently it came.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott lifted up a sheet of crabbed manuscript as yellowed by
-time as Patty's Brussels lace, and said: "This is not quite the thing
-for a mixed audience, is it?"
-
-"Ah, no, you are right; it is the study of Haydn that a friend of mine
-asked of me yesterday, and that I propose to read to him to-night,"
-said Herr Wüllner, in that precise English and with that delicate
-pronunciation with which the cultivated foreigner so often puts us to
-shame. "It is, you perceive, an arrangement for one violin and a piano
-only--done by a very distinguished person for a lady who was for a
-short time my pupil, when I was a young man. You have heard it with
-the four-stringed instruments at your house; that was bad--bad! Ach!
-that second violin squeaked like the squeaking of a pig, and it was
-always in the wrong place. But in good hands it is sublime. This"--and
-he sighed as he added more sheets to the one she held and was steadily
-perusing--"this is but a crippled thing, perhaps; the piano, which
-should have none of it, has it all--and no one can properly translate
-that piano part--not one in ten thousand. But it is well done. Yes, it
-is very well done. And I have long been wanting my friend to try it
-with me."
-
-"And what about the young lady for whom it was written?--which part did
-she take?"
-
-"The piano--the piano. But then she had a wonderful execution and
-sympathy--it was truly wonderful for a lady, and she so young. Women
-play much better now, as a rule, but I never hear one who is an amateur
-play as she did. And so quick--so quick! It was an inspiration with
-her. Yes, this was written on purpose for that lady--I have had it ever
-since--it has never been published. The manuscript is in her own hand.
-She wrote out much of her music in her own hand. It was many, many
-years ago, and I was a young man then. We were fellow-pupils before I
-became her master, and she was my pupil only for a few weeks. It was a
-farce--a farce. She did not play the violin, but in everything else she
-was better than I. Ah, she was a great genius, that young lady. She was
-a great loss to the world of art."
-
-"Did she die, Herr Wüllner?"
-
-"She eloped," he said softly, "she ran away with a scapegrace. And the
-ship she sailed in was lost at sea."
-
-"Dear me! How very sad. Well, you must make your friend try it over,
-and, if you manage it all right, bring him with you to my house on
-Monday evening and let me hear it."
-
-"That shall give me great pleasure," said the old man, bowing low.
-
-"You have your violin with you, I suppose?" she asked.
-
-"It is in the hall, under my cloak. I do not bring it into this room,"
-he replied.
-
-"Why not?" she persisted. "Go and fetch it, Herr Wüllner, and let Mrs.
-Aarons hear you play it"--suddenly bethinking herself of her hostess
-and smiling upon that lady--"if she has never had that treat before."
-
-Mrs. Aarons was eager to hear the violin, and Herr Wüllner went
-himself, though reluctantly, to fetch his treasure from the old case
-that he had hidden away below. When he had tuned up his strings a
-little, and had tucked the instrument lovingly under his chin, he
-looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott and said softly, "What?"
-
-"Oh," cried Mrs. Aarons, striking in, "play that--you know--what you
-were talking of just now--what Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted so much to hear.
-_I_ want to hear it too."
-
-"Impossible--impossible," he said quickly, almost with a shudder. "It
-has a piano part, and there is no one here to take that."
-
-Then Paul Brion broke in, conscious that he was running heavy risks of
-all sorts, but resolved to seize his chance.
-
-"I think there _is_ someone who could play it," he said to Mrs. Aarons,
-speaking with elaborate distinctness. "The Miss Kings--one of them, at
-any rate--"
-
-"Nonsense," interrupted Mrs. Aarons, sharply, but under her breath.
-"Not at all likely." She was annoyed by the suggestion, and wished to
-treat it as if unheard (it was unreasonable, on the face of it, of
-course); but Mrs. Duff-Scott caught at it in her direct way. "Who are
-they? Which are the Miss Kings?" she asked of Paul, putting up her
-eye-glass to see what manner of man had taken upon himself to interfere.
-
-"My dear lady," sighed Herr Wüllner, dropping his bow dejectedly, "it
-is out of the question, absolutely. It is not normal music at its
-best--and I have it only in manuscript. It is impossible that any lady
-can attempt it."
-
-"She will not attempt it if she cannot do it, Herr Wüllner," said Paul.
-"But you might ask her."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott had followed the direction of his eyes, and her
-attention was violently arrested by the figures of the three girls
-sitting together, who were so remarkably unlike the majority of Mrs.
-Aarons's guests. She took note of all their superficial peculiarities
-in a moment, and the conviction that the lace and the pearls were real
-flashed across her like an inspiration. "Is it the young lady with the
-bright eyes?" she inquired. "What a charming face! Yes, Herr Wüllner,
-we _will_ ask her. Introduce her to me, Mrs. Aarons, will you?"
-
-She rose as she spoke and sailed towards Patty, Mrs. Aarons following;
-and Paul Brion held his breath while he waited to see how his reckless
-enterprise would turn out. In a few minutes Patty came towards the
-piano, with her head up and her face flushed, looking a little defiant,
-but as self-possessed as the great lady who convoyed her across the
-room. The events of the evening had roused her spirit, and strung up
-her nerves like Herr Wüllner's fiddle-strings, and she, too, was in a
-daring and audacious mood.
-
-"This is it," said the old musician, looking at her critically as he
-gave a sheet of manuscript into her hand. It was a wonderful chance, of
-course, but Patty had seen the facsimile of that manuscript many times
-before, and had played from it. It is true she had never played with
-the violin accompaniment--had never so much as seen a violin until she
-came to Melbourne; but her mother had contrived to make her understand
-how the more delicate and sensitive instrument ought to be deferred to
-in the execution of the piano part, and what the whole should sound
-like, by singing the missing air in her flexible trilling voice; and
-just now she was in that peculiar mood of exaltation that she felt
-inspired to dare anything and assured that she should succeed. "You
-will not be able to read it?" Herr Wüllner suggested persuasively,
-drawing hope from her momentary silence.
-
-"Oh, yes," she said, looking up bravely: "I think so. You will stop me,
-please, if I do not play it right." And she seated herself at the piano
-with a quiet air of knowing what she was doing that confounded the two
-ladies who were watching her and deeply interested Mrs. Duff-Scott.
-Paul Brion's heart was beating high with anticipated triumph. Herr
-Wüllner's heart, on the contrary, sank with a mild despair.
-
-"Well, we will have a few bars," he sighed. "And pray, my dear young
-lady, don't bang the piano--I mean don't play over me. And try to keep
-time. But you will never do it--with the best intentions, my dear, you
-will never be able to read it from such a manuscript as that."
-
-Patty looked up at him with a sort of radiant calmness, and said
-gently, "Go on. You see you have an opening movement to yourself."
-
-Bewildered, the old man dropped his bow upon the strings, and set forth
-on his hopeless task. And at exactly the right moment the piano glided
-in, so lightly, so tenderly, and yet with such admirable precision and
-delicate clearness, that it justified, for once, its trespass upon
-ground that belonged to more aerial instruments. It was just what Paul
-Brion had counted on--though Paul Brion had not the least idea what
-a wild chance had brought about the fulfilment of his expectations.
-Patty was able to display her chief accomplishment to the very best
-advantage, and the sisters were thereby promoted to honour. The cold
-shade of neglect and obscurity was to chill them no more from this
-happy moment. It was a much greater triumph than Patty herself had any
-idea of, or than anybody had had the least reason to expect. _She_
-knew that piles of music, all in this self-same handwriting (she had
-never seen any other and supposed that all manuscript music was alike),
-were stowed away in the old bureau at home, and in the ottoman which
-she had constructed out of a packing-case, and that long familiarity
-had made it as easy to her to read as print; but Herr Wüllner was not
-in a position to make the faintest guess at such a circumstance. When
-Elizabeth moved her seat nearer to the piano, as if to support her
-sister, though he was close enough to see it, he did not recognise in
-the miniature round her neck the face of that young lady of genius who
-eloped with a scapegrace, and was supposed to have been drowned at
-sea with her husband. And yet it was that lady's face. Such wonderful
-coincidences are continually happening in our small world. It was not
-more wonderful than that Herr Wüllner, Mrs. Duff-Scott, Paul Brion, and
-Patty King should have been gathered together round one piano, and that
-piano Mrs. Aarons's.
-
-The guests were laughing and talking and flirting, as they were wont to
-do under cover of the music that generally prevailed at these Friday
-receptions, when an angry "Hush!" from the violinist, repeated by Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, made a little circle of silence round the performers. And
-in this silence Patty carried through her responsible undertaking
-with perfect accuracy and the finest taste--save for a shadowy mistake
-or two, which, glancing over them as if they were mere phantoms of
-mistakes, and recovering herself instantly, only served to show more
-clearly the finished quality of her execution, and the thoroughness of
-her musical experience. She was conscious herself of being in her very
-best form.
-
-"Ah!" said Herr Wüllner, drawing a long breath as he uttered the
-exclamation, and softly laying down his violin, "I was mistaken. My
-dear young lady, allow me to beg your pardon, and to thank you." And he
-bowed before Patty until his nose nearly touched his knees.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, who was a woman of impulses, as most nice women are,
-was enthusiastic. Not only had she listened to Patty's performance with
-all her intelligent ears, but she had at the same time investigated
-and appraised the various details of her personal appearance, and been
-particularly interested in that bit of lace about her neck.
-
-"My dear," she said, putting out her hand as the girl rose from the
-music-stool, "come here and sit by me and tell me where you learned to
-play like that."
-
-Patty went over to her readily, won by the kind voice and motherly
-gesture. And, in a very few minutes, Paul had the pleasure of seeing
-the great lady sitting on a sofa with all three sisters around her,
-talking to them, and they to her, as if they had known one another for
-years.
-
-Leaving them thus safe and cared for, he bade good-night to his
-hostess, and went home to his work, in a mood of high contentment.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-
-PATTY IN UNDRESS.
-
-
-When Paul Brion bade Mrs. Aarons good-night, he perceived that she was
-a little cold to him, and rather wondered at himself that he did not
-feel inclined either to resent or to grieve over that unprecedented
-circumstance.
-
-"I am going to steal away," he said in an airy whisper, coming across
-her in the middle of the room as he made his way to the door. "I have a
-good couple of hours' work to get through to-night."
-
-He was accustomed to speak to her in this familiar and confidential
-fashion, though she was but a recent acquaintance, and she had always
-responded in a highly gratifying way. But now she looked at him
-listlessly, with no change of face, and merely said, "Indeed."
-
-"Yes," he repeated; "I have a lot to do before I can go to bed. It
-is delightful to be here; but I must not indulge myself any longer.
-Good-night."
-
-"Good-night," she said, still unsmiling, as she gave him her hand. "I
-am sorry you must go so soon." But she did not look as if she were
-sorry; she looked as if she didn't care a straw whether he went or
-stayed. However, he pressed her hand with the wonted friendly pressure,
-and slipped out of the room, unabashed by her assumed indifference and
-real change of manner, which he was at no great trouble to interpret;
-and he took a cab to his office--now a humming hive of busy bees
-improving the shining hours of the gaslit night--and walked back
-from the city through the shadowy gardens to his lodgings, singing a
-tuneless air to himself, which, if devoid of music, was a pleasant
-expression of his frame of mind.
-
-When he reached Myrtle Street the town clocks were striking twelve.
-He looked up at his neighbours' windows as he passed the gate of No.
-6, and saw no light, and supposed they had returned from their revels
-and gone peaceably to bed. He opened his own door softly, as if afraid
-of waking them, and went upstairs to his sitting-room, where Mrs.
-M'Intyre, who loved to make him comfortable, had left him a bit of
-supper, and a speck of gas about the size of a pea in the burner at the
-head of his arm-chair; and he pulled off his dress coat, and kicked
-away his boots, and got his slippers and his dressing-gown, and his
-tobacco and his pipe, and took measures generally for making himself at
-home. But before he had quite settled himself the idea occurred to him
-that his neighbours might _not_ have returned from Mrs. Aarons's, but
-might, indeed (for he knew their frugal and unconventional habits), be
-even then out in the streets, alone and unprotected, walking home by
-night as they walked home by day, unconscious of the perils and dangers
-that beset them. He had not presumed to offer his escort--he had not
-even spoken to them during the evening, lest he should seem to take
-those liberties that Miss Patty resented so much; but now he angrily
-reproached himself for not having stayed at Mrs. Aarons's until their
-departure, so that he could, at least, have followed and watched over
-them. He put down his pipe hastily, and, opening the window, stepped
-out on the balcony. It was a dark night, and a cold wind was blowing,
-and the quarter-hour after midnight was chiming from the tower of the
-Post Office. He was about to go in for his boots and his overcoat, when
-he was relieved to hear a cab approaching at a smart pace, and to see
-it draw up at the gate of No. 6. Standing still in the shadow of the
-partition that divided his enclosure from theirs, he watched the girls
-descend upon the footpath, one by one, fitfully illuminated from the
-interior of the vehicle. First Eleanor, then Elizabeth, then Patty--who
-entered the gate and tapped softly at her street door. He expected to
-see the driver dismissed, with probably double the fare to which he was
-entitled; but to his surprise, the cab lingered, and Elizabeth stood at
-the step and began to talk to someone inside. "Thank you so much for
-your kindness," she said, in her gentle but clear tones, which were
-perfectly audible on the balcony. A voice from the cab answered, "Don't
-mention it, my dear. I am very glad to see as much of you as possible,
-for I want to know you. May I come and have a little gossip to-morrow
-afternoon?" It was the voice of Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, after keeping
-them late at Mrs. Aarons's, talking to them, had frustrated their
-intention of making their own way home. That powerful woman had "taken
-them up," literally and figuratively, and she was not one to drop them
-again--as fine ladies commonly drop interesting impecunious _protégées_
-when the novelty of their acquaintance has worn off--save for causes in
-their own conduct and circumstances that were never likely to arise.
-Paul Brion, thoroughly realising that his little schemes had been
-crowned with the most gratifying success, stole back to his rooms, shut
-the window softly, and sat down to his pipe and his manuscripts. And he
-wrote such a maliciously bitter article that, when he took it to the
-office, his editor refused to print it without modifications, on the
-ground that it would land the paper in an action for libel.
-
-Meanwhile our girls parted from their new friend with affectionate
-good-nights, and were let into their house by the landlady, who had
-herself been entertaining company to a late hour. They went upstairs
-with light feet, too excited to feel tired, and all assembled in
-Elizabeth's meagrely-appointed bedchamber to take off their finery
-and to have a little happy gossip before they went to rest. Elizabeth
-herself, who was not a gushing person, had the most to say at first,
-pouring out her ingenuous heart in grateful reminiscences of the
-unparalleled kindness of Mrs. Duff-Scott. "What a dear, dear woman!"
-she murmured, with soft rapture, as she unwound the watch-chain and
-locket from her neck and disembarrassed herself of her voluminous
-fichu. "You can _see_ that what she does and says is real and
-truthful--I am certain you can trust her. I do not trust Mrs. Aarons--I
-do not understand her ways. She wanted us to go and see her, and when
-we went she was unkind to us; at least, she was not polite. I was very
-sorry we had gone to her house--until Mrs. Duff-Scott came to our sofa
-to speak to us. But now I feel so glad! For it has given us _her_. And
-she is just the kind of friend I have so often pictured to myself--so
-often longed to know."
-
-"I think it was Patty's playing that gave us Mrs. Duff-Scott,"
-said Eleanor, who was sitting by the dressing table with her frock
-unbuttoned. "She is fond of music, and really there was no one who
-could play at all except Herr Wüllner--which was a very strange thing,
-don't you think? And the singing was worse--such sickly, silly sort of
-songs, with such eccentric accompaniments. I could not understand it,
-unless the fashion has changed since mother was a girl. I suppose it
-has. But when Patty and Herr Wüllner got together it was like another
-atmosphere in the room. How did you come to play so well, Patty?--to be
-so collected and quiet when there was so much to frighten you? I was so
-nervous that my hands shook, and I had to squeeze them to keep myself
-still."
-
-"I was nervous, too, at first," said Patty, who, divested of her
-dress and laces, was lying all along on Elizabeth's bed, with her
-pretty bare arms flung up over the pillows, and her hands clasped
-one over the other at the back of her head. "When we got there, that
-impudent maid in the room where we took our things off upset me; she
-looked at our old hats and water-proofs as if she had never seen such
-things before--and they _did_ seem very shabby amongst all the pretty
-cloaks and hoods that the other ladies were taking off. And then it
-was so ignominious to have to find our way to the drawing-room by
-following other people, and to have our names bawled out as if to call
-everybody's attention to us, and then not to _have_ attentions. When we
-trailed about the room, so lost and lonely, with all those fine people
-watching us and staring at us, my knees were shaking under me, and I
-felt hot and cold--I don't know how I felt. The only comfort I had was
-seeing how calm Elizabeth was. She seemed to stand up for us all, and
-to carry us through it. _I_ felt--I hate to think I could be such an
-idiot--so nervous and so unhinged, and so miserable altogether, that
-I should have liked to go away somewhere and have a good cry. But,"
-added Patty, suddenly sitting up in the bed, and removing her hands
-from the back of her head to her knees, "but after a little while it
-got _too_ horrid. And then I got angry, and that made me feel much
-better. And by-and-bye, when they began to play and sing, and I saw how
-ridiculous they made themselves, I brightened up, and was not nervous
-any more--for I saw that they were rather ignorant people, in spite
-of their airs and their fine clothes. When the girl in that beautiful
-creamy satin dress sang her whining little song about parting and dying
-half a note flat, while she dashed her hands up and down the keyboard,
-and they all hung round her when she had done and said how charming
-it was, I felt that _really_--" Patty paused, and stared into the
-obscurity of the room with brilliant, humorous, disdainful eyes, which
-expressed her sentiments with a distinctness that made further words
-unnecessary.
-
-"But, you see, if people don't _know_ that you are superior to them--"
-suggested Eleanor, folding up Elizabeth's best gloves, and wrapping
-them in tissue paper, with a reflective air.
-
-"Who would care about their knowing?" interposed Elizabeth. "We should
-not be very much superior to anyone if we could indulge in a poor
-ambition to seem so. That is not one of Patty's feelings, I think."
-
-"But it is, then," Patty confessed, with honest promptness. "I found
-it out to-night, Elizabeth. When I saw those conceited people sweeping
-about in their splendid trains and looking as if all Melbourne belonged
-to them--when I heard that girl singing that preposterous twaddle,
-and herself and all her friends thinking she was a perfect genius--I
-felt that I would give anything, _anything_, just to rise up and be
-very grand and magnificent for a little while and crush them all into
-vulgarity and insignificance."
-
-"Patty!" murmured Elizabeth.
-
-"Yes, my dear, it shocks you, I know. But you wouldn't have me disguise
-the truth from you, would you? I wanted to pay them out. I saw they
-were turning up their noses at us, and I longed--I _raged_--to be in
-a position to turn up my nose at them, if only for five minutes. I
-thought to myself, oh, if the door should suddenly open and that big
-footman shout out, 'His Grace the Duke of So and So;' and they should
-all be ready to drop on their knees before such a grand person--as
-you know they would be, Elizabeth; they would _grovel_, simply--and he
-should look with a sort of gracious, ducal haughtiness over their heads
-and say to Mrs. Aarons, 'I am told that I shall find here the daughters
-of my brother, who disappeared from home when he was young, along with
-his wife, the Princess So and So.' You know, Elizabeth, our father, who
-never would talk about his family to anybody, _might_ have been a duke
-or an earl in disguise, for anything we know, and our mother was the
-very image of what a princess _ought_ to be--"
-
-"We should have been found out before this, if we had been such
-illustrious persons," said Elizabeth, calmly.
-
-"Yes, of course--of course. But one needn't be so practical. You are
-free to think what you like, however improbable it may be. And that is
-what I thought of. Then I thought, suppose a telegram should be brought
-in, saying that some enormously wealthy squatter, with several millions
-of money and no children, had left us all his fortune--"
-
-"I should think that kind of news would come by post," suggested
-Eleanor.
-
-"It might and it mightn't, Nelly. The old squatter might have been that
-queer old man who comes to the Library sometimes, and seems to take
-such interest in seeing us reading so hard. He might have thought that
-girls who were so studious would have serious views of life and the
-value of money. Or he might have overheard us castle-building about
-Europe, and determined to help us to realise our dreams. Or he might
-have fallen in love with Elizabeth--at a distance, you know, and in a
-humble, old-fashioned, hopeless way."
-
-"But that doesn't account for the telegram, Patty."
-
-"And have felt himself dying, perhaps," continued Patty, quite
-solemnly, with her bright eyes fixed on her invisible drama, "and have
-thought he would like to see us--to speak to Elizabeth--to give some
-directions and last wishes to us--before he went. No," she added,
-checking herself with a laugh and shaking herself up, "I don't think it
-was that. I think the lawyer came himself to tell us. The lawyer had
-opened the will, and he was a friend of Mrs. Aarons's, and he came to
-tell her of the wonderful thing that had happened. 'Everyone has been
-wondering whom he would leave his money to,' he says to her, 'but no
-one ever expected this. He has left it to three poor girls whom no one
-has ever heard of, and whom he never spoke to in his life. I am now
-going to find them out, for they are living somewhere in Melbourne.
-Their name is King, and they are sisters, without father or mother, or
-friends or fortune--mere nobodies, in fact. But now they will be the
-richest women in Australia.' And Mrs. Aarons suddenly remembers us,
-away there in the corner of the room, and it flashes across her that
-_we_ are the great heiresses. And she tells the other ladies, and they
-all flock round us, and--and--"
-
-"And you find yourself in the position to turn up your nose at them,"
-laughed Eleanor. "No one would have guessed your thoughts, Patty,
-seeing you sitting on that sofa, looking so severe and dignified."
-
-"But I had other thoughts," said Patty, quickly. "These were just
-passing ideas, of course. What really _did_ take hold of me was an
-intense desire to be asked to play, so that I might show them how much
-better we could play than they could. Especially after I heard Herr
-Wüllner. I knew he, at least, would appreciate the difference--and
-I thought Mrs. Duff-Scott looked like a person who would, also. And
-perhaps--perhaps--Paul Brion."
-
-"Oh, Patty!" exclaimed Elizabeth, smiling, but reproachful. "Did
-you really want to go to the piano for the sake of showing off your
-skill--to mortify those poor women who had not been taught as well as
-you had?"
-
-"Yes," said Patty, hardily. "I really did. When Mrs. Duff-Scott came
-and asked me to join Herr Wüllner in that duet, I felt that, failing
-the duke and the lawyer, it was just the opportunity that I had been
-looking and longing for. And it was because I felt that I was going to
-do so much better than they could that I was in such good spirits, and
-got on--as I flatter myself I did--so splendidly."
-
-"Well, I don't believe you," said Elizabeth. "You could never
-have rendered that beautiful music as you did simply from pure
-vindictiveness. It is not in you."
-
-"No," said Patty, throwing herself back on the bed and flinging up
-her arms again, "no--when I come to think of it--I was not vindictive
-all the time. At first I was _savage_--O yes, there is no doubt about
-it. Then Herr Wüllner's fears and frights were so charming that I
-got amused a little; I felt jocose and mischievous. Then I felt Mrs.
-Duff-Scott looking at me--_studying_ me--and that made me serious
-again, and also quieted me down and steadied me. Then I was a little
-afraid that I _might_ blunder over the music--it was a long time since
-I had played that thing, and the manuscript was pale and smudged--and
-so I had to brace myself up and forget about the outside people. And
-as soon as Herr Wüllner reached me, and I began safely and found that
-we were making it, oh, so sweet! between us--then I lost sight of lots
-of things. I mean I began to see and think of lots of other things. I
-remembered playing it with mother--it was like the echo of her voice,
-that violin!--and the sun shining through a bit of the red curtain
-into our sitting-room at home, and flickering on the wall over the
-piano, where it used to stand; and the sound of the sea under the
-cliffs--_whish-sh-sh-sh_--in the still afternoon--" Patty broke off
-abruptly, with a little laugh that was half a sob, and flung herself
-from the bed with vehemence. "But it won't do to go on chattering like
-this--we shall have daylight here directly," she said, gathering up her
-frock and shoes.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.
-
-
-IN THE WOMB OF FATE.
-
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott came for her gossip on Saturday afternoon, and it
-was a long one, and deeply interesting to all concerned. The girls
-took her to their trustful hearts, and told her their past history
-and present circumstances in such a way that she understood them even
-better than they did themselves. They introduced her to their entire
-suite of rooms, including the infinitesimal kitchen and its gas stove;
-they unlocked the drawers and cupboards of the old bureau to show her
-their own and their mother's sketches, and the family miniatures, and
-even the jewels they had worn the night before, about which she was
-frankly curious, and which she examined with the same discriminating
-intelligence that she brought to bear upon old china. They chattered
-to her, they played to her, they set the kettle on the gas-stove and
-made tea for her, with a familiar and yet modest friendliness that
-was a pleasant contrast to the attitude in which feminine attentions
-were too often offered to her. In return, she put off that armour of
-self-defence in which she usually performed her social duties, fearing
-no danger to pride or principle from an unreserved intercourse with
-such unsophisticated and yet singularly well-bred young women; and she
-revelled in unguarded and unlimited gossip as freely as if they had
-been her own sisters or her grown-up children. She gave them a great
-deal of very plain, but very wholesome, advice as to the necessity
-that lay upon them to walk circumspectly in the new life they had
-entered upon; and they accepted it in a spirit of meek gratitude that
-would have astonished Paul Brion beyond measure. All sorts of delicate
-difficulties were touched upon in connection with the non-existent
-chaperon and the omnipotent and omnipresent Mrs. Grundy, and not only
-touched upon, but frankly discussed, between the kindly woman of the
-world who wished to serve them and the proud but modest girls who were
-but too anxious to learn of one who they felt was authorised to teach
-them. In short, they sat together for more than two hours, and learned
-in that one interview to know and trust each other better than some of
-us will do after living for two years under the same roof. When at last
-the lady called her coachman, who had been mooning up and down Myrtle
-Street, half asleep upon his box, to the gate of No. 6, she had made a
-compact with herself to "look after" the three sweet and pretty sisters
-who had so oddly fallen in her way with systematic vigilance; and
-they were unconsciously of one mind, that to be looked after by Mrs.
-Duff-Scott was the most delightful experience, by far, that Melbourne
-had yet given them.
-
-On the following Monday they went to her house, and spent a ravishing
-evening in a beautiful, cosy, stately, deeply-coloured, softly-lighted
-room, that was full of wonderful and historical bric-à-brac such as
-they had never seen before, listening to Herr Wüllner and three brother
-artists playing violins and a violoncello in a way that brought tears
-to their eyes and unspeakable emotions into their responsive hearts.
-Never had they had such a time as this. There was no Mr. Duff-Scott--he
-was away from home just now, looking after property in Queensland;
-and no Mrs. Aarons--she was not privileged to join any but large and
-comprehensive parties in this select "set." There were no conceited
-women to stare at and to snub them, and no girls to sing sickly
-ballads, half a note flat. Only two or three unpretentious music-loving
-ladies, who smiled on them and were kind to them, and two or three
-quiet men who paid them charmingly delicate attentions; nothing that
-was unpleasant or unharmonious--nothing to jar with the exquisite music
-of a well-trained quartette, which was like a new revelation to them
-of the possibilities of art and life. They went home that night in a
-cab, escorted by one of the quiet men, whose provincial rank was such
-that the landlady curtsied like an English rustic, when she opened
-the door to him, and paid her young lodgers marked attentions for days
-afterwards in honour of their acquaintance with such a distinguished
-individual. And Paul Brion, who was carefully informed by Mrs. M'Intyre
-of their rise and progress in the world that was not his world, said
-how glad he was that they had been recognised and appreciated for what
-they were, and went on writing smart literary and political and social
-criticisms for his paper, that were continually proving too smart for
-prudent journalism.
-
-Then Mrs. Duff-Scott left Melbourne for a visit to some relations
-in Brisbane, and to join her husband on his homeward journey, and
-the girls fell back into their old quiet life for a while. It was an
-exceedingly simple and homely life. They rose early every morning--not
-much after the hour at which their neighbour on the other side of the
-wall was accustomed to go to bed--and aired, and swept, and scrubbed
-their little rooms, and made their beds, and polished their furniture,
-and generally set their dwelling in an exquisite order that is not at
-all universal with housewives in these days, but must always be the
-instinct of really well-bred women. They breakfasted frugally after the
-most of this was done, and took a corresponding meal in the evening,
-the staple of both being bread and butter; and at mid-day they saved
-"messing" and the smell of cooking about their rooms, and saved also
-the precious hours of the morning for their studies, by dining at a
-restaurant in the city, where they enjoyed a comfortable and abundant
-repast for a shilling apiece. Every day at about ten o'clock they
-walked through the leafy Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, and the bright
-and busy streets that never lost their charm of novelty, to the Public
-Library, where with pencils and note-books on the table before them,
-they read and studied upon a systematic principle until the clock
-struck one; at which hour they closed their books and set off with
-never-failing appetites in search of dinner. After dinner, if it was
-Thursday, they stayed in town for the organ recital at the Town Hall;
-but on other days they generally sauntered quietly home, with a new
-novel from Mullen's (they were very fond of novels), and made up their
-fire, and had a cup of tea, and sat down to rest and chat over their
-needlework, while one read aloud or practised her music, until the time
-came to lay the cloth for the unfashionable tea-supper at night-fall.
-And these countrified young people invariably began to yawn at eight
-o'clock, and might have been found in bed and asleep, five nights out
-of six, at half-past nine.
-
-So the days wore on, one very much like another, and all very gentle
-and peaceful, though not without the small annoyances that beset the
-most flowery paths of this mortal life, until October came--until
-the gardens through which they passed to and from the city, morning
-and afternoon (though there were other and shorter routes to choose
-from), were thick with young green leaves and odorous with innumerable
-blossoms--until the winter was over, and the loveliest month of the
-Australian year, when the brief spring hurries to meet the voluptuous
-summer, made even Melbourne delightful. And in October the great
-event that was recorded in the annals of the colony inaugurated a new
-departure in their career.
-
-On the Thursday immediately preceding the opening of the Exhibition
-they did not go to the Library as usual, nor to Gunsler's for their
-lunch. Like a number of other people, their habits were deranged and
-themselves demoralised by anticipations of the impending festival. They
-stayed at home to make themselves new bonnets for the occasion, and
-took a cold dinner while at their work, and two of them did not stir
-outside their rooms from morn till dewy eve for so much as a glance
-into Myrtle Street from the balcony.
-
-But in the afternoon it was found that half a yard more of ribbon was
-required to complete the last of the bonnets, and Patty volunteered to
-"run into town" to fetch it. At about four o'clock she set off alone
-by way of an adjoining road which was an omnibus route, intending to
-expend threepence, for once, in the purchase of a little precious time,
-but every omnibus was full, and she had to walk the whole way. The
-pavements were crowded with hurrying folk, who jostled and obstructed
-her. Collins Street, when she turned into it, seemed riotous with
-abnormal life, and she went from shop to shop and could not get waited
-on until the usual closing hour was past, and the evening beginning
-to grow dark. Then she got what she wanted, and set off home by way
-of the Gardens, feeling a little daunted by the noise and bustle of
-the streets, and fancying she would be secure when once those green
-alleys, always so peaceful, were reached. But to-night even the gardens
-were infested by the spirit of unrest and enterprise that pervaded the
-city. The quiet walks were not quiet now, and the sense of her belated
-isolation in the growing dusk seemed more formidable here instead of
-less. For hardly had she passed through the gates into the Treasury
-enclosure than she was conscious of being watched and peered at by
-strange men, who appeared to swarm all over the place; and by the time
-she had reached the Gardens nearer home the appalling fact was forced
-upon her that a tobacco-scented individual was dogging her steps, as if
-with an intention of accosting her. She was bold, but her imagination
-was easily wrought upon; and the formless danger, of a kind in which
-she was totally inexperienced, gave a shock to her nerves. So that when
-presently, as she hurriedly pattered on, hearing the heavier tread and
-an occasional artificial cough behind her, she suddenly saw a still
-more expeditious pedestrian hastening by, and recognised Paul's light
-figure and active gait, the words seemed to utter themselves without
-conscious effort of hers--"Mr. Brion!--oh, Mr. Brion, is that you?"
-
-He stopped at the first sound of her voice, looked back and saw her,
-saw the man behind her, and comprehended the situation immediately.
-Without speaking, he stepped to her side and offered his arm, which
-she took for one happy moment when the delightful sense of his
-protection was too strong for her, and then--reacting violently from
-that mood--released. "I--I am _mortified_ with myself for being such
-a fool," she said angrily; "but really that person did frighten me. I
-don't know what is the matter with Melbourne to-night--I suppose it is
-the Exhibition." And she went on to explain how she came to be abroad
-alone at that hour, and to explain away, as she hoped, her apparent
-satisfaction in meeting him. "It seems to promise for a fine day, does
-it not?" she concluded airily, looking up at the sky.
-
-Paul Brion put his hands in his pockets. He was mortified, too. When he
-spoke, it was with icy composure.
-
-"Are you going to the opening?"
-
-"Yes," said Patty. "Of course we are."
-
-"With your swell friends, I suppose?"
-
-"Whom do you mean by our swell friends? Mrs. Duff-Scott is not in
-Melbourne, I believe--if you allude to her. But she is not swell. The
-only swell person we know is Mrs. Aarons, and she is not our friend."
-
-He allowed the allusion to Mrs. Aarons to pass. "Well, I hope you will
-have good seats," he said, moodily. "It will be a disgusting crush and
-scramble, I expect."
-
-"Seats? Oh, we are not going to have seats," said Patty. "We are going
-to mingle with the common herd, and look on at the civic functions,
-humbly, from the outside. _We_ are not swell"--dwelling upon the
-adjective with a malicious enjoyment of the suspicion that he had not
-meant to use it--"and we like to be independent."
-
-"O yes, I know you do. But you'll find the Rights of Woman not much
-good to you to-morrow in the Melbourne streets, I fancy, if you go
-there on foot without an escort. May I ask how you propose to take care
-of yourselves?"
-
-"We are going," said Patty, "to start very early indeed, and to take
-up a certain advantageous position that we have already selected
-before the streets fill. We shall have a little elevation above the
-heads of the crowd, and a wall at our backs, and--the three of us
-together--we shall see the procession beautifully, and be quite safe
-and comfortable."
-
-"Well, I hope you won't find yourself mistaken," he replied.
-
-A few minutes later Patty burst into the room where her sisters were
-sitting, placidly occupied with their bonnet-making, her eyes shining
-with excitement. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth," she cried breathlessly, "Paul
-Brion is going to ask you to let him be our escort to-morrow. But you
-won't--oh, you _won't_--have him, will you?"
-
-"No, dear," said Elizabeth, serenely; "not if you would rather not. Why
-should we? It will be broad daylight, when there can be no harm in our
-being out without an escort. We shall be much happier by ourselves."
-
-"Much happier than with _him_," added Patty, sharply.
-
-And they went on with their preparations for the great day that had
-been so long desired, little thinking what it was to bring forth.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.
-
-
-ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND.
-
-
-They had an early breakfast, dressed themselves with great care in
-their best frocks and the new bonnets, and, each carrying an umbrella,
-set forth with a cheerful resolve to see what was to be seen of the
-ceremonies of the day, blissfully ignorant of the nature of their
-undertaking. Paul Brion, out of bed betimes, heard their voices and the
-click of their gate, and stepped into his balcony to see them start.
-He took note of the pretty costumes, that had a gala air about them,
-and of the fresh and striking beauty of at least two of the three
-sweet faces; and he groaned to think of such women being hustled and
-battered, helplessly, in the fierce crush of a solid street crowd. But
-they had no fear whatever for themselves.
-
-However, they had not gone far before they perceived that the idea of
-securing a good position early in the day had occurred to a great many
-people besides themselves. Even sleepy Myrtle Street was awake and
-active, and the adjoining road, when they turned into it, was teeming
-with holiday life. They took their favourite route through the Fitzroy
-and Treasury Gardens, and found those sylvan glades alive with traffic:
-and, by the time they got into Spring Street, the crowd had thickened
-to an extent that embarrassed their progress and made it devious and
-slow. And they had scarcely passed the Treasury buildings when Eleanor,
-who had been suffering from a slight sore throat, began to cough and
-shiver, and aroused the maternal anxiety of her careful elder sister.
-"O, my dear," said Elizabeth, coming to an abrupt standstill on the
-pavement, "have you nothing but that wisp of muslin round your neck?
-And the day so cold--and looking so like rain! It will never do for you
-to stand about for hours in this wind, with the chance of getting wet,
-unless you are wrapped up better. We must run home again and fix you
-up. And I think it would be wiser if we were all to change our things
-and put on our old bonnets."
-
-"Now, look here, Elizabeth," said Patty, with strong emphasis; "you see
-that street, don't you?"--and she pointed down the main thoroughfare of
-the city, which was already gorged with people throughout its length.
-"You see that, and that"--and she indicated the swarming road ahead of
-them and the populous valley in the opposite direction. "If there is
-such a crowd now, what will there be in half-an-hour's time? And we
-couldn't do it in half-an-hour. Let us make Nelly tie up her throat
-in our three pocket-handkerchiefs, and push on and get our places.
-Otherwise we shall be out of it altogether--we shall see _nothing_."
-
-But the gentle Elizabeth was obdurate on some occasions, and this was
-one of them. Eleanor was chilled with the cold, and it was not to be
-thought of that she should run the risk of an illness from imprudent
-exposure--no, not for all the exhibitions in the world. So they
-compromised the case by deciding that Patty and Eleanor should "run"
-home together, while the elder sister awaited their return, keeping
-possession of a little post of vantage on the Treasury steps--where
-they would be able to see the procession, if not the Exhibition--in
-case the crowd should be too great by-and-bye to allow of their getting
-farther.
-
-"Well, make yourself as big as you can," said Patty, resignedly.
-
-"And, whatever you do," implored Eleanor, "don't stir an inch from
-where you are until we come back, lest we should lose you."
-
-Upon which they set off in hot haste to Myrtle Street.
-
-Elizabeth, when they were gone, saw with alarm the rapid growth of
-the crowd around her. It filled up the street in all directions, and
-condensed into a solid mass on the Treasury steps, very soon absorbing
-the modest amount of space that she had hoped to reserve for her
-sisters. In much less than half-an-hour she was so hopelessly wedged
-in her place that, tall and strong as she was, she was almost lifted
-off her feet; and there was no prospect of restoring communications
-with Patty and Eleanor until the show was over. In a fever of anxiety,
-bitterly regretting that she had consented to part from them, she kept
-her eyes turned towards the gate of the Gardens, whence she expected
-them to emerge; and then she saw, presently, the figure of their good
-genius and deliverer from all dilemmas, Paul Brion, fighting his way
-towards her. The little man pursued an energetic course through the
-crowd, which almost covered him, hurling himself along with a velocity
-that was out of all proportion to his bulk; and from time to time she
-saw his quick eyes flashing over other people's shoulders, and that he
-was looking eagerly in all directions. It seemed hopeless to expect him
-to distinguish her in the sea of faces around him, but he did. Sunk in
-the human tide that rose in the street above the level of his head,
-he made desperately for a footing on a higher plane, and in so doing
-caught sight of her and battled his way to her side. "Oh, _here_ you
-are!" he exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "I have been so anxious about
-you. But where is Miss Patty? Where are your sisters?"
-
-"Oh, Mr. Brion," she responded, "you always seem to turn up to help us
-as soon as we get into trouble, and I am _so_ thankful to see you! The
-girls had to go home for something, and were to meet me here, and I
-don't know what will become of them in this crowd."
-
-"Which way were they to come?" he inquired eagerly.
-
-"By the Gardens. But the gates are completely blocked."
-
-"I will go and find them," he said. "Don't be anxious about them. They
-will be in there--they will be all right. You will come too, won't you?
-I think I can manage to get you through."
-
-"I can't," she replied. "I promised I would not stir from this place,
-and I must not, in case they should be in the street, or we should miss
-them."
-
-"'The boy stood on the burning deck,'" he quoted, with a laugh. He
-could afford a little jest, though she was so serious, for he was happy
-in the conviction that the girls had been unable to reach the street,
-that he should find them disconsolate in the gardens, and compel Miss
-Patty to feel, if not to acknowledge, that he was of some use and
-comfort to her, after all. "But I hate to leave you here," he added,
-glaring upon her uncomfortable but inoffensive neighbours, "all alone
-by yourself."
-
-"Oh, don't mind me," said Elizabeth, cheerfully. "If you can only find
-Patty and Nelly, and be so good as to take care of them, _I_ shall be
-all right."
-
-And so, with apparent reluctance, but the utmost real alacrity, he left
-her, flinging himself from the steps into the crowd like a swimmer
-diving into the sea, and she saw him disappear with an easy mind.
-
-Then began the tramp of the procession, first in sections, then in
-imposing columns, with bands playing, and flags flying, and horses
-prancing, and the people shouting and cheering as it went by. There
-were the smart men of the Naval Reserve and the sailors of the
-warships--English and French, German and Italian, eight or nine hundred
-strong--with their merry buglers in the midst of them; and there were
-the troops of the military, with their music and accoutrements; and all
-the long procession of the trades' associations, and the fire brigades,
-with the drubbing of drums and the blare of trumpets and the shrill
-whistle of innumerable fifes accompanying their triumphal progress.
-And by-and-bye the boom of the saluting guns from the Prince's Bridge
-battery, and the seven carriages from Government House rolling slowly
-up the street and round the corner, with their dashing cavalry escort,
-amid the lusty cheers of Her Majesty's loyal subjects on the line of
-route assembled.
-
-But long before the Queen's representative made his appearance upon
-the scene, Elizabeth had ceased to see or care for the great spectacle
-that she had been so anxious to witness. Moment by moment the crowd
-about her grew more dense and dogged, more pitilessly indifferent to
-the comfort of one another, more evidently minded that the fittest
-should survive in the fight for existence on the Treasury steps. Rough
-men pushed her forward and backward, and from side to side, treading
-on her feet, and tearing the stitches of her gown, and knocking her
-bonnet awry, until she felt bruised and sick with the buffetings that
-she got, and the keen consciousness of the indignity of her position.
-She could scarcely breathe for the pressure around her, though the
-breath of all sorts of unpleasant people was freely poured into her
-face. She would have struggled away and gone home--convinced of the
-comforting fact that Patty and Eleanor were safely out of it in Paul
-Brion's protection--but she could not stir an inch by her own volition.
-When she did stir it was by some violent propelling power in another
-person, and this was exercised presently in such a way as to completely
-overbalance her. A sudden wave of movement broke against a stout
-woman standing immediately behind her, and the stout woman, quite
-unintentionally, pushed her to the edge of the step, and flung her upon
-the shoulder of a brawny larrikin who had fought his way backwards and
-upwards into a position whence he could see the pageant of the street
-to his satisfaction. The larrikin half turned, struck her savagely
-in the breast with his elbow, demanding, with a roar and an oath,
-where she was a-shoving to; and between her two assailants, faint and
-frightened, she lost her footing, and all but fell headlong into the
-seething mass beneath her.
-
-But as she was falling--a moment so agonising at the time, and so
-delightful to remember afterwards--some one caught her round the waist
-with a strong grip, and lifted her up, and set her safely on her feet
-again. It was a man who had been standing within a little distance of
-her, tall enough to overtop the crowd, and strong enough to maintain an
-upright position in it; she had noticed him for some time, and that he
-had seemed not seriously incommoded by the bustling and scuffling that
-rendered her so helpless; but she had not noticed his gradual approach
-to her side. Now, looking up with a little sob of relief, her instant
-recognition of him as a gentleman was followed by an instinctive
-identification of him as a sort of Cinderella's prince.
-
-In short, there is no need to make a mystery of the matter. At
-half-past ten o'clock in the morning of the first of October in the
-year 1880, when she was plunged into the most wretched and terrifying
-circumstances of her life--at the instant when she was struck by the
-larrikin's elbow and felt herself about to be crushed under the feet of
-the crowd--Elizabeth King met her happy fate. She found that friend for
-whom, hungrily if unconsciously, her tender heart had longed.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.
-
-
-"WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED."
-
-
-"Stand here, and I can shelter you a little," he said, in a quiet tone
-that contrasted refreshingly with the hoarse excitement around them.
-He drew her close to his side by the same grip of her waist that had
-lifted her bodily when she was off her feet, and, immediately releasing
-her, stretched a strong left arm between her exposed shoulder and the
-crush of the crowd. The arm was irresistibly pressed upon her own
-arm, and bent across her in a curve that was neither more nor less
-than a vehement embrace, and so she stood in a condition of delicious
-astonishment, one tingling blush from head to foot. It would have been
-horrible had it been anyone else.
-
-"I am so sorry," he said, "but I cannot help it. If you don't mind
-standing as you are for a few minutes, you will be all right directly.
-As soon as the procession has passed the crowd will scatter to follow
-it."
-
-They looked at each other across a space of half-a-dozen inches or
-so, and in that momentary glance, upon which everything that mutually
-concerned them depended, were severally relieved and satisfied. He was
-not handsome--he had even a reputation for ugliness; but there are
-some kinds of ugliness that are practically handsomer than many kinds
-of beauty, and his was of that sort. He had a leathery, sun-dried,
-weather-beaten, whiskerless, red moustached face, and he had a
-roughly-moulded, broad-based, ostentatious nose; his mouth was large,
-and his light grey eyes deeply set and small. Yet it was a strikingly
-distinguished and attractive face, and Elizabeth fell in love with it
-there and then. Similarly, her face, at once modest and candid, was an
-open book to his experienced glance, and provisionally delighted him.
-He was as glad as she was that fate had selected him to deliver her in
-her moment of peril, out of the many who might have held out a helping
-hand to her and did not.
-
-"I am afraid you cannot see very well," he remarked presently. There
-were sounds in the distance that indicated the approach of the
-vice-regal carriages, and people were craning their necks over each
-other's shoulders and standing on tiptoe to catch the first glimpse of
-them. Just in front of her the exuberant larrikin was making himself as
-tall as possible.
-
-"Oh, thank you--I don't want to see," she replied hastily.
-
-"But that was what you came here for--like the rest of us--wasn't it?"
-
-"I did not know what I was coming for," she said, desperately,
-determined to set herself right in his eyes. "I never saw anything like
-this before--I was never in a crowd--I did not know what it was like."
-
-"Some one should have told you, then."
-
-"We have not any one belonging to us to tell us things."
-
-"Indeed?"
-
-"My sisters and I have lived in the bush always, until now. We have no
-parents. We have not seen much yet. We came out this morning, thinking
-we could stand together in a corner and look on quietly--we did not
-expect this."
-
-"And your sisters--?"
-
-"They went home again. They are all right, I hope."
-
-"And left you here alone?"
-
-Elizabeth explained the state of the case more fully, and by the time
-she had done so the Governors' carriages were in sight. The people
-were shouting and cheering; the larrikin was dancing up and down in
-his hob-nailed boots, and bumping heavily upon the arm that shielded
-her. Shrinking from him, she drew her feet back another inch or two;
-upon which the right arm as well as the left was firmly folded round
-her. And the pressure of those two arms, stretched like iron bars to
-defend her from harm, the throbbing of his heart upon her shoulder, the
-sound of his deep-chested breathing in her ear--no consideration of
-the involuntary and unromantic necessity of the situation could calm
-the tremulous excitement communicated to her by these things. Oh, how
-hideous, how simply insupportable it would have been, had she been thus
-cast upon another breast and into other arms than HIS! As it was, it
-was all right. He said he feared she was terribly uncomfortable, but,
-though she did not contradict him, she felt in the secret depths of her
-primitive soul that she had never been more comfortable. To be cared
-for and protected was a new sensation, and, though she had had to bear
-anxious responsibilities for herself and others, she had no natural
-vocation for independence. Many a time since have they spoken of this
-first half hour with pride, boasting of how they trusted each other at
-sight, needing no proofs from experience like other people--a foolish
-boast, for they were but a man and woman, and not gods. "I took you to
-my heart the first moment I saw you," he says. "And I knew, even as
-soon as that, that it was my own place," she calmly replies. Whereas
-good luck, and not their own wisdom, justified them.
-
-He spoke to her with studied coldness while necessarily holding her
-embraced, as it were, to protect her from the crowd; at the same
-time he put himself to some trouble to make conversation, which was
-less embarrassing to her than silence. He remarked that he was fond
-of crowds himself--found them intensely interesting--and spoke of
-Thackeray's paper on the crowd that went to see the man hanged (which
-she had never read) as illustrating the kind of interest he meant.
-He had lately seen the crowd at the opening of the Trocadero Palace,
-and that which celebrated the completion of Cologne Cathedral; facts
-which proclaimed him a "globe-trotter" and new arrival in Melbourne.
-The few words in which he described the festival at Cologne fired her
-imagination, fed so long upon dreams of foreign travel, and made her
-forget for the moment that he was not an old acquaintance.
-
-"It was at about this hour of the day," he said, "and I stood with the
-throng in the streets, as I am doing now. They put the last stone on
-the top of the cross on one of the towers more than six hundred years
-after the foundation stone was laid. The people were wild with joy, and
-hung out their flags all over the place. One old fellow came up to me
-and wanted to kiss me--he thought I must be as overcome as he was."
-
-"And were you not impressed?"
-
-"Of course I was. It was very pathetic," he replied, gently. And she
-thought "pathetic" an odd word to use. Why pathetic? She did not like
-to ask him. Then he made the further curious statement that this crowd
-was the tamest he had ever seen.
-
-"_I_ don't call it tame," she said, with a laugh, as the yells of the
-larrikin and his fellows rent the air around them.
-
-He responded to her laugh with a pleasant smile, and his voice was
-friendlier when he spoke again. "But I am quite delighted with it,
-unimpressive as it is. It is composed of people who are not _wanting
-anything_. I don't know that I was ever in a crowd of that sort before.
-I feel, for once, that I can breathe in peace."
-
-"Oh, I wish I could feel so!" she cried. The carriages, in their slow
-progress, were now turning at the top of Collins Street, and the hubbub
-around them had reached its height.
-
-"It will soon be over now," he murmured encouragingly.
-
-"Yes," she replied. In a few minutes the crush would lessen, and he
-and she would part. That was what they thought, to the exclusion of all
-interest in the passing spectacle. Even as she spoke, the noise and
-confusion that had made a solitude for their quiet intercourse sensibly
-subsided. The tail of the procession was well in sight; the heaving
-crowd on the Treasury steps was swaying and breaking like a huge wave
-upon the street; the larrikin was gone. It was time for the unknown
-gentleman to resume the conventional attitude, and for Elizabeth to
-remember that he was a total stranger to her.
-
-"You had better take my arm," he said, as she hastily disengaged
-herself before it was safe to do so, and was immediately caught in the
-eddy that was setting strongly in the direction of the Exhibition. "If
-you don't mind waiting here for a few minutes longer, you will be able
-to get home comfortably."
-
-She struggled back to his side, and took his arm, and waited; but they
-did not talk any more. They watched the disintegration and dispersion
-of the great mass that had hemmed them in together, until at last they
-stood in ease and freedom almost alone upon that coign of vantage which
-had been won with so much difficulty--two rather imposing figures,
-if anyone had cared to notice them. Then she withdrew her hand, and
-said, with a little stiff bow and a bright and becoming colour in her
-face--"_Thank_ you."
-
-"Don't mention it," he replied, with perfect gravity. "I am very happy
-to have been of any service to you."
-
-Still they did not move from where they stood.
-
-"Don't you want to see the rest of it?" she asked timidly.
-
-"Do you?" he responded, looking at her with a smile.
-
-"O dear no, thank you! I have had quite enough, and I am very anxious
-to find my sisters."
-
-"Then allow me to be your escort until you are clear of the streets."
-He did not put it as a request, and he began to descend the steps
-before she could make up her mind how to answer him. So she found
-herself walking beside him along the footpath and through the Gardens,
-wondering who he was, and how she could politely dismiss him--or how
-soon he would dismiss her. Now and then she snatched a sidelong glance
-at him, and noted his great stature and the easy dignity with which he
-carried himself, and transferred one by one the striking features of
-his countenance to her faithful memory. He made a powerful impression
-upon her. Thinking of him, she had almost forgotten how anxious she
-was to find her sisters until, with a start, she suddenly caught sight
-of them sitting comfortably on a bench in an alley of the Fitzroy
-Gardens, Eleanor and Patty side by side, and Paul Brion on the other
-side of Eleanor. The three sprang up as soon as they saw her coming,
-with gestures of eager welcome.
-
-"Ah!" said Elizabeth, her face flaming with an entirely unnecessary
-blush, "there are my sisters. I--I am all right now. I need not trouble
-you any further. Thank you very much."
-
-She paused, and so did he. She bent her head without lifting her eyes,
-and he took off his hat to her with profound respect. And so they
-parted--for a little while.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII.
-
-
-AFTERNOON TEA.
-
-
-When he had turned and left her, Elizabeth faced her sisters with
-that vivid blush still on her cheeks, and a general appearance of
-embarrassment that was too novel to escape notice. Patty and Eleanor
-stared for a moment, and Eleanor laughed.
-
-"Who is he?" she inquired saucily.
-
-"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "Where have you been, dears? How have
-you got on? I have been so anxious about you."
-
-"But who is he?" persisted Eleanor.
-
-"I have not the least idea, I tell you. Perhaps Mr. Brion knows."
-
-"No," said Mr. Brion. "He is a perfect stranger to me."
-
-"He is a new arrival, I suppose," said Elizabeth, stealing a backward
-glance at her hero, whom the others were watching intently as he walked
-away. "Yes, he can have but just arrived, for he saw the last stone put
-to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and that was not more than six or
-seven weeks ago. He has come out to see the Exhibition, probably. He
-seems to be a great traveller."
-
-"Oh," said Eleanor, turning with a grimace to Patty, "here have we been
-mooning about in the gardens, and she has been seeing everything, and
-having adventures into the bargain!"
-
-"It is very little I have seen," her elder sister remarked, "and this
-will tell you the nature of my adventures"--and she showed them a rent
-in her gown. "I was nearly torn to pieces by the crowd after you left.
-I am only too thankful you were out of it."
-
-"But we are not at all thankful," pouted Eleanor. "Are we, Patty?"
-(Patty was silent, but apparently amiable.) "It is only the stitching
-that is undone--you can mend it in five minutes. We wouldn't have
-minded little trifles of that sort--not in the least--to have seen the
-procession, and made the acquaintance of distinguished travellers. Were
-there many more of them about, do you suppose?"
-
-"O no," replied Elizabeth, promptly. "Only he."
-
-"And you managed to find him! Why shouldn't we have found him
-too--Patty and I? Do tell us his name, Elizabeth, and how you happened
-on him, and what he has been saying and doing."
-
-"He took care of me, dear--that's all. I was crushed almost into a
-pulp, and he allowed me to--to stand beside him until the worst of it
-was over."
-
-"How interesting!" ejaculated Eleanor. "And then he talked to you about
-Cologne Cathedral?"
-
-"Yes. But never mind about him. Tell me where Mr. Brion found you, and
-what you have been doing."
-
-"Oh, _we_ have not been doing anything--far from it. I _wish_ you knew
-his name, Elizabeth."
-
-"But, my dear, I don't. So leave off asking silly questions. I daresay
-we shall never see or hear of him again."
-
-"Oh, don't you believe it! I'm _certain_ we shall see him again. He
-will be at the Exhibition some day when we go there--to-morrow, very
-likely."
-
-"Well, well, never mind. What are we going to do now?"
-
-They consulted with Paul for a few minutes, and he took them where they
-could get a distant view of the crowds swarming around the Exhibition,
-and hear the confused clamour of the bands--which seemed to gratify
-the two younger sisters very much, in the absence of more pronounced
-excitement. They walked about until they saw the Royal Standard hoisted
-over the great dome, and heard the saluting guns proclaim that the
-Exhibition was open; and then they returned to Myrtle Street, with a
-sense of having had breakfast in the remote past, and of having spent
-an enormously long morning not unpleasantly, upon the whole.
-
-Mrs. M'Intyre was standing at her gate when they reached home, and
-stopped them to ask what they had seen, and how they had enjoyed
-themselves. _She_ had stayed quietly in the house, and busied herself
-in the manufacture of meringues and lemon cheese-cakes--having, she
-explained, superfluous eggs in the larder, and a new lodger coming in;
-and she evidently prided herself upon her well-spent time. "And if
-you'll stay, you shall have some," she said, and she opened the gate
-hospitably. "Now, don't say no, Miss King--don't, Miss Nelly. It's past
-one, and I've got a nice cutlet and mashed potatoes just coming on the
-table. Bring them along, Mr. Brion. I'm sure they'll come if _you_ ask
-them."
-
-"We'll come without that," said Eleanor, walking boldly in. "At least,
-I will. _I_ couldn't resist cutlets and mashed potatoes under present
-circumstances--not to speak of lemon cheese-cakes and meringues--and
-your society, Mrs. M'Intyre."
-
-Paul held the gate open, and Elizabeth followed Eleanor, and Patty
-followed Elizabeth. Patty did not look at him, but she was in a
-peaceable disposition; seeing which, he felt happier than he had been
-for months. They lunched together, with much enjoyment of the viands
-placed before them, and of each other's company, feeling distinctly
-that, however small had been their share in the demonstrations of the
-day, the festival spirit was with them; and when they rose from the
-table there was an obvious reluctance to separate.
-
-"Now, I'll tell you what," said Eleanor; "we have had dinner with you,
-Mrs. M'Intyre, and now you ought to come and have afternoon tea with
-us. You have not been in to see us for _years_."
-
-She looked at Elizabeth, who hastened to endorse the invitation, and
-Mrs. M'Intyre consented to think about it.
-
-"And may not I come too?" pleaded Paul, not daring to glance at his
-little mistress, but appealing fervently to Elizabeth. "Mayn't I come
-with Mrs. M'Intyre for a cup of tea, too?"
-
-"Of course you may," said Elizabeth, and Eleanor nodded acquiescence,
-and Patty gazed serenely out of the window. "Go and have your smoke
-comfortably, and come in in about an hour."
-
-With which the sisters left, and, as soon as they reached their
-own quarters, set to work with something like enthusiasm to make
-preparations for their expected guests. Before the hour was up, a
-bright fire was blazing in their sitting-room, and a little table
-beside it was spread comfortably with a snow-white cloth, and twinkling
-crockery and spoons. The kettle was singing on the hearth, and a
-plate of buttered muffins reposed under a napkin in the fender. The
-window was open; so was the piano. Patty was flying from place to
-place, with a duster in her hand, changing the position of the chairs,
-and polishing the spotless surfaces of the furniture generally, with
-anxious industry. _She_ had not asked Paul Brion to come to see them,
-but since he was coming they might as well have the place decent, she
-said.
-
-When he came at last meekly creeping upstairs at Mrs. M'Intyre's heels,
-Patty was nowhere to be seen. He looked all round as he crossed the
-threshold, and took in the delicate air of cheerfulness, the almost
-austere simplicity and orderliness that characterised the little room,
-and made it quite different from any room he had ever seen; and then
-his heart sank, and a cloud of disappointment fell over his eager face.
-He braced himself to bear it. He made up his mind at once that he
-had had his share of luck for that day, and must not expect anything
-more. However, some minutes later, when Mrs. M'Intyre had made herself
-comfortable by unhooking her jacket, and untying her bonnet strings,
-and when Elizabeth was preparing to pour out the tea, Patty sauntered
-in with some needlework in her hand--stitching as she walked--and took
-a retired seat by the window. He seized upon a cup of tea and carried
-it to her, and stood there as if to secure her before she could escape
-again. As he approached she bent her head lower over her work, and
-a little colour stole into her face; and then she lifted herself up
-defiantly.
-
-"Here is your tea, Miss Patty," he said, humbly.
-
-"Thanks. Just put it down there, will you?"
-
-She nodded towards a chair near her, and he set the cup down on it
-carefully. But he did not go.
-
-"You are very busy," he remarked.
-
-"Yes," she replied, shortly. "I have wasted all the morning. Now I must
-try to make up for it."
-
-"Are you too busy to play something--presently, I mean, when you have
-had your tea? I must go and work too, directly. I should so enjoy to
-hear you play before I go."
-
-She laid her sewing on her knee, reached for her cup, and began to
-sip it with a relenting face. She asked him what kind of music he
-preferred, and he said he didn't care, but he thought he liked "soft
-things" best. "There was a thing you played last Sunday night," he
-suggested; "quite late, just before you went to bed. It has been
-running in my head ever since."
-
-She balanced her teaspoon in her hand, and puckered her brows
-thoughtfully. "Let me think--what was I playing on Sunday night?" she
-murmured to herself. "It must have been one of the _Lieder_ surely--or,
-perhaps, a Beethoven sonata? Or Batiste's andante in G perhaps?"
-
-"Oh, I don't know the name of anything. I only remember that it was
-very lovely and sad."
-
-"But we shouldn't play sad things in the broad daylight, when people
-want to gossip over their tea," she said, glancing at Mrs. M'Intyre,
-who was energetically describing to Elizabeth the only proper way of
-making tomato sauce. But she got up, all the same, and went over to the
-piano, and began to play the andante just above a whisper, caressing
-the soft pedal with her foot.
-
-"Was that it?" she asked gently, smiling at him as he drew up a low
-wicker chair and sat down at her elbow to listen.
-
-"Go on," he murmured gratefully. "It was _like_ that."
-
-And she went on--while Mrs. M'Intyre, having concluded her remarks upon
-tomato sauce, detailed the results of her wide experience in orange
-marmalade and quince jelly, and Elizabeth and Eleanor did their best
-to profit by her wisdom--playing to him alone. It did not last very
-long--a quarter of an hour perhaps--but every moment was an ecstasy
-to Paul Brion. Even more than the music, delicious as it was, Patty's
-gentle and approachable mood enchanted him. She had never been like
-that to him before. He sat on his low chair, and looked up at her
-tender profile as she drooped a little over the keys, throbbing with
-a new sense of her sweetness and beauty, and learning more about his
-own heart in those few minutes than all the previous weeks and months
-of their acquaintance had taught him. And then the spell that had been
-weaving and winding them together, as it seemed to him, was suddenly
-and rudely broken. There was a clatter of wheels and hoofs along the
-street, a swinging gate and a jangling door bell; and Eleanor, running
-to the window, uttered an exclamation that effectually wakened him from
-his dreams.
-
-"Oh, _Elizabeth--Patty--_it is Mrs. Duff-Scott!"
-
-In another minute the great lady herself stood amongst them, rustling
-over the matting in her splendid gown, almost filling the little room
-with her presence. Mrs. M'Intyre gave way before her, and edged towards
-the door with modest, deprecatory movements, but Paul stood where
-he had risen, as stiff as a poker, and glared at her with murderous
-ferocity.
-
-"You see I have come back, my dears," she exclaimed, cordially, kissing
-the girls one after the other. "And I am so sorry I could not get to
-you in time to make arrangements for taking you with me to see the
-opening--I quite intended to take you. But I only returned last night."
-
-"Oh, thank you," responded Elizabeth, with warm gratitude, "it is treat
-enough for us to see you again." And then, hesitating a little as she
-wondered whether it was or was not a proper thing to do, she looked at
-her other guests and murmured their names. Upon which Mrs. M'Intyre
-made a servile curtsey, unworthy of a daughter of a free country, and
-Paul a most reluctant inclination of the head. To which again Mrs.
-Duff-Scott responded by a slight nod and a glance of good-humoured
-curiosity at them both.
-
-"I'll say good afternoon, Miss King," said Mr. Brion haughtily.
-
-"Oh, _good_ afternoon," replied Elizabeth, smiling sweetly. And she and
-her sisters shook hands with him and with his landlady, and the pair
-departed in some haste, Paul in a worse temper than he had ever known
-himself to indulge in; and he was not much mollified by the sudden
-appearance of Elizabeth, as he was fumbling with the handle of the
-front door, bearing her evident if unspoken apologies for having seemed
-to turn him out.
-
-"You will come with Mrs. M'Intyre another time," she suggested kindly,
-"and have some more music? I would have asked you to stay longer
-to-day, but we haven't seen Mrs. Duff-Scott for such a long time--"
-
-"Oh, pray don't mention it," he interrupted stiffly. "I should have had
-to leave in any case, for my work is all behind-hand."
-
-"Ah, that is because we have been wasting your time!"
-
-"Not at all. I am only too happy to be of use--in the absence of your
-other friends."
-
-She would not notice this little sneer, but said good-bye and turned
-to walk upstairs. Paul, ashamed of himself, made an effort to detain
-her. "Is there anything I can do for you, Miss King?" he asked, gruffly
-indeed, but with an appeal for forbearance in his eyes. "Do you want
-your books changed or anything?"
-
-She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, and thought for a moment;
-and then she said, dropping her eyes, "I--I think _you_ have a book
-that I should like to borrow--if I might."
-
-"Most happy. What book is it?"
-
-"It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete
-edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present.
-I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about
-a man being hanged--and a crowd--" She broke off with an embarrassed
-laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded.
-
-"You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled
-'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches'--"
-
-"That is the book I mean."
-
-"All right--I'll get it and send it in to you at once--with pleasure."
-
-"Oh, _thank_ you. I'm _so_ much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest
-care of it," she assured him fervently.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII.
-
-
-THE FAIRY GODMOTHER.
-
-
-Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying
-to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father
-was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been
-inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere
-accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions
-upon the subject.
-
-"Don't encourage him, my dears--don't encourage him to come again," she
-was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two
-very different people, whatever they may think."
-
-"We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has
-done so much for us."
-
-"Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls _can't_ be grateful to young
-men--don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got
-_me_ to do things for you."
-
-"But he helped us when we had no one else."
-
-"Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him--a
-privilege--for _him_ to be grateful for rather than you. But--well,
-Elizabeth knows what I mean"--turning an expressive glance towards the
-discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and
-Elizabeth answered both of them at once.
-
-"You must not ask us to give up Paul Brion," she said, promptly.
-
-"I don't," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. "I only ask you to keep him in his
-place. He is not the kind of person to indulge with tea and music, you
-know--that is what I mean."
-
-"You speak as if you knew something against him," murmured Patty, with
-heightened colour.
-
-"I know this much, my dear," replied the elder woman, gravely; "he is
-_a friend of Mrs. Aarons's_."
-
-"And is not Mrs. Aarons--"
-
-"She is very well, in her way. But she likes to have men dangling about
-her. She means no harm, I am sure," added Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, in
-the matter of scandal, prided herself on being a non-conductor, "but
-still it is not nice, you know. And I don't think that her men friends
-are the kind of friends for you. You don't mind my speaking frankly,
-my love? I am an old woman, you know, and I have had a great deal of
-experience."
-
-She was assured that they did not mind it, but were, on the contrary,
-indebted to her for her good advice. And the subject of Paul Brion was
-dropped. Patty was effectually silenced by that unexpected reference
-to Mrs. Aarons, and by the rush of recollections, embracing him and
-her together, which suddenly gave form and colour to the horrible
-idea of him as a victim to a married woman's fascinations. She turned
-away abruptly, with a painful blush that not only crimsoned her from
-throat to temples, but seemed to make her tingle to her toes; and,
-like the headlong and pitiless young zealot that she was, determined
-to thrust him out for ever from the sacred precincts of her regard.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was satisfied too. She was always sure of her own power
-to speak plainly without giving offence, and she found it absolutely
-necessary to protect these ingenuous maidens from their own ignorance.
-Needless to say that, since she had adopted them into her social
-circle, she had laid plans for their ultimate settlement therein. In
-her impulsive benevolence she had even gone the length of marking
-down the three husbands whom she considered respectively appropriate
-to the requirements of the case, and promised herself a great deal of
-interest and pleasure in the vicarious pursuit of them through the
-ensuing season. Wherefore she was much relieved to have come across
-this obscure writer for the press, and to have had the good chance, at
-the outset of her campaign, to counteract his possibly antagonistic
-influence. She knew her girls quite well enough to make sure that her
-hint would take its full effect.
-
-She leaned back in her chair comfortably, and drew off her gloves,
-while they put fresh tea in the teapot, and cut her thin shavings of
-bread and butter; and she sat with them until six o'clock, gossiping
-pleasantly. After giving them a history of the morning's ceremonies,
-as witnessed by the Government's invited guests inside the Exhibition
-building, she launched into hospitable schemes for their enjoyment of
-the gay time that had set in. "Now that I am come back," she said, "I
-shall take care that you shall go out and see everything there is to be
-seen. You have never had such a chance to learn something of the world,
-and I can't allow you to neglect it."
-
-"Dear Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Elizabeth, "we have already been indulging
-ourselves too much, I am afraid. We have done no reading--at least none
-worth doing--for days. We are getting all behind-hand. The whole of
-yesterday and all this morning--"
-
-"What did you do this morning?" Mrs. Duff-Scott interrupted quickly.
-
-They gave her a sketch of their adventures, merely suppressing
-the incident of the elder sister's encounter with the mysterious
-person whom the younger ones had begun to style "Elizabeth's young
-man"--though why they suppressed that none of them could have explained.
-
-"Very well," was her comment upon the little narrative, which told her
-far more than it told them. "That shows you that I am right. There are
-a great many things for you to learn that all the books in the Public
-Library could not teach you. Take my advice, and give up literary
-studies for a little while. Give them up altogether, and come and learn
-what the world and your fellow-creatures are made of. Make a school of
-the Exhibition while it lasts, and let me give you lessons in--a--what
-shall I call it--social science?--the study of human nature?"
-
-Nothing could be more charming than to have lessons from her, they told
-her; and they had intended to go to school to the Exhibition as often
-as they could. But--but their literary studies were their equipment for
-the larger and fuller life that they looked forward to in the great
-world beyond the seas. Perhaps she did not understand that?
-
-"I understand this, my dears," the matron replied, with energy. "There
-is no greater mistake in life than to sacrifice the substance of the
-present for the shadow of the future. We most of us do it--until we
-get old--and then we look back to see how foolish and wasteful we
-have been, and that is not much comfort to us. What we've got, we've
-got; what we are going to have nobody can tell. Lay in all the store
-you can, of course--take all reasonable precautions to insure as
-satisfactory a future as possible--but don't forget that the Present is
-the great time, the most important stage of your existence, no matter
-what your circumstances may be."
-
-The girls listened to her thoughtfully, allowing that she might be
-right, but suspending their judgment in the matter. They were all too
-young to be convinced by another person's experience.
-
-"You let Europe take care of itself for a bit," their friend proceeded,
-"and come out and see what Australia in holiday time is like, and what
-the fleeting hour will give you. I will fetch you to-morrow for a long
-day at the Exhibition to begin with, and then I'll--I'll--" She broke
-off and looked from one to another with an unwonted and surprising
-embarrassment, and then went on impetuously.
-
-"My dears, I don't know how to put it so as not to hurt or burden you,
-but you won't misunderstand me if I express myself awkwardly--you
-won't have any of that absurd conventional pride about not being
-under obligations--it is a selfish feeling, a want of trust and true
-generosity, when it is the case of a friend who--" She stammered and
-hesitated, this self-possessed empress of a woman, and was obviously at
-a loss for words wherein to give her meaning. Elizabeth, seeing what it
-was that she wanted to say, sank on her knees before her, and took her
-hands and kissed them. But over her sister's bent head Patty stood up
-stiffly, with a burning colour in her face. Mrs. Duff-Scott, absently
-fondling Elizabeth, addressed herself to Patty when she spoke again.
-
-"As an ordinary rule," she said, "one should not accept things
-from another who is not a relation--I know that. _Not_ because it
-is improper--it ought to be the most proper thing in the world for
-people to help each other--but because in so many cases it can never
-happen without bitter mortifications afterwards. People are so--so
-superficial? But I--Patty, dear, I am an old woman, and I have a great
-deal of money, and I have no children; and I have never been able to
-fill the great gap where the children should be with music and china,
-or any interest of that sort. And you are alone in the world, and I
-have taken a fancy to you--I have grown _fond_ of you--and I have
-made a little plan for having you about me, to be a sort of adopted
-daughters for whom I could feel free to do little motherly things in
-return for your love and confidence in me. You will indulge me, and let
-me have my way, won't you? It will be doing more for me, I am sure,
-than I could do for you."
-
-"O no--no--_no!_" said Patty, with a deep breath, but stretching her
-hands with deprecating tenderness towards their guest. "You would
-do everything for us, and we _could_ do nothing for you. You would
-overwhelm us! And not only that; perhaps--perhaps, by-and-bye, you
-would not care about us so much as you do now--we might want to do
-something that you didn't like, something we felt ourselves _obliged_
-to do, however much you disliked it--and if you got vexed with us, or
-tired of us--oh, think what that would be! Think how you would regret
-that you had--had--made us seem to belong to you. And how we should
-hate ourselves."
-
-She looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott with a world of ardent apology in her
-eyes, before which the matron's fell, discouraged and displeased.
-
-"You make me feel that I am an impulsive and romantic girl, and that
-_you_ are the wise old woman of the world," she said with a proud sigh.
-
-But at this, Patty, pierced to the heart, flung her arms round Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's neck, and crushed the most beautiful bonnet in Melbourne
-remorselessly out of shape against her young breast. That settled the
-question, for all practical purposes. Mrs. Duff-Scott went home at six
-o'clock, feeling that she had achieved her purpose, and entered into
-some of the dear privileges of maternity. It was more delightful than
-any "find" of old china. She did not go to sleep until she had talked
-both her husband and herself into a headache with her numerous plans
-for the welfare of her _protégées_, and until she had designed down to
-the smallest detail the most becoming costumes she could think of for
-them to wear, when she took them with her to the Cup.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX.
-
-
-A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION.
-
-
-Paul Brion was wakened from his sleep next morning by the sound of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's carriage wheels and prancing horses, and sauntering to
-his sitting-room window about ten minutes later, had the satisfaction
-of seeing his young neighbours step into the distinguished vehicle and
-drive away. There was Elizabeth reposing by her chaperon's side, as
-serene as a princess who had never set foot on common earth; and there
-were Patty and Eleanor, smiling and animated, lovelier than their wont,
-if that could be, nestling under the shadow of two tall men-servants
-in irreproachable liveries, with cockades upon their hats. It was a
-pretty sight, but it spoiled his appetite for his breakfast. He could
-no longer pretend that he was thankful for the fruition of his desires
-on their behalf. He could only feel that they were gone, and that he
-was left behind--that a great gulf had suddenly opened between them and
-him and the humble and happy circumstances of yesterday, with no bridge
-across it that he could walk over.
-
-The girls, for their part, practically forgot him, and enjoyed the
-difference between to-day and yesterday in the most worldly and
-womanly manner. The sensation of bowling along the streets in a
-perfectly-appointed carriage was as delicious to them as it is to most
-of us who are too poor to indulge in it as a habit; for the time being
-it answered all the purposes of happiness as thoroughly as if they had
-never had any higher ambition than to cut a dash. They went shopping
-with the fairy godmother before they went to the Exhibition, and that,
-too, was absorbingly delightful--both to Elizabeth, who went in with
-Mrs. Duff-Scott to assist her in her purchases, and to the younger
-sisters, who reposed majestically in the carriage at the door. Patty's
-quick eyes caught sight of Mrs. Aarons and a pair of her long-nosed
-children walking on the pavement, and she cheerfully owned herself a
-snob and gloried in it. It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, she said,
-to sit there and look down upon Mrs. Aarons.
-
-As they passed the Melbourne Club on their way to the Exhibition, the
-coachman was hailed by the elder of two gentlemen who were sauntering
-down the steps, and they were introduced for the first time to the
-fairy godmother's husband. Major Duff-Scott, an ex-officer of dragoons
-and a late prominent public man of his colony (he was prominent
-still, but for his social, and not his official qualifications), was
-a well-dressed and well-preserved old gentleman, who, having sown a
-large and miscellaneous crop of wild oats in the course of a long
-career, had been rewarded with great wealth and all the privileges
-of the highest respectability. He had been a prodigal, but he had
-enjoyed it--never knowing the bitterness of either hunger or husks.
-He had tasted dry bread at times, as a matter of course, but only
-just enough of it to give a proper relish to the abundant cakes and
-ale that were his portion; and the proverb which says you cannot eat
-your cake and have it was a perfectly dead letter in his case. He had
-been eating his all his life, and he had got it still. In person he
-was the most gentle-looking little man imaginable--about half the size
-of his imposing wife, thin and spare, and with a little stoop in his
-shoulders; but there was an alertness in his step and a brightness in
-his eye, twinkling remotely between the shadow of his hat brim and a
-bulging mass of white moustache that covered all the lower part of
-his small face, which had suggestions of youth and vigour about them
-that were lacking in the figure and physiognomy of the young man at
-his side. When he came up to the carriage door to be introduced to his
-wife's _protégées_, whom he greeted with as much cordiality as Mrs.
-Duff-Scott could have desired, they did not know why it was that they
-so immediately lost the sense of awe with which they had contemplated
-the approach of a person destined to have so formidable a relation to
-themselves. They shook hands with him, they made modest replies to his
-polite inquiries, they looked beyond his ostensible person to the eyes
-that looked at them; and then their three grave faces relaxed, and in
-half a minute were brimming over with smiles. They felt at home with
-Major Duff-Scott at once.
-
-"Come, come," said the fairy godmother rather impatiently, when
-something like a fine aroma of badinage was beginning to perfume
-the conversation, "you must not stop us now. We want to have a long
-morning. You can join us at the Exhibition presently, if you like,
-and bring Mr. Westmoreland." She indicated the young man who had
-been talking to her while her spouse made the acquaintance of her
-companions, and who happened to be one of the three husbands whom she
-had selected for those young ladies. He was the richest of them all,
-and the most stupid, and therefore he seemed to be cut out for Patty,
-who, being so intellectual and so enterprising, would not only make
-a good use of his money, but would make the best that was to be made
-of _him_. "My dears," she said, turning towards the girls, "let me
-introduce Mr. Westmoreland to you. Mr. Westmoreland, Miss King--Miss
-Eleanor King--Miss _Patty_ King."
-
-The heavy young man made a heavy bow to each, and then stared straight
-at Eleanor, and studied her with calm attention until the carriage bore
-her from his sight. She, with her tender blue eyes and her yellow hair,
-and her skin like the petals of a blush rose, was what he was pleased
-to call, in speaking of her a little later to a confidential friend,
-the "girl for him." Of Patty he took no notice whatever.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to Carlton, stopped to speak to an
-acquaintance who was driving in an opposite direction, and by the time
-she reached the Exhibition, she found that her husband's hansom had
-arrived before her, and that he and Mr. Westmoreland were waiting at
-the entrance to offer their services as escort to the party. The major
-was the best of husbands, but he was not in the habit of paying her
-these small attentions; and Mr. Westmoreland had never been known,
-within her memory of him, to put himself to so much trouble for a
-lady's convenience. Wherefore the fairy godmother smiled upon them
-both, and felt that the Fates were altogether propitious to her little
-schemes. They walked up the pathway in a group, fell necessarily into
-single file in the narrow passage where they received and returned
-their tickets, and collected in a group again under the great dome,
-where they stood to look round on the twenty acres of covered space
-heaped with the treasures of those nations which Victoria welcomed in
-great letters on the walls. Mrs. Duff-Scott hooked her gold-rimmed
-glasses over her nose, and pointed out to her husband wherein the
-building was deficient, and wherein superfluous, in its internal
-arrangements and decorations. In her opinion--which placed the matter
-beyond discussion--the symbolical groups over the arches were all out
-of drawing, the colouring of the whole place vulgar to a degree, and
-the painted clouds inside the cupola enough to make one sick. The
-major endorsed her criticisms, perfunctorily, with amused little nods,
-glancing hither and thither in the directions she desired. "Ah, my
-dear," said he, "you mustn't expect everybody to have such good taste
-as yours." Mr. Westmoreland seemed to have exhausted the Exhibition,
-for his part; he had seen it all the day before, he explained, and he
-did not see what there was to make a fuss about. With the exception
-of some mysteries in the basement, into which he darkly hinted a
-desire to initiate the major presently, it had nothing about it to
-interest a man who, like him, had just returned from Europe and had
-seen the Paris affair. But to our girls it was an enchanted palace of
-delights--far exceeding their most extravagant anticipations. They
-gave no verbal expression to their sentiments, but they looked at each
-other with faces full of exalted emotion, and tacitly agreed that they
-were perfectly satisfied. The fascination of the place, as a storehouse
-of genuine samples of the treasures of that great world which they
-had never seen, laid hold of them with a grip that left a lasting
-impression. Even the _rococo_ magnificence of the architecture and its
-adornments, which Mrs. Duff-Scott, enlightened by a large experience,
-despised, affected their untrained imaginations with all the force of
-the highest artistic sublimity. A longing took possession of them all
-at the same moment to steal back to-morrow--next day--as soon as they
-were free again to follow their own devices--and wander about the great
-and wonderful labyrinth by themselves and revel unobserved in their
-secret enthusiasms.
-
-However, they enjoyed themselves to-day beyond all expectation. After
-skimming the cream of the many sensations offered to them, sauntering
-up and down and round and round through the larger thoroughfares in
-a straggling group, the little party, fixing upon their place of
-rendezvous and lunching arrangements, paired themselves for a closer
-inspection of such works of art as they were severally inclined to.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott kept Patty by her side, partly because Mr. Westmoreland
-did not seem to want her, and partly because the girl was such an
-interesting companion, being wholly absorbed in what she had come
-to see, and full of intelligent appreciation of everything that was
-pointed out to her; and this pair went a-hunting in the wildernesses of
-miscellaneous pottery for such unique and precious "bits" as might be
-secured, on the early bird principle, for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.
-Very soon that lady's card was hanging round the necks of all sorts of
-quaint vessels that she had greedily pounced upon (and which further
-researches proved to be relatively unworthy of notice) in her anxiety
-to outwit and frustrate the birds that would come round presently;
-while Patty was having her first lesson in china, and showing herself a
-delightfully precocious pupil. Mr. Westmoreland confined his attentions
-exclusively to Eleanor, who by-and-bye found herself interested in
-being made so much of, and even inclined to be a little frivolous. She
-did not know whether to take him as a joke or in earnest, but either
-way he was amusing. He strolled heavily along by her side for awhile
-in the wake of Mrs. Duff-Scott and Patty, paying no attention to the
-dazzling wares around him, but a great deal to his companion. He kept
-turning his head to gaze at her, with solemn, ruminating eyes, until at
-last, tired of pretending she did not notice it, she looked back at him
-and laughed. This seemed to put him at his ease with her at once.
-
-"What are you laughing at?" he asked, with more animation than she
-thought him capable of.
-
-"Nothing," said she.
-
-"Oh, but you were laughing at something. What was it? Was it because I
-was staring at you?"
-
-"Well, you _do_ stare," she admitted.
-
-"I can't help it. No one could help staring at you."
-
-"Why? Am I such a curiosity?"
-
-"You know why. Don't pretend you don't."
-
-She blushed at this, making herself look prettier than ever; it was not
-in her to pretend she didn't know--nor yet to pretend that his crude
-flattery displeased her.
-
-"A cat may look at a king," he remarked, his heavy face quite lit up
-with his enjoyment of his own delicate raillery.
-
-"O yes, certainly," she retorted. "But you see I am not a king, and you
-are not a cat."
-
-"'Pon my word, you're awfully sharp," he rejoined, admiringly. And
-he laughed over this little joke at intervals for several minutes.
-Then by degrees they dropped away from their party, and went straying
-up and down the nave _tête-à-tête_ amongst the crowd, looking at the
-exhibits and not much understanding what they looked at; and they
-carried on their conversation in much the same style as they began it,
-with, I grieve to say, considerable mutual enjoyment. By-and-bye Mr.
-Westmoreland took his young companion to the German tent, where the
-Hanau jewels were, by way of giving her the greatest treat he could
-think of. He betted her sixpence that he could tell her which necklace
-she liked the best, and he showed her the several articles (worth
-some thousands of pounds) which he should have selected for his wife,
-had he had a wife--declaring in the same breath that they were very
-poor things in comparison with such and such other things that he had
-seen elsewhere. Then they strolled along the gallery, glancing at the
-pictures as they went, Eleanor making mental notes for future study,
-but finding herself unable to study anything in Mr. Westmoreland's
-company. And then suddenly came a tall figure towards them--a
-gentlemanly man with a brown face and a red moustache--at sight of whom
-she gave a a little start of delighted recognition.
-
-"Hullo!" cried Mr. Westmoreland, "there's old Yelverton, I do declare.
-He _said_ he'd come over to have a look at the Exhibition."
-
-Old Yelverton was no other than "Elizabeth's young man."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX.
-
-
-CHINA V. THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY.
-
-
-Meanwhile, Major Duff-Scott took charge of Elizabeth, and he was
-very well satisfied with the arrangement that left her to his care.
-He always preferred a mature woman to a young girl, as being a more
-interesting and intelligent companion, and he admired her when on a
-generous scale, as is the wont of small men. Elizabeth's frank face
-and simple manners and majestic physical proportions struck him as an
-admirable combination. "A fine woman," he called her, speaking of her
-later to his wife: "reminds me of what you were when I married you,
-my dear." And when he got to know her better he called her "a fine
-creature"--which meant that he recognised other good qualities in her
-besides that of a lofty stature.
-
-As soon as Mrs. Duff-Scott stated her intention of going to see "what
-she could pick up," the major waved his hand and begged that he might
-be allowed to resign all his responsibilities on her behalf. "Buy what
-you like, my dear, buy what you like," he said plaintively, "but don't
-ask me to come and look on while you do it. Take Westmoreland--I'm sure
-he would enjoy it immensely."
-
-"Don't flatter yourselves that I shall ask either of you," retorted his
-wife. "You would be rather in the way than otherwise. I've got Patty."
-
-"Oh, she's got Patty!" he repeated, looking with gentle mournfulness at
-the young lady in question, while his far-off eyes twinkled under his
-hat brim. "I trust you are fond of china, Miss Patty."
-
-"I am fond of _everything_," Patty fervently replied.
-
-"Oh, that's right. You and Mrs. Duff-Scott will get on together
-admirably, I foresee. Come, Miss King"--turning to Elizabeth--"let us
-go and see what _we_ can discover in the way of desirable bric-à-brac.
-We'll have a look at the Murano ware for you, my dear, if you
-like"--again addressing his wife softly--"and come back and tell you
-if there is anything particularly choice. I know they have a lovely
-bonnet there, all made of the sweetest Venetian glass and trimmed with
-blue velvet. But you could take the velvet off, you know, and trim it
-with a mirror. Those wreaths of leaves and flowers, and beautiful pink
-braids--"
-
-"Oh, go along!" she interrupted impatiently. "Elizabeth, take care of
-him, and don't let him buy anything, but see what is there and tell me.
-I'm not going to put any of that modern stuff with my sixteenth century
-cup and bottle," she added, looking at nobody in particular, with a
-sudden brightening of her eyes; "but if there is anything pretty that
-will do for my new cabinet in the morning room--or for the table--I
-should like to have the first choice."
-
-"Very well," assented her husband, meekly. "Come along, Miss King.
-We'll promise not to buy anything." He and Elizabeth then set off on
-their own account, and Elizabeth found herself led straight to the foot
-of a staircase, where the little major offered his arm to assist her in
-the ascent.
-
-"But the Murano Court is not upstairs, is it?" she asked, hesitating.
-
-"O no," he replied; "it is over there," giving a little backward nod.
-
-"And are we not going to look at the glass?"
-
-"Not at present," he said, softly. "That will keep. We'll look at it
-by-and-bye. First, I am going to show you the pictures. You are fond of
-pictures, are you not?"
-
-"I am, indeed."
-
-"Yes, I was certain of it. Come along, then, I can show you a few
-tolerably good ones. Won't you take my arm?"
-
-She took his arm, as he seemed to expect it, though it would have
-been more reasonable if he had taken hers; and they marched upstairs,
-slowly, in face of the crowd that was coming down.
-
-"My wife," said the major, sententiously, "is one of the best women
-that ever breathed."
-
-"I am _sure_ she is," assented Elizabeth, with warmth.
-
-"No," he said, "_you_ can't be sure; that is why I tell you. I have
-known her a long time, and experience has proved it to me. She is one
-of the best women that ever lived. But she has her faults. I think I
-ought to warn you, Miss King, that she has her faults."
-
-"I think you ought not," said Elizabeth, with instinctive propriety.
-
-"Yes," he went on, "it is a point of honour. I owe it to you, as the
-head of my house--the nominal head, you understand--the responsible
-head--not to let you labour under any delusion respecting us. It
-is best that you should know the truth at once. Mrs. Duff-Scott is
-_energetic_. She is fearfully, I may say abnormally, energetic."
-
-"I think," replied Elizabeth, with decision, "that that is one of the
-finest qualities in the world."
-
-"Ah, do you?" he rejoined sadly. "That is because you are young. I
-used to think so, too, when I was young. But I don't now--experience
-has taught me better. What I object to in my wife is that experience
-doesn't teach her anything. She _won't_ learn. She persists in keeping
-all her youthful illusions, in the most obstinate and unjustifiable
-manner."
-
-Here they reached the gallery and the pictures, but the major saw two
-empty chairs, and, sitting down on one of them, bade his companion
-rest herself on the other until she had recovered from the fatigue of
-getting upstairs.
-
-"There is no hurry," he said wearily; "we have plenty of time." And
-then he looked at her with that twinkle in his eye, and said gently,
-"Miss King, you are very musical, I hear. Is that a fact?"
-
-"We are very, very fond of music," she said, smiling. "It is rather a
-hobby with us, I think."
-
-"A hobby! Ah, that's delightful. I'm so glad it is a hobby. You don't,
-by happy chance, play the violin, do you?"
-
-"No. We only know the piano."
-
-"You all play the piano?--old masters, and that sort of thing?"
-
-"Yes. My sister Patty plays best. Her touch and expression are
-beautiful."
-
-"Ah!" he exclaimed again, softly, as if with much inward satisfaction.
-He was sitting languidly on his chair, nursing his knee, and gazing
-through the balustrade of the gallery upon the crowd below. Elizabeth
-was on the point of suggesting that they might now go and look at the
-pictures, when he began upon a fresh topic.
-
-"And about china, Miss King? Tell me, do you know anything about china?"
-
-"I'm afraid not," said Elizabeth.
-
-"You don't know the difference between Chelsea and Derby-Chelsea, for
-instance?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Nor between old Majolica and modern?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Nor between a Limoges enamel of the sixteenth century--everything
-_good_ belongs to the sixteenth century, you must remember--and what
-they call Limoges now-a-days?"
-
-"No."
-
-"Ah, well, I think very few people do," said the major, resignedly.
-"But, at any rate"--speaking in a tone of encouragement--"you _do_ know
-Sèvres and Dresden when you see them?--you could tell one of _them_
-from the other?"
-
-"Really," Elizabeth replied, beginning to blush for her surpassing
-ignorance, "I am very sorry to have to confess it, but I don't believe
-I could."
-
-The major softly unclasped his knees and leaned back in his chair, and
-sighed.
-
-"But I could learn," suggested Elizabeth.
-
-"Ah, so you can," he responded, brightening. "You can learn, of course.
-_Will_ you learn? You can't think what a favour it would be to me if
-you would learn. Do promise me that you will."
-
-"No, I will not promise. I should do it to please myself--and, of
-course, because it is a thing that Mrs. Duff-Scott takes an interest
-in," said Elizabeth.
-
-"That is just what I mean. It is _because_ Mrs. Duff-Scott takes such
-an interest in china that I want you to cultivate a taste for it.
-You see it is this way," he proceeded argumentatively, again, still
-clasping his knees, and looking up at her with a quaint smile from
-under his hat brim. "I will be frank with you, Miss King--it is this
-way. I want to induce you to enter into an alliance with me, offensive
-and defensive, against that terrible energy which, as I said, is my
-wife's alarming characteristic. For her own good, you understand--for
-my comfort incidentally, but for her own good in the first place, I
-want you to help me to keep her energy within bounds. As long as she
-is happy with music and china we shall be all right, but if she goes
-beyond things of that sort--well, I tremble for the consequences. They
-would be fatal--fatal!"
-
-"Where are you afraid she should go to?" asked Elizabeth.
-
-"I am afraid she should go into _philanthropy_," the major solemnly
-rejoined. "That is the bug-bear--the spectre--the haunting terror of
-my life. I never see a seedy man in a black frock coat, nor an elderly
-female in spectacles, about the house or speaking to my wife in the
-street, that I don't shake in my shoes--literally shake in my shoes, I
-do assure you. I can't think how it is that she has never taken up the
-Cause of Humanity," he proceeded reflectively. "If we had not settled
-down in Australia, she _must_ have done it--she could not have helped
-herself. But even here she is beset with temptations. _I_ can see them
-in every direction. I can't think how it is that she doesn't see them
-too."
-
-"No doubt she sees them," said Elizabeth.
-
-"O no, she does not. The moment she sees them--the moment she casts
-a serious eye upon them--that moment she will be a lost woman, and I
-shall be a desperate man."
-
-The major shuddered visibly, and Elizabeth laughed at his distress.
-"Whenever it happens that Mrs. Duff-Scott goes into philanthropy," she
-said, a little in joke and a great deal in earnest, "I shall certainly
-be proud to accompany her, if she will have me." And, as she spoke,
-there flashed into her mind some idea of the meaning of certain little
-sentences that were breathed into her ear yesterday. The major talked
-on as before, and she tried to attend to what he said, but she found
-herself thinking less of him now than of her unknown friend--less
-occupied with the substantial figures upon the stage of action around
-her than with the delusive scene-painting in the background of her own
-imagination. Beyond the crowd that flowed up and down the gallery, she
-saw a dim panorama of other crowds--phantom crowds--that gradually
-absorbed her attention. They were in the streets of Cologne, looking
-up at those mighty walls and towers that had been six centuries
-a-building, shouting and shaking hands with each other; and in the
-midst of them _he_ was standing, grave and critical, observing their
-excitement and finding it "pathetic"--nothing more. They were in
-London streets in the early daylight--daylight at half-past three
-in the morning! that was a strange thing to think of--a "gentle and
-good-humoured" mob, yet full of tragic interest for the philosopher
-watching its movements, listening to its talk, speculating upon its
-potential value in the sum of humankind. It was the typical crowd that
-he was in the habit of studying--not like the people who thronged
-the Treasury steps this time yesterday. Surely it was the _Cause of
-Humanity_ that had laid hold of _him_. That was the explanation of the
-interest he took in some crowds, and of the delight that he found in
-the uninterestingness of others. That was what he meant when he told
-her she ought to read Thackeray's paper to help her to understand him.
-
-Pondering over this thought, fitfully, amid the distractions of the
-conversation, she raised her head and saw Eleanor coming towards her.
-
-"There's Westmoreland and your sister," said the major. "And one of
-those strangers who are swarming all about the place just now, and
-crowding us out of our club. It's Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton he
-calls himself. He is rather a swell when he's at home, they tell me;
-but Westmoreland has no business to foist his acquaintance on your
-sister. He'll have my wife about him if he is not more careful than
-that."
-
-Elizabeth saw them approaching, and forgot all about the crowd under
-Cologne Cathedral and the crowd that went to see the man hanged.
-She remembered only the crowd of yesterday, and how that stately
-gentleman--could it be possible?--had stood with her amid the crush and
-clamour, holding her in his arms. For the first time she was able to
-look at him fairly and see what he was like; and it seemed to her that
-she had never seen a man of such a noble presence. His eyes were fixed
-upon her as she raised hers to his face, regarding her steadily, but
-with inscrutable gravity and absolute respect. The major rose to salute
-him in response to Mr. Westmoreland's rather imperious demand. "My old
-friend, whom I met in Paris," said Mr. Westmoreland; "come over to have
-a look at us. Want you to know him, major. We must do our best to make
-him enjoy himself, you know."
-
-"Didn't I tell you?" whispered Eleanor, creeping round the back of her
-sister's chair. "Didn't I tell you he would be here?"
-
-And at the same moment Elizabeth heard some one murmur over her head,
-"Miss King, allow me to introduce Mr. Yelverton--my friend, whom I knew
-in Paris--"
-
-And so he and she not only met again, but received Mrs. Grundy's
-gracious permission to make each other's acquaintance.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI.
-
-
-THE "CUP."
-
-
-Out of the many Cup Days that have gladdened the hearts of countless
-holiday-makers on the Flemington course assembled, perhaps that of
-1880 was the most "all round" satisfactory and delightful to everybody
-concerned--except the bookmakers, and nobody grieves much over their
-disasters (though there are several legitimate and highly respected
-lines of business that are conducted on precisely the same system as
-governs their nefarious practices). It was, indeed, considered that
-the discomfiture of the bookmakers was a part of the brilliant success
-of the occasion. In the capricious spring-time of the year, when cold
-winds, or hot winds, or storms of rain, or clouds of dust, might any of
-them have been expected, this second of November displayed a perfect
-pattern of the boasted Australian climate to the foreigners of all
-nations who had been invited to enjoy it--a sweet blue sky, a fresh and
-delicate air, a broad glow of soft and mellow sunshine, of a quality
-to sufficiently account for the holiday-making propensities of the
-Australian people, and for the fascination that draws them home, in
-spite of all intentions to the contrary, when they have gone to look
-for happiness in other lands. The great racing-ground was in its finest
-order, the running track sanded and rolled, the lawns watered to a
-velvet greenness, the promenade level and speckless and elastic to the
-feet as a ball-room floor; and by noon more than a hundred thousand
-spectators, well-dressed and well-to-do--so orderly in their coming
-and going, and when congregated in solid masses together, that the
-policeman, though doubtless ubiquitous, was forgotten--were waiting
-to see the triumph of Grand Flâneur. At which time, and throughout
-the afternoon, Melbourne city was as a city of the dead; shops and
-warehouses deserted, and the empty streets echoing to a passing
-footfall with the hollow distinctness of midnight or the early hours of
-Sunday morning.
-
-While a full half of the crowd was being conveyed to the course by
-innumerable trains, the sunny road was alive with vehicles of every
-description--spring-carts and lorries, cabs and buggies, broughams
-and landaus, and four-in-hand coaches--all filled to their utmost
-capacity, and displaying the sweetest things in bonnets and parasols.
-And amongst the best-appointed carriages Major Duff-Scott's was
-conspicuous, not only for its build and finish, and the excellence of
-the horses that drew it, and the fit of the livery of the coachman
-who drove it, but for the beauty and charming costumes of the ladies
-inside. The major himself, festive in light grey, with his member's
-card in his button-hole and his field-glass slung over his shoulder,
-occupied the place of the usual footman on the box seat in order that
-all the three sisters should accompany his wife; and Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-having set her heart on dressing her girls for the occasion, had been
-allowed to have her own way, with the happiest results. The good woman
-sat back in her corner, forgetting her own Parisian elegance and how
-it would compare with the Cup Day elegance of rival matrons in the
-van of rank and fashion, while she revelled in the contemplation of
-the young pair before her, on whom her best taste had been exercised.
-Elizabeth, by her side, was perfectly satisfactory in straw-coloured
-Indian silk, ruffled with some of her own fine old lace, and wearing
-a delicate French bonnet and parasol to match, with a bunch of
-Camille de Rohan roses at her throat for colour; but Elizabeth was
-not a striking beauty, nor of a style to be experimented on. Patty
-and Eleanor were; and they had been "treated" accordingly. Patty was
-a harmony in pink--the faintest shell-pink--and Eleanor a study in
-the softest, palest shade of china-blue; both their dresses being of
-muslin, lightly frilled, and tied round the waist with sashes; while
-they wore bewitching little cap-like bonnets, with swathes of tulle
-under their chins. The effect--designed for a sunny morning, and to
-be set off by the subdued richness of her own olive-tinted robes--was
-all that Mrs. Duff-Scott anticipated. The two girls were exquisitely
-sylph-like, and harmonious, and refined--looking prettier than they had
-ever done in their lives, because they knew themselves that they were
-looking so--and it was confidently expected by their chaperon that they
-would do considerable execution before the day was over. At the back
-of the carriage was strapped a hamper containing luncheon sufficient
-for all the potential husbands that the racecourse might produce, and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was prepared to exercise discriminating but extensive
-hospitality.
-
-It was not more than eleven o'clock when they entered the carriage
-enclosure and were landed at the foot of the terrace steps, and already
-more carriages than one would have imagined the combined colonies could
-produce were standing empty and in close order in the paddock on one
-hand, while on the other the grand stand was packed from end to end.
-Lawn and terrace were swarming with those brilliant toilets which are
-the feature of our great annual _fête_ day, and the chief subject of
-interest in the newspapers of the day after.
-
-"Dear me, what a crowd!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott, as her horses drew
-up on the smooth gravel, and she glanced eagerly up the steps. "We
-shall not be able to find anyone."
-
-But they had no sooner alighted and shaken out their skirts than
-down from the terrace stepped Mr. Westmoreland, the first and most
-substantial instalment of expected cavaliers, to assist the major to
-convoy his party to the field. Mr. Westmoreland was unusually alert
-and animated, and he pounced upon Eleanor, after hurriedly saluting
-the other ladies, with such an open preference that Mrs. Duff-Scott
-readjusted her schemes upon the spot. If the young man insisted upon
-choosing the youngest instead of the middle one, he must be allowed to
-do so, was the matron's prompt conclusion. She would rather have begun
-at the top and worked downwards, leaving fair Eleanor to be disposed of
-after the elder sisters were settled; but she recognised the wisdom of
-taking the goods the gods provided as she could get them.
-
-"I do declare," said Mr. Westmoreland, looking straight at the girl's
-face, framed in the soft little bonnet, and the pale blue disc of her
-parasol, "I do declare I never saw anybody look so--so--"
-
-"Come, come," interrupted the chaperon, "I don't allow speeches of
-that sort." She spoke quite sharply, this astute diplomatist, so that
-the young man who was used to being allowed, and even encouraged, to
-make speeches of that sort, experienced the strange sensation of being
-snubbed, and was half inclined to be sulky over it; and at the same
-moment she quietly seconded his manoeuvres to get to Eleanor's side,
-and took care that he had his chances generally for the rest of the day.
-
-They joined the two great streams of gorgeous promenaders slowly pacing
-up and down the long green lawn. Every seat in the stand was occupied
-and the gangways and gallery so tightly packed that when the Governor
-arrived presently, driving his own four-in-hand, with the Duke of
-Manchester beside him, there was some difficulty in squeezing out a
-path whereby he and his party might ascend to their box. But there were
-frequent benches on the grass, and it was of far more consequence to
-have freedom to move and display one's clothes, and opportunities of
-meeting one's friends, and observing the social aspect of the affair
-generally, than it was to see the racing to the best advantage--since
-one had to choose between the two. At least, that was understood to
-be the opinion of the ladies present; and Cup Day, notwithstanding
-its tremendous issues, is a ladies' day. The major, than whom no man
-better loved a first-class race, had had a good time at the Derby on
-the previous Saturday, and looked forward to enjoying himself as a man
-and a sportsman when Saturday should come again; but to-day, though
-sharing a warm interest in the great event with those who thronged
-the betting and saddling paddock, he meekly gave himself up to be his
-wife's attendant and to help her to entertain her _protégées_. He did
-not find this task a hard one, nor wanting in abundant consolations. He
-took off Elizabeth, in the first place, to show her the arrangements
-of the course, of which, by virtue of the badge in his button-hole, he
-was naturally proud; and it pleased him to meet his friends at every
-step, and to note the grave respect with which they saluted him out of
-compliment to the lady at his side--obviously wondering who was that
-fine creature with Duff-Scott. He showed her the scratching-house, with
-its four-faced clock in its tall tower, and made erasures on his own
-card and hers from the latest corrected lists that it displayed; and he
-taught her the rudiments of betting as practised by her sex. Then he
-initiated her into the mysteries of the electric bells and telegraphs,
-and all the other V.R.C. appliances for conducting business in an
-enlightened manner; showed her the bookmakers noisily pursuing their
-ill-fated enterprises; showed her the beautiful horses pacing up and
-down and round and round, fresh and full of enthusiasm for their day's
-work. And he had much satisfaction in her intelligent and cheerful
-appreciation of these new experiences.
-
-Meanwhile Mrs. Duff-Scott, in the care of Mr. Westmoreland, awaited
-their return on the lawn, slowly sweeping to and fro, with her train
-rustling over the grass behind her, and feeling that she had never
-enjoyed a Cup Day half so much before. Her girls were admired to her
-heart's content, and she literally basked in the radiance of their
-success. She regarded them, indeed, with an enthusiasm of affection and
-interest that her husband felt to be the most substantial safeguard
-against promiscuous philanthropy that had yet been afforded her. How
-hungrily had she longed for children of her own! How she had envied
-other women their grown-up daughters!--always with the sense that hers
-would have been, like her cabinets of china, so much more choice and
-so much better "arranged" than theirs. And now that she had discovered
-these charming orphans, who had beauty, and breeding, and culture,
-and not a relative or connection in the world, she did not know how
-to restrain the extravagance of her satisfaction. As she rustled
-majestically up and down the lawn, with one fair girl on one side of
-her and one on the other, while men and women turned at every step to
-stare at them, her heart swelled and throbbed with the long-latent
-pride of motherhood, and a sense that she had at last stumbled upon
-the particular "specimen" that she had all her life been hunting for.
-The only drawback to her enjoyment in them was the consciousness that,
-though they were nobody else's, they were not altogether hers. She
-would have given half her fortune to be able to buy them, as she would
-buy three bits of precious crockery, for her absolute possession, body
-and soul--to dress, to manage, to marry as she liked.
-
-The major kept Elizabeth walking about with him until the hour
-approached for the Maiden Plate race and luncheon. And when at last
-they joined their party they found that Mrs. Duff-Scott was already
-getting together her guests for the latter entertainment. She was
-seated on a bench, between Eleanor and Patty, and before her stood a
-group of men, in various attitudes of animation and repose, conspicuous
-amongst whom was the tall form of Mr. Kingscote Yelverton. Elizabeth
-had only had distant glimpses of him during the four weeks that had
-passed since he was introduced to her, her chaperon not having seemed
-inclined to cultivate his acquaintance--probably because she had not
-sought it for herself; but now the girl saw, with a quickened pulse,
-that the happiness of speaking to him again was in store for her. He
-seemed to be aware of her approach as soon as she was within sight,
-and lifted his head and turned to watch her--still sustaining his
-dialogue with Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had singled him out to talk to; and
-Elizabeth, feeling his eyes upon her, had a sudden sense of discomfort
-in her beautiful dress and her changed surroundings. She was sure that
-he would draw comparisons, and she did not feel herself elevated by the
-new dignities that had been conferred upon her.
-
-Coming up to her party, she was introduced to several
-strangers--amongst others, to the husband Mrs. Duff-Scott had selected
-for her, a portly widower with a grey beard--and in the conversation
-that ensued she quite ignored the only person in the group of whose
-presence she was distinctly conscious. She neither looked at him nor
-spoke to him, though aware of every word and glance and movement of
-his; until presently they were all standing upon the slope of grass
-connecting the terrace with the lawn to see the first race as best
-they could, and then she found herself once more by his side. And not
-only by his side, but, as those who could not gain a footing upon the
-stand congregated upon the terrace elevation, gradually wedged against
-him almost as tightly as on the former memorable occasion. Below them
-stood Mrs. Duff-Scott, protected by Mr. Westmoreland, and Patty and
-Eleanor, guarded vigilantly by the little major. It was Mr. Yelverton
-himself who had quietly seen and seized upon his chance of renewing his
-original relations with Elizabeth.
-
-"Miss King," he said, in a low tone of authority, "take my arm--it will
-steady you."
-
-She took his arm, and felt at once that she was in shelter and safety.
-Strong as she was, her impulse to lean on him was almost irresistible.
-
-"Now, give me your parasol," he said. The noonday sun was pouring down,
-but at this critical juncture the convenience of the greatest number
-had to be considered, and unselfish women were patiently exposing their
-best complexions to destruction. Of course Elizabeth declared she
-should do very well until the race was over. Whereupon her companion
-took her parasol gently from her hand, opened it, and held it--as from
-his great height he was able to do--so that it shaded her without
-incommoding other people. And so they stood, in silent enjoyment,
-both thinking of where and how something like this--and yet something
-so very different--had happened before, but neither of them saying a
-word to betray their thoughts, until the first race was run, and the
-excitement of it cooled down, and they were summoned by Mrs. Duff-Scott
-to follow her to the carriage-paddock for lunch.
-
-Down on the lawn again they sauntered side by side, finding themselves
-_tête-à-tête_ without listeners for the first time since they had been
-introduced to each other. Elizabeth made a tremendous effort to ignore
-the secret intimacy between them. "It is a lovely day, is it not?" she
-lightly remarked, from under the dome of her straw-coloured parasol. "I
-don't think there has been such a fine Cup Day for years."
-
-"Lovely," he assented. "Have you often been here before?"
-
-"I?--oh, no. I have never been here before."
-
-He was silent a moment, while he looked intently at what he could see
-of her. She had no air of rustic inexperience of the world to-day. "You
-are beginning to understand crowds," he said.
-
-"Yes--I am, a little." Then, glancing up at him, she said, "How does
-_this_ crowd affect you? Do you find it all interesting?"
-
-He met her eyes gravely, and then lifted his own towards the hill above
-the grand stand, which was now literally black with human beings, like
-a swarming ant-hill.
-
-"I think it might be more interesting up yonder," he said; and then
-added, after a pause--"if we could be there."
-
-Eleanor was walking just in front of them, chatting airily with her
-admirer, Mr. Westmoreland, who certainly was making no secret of
-his admiration; and she turned round when she heard this. "Ah, Mr.
-Yelverton," she said, lightly, "you are very disappointing. You don't
-care for our great Flemington show. You are not a connoisseur in
-ladies' dresses, I suppose."
-
-"I know when a lady's dress is becoming, Miss Eleanor," he promptly
-responded, with a smile and bow. At which she blushed and laughed, and
-turned her back again. For the moment he was a man like other men who
-enjoy social success and favour--ready to be all things to all women;
-but it was only for the moment. Elizabeth noted, with a swelling sense
-of pride and pleasure, that he was not like that to her.
-
-"I am out of my element in an affair of this kind," he said, in the
-undertone that was meant for her ear alone.
-
-"What is your element?"
-
-"Perhaps I oughtn't to call it my element--the groove I have got
-into--my 'walk of life,' so to speak."
-
-"Yes?"
-
-"I'll tell you about it some day--if I ever get the chance. I can't
-here."
-
-"I should like to know. And I can guess a little. You don't spend life
-wholly in getting pleasure for yourself--you help others."
-
-"What makes you think that?"
-
-"I am sure of it."
-
-"Thank you."
-
-Elizabeth blushed, and could not think of a remark to make, though she
-tried hard.
-
-"Just at present," he went on, "I am on pleasure bent entirely. I am
-taking several months' holiday--doing nothing but amusing myself."
-
-"A holiday implies work."
-
-"I suppose we all work, more or less."
-
-"Oh, no, we don't. Not voluntarily--not disinterestedly--in that way."
-
-"You mean in my way?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Ah, I see that Westmoreland has been romancing."
-
-"I have not heard a word from Mr. Westmoreland--he has never spoken of
-you to me."
-
-"Who, then?"
-
-"Nobody."
-
-"These are your own conjectures?"
-
-She made no reply, and they crossed the gravelled drive and entered the
-labyrinth of carriages where the major's servants had prepared luncheon
-in and around his own spacious vehicle, which was in a position to
-lend itself to commissariat purposes. They all assembled there, the
-ladies in the carriage, the gentlemen outside, and napkins and plates
-were handed round and champagne uncorked; and they ate and drank
-together, and were a very cheerful party. Mr. Yelverton contributed
-witty nothings to the general entertainment--with so much happy tact
-that Mrs. Duff-Scott was charmed with him, and said afterwards that
-she had never met a man with finer manners. While the other men waited
-upon their hostess and the younger sisters, he stood for the most part
-quietly at Elizabeth's elbow, joining freely in the badinage round him
-without once addressing her--silently replenishing her plate and her
-glass when either required it with an air of making her his special
-charge that was too unobtrusive to attract outside attention, but
-which was more eloquent than any verbal intercourse could have been to
-themselves. Elizabeth attempted no analysis of her sweet and strange
-sensations. She took them from his hand, as she took her boned turkey
-and champagne, without question or protest. She only felt that she was
-happy and satisfied as she had never been before.
-
-Later in the afternoon, when the great Cup race and all the excitement
-of the day was over, Mrs. Duff-Scott gathered her brood together and
-took leave of her casual male guests.
-
-"_Good_-bye, Mr. Yelverton," she said cordially, when his turn came to
-bid her adieu; "you will come and see me at my own house, I hope?"
-
-Elizabeth looked up at him when she heard the words. She could not
-help it--she did not know what she did. And in her eyes he read the
-invitation that he declared gravely he would do himself the honour to
-accept.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII.
-
-
-CROSS PURPOSES.
-
-
-While Elizabeth was thus happily absorbed in her "young man," and
-Eleanor making an evident conquest of Mr. Westmoreland, Patty, who was
-rather accustomed to the lion's share of whatever interesting thing
-was going on, had very little enjoyment. For the first hour or two she
-was delighted with the beauty of the scene and the weather and her own
-personal circumstances, and she entered into the festive spirit of the
-day with the ardour of her energetic temperament. But in a little while
-the glamour faded. A serpent revealed itself in Paradise, and all her
-innocent pleasure was at an end.
-
-That serpent was Mrs. Aarons. Or, rather, it was a hydra-headed
-monster, consisting of Mrs. Aarons and Paul Brion combined. Poor Paul
-had come to spend a holiday afternoon at the races like everybody
-else, travelling to the course by train along with the undistinguished
-multitude, with the harmless intention of recruiting his mind, and, at
-the same time, storing it with new impressions. He had meant to enjoy
-himself in a quiet and independent fashion, strolling amongst the crowd
-and studying its various aspects from the point of view of a writer
-for the press to whom men and women are "material" and "subjects," and
-then to go home as soon as the Cup race was over, and, after an early
-dinner, to spend a peaceful solitary evening, embodying the results of
-his observations in a brilliant article for his newspaper. But, before
-he had well thought out the plan of his paper, he encountered Mrs.
-Aarons; and to her he was a helpless captive for the whole live-long
-afternoon. Mrs. Aarons had come to the course in all due state, attired
-in one of the few real amongst the many reputed Worth dresses of the
-day, and reclining in her own landau, with her long-nosed husband
-at her side. But after her arrival, having lost the shelter of her
-carriage, and being amongst the many who were shut out from the grand
-stand, she had felt just a little unprotected and uncared-for. The
-first time she stopped to speak to a friend, Mr. Aarons took the
-opportunity to slip off to the saddling paddock, where the astute
-speculator was speedily absorbed in a more congenial occupation than
-that of idling up and down the promenade; and the other gentlemen who
-were so assiduous in their attendance upon her in the ordinary way
-had their own female relatives to look after on this extraordinary
-occasion. She joined one set and then another of casual acquaintances
-whom she chanced to meet, but her hold upon them all was more or less
-precarious; so that when by-and-bye she saw Paul Brion, threading his
-way alone amongst the throng, she pounced upon him thankfully, and
-confided herself to his protection. Paul had no choice but to accept
-the post of escort assigned to him under such circumstances, nor was
-he at all unwilling to become her companion. He had been rather out
-in the cold lately. Patty, though nominally at home in Myrtle Street,
-had been practically living with Mrs. Duff-Scott for the last few
-weeks, and he had scarcely had a glimpse of her, and he had left off
-going to Mrs. Aarons's Fridays since the evening that she snubbed him
-for Patty's sake. The result was that he was in a mood to appreciate
-women's society and to be inclined to melt when the sunshine of his old
-friend's favour was poured upon him again.
-
-They greeted each other amicably, therefore, and made up the intangible
-quarrel that was between them. Mrs. Aarons justified her reputation as
-a clever woman by speedily causing him to regard her as the injured
-party, and to wonder how he could have been such a brute as to wound
-her tender susceptibilities as he had done. She insinuated, with
-the utmost tact, that she had suffered exceedingly from the absence
-of his society, and was evidently in a mood to revive the slightly
-sentimental intercourse that he had not found disagreeable in earlier
-days. Paul, however, was never less inclined to be sentimental in her
-company than he was to-day, in spite of his cordial disposition. He
-was changed from what he was in those earlier days; he felt it as soon
-as she began to talk to him, and perfectly understood the meaning of
-it. After a little while she felt, too, that he was changed, and she
-adapted herself to him accordingly. They fell into easy chat as they
-strolled up and down, and were very friendly in a harmless way. They
-did not discuss their private feelings at all, but only the topics that
-were in every-day use--the weather, the races, the trial of Ned Kelly,
-the wreck of the Sorata, the decay of Berryism--anything that happened
-to come into their heads or to be suggested by the scene around them.
-Nevertheless, they had a look of being very intimate with each other
-to the superficial eye of Mrs. Grundy. People with nothing better to
-do stared at them as they meandered in and out amongst the crowd, he
-and she _tête-à-tête_ by their solitary selves; and those who knew they
-were legally unrelated were quick to discover a want of conventional
-discretion in their behaviour. Mrs. Duff-Scott, for instance, who
-abhorred scandal, made use of them to point a delicate moral for the
-edification of her girls.
-
-Paul, who was a good talker, was giving his companion an animated
-account of the French plays going on at one of the theatres just
-then--which she had not yet been to see--and describing with great
-warmth the graceful and finished acting of charming Madame Audrée,
-when he was suddenly aware of Patty King passing close beside him.
-Patty was walking at her chaperon's side, with her head erect, and her
-white parasol, with its pink lining, held well back over her shoulder,
-a vision of loveliness in her diaphanous dress. He caught his breath
-at sight of her, looking so different from her ordinary self, and was
-about to raise his hat, when--to his deep dismay and surprise--she
-swept haughtily past him, meeting his eyes fairly, with a cold disdain,
-but making no sign of recognition.
-
-The blood rushed into his face, and he set his teeth, and walked on
-silently, not seeing where he went. For a moment he felt stunned with
-the shock. Then he was brought to himself by a harsh laugh from Mrs.
-Aarons. "Dear me," said she, in a high tone, "the Miss Kings have
-become so grand that we are beneath their notice. You and I are not
-good enough for them now, Mr. Brion. We must hide our diminished heads."
-
-"I see," he assented, with savage quietness. "Very well. I am quite
-ready to hide mine."
-
-Meanwhile Patty, at the farther end of the lawn, was overwhelmed
-with remorse for what she had done. At the first sight of him, in
-close intercourse with that woman who, Mrs. Duff-Scott again reminded
-her, was not "nice"--who, though a wife and mother, liked men to
-"dangle" round her--she had arraigned and judged and sentenced him
-with the swift severity of youth, that knows nothing of the complex
-trials and sufferings which teach older people to bear and forbear
-with one another. But when it was over, and she had seen his shocked
-and bewildered face, all her instinctive trust in him revived, and
-she would have given anything to be able to make reparation for her
-cruelty. The whole afternoon she was looking for him, hoping for a
-chance to show him somehow that she did not altogether "mean it," but,
-though she saw him several times--eating his lunch with Mrs. Aarons
-under the refreshment shed close by the Duff-Scott carriage, watching
-Grand Flâneur win the greatest of his half-dozen successive victories
-from the same point of view as that taken by the Duff-Scott party--he
-never turned his head again in her direction or seemed to have the
-faintest consciousness that she was there.
-
-And next day, when no longer in her glorious apparel, but walking
-quietly home from the Library with Eleanor, she met him unexpectedly,
-face to face, in the Fitzroy Gardens. And then _he_ cut _her_--dead.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII.
-
-
-MR. YELVERTON'S MISSION.
-
-
-On a Thursday evening in the race week--two days after the "Cup,"
-Mrs. Duff-Scott took her girls to the Town Hall to one of a series of
-concerts that were given at that time by Henri Ketten, the Hungarian
-pianist, and the Austrian band that had come out to Melbourne to give
-_éclat_ to the Exhibition.
-
-It was a fine clear night, and the great hall was full when they
-arrived, notwithstanding the fact that half-a-dozen theatres were
-open and displaying their most attractive novelties, for music-loving
-souls are pretty numerous in this part of the world, taking all things
-into consideration. Australians may not have such an enlightened
-appreciation of high-class music as, say, the educated Viennese,
-who live and breathe and have their being in it. There are, indeed,
-sad instances on record of a great artist, or a choice combination
-of artists, having appealed in vain for sympathy to the Melbourne
-public--that is to say, having found not numbers of paying and
-applauding listeners, but only a select and fervent few. But such
-instances are rare, and to be accounted for as the result, not of
-indifference, but of inexperience. The rule is--as I think most of
-our distinguished musical visitors will testify--that we are a people
-peculiarly ready to recognise whatever is good that comes to us, and
-to acknowledge and appreciate it with ungrudging generosity. And so
-the Austrian band, though it had many critics, never played to a thin
-audience or to inattentive ears; and no city in Europe (according
-to his own death-bed testimony) ever offered such incense of loving
-enthusiasm to Ketten's genius as burnt steadily in Melbourne from the
-moment that he laid his fingers on the keyboard, at the Opera House,
-until he took his reluctant departure. This, I hasten to explain (lest
-I should be accused of "blowing"), is not due to any exceptional virtue
-of discrimination on our part, but to our good fortune in having
-inherited an enterprising and active intelligence from the brave men
-who had the courage and energy to make a new country, and to that
-country being such a land of plenty that those who live in it have easy
-times and abundant leisure to enjoy themselves.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott sailed into the hall, with her girls around her, and
-many eyes were turned to look at them and to watch their progress to
-their seats. By this time "the pretty Miss Kings" had become well-known
-and much talked about, and the public interest in what they wore,
-and what gentlemen were in attendance on them, was apt to be keen on
-these occasions. To-night the younger girls, with their lovely hair
-lifted from their white necks and coiled high at the back of their
-heads, wore picturesque flowered gowns of blue and white stuff, while
-the elder sister was characteristically dignified in black. And the
-gentlemen in attendance upon them were Mr. Westmoreland, still devoted
-to Eleanor, and the portly widower, whom Mrs. Duff-Scott had intended
-for Elizabeth, but who was perversely addicted to Patty. The little
-party took their places in the body of the hall, in preference to the
-gallery, and seated themselves in two rows of three--the widower behind
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, Patty next him behind Eleanor, and Elizabeth behind
-Mr. Westmoreland. And when the concert began there was an empty chair
-beside Elizabeth.
-
-By-and-bye, when the overture was at an end--when the sonorous tinkling
-and trumpeting of the orchestra had ceased, and she was listening, in
-soft rapture, to Ketten's delicate improvisation, at once echo and
-prelude, reminiscent of the idea that the band had been elaborating,
-and prophetic of the beautiful Beethoven sonata that he was thus
-tenderly approaching, Elizabeth was aware that the empty chair was
-taken, and knew, without turning her head, by whom. She tried not to
-blush and feel fluttered--she was too old, she told herself, for that
-nonsense--but for half a minute or so it was an effort to control
-these sentimental tendencies. He laid his light overcoat over the back
-of his chair, and sat down quietly. Mrs. Duff-Scott looked over her
-shoulder, and gave him a pleasant nod. Mr. Westmoreland said, "Hullo!
-Got back again?" And then Elizabeth felt sufficiently composed to turn
-and hold out her hand, which he took in a strong clasp that was not
-far removed from a squeeze. They did not speak to each other; nor did
-they look at each other, though Mr. Yelverton was speedily informed of
-all the details of his neighbour's appearance, and she took no time to
-ascertain that he looked particularly handsome in his evening dress
-(but _she_ always thought him handsome; big nose, leather cheeks, red
-moustache, and all), and that his well-cut coat and trousers were not
-in their first freshness. Then the concert went on as before--but
-not as before--and they sat side by side and listened. Elizabeth's
-programme lay on her knee, and he took it up to study it, and laid it
-lightly on her knee again. Presently she pointed to one and another of
-the selections on the list, about which she had her own strong musical
-feelings, and he looked down at them and nodded, understanding what
-she meant. And again they sat back in their chairs, and gazed serenely
-at the stage under the great organ, at Herr Wildner cutting the air
-with his baton, or at poor Ketten, with his long, white, solemn face,
-sitting at the piano in a bower of votive wreaths and bouquets, raining
-his magic finger-tips like a sparkling cascade upon the keyboard,
-and wrinkling the skin of his forehead up and down. But they had no
-audible conversation throughout the whole performance. When, between
-the two divisions of the programme, the usual interval occurred for the
-relaxation and refreshment of the performers and their audience, Mr.
-Westmoreland turned round, with his elbow over the back of his chair,
-and appropriated an opportunity to which they had secretly been looking
-forward. "So you've got back?" he remarked for the second time. "I
-thought you were going to make a round of the country?"
-
-"I shall do it in instalments," replied Mr. Yelverton.
-
-"You won't have time to do much that way, if you are going home again
-next month. Will you?"
-
-"I can extend my time a little, if necessary."
-
-"Can you? Oh, I thought there was some awfully urgent business that you
-had to get back for--a new costermonger's theatre to open, or a street
-Arab's public-house--eh?"
-
-Mr. Westmoreland laughed, as at a good joke that he had got hold
-of, but Mr. Yelverton was imperturbably grave. "I have business in
-Australia just now," he said, "and I'm going to finish that first."
-
-Here the portly widower, who had overheard the dialogue, leaned over
-Patty to join in the conversation. He was a wealthy person of the
-name of Smith, who, like Mr. Phillips's father in the _Undiscovered
-Country_, had been in business "on that obscure line which divides
-the wholesale merchant's social acceptability from the lost condition
-of the retail trader," but who, on his retirement with a fortune, had
-safely scaled the most exclusive heights of respectability. "I say," he
-called out, addressing Mr. Yelverton, "you're not going to write a book
-about us, I hope, like Trollope and those fellows? We're suspicious
-of people who come here utter strangers, and think they can learn all
-about us in two or three weeks."
-
-Mr. Yelverton reassured him upon this point, and then Mrs. Duff-Scott
-broke in. "You have not been to call on me yet, Mr. Yelverton."
-
-"No. I hope to have that pleasure to-morrow," he replied. "I am told
-that Friday is your reception day."
-
-"Oh, you needn't have waited for that. Any day before four. Come
-to-morrow and dine with us, will you? We are going to have a few
-friends and a little music in the evening. I suppose you are fond of
-music--being here."
-
-Mr. Yelverton said he was very fond of music, though he did not
-understand much about it, and that he would be very happy to dine with
-her next day. Then, after a little more desultory talk, the orchestra
-returned to the stage and began the second overture--from Mozart this
-time--and they all became silent listeners again.
-
-When at last the concert was over, Elizabeth and her "young man" found
-themselves once more navigating a slow course together through a
-crowd. Mrs. Duff-Scott, with Mr. Westmoreland and Eleanor, moved off
-in advance; Mr. Smith offered his arm to Patty and followed; and so,
-by the favour of fate and circumstances, the remaining pair were left
-with no choice but to accompany each other. "Wait a moment," said Mr.
-Yelverton, as she stepped out from her seat, taking her shawl--a soft
-white Rampore chuddah, that was the fairy godmother's latest gift--from
-her arms. "You will feel it cold in the passages." She stood still
-obediently, and he put the shawl over her shoulders and folded one end
-of it lightly round her throat. Then he held his arm, and her hand
-was drawn closely to his side; and so they set forth towards the door,
-having put a dozen yards between themselves and the rest of their party.
-
-"You are living with Mrs. Duff-Scott, are you not?" he asked abruptly.
-
-"Not quite that," she replied. "Mrs. Duff-Scott would like us to be
-there always, but we think it better to be at home sometimes."
-
-"Yes--I should think it is better," he replied.
-
-"But we are with her very often--nearly every day," she added.
-
-"Shall you be there to-morrow?" he asked, not looking at her. "Shall I
-see you there in the evening?"
-
-"I think so," she replied rather unsteadily. And, after a little while,
-she felt emboldened to ask a few questions of him. "Are you really only
-making a flying visit to Australia, Mr. Yelverton?"
-
-"I had intended that it should be very short," he said; "but I shall
-not go away quite yet."
-
-"You have many interests at home--to call you back?" she ventured to
-say, with a little timidity about touching on his private affairs.
-
-"Yes. You are thinking of what Westmoreland said? He is a scoffer--he
-doesn't understand. You mustn't mind what he says. But I should like,"
-he added, as they drew near the door and saw Mrs. Duff-Scott looking
-back for them, "I should very much like to tell you something about it
-myself. I think--I feel sure--it would interest you. Perhaps I may have
-an opportunity to-morrow night."
-
-Here Mrs. Duff-Scott's emissary, Mr. Smith, who had been sent back
-to his duty, claimed Elizabeth on her chaperon's behalf. She and her
-lover had no time to say anything more, except good-night. But that
-good-night--and their anticipations--satisfied them.
-
-On reaching Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, where the girls were to sleep,
-they found the major awaiting their return, and were hospitably
-invited--along with Mr. Westmoreland, who had been allowed to "see them
-safely home," on the box-seat of the carriage--into the library, where
-they found a bright little fire in the grate, and refreshments on the
-table. The little man, apparently, was as paternal in his dispositions
-towards the orphans as his wife could desire, and was becoming quite
-weaned from his bad club habits under the influence of his new
-domestic ties.
-
-"Dear me, _how_ nice!--_how_ comfortable!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-sailing up to the hearth and seating herself in a deep leather chair.
-"Come in, Mr. Westmoreland. Come along to the fire, dears." And she
-called her brood around her. Eleanor, who had caressing ways, knelt
-down at her chaperon's feet on the soft oriental carpet, and she pulled
-out the frills of lace round the girl's white neck and elbows with a
-motherly gesture.
-
-"Dear child!" she ejaculated fondly, "doesn't she"--appealing to her
-husband--"remind you exactly of a bit of fifteenth century Nankin?"
-
-"I should like to see the bit of porcelain, Nankin or otherwise, that
-would remind me exactly of Miss Nelly," replied the gallant major,
-bowing to the kneeling girl. "I would buy that bit, whatever price it
-was."
-
-"That's supposing you could get it," interrupted Mr. Westmoreland, with
-a laugh.
-
-"It is the very shade of blue, with that grey tinge in it," murmured
-Mrs. Duff-Scott. But at the same time she was thinking of a new topic.
-"I have asked Mr. Yelverton to dine with us to-morrow, my dear," she
-remarked, suddenly, to her spouse. "We wanted another man to make up
-our number."
-
-"Oh, have you? All right. I shall be very glad to see him. He's a
-gentlemanly fellow, is Yelverton. Very rich, too, they tell me. But we
-don't see much of him."
-
-"No," said Mr. Westmoreland, withdrawing his eyes from the
-contemplation of Eleanor and her æsthetic gown, "he's not a society
-man. He don't go much into clubs, Yelverton. He's one of the richest
-commoners in Great Britain--give you my word, sir, he's got a princely
-fortune, all to his own cheek--and he lets his places and lives in
-chambers in Piccadilly, and spends nearly all his time when he's at
-home in the slums and gutters of Whitechapel. He's got a mania for
-philanthropy, unfortunately. It's an awful pity, for he really _would_
-be a good fellow."
-
-At the word "philanthropy," the major made a clandestine grimace to
-Elizabeth, but composed his face immediately, seeing that she was not
-regarding him, but gazing with serious eyes at the narrator of Mr.
-Yelverton's peculiarities.
-
-"He's been poking into every hole and corner," continued Mr.
-Westmoreland, "since he came here, overhauling the factory places, and
-finding out the prices of things, and the land regulations, and I don't
-know what. He's just been to Sandhurst, to look at the mines--doing a
-little amateur emigration business, I expect. Seems a strange thing,"
-concluded the young man, thoughtfully, "for a rich swell of his class
-to be bothering himself about things of that sort."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott had been listening attentively, and at this she
-roused herself and sat up in her chair. "It is the rich who _should_
-do it," said she, with energy. "And I admire him--I admire him, that
-he has given up his own selfish ease to help those whose lives are
-hard and miserable. I believe the squalid wretchedness of places
-like Whitechapel--though I have never been there--is something
-dreadful--dreadful! I admire him," she repeated defiantly. "I think
-it's a pity a few more of us are not like him. I shall talk to him
-about it. I--I shall see if I can't help him."
-
-This time Elizabeth did look at the major, who was making a feint of
-putting his handkerchief to his eyes. She smiled at him sweetly, and
-then she walked over to Mrs. Duff-Scott, put her strong arms round the
-matron's shoulders, and kissed her fervently.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV.
-
-
-AN OLD STORY.
-
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room, at nine or ten o'clock on Friday
-evening, was a pleasant sight. Very spacious, very voluptuous, in
-a subdued, majestic, high-toned way; very dim--with splashes of
-richness--as to walls and ceilings; very glowing and splendid--with
-folds of velvety darkness--as to window curtains and portières.
-The colouring of it was such as required a strong light to show
-how beautiful it was, but with a proud reserve, and to mark its
-unostentatious superiority over the glittering salons of the
-uneducated _nouveaux riches_, it was always more or less in a warm
-and mellow twilight, veiling its sombre magnificence from the vulgar
-eye. Just now its main compartment was lit by wax candles in archaic
-candlesticks amongst the flowers and _bric-à-brac_ of an _étagère_ over
-the mantelpiece, and by seven shaded and coloured lamps, of various
-artistic devices, judiciously distributed over the abundant table-space
-so as to suffuse with a soft illumination the occupants of most of
-the wonderfully stuffed and rotund chairs and lounges grouped about
-the floor; and yet the side of the room was decidedly bad for reading
-in. "It does not light up well," was the consolation of women of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's acquaintance, who still clung to pale walls and primary
-colours and cut-glass chandeliers, either from necessity or choice.
-"Pooh!" Mrs. Duff-Scott used to retort, hearing of this just criticism;
-"as if I _wanted_ it to light up!" But she had compromised with her
-principles in the arrangement of the smaller division of the room,
-where, between and beyond a pair of vaguely tinted portières, stood the
-piano, and all other material appliances for heightening the spiritual
-enjoyment of musical people. Here she had grudgingly retained the
-gas-burner of utilitarian Philistinism. It hung down from the ceiling
-straight over the piano, a circlet of gaudy yellow flames, that made
-the face of every plaque upon the wall to glitter. But the brilliant
-corona was borne in no gas-fitter's vehicle; its shrine was of dull
-brass, mediæval and precious, said to have been manufactured, in the
-first instance, for either papal or imperial purposes--it didn't matter
-which.
-
-In this bright music-room was gathered to-night a little company of
-the elect--Herr Wüllner and his violin, together with three other
-stringed instruments and their human complement. Patty at the piano,
-Eleanor, Mrs. Duff-Scott, and half-a-dozen more enthusiasts--with a
-mixed audience around them. In the dim, big room beyond, the major
-entertained the inartistic, outlawed few who did not care, nor pretend
-to care, for aught but the sensual comfort of downy chairs and after
-dinner chit-chat. And, at the farthest end, in a recess of curtained
-window that had no lamps about it, sat Elizabeth and Mr. Yelverton,
-side by side, on a low settee--not indifferent to the pathetic wail of
-the far-distant violins, but finding more entertainment in their own
-talk than the finest music could have afforded them.
-
-"I had a friend who gave up everything to go and work amongst the
-London poor--in the usual clerical way, you know, with schools and
-guilds and all the right and proper things. He used to ask me for
-money, and insist on my helping him with a lecture or a reading now
-and then, and I got drawn in. I had always had an idea of doing
-something--taking a line of some sort--and somehow this got hold of me.
-I couldn't see all that misery--you've no idea of it, Miss King--"
-
-"I have read of it," she said.
-
-"You would have to see it to realise it in the least. After I saw it I
-couldn't turn my back and go home and enjoy myself as if nothing had
-happened. And I had no family to consider. I got drawn in."
-
-"And _that_ is your work?" said Elizabeth. "I _knew_ it."
-
-"No. My friend talks of 'his work'--a lot of them have 'their
-work'--it's splendid, too--but they don't allow me to use that word,
-and I don't want it. What I do is all wrong, they say--not only
-useless, but mischievous."
-
-"I don't believe it," said Elizabeth.
-
-"Nor I, of course--though they may be right. We can only judge
-according to our lights. To me, it seems that when things are as bad
-as possible, a well meaning person can't make them worse and _may_
-make them better. They say 'no,' and argue it all out as plainly as
-possible. Yet I stick to my view--I go on in my own line. It doesn't
-interfere with theirs, though they say it does."
-
-"And what is it?" she asked, with her sympathetic eyes.
-
-"Well, you'll hardly understand, for you don't know the class--the
-lowest deep of all--those who can't be dealt with by the Societies--the
-poor wretches whom nothing will raise, and who are abandoned as
-hopeless, outside the pale of everything. They are my line."
-
-"Can there be any abandoned as hopeless?"
-
-"Yes. They really are so, you know. Neither religion nor political
-economy can do anything for them, though efforts are made for the
-children. Poor, sodden, senseless, vicious lumps of misery, with the
-last spark of soul bred out of them--a sort of animated garbage that
-cumbers the ground and makes the air stink--given up as a bad job, and
-only wanted out of the way--from the first they were on my mind more
-than all the others. And when I saw them left to rot like that, I felt
-I might have a free hand."
-
-"And can you succeed where so many have failed?"
-
-"Oh, what I do doesn't involve success or failure. It's outside all
-that, just as they are. They're only brutes in human shape--hardly
-human shape either; but I have a feeling for brutes. I love horses
-and dogs--I can't bear to see things suffer. So that's all I do--just
-comfort them where I can, in their own way; not the parson's
-way--that's no use. I wouldn't mock them by speaking of religion--I
-suppose religion, as we know it, has had a large hand in making them
-what they are; and to go and tell them that God ordained their
-miserable pariah-dog lot would be rank blasphemy. I leave all that. I
-don't bother about their souls, because I know they haven't got any; I
-see their wretched bodies, and that's enough for me. It's something not
-to let them go out of the world without _ever_ knowing what it is to be
-physically comfortable. It eases my conscience, as a man who has never
-been hungry, except for the pleasure of it."
-
-"And do they blame you for that?"
-
-"They say I pauperise them and demoralise them," he answered, with
-a sudden laugh; "that I disorganise the schemes of the legitimate
-workers--that I outrage every principle of political economy. Well, I
-do _that_, certainly. But that I make things worse--that I retard the
-legitimate workers--I won't believe. If I do," he concluded, "I can't
-help it."
-
-"No," breathed Elizabeth, softly.
-
-"There's only one thing in which I and the legitimate workers are
-alike--everybody is alike in that, I suppose--the want of money. Only
-in the matter of beer and tobacco, what interest I could get on a few
-hundred pounds! What I could do in the way of filling empty stomachs
-and easing aches and pains if I had control of large means! What a good
-word 'means' is, isn't it? We want 'means' for all the ends we seek--no
-matter what they are."
-
-"I thought," said Elizabeth, "that you were rich. Mr. Westmoreland told
-us so."
-
-"Well, in a way, I am," he rejoined. "I hold large estates in my own
-name, and can draw fifty or sixty thousand a year interest from them if
-I like. But there have been events--there are peculiar circumstances
-in connection with the inheritance of the property, which make me
-feel myself not quite entitled to use it freely--not yet. I _will_
-use it, after this year, if nothing happens. I think I _ought_ to;
-but I have put it off hitherto so as to make as sure as possible
-that I was lawfully in possession. I will tell you how it is," he
-proceeded, leaning forward and clasping his knee with his big brown
-hands. "I am used to speaking of the main facts freely, because I am
-always in hopes of discovering something as I go about the world. A
-good many years ago my father's second brother disappeared, and was
-never heard of afterwards. He and the eldest brother, at that time
-the head of the family, and in possession of the property, quarrelled
-about--well, about a woman whom both were in love with; and the elder
-one was found dead--shot dead--in a plantation not far from the house
-on the evening of the day of the quarrel, an hour after the total
-disappearance of the other. My uncle Kingscote--I was named after him,
-and he was my godfather--was last seen going out towards the plantation
-with his gun; he was traced to London within the next few days; and
-it was almost--but just not quite certainly--proved that he had there
-gone on board a ship that sailed for South America and was lost. He
-was advertised for in every respectable newspaper in the world, at
-intervals, for twenty years afterwards--during which time the estate
-was in Chancery, before they would grant it to my father, from whom it
-descended to me--and I should think the agony columns of all countries
-never had one message cast into such various shapes. But he never gave
-a sign. All sorts of apparent clues were followed up, but they led to
-nothing. If alive he must have known that it was all right, and would
-have come home to take his property. He _must_ have gone down in that
-ship."
-
-"But--oh, surely he would never have come back to take the property of
-a murdered brother!" exclaimed Elizabeth, in a shocked voice.
-
-"His brother was not murdered," Mr. Yelverton replied. "Many people
-thought so, of course--people have a way of thinking the worst in
-these cases, not from malice, but because it is more interesting--and
-a tradition to that effect survives still, I am afraid. But my
-uncle's family never suspected him of such a crime. The thing was not
-legally proved, one way or the other. There were strong indications
-in the position of the gun which lay by his side, and in the general
-appearance of the spot where he was found, that my uncle, Patrick
-Yelverton, accidentally shot himself; that was the opinion of the
-coroner's jury, and the conviction of the family. But poor Kingscote
-evidently assumed that he would be accused of murder. Perhaps--it is
-very possible--some rough-tempered action of his might have caused
-the catastrophe, and his remorse have had the same effect as fear in
-prompting him to efface himself. Anyway, no one who knew him well
-believed him capable of doing his brother a mischief wilfully. His
-innocence was, indeed, proved by the fact that he married the lady
-who had been at the bottom of the trouble--by no fault of hers, poor
-soul!--after he escaped to London; and, wherever he went to, he took
-her with him. She disappeared a few days after he did, and was lost
-as completely, from that time. The record and circumstances of their
-marriage were discovered; and that was all. He would not have married
-her--she would not have married him--had he been a murderer."
-
-"Do you think not?" said Elizabeth. "That is always assumed as a
-matter of course, in books--that murder and--and other disgraces are
-irrevocable barriers between those who love each other, when they
-discover them. But I do not understand why. With such an awful misery
-to bear, they would want all that their love could give them so much
-_more_--not less."
-
-"You see," said Mr. Yelverton, regarding her with great interest, "it
-is a sort of point of honour with the one in misfortune not to drag the
-other down. When we are married, as when we are dead, 'it is for a long
-time.'"
-
-Elizabeth made no answer, but there was a quiet smile about her lips
-that plainly testified to her want of sympathy with this view. After
-a silence of a few seconds, her companion leaned forward and looked
-directly into her face. "Would _you_ stick to the man you loved if he
-had forfeited his good name or were in risk of the gallows?--I mean if
-he were really a criminal, and not only a suspected one?" he asked with
-impressive slowness.
-
-"If I had found him worthy to be loved before that," she replied,
-speaking collectedly, but dismayed to find herself growing crimson,
-"and if he cared for me--and leant on me--oh, yes! It might be wrong,
-but I should do it. Surely any woman would. I don't see how she could
-help herself."
-
-He changed his position, and looked away from her face into the room
-with a light in his deep-set eyes. "You ought to have been Elizabeth
-Leigh's daughter," he said. "I did not think there were any more women
-like her in the world."
-
-"I am like other women," said Elizabeth, humbly, "only more ignorant."
-
-He made no comment--they both found it rather difficult to speak
-at this point--and, after an expressive pause, she went on, rather
-hurriedly, "Was Elizabeth Leigh the lady who married your uncle?"
-
-"Yes," he replied, bringing himself back to his story with an effort,
-"she was. She was a lovely woman, bright and clever, fond of dress and
-fun and admiration, like other women; but with a solid foundation to
-her character that you will forgive my saying is rare to your sex--as
-far, at least, as I am able to judge. I saw her when I was a little
-schoolboy, but I can picture her now, as if it were but yesterday.
-What vigour she had! What a wholesome zest for life! And yet she gave
-up everything to go into exile and obscurity with the man she loved.
-Ah, _what_ a woman! She _ought_ not to have died. She should have lived
-and reigned at Yelverton, and had a houseful of children. It is still
-possible--barely, barely possible--that she did live, and that I shall
-some day stumble over a handsome young cousin who will tell me that he
-is the head of the family."
-
-"O no," said Elizabeth, "not after all these years. Give up thinking
-of such a thing. Take your own money now, as soon as you go home,
-and"--looking up with a smile--"buy all the beer and tobacco that you
-want."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.
-
-
-OUT IN THE COLD.
-
-
-Paul Brion, meanwhile, plodded on in his old groove, which no longer
-fitted him as it used to do, and vexed the soul of his benevolent
-landlady with the unprecedented shortness of his temper. She didn't
-know how to take him, she said, he was that cantankerous and
-"contrairy:" but she triumphantly recognised the result that she had
-all along expected would follow a long course of turning night into
-day, and therefore was not surprised at the change in him. "Your brain
-is over-wrought," she said, soothingly, when one day a compunctious
-spirit moved him to apologise for his moroseness; "your nervous system
-is unstrung. You've been going on too long, and you want a spell. You
-just take a holiday straight off, and go right away, and don't look
-at an ink-bottle for a month. It will save you a brain fever, mark
-my words." But Paul was consistent in his perversity, and refused to
-take good advice. He did think, for a moment, that he might as well
-have a little run and see how his father was getting on; and for
-several days he entertained the more serious project of "cutting" the
-colony altogether and going to seek his fortune in London. All the
-same, he stayed on with Mrs. M'Intyre, producing his weekly tale of
-political articles and promiscuous essays, and sitting up all night,
-and sleeping all the morning, with his habitual irregular regularity.
-But the flavour had gone out of work and recreation alike, and not
-all Mrs. Aarons's blandishments, which were now exercised upon him for
-an hour or two every Friday evening, were of any avail to coax it back
-again. Those three Miss Kings, whom his father had sent to him, and
-whom Mrs. Duff-Scott had taken away from him, had spoiled the taste
-of life. That was the fact, though he would not own it. "What care I?
-They are nothing to me," he used to say to himself when fighting an
-occasional spasm of rage or jealousy. He really persuaded himself very
-often that they were nothing to him, and that his bitter feeling was
-caused solely by the spectacle of their deterioration. To see them
-exchanging all their great plans and high aspirations for these vulgar
-social triumphs--giving up their studies at the Library to attend
-dancing classes, and to dawdle about the Block, and gossip in the
-Exhibition--laying aside their high-bred independence to accept the
-patronage of a fine lady who might drop them as suddenly as she took
-them up--was it not enough to make a man's heart bleed?
-
-As for Patty, he made up his mind that he could never forgive _her_.
-Now and then he would steal out upon his balcony to listen to a
-Schubert serenade or a Beethoven sonata in the tender stillness of a
-summer night, and then he would have that sensation of bleeding at the
-heart which melted, and unnerved, and unmanned him; but, for the most
-part, every sight and sound and reminiscence of her were so many fiery
-styptics applied to his wound, scorching up all tender emotions in one
-great angry pain. Outwardly he shunned her, cut her--withered her up,
-indeed--with his ostentatiously expressed indifference; but secretly
-he spent hours of the day and night dogging her from place to place,
-when he ought to have been at work or in his bed, merely that he might
-get a glimpse of her in a crowd, and some notion of what she was doing.
-He haunted the Exhibition with the same disregard for the legitimate
-attractions of that social head-centre as prevailed with the majority
-of its visitors, to whom it was a daily trysting-place; and there
-he had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing her every now and then.
-Once she was in the Indian Court, so fragrant with sandalwood, and
-she was looking with ardent eyes at gossamer muslins and embroidered
-cashmeres, while young Westmoreland leaned on the glass case beside
-her in an attitude of insufferable familiarity. It was an indication,
-to the jealous lover, that the woman who had elevated her sex from
-the rather low place that it had held in his estimation before he
-knew her, and made it sacred to him for her sake, was, after all,
-"no better than the rest of them." He had dreamed of her as a man's
-true helpmate and companion, able to walk hand in hand with him on
-the high roads of human progress, and finding her vocation and her
-happiness in that spiritual and intellectual fellowship; and here she
-was lost in the greedy contemplation of a bit of fine embroidery that
-had cost some poor creature his eyesight already, and was presently
-to cost again what would perhaps provision a starving family for a
-twelvemonth--just like any other ignorant and frivolous female who
-had sold her soul to the demon of fashion. He marched home to Myrtle
-Street with the zeal of the reformer (which draws its inspiration from
-such unsuspected sources) red-hot in his busy brain. He lit his pipe,
-spread out his paper, dipped his pen in the ink-bottle, and began to
-deal with the question of "Woman's Clothes in Relation to her Moral
-and Intellectual Development" in what he conceived to be a thoroughly
-impersonal and benevolent temper. His words should be brief, he said
-to himself, but they should be pregnant with suggestive truth. He
-would lay a light touch upon this great sore that had eaten so deeply
-into one member of the body politic, causing all the members to suffer
-with it; but he would diagnose it faithfully, without fear or favour,
-and show wherein it had hindered the natural advancement of the race,
-and to what fatal issues its unchecked development tended. It was a
-serious matter, that had too long been left unnoticed by the leaders
-of the thought of the day. "It is a _problem_," he wrote, with a
-splutter of his pen, charging his grievance full tilt with his most
-effective term; "it is, we conscientiously believe, one of the great
-problems of this problem-haunted and problem-fighting age--one of the
-wrongs that it is the mission of the reforming Modern Spirit to set
-right--though the subject is so inextricably entangled and wrapped up
-in its amusing associations that at present its naked gravity is only
-recognised by the philosophic few. It is all very well to make fun of
-it; and, indeed, it is a very good thing to make fun of it--for every
-reform must have a beginning, and there is no better weapon than just
-and judicious ridicule wherewith Reason can open her attack upon the
-solid and solemn front of time-honoured Prejudice. The heavy artillery
-of argument has no effect until the enemy has contracted an internal
-weakness by being made to imbibe the idea that he is absurd. A little
-wit, in the early stage of the campaign, is worth a deal of logic. But
-still there it stands--this great, relentless, crushing, cruel CUSTOM
-(which requires capital letters to emphasise it suitably)--and there
-are moments when we _can't_ be witty about it--when our hearts burn
-within us at the spectacle of our human counterpart still, with a few
-bright exceptions, in the stage of intellectual childhood, while we
-fight the battle of the world's progress alone--"
-
-Here the typical strong-minded female, against whom he had fulminated
-in frequent wrath, suddenly appeared before him, side by side with a
-vision of Patty in her shell-pink Cup dress; and his sword arm failed
-him. He paused, and laid down his pen, and leaned his head on his hand;
-and he was thereupon seized with a raging desire to be rich, in order
-that he might buy Indian embroideries for his beloved, and clothe her
-like a king's daughter in glorious apparel. Somehow that remarkable
-paper which was to inaugurate so vast a revolution in the social system
-never got written. At least, it did not for two or three years, and
-then it came forth in so mild a form that its original design was
-unrecognisable. (N.B.--In this latest contribution to the Dress Reform
-Question, women, to the peril of their immortal intellects, were
-invited to make themselves as pretty as they could, no hard condition
-being laid upon them, save that they should try to dress to please the
-eyes of men instead of to rival and outshine each other--that they
-should cultivate such sense of art and reason as might happily have
-survived in them--and, above all, from the high principles of religion
-and philanthropy, that they should abstain from bringing in new
-fashions violently--or, indeed, at all--leaving the spirit of beauty
-and the spirit of usefulness to produce their healthy offspring by the
-natural processes. In the composition of this paper he had the great
-advantage of being able to study both his own and the woman's point of
-view.)
-
-The next day he went to the Exhibition again, and again he saw Patty,
-with no happier result than before. She was standing amongst the
-carriages with Mr. Smith--popularly believed to have been for years on
-the look-out for a pretty young second wife--who was pointing out to
-her the charms of a seductive little lady's phaeton, painted lake and
-lined with claret, with a little "dickey" for a groom behind; no doubt
-tempting her with the idea of driving such a one of her own some day.
-This was even more bitter to Paul than the former encounter. He could
-bear with Mr. Westmoreland, whose youth entitled him to place himself
-somewhat on an equality with her, and whom, moreover, his rival (as
-he thought himself) secretly regarded as beneath contempt; but this
-grey-bearded widower, whose defunct wife might almost have been her
-grandmother, Paul felt he could _not_ bear, in any sort of conjunction
-with his maiden queen, who, though in such dire disgrace, was his queen
-always. He went hastily away that he might not see them together, and
-get bad thoughts into his head--such as, for instance, that Patty might
-be contemplating the incredible degradation of matrimony with the
-widower, in order to be able to drive the prettiest pony carriage in
-town.
-
-He went away, but he came back again in a day or two. And then he saw
-her standing in the nave, with Mr. Smith again, looking at Kate Kelly,
-newly robed in black, and prancing up and down, in flowing hair and
-three-inch veil, and high heels and furbelows, putting on all sorts
-of airs and graces because, a few hours before, Ned had crowned his
-exploits and added a new distinction to the family by being hung in
-gaol; and she (Patty) could not only bear that shabby and shameless
-spectacle, but was even listening while Mr. Smith cut jokes about
-it--this pitiful demolishment of our imagined Kate Kelly, our Grizell
-Hume of the bush--and smiling at his misplaced humour. The fact being
-that poor Patty was aware of her lover's proximity, and was moved to
-unnatural and hysteric mirth in order that he might not carry away the
-mistaken notion that she was fretting for him. But Paul, who could see
-no further through a stone wall than other men, was profoundly shocked
-and disgusted.
-
-And yet once more he saw his beloved, whom he tried so hard to hate.
-On the night of the 17th--a Wednesday night--he had yawned through
-an uninteresting, and to him unprofitable, session of the Assembly,
-dealing with such mere practical matters as the passing in committee
-of clauses of railway bills and rabbit bills, which neither enlivened
-the spirits and speeches of honourable members nor left a press critic
-anything in particular to criticise; and at a few minutes after
-midnight he was sauntering through the streets to his office, and
-chanced to pass the Town Hall, where the great ball of the Exhibition
-year was going on. It was not chance, perhaps, that led him that
-way--along by the chief entrance, round which carriages and cabs were
-standing in a dense black mass, and where even the pavements were too
-much crowded by loiterers to be comfortable to the pedestrian abroad
-on business. But it was chance that gave him a glimpse of Patty at
-the only moment of the night when he could have seen her. As he
-went by he looked up at the lighted vestibule with a sneer. He was
-not himself of the class which went to balls of that description--he
-honestly believed he had no desire to be, and that, as a worker for
-his bread, endowed with brains instead of money, he was at an infinite
-advantage over those who did; but he knew that the three Miss Kings
-would be numbered with the elect. He pictured Patty in gorgeous array,
-bare-necked and bare-armed, displaying her dancing-class acquirements
-for the edification of the gilded youth of the Melbourne Club, whirling
-round and round, with flushed cheeks and flying draperies, in the
-arms of young Westmoreland and his brother hosts, intoxicated with
-flattery and unwholesome excitement, and he made up his mind that
-she was only beginning the orgy of the night, and might be expected
-to trail home, dishevelled, when the stars grew pale in the summer
-dawn. However, as this surmise occurred to him it was dispelled by the
-vision of Mrs. Duff-Scott coming out of the light and descending the
-flight of steps in front of him. He recognised her majestic figure in
-spite of its wraps, and the sound of her voice directing the major
-to call the carriage up. She had a regal--or, I should rather say,
-vice-regal--habit of leaving a ball-room early (generally after having
-been amongst the first to be taken to supper), as he might have known
-had he known a little more about her. It was one of the trivial little
-customs that indicated her rank. Paul looked up at her for a moment, to
-make sure that she had all her party with her; and then he drew into
-the shadow of a group of bystanders to watch them drive off.
-
-First came the chaperon herself, with Eleanor leaning lightly on her
-arm, and a couple of hosts in attendance. Eleanor was not bare-armed
-and necked, nor was she dishevelled; she had just refreshed herself
-with chicken and champagne, and was looking as composed and fair
-and refined as possible in her delicate white gown and unruffled
-yellow hair--like a tall lily, I feel I ought (and for a moment was
-tempted) to add, only that I know no girl ever did look like a lily
-since the world was made, nor ever will, no matter what the processes
-of evolution may come to. This pair, or quartette, were followed by
-Elizabeth, escorted on one side by the little major and on the other by
-big Mr. Yelverton. She, too, had neither tumbled draperies nor towsled
-head, but looked serene and dignified as usual, holding a bouquet to
-her breast with the one hand, and with the other thriftily guarding her
-skirts from contact with the pavement. But Mr. Brion took no notice of
-her. His attention was concentrated on his Patty, who appeared last of
-all, under the charge of that ubiquitous widower (whom he was beginning
-to hate with a deadly hatred), Mr. Smith. She was as beautiful
-as--whatever classical or horticultural object the reader likes to
-imagine--in the uncertain light and in her jealous lover's estimation,
-when she chanced, after stepping down to his level, to stand within a
-couple of yards of him to wait for the carriage. No bronze, or dead
-leaf, or half-ripe chestnut (to which I inadvertently likened it) was
-fit to be named in the same breath with that wavy hair that he could
-almost touch, and not all the jewellers' shops in Melbourne could have
-furnished a comparison worthy of her lovely eyes. She, too, was dressed
-in snowy, foamy, feathery white (I use these adjectives in deference to
-immemorial custom, and not because they accurately describe the finer
-qualities of Indian muslin and Mechlin lace), ruffled round her white
-throat and elbows in the most delicately modest fashion; and not a
-scrap of precious stone or metal was to be seen anywhere to vulgarise
-the maidenly simplicity of her attire. He had never seen her look so
-charming--he had never given himself so entirely to the influence of
-her beauty. And she stood there, so close that he could see the rise
-and fall of the laces on her breast with her gentle breathing, silent
-and patient, paying no attention to the blandishments of her cavalier,
-looking tired and pre-occupied, and as far as possible from the
-condition in which he had pictured her. Yet, when presently he emerged
-from his obscurity, and strode away, he felt that he had never been in
-such a rage of wrath against her. And why, may it be asked? What had
-poor Patty done this time? _She had not known that he was there beside
-her._ It was the greatest offence of all that she had committed, and
-the culmination of his wrongs.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.
-
-
-WHAT PAUL COULD NOT KNOW.
-
-
-It was a pity that Paul Brion, looking at Patty's charming figure in
-the gaslight, could not have looked into her heart. It is a pity, for
-us all, that there is no Palace of Truth amongst our sacred edifices,
-into which we could go--say, once a week--and show ourselves as we
-are to our neighbours and ourselves. If we could know our friends from
-our enemies, whom to trust and whom to shun--if we could vindicate
-ourselves from the false testimony of appearances in the eyes of
-those whom we love and by whom we desire to be loved--not to speak of
-larger privileges--what a different world it would be! But we can't,
-unfortunately. And so Paul carried away with him the impression that
-his Patty had become a fine lady--too fine to have any longer a thought
-for him--than which he had never conceived a baser calumny in his life.
-
-Nor was he the only one who misread her superficial aspect that night.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, the most discerning of women, had a fixed belief
-that her girls, all of them, thoroughly enjoyed their first ball.
-From the moment that they entered the room, a few minutes in advance
-of the Governor's party, received by a dozen or two of hosts drawn
-up in line on either side of the doorway, it was patent to her that
-they would do her every sort of credit; and this anticipation, at any
-rate, was abundantly realised. For the greater part of the evening
-she herself was enthroned under the gallery, which roofed a series of
-small drawing-rooms on this occasion, eminently adapted to matronly
-requirements; and from her arm-chair or sofa corner she looked out
-through curtains of æsthetic hues upon the pretty scene which had
-almost as fresh an interest for her to-night as it had for them. And
-no mother could have been more proud than she when one or other was
-taken from her side by the most eligible and satisfactory partners,
-or when for brief minutes they came back to her and gave her an
-opportunity to pull out a fold or a frill that had become disarranged,
-or when at intervals during their absence she caught sight of them
-amongst the throng, looking so distinguished in their expensively
-simple toilettes--those unpretending white muslins upon which she had
-not hesitated to spend the price of her own black velvet and Venetian
-point, whereof the costly richness was obvious to the least instructed
-observer--and evidently receiving as much homage and attention as they
-well knew what to do with. Now it was Eleanor going by on the arm of
-a naval foreigner, to whom she was chatting in that pure German (or
-equally pure French) that was one of her unaccountable accomplishments,
-or dancing as if she had danced from childhood with a more important
-somebody else. Now it was Patty, sitting bowered in azaleas on the
-steps under the great organ, while the Austrian band (bowered almost
-out of sight) discoursed Strauss waltzes over her head, and Mr. Smith
-sat in a significant attitude on the crimson carpet at her feet. And
-again it was Elizabeth, up in the gallery, which was a forest of fern
-trees to-night, sitting under the shade of the great green fronds with
-Mr. Yelverton, who had such an evident partiality for her society.
-Strange to say, Mrs. Duff-Scott, acute as she was in such matters, had
-never thought of Mr. Yelverton as a possible husband, and did not so
-think of him now--while noting his proceedings. She was taking so deep
-an interest in him as a philanthropist and social philosopher that
-she forgot he might have other and less exceptional characteristics;
-and she left off scheming for Elizabeth when Mr. Smith made choice
-of Patty, and was fully occupied in her manoeuvres and anxieties for
-the welfare of the younger sisters. That Patty should be the second
-Mrs. Smith she had quite made up her mind, and that Eleanor should be
-Mrs. Westmoreland was equally a settled thing. With these two affairs
-approaching a crisis together, she had quite enough to think of; and,
-with the prospect of losing two of her children so soon after becoming
-possessed of them, she was naturally in no hurry to deprive herself
-of the third. She was beginning to regard Elizabeth as destined to
-be her surviving comfort when the others were gone, and therefore
-abandoned all matrimonial projects on her behalf. Concerning Patty,
-the fairy godmother felt that her mind was at rest; half-a-dozen times
-in an hour and a half did she see the girl in some sort of association
-with Mr. Smith--who finally took her in to supper, and from supper
-to the cloak-room and carriage. For her she had reached the question
-of the trousseau and whom she would invite for bridesmaids. About
-Eleanor she was not so easy. It did not seem that Mr. Westmoreland
-lived up to his privileges; he did not dance with her at all, and was
-remarkably attentive to a plain heiress in a vulgar satin gown and
-diamonds. However, that was nothing. The bachelors of the club had all
-the roomful to entertain, and were obliged to lay aside their private
-preferences for the occasion. He had made his attentions to Eleanor
-so conspicuous that his proposal was only required as a matter of
-form; and Mrs. Duff-Scott felt that she would rather get the fuss of
-one engagement over before another came on. So, when the dissipations
-of the night were past, she retired from the field with a pleasant
-sense of almost unalloyed success, and fondly believed that her pretty
-_protégées_ were as satisfied with the situation as she was.
-
-But she was wrong. She was mistaken about them all--and most of all
-about Patty. When she first came into the room, and the fairy-land
-effect of the decorations burst upon her--when she passed up the
-lane of bachelor hosts, running the gauntlet of their respectful but
-admiring observation, like a young queen receiving homage--when the
-little major took her for a slow promenade round the hall and made
-her pause for a moment in front of one of the great mirrors that
-flanked the flowery orchestra, to show her herself in full length and
-in the most charming relief against her brilliant surroundings--the
-girl certainly did enjoy herself in a manner that bordered closely
-upon intoxication. She said very little, but her eyes were radiant
-and her whole face and figure rapturous, all her delicate soul spread
-out like a flower opened to the sunshine under the sensuous and
-artistic influences thus suddenly poured upon her. And then, after an
-interval of vague wonder as to what it was that was missing from the
-completeness of her pleasure--what it was that, being absent, spoiled
-the flavour of it all--there came an overpowering longing for her
-lover's presence and companionship, that lover without whom few balls
-are worth the trouble of dressing for, unless I am much mistaken. And
-after she found out that she wanted Paul Brion, who was not there,
-her gaiety became an excited restlessness, and her enjoyment of the
-pretty scene around her changed to passionate discontent. Why was
-he not there? She curled her lip in indignant scorn. Because he was
-poor, and a worker for his bread, and therefore was not accounted the
-equal of Mr. Westmoreland and Mr. Smith. She was too young and ardent
-to take into account the multitudes of other reasons which entirely
-removed it from the sphere of social grievances; like many another
-woman, she could see only one side of a subject at a time, and looked
-at that through a telescope. It seemed to her a despicably vulgar
-thing, and an indication of the utter rottenness of the whole fabric
-of society, that a high-born man of distinguished attainments should
-by common consent be neglected and despised simply because he was not
-rich. That was how she looked at it. And if Paul Brion had not been
-thought good enough for a select assembly, why had _she_ been invited?
-Her answer to this question was a still more painful testimony to the
-generally improper state of things, and brought her to long for her
-own legitimate and humble environment, in which she could enjoy her
-independence and self-respect, and (which was the idea that tantalised
-her most just now) solace her lover with Beethoven sonatas when he
-was tired of writing, and wanted a rest. From the longing to see
-him in the ballroom, to have him with her as other girls had their
-natural counterparts, to share with her in the various delights of
-this great occasion, she fell to longing to go home to him--to belong
-to Myrtle Street and obscurity again, just as he did, and because he
-did. Why should she be listening to the Austrian band, eating ices
-and strawberries, rustling to and fro amongst the flowers and fine
-ladies, flaunting herself in this dazzling crowd of rich and idle
-people, while he plodded at his desk or smoked a lonely pipe on his
-balcony, out of it all, and with nothing to cheer him? Then the memory
-of their estrangement, and how it had come about, and how little chance
-there seemed now of any return to old relations and those blessed
-opportunities that she had so perversely thrown away, wrought upon her
-high-strung nerves, and inspired her with a kind of heroism of despair.
-Poor, thin-skinned Patty! She was sensitive to circumstances to a
-degree that almost merited the term "morbid," which is so convenient
-as a description of people of that sort. A ray of sunshine would light
-up the whole world, and show her her own pathway in it, shining into
-the farthest future with a divine effulgence of happiness and success;
-and the patter of rain upon the window on a dark day could beat down
-hope and discourage effort as effectually as if its natural mission
-were to bring misfortune. At one moment she would be inflated with a
-proud belief in herself and her own value and dignity, that gave her
-the strength of a giant to be and do and suffer; and then, at some
-little touch of failure, some discovery that she was mortal and a woman
-liable to blunder, as were other women, she would collapse into nothing
-and fling herself into the abysses of shame and self-condemnation as
-a worthless and useless thing. When this happened, her only chance of
-rescue and restoration in her own esteem was to do penance in some
-striking shape--to prove herself to herself as having some genuineness
-of moral substance in her, though it were only to own honestly how
-little it was. It was above all things necessary to her to have her
-own good opinion; what others thought of her was comparatively of no
-consequence.
-
-She had been dancing for some time before the intercourse with Mr.
-Smith, that so gratified Mrs. Duff-Scott, set in. The portly widower
-found her fanning herself on a sofa in the neighbourhood of her
-chaperon, for the moment unattended by cavaliers; and, approaching
-her with one of the frequent little plates and spoons that were
-handed about, invited her favour through the medium of three colossal
-strawberries veiled in sugar and cream.
-
-"I am so grieved that I am not a dancing man," he sighed as she refused
-his offering on the ground that she had already eaten strawberries
-twice; "I would ask leave to inscribe my humble name on your programme,
-Miss Patty."
-
-"I don't see anything to grieve about," she replied, "in not being a
-dancing man. I am sure I don't want to dance. And you may inscribe your
-name on my programme and welcome"--holding it out to him. "It will keep
-other people from doing it."
-
-The delighted old fellow felt that this was indeed meeting him half
-way, and he put his name down for all the available round dances that
-were to take place before morning, with her free permission. Then, as
-the band struck up for the first of them, and the people about them
-began to crystallise into pairs and groups, and the smart man-o'-wars
-men stretched their crimson rope across the hall to divide the crowd,
-Mr. Smith took his young lady on his arm and went off to enjoy himself.
-First to the buffet, crowned with noble icebergs to cool the air, and
-groaning with such miscellaneous refreshment that supper, in its due
-course, came to her as a surprise and a superfluity, where he insisted
-that she should support her much-tried strength (as he did his own)
-with a sandwich and champagne. Then up a narrow staircase to the groves
-above--where already sat Elizabeth in a distant and secluded bower with
-Mr. Yelverton, lost, apparently, to all that went on around her. Here
-Mr. Smith took a front seat, that the young men might see and envy him,
-and set himself to the improvement of his opportunity.
-
-"And so you don't care about dancing," he remarked tenderly; "you, with
-these little fairy feet! I wonder why that is?"
-
-"Because I am not used to it," said Patty, leaning her white arms on
-the ledge in front of her and looking down at the shining sea of heads
-below. "I have been brought up to other accomplishments."
-
-"Music," he murmured; "and--and--"
-
-"And scrubbing and sweeping, and washing and ironing, and churning and
-bread-making, and cleaning dirty pots and kettles," said Patty, with
-elaborate distinctness.
-
-"Ha-ha!" chuckled Mr. Smith. "I should like to see you cleaning pots
-and kettles! Cinderella after twelve o'clock, eh?"
-
-"Yes," said she; "you have expressed it exactly. After twelve
-o'clock--what time is it now?--after twelve o'clock, or it may be a
-little later, I shall be Cinderella again. I shall take off my glass
-slippers, and go back to my kitchen." And she had an impulse to rise
-and run round the gallery to beg Elizabeth to get permission for their
-return to their own lodgings after the ball; only Elizabeth seemed to
-be enjoying her _tête-à-tête_ so much that she had not the heart to
-disturb her. Then she looked up at Mr. Smith, who stared at her in a
-puzzled and embarrassed way. "You don't seem to believe me," she said,
-with a defiant smile. "Did you think I was a fine lady, like all these
-other people?"
-
-"I have always thought you the most lovely--the most charming--"
-
-"Nonsense. I see you don't understand at all. So just listen, and I
-will tell you." Whereupon Patty proceeded to sketch herself and her
-domestic circumstances in what, had it been another person, would have
-been a simply brutal manner. She made herself out to be a Cinderella
-indeed, in her life and habits, a parasite, a sycophant, a jay in
-borrowed plumage--everything that was sordid and "low," and calculated
-to shock the sensibilities of a "new rich" man; making her statement
-with calm energy and in the most terse and expressive terms. It was her
-penance, and it did her good. It made her feel that she was genuine in
-her unworthiness, which was the great thing just now; and it made her
-feel, also, that she was set back in her proper place at Paul Brion's
-side--or, rather, at his feet. It also comforted her, for some reason,
-to be able, as a matter of duty, to disgust Mr. Smith.
-
-But Mr. Smith, though he was a "new rich" man, and not given to tell
-people who did not know it what he had been before he got his money,
-was still a man, and a shrewd man too. And he was not at all disgusted.
-Very far, indeed, from it. This admirable honesty, so rare in a young
-person of her sex and charms--this touching confidence in him as a
-lover and a gentleman--put the crowning grace to Patty's attractions
-and made her irresistible. Which was not what she meant to do at all.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII.
-
-
-SLIGHTED.
-
-
-Some hours earlier on the same evening, Eleanor, dressing for dinner
-and the ball in her spacious bedroom at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, felt
-that _she_, at any rate, was arming herself for conquest. No misgivings
-of any sort troubled the serene and rather shallow waters of that
-young lady's mind. While her sisters were tossing to and fro in the
-perturbations of the tender passion, she had calmly taken her bearings,
-so to speak, and was sailing a straight course. She had summed up her
-possibilities and arranged her programme accordingly. In short, she had
-made up her mind to marry Mr. Westmoreland--who, if not all that could
-be desired in a man and a husband, was well enough--and thereby to
-take a short cut to Europe, and to all those other goals towards which
-her feet were set. As Mr. Westmoreland himself boasted, some years
-afterwards, Eleanor was not a fool; and I feel sure that this negative
-excellence, herein displayed, will not fail to commend itself to the
-gentle reader of her little history.
-
-She had made up her mind to marry Mr. Westmoreland, and to-night she
-meant that he should ask her. Looking at her graceful person in the
-long glass, with a soft smile on her face, she had no doubt of her
-power to draw forth that necessary question at any convenient moment.
-It had not taken her long to learn her power; nor had she failed to see
-that it had its limitations, and that possibly other and greater men
-might be unaffected by it. She was a very sensible young woman, but I
-would not have any one run off with the idea that she was mercenary
-and calculating in the sordid sense. No, she was not in love, like
-Elizabeth and Patty; but that was not her fault. And in arranging her
-matrimonial plans she was actuated by all sorts of tender and human
-motives. In the first place, she liked her admirer, who was fond of her
-and a good comrade, and whom she naturally invested with many ideal
-excellences that he did not actually possess; and she liked (as will
-any single woman honestly tell me that she does not?) the thought of
-the dignities and privileges of a wife, and of that dearer and deeper
-happiness that lay behind. She was in haste to snatch at them while
-she had the chance, lest the dreadful fate of a childless old maid
-should some day overtake her--as undoubtedly it did overtake the very
-prettiest girls sometimes. And she was in love with the prospect of
-wealth at her own disposal, after her narrow experiences; not from any
-vulgar love of luxury and display, but for the sake of the enriched
-life, bright and full of beauty and knowledge, that it would make
-possible for her sisters as well as herself. If these motives seem
-poor and inadequate, in comparison with the great motive of all (as
-no doubt they are), we must remember that they are at the bottom of a
-considerable proportion of the marriages of real life, and not perhaps
-the least successful ones. It goes against me to admit so much, but one
-must take things as one finds them.
-
-Elizabeth came in to lace up her bodice--Elizabeth, whose own soft eyes
-were shining, and who walked across the floor with an elastic step,
-trailing her long robes behind her; and Eleanor vented upon her some of
-the fancies which were seething in her small head. "Don't we look like
-brides?" she said, nodding at their reflections in the glass.
-
-"Or bridesmaids," said Elizabeth. "Brides wear silks and satins mostly,
-I believe."
-
-"If they only knew it," said Eleanor reflectively, "muslin and lace are
-much more becoming to the complexion. When I am married, Elizabeth,
-I think I shall have my dress made of that 'woven dew' that we were
-looking at in the Exhibition the other day."
-
-"My dear girl, when you are married you will do nothing so
-preposterous. Do you suppose we are always going to let Mrs. Duff-Scott
-squander her money on us like this? I was telling her in her room just
-now that we must begin to draw the line. It is _too_ much. The lace on
-these gowns cost a little fortune. But lace is always family property,
-and I shall pick it off and make her take it back again. So just be
-very careful not to tear it, dear."
-
-"She won't take it back," said Eleanor, fingering it delicately;
-"she looks on us as her children, for whom nothing is too good. And
-perhaps--perhaps some day we may have it in our power to do things for
-_her_."
-
-"I wish I could think so. But there is no chance of that."
-
-"How can you tell? When we are married, we may be very well off--"
-
-"That would be to desert her, Nelly, and to cut off all our
-opportunities for repaying her."
-
-"No. It would please her more than anything. We might settle down
-close to her--one of us, at any rate--and she could advise us about
-furnishing and housekeeping. To have the choosing of the colours for
-our drawing-rooms, and all that sort of thing, would give her ecstasies
-of delight."
-
-"Bless her!" was Elizabeth's pious and fervent rejoinder.
-
-Then Eleanor laid out her fan and gloves for the evening, and the
-girls went down to dinner. Patty was in the music-room, working off
-her excitement in one of Liszt's rhapsodies, to which Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was listening with critical approval--the girl very seldom putting her
-brilliant powers of execution to such evident proof; and the major was
-smiling to himself as he paced gently up and down the Persian carpeted
-parquet of the long drawing-room beyond, waiting for the sound of the
-dinner bell, and the appearance of his dear Elizabeth. As soon as she
-came in, he went up to her, still subtly smiling, carrying a beautiful
-bouquet in his hand. It was composed almost entirely of that flower
-which is so sweet and lovely, but so rare in Australia, the lily of
-the valley (and lest the reader should say it was impossible, I can
-tell him or her that I saw it and smelt it that very night, and in that
-very Melbourne ballroom where Elizabeth disported herself, with my own
-eyes and nose), the great cluster of white bells delicately thinned and
-veiled in the finest and most ethereal feathers of maiden-hair. "For
-you," said the major, looking at her with his sagacious eyes.
-
-"Oh!" she cried, taking it with tremulous eagerness, and inhaling its
-delicious perfume in a long breath. "Real lilies of the valley, and I
-have never seen them before. But not for me, surely," she added; "I
-have already the beautiful bouquet you told the gardener to cut for me."
-
-"You may make that over to my wife," said the major, plaintively. "I
-thought she was above carrying flowers about with her to parties--she
-used to say it was bad art--you did, my dear, so don't deny it; you
-told me distinctly that that was not what flowers were meant for. But
-she says she will have your bouquet, Elizabeth, so that you may not be
-afraid of hurting my feelings by taking this that is so much better.
-Where the fellow got it from I can't imagine. I only know of one place
-where lilies of the valley grow, and they are not for sale _there_."
-
-Elizabeth looked at him with slowly-crimsoning cheeks. "What fellow?"
-she asked.
-
-He returned her look with one that only Major Duff-Scott's eyes could
-give. "I don't know," he said softly.
-
-"He _does_ know," his wife broke in; "I can see by his manner that he
-knows perfectly well."
-
-"I assure you, on my word of honour, that I don't," protested the
-little major, still with a distant sparkle in his quaint eyes. "It was
-brought to the door just now by somebody, who said it was for Miss
-King--that's all."
-
-"It might be for any of them," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, slightly put out
-by the liberty that somebody had taken without her leave. "They are all
-Miss Kings to outside people. It was a very stupid way of sending it."
-
-"Will you take it for yourself?" said Elizabeth, holding it out to her
-chaperon. "Let me keep my own, and you take this."
-
-"O no," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, flinging out her hands. "That would never
-do. It was meant for one of you, of course--not for me. _I_ think Mr.
-Smith sent it. It must have been either he or Mr. Westmoreland, and I
-fancy Mr. Westmoreland would not choose lilies of the valley, even if
-he could get them. I think you had better draw lots for it, pending
-further information."
-
-Patty, rising from the piano with a laugh, declared that _she_ would
-not have it, on any account. Eleanor believed that it was meant for
-her, and that Mr. Westmoreland had better taste than people gave him
-credit for; and she had a mind to put in her claim for it. But the
-major set her aside gently. "No," he said, "it belongs to Elizabeth.
-I don't know who sent it--you may shake your head at me, my dear; I
-can't help it if you don't believe me--but I am convinced that it is
-Elizabeth's lawful property."
-
-"As if that didn't _prove_ that you know!" retorted Mrs. Duff-Scott.
-
-He was still looking at Elizabeth, who was holding her lilies of the
-valley to her breast. His eyes asked her whether she did not endorse
-his views, and when she lifted her face at the sound of the dinner
-bell, she satisfied him, without at all intending to do so, that she
-did. _She_ knew that the bouquet had been sent for her.
-
-It was carefully set into the top of a cloisonné pot in a cool corner
-until dinner was over, and until the girls were wrapped up and the
-carriage waiting for them at the hall door. Then the elder sister
-fetched it from the drawing-room, and carried it out into the balmy
-summer night, still held against her breast as if she were afraid it
-might be taken from her; and the younger sister gazed at it smilingly,
-convinced that it was Mr. Westmoreland's tribute to herself, and
-magnanimously determined to beg him not to let Elizabeth know it.
-Thus the evening began happily for both of them. And by-and-bye their
-carriage slowly ploughed its way to the Town Hall entrance, and they
-went up the stone stairs to the vestibule and the cloak-room and the
-ball-room, and had their names shouted out so that every ear listening
-for them should hear and heed, and were received by the hospitable
-bachelors and passed into the great hall that was so dazzlingly
-splendid to their unsophisticated eyes; and the first face that Eleanor
-was aware of was Mr. Westmoreland's, standing out solidly from the
-double row of them that lined the doorway. She gave him a side-long
-glance as she bowed and passed, and then stood by her chaperon's side
-in the middle of the room, and waited for him to come to her. But he
-did not come. She waited, and watched, and listened, with her thanks
-and explanations all ready, chatting smilingly to her party the while
-in perfect ease of mind; but, to her great surprise, she waited in
-vain. Perhaps he had to stand by the door till the Governor came;
-perhaps he had other duties to perform that kept him from her and his
-private pursuits; perhaps he had forgotten that he had asked her for
-the first dance two days ago; perhaps he had noticed her bouquet, and
-had supposed that she had given it away, and was offended with her.
-She had a serene and patient temperament, and did not allow herself to
-be put out; it would all be explained presently. And in the meantime
-the major introduced his friends to her, and she began to fill her
-programme rapidly.
-
-The evening passed on. Mrs. Duff-Scott settled herself in the
-particular one of the series of boudoirs under the gallery that struck
-her as having a commanding prospect. The Governor came, the band
-played, the guests danced, and promenaded, and danced again; and Mr.
-Westmoreland was nowhere to be seen. Eleanor was beset with other
-partners, and thought it well to punish him by letting them forestall
-him as they would; and, provisionally, she captivated a couple of naval
-officers by her proficiency in foreign languages, and made various men
-happy by her graceful and gay demeanour. By-and-bye, however, she came
-across her recreant admirer--as she was bound to do some time. He was
-leaning against a pillar, his dull eyes roving over the crowd before
-him, evidently looking for some one. She thought he was looking for her.
-
-"Well?" she said, archly, pausing before him, on the arm of an
-Exhibition commissioner with whom she was about to plunge into the
-intricacies of the lancers. Mr. Westmoreland looked at her with a start
-and in momentary confusion.
-
-"Oh--er," he stammered, hurriedly, "_here_ you are! Where have you been
-hiding yourself all the evening?" Then, after a pause, "Got any dances
-saved for me?"
-
-"_Saved_, indeed!" she retorted. "What next? When you don't take the
-trouble to come and ask for them!"
-
-"I am so engaged to-night, Miss Eleanor----"
-
-"I see you are. Never mind--I can get on without you." She walked on a
-step, and turned back. "Did you send me a pretty bouquet just now?" she
-whispered, touching his arm. "I think you did, and it was so good of
-you, but there was some mistake about it--" She checked herself, seeing
-a blank look in his face, and blushed violently. "Oh, it was _not_
-you!" she exclaimed, in a shocked voice, wishing the ball-room floor
-would open and swallow her up.
-
-"Really," he said, "I--I was very remiss--I'm awfully sorry." And he
-gave her to understand, to her profound consternation, that he had
-fully intended to send her a bouquet, but had forgotten it in the rush
-of his many important engagements.
-
-She passed on to her lancers with a wan smile, and presently saw him,
-under those seductive fern trees upstairs, with the person whom he
-had been looking for when she accosted him. "There's Westmoreland and
-his old flame," remarked her then partner, a club-frequenting youth
-who knew all about everybody. "_He_ calls her the handsomest woman
-out--because she's got a lot of money, I suppose. All the Westmorelands
-are worshippers of the golden calf, father and son--a regular set of
-screws the old fellows were, and he's got the family eye to the main
-chance. Trust him! _I_ can't see anything in her; can you? She's as
-round as a tub, and as swarthy as a gipsy. I like women"--looking at
-his partner--"to be tall, and slender, and fair. That's _my_ style."
-
-This was how poor Eleanor's pleasure in her first ball was spoiled.
-I am aware that it looks a very poor and shabby little episode, not
-worthy of a chapter to itself; but then things are not always what they
-seem, and, as a matter of fact, the life histories of a large majority
-of us are made up of just such unheroic passages.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII.
-
-
-"WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW MEN."
-
-
-When Elizabeth went into the room, watchfully attended by the major,
-who was deeply interested in her proceedings, she was perhaps the
-happiest woman of all that gala company. She was in love, and she was
-going to meet her lover--which things meant to her something different
-from what they mean to girls brought up in conventional habits of
-thought. Eve in the Garden of Eden could not have been more pure and
-unsophisticated, more absolutely natural, more warmly human, more
-blindly confiding and incautious than she; therefore she had obeyed her
-strongest instinct without hesitation or reserve, and had given herself
-up to the delight of loving without thought of cost or consequences.
-Where her affections were concerned she was incapable of compromise or
-calculation; it was only the noble and simple rectitude that was the
-foundation of her character and education which could "save her from
-herself," as we call it, and that only in the last extremity. Just
-now she was in the full flood-tide, and she let herself go with it
-without an effort. Adam's "graceful consort" could not have had a more
-primitive notion of what was appropriate and expected of her under the
-circumstances. She stood in the brilliant ball-room, without a particle
-of self-consciousness, in an attitude of unaffected dignity, and with a
-radiance of gentle happiness all over her, that made her beautiful to
-look at, though she was not technically beautiful. The major watched
-her with profound interest, reading her like an open book; he knew what
-was happening, and what was going to happen (he mostly did), though
-he had a habit of keeping his own counsel about his own discoveries.
-He noted her pose, which, besides being so admirably graceful, so
-evidently implied expectancy; the way she held her flowers to her
-breast, her chin just touched by the fringes of maiden-hair, while she
-gently turned her head from side to side. And he saw her lift her eyes
-to the gallery, saw at the same moment a light spread over her face
-that had a superficial resemblance to a smile, though her sensitive
-mouth never changed its expression of firm repose; and, chuckling
-silently to himself, he walked away to find a sofa for his wife.
-
-Presently Mrs. Duff-Scott, suitably enthroned, and with her younger
-girls already carried off by her husband from her side, saw Mr.
-Yelverton approaching her, and rejoiced at the prospect of securing his
-society for herself and having the tedium of the chaperon's inactivity
-relieved by sensible conversation. "Ah, so you are here!" she exclaimed
-cordially; "I thought balls were things quite out of your line."
-
-"So they are," he said, shaking hands with her and Elizabeth
-impartially, without a glance at the latter. "But I consider it a duty
-to investigate the customs of the country. I like to look all round
-when I am about it."
-
-"Quite right. This is distinctly one of our institutions, and I am very
-glad you are not above taking notice of it."
-
-"I am not above taking notice of anything, I hope."
-
-"No, of course not. You are a true philosopher. There is no
-dilettantism about you. That is what I like in you," she added frankly.
-"Come and sit down here between Miss King and me, and talk to us. I
-want to know how the emigration business is getting on."
-
-He sat down between the two ladies, Elizabeth drawing back her white
-skirts.
-
-"I have been doing no business, emigration or other," he said; "I have
-been spending my time in pleasure."
-
-"Is it possible? Well, I am glad to hear it. I should very much like
-to know what stands for pleasure with you, only it would be too rude a
-question."
-
-"I have been in the country," he said, smiling.
-
-"H--m--that's not saying much. You don't mean to tell me, I see.
-Talking of the country--look at Elizabeth's bouquet. Did you think we
-could raise lilies of the valley like those?"
-
-He bent his head slightly to smell them. "I heard that they did grow
-hereabouts," he said; and his eyes and Elizabeth's met for a moment
-over the fragrant flowers that she held between them, while Mrs.
-Duff-Scott detailed the negligent circumstances of their presentation,
-which left it a matter of doubt where they came from and for whom they
-were intended.
-
-"I want to find Mr. Smith," said she; "I fancy he can give us
-information."
-
-"I don't think so," said Mr. Yelverton; "he was showing me a lily of
-the valley in his button-hole just now as a great rarity in these
-parts."
-
-Then it flashed across Mrs. Duff-Scott that Paul Brion might have been
-the donor, and she said no more.
-
-For some time the trio sat upon the sofa, and the matron and the
-philanthropist discussed political economy in its modern developments.
-They talked about emigration; they talked about protection--and wherein
-a promising, but inexperienced, young country was doing its best to
-retard the wheels of progress--as if they were at a committee meeting
-rather than disporting themselves at a ball. The major found partners
-for the younger girls, but he left Elizabeth to her devices; at least
-he did so for a long time--until it seemed to him that she was being
-neglected by her companions. Then he started across the room to rescue
-her from her obscurity. At the moment that he came in sight, Mr.
-Yelverton turned to her. "What about dancing, Miss King?" he said,
-quickly. "May I be allowed to do my best?"
-
-"I cannot dance," said Elizabeth. "I began too late--I can't take to
-it, somehow."
-
-"My dear," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, "that is nonsense. All you want is
-practice. And I am not going to allow you to become a wall-flower." She
-turned her head to greet some newly-arrived friends, and Mr. Yelverton
-rose and offered his arm to Elizabeth.
-
-"Let us go and practise," he said, and straightway they passed down the
-room, threading a crowd once more, and went upstairs to the gallery,
-which was a primeval forest in its solitude at this comparatively
-early hour. "There is no reason why you should dance if you don't like
-it," he remarked; "we can sit here and look on." Then, when she was
-comfortably settled in her cushions under the fern trees, he leaned
-forward and touched her bouquet with a gesture that was significant of
-the unacknowledged but well-understood intimacy between them. "I am so
-glad I was able to get them for you," he said; "I wanted you to know
-what they were really like--when you told me how much your mother had
-loved them."
-
-"I can't thank you," she replied.
-
-"Do not," he said. "It is for me to thank you for accepting them. I
-wish you could see them in my garden at Yelverton. There is a dark
-corner between two gables of the house where they make a perfect carpet
-in April."
-
-She lifted those she held to her face, and sniffed luxuriously.
-
-"There is a room in that recess," he went on, "a lady's sitting-room.
-Not a very healthy spot, by the way, it is too dank and dark. It was
-fitted up for poor Elizabeth Leigh when my two uncles, Patrick and
-Kingscote, expected her to come and live there, each wanting her for
-his wife--so my grandmother used to say. It has never been altered,
-though nearly all the rest of the house has been turned inside out. I
-think the lilies of the valley were planted there for her. I wish you
-could see that room. You would like sitting by the open window--it is
-one of those old diamond-paned casements, and has got some interesting
-stained glass in it--and seeing the sun shine on the grey walls
-outside, and smelling the lilies in that green well that the sun cannot
-reach down below. It is just one of those things that would suit you."
-
-She listened silently, gazing at the great organ opposite, towering out
-of the groves of flowers at its base, without seeing what it was she
-looked at. After a pause he went on, still leaning forward, with his
-arms resting on his knees. "I can think of nothing now but how much I
-want you to see and know everything that makes my life at home," he
-said.
-
-"Tell me about it," she said, with the woman's instinctive desire for
-delay at this juncture, not because she didn't want to hear the rest,
-but to prolong the sweetness of anticipation; "tell me what your life
-at Yelverton is like."
-
-"I have not had much of it at present," he replied, after a brief
-pause. "The place was let for a long while. Then, when I took it over
-again, I made it into a sort of convalescent home, and training-place,
-and general starting-point for girls and children--_protégées_ of my
-friend who does slumming in the orthodox way. Though he disapproves
-of me he makes use of me, and, of course, I don't disapprove of him,
-and am very glad to help him. The house is too big for me alone, and
-it seems the best use I can put it to. Of course I keep control of
-it; I take the poor things in on the condition that they are to be
-disciplined after my system and not his--his may be the best, but they
-don't enjoy it as they do mine--and when I am at home I run down once a
-week or so to see how they are getting on."
-
-"And how is it now?"
-
-"Now the house is just packed, I believe, from top to bottom. I got
-a letter a few days ago from my faithful lieutenant, who looks after
-things for me, to say that it couldn't hold many more, and that the
-funds of the institution are stretched to their utmost capacity to
-provide supplies."
-
-"The funds? Oh, you must certainly use that other money now!"
-
-"Yes, I shall use it now. I have, indeed, already appropriated a small
-instalment. I told Le Breton to draw on it, rather than let one child
-go that we could take--rather than let one opportunity be lost."
-
-"You have other people working with you, then?"
-
-"A good many--yes, and a very miscellaneous lot you would think them.
-Le Breton is the one I trust as I do myself. I could not have been here
-now if it had not been for him. He is my right hand."
-
-"Who is he?" she asked, fascinated, in spite of her preoccupations, by
-this sketch of a life that had really found its mission in the world,
-and one so beneficent and so satisfying.
-
-"He is a very interesting man," said Mr. Yelverton, who still leaned
-towards her, touching her flowers occasionally with a tender audacity;
-"a man to respect and admire--a brave man who would have been burnt at
-the stake had he lived a few centuries ago. He was once a clergyman,
-but he gave that up."
-
-"He gave it up!" repeated Elizabeth, who had read "Thomas à Kempis" and
-the _Christian Year_ daily since she was a child, as her mother had
-done before her.
-
-"He couldn't stand it," said Mr. Yelverton, simply. "You see he was a
-man with a very literal, and straight-going, and independent mind--a
-mind that could nohow bend itself to the necessities of the case. I
-don't suppose he ever really gave himself up out of his own control,
-but, at any rate, when he got to know the world and the kind of time
-that we had come to, he couldn't pretend to shut his eyes. He couldn't
-make-believe that he was all the same as he had been when a mere lad
-of three-and-twenty, and that nothing had happened to change things
-while he had been learning and growing. And once he fell out with
-his conscience there was no patching up the breach with compromises
-for _him_. He tried it, poor fellow--he had a tough tussle before he
-gave in. It was a great step to take, you know--a martyrdom with all
-the pain and none of the glory--that nobody could sympathise with or
-understand."
-
-Elizabeth was sitting very still, watching with unseeing eyes the
-glitter of a conspicuous diamond tiara in the moving crowd below. She,
-at any rate, could neither sympathise nor understand.
-
-"He was in the thick of his troubles when I first met him," Mr.
-Yelverton went on. "He was working hard in one of the East End
-parishes, doing his level best, as the Yankees say, and tormented all
-the time, not only by his own scruples and self-accusations, but by a
-perfect hornet's nest of ecclesiastical persecutors. I said to him. 'Be
-an honest man, and give up being a parson--'"
-
-"Isn't it possible to be _both?_" Elizabeth broke in.
-
-"No doubt it is. But it was not possible for him. Seeing that, I
-advised him to let go, and leave those that could to hold on--as I am
-glad they do hold on, for we want the brake down at the rate we are
-going. He was in agonies of dread about the future, because he had a
-wife and children, so I offered him a salary equal to the emoluments
-of his living to come and work with me. 'You and I will do what good
-we can together,' I said, 'without pretending to be anything more than
-what we _know_ we are.' And so he cast in his lot with me, and we have
-worked together ever since. They call him all sorts of bad names, but
-he doesn't care--at least not much. It is such a relief to him to be
-able to hold his head up as a free man--and he does work with such a
-zest compared to what he did!"
-
-"And you," said Elizabeth, drawing short breaths, "what are you?--are
-you a Dissenter, too?"
-
-"Very much so, I think," he said, smiling at a term that to him, an
-Englishman, was obsolete, while to her, an Australian born, it had
-still its ancient British significance (for she had been born and
-reared in her hermit home, the devoutest of English-churchwomen).
-
-"And yet, in one sense, no one could be less so."
-
-"But _what_ are you?" she urged, suddenly revealing to him that she was
-frightened by this ambiguity.
-
-"Really, I don't know," he replied, looking at her gravely. "I think
-if I had to label my religious faith in the usual way, with a motto, I
-should say I was a Humanitarian. The word has been a good deal battered
-about and spoiled, but it expresses my creed better than any other."
-
-"A Humanitarian!" she ejaculated with a cold and sinking heart. "Is
-that all?" To her, in such a connection, it was but another word for an
-infidel.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX.
-
-
-PATTY CONFESSES.
-
-
-A little group of their male attendants stood in the lobby, while Mrs.
-Duff-Scott and the girls put on their wraps in the cloak-room. When the
-ladies reappeared, they fell into the order in which Paul, unseen in
-the shadows of the street, saw them descend the steps to the pavement.
-
-"May I come and see you to-morrow morning?" asked Mr. Yelverton of
-Elizabeth, whom he especially escorted.
-
-"Not--not to-morrow," she replied. "We shall be at Myrtle Street, and
-we never receive any visitors there."
-
-"At Myrtle Street!" exclaimed the major, who also walked beside her.
-"Surely you are not going to run off to Myrtle Street to-morrow?"
-
-"We are going there now," said she, "if we can get in. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-knows."
-
-"Let them alone," said the chaperon, looking back over her shoulder.
-"If they have a fancy to go home they shall go. I won't have them
-persuaded." She was as reluctant to leave them at Myrtle Street as the
-major could be, but she carefully abstained, as she always did, from
-interfering with their wishes when nothing of importance was involved.
-She was wise enough to know that she would have the stronger hold on
-them by seeming to leave them their liberty.
-
-They were put into the carriage by their attentive cavaliers, the major
-taking his now frequent box seat in order to accompany them; and Mr.
-Smith and Mr. Yelverton were left standing on the pavement. Arrived
-at Myrtle Street, it was found that the house was still open, and the
-girls bade the elder couple an effusively affectionate and compunctious
-good-night.
-
-"And when shall I see you again?" Mrs. Duff-Scott inquired, with a
-carefully composed smile and cheerful air.
-
-"To-morrow," said Elizabeth, eagerly; "to-morrow, of course, some of
-us will come." All three girls had a painful feeling that they were
-ungrateful, while under obligations to be grateful, in spite of their
-friend's effort to prevent it, as they stood a moment in the warm night
-at their street door, and watched the carriage roll away. And yet they
-were so glad to be on their own "tauri" to-night--even Eleanor, who had
-grown more out of tune with the old frugal life than any of them.
-
-They were let in by the ground-floor landlady, with whom they chatted
-for a few minutes, arranging about the materials for their breakfast;
-then they went upstairs to their lonely little bedrooms, where they
-lit their candles and began at once to prepare for bed. They were dead
-tired, they said, and wanted to sleep and not to talk.
-
-But a full hour after their separation for the night, each one was as
-wide awake as she had been all day. Elizabeth was kneeling on the floor
-by her bedside, still half-dressed--she had not changed her attitude
-for a long time, though the undulations of her body showed how far from
-passive rest she was--when Patty, clothed only in her night-gown, crept
-in, making no noise with her bare feet.
-
-"Elizabeth," she whispered, laying her hand on her sister's shoulder,
-"are you asleep?--or are you saying your prayers?"
-
-Elizabeth, startled, lifted up her head, and disclosed to Patty's gaze
-in the candle-light a pale, and strained, and careworn face, "I was
-saying my prayers," she replied, with a dazed look. "Why are you out of
-bed, my darling? What is the matter?"
-
-"That is what I want to know," said Patty, sitting down on the bed.
-"What is the matter with us all? What has come to us? Nelly has been
-crying ever since I put the light out--she thought I couldn't hear her,
-but she was mistaken--sobbing and sniffing under the bedclothes, and
-blowing her nose in that elaborately cautious way--"
-
-"Oh, poor, dear child!" interrupted the maternal elder sister, making a
-start towards the door.
-
-"No, don't go to her," said Patty, putting out her hand; "leave her
-alone--she is quiet now. Besides, you couldn't do her any good. Do you
-know what she is fretting about? Because Mr. Westmoreland has been
-neglecting her. Would you believe it? She is caring about it, after
-all--and we thought it was only fun. She doesn't care about _him_, she
-couldn't do that--"
-
-"We can't tell," interrupted Elizabeth. "It is not for us to say.
-Perhaps she does, poor child!"
-
-"Oh, she _couldn't_," Patty scornfully insisted. "That is quite
-impossible. No, she has got fond of this life that we are living now
-with Mrs. Duff-Scott--I have seen it, how it has laid hold of her--and
-she would like to marry him so that she could have it always. That is
-what _she_ has come to. Oh, Elizabeth, don't you wish we had gone to
-Europe at the very first, and never come to Melbourne at all!" Here
-Patty herself broke down, and uttered a little shaking, hysterical sob.
-"Everything seems to be going wrong with us here! It does not look so,
-I know, but at the bottom of my heart I feel it. Why did we turn aside
-to waste and spoil ourselves like this, instead of going on to the life
-that we had laid out--a real life, that we should never have had to be
-ashamed of?"
-
-Elizabeth was silent for a few minutes, soothing her sister's
-excitement with maternal caresses, and at the same time thinking with
-all her might. "We must try not to get confused," she said presently.
-"Life is life, you know, Patty, wherever you are--all the other things
-are incidental. And we need not try to struggle with everything at
-once. I think we have done our best, when we have had anything to
-do--any serious step to take--since we came to Melbourne; and in Europe
-we could have done no more. It seemed right to please Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-and to accept such a treasure as her friendship when it came to us in
-what seemed such a providential way--did it not? It seemed so to me. It
-would have been ungenerous to have held out against her--and we were
-always a little given to be too proud of standing alone. It makes her
-happy to have us. I don't know what work we could have done that would
-have been more profitable than that. Patty"--after another thoughtful
-pause--"I don't think it is that _things_ are going wrong, dear. It is
-only that we have to manage them, and to steer our way, and to take
-care of ourselves, and that is so trying and perplexing. God knows _I_
-find it difficult! So, I suppose, does everyone."
-
-"You, Elizabeth? _You_ always seem to know what is right. And you are
-so good that you never ought to have troubles."
-
-"If Nelly is susceptible to such a temptation as Mr. Westmoreland--Mr.
-Westmoreland, because he is rich--she would not have gone far with us,
-in any case," Elizabeth went on, putting aside the allusion to herself.
-"Europe would not have strengthened her. It would have been all the
-same. While, as for you, my darling--"
-
-"I--I!" broke in Patty excitedly. "I should have been happy now, and
-not as I am! I should have been saved from making a fool of myself if I
-had gone to Europe! I should have been worth something, and able to do
-something, there!"
-
-"How can you tell, dear child? And why do you suppose you have been
-foolish? _I_ don't think so. On the contrary, it has often seemed to me
-that you have been the sensible one of us all."
-
-"O, Elizabeth, don't laugh at me!" wailed Patty, reproachfully.
-
-"I laugh at you, my darling! What an idea! I mean it, every word. You
-see everything in a distorted and exaggerated way just now, because
-you are tired and your nerves are over-wrought. You are not yourself
-to-night, Patty. You will cheer up--we shall all cheer up--when we
-have had a good sleep and a little quiet time to think things over."
-
-"No, I am not myself, indeed," assented Patty, with moody passion. "I
-am not myself at all--to be made to feel so weak and miserable!" She
-put her face down in her hands and began to cry with more abandonment
-at the thought of how weak she had become.
-
-"But Patty, dearest, there must be something the matter with you," her
-motherly elder sister cried, much distressed by this abnormal symptom.
-"Are you feeling ill? Don't frighten me like this."
-
-The girl laid her head upon her sister's shoulder, and there let
-herself loose from all restraint. "You _know_ what is the matter," she
-sobbed; "you know as well as I do what is the matter--that it is Paul
-Brion who worries me so and makes me so utterly wretched."
-
-"Paul Brion! _He_ worry you, Patty--_he_ make you wretched?"
-
-"You have always been delicate and considerate, Elizabeth--you have
-never said anything--but I know you know all about it, and how spoiled
-I am, and how spoiled everything is because of him. I hate to talk of
-it--I can't bear even you to see that I am fretting about him--but I
-can't help it! and I know you understand. When I have had just one good
-cry," she concluded, with a fresh and violent burst of tears, "perhaps
-I shall get on better."
-
-Elizabeth stared at the wall over her sister's head in dumb amazement,
-evidently not deserving the credit for perspicacity accorded to her.
-"Do you mean," she said slowly, "do you really mean--"
-
-"Yes," sobbed Patty, desperate, for the moment dead to shame.
-
-"Oh, how blind--how wickedly blind--how stupid--how selfish I have
-been!" Elizabeth exclaimed, after another pause in which to collect
-her shocked and bewildered faculties. "I never dreamt about it, my
-darling--never, for a single moment. I thought--I always had the
-settled impression that you did not like him."
-
-"I don't like him," said Patty, fiercely, lifting herself up. "I love
-him--I _love_ him! I must say it right out once, if I never speak
-another word," and she bent her head back a little, and stretched out
-her arms with an indescribable gesture as if she saw him standing
-before her. "He is a man--a real, true, strong man--who works, and
-thinks, and lives--lives! It is all serious with him, as I wanted
-it to be with me--and I _might_ have been worthy of him! A little
-while ago we were so near to each other--so near that we almost
-_touched_--and now no two people could be farther apart. I have done
-him wrong--I have been a wicked fool, but I am punished for it out of
-all proportion. _He_ flirt with a married woman! What could I have
-been dreaming of? Oh, how _disgusting_ I must be to have allowed such
-an idea to come into my head! And yet it was only a little thing,
-Elizabeth, when you come to think of it relatively--the only time I
-ever really did him injustice, and it was only for a moment. No one can
-always do what is right and fair without making a mistake sometimes--it
-was just a mistake for want of thinking. But it has taken him from me
-as completely as if I had committed suicide, and was dead and buried
-and done with. It has made him _hate_ me. No wonder! If he cared about
-me, I wouldn't be too proud to beg his pardon, but he doesn't--he
-doesn't! And so I must face it out, or else he will think I am running
-after him, and he will despise me more than he does already."
-
-"But if he was doing no harm," said Elizabeth, soothingly, "he could
-not suppose that you thought he was."
-
-"No," said Patty, "he will never think I was so disgusting as to think
-_that_ of him. But it is as bad as if he did. That at least was a
-great, outrageous, downright wrong, worth fighting about, and not the
-pitiful shabby thing that it appears to him. For, of course, he thinks
-I did it because I was too grand to notice him while I was wearing a
-fine dress and swelling about with great people. It never occurred
-to me that it would be possible for him or anybody to suspect me of
-_that_," said Patty, proudly, drawing herself up; "but afterwards I
-saw that he could not help doing it. And ever since then it has been
-getting worse and worse--everything has seemed to point to its being
-so. Haven't you noticed? I never see him except I am with people who
-_are_ above noticing him; and Mr. Smith--oh, what I have suffered from
-Mr. Smith to-night, Elizabeth!--has all this time been thinking I was
-going to marry him, and I can see now how it must have looked to other
-people as if I was. Just think of it!"--with a gesture of intense
-disgust. "As if any girl could stoop to that, after having had such a
-contrast before her eyes! No wonder he hates me and despises me--no
-wonder he looks at me as if I were the dirt beneath his feet. I wish I
-were," she added, with reckless passion; "oh, my dear love, I only wish
-I were!"
-
-When she was about it, Patty cleansed her stuffed bosom thoroughly.
-It was not her way to do things by halves. She rhapsodised about her
-love and her lover with a wild extravagance that was proportionate
-to the strained reserve and restraint that she had so long put upon
-her emotions. After which came the inevitable reaction. The fit being
-over, she braced herself up again, and was twice as strong-minded and
-self-sufficient as before. When the morning came, and she and Elizabeth
-busied themselves with housework--Eleanor being relegated to the sofa
-with a sick headache--the girl who had dissolved herself in tears and
-given way to temporary insanity, as she chose herself to call it, so
-recently, was bright, and brusque, and cheerful, in spite of sultry
-weather; and not only did she pretend, even to her confidante, that the
-young man on the other side of the wall had no place in her thoughts,
-but she hardened her heart to adamant against _him_, for having been
-the cause of her humiliating lapse from dignity. It was quite a lucky
-chance, indeed, that she did not straightway go and accept the hand
-and fortune of Mr. Smith, by way of making reparation for the outrage
-committed vicariously by Paul Brion on her self-respect.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX.
-
-
-THE OLD AND THE NEW.
-
-
-The weather was scorchingly hot and a thunderstorm brewing when the
-girls sat down to their frugal lunch at mid-day. It was composed of
-bread and butter and pickled fish, for which, under the circumstances,
-they had not appetite enough. They trifled with the homely viands for
-awhile, in a manner quite unusual with them, in whatever state of the
-atmosphere; and then they said they would "make up" at tea time, if
-weather permitted, and cleared the table. Eleanor was sent to lie down
-in her room, Patty volunteered to read a pleasant novel to the invalid,
-and Elizabeth put on her bonnet to pay her promised visit to Mrs.
-Duff-Scott.
-
-She found her friend in the cool music-room, standing by the piano, on
-which some loose white sheets were scattered. The major sat on a sofa,
-surveying the energetic woman with a sad and pensive smile.
-
-"Are you looking over new music?" asked Elizabeth, as she walked in.
-
-"O my dear, is that you? How good of you to venture out in this
-heat!--but I knew you would," exclaimed the lady of the house, coming
-forward with outstretched arms of welcome. "Music, did you say?--O
-_dear_ no!" as if music were the last thing likely to interest her. "It
-is something of far more importance."
-
-"Yelverton has been here," said the major, sadly; "and he has been
-sketching some plans for Whitechapel cottages. My wife thinks they are
-most artistic."
-
-"So they are," she insisted, hardly, "though I don't believe I used the
-word; for things are artistic when they are suitable for the purpose
-they are meant for, and only pretend to be what they are. Look at
-this, Elizabeth. You see it is of no use to build Peabody houses in
-these frightfully low neighbourhoods, where half-starved creatures are
-packed together like herrings in a barrel--Mr. Yelverton has explained
-that quite clearly. The better class of poor come to live in them, and
-the poorest of all are worse off instead of better, because they have
-less room than they had before. You _must_ take into consideration
-that there is only a certain amount of space, and if you build model
-lodgings here, and a school there, and a new street somewhere else, you
-do good, of course, but you herd the poor street-hawkers and people of
-that class more and more thickly into their wretched dens, where they
-haven't enough room to breathe as it is--"
-
-"I think I'll go, my dear, if you'll excuse me," interrupted the major,
-humbly, in tones of deep dejection.
-
-"And therefore," proceeded Mrs. Duff-Scott, taking no notice of her
-husband, "the proper and reasonable thing to do--if you want to help
-those who are most in need of help--is to let fine schemes alone. Mr.
-Yelverton expects to come into a large property soon, and he means to
-buy into those wretched neighbourhoods, where he can, and to build
-for one-room tenants--for cheapness and low rents. He will get about
-four per cent. on his money, but that he will use to improve with--I
-mean for putting them in the way of sanitary habits, poor creatures.
-He makes a great point of teaching them sanitation. He seems to think
-more of that than about teaching them the Bible, and really one
-can hardly wonder at it when one sees the frightful depravity and
-general demoralisation that come of ignorance and stupidity in those
-matters--and he sees so much of it. He seems to be always rooting
-about in those sewers and dunghills, as he calls them--he is rather
-addicted to strong expressions, if you notice--and turning things out
-from the very bottom. He is queer in some of his notions, but he is a
-good man, Elizabeth. One can forgive him his little crotchets, for the
-sake of all the good he does--it must be incalculable! He shrinks from
-nothing, and spends himself trying to better the things that are so bad
-that most people feel there is nothing for it but to shut their eyes to
-them--without making any fuss about it either, or setting himself up
-for a saint. Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott, throwing a contemptuous
-glance around her museum of precious curiosities, "how inconceivably
-petty and selfish it seems to care for rubbish like this, when there
-are such miseries in the world that we might lighten, as he does, if we
-would only set ourselves to it in the same spirit."
-
-_Rubbish!_--those priceless pots and plates, those brasses and ivories
-and enamels, those oriental carpets and tapestries, those unique
-miscellaneous relics of the mediæval prime! Truly the Cause of Humanity
-had taken hold of Mrs. Duff-Scott at last.
-
-She sat down in an arm-chair, having invited Elizabeth to take off
-her hat and make herself as comfortable as the state of the weather
-permitted, and began to wave a large fan to and fro while she looked
-into vacant space with shining eyes.
-
-"He is a strange man," she said musingly. "A most interesting,
-admirable man, but full of queer ideas--not at all like any man I ever
-met before. He has been lunching with us, Elizabeth--he came quite
-early--and we have had an immense deal of talk. I wish you had been
-here to listen to him--though I don't know that it would have been very
-good for you, either. He is extremely free, and what you might call
-revolutionary, in his opinions; he treats the most sacred subjects as
-if they were to be judged and criticised like common subjects. He talks
-of the religions of the world, for instance, as if they were all on
-the same foundation, and calls the Bible our Veda or Koran--says they
-are all alike inspired writings because they respectively express the
-religious spirit, craving for knowledge of the mystery of life and the
-unseen, that is an integral part of man's nature, and universal in
-all races, though developed according to circumstances. He says all
-mankind are children of God, and brothers, and that he declines to make
-invidious distinctions. And personal religion to him seems nothing more
-than the most rudimentary morality--simply to speak the truth and to
-be unselfish--just as to be selfish or untrue are the only sins he
-will acknowledge that we are responsible for out of the long catalogue
-of sins that stain this unhappy world. He won't call it an unhappy
-world, by the way, in spite of the cruel things he sees; he is the most
-optimistic of unbelievers. It will all come right some day--and our
-time will be called the dark ages by our remote descendants. Ever since
-men and women came first, they have been getting better and higher--the
-world increases in human goodness steadily, and will go on doing so as
-long as it is a world--and that because of the natural instincts and
-aspirations of human nature, and not from what we have always supposed
-all our improvement came from--rather in spite of that, indeed."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott poured out this information, which had been seething in
-her active mind, volubly and with a desire to relieve herself to some
-one; but here she checked herself, feeling that she had better have
-left it all unsaid, not less for Elizabeth's sake than for her own. She
-got up out of her seat and began to pace about the room with a restless
-air. She was genuinely troubled. It was as if a window in a closed
-chamber had been opened, letting in a too strong wind that was blowing
-the delicate furniture all about; now, with the woman's instinctive
-timidity and fear (that may be less a weakness than a safeguard), she
-was eager to shut it to again, though suspecting that it might be
-too late to repair the damage done. Now that she took time to think
-about it, she felt particularly guilty on Elizabeth's account, who had
-not had her experience, and was not furnished with her ripe judgment
-and powers of discrimination as a preservative against the danger of
-contact with heterodox ideas.
-
-"I ought not to repeat such things," she exclaimed, vexedly, beginning
-to gather up the plans of the Whitechapel cottages, but observing
-only her companion's strained and wistful face. "The mere independent
-hypotheses and speculations of one man, when no two seem ever to think
-alike! I suppose those who study ancient history and literatures,
-and the sciences generally, get into the habit of pulling things to
-pieces--"
-
-"Those who learn most _ought_ to know most," suggested Elizabeth.
-
-"They ought, my dear; but it doesn't follow."
-
-"Not when they are so earnest in trying to find out?"
-
-"No; that very earnestness is against them--they over-reach themselves.
-They get confused, too, with learning so much, and mixing so many
-things up together." Mrs. Duff-Scott was a little reckless as to means
-so long as she could compass the desired end--which was the shutting
-of that metaphorical window which she had incautiously set (or left)
-open.
-
-"Well, he believes in God--that all men are God's children," the
-girl continued, clinging where she could. "That seems like religion
-to me--it is a good and loving way to think of God, that He gave His
-spirit to all alike from the beginning--that He is so just and kind to
-all, and not only to a few."
-
-"Yes, he believes in God. He believes in the Bible, too, in a sort of
-a way. He says he would have the lessons of the New Testament and the
-life of Christ disseminated far and wide, but not as they are now, with
-the moral left out, and not as if those who wrote them were wise enough
-for all time. But, whatever his beliefs may be," said Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-"they are not what will satisfy us, Elizabeth. You and I must hold fast
-to our faith in Christ, dear child, or I don't know what would become
-of us. We will let 'whys' alone--we will not trouble ourselves to try
-and find out mysteries that no doubt are wisely withheld from us, and
-that anyhow we should never be able to understand."
-
-Here the servant entered with a gliding step, opened a little
-Sutherland table before his mistress's chair, spread the æsthetic
-cloth, and set out the dainty tea service. Outside the storm had burst,
-and was now spending itself and cooling the hot air in a steady shower
-that made a rushing sound on the gravel. Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had
-reseated herself, leant back silently with an air of reaction after her
-strong emotion in the expression of her handsome face and form, and
-Elizabeth mechanically got up to pour out the tea. Presently, as still
-in silence they began to sip and munch their afternoon repast, the girl
-saw on the piano near which she stood a photograph that arrested her
-attention. "What is this?" she asked. "Did he bring this too?" It was a
-copy of Luke Fildes' picture of "The Casuals." Mrs. Duff-Scott took it
-from her hand.
-
-"No, it is mine," she said. "I have had it here for some time, in a
-portfolio amongst others, and never took any particular notice of it. I
-just had an idea that it was an unpleasant and disagreeable subject. I
-never gave it a thought--what it really meant--until this morning, when
-he was talking to me, and happened to mention it. I remembered that I
-had it, and I got it out to look at it. Oh!" setting down her teacup
-and holding it fairly in both hands before her--"isn't it a terrible
-sermon? Isn't it heartbreaking to think that it is _true?_ And he says
-the truth is understated."
-
-Like the great Buddha, when he returned from his first excursion beyond
-his palace gates, Elizabeth's mind was temporarily darkened by the new
-knowledge of the world that she was acquiring, and she looked at the
-picture with a fast-beating heart. "Sphinxes set up against that dead
-wall," she quoted from a little printed foot-note, "and none likely to
-be at the pains of solving them until the general overthrow." She was
-leaning over her friend's shoulder, and the tears were dropping from
-her eyes.
-
-"They are Dickens's words," said Mrs. Duff-Scott.
-
-"Why is it like this, I wonder?" the girl murmured, after a long,
-impressive pause. "We must not think it is God's fault--that can't
-be. It must be somebody else's fault. It cannot have been _intended_
-that a great part of the human race should be forced, from no fault of
-their own, to accept such a cruel lot--to be made to starve, when so
-many roll in riches--to be driven to crime because they cannot help
-it--to be driven to _hell_ when they _need not_ have gone there--if
-there is such a place--if there is any truth in what we have been
-taught. But"--with a kind of sad indignation--"if religion has been
-doing its best for ever so many centuries, and this is all that there
-is to show for it--doesn't that seem to say that _he_ may be right,
-and that religion has been altogether misinterpreted--that we have all
-along been making mistakes--" She checked herself, with a feeling of
-dismay at her own words; and Mrs. Duff-Scott made haste to put away
-the picture, evidently much disturbed. Both women had taken the "short
-views" of life so often advocated, not from philosophical choice, but
-from disinclination, and perhaps inability, to take long ones; and
-they had the ordinary woman's conception of religion as exclusively
-an ecclesiastical matter. This rough disturbance of old habits of
-thought and sentiments of reverence and duty was very alarming; but
-while Elizabeth was rashly confident, because she was inexperienced,
-and because she longed to put faith in her beloved, Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was seized with a sort of panic of remorseful misgiving. To shut that
-window had become an absolute necessity, no matter by what means.
-
-"My dear," she said, in desperation, "whatever you do, you must not
-begin to ask questions of that sort. We can never find out the answers,
-and it leads to endless trouble. God's ways are not as our ways--we
-are not in the secrets of His providence. It is for us to trust Him
-to know what is best. If you admit one doubt, Elizabeth, you will see
-that everything will go. Thousands are finding that out now-a-days,
-to their bitter cost. Indeed, I don't know what we are coming to--the
-'general overthrow,' I suppose. I hope I, at any rate, shall not live
-to see it. What would life be worth to us--_any_ of us, even the best
-off--if we lost our faith in God and our hope of immortality? Just try
-to imagine it for a moment."
-
-Elizabeth looked at her mentor, who had again risen and was walking
-about the room. The girl's eyes were full of solemn thought. "Not
-much," she replied, gravely. "But I was never afraid of losing faith in
-God."
-
-"It is best to be afraid," replied Mrs. Duff-Scott, with decision.
-"It is best not to run into temptation. Don't think about these
-difficulties, Elizabeth--leave them, leave them. You would only
-unsettle yourself and become wretched and discontented, and you would
-never be any the wiser."
-
-Elizabeth thought over this for a few minutes, while Mrs. Duff-Scott
-mechanically took up a brass lota and dusted it with her handkerchief.
-
-"Then you think one ought not to read books, or to talk to people--to
-try to find out the ground one stands on----"
-
-"No, no, no--let it alone altogether. You know the ground you ought to
-stand on quite well. You don't want to see where you are if you can
-feel that God is with you. Blessed are they that have not seen and
-yet have believed!" she ended in a voice broken with strong feeling,
-clasping her hands with a little fervent, prayerful gesture.
-
-Elizabeth drew a long breath, and in her turn began to walk restlessly
-up and down the room. She had one more question to ask, but the asking
-of it almost choked her. "Then you would say--I suppose you think
-it would be wrong--for one who was a believer to marry one who was
-not?--however good, and noble, and useful he or she might be--however
-religious _practically_--however blameless in character?"
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, forgetting for the moment that there was such a person
-as Mr. Yelverton in the world, sat down once more in an arm-chair,
-and addressed herself to the proposition on its abstract merits. She
-had worked herself up, by this time, into a state of highly fervid
-orthodoxy. Her hour of weakness was past, and she was fain to put forth
-and test her reserves of strength. Wherefore she had very clear views
-as to the iniquity of an unequal yoking together with unbelievers, and
-the peril of touching the unclean thing; and she stated them plainly
-and with all her wonted incisive vigour.
-
-When it was all over, Elizabeth put on her hat and walked back through
-the pattering rain to Myrtle Street, heavy-hearted and heavy-footed, as
-if a weight of twenty years had been laid on her since the morning.
-
-"Patty," she said, when her sister, warmly welcoming her return,
-exclaimed at her pale face and weary air, and made her take the sofa
-that Eleanor had vacated, "Patty, let us go away for a few weeks, shall
-we? I want a breath of fresh air, and to be in peace and quiet for a
-little, to think things over."
-
-"So do I," said Patty. "So does Nelly. Let us write to Sam Dunn to find
-us lodgings."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI.
-
-
-IN RETREAT.
-
-
-"Is it possible that we have only been away for nine months?"
-murmured Elizabeth, as the little steamer worked its way up to the
-well-remembered jetty, and she looked once more on surf and headland,
-island rock and scattered township, lying under the desolate moorlands
-along the shore. "Doesn't it seem _at least_ nine years?"
-
-"Or ninety," replied Patty. "I feel like a new generation. How exactly
-the same everything is! Here they have all been going on as they always
-did. There is Mrs. Dunn, dear old woman!--in the identical gown that
-she had on the day we went away."
-
-Everything was the same, but they were incredibly changed. There was no
-sleeping on the nose of the vessel now; no shrinking from association
-with their fellow-passengers. The skipper touched his cap to them,
-which he never used to do in the old times; and the idlers on the
-pier, when the vessel came in, stared at them as if they had indeed
-been away for ninety years. Mrs. Dunn took in at a glance the details
-of their travelling costumes, which were of a cut and quality not
-often seen in those parts; and, woman-like, straightway readjusted her
-smiles and manners, unconsciously becoming at once more effusive and
-more respectful than (with the ancient waterproofs in her mind's eye)
-she had prepared herself to be. But Sam saw only the three fair faces,
-that were to him as unchanged as his own heart; and he launched himself
-fearlessly into the boat as soon as it came alongside, with horny hand
-outstretched, and boisterous welcomes.
-
-"So y'are come back again?" he cried, "and darn glad I am to see yer,
-and no mistake." He added a great deal more in the way of greeting
-and congratulation before he got them up the landing stage and into
-the capacious arms of Mrs. Dunn--who was quite agreeably surprised to
-be hugged and kissed by three such fashionable young ladies. Then he
-proceeded to business with a triumphant air. "Now, Miss 'Lisbeth, yer
-see here's the cart--that's for the luggage. Me and the old hoss is
-going to take it straight up. And there is a buggy awaiting for you.
-And Mr. Brion told me to say as he was sorry he couldn't come down to
-the boat, but it's court day, yer see, and he's got a case on, and he's
-obliged to stop till he's done wi' that."
-
-"Oh," exclaimed Elizabeth, hastily, "did you tell Mr. Brion that we
-were coming?"
-
-"Why, of course, miss. I went and told him the very first thing--'twas
-only right, him being such a friend--your only friend here, as one may
-say."
-
-"Oh, no, Sam, we have you."
-
-"Me!"--with scornful humility--"I'm nothing. Yes, of course I went and
-told him. And he wouldn't let us get no lodgings; he said you was just
-to go and stay wi' Mrs. Harris and him. He would ha' wrote to tell yer,
-but there worn't time."
-
-"And much more comfortable you'll be than at them lodging places," put
-in Mrs. Dunn. "There's nothing empty now that's at all fit for you. The
-season is just a-coming on, you see, and we're like to be pretty full
-this year."
-
-"But we wanted to be away from the town, Mrs. Dunn."
-
-"And so you will be away from the town. Why, bless me, you can't be
-much farther away--to be anywhere at all--than up there," pointing to
-the headland where their old home was dimly visible in the November
-sunshine. "There's only Mrs. Harris and the gal, and _they_ won't
-interfere with you."
-
-"Up _there!_" exclaimed the sisters in a breath. And Mr. and Mrs. Dunn
-looked with broad grins at one another.
-
-"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the fisherman. "You don't mean as Master
-Paul never let on about his pa and him buying the old place, do you?
-Why, they've had it, and the old man has been living there--he comes
-down every morning and goes up every night--walks both ways, he do,
-like a young chap--this two or three months past. Mrs. Hawkins she
-couldn't bear the lonesomeness of it when the winter come on, and was
-right down glad to get out of it. They gave Hawkins nearly double what
-_you_ got for it. I told yer at the time that yer was a-throwing of it
-away."
-
-The girls tried to look as if they had known all about it, while they
-digested their surprise. It was a very great surprise, almost amounting
-to a shock.
-
-"And how _is_ Mr. Paul?" asked Mrs. Dunn of Patty. "Dear young man,
-it's a long time since we've seen anything of him! I hope he's keeping
-his health well!"
-
-"I think so--I hope so," said Patty gently. "He works very hard, you
-know, writing things for the papers. He is wanted too much to be able
-to take holidays like ordinary people. They couldn't get on without
-him."
-
-Elizabeth turned round in astonishment: she had expected to see her
-sister in a blaze of wrath over Sam's unexpected communications. "I'm
-afraid you won't like this arrangement, dearie," she whispered. "What
-had we better do?"
-
-"Oh, go--go," replied Patty, with a tremulous eagerness that she vainly
-tried to hide. "I don't mind it. I--I am glad to see Mr. Brion. It will
-be very nice to stay with him--and in our own dear old house too. Oh, I
-wouldn't refuse to go for anything! Besides we _can't_."
-
-"No, I don't see how we can," acquiesced Elizabeth, cheerfully. Patty
-having no objection, she was delighted with the prospect.
-
-They walked up the little pier in a group, the "hoss" following them
-with the reins upon his neck; and, while Elizabeth and Patty mounted
-the buggy provided by Mr. Brion, Eleanor gratified the old fisherman
-and his wife by choosing to stay with them and ride up in the cart. It
-was a lovely morning, just approaching noon, the sky as blue as--no,
-_not_ as a turquoise or a sapphire--but as nothing save itself can be
-in a climate like ours, saturated with light and lucent colour, and
-giving to the sea its own but an intenser hue. I can see it all in my
-mind's eye--as my bodily eyes have seen it often--that dome above, that
-plain below, the white clouds throwing violet shadows on the water, the
-white gulls dipping their red legs in the shining surf and reflecting
-the sunlight on their white wings; but I cannot describe it. It is
-beyond the range of pen and ink, as of brush and pigments. As the buggy
-lightly climbed the steep cliff, opening the view wider at every step,
-the sisters sat hand in hand, leaning forward to take it all in; but
-they, too, said nothing--only inhaled long draughts of the delicious
-salt air, and felt in every invigorated fibre of them that they had
-done well to come. Reaching the crest of the bluff, and descending into
-the broken basin--or saucer, rather--in which Seaview Villa nestled,
-they uttered simultaneously an indignant moan at the spectacle of Mrs.
-Hawkins's devastations. There was the bright paint, and the whitewash,
-and the iron roof, and the fantastic trellis; and there was _not_ the
-ivy that had mantled the eaves and the chimney stacks, nor the creepers
-that had fought so hard for existence, nor the squat verandah posts
-which they had bountifully embraced--nor any of the features that had
-made the old house distinct and characteristic.
-
-"Never mind," said Patty, who was the first to recover herself. "It
-looks very smart and tidy. I daresay it wanted doing up badly. After
-all, I'd sooner see it look as unlike home as possible, now that it
-isn't home."
-
-Mrs. Harris came out and warmly welcomed them in Mr. Brion's name.
-She took them into the old sitting-room, now utterly transformed, but
-cosy and inviting, notwithstanding, with the lawyer's substantial old
-leather chairs and sofas about it, and a round table in the middle
-set out for lunch, and the sea and sky shining in through the open
-verandah doors. She pressed them to have wine and cake to "stay" them
-till Eleanor and lunch time arrived; and she bustled about with them in
-their rooms--their own old bedrooms, in one of which was a collection
-of Paul's schoolboy books and treasures, while they took off their hats
-and washed their hands and faces; and was very motherly and hospitable,
-and made them feel still more pleased that they had come. They feasted,
-with fine appetites, on fish and gooseberry-fool at one o'clock, while
-Sam and Mrs. Dunn were entertained by the housekeeper in the kitchen;
-and in the afternoon, the cart and "hoss" having departed, they sat on
-the verandah in basket chairs, and drank tea, and idled, and enjoyed
-the situation thoroughly. Patty got a dog's-eared novel of Mayne
-Reid's from the book-case in her bedroom, and turned over the pages
-without reading them to look at the pencil marks and thumb stains; and
-Eleanor dozed and fanned herself; and Elizabeth sewed and thought. And
-then their host came home, riding up from the township on a fast and
-panting steed, quite thrown off his balance by emotion. He was abject
-in his apologies for having been deterred by cruel fate and business
-from meeting them at the steamer and conducting them in person to his
-house, and superfluous in expressions of delight at the honour they had
-conferred on him.
-
-"And how did you leave my boy?" he asked presently, when due inquiries
-after their own health and welfare had been satisfied. He spoke as
-if they and Paul had all been living under one roof. "And when is he
-coming to see his old father again?"
-
-Patty, who was sitting beside her host--"in his pocket," Nelly
-declared--and was simply servile in her affectionate demonstrations,
-undertook to describe Paul's condition and circumstances, and she
-implied a familiar knowledge of them which considerably astonished her
-sisters. She also gave the father a full history of all the son's good
-deeds in relation to themselves--described how he had befriended them
-in this and that emergency, and asserted warmly, and with a grave face,
-that she didn't know what they _should_ have done without him.
-
-"That's right--that's right!" said the old man, laying her hand on his
-knee and patting it fondly. "I was sure he would--I knew you'd find out
-his worth when you came to know him. We must write to him to-morrow,
-and tell him you have arrived safely. He doesn't know I have got you,
-eh? We must tell him. Perhaps we can induce him to take a little
-holiday himself--I am sure it is high time he had one--and join us for
-a few days. What do you think?"
-
-"Oh, I am _sure_ he can't come away just now," protested Patty, pale
-with eagerness and horror. "In the middle of the Exhibition--and a
-parliamentary crisis coming on--it would be quite impossible!"
-
-"I don't know--I don't know. I fancy 'impossible' is not a word you
-will find in his dictionary," said the old gentleman encouragingly.
-"When he hears of our little arrangement, he'll want to take a hand, as
-the Yankees say. He won't like to be left out--no, no."
-
-"But, dear Mr. Brion," Patty strenuously implored--for this was really
-a matter of life and death, "do think what a critical time it is! They
-never _can_ spare him now."
-
-"Then they ought to spare him. Because he is the best man they have,
-that is no reason why they should work him to death. They don't
-consider him sufficiently. He gives in to them too much. He is not a
-machine."
-
-"Perhaps he would come," said Patty, "but it would be against his
-judgment--it would be at a heavy cost to his country--it would be just
-to please us--oh, don't let us tempt him to desert his post, which _no_
-one could fill in his absence! Don't let us unsettle and disturb him at
-such a time, when he is doing so much good, and when he wants his mind
-kept calm. Wait for a little while; he might get away for Christmas
-perhaps."
-
-"But by Christmas, I am afraid, you would be gone."
-
-"Never mind. We see him in Melbourne. And we came here to get away from
-all Melbourne associations."
-
-"Well, well, we'll see. But I am afraid you will be very dull with only
-an old fellow like me to entertain you."
-
-"Dull!" they all exclaimed in a breath. It was just what they wanted,
-to be so peaceful and quiet--and, above all things, to have him (Mr.
-Brion, senior) entirely to themselves.
-
-The polite old man looked as if he were scarcely equal to the weight
-of the honour and pleasure they conferred upon him. He was excessively
-happy. As the hours and days went on, his happiness increased. His
-punctilious courtesy merged more and more into a familiar and paternal
-devotion that took all kinds of touching shapes; and he felt more
-and more at a loss to express adequately the tender solicitude and
-profound satisfaction inspired in his good old heart by the sojourn of
-such charming guests within his gates. To Patty he became especially
-attached; which was not to be wondered at, seeing how susceptible he
-was and how lavishly she exercised her fascinations upon him. She
-walked to his office with him in the morning; she walked to meet him
-when he came hastening back in the afternoon; she read the newspaper
-(containing Paul's peerless articles) to him in the evening, and mixed
-his modest glass of grog for him before he went to bed. In short,
-she made him understand what it was to have a charming and devoted
-daughter, though she had no design in doing so--no motive but to
-gratify her affection for Paul in the only way open to her. So the old
-gentleman was very happy--and so were they. But still it seemed to
-him that he must be happier than they were, and that, being a total
-reversal of the proper order of things, troubled him. He had a pang
-every morning when he wrenched himself away from them--leaving them,
-as he called it, alone--though loneliness was the very last sensation
-likely to afflict them. It seemed so inhospitable, so improper, that
-they should be thrown upon their own resources, and the company of a
-housekeeper of humble status, for the greater part of the day--that
-they should be without a male attendant and devotee, while a man
-existed who was privileged to wait on them. If only Paul had been at
-home! Paul would have taken them for walks, for drives, for boating
-excursions, for pic-nics; he would have done the honours of Seaview
-Villa as the best of hosts and gentlemen. However, Paul, alas! was tied
-to his newspaper in Melbourne, and the old man had a business that he
-was cruelly bound to attend to--at any rate, sometimes. But at other
-times he contrived to shirk his business and then he racked his brains
-for projects whereby he might give them pleasure.
-
-"Let's see," he said one evening, a few days after their arrival; "I
-suppose you have been to the caves too often to care to go again?"
-
-"No," said Elizabeth; "we have never been to the caves at all."
-
-"_What_--living within half-a-dozen miles of them all your lives! Well,
-I believe there are many more like you. If they had been fifty miles
-away, you would have gone about once a twelvemonth."
-
-"No, Mr. Brion; we were never in the habit of going sight-seeing. My
-father seldom left the house, and my mother only when necessary; and we
-had no one else to take us."
-
-"Then I'll take you, and we will go to-morrow. Mrs. Harris shall pack
-us a basket for lunch, and we'll make a day of it. Dear, dear, what a
-pity Paul couldn't be here, to go with us!"
-
-The next morning, which was brilliantly fine, brought the girls an
-anxiously-expected letter from Mrs. Duff-Scott. Sam Dunn, who was an
-occasional postman for the solitary house, delivered it, along with
-a present of fresh fish, while Mr. Brion was absent in the township,
-negotiating for a buggy and horses for his expedition. The fairy
-godmother had given but a grudging permission for this _villeggiatura_
-of theirs, and they were all relieved to have her assurance that she
-was not seriously vexed with them. Her envelope was inscribed to "Miss
-King," but the long letter enclosed was addressed to her "dearest
-children" collectively, tenderly inquiring how they were getting
-on and when they were coming back, pathetically describing her own
-solitude--so unlike what it was before she knew the comfort of their
-companionship--and detailing various items of society news. Folded in
-this, however, was the traditional lady's postscript, scribbled on
-a small half-sheet and marked "private," which Elizabeth took away
-to read by herself. She wondered, with a little alarm, what serious
-matter it was that required a confidential postscript, and this was
-what she read:--
-
-"I have been thinking over our talk the other day, dear. Perhaps I
-spoke too strongly. One is apt to make arbitrary generalisations on the
-spur of the moment, and to forget how circumstances may alter cases.
-There is another side to the question that should not be overlooked.
-The believing wife or husband may be the salvation of _the other_, and
-when the other is _honest_ and _earnest_, though _mistaken_, there is
-the strongest hope of this. It requires thinking of on _all_ sides, my
-darling, and I fear I spoke without thinking enough. Consult your own
-heart--I am sure it will advise you well."
-
-Elizabeth folded up the note, and put it into her pocket. Then--for
-she was alone in her own little bedroom--she sat down to think of it;
-to wonder what had reminded Mrs. Duff-Scott of their conversation the
-"other day"--what had induced her to temporise with the convictions
-which then appeared so sincere and absolute. But she could make nothing
-of it. It was a riddle without the key.
-
-Then she heard the sound of buggy wheels, hurried steps on the
-verandah, and the voice of Mr. Brion calling her.
-
-"My dear," said the old man when she went out to him, speaking in some
-haste and agitation, "I have just met at the hotel a friend of yours
-from Melbourne--Mr. Yelverton. He came by the coach last night. He
-says Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him up to see how you are getting on, and to
-report to her. He is going away again to-morrow, and I did not like to
-put off our trip, so I have asked him to join us. I hope I have not
-done wrong"--looking anxiously into her rapidly changing face--"I hope
-you won't think that I have taken a liberty, my dear."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII.
-
-
-HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.
-
-
-He was talking to Patty and Eleanor in the garden when Elizabeth went
-out to him, looking cool and colonial in a silk coat and a solar
-topee. The girls were chatting gaily; the old lawyer was sketching a
-programme of the day's proceedings, and generally doing the honours
-of his neighbourhood with polite vivacity. Two buggies, one single
-and one double, in charge of a groom from the hotel, were drawn up by
-the gate, and Mrs. Harris and "the gal" were busily packing them with
-luncheon baskets and rugs. There was a cloudless summer sky overhead--a
-miracle of loveliness spread out before them in the shining plain of
-the sea; and the delicate, fresh, salt air, tremulous with the boom of
-subterranean breakers, was more potent than any wine to make glad the
-heart of man and to give him a cheerful countenance.
-
-Very cheerfully did Mr. Yelverton come forward to greet his beloved,
-albeit a little moved with the sentiment of the occasion. He had parted
-from her in a ball-room, with a half-spoken confession of--something
-that she knew all about quite as well as he did--on his lips; and he
-had followed her now to say the rest, and to hear what she had to reply
-to it. This was perfectly understood by both of them, as they shook
-hands, with a little conventional air of unexpectedness, and he told
-her that he had come at Mrs. Duff-Scott's orders.
-
-"She could not rest," he said, gravely, "until she was sure that you
-had found pleasant quarters, and were comfortable. She worried about
-you--and so she sent me up."
-
-"It was troubling you too much," Elizabeth murmured, evading his direct
-eyes, but quite unable to hide her agitation from him.
-
-"You say that from politeness, I suppose? No, it was not troubling
-me at all--quite the contrary. I am delighted with my trip. And I am
-glad," he concluded, dropping his voice, "to see the place where you
-were brought up. This was your home, was it not?" He looked all round
-him.
-
-"It was not like this when we were here," she replied. "The house was
-old then--now it is new. They have done it up."
-
-"I see. Have you a sketch of it as it used to be? You draw, I know.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott has been showing me your drawings."
-
-"Yes, I have one. It hangs in the Melbourne sitting-room."
-
-Mr. Brion broke in upon this dialogue. "Now, my dears, I think we are
-all ready," he said. "Elizabeth, you and I will go in the little buggy
-and lead the way. Perhaps Mr. Yelverton will be good enough to take
-charge of the two young ladies. Will you prefer to drive yourself, Mr.
-Yelverton?"
-
-Mr. Yelverton said he preferred to be driven, as he was not acquainted
-with the road; and Elizabeth, throned in the seat of honour in the
-little buggy, looked back with envious eyes to watch his arrangements
-for her sisters' comfort. He put Patty beside the groom on the front
-seat, and carefully tucked her up from the dust; and then he placed
-Eleanor at the back, climbed to her side, and opened a large umbrella
-which he held so that it protected both of them. In this order the
-two vehicles set forth, and for the greater part of the way, owing to
-the superior lightness of the smaller one, they were not within sight
-of each other; during which time Elizabeth was a silent listener to
-her host's amiable prattle, and reproaching herself for not feeling
-interested in it. She kept looking through the pane of glass behind
-her, and round the side of the hood, and wondering where the others
-were, and whether they were keeping the road.
-
-"Oh, they can't miss it," was Mr. Brion's invariable comment. "They
-will follow our tracks. If not, the man knows our destination."
-
-For the old lawyer was making those short cuts which are so dear to
-all Jehus of the bush; preferring a straight mile of heavy sand to a
-devious mile and a quarter of metal, and ploughing through the stiff
-scrub that covered the waste moors of the district rather by the sun's
-than by the surveyor's direction. It made the drive more interesting,
-of course. The bushes that rustled through the wheels and scratched the
-horses' legs were wonderful with wild flowers of every hue, and the
-orchids that were trampled into the sand, and gathered by handfuls to
-die in the buggy, were remarkable for their fantastic variety. And then
-there were lizards and butterflies, and other common objects of the
-country, not so easily discerned on a beaten track. But Elizabeth could
-not bring herself to care much for these things to-day.
-
-They reached high land after a while, whence, looking back, they saw
-the other buggy crawling towards them a mile or two away, and, looking
-forward, saw, beyond a green and wild foreground, the brilliant sea
-again, with a rocky cape jutting out into it, sprinkled with a few
-white houses on its landward shoulder--a scene that was too beautiful,
-on such a morning, to be disregarded. Here the girl sat at ease, while
-the horses took breath, thoroughly appreciating her opportunities;
-wondering, not what Mr. Yelverton was doing or was going to do, but how
-it was that she had never been this way before. Then Mr. Brion turned
-and drove down the other side of the hill, and exclaimed "Here we are!"
-in triumph.
-
-It was a shallow basin of a dell, in the midst of romantic glens,
-sandy, and full of bushes and wild flowers, and bracken and tussocky
-grass, and shady with tall-stemmed gum trees. As the buggy bumped
-and bounced into the hollow, shaving the dead logs that lay about in
-a manner which reflected great credit upon the lawyer's navigation,
-Elizabeth, feeling the cool shadows close over her head, and aware
-that they had reached their destination, looked all round her for the
-yawning cavern that she had specially come to see.
-
-"Where are the caves?" she inquired--to Mr. Brion's intense
-gratification.
-
-"Ah, where are they?" he retorted, enjoying his little joke. "Well, we
-have just been driving over them."
-
-"But the mouth, I mean?"
-
-"Oh, the mouth--the mouth is here. We were very nearly driving over
-that too. But we'll have lunch first, my dear, before we investigate
-the caves--if it's agreeable to you. I will take the horses out, and
-we'll find a nice place to camp before they come."
-
-Presently the other buggy climbed over the ridge and down into the
-hollow; and Mr. Yelverton beheld Elizabeth kneeling amongst the bracken
-fronds, with the dappled sun and shade on her bare head and her blue
-cotton gown, busily trying to spread a table-cloth on the least uneven
-piece of ground that she could find, where it lay like a miniature
-snow-clad landscape, all hills except where the dishes weighed it to
-the earth. He hastened to help her as soon as he had lifted Patty and
-Eleanor from their seats.
-
-"You are making yourself hot," he said, with his quiet air of authority
-and proprietorship. "You sit down, and let me do it. I am quite used
-to commissariat business, and can set a table beautifully." He took
-some tumblers from her hand, and, looking into her agitated face, said
-suddenly, "I could not help coming, Elizabeth--I could not leave it
-broken off like that--I wanted to know why you ran away from me--and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott gave me leave. You will let me talk to you presently?"
-
-"Oh, not now--not now!" she replied, in a hurried, low tone, turning
-her head from side to side. "I must have time to think--"
-
-"Time to think!" he repeated, with just a touch of reproach in his
-grave surprise. And he put down the tumblers carefully, got up, and
-walked away. Upon which, Elizabeth, reacting violently from the mood
-in which she had received him, had an agonising fear that he would
-impute her indecision to want of love for him, or insensibility to his
-love for her--though, till now, that had seemed an impossibility. In
-a few minutes he returned with her sisters and Mr. Brion, all bearing
-dishes and bottles, and buggy cushions and rugs; and, when the luncheon
-was ready, and the groom had retired to feed and water his horses, she
-lifted her eyes to her tall lover's face with a look that he understood
-far better than she did. He quietly came round from the log on which he
-had been about to seat himself, and laid his long limbs on the sand and
-bracken at her side.
-
-"What will you have?" he asked carelessly; "roast beef and salad, or
-chicken pie? I can recommend the salad, which has travelled remarkably
-well." And all the time he was looking at her with happy contentment, a
-little smile under his red moustache; and her heart was beating so that
-she could not answer him.
-
-The luncheon was discussed at leisure, and, as far as Mr. Brion could
-judge, was a highly successful entertainment. The younger girls,
-whatever might be going to happen to-morrow, could not help enjoying
-themselves to-day--could not help getting a little intoxicated with the
-sweetness of the summer air and the influences of the scene generally,
-and breaking out in fun and laughter; even Elizabeth, with her
-desperate anxieties, was not proof against the contagion of their good
-spirits now and then. The travelled stranger, who talked a great deal,
-was the most entertaining of guests, and the host congratulated himself
-continually on having added him to the party. "We only want Paul now
-to make it all complete," said the happy old man, as he gave Patty,
-who had a dreadful appetite after her long drive, a second helping of
-chicken pie.
-
-When the sylvan meal was ended, and the unsightly remnants cleared
-away, the two men smoked a soothing cigarette under the trees, while
-the girls tucked up their clean gowns a little and tied handkerchiefs
-over their heads, and then Mr. Brion, armed with matches and a pound
-of candles, marched them off to see the caves. He took them but a
-little way from where they had camped, and disclosed in the hillside
-what looked like a good-sized wombat or rabbit hole. "Now, you stay
-here while I go and light up a bit," he said, impressively, and he
-straightway slid down and disappeared into the hole. They stooped and
-peered after him, and saw a rather muddy narrow shaft slanting down
-into the earth, through which the human adult could only pass "end on."
-The girls were rather dismayed at the prospect.
-
-"It is a case of faith," said Mr. Yelverton. "We must trust ourselves
-to Mr. Brion entirely or give it up."
-
-"We will trust Mr. Brion," said Elizabeth.
-
-A few minutes later the old man's voice was heard from below. "Now,
-come along! Just creep down for a step or two, and I will reach your
-hand. Who is coming first?"
-
-They looked at each other for a moment, and Patty's quick eye caught
-something from Mr. Yelverton's. "I will go first," she said; "and you
-can follow me, Nelly." And down she went, half sliding, half sitting,
-and when nearly out of sight stretched up her arm to steady her sister.
-"It's all right," she cried; "there's plenty of room. Come along!"
-
-When they had both disappeared, Mr. Yelverton took Elizabeth's
-unlighted candle from her hand and put it into his pocket. "There is no
-need for you to be bothered with that," he said: "one will do for us."
-And he let himself a little way down the shaft, and put up his hand to
-draw her after him.
-
-In a few seconds they stood upright, and were able, by the light of
-the three candles just dispersing into the interior, to see what
-kind of place they had come to. They were limestone caves, ramifying
-underground for a quarter of a mile or so in direct length, and
-spreading wide on either side in a labyrinth of chambers and passages.
-The roof was hung with a few stalactites, but mostly crusted with soft
-bosses, like enormous cauliflowers, that yielded to the touch; lofty
-in places, so that the candle-light scarcely reached it, and in places
-so low that one could not pass under it. The floor, if floor it could
-be called, was a confusion of hills and vales and black abysses, stony
-here, and dusty there, and wet and slippery elsewhere--altogether an
-uncanny place, full of weird suggestions. The enterprising and fearless
-Patty was far ahead, exploring on her own account, and Mr. Brion,
-escorting Eleanor, dwindling away visibly into a mere pin's point,
-before Mr. Yelverton and Elizabeth had got their candle lighted and
-begun their investigations. A voice came floating back to them through
-the immense darkness, duplicated in ever so many echoes: "Are you all
-right, Elizabeth?"
-
-"Yes," shouted Mr. Yelverton instantly, like a soldier answering to the
-roll-call. Then he took her hand, and, holding the candle high, led her
-carefully in the direction of the voice. She was terribly nervous and
-excited by the situation, which had come upon her unawares, and she
-had an impulse to move on hastily, as if to join her sisters. Bat her
-lover held her back with a turn of his strong wrist.
-
-"Don't hurry," he said, in a tone that revealed to her how he
-appreciated his opportunity, and how he would certainly turn it to
-account; "it is not safe in such a place as this. And you can trust
-_me_ to take care of you as well as Mr. Brion, can't you?"
-
-She did not answer, and he did not press the question. They crept
-up, and slid down, and leapt over, the dark obstructions in their
-devious course for a little while in silence--two lonely atoms in the
-vast and lifeless gloom. Fainter and fainter grew the voices in the
-distance--fainter and fainter the three tiny specks of light, which
-seemed as far away as the stars in heaven. There was something dreadful
-in their isolation in the black bowels of the earth, but an unspeakably
-poignant bliss in being thus cast away together. There was no room for
-thought of anything outside that.
-
-Groping along hand in hand, they came to a chasm that yawned,
-bridgeless, across their path. It was about three feet wide, and
-perhaps it was not much deeper, but it looked like the bottomless pit,
-and was very terrifying. Bidding Elizabeth to wait where she was,
-Mr. Yelverton leaped over by himself, and, dropping some tallow on a
-boulder near him, fixed his candle to the rock. Then he held out his
-arms and called her to come to him.
-
-For a moment she hesitated, knowing what awaited her, and then she
-leaped blindly, fell a little short, and knocked the candle from its
-insecure socket into the gulf beneath her. She uttered a sharp cry as
-she felt herself falling, and the next instant found herself dragged up
-in her lover's strong arms, and folded with a savage tenderness to his
-breast. _This_ time he held her as if he did not mean to let her go.
-
-"Hush!--you are quite safe," he whispered to her in the pitch darkness.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII.
-
-
-THE DRIVE HOME.
-
-
-The girls were boiling a kettle and making afternoon tea, while the men
-were getting their horses and buggy furniture together, at about four
-o'clock. Elizabeth was on her knees, feeding the gipsy fire with dry
-sticks, when Mr. Yelverton came to her with an alert step.
-
-"I am going to drive the little buggy back," he said, "and you are
-coming with me. The others will start first, and we will follow."
-
-She looked up with a startled expression that puzzled and disappointed
-him.
-
-"_What!_" he exclaimed, "do you mean to say that you would rather not?"
-
-"Oh, no, I did not mean that," she faltered hurriedly; and into her
-averted face, which had been deadly pale since she came out of the
-cave, the hot blood flushed, remembering how long he and she had stood
-there together in a profound and breathless solitude, and the very
-blackest night that ever Egypt knew, after he took her into his arms,
-and before they remembered that they had a second candle and matches
-to light it with. In that interval, when she laid her head upon his
-shoulder, and he his red moustache upon her responsive lips, she had
-virtually accepted him, though she had not meant to do so. "No," she
-repeated, as he silently watched her, "you know it is not that."
-
-"What then? Do you think it is improper?"
-
-"Of course not."
-
-"You would really like it, Elizabeth?"
-
-"Yes--yes. I will come with you. We can talk as we go home."
-
-"We can. That was precisely my object in making the arrangement."
-
-Eleanor, presiding over her crockery at a little distance, called to
-them to ask whether the water boiled--and they perceived that it did.
-Mr. Yelverton carried the kettle to the teapot, and presently busied
-himself in handing the cups--so refreshing at the close of a summer
-picnic, when exercise and sun and lunch together have resulted in
-inevitable lassitude and incipient headaches--and doling out slices of
-thin bread and butter as Patty deftly shaved them from the loaf. They
-squatted round amongst the fern fronds and tussocks, and poured their
-tea vulgarly into their saucers--being warned by Mr. Brion that they
-had no time to waste--and then packed up, and washed their hands, and
-tied on their hats, and shook out their skirts, and set forth home
-again, declaring they had had the most beautiful time. The large buggy
-started first, the host driving; and Mr. Yelverton was informed that
-another track would be taken for the return journey, and that he was
-to be very careful not to lose himself.
-
-"If we do lose ourselves," said Mr. Yelverton, as his escort
-disappeared over the crest of the hill, and he still stood in the
-valley--apparently in no haste to follow--tucking a light rug over his
-companion's knees, "it won't matter very much, will it?"
-
-"Oh, yes, it will," she replied anxiously. "I don't know the way at
-all."
-
-"Very well; then we will keep them in sight. But only just in sight--no
-more. Will you have the hood up or down?"
-
-"Down," she said. "The day is too lovely to be shut out."
-
-"It is, it is. I think it is just about the most lovely day I ever
-knew--not even excepting the first of October."
-
-"The first of October was not a lovely day at all. It was cold and
-dismal."
-
-"That was its superficial appearance." He let down the hood and
-climbed to his seat beside her, taking the reins from her hand. He had
-completely laid aside his sedate demeanour, and, though self-contained
-still, had a light in his eyes that made her tremble. "On your
-conscience," he said, looking at her, "can you say that the first of
-October was a dismal day? We may as well begin as we mean to go on,"
-he added, as she did not answer; "and we will make a bargain, in the
-first place, never to say a word that we don't mean, nor to keep back
-one that we do mean from each other. You will agree to that, won't you,
-Elizabeth?"--his disengaged arm was round her shoulder and he had drawn
-her face up to his. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth,"--repeating the syllables
-fondly--"what a sweet and honest name it is! Kiss me, Elizabeth."
-
-Instead of kissing him she began to sob. "Oh, don't, don't!" she cried,
-making a movement to free herself--at which he instantly released
-her. "Let us go on--they will be wondering where we are. I am very
-foolish--I can't help it--I will tell you presently!"
-
-She took out her handkerchief, and tried to calm herself as she sat
-back in the buggy; and he, without speaking, touched his horses
-with his whip and drove slowly out of the shady dell into the clear
-sunshine. For a mile or more of up-and-down tracking, where the wheels
-of the leading vehicle had left devious ruts in sand and grass to
-guide them, they sat side by side in silence--she fighting with and
-gradually overcoming her excitement, and he gravely waiting, with a
-not less strong emotion, until she had recovered herself. And then
-he turned to her, and laid his powerful hand on hers that had dropped
-dejectedly into her lap, and said gently, though with decision--"Now
-tell me, dear. What is the matter? I _must_ know. It is not--it is
-_not_"--contracting his fingers sharply--"that you don't mean what you
-have been telling me, after all? For though not in words, you _have_
-been telling me, have you not?"
-
-"No," she sighed; "it is not that."
-
-"I knew it. I was sure it could not be. Then what else can
-matter?--what else should trouble you? Is it about your sisters? You
-_know_ they will be all right. They will not lose you--they will gain
-me. I flatter myself they will be all the better for gaining me,
-Elizabeth. I hoped you would think so?"
-
-"I do think so."
-
-"What then? Tell me."
-
-"Mr. Yelverton, it is so hard to tell you--I don't know how to do it.
-But I am afraid--I am afraid--"
-
-"Of what? Of _me?_"
-
-"Oh, no! But I want to do what is right. And it seems to me that to let
-myself be happy like this would be wrong--"
-
-"Wrong to let yourself be happy? Good heavens! Who has been teaching
-you such blasphemy as that?"
-
-"No one has taught me anything, except my mother. But she was so good,
-and she had so many troubles, and she said that she would never have
-been able to bear them--to have borne life--had she not been stayed
-up by her religious faith. She told us, when it seemed to her that we
-might some day be cast upon the world to shift for ourselves, never
-to let go of that--to suffer and renounce everything rather than be
-tempted to give up that."
-
-"Who has asked you to give it up?" he responded, with grave and gentle
-earnestness. "Not I. I would be the last man to dream of such a thing."
-
-"But you--_you_ have given up religion!" she broke forth, despairingly.
-
-"Have I? I don't think so. Tell me what you mean by religion?"
-
-"I mean what we have been brought up to believe."
-
-"By the churches?"
-
-"By the Church--the English Church--which I have always held to be the
-true Church."
-
-"My dear child, every Church holds itself to be the true Church, and
-all the others to be false ones. Why should yours be right any more
-than other people's?"
-
-"My mother taught us so," said Elizabeth.
-
-"Yes. Your mother made it true, as she would have made any other true,
-by the religious spirit that she brought into it. They are _all_
-true--not only those we know of, but Buddhism and Mohammedanism, and
-even the queer faiths and superstitions of barbarian races, for they
-all have the same origin and object; and at the same time they are all
-so adulterated with human errors and vices, according to the sort of
-people who have had the charge of them, that you can't say any one of
-them is pure. No more pure than we are, and no less. For you to say
-that the rest are mistaken is just the pot calling the kettle black,
-Elizabeth. You may be a few degrees nearer the truth than those are who
-are less educated and civilised, but even that at present does not look
-so certain that you are justified in boasting about it--I mean your
-Church, you know, not you."
-
-"But we go by our Bible--we trust, not in ourselves, but in _that_."
-
-"So do the 'Dissenters,' as you call them."
-
-"Yes, I am speaking of all of us--all who are Christian people. What
-guide should we have if we let our Bible go?"
-
-"Why should you let it go? I have not let it go. If you read it
-intelligently it is truly a Holy Scripture--far more so than when you
-make a sort of charm and fetish of it. You should study its origin
-and history, and try to get at its meaning as you would at that of
-any other book. It has a very wonderful history, which in its turn is
-derived from other wonderful histories, which people will perversely
-shut their eyes to; and because of this undiscriminating ignorance,
-which is the blindness of those who won't see or who are afraid to see,
-it remains to this day the least understood of all ancient records.
-Some parts of it, you know, are a collection of myths and legends,
-which you will find in the same shape in older writings--the first dim
-forms of human thought about God and man and the mysteries of creation;
-and a great many good people read _these_ as gospel truth, in spite
-of the evidence of all their senses to the contrary, and take them
-as being of the same value and importance as the beautiful books of
-the later time. And there are other Bibles in the world besides ours,
-whether we choose to acknowledge them or not."
-
-Elizabeth listened with terror. "And do you say it is _not_ the light
-of the world after all?" she cried in a shaken voice.
-
-"There should be no preaching to the heathen, and spreading the good
-tidings over all lands?"
-
-"Yes, there should," he replied; "oh, yes, certainly there should.
-But it should be done as it was by Christ, to whom all were with Him
-who were not against Him, and with a feeling that we should share all
-we know, and help each other to find out the best way. Not by rudely
-wrenching from the heathen, as we call him, all his immemorial moral
-standards, which, if you study them closely, are often found, rough as
-they are, to be thoroughly effective and serviceable, and giving him
-nothing in their places except outworn myths, and senseless hymns, and
-a patter of Scripture phrases that he can't possibly make head or tail
-of. That, I often think, is beginning the work of salvation by turning
-him from a religious man into an irreligious one. Your Church creed,"
-he went on, "is just the garment of religion, and you wear finely-woven
-stuffs while the blacks wear blankets and 'possum-skins; they are all
-little systems that have their day and cease to be--that change and
-change as the fashion of the world changes. But the spirit of man--the
-indestructible intelligence that makes him apprehend the mystery of his
-existence and of the great Power that surrounds it--which in the early
-stages makes him cringe and fear, and later on to love and trust--that
-is the _body_. That is religion, as I take it. It is in the nature of
-man, and not to be given or taken away. Only the more freely we let
-that inner voice speak and guide us, the better we are, and the better
-we make the world and help things on. That's my creed, Elizabeth. You
-confuse things," he went on, after a pause, during which she kept an
-attentive silence, "when you confound religion and churchism together,
-as if they were identical. I have given up churchism, in your sense,
-because, though I have hunted the churches through and through, one
-after another, I have found in them no adequate equipment for the
-work of my life. The world has gone on, and they have not gone on.
-The world has discovered breechloaders, so to speak, and they go to
-the field with the old blunderbusses of centuries ago. Centuries!--of
-the prehistoric ages, it seems, now. My dear, I have lived over forty
-years--did you know I was so old as that?--seeking and striving to get
-hold of what I could in the way of a light and a guide to help me to
-make the best of my life and to do what little I might to better the
-world and brighten the hard lot of the poor and miserable. Is that
-giving up religion? I am not a churchman--I would be if I could, it
-is not my fault--but if I can't accept those tests, which revolt the
-reason and consciousness of a thinking man, am I therefore irreligious?
-_Am_ I, Elizabeth?"
-
-"You bewilder me," she said; "I have never made these distinctions. I
-have been taught in the Church--I have found comfort there and help. I
-am afraid to begin to question the things that I have been taught--I
-should get lost altogether, trying to find a new way."
-
-"Then don't begin," he said. "_I_ will not meddle with your faith--God
-forbid! Keep it while you can, and get all possible help and comfort
-out of it."
-
-"But you have meddled with it already," she said, sighing. "The little
-that you have said has shaken it like an earthquake."
-
-"If it is worth anything," he responded, "it is not shaken so easily."
-
-"And _you_ may be able to do good in your own strength," she went on,
-"but how could I?--a woman, so weak, so ignorant as I?"
-
-"Do you want a policeman to keep you straight? I have a better opinion
-of you. Oh, you will be all right, my darling; don't fear. If you only
-honestly believe what you _do_ believe, and follow the truth as it
-reveals itself to you, no matter in what shape, and no matter where it
-leads you, you will be all right. Be only sincere with yourself, and
-don't pretend--don't, whatever you do, pretend to _anything_. Surely
-that is the best religion, whether it enables you to keep within church
-walls or drives you out into the wilderness. Doesn't it stand to
-reason? We can only do our best, Elizabeth, and leave it." He put his
-arm round her again, and drew her head down to his shoulder. They were
-driving through a lone, unpeopled land, and the leading buggy was but a
-speck on the horizon.
-
-"Oh!" she sighed, closing her eyes wearily, "if I only knew _what_ was
-best!"
-
-"Well," he said, "I will not ask you to trust me since you don't seem
-equal to it. You must decide for yourself. But, Elizabeth, if you
-_knew_ what a life it was that I had planned! We were to be married
-at once--within a few weeks--and I was to take you home to _my_ home.
-Patty and Nelly were to follow us later on, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, who
-wants to come over to see my London work, which she thinks will help
-her to do something here when she returns. You and I were to go away
-alone--wouldn't you have liked that, my love?--to be always with me,
-and taken care of and kept from harm and trouble, as I kept you to-day
-and on that Exhibition morning. Yes, and we were to take up that
-fortune that has been accumulating so long, and take Yelverton, and
-make our home and head-quarters there; and we were to live a great deal
-in London, and go backwards and forwards and all about amongst those
-unhappy ones, brightening up their lives because our own were so bright
-and sweet. You were to help me, as only a woman like you--the woman
-I have been looking for all my life--could help; but I was not going
-to let you work too hard--you were to be cared for and made happy,
-first of all--before all the world. And I _could_ make you happy--I
-could, I could--if you would let me try." He was carried away for the
-moment with the rush of his passionate desire for that life that he was
-contemplating, and held her and kissed her as if he would compel her to
-come to him. Then with a strong effort he controlled himself, and went
-on quietly, though in a rather unsteady voice: "Don't you think we can
-be together without harming each other? We shall both have the same
-aims--to live the best life and do the most good that we can--what will
-the details matter? We could not thwart each other really--it would be
-impossible. The same spirit would be in us; it is only the letter we
-should differ about."
-
-"If we were together," she said, "we should not differ about anything.
-Spirit or letter, I should grow to think as you did."
-
-"I believe you would, Elizabeth--I believe you would. And I should grow
-to think as you did. No doubt we should influence each other--it would
-not be all on one side. Can't you trust me, my dear? Can't we trust
-each other? You will have temptations, wherever you go, and with me,
-at least, you will always know where you are. If your faith is a true
-faith it will stand all that I shall do to it, and if your love for me
-is a true love--"
-
-He paused, and she looked up at him with a look in her swimming eyes
-that settled that doubt promptly.
-
-"Then you will do it, Elizabeth?"
-
-"Oh," she said, "you know you can _make_ me do it, whether it is right
-or wrong!"
-
-It was a confession of her love, and of its power over her that
-appealed to every sentiment of duty and chivalry in him. "No," he said,
-very gravely and with a great effort, "I will not make you do anything
-wrong. You shall feel that it is not wrong before you do it."
-
-An hour later they had reached the shore again, and were in sight of
-the headland and the smoke from the kitchen chimney of Seaview Villa,
-and in sight of their companions dismounting at Mr. Brion's garden
-gate. They had not lost themselves, though they had taken so little
-heed of the way. The sun was setting as they climbed the cliff, and
-flamed gloriously in their faces and across the bay. Sea and sky were
-bathed in indescribable colour and beauty. Checking their tired horses
-to gaze upon the scene, on the eve of an indefinite separation, the
-lovers realised to the full the sweetness of being together and what it
-would be to part.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV.
-
-
-SUSPENSE.
-
-
-Mr. Brion stood at his gate when the little buggy drove up, beaming
-with contentment and hospitality. He respectfully begged that Mr.
-Yelverton would grant them the favour of his company a little
-longer--would take pot-luck and smoke an evening pipe before he
-returned to his hotel in the town, whither he, Mr. Brion, would be
-only too happy to drive him. Mr. Yelverton declared, and with perfect
-truth, that nothing would give him greater pleasure. Whereupon the
-hotel servant was dismissed in charge of the larger vehicle, and the
-horses of the other were put into the stable. The girls went in to wash
-and dress, and the housekeeper put forth her best efforts to raise the
-character of the dinner from the respectable to the genteel in honour
-of a guest who was presumably accustomed to genteel dining.
-
-The meal was served in the one sitting-room of the house, by the
-light of a single lamp on the round table and a flood of moonlight
-that poured in from the sea through the wide-open doors. After the
-feasts and fatigues of the day, no one had any appetite to speak of
-for the company dishes that Mrs. Harris hastily compounded, course by
-course, in the kitchen; but everyone felt that the meal was a pleasant
-one, notwithstanding. Mr. Yelverton, his host, and Patty, who was
-unusually sprightly, had the conversation to themselves. Patty talked
-incessantly. Nelly was amiable and charming, but decidedly sleepy;
-and Elizabeth, at her lover's side, was not, perhaps, unhappy, but
-visibly pale and noticeably silent. After dinner they went out upon
-the verandah, and sat there in a group on the comfortable old chairs
-and about the floor, and drank coffee, and chatted in subdued tones,
-and looked at the lovely water shining in the moonlight, and listened
-to it booming and splashing on the beach below. The two men, by virtue
-of their respective and yet common qualities, "took to" each other,
-and, by the time the girls had persuaded them to light the soothing
-cigarette, Mr. Brion was talking freely of his clever lad in Melbourne,
-and Mr. Yelverton of the mysterious disappearance of his uncle, as if
-it were quite a usual thing with them to confide their family affairs
-to strangers. Eleanor meanwhile swayed herself softly to and fro in
-a ragged rocking chair, half awake and half asleep; Elizabeth, still
-irresistibly attracted to the neighbourhood of her beloved, sat in the
-shadow of his large form, listening and pondering, with her eyes fixed
-on the veiled horizon, and all her senses on the alert; Patty squatted
-on the edge of the verandah, leaning against a post and looking up into
-the sky. She was the leading spirit of the group to-night. It was a
-long time since she had been so lively and entertaining.
-
-"I wonder," she conjectured, in a pause of the conversation, "whether
-the inhabitants of any of those other worlds are sitting out on their
-verandahs to-night, and looking at _us_. I suppose we are not so
-absolutely insignificant but that _some_ of them, our own brother
-and sister planets, at any rate, can see us if they use their best
-telescopes--are we, Mr. Yelverton?"
-
-"We will hope not," said Mr. Yelverton.
-
-"To think that the moon--miserable impostor that she is!--should
-be able to put them out," continued Patty, still gazing at the
-palely-shining stars. "The other Sunday we heard a clergyman liken her
-to something or other which on its appearance quenched the ineffectual
-fires of the _lesser_ luminaries--"
-
-"He said the sun," corrected Elizabeth.
-
-"Well, it's all the same. What's the sun? The stars he hides are
-better suns than he is--not to speak of their being no end to them. It
-shows how easily we allow ourselves to be taken in by mere superficial
-appearances."
-
-"The sun and moon quench the stars for _us_, Patty."
-
-"Pooh! That's a very petty parish-vestry sort of way to look at things.
-Just what you might expect in a little bit of a world like this. In
-Jupiter now"--she paused, and turned her bright eyes upon a deep-set
-pair that were watching her amusedly. "Mr. Yelverton, I hope you are
-not going to insist upon it that Jupiter is too hot to do anything but
-blaze and shine and keep life going on his little satellites--are you?"
-
-"O dear no!" he replied. "I wouldn't dream of such a thing."
-
-"Very well. We will assume, then, that Jupiter is a habitable world, as
-there is no reason why he shouldn't be that _I_ can see---just for the
-sake of enlarging Elizabeth's mind. And, having assumed that, the least
-we can suppose--seeing that a few billions of years are of no account
-in the chronology of the heavenly bodies--is that a world on such a
-superior scale was fully up to _our_ little standard before we began.
-I mean our present standard. Don't you think we may reasonably suppose
-that, Mr. Yelverton?"
-
-"In the absence of information to the contrary, I think we may," he
-said. "Though I would ask to be allowed to reserve my own opinion."
-
-"Certainly. I don't ask for anybody's opinion. I am merely throwing
-out suggestions. I want to extend Elizabeth's vision in these matters
-beyond the range of the sun and moon. So I say that Jupiter--and if not
-Jupiter, one of the countless millions of cooler planets, perhaps ever
-so much bigger than he is, which lie out in the other sun-systems--was
-well on with his railways and telegraphs when we began to get a crust,
-and to condense vapours. You will allow me to say as much as that, for
-the sake of argument?"
-
-"I think you argue beautifully," said Mr. Yelverton.
-
-"Very well then. Millions of years ago, if you had lived in Jupiter,
-you could have travelled in luxury as long as your life lasted, and
-seen countries whose numbers and resources never came to an end. Think
-of the railway system, and the shipping interest, of a world of that
-size!"
-
-"_Don't_, Patty," interposed Elizabeth. "Think what a little, little
-life it would have been, by comparison! If we can't make it do us now,
-what would its insufficiency be under such conditions?"
-
-Patty waved her hand to indicate the irrelevancy of the suggestion.
-"In a planet where, we are told, there are no vicissitudes of climate,
-people can't catch colds, Elizabeth; and colds, all the doctors say,
-are the primary cause of illness, and it is because they get ill that
-people die. That is a detail. Don't interrupt me. So you see, Mr.
-Yelverton, assuming that they knew all that we know, and did all that
-we do, before the fire and the water made our rocks and seas, and the
-chalk beds grew, and the slimy things crawled, and primitive man began
-to chip stones into wedges to kill the saurians with--just imagine for
-a moment the state of civilisation that must exist in Jupiter, _now_.
-Not necessarily our own Jupiter--any of the older and more improved
-Jupiters that must be spinning about in space."
-
-"I can't," said Mr. Yelverton. "My imagination is not equal to such a
-task."
-
-"I want Elizabeth to think of it," said Patty. "She is a little
-inclined to be provincial, as you see, and I want to elevate her ideas."
-
-"Thank you, dear," said Elizabeth.
-
-"It is a pity," Patty went on, "that we can't have a Federal
-Convention. That's what we want. If only the inhabited planets
-could send representatives to meet and confer together somewhere
-occasionally, then we should all have broad views--then we might find
-out at once how to set everything right, without any more trouble."
-
-"Space would have to be annihilated indeed, Miss Patty."
-
-"Yes, I know--I know. Of course I know it can't be done--at any
-rate, not _yet_--not in the present embryonic stage of things. If a
-meteor takes a million years to travel from star to star, going at
-the rate of thousands of miles per second--and keeps on paying visits
-indefinitely--Ah, what was that?"
-
-She sprang from her low seat suddenly, all her celestial fancies
-scattered to the mundane winds, at the sound of a wakeful magpie
-beginning to pipe plaintively on the house roof. She thought she
-recognised one of the dear voices of the past. "_Can_ it be Peter?" she
-cried, breathlessly. "Oh, Elizabeth, I do believe it is Peter! Do come
-out and let us call him down!"
-
-They hurried, hand in hand, down to the shelving terrace that divided
-the verandah from the edge of the cliff, and there called and cooed and
-coaxed in their most seductive tones. The magpie looked at them for a
-moment, with his head cocked on one side, and then flew away.
-
-"No," said Patty, with a groan, "it is _not_ Peter! They are all gone,
-every one of them. I have no doubt the Hawkins boys shot them--little
-bloodthirsty wretches! Come down to the beach, Elizabeth."
-
-They descended the steep and perilous footpath zig-zagging down the
-face of the cliff, with the confidence of young goats, and reaching the
-little bathing-house, sat down on the threshold. The tide was high, and
-the surf seething within a few inches of the bottom step of the short
-ladder up and down which they had glided bare-footed daily for so many
-years. The fine spray damped their faces; the salt sea-breezes fanned
-them deliciously. Patty put her arms impulsively round her sister's
-neck.
-
-"Oh, Elizabeth," she said, "I am so glad for you--I _am_ so glad! It
-has crossed my mind several times, but I was never sure of it till
-to-day, and I wouldn't say anything until I was sure, or until you told
-me yourself."
-
-"My darling," said Elizabeth, responding to the caress, "don't be sure
-yet. _I_ am not sure."
-
-"_You_ are not!" exclaimed Patty, with derisive energy. "Don't try to
-make me believe you are a born idiot, now, because I know you too well.
-Why, a baby in arms could see it!"
-
-"I see it, dear, of course; both of us see it. We understand each
-other. But--but I don't know yet whether I shall accept him, Patty."
-
-"Don't you?" responded Patty. She had taken her arms from her sister's
-neck, and was clasping her knees with them in a most unsympathetic
-attitude. "Do you happen to know whether you love him, Elizabeth?"
-
-"Yes," whispered Elizabeth, blushing in the darkness; "I know that."
-
-"And whether he loves you?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Of course you do. You can't help knowing it. Nobody could. And if,"
-proceeded Patty sternly, fixing the fatuous countenance of the man in
-the moon with a baleful eye, "if, under those circumstances, you don't
-accept him, you deserve to be a miserable, lonely woman for all the
-rest of your wretched life. That's my opinion if you ask me for it."
-
-Elizabeth looked at the sea in tranquil contemplation for a few
-seconds. Then she told Patty the story of her perplexity from the
-beginning to the end.
-
-"Now _what_ would you do?" she finally asked of her sister, who had
-listened with the utmost interest and intelligent sympathy. "If it were
-your own case, my darling, and you wanted to do what was right, _how_
-would you decide?"
-
-"Well, Elizabeth," said Patty; "I'll tell you the truth. I should not
-stop to think whether it was right or wrong."
-
-"Patty!"
-
-"No. A year ago I would not have said so--a year ago I might have been
-able to give you the very best advice. But now--but now"--the girl
-stretched out her hands with the pathetic gesture that Elizabeth had
-seen and been struck with once before--"now, if it were my own case, I
-should take the man I loved, no matter _what_ he was, if he would take
-me."
-
-Elizabeth heaved a long sigh from the bottom of her troubled heart. She
-felt that Patty, to whom she had looked for help, had made her burden
-of responsibility heavier instead of lighter. "Let us go up to the
-house again," she said wearily. "There is no need to decide to-night."
-
-When they reached the house, they found Eleanor gone to bed, and the
-gentlemen sitting on the verandah together, still talking of Mr.
-Yelverton's family history, in which the lawyer was professionally
-interested. The horses were in the little buggy, which stood at the
-gate.
-
-"Ah, here they are!" said Mr. Brion. "Mr. Yelverton is waiting to say
-good-night, my dears. He has to settle at the hotel, and go on board
-to-night."
-
-Patty bade her potential brother-in-law an affectionate farewell, and
-then vanished into her bedroom. The old man bustled off at her heels,
-under pretence of speaking to the lad-of-all-work who held the horses;
-and Elizabeth and her lover were left for a brief interval alone.
-
-"You will not keep me in suspense longer than you can help, will you?"
-Mr. Yelverton said, holding her hands. "Won't a week be long enough?"
-
-"Yes," she said; "I will decide it in a week."
-
-"And may I come back to you here, to learn my fate? Or will you come to
-Melbourne to me?"
-
-"Had I not better write?"
-
-"No. Certainly not."
-
-"Then I will come to you," she said.
-
-He drew her to him and kissed her forehead gravely. "Good-night, my
-love," he said. "You will be my love, whatever happens."
-
-And so he departed to the township, accompanied by his hospitable host,
-and she went miserable to bed. And at the first pale streak of dawn
-the little steamer sounded her whistle and puffed away from the little
-jetty, carrying him back to the world, and she stood on the cliff, a
-mile away from Seaview Villa, to watch the last whiff of smoke from its
-funnels fade like a breath upon the horizon.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXV.
-
-
-HOW ELIZABETH MADE UP HER MIND.
-
-
-If we could trace back the wonderful things that happen to us "by
-accident," or, as some pious souls believe, by the operation of a
-special Providence or in answer to prayer, to their remote origin,
-how far should we not have to go? Into the mists of antiquity, and
-beyond--even to the primal source whence the world was derived, and
-the consideration of the accident of its separation from its parent
-globe; nay, of the accident which separated our sun itself from the
-countless dust of other suns that strew the illimitable ether--still
-leaving the root of the matter in undiscoverable mystery. The chain of
-causes has no beginning for us, as the sequence of effects has no end.
-These considerations occurred to me just now, when I sat down, cheerful
-and confident, to relate how it came to pass (and what multitudinous
-trifles could have prevented it from coming to pass) that an
-extraordinary accident happened to the three Miss Kings in the course
-of the week following Mr. Yelverton's departure. Thinking it over, I
-find that I cannot relate it. It would make this chapter like the first
-half-dozen in the book of Chronicles, only much worse. If Mr. King
-had not inherited a bad temper from his great-great-grandfathers--I
-could get as far as that. But the task is beyond me. I give it up,
-and content myself with a narration of the little event (in the
-immeasurable chain of events) which, at this date of which I am
-writing--in the ephemeral summer time of these three brief little
-lives--loomed so large, and had such striking consequences.
-
-It happened--or, as far as my story is concerned, it began to
-happen--while the steamer that carried away Mr. Yelverton was still
-ploughing the ocean waves, with that interesting passenger on board.
-Seaview Villa lay upon the headland, serene and peaceful in the
-sunshine of as perfect a morning as visitors to the seaside could
-wish to see, all its door-windows open to the south wind, and the
-sibilant music of the little wavelets at its feet. The occupants of
-the house had risen from their beds, and were pursuing the trivial
-round and common task of another day, with placid enjoyment of its
-atmospheric charms, and with no presentiment of what was to befall
-them. The girls went down to their bath-house before breakfast, and
-spent half an hour in the sunny water, diving, and floating, and
-playing all the pranks of childhood over again; and then they attacked
-a dish of fried flathead with appetites that a schoolboy might have
-envied. After breakfast the lawyer had to go to his office, and his
-guests accompanied him part of the way. On their return, Sam Dunn
-came to see them, with the information that his best boat, which bore
-the inappropriate title of "The Rose in June," was moored on the
-beach below, and an invitation to his young ladies to come out for
-a sail in her while the sea was so calm and the wind so fair. This
-invitation Elizabeth declined for herself; she was still wondering in
-which direction the right path lay--whether towards the fruition of
-her desires or the renunciation of all that now made life beautiful
-and valuable to her--and finding no solution to the problem either in
-meditation or prayer; and she had little inclination to waste any of
-the short time that remained to her for making up her mind. But to
-Patty and Eleanor it was irresistible. They scampered off to their
-bedrooms to put on their oldest frocks, hats, and boots, rushed into
-the kitchen to Mrs. Harris to beg for a bundle of sandwiches, and set
-forth on their expedition in the highest spirits--as if they had never
-been away from Sam Dunn and the sea, to learn life, and love, and
-trouble, and etiquette amongst city folks.
-
-When they were gone, the house was very still for several hours.
-Elizabeth sat on the verandah, sewing and thinking, and watching the
-white sail of "The Rose in June" through a telescope; then she had her
-lunch brought to her on a white-napkined tray; after eating which in
-solitude she went back to her sewing, and thinking, and watching again.
-So four o'clock--the fateful hour--drew on. At a little before four,
-Mr. Brion came home, hot and dusty from his long walk, had a bath and
-changed his clothes, and sat down to enjoy himself in his arm-chair.
-Mrs. Harris brought in the afternoon tea things, with some newly-baked
-cakes; Elizabeth put down her work and seated herself at the table to
-brew the refreshing cup. Then home came Patty and Eleanor, happy and
-hungry, tanned and draggled, and in the gayest temper, having been
-sailing Sam's boat for him all the day and generally roughing it with
-great ardour. They were just in time for the tea and cakes, and sat
-down as they were, with hats tilted back on their wind-roughened heads,
-to regale themselves therewith.
-
-When Patty was in the middle of her third cake, she suddenly remembered
-something. She plunged her hand into her pocket, and drew forth a
-small object. It was as if one touched the button of that wonderful
-electric apparatus whereby the great ships that are launched by
-princesses are sent gliding out of dock into the sea. "Look," she said,
-opening her hand carefully, "what he has given me. It is a Queensland
-opal. A mate of his, he says, gave it to him, but I have a terrible
-suspicion that the dear fellow bought it. Mates don't give such things
-for nothing. Is it not a beauty?"--and she held between her thumb and
-finger a silky-looking flattened stone, on which, when it caught the
-light, a strong blue sheen was visible. "I shall have it cut and made
-into something when we go back to town, and I shall keep it _for ever_,
-in memory of Sam Dunn," said Patty with enthusiasm.
-
-And then, when they had all examined and appraised it thoroughly, she
-carried it to the mantelpiece, intending to place it there in safety
-until she went to her own room. But she had no sooner laid it down,
-pushing it gently up to the wall, than there was a little click and a
-faint rattle, and it was gone.
-
-"Oh," she exclaimed, "what _shall_ I do? It has fallen behind the
-mantelpiece! I _quite_ forgot that old hole--and it is there still.
-Surely," she continued angrily, stamping her foot, "when Mr. Hawkins
-took the trouble to do all this"--and she indicated the surface of the
-woodwork, which had been painted in a wild and ghastly imitation of
-marble--"he might have taken a little more, and fixed the thing close
-up to the wall?"
-
-Mr. Brion examined the mantelpiece, pushed it, shook it, peered
-behind it with one eye, and said that he had himself lost a valuable
-paper-knife in the same distressing manner, and had long intended to
-have the aperture closed up. "And I will get a carpenter to-morrow
-morning, my dear," he boldly declared, "and he shall take the whole
-thing to pieces and fix it again properly. Yes, I will--as well now as
-any other time--and we will find your opal."
-
-Having pledged himself to which tremendous purpose, he and they
-finished their tea, and afterwards had their dinner, and afterwards sat
-on the verandah and gossiped, and afterwards went to bed--and in due
-time got up again--as if nothing out of the common way had happened!
-
-In the morning Fate sent another of her humble emissaries from the
-township to Seaview Villa, with a bag of tools over his shoulder--tools
-that were keys to unlock one of her long-kept secrets. And half an
-hour after his arrival they found the opal, and several things
-besides. When, after Mrs. Harris had carefully removed the furniture
-and hearthrug, and spread cornsacks over the carpet, the carpenter
-wrenched the mantelpiece from its fastenings, such a treasure-trove
-was discovered in the rough hollows of the wall and floor as none of
-them had dreamed of. It did not look much at the first glance. There
-were the opal and the paper-knife, half a dozen letters (circulars and
-household bills of Mrs. King's), several pens and pencils, a pair of
-scissors, a silver fruit-knife, a teaspoon, a variety of miscellaneous
-trifles, such as bodkins and corks, and a vast quantity of dust. That
-seemed all. But, kneeling reverently to grope amongst these humble
-relics of the past, Elizabeth found, quite at the bottom of everything,
-a little card. It was an old, old card, dingy and fretted with age,
-and dried and curled up like a dead leaf, and it had a little picture
-on it that had almost faded away. She carefully wiped the dust from it
-with her handkerchief, and looked at it as she knelt; it was a crude
-and youthful water-colour drawing of an extensive Elizabethan house,
-with a great many gables and fluted chimney-stacks, and much exuberance
-of architectural fancy generally. It had been minutely outlined by
-a hand trained to good draughtsmanship, and then coloured much as a
-child would colour a newspaper print from a sixpenny paint-box, and
-less effectively, because there was no light and shade to go upon.
-It was flat and pale, like a builder's plan, only that it had some
-washy grass and trees about it, and a couple of dogs running a race
-in the foreground, which showed its more ambitious pretensions; and
-the whole thing had evidently been composed with the greatest care.
-Elizabeth, studying it attentively, and thinking that she recognised
-her father's hand in certain details, turned the little picture over
-in search of the artist's signature. And there, in a corner, written
-very fine and small, but with elaborate distinctness, she read these
-words:--"_Elizabeth Leigh, from Kingscote Yelverton, Yelverton, June_,
-1847."
-
-She stared at the legend--in which she recognised a peculiar capital
-K of his own invention that her father always used--with the utmost
-surprise, and with no idea of its tremendous significance. "Why--why!"
-she gasped, holding it up, "it belongs to _him_--it has Mr. Yelverton's
-name upon it! How in the world did it come here? What does it mean?
-Did he drop it here the other day? But, no, that is impossible--it was
-quite at the bottom--it must have been lying here for ages. Mr. Brion,
-_what_ does it mean?"
-
-The old man was already stooping over her, trying to take it from her
-hand. "Give it to me, my dear, give it to me," he cried eagerly. "Don't
-tear it--oh, for God's sake, be careful!--let me see what it is first."
-He took it from her, read the inscription over and over and over again,
-and then drew a chair to the table and sat down with the card before
-him, his face pale, and his hands shaking. The sisters gathered round
-him, bewildered; Elizabeth still possessed with her first impression
-that the little picture was her lover's property, Eleanor scarcely
-aware of what was going on, and Patty--always the quickest to reach
-the truth--already beginning dimly to discern the secret of their
-discovery. The carpenter and the housekeeper stood by, open-mouthed and
-open-eyed; and to them the lawyer tremulously addressed himself.
-
-"You had better go for a little while," he said; "we will put the
-mantelpiece up presently. Yet, stay--we have found a very important
-document, as I believe, and you are witnesses that we have done so. You
-had better examine it carefully before you go, that you may know it
-when you see it again." Whereupon he solemnly proceeded to print the
-said document upon their memories, and insisted that they should each
-take a copy of the words that made its chief importance, embodying it
-in a sort of affidavit, to which they signed their names. Then he sent
-them out of the room, and confronted the three sisters, in a state of
-great excitement. "I must see Paul," he said hurriedly. "I must have my
-son to help me. We must ransack that old bureau of yours--there must be
-more in it than we found that time when we looked for the will. Tell
-me, my dears, did your father let you have the run of the bureau, when
-he was alive?"
-
-No, they told him; Mr. King had been extremely particular in allowing
-no one to go to it but himself.
-
-"Ah," said the old man, "we must hunt it from top to bottom--we must
-break it into pieces, if necessary. I will telegraph to Paul. We must
-go to town at once, my dears, and investigate this matter--before Mr.
-Yelverton leaves the country."
-
-"He will not leave the country yet," said Elizabeth. "What is it, Mr.
-Brion?"
-
-"I think I see what it is," broke in Patty. "Mr. Brion thinks
-that father was Mr. Yelverton's uncle, who was lost so long ago.
-King--King--Mr. Yelverton told us the other day that they called _him_
-'King,' for short--and he was named Kingscote Yelverton, like his
-uncle. Mother's name was Elizabeth. I believe Mr. Brion is right And,
-if so--"
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-"And, if so," Patty repeated, when that wonderful, bewildering day
-was over, and she and her elder sister were packing for their return
-to Melbourne in the small hours of the next morning--"if so, we are
-the heiresses of all those hundreds of thousands that are supposed
-to belong to our cousin Kingscote. Now, Elizabeth, do you feel like
-depriving him of everything, and stopping his work, and leaving his
-poor starved costermongers to revert to their original condition--or do
-you not?"
-
-"I would not take it," said Elizabeth, passionately.
-
-"Pooh!--as if we should be allowed to choose! People can't do as they
-like where fortunes and lawyers are concerned. For Nelly's sake--not to
-speak of mine--they will insist on our claim, if we have one; and then
-do you suppose _he_ would keep your money? Of course not--it's a most
-insulting idea. Therefore the case lies in a nutshell. You will have to
-make up your mind quickly, Elizabeth."
-
-"I have made up my mind," said Elizabeth, "if it is a question of which
-of us is most worthy to have wealth, and knows best how to use it."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVI.
-
-
-INVESTIGATION.
-
-
-They did not wait for the next steamer, but hurried back to Melbourne
-by train and coach, and reached Myrtle Street once more at a little
-before midnight, the girls dazed with sleep and weariness and the
-strain of so much excitement as they had passed through. They had sent
-no message to Mrs. Duff-Scott at present, preferring to make their
-investigations, in the first place, as privately as possible; and Mr.
-Brion had merely telegraphed to his son that they were returning with
-him on important business. Paul was at the house when they arrived,
-but Mrs. M'Intyre had made hospitable preparations at No. 6 as well
-as at No. 7; and the tired sisters found their rooms aired and their
-beds arranged, a little fire lit, gas burning, kettle boiling, and
-a tempting supper laid out for them when they dragged their weary
-limbs upstairs. Mrs. M'Intyre herself was there to give them welcome,
-and Dan, who had been reluctantly left behind when they went into the
-country, was wild with rapture, almost tearing them to pieces in the
-vehemence of his delight at seeing them again, long past the age of
-gambols as he was. Mr. Brion was consoled for the upsetting of his
-own arrangements, which had been to take his charges to an hotel for
-the night, and there luxuriously entertain them; and he bade them
-an affectionate good-night, and went off contentedly to No. 7 under
-the wing of Paul's landlady, to doze in Paul's arm-chair until that
-brilliant ornament of the press should be released from duty.
-
-Cheered by their little fire--for, summer though it was, their fatigues
-had made them chilly--and by Mrs. M'Intyre's ham and chicken and hot
-coffee, the girls sat, talking and resting, for a full hour before they
-went to bed; still dwelling on the strange discovery of the little
-picture behind the mantelpiece, which Mr. Brion had taken possession
-of, and wondering if it would really prove them to be the three Miss
-Yelvertons instead of the three Miss Kings, and co-heiresses of one of
-the largest properties in England.
-
-As they passed the old bureau on their way to their rooms, Elizabeth
-paused and laid her hand on it thoughtfully. "It hardly seems to me
-possible," she said, "that father should have kept such a secret
-all these years, and died without telling us of it. He must have
-seen the advertisements--he must have known what difficulties he was
-making for everybody. Perhaps he did not write those names on the
-picture--handwriting is not much to go by, especially when it is so
-old as that; you may see whole schools of boys or girls writing in one
-style. Perhaps father was at school with Mr. Yelverton's uncle. Perhaps
-mother knew Elizabeth Leigh. Perhaps she gave her the sketch--or
-she might have come by it accidentally. One day she must have found
-it--slipped in one of her old music-books, maybe--and taken it out to
-show father; and she put it up on the mantelpiece, and it slipped down
-behind, like Patty's opal. If it had been of so much consequence as it
-seems to us--if they had desired to leave no trace of their connection
-with the Yelverton family--surely they would have pulled the house down
-but what they would have recovered it. And then we have hunted the
-bureau over--we have turned it out again and again--and never found
-anything."
-
-"Mr. Brion thinks there are secret drawers," said Eleanor, who, of all
-the three, was most anxious that their golden expectations should be
-realised. "It is just the kind of cabinet work, he says, that is always
-full of hidden nooks and corners, and he is blaming himself that he did
-not search it more thoroughly in the first instance."
-
-"And he thinks," continued Patty, "that father seemed like a man with
-things on his mind, and believes he _would_ have told us had he had
-more warning of his death. But you know he was seized so suddenly, and
-could not speak afterwards."
-
-"Poor father--poor father!" sighed Elizabeth, pitifully. They thought
-of his sad life, in the light of this possible theory, with more tender
-compassion than they had ever felt for him before; but the idea that
-he might have murdered his brother, accidentally or otherwise--and for
-that reason had effaced himself and done bitter penance for the rest of
-his days--never for a moment occurred to them. "Well, we shall know by
-to-morrow night," said the elder sister, gently. "If the bureau does
-not yield fresh evidence, there is none that we can allow Mr. Brion, or
-anyone else, to act upon. The more I think it over, the more I see how
-easily the whole thing could be explained--to mean nothing so important
-as Mr. Brion thinks. And, for myself, I should not be disappointed if
-we found ourselves only Miss Kings, without fortune or pedigree, as we
-have always been. We are very happy as we are."
-
-"That is how I felt at first," said Patty. "But I must say I am growing
-more and more in love with the idea of being rich. The delightful
-things that you can do with plenty of money keep flashing into my mind,
-one after the other, till I feel that I never understood what being
-poor meant till now, and that I could not content myself with a hundred
-a year and Mrs. Duff-Scott's benefactions any more. No; the wish may be
-father to the thought, Elizabeth, but I _do_ think it, honestly, that
-we shall turn out to be Mr. Yelverton's cousins--destined to supersede
-him, to a certain extent."
-
-"I think so, too," said Eleanor, anxiously. "I can't--I
-_won't_--believe that Mr. Brion is mistaken."
-
-So they went, severally affected by their strange circumstances, to
-bed. And in the morning they were up early, and made great haste to get
-their breakfast over, and their sitting-room in order, in readiness for
-the lawyer's visit. They were very much agitated by their suspense and
-anxiety, especially Patty, to whom the impending interview with Paul
-had become of more pressing consequence, temporarily, than even the
-investigations that he was to assist. She had had no communication
-with him whatever since she cut him on the racecourse when he was
-innocently disporting himself with Mrs. Aarons; and her nerves were
-shaken by the prospect of seeing and speaking to him again, and by
-the vehemence of her conflicting hopes and fears. She grew cold and
-hot at the recollection of one or two accidental encounters that had
-taken place _since_ Cup Day, and at the picture of his contemptuous,
-unrecognising face that rose up vividly before her. Elizabeth noticed
-her unusual pallor and restless movements, and how she hovered about
-the window, straining her ears to catch a chance sound of the men's
-voices next door, and made an effort to divert her thoughts. "Come and
-help me, Patty," she said, putting her hand on her sister's shoulder.
-"We have nothing more to do now, so we may as well turn out some of the
-drawers before they come. We can look over dear mother's clothes, and
-see if they have any marks on them that we have overlooked. Mr. Brion
-will want to have everything examined."
-
-So they began to work at the bureau with solemn diligence, and a fresh
-set of emotions were evolved by that occupation, which counteracted,
-without effacing, those others that were in Patty's mind. She became
-absorbed and attentive. They took out all Mrs. King's gowns, and her
-linen, and her little everyday personal belongings, searched them
-carefully for indications of ownership, and, finding none, laid them
-aside in the adjoining bedroom. Then they exhumed all those relics of
-an olden time which had a new significance at the present juncture--the
-fine laces, the faded brocades, the Indian shawl and Indian muslins,
-the quaint fans and little bits of jewellery--and arranged them
-carefully on the table for the lawyer's inspection.
-
-"We know _now_," said Patty, "though we didn't know a few mouths ago,
-that these are things that could only belong to a lady who had been
-rich once."
-
-"Yes," said Elizabeth. "But there is another point to be considered.
-Elizabeth Leigh ran away with her husband secretly and in haste, and
-under circumstances that make it seem _most_ unlikely that she should
-have hampered herself and him with luggage, or bestowed a thought on
-such trifles as fans and finery."
-
-The younger sisters were a little daunted for a moment by this view of
-the case. Then Eleanor spoke up. "How you do love to throw cold water
-on everything!" she complained, pettishly. "Why shouldn't she think
-of her pretty things? I'm sure if I were going to run away--no matter
-under what circumstances--I should take all _mine_, if I had half
-an hour to pack them up. So would you. At least, I don't know about
-you--but Patty would. Wouldn't you, Patty?"
-
-"Well," said Patty, thoughtfully, sitting back on her heels and folding
-her hands in her lap, "I really think I should, Elizabeth. If you come
-to think of it, it is the heroines of novels who do those things. They
-throw away lovers, and husbands, and fortunes, and everything else, on
-the slightest provocation; it is a matter of course--it is the correct
-thing in novels. But in real life girls are fond of all nice things--at
-least, that is my experience--and they don't feel like throwing them
-away. Girls in novels would never let Mrs. Duff-Scott give them gowns
-and bonnets, for instance--they would be too proud; and they would
-burn a bureau any day rather than rummage in it for a title to money
-that a nice man, whom they cared for, was in possession of. Don't tell
-me. You are thinking of the heroines of fiction, Elizabeth, and not of
-Elizabeth Leigh. _She_, I agree with Nelly--however much she might have
-been troubled and bothered--did not leave her little treasures for the
-servants to pawn. Either she took them with her, or someone able to
-keep her destination a secret sent them after her."
-
-"Well, well," said Elizabeth, who had got out her mother's jewellery
-and was gazing fondly at the miniature in the pearl-edged locket, "we
-shall soon know. Get out the books and music, dear."
-
-They were turning over a vast pile of music, which required at least
-half a day to examine properly, when the servant of the house tapped
-at the door to ask, with Mr. Brion's compliments, when it would be
-convenient to Miss King to receive that gentleman. In a few minutes
-father and son were in the room, the former distributing hasty and
-paternal greetings all around, and the latter quietly shaking hands
-with an air of almost aggressive deliberation. Paul was quite polite,
-and to a certain extent friendly, but he was terribly, uncompromisingly
-business-like. Not a moment did he waste in mere social amenities,
-after shaking hands with Patty--which he did as if he were a wooden
-automaton, and without looking at her--but plunged at once into the
-matter of the discovered picture, as if time were money and nothing
-else of any consequence. Patty's heart sank, but her spirit rose;
-she determined not to "let herself down" or in any way to "make an
-exhibition of herself," if she could help it. She drew a little aside
-from the bureau, and went on turning over the music--which presently
-she was able to report valueless as evidence, except negative evidence,
-the name, wherever it had been written at the head of a sheet, having
-been cut out or erased; while Elizabeth took the remaining articles
-from their drawers and pigeon-holes, and piled them on the table and in
-Nelly's arms.
-
-For some time they were all intent upon their search, and very silent;
-and it still seemed that they were to find nothing in the shape of that
-positive proof which Elizabeth, as the head of the family, demanded
-before she would give permission for any action to be taken. There were
-no names in the old volumes of music, and the fly-leaves had been torn
-from the older books. Some pieces of ancient silver plate--a pair of
-candlesticks, a pair of salt-cellars, a teapot and sugar basin (now
-in daily use), a child's mug, some Queen Anne spoons and ladles--were
-all unmarked by crest or monogram; and two ivory-painted miniatures
-and three daguerreotypes, representing respectively one old lady in
-high-crowned cap and modest kerchief, one young one with puffs all
-over her head, and a classic absence of bodice to her gown, one little
-fair-haired child, similarly scanty in attire, and one middle-aged
-gentleman with a large shirt frill and a prodigious quantity of
-neck-cloth--likewise failed to verify themselves by date or inscription
-when carefully prised out of their frames and leather cases with Paul
-Brion's pen-knife. These family portraits, understood by the girls to
-belong to the maternal side of the house, were laid aside, however,
-along with the pearl-rimmed locket and other jewels, and the picture
-that was found behind the mantelpiece; and then, nothing else being
-left, apparently, the two men began an inspection of the papers.
-
-While this was going on, Patty, at a sign from Elizabeth, set up
-the leaves of a little tea-table by the window, spread it with a
-white cloth, and fetched in such a luncheon as the slender larder
-afforded--the remains of Mrs. M'Intyre's chicken and ham, some bread
-and butter, a plate of biscuits, and a decanter of sherry--for it was
-past one o'clock, and Mr. Brion and Paul had evidently no intention
-of going away until their investigations were complete. The room was
-quite silent. Her soft steps and the brush of her gown as she passed
-to and fro were distinctly audible to her lover, who would not so much
-as glance at her, but remained sternly intent upon the manuscripts
-before him. These were found to be very interesting, but to have no
-more bearing upon the matter in hand than the rest of the relics that
-had been overhauled; for the most part, they were studies in various
-arts and sciences prepared by Mr. and Mrs. King for their daughters
-during the process of their education, and such odds and ends of
-literature as would be found in a clever woman's common-place books.
-They had all been gone over at the time of Mr. King's death, in a vain
-hunt for testamentary documents; and Elizabeth, looking into the now
-bare shelves and apertures of the bureau, began to think how she could
-console her sisters for the disappointment of their hopes.
-
-"Come and have some lunch," she said to Paul (Mr. Brion was already at
-the table, deprecating the trouble that his dear Patty was taking). "I
-don't think you will find anything more."
-
-The young man stood up with his brows knitted over his keen eyes,
-and glanced askance at the group by the window. "We have not done
-yet," he said decisively; "and we have learned quite enough, in what
-we _haven't_ found, to justify us in consulting Mr. Yelverton's
-solicitors."
-
-"No," she said, "I'll have nothing said to Mr. Yelverton, unless the
-whole thing is proved first."
-
-Never thinking that the thing would be proved, first or last, she
-advanced to the extemporised lunch table, and dispensed the modest
-hospitalities of the establishment with her wonted simple grace. Mr.
-Brion was accommodated with an arm-chair and a music-book to lay
-across his knees, whereon Patty placed the tit-bits of the chicken
-and the knobby top-crust of the loaf, waiting upon him with that
-tender solicitude to which he had grown accustomed, but which was so
-astonishing, and so interesting also, to his son.
-
-"She has spoiled me altogether," said the old man fondly, laying his
-hand on her bright head as she knelt before him to help him to mustard
-and salt. "I don't know how I shall ever manage to get along without
-her now."
-
-"Has this sad fate overtaken you in one short week?" inquired Paul,
-rather grimly. "Your sister should be labelled like an explosive
-compound, Miss King--'dangerous,' in capital letters." Paul was sitting
-in a low chair by Elizabeth, with his plate on his knee, and he thawed
-a good deal, in spite of fierce intentions to the contrary, under the
-influence of food and wine and the general conversation. He looked at
-Patty now and then, and by-and-bye went so far as to address a remark
-to her. "What did she think of the caves?" he asked, indifferently,
-offering her at the same moment a glass of sherry, which, though
-unaccustomed to fermented liquors, she had not the presence of mind
-to refuse--and which she took with such a shaking hand that she
-spilled some of it over her apron. And she plunged at once into rapid
-and enthusiastic descriptions of the caves and the delights of their
-expedition thereto, absurdly uplifted by this slight token of interest
-in her proceedings.
-
-When luncheon was over, Elizabeth culled Eleanor--who, too restless
-to eat much herself, was hovering about the bureau, tapping it here
-and there with a chisel--to take her turn to be useful by clearing
-the table; and then, as if business were of no consequence, bade her
-guests rest themselves for a little and smoke a cigarette if they felt
-inclined.
-
-"Smoke!" exclaimed Paul, with a little sarcastic laugh. "Oh, no, Miss
-King, that would never do. What would Mrs. Duff-Scott say if she were
-to smell tobacco in your sitting-room?"
-
-"Well, what would she say?" returned Elizabeth, gently--she was very
-gentle with Paul to-day. "Mrs. Duff-Scott, I believe, is rather fond of
-the smell of tobacco, when it is good."
-
-Mr. Brion having satisfied the demands of politeness with profuse
-protestations, suffered himself to indulge in a mild cigarette; but
-Paul would not be persuaded. He resumed his study of the manuscripts
-with an air of determination, as of a man who had idled away precious
-time. He conscientiously endeavoured to fix his attention on the
-important business that he had undertaken, and to forget everything
-else until he had finished it. For a little while Patty wandered up and
-down in an aimless manner, making neat heaps of the various articles
-scattered about the room and watching him furtively; then she softly
-opened the piano, and began to play, just above a whisper, the "Sonata
-Pathetique."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVII.
-
-
-DISCOVERY.
-
-
-It was between two and three o'clock; Mr. Brion reposed in his
-arm-chair, smoking a little, talking a little to Elizabeth who sat
-beside him, listening dreamily to the piano, and feeling himself
-more and more inclined to doze and nod his head in the sleepy warmth
-of the afternoon, after his glass of sherry and his recent severe
-fatigues. Elizabeth, by way of entertaining him, sat at his elbow,
-thinking, thinking, with her fingers interlaced in her lap and her
-gaze fixed upon the floor. Patty, intensely alert and wakeful, but
-almost motionless in her straight back and delicately poised head,
-drooped over the keyboard, playing all the "soft things" that she could
-remember without notes; and Paul, who had resisted her enchantments
-as long as he could, leaned back in his chair, with his hand over his
-eyes, having evidently ceased to pay any attention to his papers. And,
-suddenly, Eleanor, who was supposed to be washing plates and dishes in
-the kitchen, flashed into the room, startling them all out of their
-dreams.
-
-"Elizabeth, dear," she exclaimed tremulously, "forgive me for meddling
-with your things. But I was thinking and thinking what else there was
-that we had not examined, and mother's old Bible came into my head--the
-little old Bible that she always used, and that you kept in your top
-drawer. I could not help looking at it, and here"--holding out a small
-leather-bound volume, frayed at the corners and fastened with silver
-clasps--"here is what I have found. The two first leaves are stuck
-together--I remembered that--but they are only stuck round the edges;
-there is a little piece in the middle that is loose and rattles, and,
-see, there is writing on it." The girl was excited and eager, and
-almost pushed the Bible into Paul Brion's hands. "Look at it, look
-at it," she cried. "Undo the leaves with your knife and see what the
-writing is."
-
-Paul examined the joined leaves attentively, saw that Eleanor was
-correct in her surmise, and looked at Elizabeth. "May I, Miss King?" he
-asked, his tone showing that he understood how sacred this relic must
-be, and how much it would go against its present possessor to see it
-tampered with.
-
-"I suppose you had better," said Elizabeth.
-
-He therefore sat down, laid the book before him, and opened his sharp
-knife. A sense that something was really going to happen now--that
-the secret of all this careful effacement of the little chronicles
-common and natural to every civilised family would reveal itself in the
-long-hidden page which, alone of all the records of the past, their
-mother had lacked the heart to destroy--fell upon the three girls; and
-they gathered round to watch the operation with pale faces and beating
-hearts. Paul was a long time about it, for he tried to part the leaves
-without cutting them, and they were too tightly stuck together. He had
-at last to make a little hole in which to insert his knife, and then
-it was a most difficult matter to cut away the plain sheet without
-injuring the written one. Presently, however, he opened a little door
-in the middle of the page, held the flap up, glanced at what was behind
-it for a moment, looked significantly at his father, and silently
-handed the open book to Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, trembling with
-excitement and apprehension, lifting up the little flap in her turn,
-read this clear inscription--
-
-                   "To my darling child, ELIZABETH,
-                        From her loving mother,
-                         ELEANOR D'ARCY LEIGH.
-                   Bradenham Abbey. Christmas, 1839.
-                           Psalm xv., 1, 2."
-
-There was a dead silence while they all looked at the fine brown
-writing--that delicate caligraphy which, like fine needlework, went
-out of fashion when our grandmothers passed away--of which every
-letter, though pale, was perfectly legible. A flood of recollection
-poured into the minds of the three girls, especially the elder ones,
-at the sight of those two words, "Bradenham Abbey," in the corner of
-the uncovered portion of the page. "Leigh" and "D'Arcy" were both
-unfamiliar names--or had been until lately--but Bradenham had a place
-in the archives of memory, and came forth at this summons from its
-dusty and forgotten nook. When they were children their mother used
-to tell them stories by the firelight in winter evenings, and amongst
-those stories were several whose scenes were laid in the tapestried
-chambers and ghostly corridors, and about the parks and deer-drives
-and lake-shores of a great "place" in an English county--a place that
-had once been a famous monastery, every feature and aspect of which
-Mrs. King had at various times described so minutely that they were
-almost as familiar with it as if they had seen it for themselves.
-These stories generally came to an untimely end by the narrator
-falling into an impenetrable brown study or being overtaken by an
-unaccountable disposition to cry--which gave them, of course, a special
-and mysterious fascination for the children. While still little things
-in pinafores, they were quick enough to perceive that mother had a
-personal interest in that wonderful place of which they never tired
-of hearing, and which evidently did not belong to the realms of
-Make-believe, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty and Blue-beard's
-castle; and therefore they were always, if unconsciously, trying to
-understand what that interest was. And when, one day when she was
-painting a wreath of forget-me-nots on some little trifle intended for
-a bazaar, and, her husband coming to look over her, she said to him
-impulsively, "Oh, do you remember how they grew in the sedges round the
-Swan's Pool at Bradenham?"--and when he sternly bade her hush, and not
-speak of Bradenham unless she wished to drive him mad--then Patty and
-Elizabeth, who heard them both, knew that Bradenham was the name of the
-great house where monks had lived, in the grounds of which, as they
-had had innumerable proofs, pools and swans abounded. It was the first
-time they had heard it, but it was too important a piece of information
-to be forgotten. On this memorable day, so many years after, when they
-read "Bradenham Abbey" in the well-worn Bible, they looked at each
-other, immediately recalling that long-ago incident; but their hearts
-were too full to speak. It was Mr. Brion who broke the silence that had
-fallen upon them all.
-
-"This, added to our other discoveries, is conclusive, I think,"
-said the old lawyer, standing up in order to deliver his opinion
-impressively, and resting his hands on the table. "At any rate, I
-must insist on placing the results of our investigation before Mr.
-Yelverton--yes, Elizabeth, you must forgive me, my dear, if I take
-the matter into my own hands. Paul will agree with me that we have
-passed the time for sentiment. We will have another look into the
-bureau--because it seems incredible that any man should deliberately
-rob his children of their rights, even if he repudiated his own, and
-therefore I think there _must_ be legal instruments _somewhere_; but,
-supposing none are with us, it will not be difficult, I imagine, to
-supply what is wanting to complete our case from other sources--from
-other records of the family, in fact. Mr. Yelverton himself, in
-five minutes, would be able to throw a great deal of light upon our
-discoveries. It is absolutely necessary to consult him."
-
-"I would not mind so much," said Elizabeth, who was deadly pale, "if it
-were to be fought out with strangers. But _he_ would give it all up at
-once, without waiting to see--without asking us to prove--that we had a
-strictly legal title."
-
-"Don't you believe it," interposed Paul sententiously.
-
-She rose from her chair in majestic silence, and moved towards the
-bureau. She would not bandy her lover's name nor discuss his character
-with those who did not know him as she did. Paul followed her, with his
-chisel in his hand.
-
-"Let us look for that secret drawer, at any rate," he said. "I feel
-pretty certain there must be one, now. Mr. King took great pains to
-prevent identification during his lifetime, but, as my father says,
-that is a very different thing from disinheriting _you_. If you will
-allow me, I'll take every moveable part out first."
-
-He did so, while she watched and assisted him. All the brass-handled
-drawers, and sliding shelves, and partitions were withdrawn from their
-closely-fitting sockets, leaving a number of holes and spaces each
-differing in size and shape from the rest. Then he drew up a chair in
-front of the exposed skeleton, and gazed at it thoughtfully; after
-which he began to make careful measurements inside and out, to tap the
-woodwork in every direction, and to prise some of its strong joints
-asunder. This work continued until four o'clock, when, notwithstanding
-the highly stimulating excitement of the day's proceedings, the girls
-began to feel that craving for a cup of tea which is as strong upon the
-average woman at this time as the craving for a nobbler of whisky is
-upon the--shall I say average man?--when the sight of a public-house
-appeals to his nobler appetite. Not that they wanted to eat and
-drink--far from it; the cup of tea was the symbol of rest and relief
-for a little while from the stress and strain of labour and worry, and
-that was what they were in need of. Elizabeth looked at her watch and
-then at Patty, and the two girls slipped out of the room together,
-leaving Eleanor to watch operations at the bureau. Reaching their
-little kitchen, they mechanically lit the gas in the stove, and set
-the kettle on to boil; and then they went to the open window, which
-commanded an unattractive view of the back yard, and stood there side
-by side, leaning on each other.
-
-"In 1839," said Patty, "she must have been a girl, a child, and living
-at Bradenham _at home_. Think of it, Elizabeth--with a mother loving
-her and petting her as she did us. She was twenty-five when she
-married; she must have been about sixteen when that Bible was given
-to her--ever so much younger than any of us are now. _She_ lived in
-those beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish leather on the walls--_she_
-danced in that long gallery with the painted windows and the slippery
-oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a row--no doubt
-she rode about herself with those hunting parties in the winter, and
-rowed and skated on the lake--I can imagine it, what a life it must
-have been. Can't you see her, before she grew stout and careworn,
-and her bright hair got dull, and her pretty hands rough with hard
-work--young, and lovely, and happy, and petted by everybody--wearing
-beautiful clothes, and never knowing what it was to have to do anything
-for herself? I can. And it seems dreadful to think that she had to
-remember all that, living as she did afterwards. If only he had made it
-up to her!--but I don't think he did, Elizabeth--I don't think he did.
-He used to be so cross to her sometimes. Oh, bless her, bless her! Why
-didn't she tell _us_, so that _we_ could have done more to comfort her?"
-
-"I don't think she ever repented," said Elizabeth, who remembered more
-about her mother than Patty could do. "She did it because she loved him
-better than Bradenham and wealth and her own personal comfort; and she
-loved him like that always, even when he was cross. Poor father! No
-wonder he was cross!"
-
-"Why didn't he go back--for her sake, if not for ours--when he saw the
-advertisements? Elizabeth, my idea is that the death of his brother
-gave a permanent shock to his brain. I think he could never have been
-quite himself afterwards. It was a sort of mania with him to disconnect
-himself from everything that could suggest the tragedy--to get as far
-away as possible from any association with it."
-
-"I think so, too," said Elizabeth.
-
-Thus they talked by the kitchen window until the kettle bubbled on the
-stove; and then, recalled to the passing hour and their own personal
-affairs, they collected cups and saucers, sugar-basin and milk-jug,
-and cut bread and butter for the afternoon repast. Just as their
-preparations were completed, Eleanor came flying along the passage from
-the sitting-room. "They have found a secret drawer," she cried in an
-excited whisper. "At least not a drawer, but a double partition that
-seems to have been glued up; and Mr. Brion is sure, by the dull sound
-of the wood, that there are things in it. Come and see!"
-
-She flew back again, not even waiting to help her sisters with the tea.
-Silently Elizabeth took up the tray of cups and saucers, and Patty the
-teapot and the plate of bread and butter; and they followed her with
-beating hearts. This was the crisis of their long day's trial. Paul
-was tearing at the intestines of the bureau like a cat at the wainscot
-that has just given sanctuary to a mouse, and his father was too much
-absorbed in helping him to notice their return.
-
-"Now, pull, pull!" cried the old man, at the moment when the sisters
-closed the door behind them. "Break it, if it won't come. A--a--ah!" as
-a sudden crash of splintered wood resounded through the room, "there
-they are at last! I _thought_ they must be here somewhere!"
-
-"What is it?" inquired Elizabeth, setting down her tea-tray, and
-hastily running to his side. He was stripping a pink tape from a thin
-bundle of blue papers in a most unprofessional state of excitement and
-agitation.
-
-"What is it?" he echoed triumphantly. "This is what it is, my
-dear"--and he began in a loud voice to read from the outside of the
-blue packet, to which he pointed with a shaking finger--"The will
-of Kingscote Yelverton, formerly of Yelverton, in the county of
-Kent--Elizabeth Yelverton, sole executrix."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVIII.
-
-
-THE TIME FOR ACTION.
-
-
-Yes, it was their father's will--the will they had vainly hunted for
-a year ago, little thinking what manner of will it was; executed when
-Eleanor was a baby in long clothes, and providing for their inheritance
-of that enormous English fortune. When they were a little recovered
-from the shock of this last overwhelming surprise, Mr. Brion broke
-the seal of the document, and formally and solemnly read it to them.
-It was very short, but perfectly correct in form, and the testator
-(after giving to his wife, in the event of her surviving him, the sole
-control of the entire property, which was unentailed, for her lifetime)
-bequeathed to his younger daughters, and to any other children who
-might have followed them, a portion of thirty thousand pounds apiece,
-and left the eldest, Elizabeth, heiress of Yelverton and residuary
-legatee. Patty and Eleanor were thus to be made rich beyond _their_
-dreams of avarice, but Elizabeth, who had been her father's favourite,
-was to inherit a colossal fortune. That was, of course, supposing such
-wealth existed in fact as well as in the imagination of this incredible
-madman. Paul and his father found themselves unable to conceive of such
-a thing as that any one in his senses should possess these rare and
-precious privileges, so passionately desired and so recklessly sought
-and sinned for by those who had them not, and should yet abjure, them
-voluntarily, and against every natural temptation and moral obligation
-to do otherwise. It was something wholly outside the common course of
-human affairs, and unintelligible to men of business. Both of them
-felt that they must get out of the region of romance and into the
-practical domain of other lawyers' offices before they could cope
-effectively with the anomalies of the case. As it stood, it was beyond
-their grasp. While the girls, sitting together by the table, strove to
-digest the meaning of the legal phrases that had fallen so strangely on
-their ears, Mr. Brion and Paul exchanged _sotto voce_ suggestions and
-opinions over the parchment spread out before them. Then presently the
-old man opened a second document, glanced silently down the first page,
-cleared his throat, and looking over his spectacles, said solemnly, "My
-dears, give me your attention for a few minutes."
-
-Each changed her position a little, and looked at him steadily. Paul
-leaned back in his chair, and put his hand over his eyes.
-
-"What I have just been reading to you," said Mr. Brion, "is your
-father's last will and testament, as I believe. It appears that his
-surname was Yelverton, and that King was only an abbreviation of his
-Christian name--assumed as the surname for the purpose of eluding the
-search made for him by his family. Now, certain circumstances have come
-to our knowledge lately, referring, apparently, to this inexplicable
-conduct on your father's part." He paused, coughed, and nervously
-smoothed out the sheets before him, glancing hither and thither
-over their contents. "Elizabeth, my dear," he went on, "I think you
-heard Mr. Yelverton's account of his uncle's strange disappearance
-after--ahem--after a certain unfortunate catastrophe?"
-
-"Yes," said Elizabeth. "We all know about that."
-
-"Well, it seems--of course we must not jump at conclusions too hastily,
-but still it appears to me a reasonable conjecture--that your father
-and Mr. Yelverton's lost uncle _were_ one and the same person. The
-affair altogether is so extraordinary, so altogether unaccountable, on
-the face of it, that we shall require a great deal of proof--and of
-course Mr. Yelverton himself will require the very fullest and most
-absolute legal proof--before we can accept the theory as an established
-fact--"
-
-"Did I not say so?" Elizabeth interrupted eagerly, surprised by
-the old man's sudden assumption of scepticism now that all doubt
-and uncertainty seemed to be over. "I wish that nothing should be
-done--that no steps of any sort should be taken--until it is all proved
-to the last letter."
-
-"Well," said Mr. Brion, at once abandoning his cautious attitude, "we
-must take steps to obtain proof before we _can_ obtain it. And, as it
-providentially happens, we have received the most opportune and, as I
-believe, the most unimpeachable testimony from Mr. Yelverton himself,
-who is the loser by our gain, and who gave us the information which is
-so singularly corroborated in these documents before the existence of
-such documents was known to anybody. But if more were wanted--"
-
-"More _is_ wanted," urged Elizabeth. "We cannot take advantage of his
-own admissions to ruin him."
-
-"If more were wanted," Mr. Brion repeated, with growing solemnity
-of manner, "we have here a paper under your father's hand, and duly
-witnessed by the same persons who witnessed the will--where are you
-going, Paul?" For at this point Paul rose and walked quietly towards
-the door.
-
-"Go on," said the young man. "I will come back presently."
-
-"But where are you going?" his father repeated with irritation. "Can't
-you wait until this business is finished?"
-
-"I think," said Paul, "that the Miss Kings--the Miss Yelvertons, I
-suppose I ought to say--would rather be by themselves while you read
-that paper. It is not just like the will, you know; it is a private
-matter--not for outsiders to listen to."
-
-Elizabeth rose promptly and went towards him, laying her hand on
-his arm. "Do you think we consider _you_ an outsider?" she said,
-reproachfully. "You are one of us--you are in the place of our
-brother--we want you to help us now more than we have ever done. Come
-and sit down--that is, of course, if you can spare time for our affairs
-when you have so many important ones of your own."
-
-He went and sat down, taking the seat by Patty to which Elizabeth
-pointed him. Patty looked up at him wistfully, and then leaned her
-elbows on the table and put her face in her hands. Her lover laid his
-arm gently on the back of her chair.
-
-"Shall I begin, my dear?" asked the lawyer hesitatingly. "I am afraid
-it will be painful to you, Elizabeth. Perhaps, as Paul says, it would
-be better for you to read it by yourselves. I will leave it with you
-for a little while, if you promise faithfully to be very careful with
-it."
-
-But Elizabeth wished it to be read as the will was read, and the old
-man, vaguely suspecting that she might be illegally generous to the
-superseded representative of the Yelverton name and property, was
-glad to keep the paper in his own hands, and proceeded to recite its
-contents. "I, Kingscote Yelverton, calling myself John King, do hereby
-declare," &c.
-
-It was the story of Kingscote Yelverton's unfortunate life, put on
-record in the form of an affidavit for the benefit of his children,
-apparently with the intention that they should claim their inheritance
-when he was gone. The witnesses were an old midwife, long since
-dead, and a young Scripture reader, now a middle-aged and prosperous
-ecclesiastic in a distant colony; both of whom the lawyer remembered
-as features of the "old days" when he himself was a new-comer to the
-out-of-the-world place that counted Mr. King as its oldest inhabitant.
-It was a touching little document, in the sad story that it told
-and the severe formality of the style of telling it. Kingscote
-Yelverton, it was stated, was the second of three brothers, sons of
-a long line of Yelvertons of Yelverton, of which three, however,
-according to hereditary custom, only one was privileged to inherit
-the ancestral wealth. This one, Patrick, a bachelor, had already come
-into his kingdom; the youngest, a briefless barrister in comfortable
-circumstances, had married a farmer's daughter in very early youth
-(while reading for university honours during a long vacation spent in
-the farmer's house), and was the father of a sturdy schoolboy while
-himself not long emancipated from the rule of pastors and masters;
-and Kingscote was a flourishing young captain in the Guards--when
-the tragedy which shattered the family to pieces, and threw its vast
-property into Chancery, took place. Bradenham Abbey was neighbour to
-Yelverton, and Cuthbert Leigh of Bradenham was kin to the Yelvertons of
-Yelverton. Cuthbert Leigh had a beautiful daughter by his first wife,
-Eleanor D'Arcy; when this daughter was sixteen her mother died, and a
-stepmother soon after took Eleanor D'Arcy's place; and not long after
-the stepmother came to Bradenham Cuthbert Leigh himself died, leaving
-an infant son and heir; and not long after _that_ Mrs. Cuthbert Leigh
-married again, and her new husband administered Bradenham--in the
-interest of the heir eventually, but of himself and his own children in
-the meantime. So it happened that Elizabeth Leigh was rather elbowed
-out of her rights and privileges as her father's daughter; which being
-the case, her distant cousin and near friend, Mrs. Patrick Yelverton,
-mother of the ill-fated brothers (who lived, poor soul, to see her
-house left desolate), fetched the girl away from the home which was
-hers no more, and took her to live under her own wing at Yelverton.
-Then the troubles began. Elizabeth was young and fair; indeed, all
-accounts of her agreed in presenting the portrait of a woman who must
-have been irresistible to the normal and unappropriated man brought
-into close contact with her. At Yelverton she was the daily companion
-of the unwedded master of the house, and he succumbed accordingly.
-As an impartial chronicler, I may hazard the suggestion that she
-enjoyed a flirtation within lady-like limits, and was not without some
-responsibility in the matter. It was clear also that the dowager Mrs.
-Patrick, anxious to see her first-born suitably married and settled,
-and placed safely beyond the reach of designing farmers' daughters,
-contrived her best to effect a union between the two. But while
-Patrick was over head and ears in love, and Elizabeth was dallying
-with him, and the old mother planning new furniture for the stately
-rooms where the queen was to reign who should succeed her, Kingscote
-the guardsman--Kingscote, the handsome, strong-willed, fiery-tempered
-second son--came home. To him the girl's heart, with the immemorial and
-incurable perversity of hearts, turned forthwith, like a flower to the
-sun; and a very short furlough had but half run out when she was as
-deeply over head and ears in love with Kingscote as Patrick was with
-her. Kingscote also loved her passionately--on his own testimony, he
-loved her as never man loved before, though he made a proud confession
-that he had still been utterly unworthy of her; and so the materials
-for the tragedy were laid, like a housemaid's fire, ready for the match
-that kindled them. Elizabeth found her position untenable amid the
-strenuous and conflicting attentions bestowed on her by the mother and
-sons, and went away for a time to visit some of her other relatives;
-and when her presence and influence were withdrawn from Yelverton, the
-smothered enmity of the brothers broke out, and they had their first
-and last and fatal quarrel about her. She had left a miniature of
-herself hanging in their mother's boudoir; this miniature Patrick laid
-hands on, and carried off to his private rooms; wherefrom Kingscote,
-in a violent passion (as Elizabeth's accepted lover), abstracted it by
-force. Then the master of the house, always too much inclined to assert
-himself as such, being highly incensed in his turn at the liberty that
-had been taken with him, marched into his brother's bedroom, where
-the disputed treasure was hidden, found it, and put it in his breast
-until he could discover a safer place for it. They behaved like a
-pair of ill-regulated schoolboys, in short, as men do when love and
-jealousy combine to derange their nervous systems, and wrought their
-own irreparable ruin over this miserable trifle. Patrick, flushed with
-a lurid triumph at his temporary success, strolled away from the house
-for an aimless walk, but afterwards went to a gamekeeper's cottage to
-give some instructions that occurred to him. The gamekeeper was not at
-home, and the squire returned by way of a lonely track through a thick
-plantation, where some of the keeper's work had to be inspected. Here
-he met Kingscote, striding along with his gun over his shoulder. The
-guardsman had discovered his loss, and was in search of his brother,
-intending to make a calm statement of his right to the possession of
-the picture by virtue of his rights in the person of the fair original,
-but at the same time passionately determined that this sort of thing
-should be put a stop to. There was a short parley, a brief but fierce
-altercation, a momentary struggle--on one side to keep, on the other
-to take, the worthless little bone of contention--and it was all over.
-Patrick, sent backward by a sweep of his strong brother's arm, fell
-over the gun that had been carelessly propped against a sapling; the
-stock of the gun, flying up, was caught by a tough twig which dragged
-across the hammers, and as the man and the weapon tumbled to the ground
-together one hammer fell, and the exploded charge entered the squire's
-neck, just under the chin, and, passing upward to the brain, killed
-him. It was an accident, as all the family believed; but to the author
-of the mischance it was nothing less than murder. He was guilty of his
-brother's blood, and he accepted the portion of Cain--to be a fugitive
-and a vagabond on the face of the earth--in expiation of it. Partly
-with the idea of sparing pain and disgrace to his family (believing
-that the only evidence available would convict him of murder in a court
-of law), and partly because he felt that, if acquitted, it would be
-too horrible and impossible to take an inheritance that had come to
-him by such means, in the overwhelming desperation of his remorse and
-despair he took that determination to blot himself out which was never
-afterwards revoked. Returning to the house, he collected some money
-and a few valuables, and, unsuspected and unnoticed, took leave of his
-home, and his name, and his place in the world, and was half way to
-London, and beyond recall, before the dead body in the plantation was
-discovered. In London Elizabeth Leigh was staying with an old Miss
-D'Arcy, quietly studying her music and taking a rest while the society
-which was so fond of her was out of town; and the stricken man could
-not carry out his resolve without bidding farewell to his beloved. He
-had a clandestine interview with Elizabeth, to whom alone he confided
-the circumstances of his wretched plight. The girl, of course, advised
-him to return to Yelverton, and bravely meet and bear whatever might
-befall; and it would have been well for him and for her if he had taken
-that advice. But he would not listen to it, nor be turned from his
-fixed purpose to banish and efface himself, if possible, for the rest
-of his life; seeing which, the devoted woman chose to share his fate.
-Whether he could and should have spared her that enormous sacrifice,
-or whether she was happier in making it than she would otherwise have
-been, only themselves ever knew. She did her woman's part in helping
-and sustaining and consoling him through all the blighted years that he
-was suffered to live and fret her with his brooding melancholy and his
-broken-spirited moroseness, and doubtless she found her true vocation
-in that thorny path of love.
-
-The story, as told by himself for the information of his children (who,
-as children ever do, came in time to have interests of their own that
-transcended in importance those that were merely personal to their
-parents), was much more brief and bald than this, and the reading of it
-did not take many minutes. When he had finished it, in dead silence,
-the lawyer took from the packet of papers a third and smaller document,
-which he also proceeded to read aloud to those whom it concerned. This
-proved to be a certificate of the marriage of Kingscote Yelverton and
-Elizabeth Leigh, celebrated in an obscure London parish by a curate
-who had been the bridegroom's Eton and Oxford chum, and witnessed by
-a pair of humble folk who had had great difficulty in composing their
-respective signatures, on the 25th of November in the year 1849. And,
-finally, half-folded round the packet, there was a slip of paper, on
-which was written--"Not to be opened until my death."
-
-"And it might never have been opened until you were _all_ dead!"
-exclaimed the lawyer, holding up his hands. "He must have meant to give
-it to you at the last, and did not reckon on being struck helpless in a
-moment when his time came."
-
-"Oh, poor father!" sobbed Elizabeth, whose head lay on the table,
-crushed down in her handkerchief. And the other sisters put their arms
-about her, Patty with a set white face and Eleanor whimpering a little.
-But Mr. Brion and Paul were incensed with the dead man, and could not
-pity him at present.
-
-It was late before the two friendly advisers, summoned to dinner by
-their landlady, went back to No. 7, and they did not like going. It
-did not seem to them at all right that the three girls should be
-left alone under present circumstances. Mr. Brion wanted to summon
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, or even Mrs. M'Intyre, to bear them company and see
-that they did not faint, or have hysterics, or otherwise "give way,"
-under the exceptional strain put upon their nervous systems. Then he
-wanted them to come next door for that dinner which he felt they must
-certainly stand much in need of, and for which they did not seem to
-have adequate materials; or to let him take them to the nearest hotel,
-or to Mrs. Duff-Scott's; or, at least, to permit him to give them some
-brandy and water; and he was genuinely distressed because they refused
-to be nourished and comforted and appropriately cared for in any of
-these ways.
-
-"We want to be quiet for a little, dear Mr. Brion, that we may talk
-things over by ourselves--if you don't mind," Elizabeth said; and
-the tone of her voice silenced all his protests. The old man kissed
-them, for the first time in his life, uttering a few broken words of
-congratulation on the wonderful change in their fortunes; and Paul
-shook hands with great gravity and without saying anything at all, even
-though Patty, looking up into his inscrutable face, mutely asked for
-his sympathy with her wistful, wet eyes. And they went away.
-
-As they were letting themselves out of the house, assisted by the
-ground-floor domestic, who, scenting mystery in the air, politely
-volunteered to open the hall door in order that she might investigate
-the countenances of the Miss Kings' visitors and perchance gather some
-enlightenment therefrom, Patty, dry-eyed and excited, came flying
-downstairs, and pounced upon the old man.
-
-"Mr. Brion, Mr. Brion, Elizabeth says she hopes you will be _sure_
-not to divulge what we have discovered to _anybody_," she panted
-breathlessly (at the same time glancing at her lover's back as he stood
-on the door-step). "It is of the utmost consequence to her to keep it
-quiet for a little longer."
-
-"But, my dear, what object can Elizabeth have in waiting _now?_ Surely
-it is better to have it over at once, and settled. I thought of walking
-up to the club by-and-bye, with the papers, and having a word with Mr.
-Yelverton."
-
-"Of course it is better to have it over," assented Patty.
-
-"I know your time is precious, and I myself am simply frantic till I
-can tell Mrs. Duff-Scott. So is Elizabeth. But there is something she
-must do first--I can't tell you the particulars--but she _must_ have a
-few hours' start--say till to-morrow evening--before you speak to Mr.
-Yelverton or take any steps. I am sure she will do _whatever_ you wish,
-after that."
-
-The lawyer hesitated, suspicious of the wisdom of the delay, but not
-seeing how much harm could happen, seeing that he had all the precious
-documents in his own breast pocket; then he reluctantly granted Patty's
-request, and the girl went upstairs again with feet not quite so light
-as those that had carried her down. Upstairs, however, she subordinated
-her own interests to the consideration of her sister's more pressing
-affairs.
-
-"Elizabeth," she said, with fervid and portentous solemnity, "this
-is a crisis for you, and you must be bold and brave. It is no time
-for shilly-shallying--you have twenty-four hours before you, and you
-must _act_. If you don't, you will see that he will just throw up
-everything, and be too proud to take it back. He will lose all his
-money and the influence for good that it gives him, and _you_ will lose
-_him_."
-
-"How shall I act?" asked Elizabeth, leaning instinctively upon this
-more courageous spirit.
-
-"How?" echoed Patty, looking at her sister with brilliant eyes. "Oh!"
-drawing a long breath, and speaking with a yearning passion that it was
-beyond the power of good grammar to express--"oh, if it was only _me!_"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIX.
-
-
-AN ASSIGNATION.
-
-
-That evening Mr. Yelverton was leisurely finishing his dinner at the
-club when a note was brought to him. He thought he knew the writing,
-though he had never seen it before, and put it into his pocket until he
-could politely detach himself from three semi-hosts, semi-guests, with
-whom he was dining. Then he went upstairs rather quickly, tearing open
-his letter as he went, and, arrived at the reading-room, sat down at
-a table, took pen in hand, and dashed off an immediate reply. "I will
-certainly be there," he wrote, in a hand more vigorous than elegant.
-"I will wait for you in the German picture gallery. Come as early as
-possible, while the place is quiet." And, having closed his missive
-and consigned it to the bag, he remained in a comfortable arm-chair
-in the quiet room, all by himself, meditating. He felt he had a great
-deal to think about, and it indisposed him for convivialities. The week
-since his parting with Elizabeth, long as it had seemed to him, had
-not quite run out, and she had made an assignation which, though it
-might have appeared unequivocal to the casual eye, was to him extremely
-perplexing. She had come back, and she wanted to see him, and she
-wanted to see him alone, and she asked him if he would meet her at the
-Exhibition in the morning. And she addressed him as her dearest friend,
-and signed herself affectionately his. He tried very hard, but he could
-not extract his expected comfort from such a communication, made under
-such circumstances.
-
-In the morning he was amongst the first batch of breakfasters in the
-club coffee-room, and amongst the first to represent the public at
-the ticket-windows of the Carlton Palace. When he entered the great
-building, it was in the possession of officials and workmen, and
-echoed in a hollow manner to his solid footfall. Without a glance to
-right or left, he walked upstairs to the gallery and into that cosiest
-nook of the whole Exhibition, the German room, and there waited for
-his mistress. This restful room, with its carpeted floor and velvety
-settees (so grateful to the weary), its great Meissen vases in the
-middle, and casts of antique statues all round, was quite empty of
-visitors, and looked as pleasant and convenient a place of rendezvous
-as lovers could desire. If only Elizabeth would come quickly, he
-thought, they might have the most delicious quiet talk, sitting side
-by side on a semi-circular ottoman opposite to Lindenschmidt's "Death
-of Adonis"--not regarding that unhappy subject, of course, nor any
-other object but themselves. He would not sit down until she came,
-but strolled round and round, pausing now and then to investigate a
-picture, but thinking of nothing but his beloved, for whose light step
-he was listening. If his bodily eyes were fixed on the "Cloister Pond"
-or "Evening," or any other of the tranquil landscapes pictured on the
-wall, he thought of Elizabeth resting with him under green trees, far
-from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, absolutely his own, and in a
-world that (practically) held nobody but him and her. If he looked at
-autumnal rain slanting fiercely across the canvas, he thought how he
-would protect and shield her in all the storms that might visit her
-life--"My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter
-thee!" And visions of a fair morning in Thuringia, of a lake in the
-Bavarian mountains, of a glacier in the Engadine, and of Venice in
-four or five aspects of sunlight and moonlight, suggested his wedding
-journey and how beautiful the world she had so longed to see--the world
-that he knew so well--would look henceforth, if--if--
-
-There was a step upon the corridor outside, and he turned sharply from
-his contemplation of a little picture of an Isle of Wight sunrise to
-meet her as she came in. She had been walking hurriedly, but in the
-doorway she paused, seeing him striding towards her, and stood for a
-moment confused and hesitating, overcome with embarrassment. It was a
-bright morning, and she had dressed herself in a delicate linen gown,
-fitting easily to the sweeping curves of her noble figure--a gown
-over which Mrs. Duff-Scott had spent hours of careful thought and a
-considerable amount of money, but which was so simple and unpretending
-in its effects as to suggest the domestic needle and the judicious
-outlay of a few shillings to those admirable critics of the other sex
-who have so little knowledge of such matters and so much good taste;
-and all the details of her costume were in harmony with this central
-feature--her drooping straw hat, tied with soft Indian muslin under
-the chin, her Swedish gloves, her neat French shoes, her parasol--and
-the effect was insidious but impressive. She had got herself up
-carefully for her lover's eyes, and nobody could have looked less got
-up than she. Mr. Yelverton thought how much more charming was a homely
-every-day style than the elaborate dressing of the ball-room and the
-block, and that it was certainly evident to any sensible person that
-a woman like Elizabeth needed no arts of the milliner to make her
-attractive. He took her hand in a strong clasp, and held it in silence
-for a moment, his left hand laid over her fine unwrinkled glove, while
-he looked into her downcast face for some sign of the nature of her
-errand.
-
-"Well, my love," he murmured eagerly, "what is it? Don't keep me in
-suspense. Is it yes or no, Elizabeth?"
-
-Her embarrassment melted away before the look he bent upon her, as a
-morning mist before the sun. She lifted her eyes to his--those honest
-eyes that he could read like a book--and her lips parted in an effort
-to speak. The next instant, before a word was said, he had her in
-his arms, and her mouth met his under the red moustache in a long,
-and close, and breathless kiss; and both of them knew that they were
-to part no more till their lives' end. While that brief ceremony of
-betrothal lasted, they might have been in the black grotto where they
-kissed each other first, so oblivious were they of their surroundings;
-but they took in presently the meaning of certain sounds in the gallery
-on the other side of the curtain, and resumed their normal attitudes.
-"Come and sit down," said Mr. Yelverton, drawing her into the room.
-"Come and let's have a talk." And he set her down on the velvet ottoman
-and took a seat beside her--leaning forward with an arm on his knee
-to barricade her from an invasion of the public as far as possible.
-His thoughts turned, naturally enough, to their late very important
-interview in the caves.
-
-"We will go back there," he said, expressing his desire frankly. "When
-we are married, Elizabeth, we will go to your old home again together,
-before we set out on longer travels, and you and I will have a picnic
-to the caves all alone by ourselves, in that little buggy that we drove
-the other day. Shall we?"
-
-"We might tumble into one of those terrible black holes," she replied,
-"if we went there again."
-
-"True--we might. And when we are married we must not run any
-unnecessary risks. We will live together as long as we possibly can,
-Elizabeth."
-
-She had drawn off her right glove, and now slipped her hand into
-his. He grasped it fervently, and kneaded it like a lump of stiff
-dough (excuse the homely simile, dear reader--it has the merit of
-appropriateness, which is more than you can say for the lilies and
-jewellery) between his two strong palms. How he did long for that dark
-cave!--for any nook or corner that would have hidden him and her from
-sight for the next half hour.
-
-"Why couldn't you have told me a week ago?" he demanded, with a thrill
-in his deep voice. "You must have known you would take me then, or
-you would not have come to me like this to-day. Why didn't you give
-yourself to me at first? Then we should have been together all this
-time--all these precious days that we have wasted--and we should have
-been by the sea at this moment, sitting under those big rocks, or
-wandering away into the bush, where nobody could interfere with us."
-
-As he spoke, a party of ladies strolled into the court, and he leaned
-back upon his cushioned seat to wait until they were gone again. They
-looked at the pictures, with one eye on him, dawdled up and down for
-five minutes, trying to assert their right to be there if they chose;
-and then, too uncomfortably conscious of being _de trop_, departed.
-After which the lovers were alone again for a little while. Mr.
-Yelverton resumed possession of Elizabeth's hand, and repeated his
-rather cruel question.
-
-"Didn't you know all along that it must come to this?"
-
-"A week ago I did not know what I know now," she replied.
-
-"Ah, my dear, you knew it in your heart, but you would not listen to
-your heart."
-
-He thought he understood it all, perfectly. He pictured her regret and
-hungry longing for him after he was gone, how she had fought against
-it for a time, and how it had precipitately driven her to Melbourne at
-last, and driven her to summon him in this importunate fashion to her
-side. It was exactly what he would have done, he thought, had he been
-in her place.
-
-"Mr. Yelverton--"
-
-She was beginning to speak seriously, but he stopped her. "No," he
-said, "I am not going to be called Mr. Yelverton by _you_. Never again,
-remember. My name is Kingscote, if you wish to know. My people at home,
-when I had any people, called me King. I think you might as well call
-me King--it will keep your dear name alive in the family when you no
-longer answer to it yourself. Now"--as she paused, and was looking at
-him rather strangely--"what were you going to say?"
-
-"I was going to say that I have not wasted this week since you went
-away. A great deal has happened--a great many changes--and I was helped
-by something outside myself to make up my mind."
-
-"I don't believe it--I don't believe it, Elizabeth. You know you love
-me, and you know that, whatever your religious sentiments may be,
-you would not do violence to them for anything _less_ than that. You
-are taking me because you love me too well to give me up--for any
-consideration whatever. So don't say you are not."
-
-She touched his shoulder for a moment with her cheek. "Oh, I do love
-you, I do love you!" she murmured, drawing a long, sighing breath.
-
-He knew it well, and he did not know how to bear to sit there, unable
-to respond to her touching confession. He could only knead her hand
-between his palms.
-
-"And you are going to trust me, my love--me and yourself? You are not
-afraid now?"
-
-"No, I don't think I am afraid." She caught her breath a little, and
-looked grave and anxious as she said it, haunted still by the feeling
-that duty meant sacrifice and that happiness meant sin in some more or
-less insidious shape; a habit of thought in which she, like so many
-more of us, had been educated until it had taken the likeness of a
-natural instinct. "I don't think I am afraid. Religion, as you say,
-is a living thing, independent of the creeds that it is dressed in.
-And--and--you _must_ be a good man!"
-
-"Don't begin by making that an article of faith," he returned promptly.
-"To set up for being a good man is the last thing I would dream of.
-Like other men, I am good as far as I was born and have been made so,
-and neither more nor less. All I can take credit for on my own account
-is that I try to live up to the light that has been given me."
-
-"What can anyone do more?" she said, eagerly. "It is better than
-believing at haphazard and not trying at all--which is what so many
-good people are content with."
-
-"It seems better to me," he said.
-
-"I will trust you--I will trust you," she went on, leaning towards
-him as he sat beside her. "You are doing more good in the world than
-I had even thought of until I knew you. It is I who will not be up to
-the mark--not you. But I will help you as much as you will let me--I
-am going to give my life to helping you. And at least--at least--you
-believe in God," she concluded, yearning for some tangible and definite
-evidence of faith, as she had understood faith, wherewith to comfort
-her conscientious soul. "We are together in _that_--the chief thing of
-all--are we not?"
-
-He was a scrupulously truthful man, and he hesitated for a moment.
-"Yes, my dear," he said, gravely. "I believe in God--that is to say,
-I _feel_ Him--I lean my littleness on a greatness that I know is all
-around me and upholding me, which is Something that even God seems a
-word too mean for. I think," he added, "that God, to me, is not what He
-has been taught to seem to you."
-
-"Never mind," she said, in a low voice, responding to the spirit rather
-than the letter of his words. "Whatever you believe you are sure to
-believe thoroughly, and if you believe in God, your God must be a true
-God. I feel it, though I don't know it."
-
-"You feel that things will all come right for us if we have faith in
-our own hearts, and love and trust each other. So do I, Elizabeth."
-There was nobody looking, and he put his arm round her shoulder for a
-moment. "And we may consider our religious controversy closed then? We
-need not trouble ourselves about that any more?"
-
-"I would not say 'closed.' Don't you think we ought to talk of _all_
-our thoughts--and especially those that trouble us--to each other?"
-
-"I do--I do, indeed. And so we shall. Ours is going to be a real
-marriage. We shall be, not two, but one. Only for the present we may
-put this topic aside, as being no longer an obstruction in the way of
-our arrangements, mayn't we?"
-
-"Yes," she said. And the die was cast.
-
-"Very well, then." He seemed to pull himself together at this point,
-and into his fine frame and his vigorous face a new energy was infused,
-the force of which seemed to be communicated to the air around her, and
-made her heart beat more strongly to the quicker pulse of his. "Very
-well, then. Now tell me, Elizabeth--without any formality, while you
-and I are here together--when shall we be married?"
-
-The question had a tone of masterful command about it, for, though
-he knew how spontaneous and straightforward she was, her natural
-delicacy unspoiled by artificial sentiment, he yet prepared himself
-to encounter a certain amount of maidenly reluctance to meet a man's
-reasonable views upon this matter. But she answered him without delay
-or hesitation, impelled by the terrors that beset her and thinking of
-Patty's awful warnings and prophesyings--"I will leave you to say when."
-
-"Will you really? Do you mean you will _really?_" His deep-set eyes
-glowed, and his voice had a thrilling tremor in it as he made this
-incredulous inquiry. "Then I say we will be married soon--_very_
-soon--so as not to lose a day more than we can help. Will you agree to
-that?"
-
-She looked a little frightened, but she stood her ground. "If you
-wish," she whispered, all the tone shaken out of her voice.
-
-"If _I_ wish!" A palpitating silence held them for a moment. Then "What
-do you say to _to-morrow?_" he suggested.
-
-She looked up at him, blushing violently.
-
-"Ah, you are thinking how forward I am!" she exclaimed, drawing her
-hand from his.
-
-"Elizabeth," he remonstrated, with swift energy, "did I not ask
-you, ever so long ago, not to be conventional? Why should I think
-you forward? How can you be forward--with _me?_ You are the most
-delicate-minded woman I ever knew, and I think you are showing yourself
-so at this moment--when anything short of perfect truth and candour
-would have disappointed me. Now, I am quite serious--will you marry
-me to-morrow? There is no reason why you should not, that I can see.
-Just think of it, calmly. Mrs. Duff-Scott gave her consent a fortnight
-ago--yes, she gave it privately, to _me_; and Patty and Nelly, I know,
-would be delighted. As for you and me, what have we--honestly, what
-_have_ we--to wait for? Each of us is without any tie to be broken by
-it. Those who look to us will all be better off. I want to get home
-soon, and you have taken me, Elizabeth--it will be all the same in the
-end--you know that no probation will prove us unfit or unwilling to
-marry--the _raison d'être_ of an engagement does not exist for us. And
-I am not young, my love, and life is short and uncertain; while you--"
-
-"I am not young either," she interrupted. "I shall soon be thirty."
-
-"Shall you? I am glad of it. Well, think of it then--_why_ should we
-not do it, so exceptionally circumstanced as we are? We can take the
-afternoon train to somewhere--say to Macedon, to live up there amongst
-the mountains for a little while--till we decide what next to do, while
-our sisters enjoy themselves with Mrs. Duff-Scott. I can make all
-arrangements to-day, except for wedding cake and bridesmaids--and we
-would rather be without them. Come here to-morrow morning, my darling,
-as soon as the place is open, in that same pretty gown that you have
-got on now; and we will take a cab and go and get married peaceably,
-without all the town staring at us. I will see Mrs. Duff-Scott and make
-it all right. She shall meet us at the church, with the girls, and the
-major to give you away. Will you? Seriously, _will_ you?"
-
-She was silent for some time, while he leaned forward and watched her
-face. He saw, to his surprise, that she was actually thinking over
-it, and he did not interrupt her. She was, indeed, possessed by the
-idea that this wild project offered safety to them both in face of the
-impending catastrophe. If she could not secure him in the possession of
-his property before he was made aware that he had lost it, she might
-anticipate his possible refusal to let her be his benefactor, and the
-hindrances and difficulties that seemed likely to sunder them after
-having come so near to each other. She lifted her eyes from the carpet
-presently, and looked into his.
-
-"Do you mean that you _will?_" he exclaimed, the fierceness of his
-delight tempered by a still evident incredulity.
-
-"I will," she said, "if--"
-
-"Hush--hush! Don't let there be any ifs, Elizabeth!"
-
-"Yes--listen. If Mrs. Duff-Scott will freely consent and approve--"
-
-"You may consider _that_ settled, anyhow. I know she will."
-
-"And if you will see Mr. Brion to-night--"
-
-"Mr. Brion? What do we want with Mr. Brion? Settlements?"
-
-"No. But he has something to tell you about me--about my
-family--something that you _must_ know before we can be married."
-
-"What is it? Can't _you_ tell me what it is?" He looked surprised and
-uneasy. "Don't frighten me, Elizabeth--it is nothing to matter, is it?"
-
-"I don't know. I hope not. I cannot tell you myself. He will explain
-everything if you will see him this evening. He came back to Melbourne
-with us, and he is waiting to see you."
-
-"Tell me this much, at any rate," said Mr. Yelverton, anxiously; "it is
-no just cause or impediment to our being married to-morrow, is it?"
-
-"No. At least, I don't think so. I hope you won't."
-
-"_I_ shan't if _you_ don't, you may depend upon that." He made up
-his mind on the spot that there were some shady pages in her family
-history that a sense of honour prompted her to reveal to him before
-he married her, and congratulated himself that she was not like the
-conventional heroine, who would have been too proud to make him happy
-under such circumstances. "I am not afraid of Mr. Brion, if you are
-not," he repeated. "And we will shunt him for the present, with your
-permission. Somehow I can't bring myself to think of anybody just now
-except you and me." The picture galleries were pretty full by this
-time, and the public was invading the privacy of the German Court
-rather freely. "Come and let us walk about a little," he said, rising
-from the ottoman, "and enjoy the sensation of being alone in a crowd."
-And they sauntered out into the corridor, and down the stairs, and up
-and down the long nave, side by side--a distinguished and imposing if
-not strictly handsome couple--passing shoals of people, and bowing now
-and then to an acquaintance; mixing unsuspected with the common herd,
-and hugging the delicious consciousness that in secret they were alone
-and apart from everybody. They talked with more ease and freedom than
-when _tête-à-tête_ on their settee upstairs.
-
-"And so, by this time to-morrow, we shall be man and wife," Mr.
-Yelverton said, musingly. "Doesn't your head swim a little when you
-think of that, Elizabeth? _I_ feel as if I had been drinking, and I
-am terribly afraid of finding myself sober presently. No, I am not
-afraid," he continued, correcting himself. "You have given me your
-promise, and you won't go back on it, as the Yankees say, will you?"
-
-"If either of us goes back," said Elizabeth, unblushingly; "it won't be
-me."
-
-"You seem to think it possible that _I_ may go back? Don't you flatter
-yourself, my young friend. When you come here to-morrow, as you will,
-in that pretty cool gown--I stipulate for that gown remember--"
-
-"Even if it is a cold day?--or pouring with rain?"
-
-"Well, I don't know. Couldn't you put a warm jacket over it? When you
-come here to-morrow, I say, you will find me waiting for you, the
-embodiment of relentless fate, with the wedding ring in my pocket. By
-the way--that reminds me--how am I to know the size of your finger? And
-you have not got your engagement ring yet! I'll tell you what we'll do,
-Elizabeth; we'll choose a ring out of the Exhibition, and we'll cheat
-the customs for once. The small things are smuggled out of the place
-all day long, and every day, as you may see by taking stock of the show
-cases occasionally. We'll be smugglers too--it is in a good cause--and
-I'll go so far as to use bribery and corruption, if necessary, to get
-possession of that ring to-day. I'll say, 'Let me have it now, or I
-won't have it at all,' and you will see they'll let me have it. I will
-then put it on your finger, and you shall wear it for a little while,
-and then I will borrow it to get the size of your wedding ring from it.
-By-and-bye, you know, when we are at home at Yelverton--years hence,
-when we are old people--"
-
-"Oh, don't talk of our being old people!" she interrupted, quickly.
-
-"No, I won't--it will be a long time yet, dear. By-and-bye, when we are
-at home at Yelverton, you will look at your ring, and think of this
-day, and of the German picture gallery--of the dear Exhibition which
-brought us together, and where you gave yourself to me--long after I
-had given myself to _you_, Elizabeth! It is most appropriate that your
-engagement ring should be got here. Come along and let us choose it.
-What stones do you like best?"
-
-They spent nearly an hour amongst the jewellery of all nations before
-Mr. Yelverton could decide on what he liked. At last he selected from
-a medley of glittering trinkets a sober ring that did not glitter,
-and yet was rare and valuable--a broad, plain band of gold set with
-a lovely cameo carved out of an opal stone. "There is some little
-originality about it," he said, as he tried it on her finger, which it
-fitted perfectly, "and, though the intaglio looks so delicate, it will
-stand wear and tear, and last for ever. That is the chief thing. Do you
-like it? Or would you rather have diamonds?"
-
-She had no words to say how much she liked it, and how much she
-preferred it to diamonds. And so, after a few severe struggles, carried
-on in a foreign tongue, he obtained immediate possession of his
-purchase, and she carried it away on her finger.
-
-"Now," said he, looking at his watch, "are you in any great hurry to
-get home?"
-
-She thought of her non-existent trousseau, and the packing of her
-portmanteau for her wedding journey; nevertheless, she intimated her
-willingness to stay a little while longer.
-
-"Very well. We will go and have our lunch then. We'll join the _table
-d'hôte_ of the Exhibition, Elizabeth--that will give us a foretaste
-of our Continental travels. To-morrow we shall have lunch--where? At
-Mrs. Duff-Scott's, I suppose--it would be too hard upon her to leave
-her literally at the church door. Yes, we shall have lunch at Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's, and I suppose the major will insist our drinking our
-healths in champagne, and making us a pretty speech. Never mind, we
-will have our dinner in peace. To-morrow evening we shall be at home,
-Elizabeth, and you and I will dine _tête-à-tête_, without even a single
-parlourmaid to stand behind our chairs. I don't quite know yet where
-I shall discover those blessed four walls that we shall dine in, nor
-what sort of dinner it will be--but I will find out before I sleep
-to-night."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XL.
-
-
-MRS. DUFF-SCOTT HAS TO BE RECKONED WITH.
-
-
-Prosaic as were their surroundings and their occupation--sitting at
-a long table, he at the end and she at the corner on his left hand,
-amongst a scattered crowd of hungry folk, in the refreshment room of
-the Exhibition, eating sweetbreads and drinking champagne and soda
-water--it was like a dream to Elizabeth, this foretaste of Continental
-travels. In the background of her consciousness she had a sense of
-having acted madly, if not absurdly, in committing herself to the
-programme that her audacious lover had drawn out; but the thoughts and
-fancies floating on the surface of her mind were too absorbing for the
-present to leave room for serious reflections. Dreaming as she was,
-she not only enjoyed the homely charm of sitting at meat with him in
-this informal, independent manner, but she enjoyed her lunch as well,
-after her rather exhausting emotions. It is commonly supposed, I know,
-that overpowering happiness takes away the appetite; but experience has
-taught me that it is not invariably the case. The misery of suspense
-and dread can make you sicken at the sight of food, but the bliss of
-rest and security in having got what you want has an invigorating
-effect, physically as well as spiritually, if you are a healthy person.
-So I say that Elizabeth was unsentimentally hungry, and enjoyed her
-sweetbreads. They chatted happily over their meal, like truant children
-playing on the edge of a precipice. Mr. Yelverton had the lion's share
-in the conversation, and talked with distracting persistence of the
-journey to-morrow, and the lighter features of the stupendous scheme
-that they had so abruptly adopted. Elizabeth smiled and blushed and
-listened, venturing occasionally upon a gentle repartee. Presently,
-however, she started a topic on her own account "Tell me," she said,
-"do you object to first cousins marrying?"
-
-"Dear child, I don't object to anything to-day," he replied. "As long
-as I am allowed to marry you, I am quite willing to let other men
-please themselves."
-
-"But tell me seriously--do you?"
-
-"Must I be serious? Well, let me think. No, I don't know that I
-object--there is so very little that I object to, you see, in the way
-of things that people want to do--but I think, perhaps, that, all
-things being equal, a man would not _choose_ to marry so near a blood
-relation."
-
-"You _do_ think it wrong, then?"
-
-"I think it not only wrong but utterly preposterous and indefensible,"
-he said, "that it should be lawful and virtuous for a man to marry his
-first cousin and wicked and indecent to marry his sister-in-law--or
-his aunt-in-law for the matter of that--or any other free woman who
-has no connection with him except through other people's marriages.
-If a legal restriction in such matters can ever be necessary or
-justifiable, it should be in the way of preventing the union of people
-of the same blood. Sense and the laws of physiology have something to
-say to _that_--they have nothing whatever to say to the relations that
-are of no kin to each other. Them's my sentiments, Miss King, if you
-particularly wish to know them."
-
-Elizabeth put her knife and fork together on her plate softly. It was a
-gesture of elaborate caution, meant to cover her conscious agitation.
-"Then you would not--if it were your own case--marry your cousin?" she
-asked, after a pause, in a very small and gentle voice. He was studying
-the _menu_ on her behalf, and wondering if the strawberries and cream
-would be fresh. Consequently he did not notice how pale she had grown,
-all of a sudden.
-
-"Well," he said, "you see I have no cousin, to begin with. And if I had
-I could not possibly want to marry her, since I am going to marry you
-to-morrow, and a man is only allowed to have one wife at a time. So my
-own case doesn't come in."
-
-"But if _I_ had been your cousin?" she urged, breathlessly, but with
-her eyes on her plate. "Supposing, for the sake of argument, that _I_
-had been of your blood--would you still have had me?"
-
-"Ah!" he said, laughing, "that is, indeed, a home question."
-
-"_Would_ you?" she persisted.
-
-"Would I?" he echoed, putting a hand under the table to touch hers. "I
-really think I would, Elizabeth. I'm afraid that nothing short of your
-having been my own full sister could have saved you."
-
-After that she regained her colour and brightness, and was able to
-enjoy the early strawberries and cream--which did happen to be fresh.
-
-They did not hurry themselves over their lunch, and when they left the
-refreshment-room they went and sat down on two chairs by the Brinsmead
-pianos and listened to a little music (in that worst place that ever
-was for hearing it). Then Mr. Yelverton took his _fiancée_ to get a cup
-of Indian tea. Then he looked at his watch gravely.
-
-"Do you know," he said, "I really have an immense deal of business to
-get through before night if we are to be married to-morrow morning."
-
-"There is no reason why we should be married to-morrow morning," was
-her immediate comment "Indeed--indeed, it is far too soon."
-
-"It may be soon, Elizabeth, but I deny that it is too soon, reluctant
-as I am to contradict you. And, whether or no, the date is fixed,
-_irrevocably_. We have only to consider"--he broke off, and consulted
-his watch again, thinking of railway and telegraph arrangements. "Am I
-obliged to see Mr. Brion to-day?" he asked, abruptly. "Can't I put him
-off till another time? Because, you know, he may say just whatever he
-likes, and it won't make the smallest particle of difference."
-
-"Oh," she replied earnestly, "you _must_ see him. I can't marry
-you till he has told you everything. I wish I could!" she added,
-impulsively.
-
-"Well, if I must I must--though I know it doesn't matter the least bit.
-Will he keep me long, do you suppose?"
-
-"I think, very likely, he will."
-
-"Then, my darling, we must go. Give me your ring--you shall have it
-back to-night. Go and pack your portmanteau this afternoon, so that you
-have a little spare time for Mrs. Duff-Scott. She will be sure to want
-you in the evening. You need not take much, you know--just enough for a
-week or two. She will be only too delighted to look after your clothes
-while you are away, and"--with a smile--"we'll buy the trousseau in
-Paris on our way home. I am credibly informed that Paris is the proper
-place to go to for the trousseau of a lady of quality."
-
-"Trousseaus are nonsense," said Elizabeth, who perfectly understood
-his motives for this proposition, "in these days of rapidly changing
-fashions, unless the bride cannot trust her husband to give her enough
-pocket money."
-
-"Precisely. That is just what I think. And I don't want to be deprived
-of the pleasure of dressing you. But for a week or two, Elizabeth, we
-are going out of the world just as far as we can get, where you won't
-want much dressing. Take only what is necessary for comfort, dear,
-enough for a fortnight--or say three weeks. That will do. And tell me
-where I shall find Mr. Brion."
-
-They were passing out of the Exhibition building--passing that noble
-group of listening hounds and huntsman that stood between the front
-entrance and the gate--and Elizabeth was wondering how she should
-find Mr. Brion at once and make sure of that evening interview, when
-she caught sight of the old lawyer himself coming into the flowery
-enclosure from the street. "Why, there he is!" she exclaimed. "And my
-sisters are with him."
-
-"We are taking him out for an airing," exclaimed Eleanor, who was
-glorious in her Cup-day costume, and evidently in an effervescence of
-good spirits, when she recognised the engaged pair. "Mr. Paul was too
-busy to attend to him, and he had nobody but us, poor man! So we are
-going to show him round. Would you believe that he has never seen the
-Exhibition, Elizabeth?"
-
-They had scarcely exchanged greetings with each other when, out of an
-open carriage at the gate, stepped Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to that
-extensive kettle-drum which was held in the Exhibition at this hour.
-When she saw her girls, their festive raiment, and their cavaliers, the
-fairy godmother's face was a study.
-
-"What!" she exclaimed, with heart-rending reproach, "you are back in
-Melbourne! You are walking about with--with your friends"--hooking on
-her eye-glass the better to wither poor Mr. Brion, who wasted upon her
-a bow that would have done credit to Lord Chesterfield--"and _I_ am not
-told!"
-
-Patty came forward, radiant with suppressed excitement. "She must be
-told," exclaimed the girl, breathlessly. "Elizabeth, we are all here
-now. And it is Mrs. Duff-Scott's _right_ to know what we know. And Mr.
-Yelverton's too."
-
-"You may tell them now," said Elizabeth, who was as white as the muslin
-round her chin. "Take them all to Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, and explain
-everything, and get it over--while I go home."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLI.
-
-
-MR. YELVERTON STATES HIS INTENTIONS.
-
-
-"I don't think you know Mr. Brion," said Mr. Yelverton, first lifting
-his hat and shaking hands with Mrs. Duff-Scott, and then, with an airy
-and audacious cheerfulness, introducing the old man (whose name and
-association with her _protégées_ she immediately recalled to mind);
-"Mr. Brion--Mrs. Duff-Scott."
-
-The fairy godmother bowed frigidly, nearly shutting her eyes as she
-did so, and for a moment the little group kept an embarrassed silence,
-while a sort of electric current of intelligence passed between Patty
-and her new-found cousin. Mr. Yelverton was, as we say, not the same
-man that he had been a few hours before. Quiet in his manner, as he
-ever was, there was yet an aspect of glowing energy about him, an air
-of being at high pressure, that did not escape the immediate notice of
-the girl's vigilant and sympathetic eyes. I have described him very
-badly if I have not made the reader understand the virile breadth and
-strength of his emotional nature, and how it would be affected by his
-present situation. The hot blue blood and superfine culture of that
-ardent young aristocrat who became his father at such an early age,
-and the wholesome physical and moral solidity of the farmer's fair and
-rustic daughter who was his mother, were blended together in him; with
-the result that he was a man at all points, having all the strongest
-human instincts alive and active in him. He was not the orthodox
-philanthropist, the half-feminine, half-neuter specialist with a hobby,
-the foot-rule reformer, the prig with a mission to set the world
-right; his benevolence was simply the natural expression of a sense of
-sympathy and brotherhood between him and his fellows, and the spirit
-which produced that was not limited in any direction. From the same
-source came a passionately quick and keen apprehension of the nature of
-the closest bond of all, not given to the selfish and narrow-hearted.
-Amongst his abstract brothers and sisters he had been looking always
-for his own concrete mate, and having found her and secured her, he was
-as a king newly anointed, whose crown had just been set upon his head.
-
-"Will you come?" said Patty to him, trying not to look too conscious
-of the change she saw in him. "It is time to have done with all our
-secrets now."
-
-"I agree with you," he replied. "And I will come with pleasure." Mrs.
-Duff-Scott was accordingly made to understand, with some difficulty,
-that the mystery which puzzled her had a deep significance, and that
-she was desired to take steps at once whereby she might be made
-acquainted with it. Much bewildered, but without relaxing her offended
-air--for she conceived that no explanation would make any difference in
-the central fact that Mr. Yelverton and Mr. Brion had taken precedence
-of her in the confidence of her own adopted daughters--she returned to
-her carriage, all the little party following meekly at her heels. The
-girls were put in first--even Elizabeth, who, insisting upon detaching
-herself from the assembling council, had to submit to be conveyed to
-Myrtle Street; and the two men, lifting their hats to the departing
-vehicle, were left on the footpath together. The lawyer was very grave,
-and slightly nervous and embarrassed. To his companion he had all the
-air of a man with a necessary but disagreeable duty to perform.
-
-"What is all this about?" Mr. Yelverton demanded with a little anxious
-irritation in his tone. "Nothing of any great consequence, is it?"
-
-"I--I'm afraid you will think it rather a serious matter," the lawyer
-replied, with hesitation. "Still," he added, earnestly, "if you
-are their friend, as I believe you are--knowing that they have no
-responsibility in the matter--you will not let it make any difference
-in your feeling for them--"
-
-"There is not the _faintest_ danger of that," Mr. Yelverton promptly
-and haughtily interposed.
-
-"I am sure of it--I am sure of it. Well, you shall know all in half
-an hour. If you will kindly find Major Duff-Scott--he has constituted
-himself their guardian, in a way, and ought to be present--I will just
-run round to my lodgings in Myrtle Street."
-
-"Are you going to fetch your son?" asked Mr. Yelverton, quickly. "Don't
-you think that, under the circumstances--supposing matters have to be
-talked of that will be painful to the Miss Kings--the fewer present the
-better?"
-
-"Certainly. I am not going to fetch my son, who, by the way, already
-knows all there is to know, but some documents relating to the affair,
-which he keeps in his strong-box for safety. Major Duff-Scott is the
-only person whose presence we require, since--"
-
-"Since what?"
-
-Mr. Brion was going to say, "Since your solicitors are not at hand,"
-but checked himself. "Never mind," he said, "never mind. I cannot say
-any more now."
-
-"All right. I'll go and find the major. Thank Heaven, he's no gossip,
-and I think he is too real a friend of the Miss Kings to care what he
-hears any more than I do." But Mr. Yelverton got anxious about this
-point after it occurred to him, and went off thoughtfully to the club,
-congratulating himself that, thanks to his sweetheart's reasonableness,
-he was in a position which gave him the privilege of protecting them
-should the issue of this mysterious business leave them in need of
-protection.
-
-At the club he found the major, talking desultory politics with other
-ex-guardians of the State now shelved in luxurious irresponsibility
-with him; and the little man was quite ready to obey his friend's
-summons to attend the family council.
-
-"The Miss Kings are back," said Mr. Yelverton, "and old Brion, the
-lawyer, is with them, and there are some important matters to be talked
-over this afternoon, and you must come and hear."
-
-The major said that he was at the Miss Kings' service, and got his
-hat. He asked no questions as he passed through the lobby and down
-the steps to Mr. Yelverton's cab, which waited in the street. In his
-own mind he concluded that Elizabeth's engagement had "come off," and
-this legal consultation had some more or less direct reference to
-settlements, and the relations of the bride-elect's sisters to her
-new lot in life. What chiefly occupied his thoughts was the fear that
-he was going to be asked to give up Patty and Eleanor, and all the
-way from the club to his house he was wondering how far his and his
-wife's rights in them extended, and how far his energetic better half
-might be relied upon to defend and maintain them. At the house they
-found that Mr. Brion had already arrived, and that Mrs. Duff-Scott was
-assembling her party in the library, as being an appropriate place for
-the discussion of business in which men were so largely concerned. It
-was a spacious, pleasant room; the books ranging all round from the
-floor to about a third of the way up the wall, like a big dado; the top
-shelf supporting bric-à-brac of a stately and substantial order, and
-the deep red walls, which had a Pompeian frieze that was one of the
-artistic features of the house, bearing those pictures in oils which
-were the major's special pride as a connoisseur and man of family, and
-which held their permanent place of honour irrespective of the waves of
-fashion that ebbed and flowed around them. There was a Turkey carpet
-on the polished floor, and soft, thick oriental stuffs on the chairs
-and sofas and in the drapery of the wide bow-window--stuffs of dim but
-richly-coloured silk and wool, with tints of gold thread where the
-light fell. There was a many-drawered and amply-furnished writing table
-in that bow-window, the most comfortable and handy elbow tables by the
-hearth, and another and substantial one for general use in the centre
-of the floor. And altogether it was a pleasant place both to use and to
-look at, and was particularly pleasant in its shadowed coolness this
-summer afternoon. At the centre table sat the lady of the house, with
-an air of reproachful patience, talking surface talk with the girls
-about their country trip. Eleanor stood near her, looking very charming
-in her pale blue gown, with her flushed cheeks, and brightened eyes.
-Patty supported Mr. Brion, who was not quite at home in this strange
-atmosphere, and she watched the door with a face of radiant excitement.
-
-"Where is Elizabeth?" asked the major, having hospitably shaken hands
-with the lawyer, whom he had never seen before.
-
-"Elizabeth," said Mr. Yelverton, using the name familiarly, as if he
-had never called her by any other, "is not coming."
-
-"Oh, indeed. Well, I suppose we are to go on without her, eh?"
-
-"Yes, I suppose so." They were all seating themselves at the table,
-and as he took a chair by Patty's side he looked round and caught a
-significant glance passing between the major and his wife. "It is not
-of _my_ convening, this meeting," he explained; "whatever business is
-on hand, I know nothing of it at present."
-
-"_Don't_ you?" cried his hostess, opening her eyes.
-
-The major smiled; he, too, was thrown off the scent and puzzled, but
-did not show it as she did.
-
-"No," said Mr. Brion, clearing his throat and putting his hand into his
-breast pocket to take out his papers, "what Mr. Yelverton says is true.
-He knows nothing of it at present. I am very sorry, for his sake, that
-it is so. I may say I am very sorry for everybody's sake, for it is a
-very painful thing to--"
-
-Here Mr. Yelverton rose to his feet abruptly, nipping the exordium in
-the bud. "Allow me one moment," he said with some peremptoriness. "I
-don't know what Mr. Brion means by saying he is sorry for _my_ sake. I
-don't know whether he alludes to a--a special attachment on my part,
-but I cannot conceive how any revelation he may make can affect me. As
-far as I am concerned--"
-
-"My dear sir," interrupted the lawyer in his turn, "if you will wait
-until I have made my explanation, you will understand what I mean."
-
-"Sit down," said Patty, putting a hand on his arm. "You have no idea
-what he is going to say. Sit down and listen."
-
-"I do not want to listen, dear," he said, giving her a quick look. "It
-cannot be anything painful to me unless it is painful to you, and if it
-is painful to you I would rather not hear it."
-
-The major was watching them all, and ruminating on the situation.
-"Wait a bit, Yelverton," he said in his soft voice. "If it's their
-doing there's some good reason for it. Just hear what it is that Mr.
-Brion has to say. I see he has got some legal papers. We must pay
-attention to legal papers, you know."
-
-"Oh, for goodness sake, go on!" cried Mrs. Duff-Scott, whose nerves
-were chafed by this delay. "If anything is the matter, let us know the
-worst at once."
-
-"Very well. Mr. Brion shall go on. But before he does so," said Mr.
-Yelverton, still standing, leaning on the table, and looking round
-on the little group with glowing eyes, "I will ask leave to make a
-statement. I am so happy--Mrs. Duff-Scott would have known it in an
-hour or two--I am so happy as to be Miss King's promised husband, and I
-hope to be her husband actually by this time to-morrow." Patty gave a
-little hysterical cry, and snatched at her handkerchief, in which her
-face was immediately buried. Mrs. Duff-Scott leaned back in her chair
-with a stoical composure, as if inured to thunderbolts, and waited for
-what would happen next. "I know it is very short notice," he went on,
-looking at the elder lady with a half-tender, half-defiant smile, "but
-my available time here is limited, and Elizabeth and I did not begin to
-care for each other yesterday. I persuaded her this morning to consent
-to an early and quiet marriage, for various reasons that I do not need
-to enter into now; and she has given her consent--provided only that
-Mrs. Duff-Scott has no objection."
-
-"But I have the greatest objection," said that lady, emphatically.
-"Not to your marrying Elizabeth--you know I am quite agreeable to
-_that_--but to your doing it in such an unreasonable way. To-morrow!
-you must be joking. It is preposterous, on the face of it."
-
-"You are thinking of clothes, of course."
-
-"No, I am not thinking of clothes. I am thinking of what people will
-say. You can have no idea of the extraordinary tales that will get
-about. I must consider Elizabeth."
-
-"_I_ consider Elizabeth," he said. "And before Mr. Brion makes his
-communication, whatever it may be, I should like to have it settled and
-understood that the arrangements she and I have made will be permitted
-to stand." He paused, and stood looking at Mrs. Duff-Scott, with an air
-that impressed her with the hopelessness of attempting to oppose such a
-man as that.
-
-"I don't know what to say," she said. "We will talk it over presently."
-
-"No, I want it settled now. Elizabeth will do whatever you desire, but
-I want her to please me." The major chuckled, and, hearing him, Mr.
-Yelverton laughed for a moment, and then bent his emphatic eyes upon
-the old man sitting silent before his unopened papers. "I want you and
-everybody to understand that whatever is to be said concerns my wife
-and sisters, Mr. Brion."
-
-"Very good, sir," said Mr. Brion. "I am delighted to hear it. At the
-same time I would suggest that it might be wiser not to hurry things
-quite so much."
-
-At this point Patty, who had been laughing and crying in her
-handkerchief, and clinging to Eleanor, who had come round the table
-and was hanging over her, suddenly broke into the discussion. "Oh, let
-them, let them, let them!" she exclaimed eagerly, to the bewilderment
-of the uninitiated, who were quite sure that some social disability
-was about to be attached to the bride elect, from which her lover
-was striving to rescue her. "Do let them be married to-morrow, dear
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, if Mr. Yelverton wishes it. Elizabeth knows why she
-consents--I know, too--so does Nelly. Give them your permission now, as
-he says, before Mr. Brion goes on--how can anyone say anything against
-it if _you_ approve? Let it be all settled now--absolutely settled--so
-that no one can undo it afterwards." She turned and looked at the
-major with such a peculiar light and earnestness in her face that
-the little man, utterly adrift himself, determined at once to anchor
-himself to her. "Look here," he said, in his gentle way, but with no
-sign of indecision, "I am the head of the house, and if anybody has any
-authority over Elizabeth here, it is I. Forgive me, my dear"--to his
-wife at the other end of the table--"if I seem to take too much upon
-myself, but it appears to me that I ought to act in this emergency. Mr.
-Yelverton, we have every reason to trust your motives and conduct, and
-Elizabeth's also; and she is her own mistress in every way. So you may
-tell her from my wife and me that we hope she will do whatever seems
-right to herself, and that what makes her happy will make us so."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott got up from her chair proudly, as if to leave the room
-where this outrage had been put upon her; but she sat down again and
-wept a few tears instead. At the unwonted sight of which Patty flew
-round to her and took her majestic head into her young arms. "Ah! how
-ungrateful we _seem_ to hurt and vex you," she murmured, in the tone of
-a mother talking to a suffering child, "but you don't know how it is
-all going to turn out. If you give them your consent now, you will see
-how glad you will be in a little while."
-
-"It doesn't seem that anybody cares much whether I give my consent or
-not," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. But she wiped away her tears, kissed her
-consoler, and made an effort to be cheerful and business-like. "There,
-there--we have wasted enough time," she said, brusquely. "Go on, Mr.
-Brion, or we shall have dinner time here before we begin."
-
-"Shall I go on?" asked Mr. Brion, looking round.
-
-Mr. Yelverton, who was very grave, nodded.
-
-And Mr. Brion went on.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLII.
-
-
-HER LORD AND MASTER.
-
-
-It was not much after three o'clock when Elizabeth walked slowly
-upstairs to her room, bearing single-handed her own responsibilities.
-Now that she was alone and undisturbed, she began to realise how
-great they were. She sat down on her little bed to think what she was
-doing--to look back upon the past, and forward into the future--until
-her head spun round. When she could think no more, she slid down
-upon her knees and prayed a fervent, wordless prayer--rested her
-over-weighted soul on the pillars of the universe, which bore up the
-strange little world in which she was but an infinitesimal atom--and,
-feeling that there was a strong foundation somewhere, and perhaps
-even feeling dimly that she had touched her point of contact with it
-only just now when she touched her true love's lips, she felt less
-intolerably burdened with the charge of herself. She rose up with her
-nerves steadied and her brain composed. What was done was done, and
-it had been done for the best. "We can but do our best, and leave
-it," he had said; and, thinking of his words, a sense of his robust
-faith, which she did not call faith, permeated her unsettled mind
-and comforted her with the feeling that she would have support and
-strength in him. She could not repent. She could not wish anything to
-be altered. She loved him and needed him; and he loved and needed her,
-and had a right to her. Yes, he had a right to her, independently of
-that fortune which was hers and which she dared not take away from him
-while he was using it so much better than she could, he was her mate
-and lord, and she belonged to him. What reason was there against her
-marrying him? Only one; Mrs. Duff-Scott's reason, which even she had
-abandoned, apparently--one obligation of duty, which conscience, left
-to its own delicate sense of good and evil, refused to insist upon as
-such. And what reason was there against marrying him to-morrow, if he
-desired it, and by doing which, while they would be made so happy, no
-one else could be made unhappy? She was unlearned in the social views
-and customs concerning such matters, and said in her simple heart there
-was no reason whatever--none, none.
-
-So she set to work on her preparations, her eyes shining and her hands
-trembling with the overwhelming bliss of her anticipations, which
-awed and dazzled her; beset at intervals with chill misgivings, and
-thrills of panic, dread and fear, as to what effect upon her blessed
-fortune that afternoon's work at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house might have.
-She took off her pretty gown, which he had sanctified by his approval,
-and laid it tenderly on the bed; put on a loose wrapper, pulled out
-drawers and opened cupboards, and proceeded to pack her portmanteau
-for that wedding journey which she still could not believe was to be
-taken to-morrow. If such a sudden demand upon the resources of her
-wardrobe had been made a few months ago, she would have been greatly
-perplexed to meet it. Now she had, not only a commodious portmanteau
-(procured for their country visit), but drawers full of fine linen,
-piles of handkerchiefs, boxes of gloves, everything that she could need
-for an indefinite sojourn either in the world or out of it. When Mrs.
-Duff-Scott had gained their consent to be allowed to become a mother
-to them, she had lost no time in fitting them all out as became her
-adopted daughters, in defiance of any scruples or protests that they
-might make. Elizabeth's trousseau, it seemed to her, as she filled one
-side of the portmanteau with dainty underclothes delicately stitched
-and embroidered and frilled with lace, had been already provided for
-her, and while her heart went out in gratitude to her munificent
-friend, she could not help feeling that one of the dearest privileges
-of being rich was to have the power to acknowledge that munificence
-suitably. Only that very day, for the first time, she had seen an
-indication that tended to confirm her and Patty's instinctive sense
-that they had made a mistake in permitting themselves to accept so
-many favours. Eleanor, feeling herself already rich and the potential
-possessor of unlimited fine clothes, had put on her Cup dress and
-bonnet to walk out with Mr. Brion; and Mrs. Duff-Scott, when she
-met her in the Exhibition grounds, and while thrown for a moment off
-her usual even balance, had looked at the girl with a disapproving
-eye, which plainly accused her of extravagance--in other words, of
-wasting her (Mrs. Duff-Scott's) substance in riotous living. That
-little incident, so slight and momentary as it was, would have been
-as terrible a blow to them as was Paul Brion's refusal of their
-invitation to tea, had it not been that they were no longer poor, but
-in a position to discharge their obligations. She thought how Mrs.
-Duff-Scott would come to Yelverton by-and-bye, and to the London house,
-and how she (Elizabeth) would lavish the best of everything upon her.
-It was a delightful thought.
-
-While she was building air castles, she sorted and folded her clothes
-methodically, and with motherly care turned over those belonging to
-her sisters, to see that they were well provided for and in need
-of nothing for the time of her brief absence. While investigating
-Patty's wardrobe, she thought much of her dear companion and that
-next-door neighbour, still in their unreconciled trouble, and still
-so far from the safe haven to which she was drawing nigh; and she was
-not too selfish in her own happiness to be unable to concern herself
-anxiously about theirs. Well, even this was to be set right now. She
-and Kingscote, with their mutually augmented wisdom and power, would
-be able to settle that matter, one way or another, when they returned
-from their wedding journey. Kingscote, who was never daunted by any
-difficulties, would find a way to solve this one, and to do what
-was best for Patty. Then it occurred to her that if Patty and Paul
-were married, Paul might want to keep his wife in Australia, and the
-sisters, who had never been away from each other, might be doomed
-to live apart. But she persuaded herself that this also would be
-prevented, and that Paul, stiff-necked as he was, would not let Patty
-be unhappy, as she certainly would be if separated by the width of the
-world from herself--not if Kingscote were at hand, to point it out
-to him in his authoritative and convincing manner. As for Nelly, she
-was to comfort Mrs. Duff-Scott for awhile, and then she was to come,
-bringing the fairy godmother with her, to Yelverton, to live under her
-brother-cousin's protection until she, too, was married--to someone
-better, far better, than Mr. Westmoreland. Perhaps the Duff-Scotts
-themselves would be tempted (by the charms of West-End and Whitechapel
-society, respectively) to settle in England too. In which case there
-would be nothing left to wish for.
-
-At five o'clock she had finished her packing, put on her dress--not
-the wedding dress, which was laid smoothly on a cupboard shelf--and
-sat down by the sitting-room window to wait for her sisters, or for
-somebody, to come to her. This half-hour of unoccupied suspense was
-a very trying time; all her tremulous elation died down, all her
-blissful anticipations became overcast with chill forebodings, as
-a sunny sky with creeping clouds, while she bent strained eyes and
-ears upon the street, watching for the news that did not come. In
-uncontrollable excitement and restlessness, she abandoned her post
-towards six o'clock, and set herself to prepare tea in the expectation
-of her sisters' return. She spread the cloth and set out the cups and
-saucers, the bread and butter, the modest tin of sardines. As the warm
-day was manifestly about to close with a keen south wind, she thought
-she would light a fire in the sitting-room and make some toast. It
-was better to have something to do to distract her from her fierce
-anxieties, and, moreover, she wished the little home nest to be as cosy
-and comfortable as possible to-night, which might be the last night
-that the sisters would be there together--the closing scene of their
-independent life. So she turned up her cuffs, put on gloves and apron,
-and fetched wood and coals from their small store in the back-yard;
-and then she laid and lit a fire, blew it into as cheerful a blaze as
-the unsatisfactory nature of city fuel and a city grate permitted,
-and, having shaken down her neat dress and washed her hands, proceeded
-to make the toast. She was at this work, kneeling on the hearthrug,
-and staring intently into the fire over a newly-cut slice of bread
-that she had just put upon the fork, when she heard a sound that made
-her heart stand still. It was the sound of a cab rattling into the
-street and bumping against the kerb at her own gate. Springing to her
-feet and listening breathlessly, she heard the gate open to a quiet,
-strong hand that belonged to neither of her sisters, and a solid tread
-on the flags that paved a footpath through the little garden to the
-door. At the door a quick rapping, at once light and powerful, brought
-the servant from her underground kitchen, and a sonorous, low voice
-spoke in the hall and echoed up the stairs--the well-known voice of
-Kingscote Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton, unaccompanied by anybody
-else--paying his first visit to this virgin retreat, where, as he knew
-very well, his sweetheart at this moment was alone, and where, as he
-also knew, the unchaperoned male had no business to be. Evidently his
-presence announced a crisis that transcended all the circumstances and
-conventionalities of every-day life.
-
-He walked upstairs to her sitting-room, and rapped at the door. She
-could not tell him to come in, for her heart seemed to be beating in
-her throat, and she felt too suffocated to speak; she stumbled across
-to the door, and, opening it, looked at him dumbly, with a face as
-white as the white frills of her gown. He, for his part, neither spoke
-to her nor kissed her; his whole aspect indicated strong emotion,
-but he was so portentously grave, and almost stern, that her heart,
-which had fluttered so wildly at the sight of him, collapsed and sank.
-Taking her hand gently, he shut the door, led her across the room to
-the hearthrug, and stood, her embodied fate, before her. She was so
-overwhelmed with fear of what he might be going to say that she turned
-and hid her face in her hands against the edge of the mantelpiece, that
-she might brace herself to bear it without showing him how stricken she
-was.
-
-"Well," he said, after a little pause, "I have been having a great
-surprise, Elizabeth. I little thought what you were letting me in for
-when you arranged that interview with Mr. Brion. I never was so utterly
-out of my reckoning as I have found myself to-day."
-
-She did not speak, but waited in breathless anguish for the sentence
-that she foreboded was to be passed upon her--condemning her to keep
-that miserable money in exchange for him.
-
-"I know all about the great discovery now," he went on. "I have read
-all the papers. I can testify that they are perfectly genuine. I have
-seen the marriage register that that one was copied from--I can verify
-all those dates, and names, and places--there is not a flaw anywhere
-in Mr. Brion's case. You are really my cousins, and you--_you_,
-Elizabeth--are the head of the family now. There was no entail--it was
-cut off before my uncle Patrick's time, and he died before he made a
-will: so everything is yours." After a pause, he added, brokenly, "I
-wish you joy, my dear. I should be a hypocrite if I said I was glad,
-but--but I wish you joy all the same."
-
-She gave a short, dry sob, keeping her face hidden; evidently, even to
-him, she was not having much joy in her good fortune just now. He moved
-closer to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.
-
-"I have come now to fetch you," he said, in a low, grave tone, that was
-still unsteady. "Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted to come herself, but I asked
-her to let me come alone, because I have something to say to you that
-is only between ourselves."
-
-Then her nervous terrors found voice. "Oh, tell me what it is!" she
-cried, trembling like a leaf. "Don't keep me in suspense. If you have
-anything cruel to say, say it quickly."
-
-"Anything cruel?" he repeated. "I don't think you are really afraid
-of that--from me. No, I haven't anything cruel to say--only a simple
-question to ask--which you will have to answer me honestly, Elizabeth."
-
-She waited in silence, and he went on. "Didn't you tell
-me"--emphasising each word heavily--"that you had been induced by
-something outside yourself to decide in my favour?"
-
-"Not altogether induced," she protested; "helped perhaps."
-
-"Helped, then--influenced--by outside considerations?"
-
-"Yes," she assented, with heroic truthfulness.
-
-"You were alluding to this discovery, of course?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"And you have consented to marry me in order that I may not be deprived
-of my property?" She did not speak immediately, from purely physical
-incapacity, and he went on with a hardening voice. "I will not be
-married on those grounds, Elizabeth. You must have _known_ that I would
-not."
-
-For a moment she stood with her face hidden, struggling with a rising
-tide of tears that, when these terrible words were spoken, would not
-be kept in check; then she lifted her head, and flung out her arms,
-and clasped him round his great shoulders. (It is not, I own, what a
-heroine should have done, whose duty was to carry a difficulty of this
-sort through half a volume at least, but I am nevertheless convinced
-that my real Elizabeth did it, though I was not there to see--standing,
-as she did, within a few inches of her lover, and with nothing to
-prevent their coming to a reasonable understanding.) "Oh," she cried,
-between her long-drawn sobs, "_don't_ cast me off because of that
-horrid money! I could not bear it _now!_"
-
-"What!" he responded, stooping over her and holding her to his breast,
-speaking in a voice as shaken as her own, "is it really so? Is it for
-love of me only, my darling, my darling?"--pouring his long pent-up
-passion over her with a force that seemed to carry her off her feet and
-make the room spin round. "Would you have me if there was no property
-in the question, simply because you feel, as I do, that we could not do
-without each other? Then we will be married to-morrow, Elizabeth, and
-all the world shall be welcome to brand me a schemer and fortune-hunter
-if it likes."
-
-She got her breath in a few seconds, and recovered sufficient
-consciousness to grasp the vanishing tail of those last words.
-
-"A fortune-hunter! Oh, how _preposterous!_ A fortune-hunter!"
-
-"That is what I shall seem," he insisted, with a smile, "to that worthy
-public for whose opinion some people care so much."
-
-"But you don't care?"
-
-"No; I don't care."
-
-She considered a moment, with her tall head at rest on his tall
-shoulder; then new lights dawned on her. "But I must care for you," she
-said, straightening herself. "I must not allow anything so unjust--so
-outrageous--to be said of you--of _you_, and through my fault. Look
-here"--very seriously--"let us put off our marriage for a while--for
-just so long as may enable me to show the world, as I very easily can,
-that it is _I_ who am seeking _you_--"
-
-"Like a queen selecting her prince consort?"
-
-"No, like Esther--seeking favour of her king. I would not be too proud
-to run after you--" She broke off, with a hysterical laugh, as she
-realised the nature of her proposal.
-
-"Ah, my darling, that would be very sweet," said he, drowning her
-once more in ineffable caresses, "but to be married to-morrow will
-be sweeter still. No, we won't wait--I _can't_--unless there is an
-absolute necessity for it. That game would certainly not be worth the
-candle. What is the world to me if I have got you? I said we would be
-married to-morrow; I told Mrs. Duff-Scott so, and got her consent--not
-without some difficulty, I must own--before Mr. Brion opened his
-budget. I would not hear what he had to say--little thinking what it
-was I was going to hear!--until I had announced my intentions and the
-date of our wedding. Think of my cheek! Conceive of such unparalleled
-impudence! But now that everything is square between us, that date
-shall be kept--it shall be faithfully kept. Come, then, I must take you
-away. Have you done your packing? Mrs. Duff-Scott says we are to bring
-that portmanteau with us, that she may see for herself if you have
-furnished it properly. And you are not to come back here--you are not
-to come to me to the Exhibition to-morrow. She was terribly scandalised
-at that item in our programme."
-
-"In yours," said Elizabeth, ungenerously.
-
-"In mine. I accept it cheerfully. So she is going to take charge of you
-from this hour until you are Mrs. Yelverton, and in my sole care for
-the rest of your life--or mine. Poor woman, she is greatly cut up by
-the loss of that grand wedding that she would have had if we had let
-her."
-
-"I am sure she must be cut up," said Elizabeth, whose face was suffused
-with blushes, and whose eyes looked troubled. "She must be shocked and
-vexed at such--such precipitancy. It really does not seem decorous,"
-she confessed, with tardy scrupulousness; "do you think it does?"
-
-"Oh, yes, I think it is quite decorous. It may not be conventional, but
-that is quite another thing."
-
-"It is like a clandestine marriage--almost like an elopement. It _must_
-vex her to see me acting so--so--"
-
-"So what? No, I don't think it does. She _was_ a little vexed at first,
-but she has got over it. In her heart of hearts I believe she would be
-disappointed now if we didn't do it. She likes a little bit of innocent
-unconventionalism as well as anybody, and the romance of the whole
-thing has taken hold of her. Besides," added Mr. Yelverton, "you know
-she intended us for each other, sooner or later."
-
-"You have said as much before, but _I_ don't know anything about it,"
-laughed Elizabeth.
-
-"Yes, she told me I might have you--weeks ago."
-
-"She was very generous."
-
-"She was. She was more generous than she knew. Well"--catching himself
-up suddenly--"we really must go to her now, Elizabeth. I told her I
-would only come in here, where I have no business to be to-day, for
-half a minute, and I have stayed more than half an hour. It is nearly
-dinner time, and I have a great deal to do this evening. I have more to
-do even than I bargained for."
-
-"Why more?" she asked, apprehensively.
-
-"I am going to have some papers prepared by Mr. Brion and the major's
-lawyers, which you will have to sign before you surrender your
-independence to-morrow."
-
-"I won't sign anything," said Elizabeth.
-
-"Oh, won't you! We'll see about that."
-
-"I know what it means. You will make me sign away your freedom to use
-that money as your own--and I won't do it."
-
-"We'll see," he repeated, smiling with an air which said plainly that
-if she thought herself a free agent she was very much mistaken.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLIII.
-
-
-THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING.
-
-
-"Now, where is that portmanteau?"
-
-"It is in my room."
-
-"Strapped up?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"Let me take it down to the cab. Have you anything else to do?"
-
-"Only to change my dress."
-
-"Don't be long about it; it is seven o'clock. I will wait for you
-downstairs."
-
-Mr. Yelverton walked into the passage, possessed himself of the
-portmanteau, and descended the stairs to the little hall below. The
-wide-eyed maid-of-all-work hastened to offer her services. She had
-never volunteered to carry luggage for the Miss Kings, but she seemed
-horrified at the sight of this stalwart gentleman making a porter of
-himself. "Allow me, sir," she said, sweetly, with her most engaging
-smile.
-
-"Thank you, my girl; I think I am better able to carry it than you
-are," he said, pleasantly. But he scrutinised her face with his keen
-eyes for a moment, and then took a sovereign from his pocket and
-slipped it into her hand. "Go and see if you can help Miss King," he
-said. "And ask her if there is anything you can do for her while she is
-away from home."
-
-"Oh, sir"--simpering and blushing--"I'm sure--_anything_--" and
-she rushed upstairs and offered her services to Elizabeth in such
-acceptable fashion that the bride-elect was touched almost to tears, as
-by the discovery of a new friend. It seemed to her that she had never
-properly appreciated Mary Ann before.
-
-Mr. Yelverton meanwhile paced a few steps to and fro on the footpath
-outside the gate, looking at his watch frequently. Paul Brion was at
-home, listening to his father's account of the afternoon's events and
-the news of the imminent marriage, with moody brow and heavy heart; it
-was the end of the romance for _him_, he felt, and he was realising
-what a stale and flat residuum remained in his cup of life. He had seen
-Mr. Yelverton go to No. 6 with fierce resentment of the liberty that
-the fortunate lover permitted himself to take with those sacred rights
-of single womanhood which he, Paul, had been so scrupulous to observe;
-now he watched the tall man pacing to and fro in the street below,
-waiting for his bride, with a sense of the inequalities of fortune that
-made him almost bloodthirsty. He saw the portmanteau set on end by the
-cabdriver's seat; he saw Elizabeth come forth with a bag in one hand
-and an umbrella in the other, followed by the servant with an ulster
-and a bonnet-box. He watched the dispossessed master of Yelverton, who,
-after all, had lost nothing, and had gained so much, and the great
-heiress who was to know Myrtle Street and obscurity no more, as they
-took their seats in the vehicle, she handed in by him with such tender
-and yet masterful care. He had an impulse to go out upon the balcony
-to bid her good-bye and God-speed, but he checked it proudly; and,
-surveying her departure from the window of his sitting-room, convinced
-himself that she was too much taken up with her own happiness to so
-much as remember his existence. It was the closing scene of the Myrtle
-Street drama--the last chapter of the charming little homely story
-which had been the romance of his life. No more would he see the girls
-going in and out of the gate of No. 7, nor meet them in the gardens
-and the street, nor be privileged to offer them his assistance and
-advice. No more would he sit on his balcony of nights to listen to
-Beethoven sonatas and Schubert serenades. The sponge had been passed
-over all those pleasant things, and had wiped them out as if they had
-never been. There were no longer any Miss Kings. And for Paul there
-was no longer anything left in life but arid and flavourless newspaper
-work--the ceaseless grinding of his brains in the great mill of the
-Press, which gave to the world its daily bread of wisdom, but had no
-guerdon for the producers of that invaluable grist.
-
-In truth, Elizabeth _did_ forget all about him. She did not lift her
-eyes to the window where he sat; she could see and think of nothing but
-herself and her lover, and the wonderful circumstances that immediately
-surrounded them. When the cabman closed the door upon them, and they
-rattled away down the quiet street, it was borne in upon her that she
-really _was_ going to be married on the morrow; and that circumstance
-was far more than enough to absorb her whole attention. In the suburbs
-through which they passed it was growing dusk, and the lamps were
-lighted. A few carriages were taking people out to dinner. It was
-already evening--the day was over. Mrs. Duff-Scott was standing on her
-doorstep as they drove up to the house, anxiously looking out for them.
-She had not changed her morning dress; nor had Patty, who stood beside
-her. All the rules of daily life were suspended at this crisis. A grave
-footman came to the door of the cab, out of which Mr. Yelverton helped
-Elizabeth, and then led her into the hall, where she was received in
-the fairy godmother's open arms.
-
-"Take care of her," he said to Patty, "and make her rest herself. I
-will come back about nine or ten o'clock."
-
-Patty nodded. Mrs. Duff-Scott tried to keep him to dinner, but he
-said he had no time to stay. So the cab departed with him, and his
-betrothed was hurried upstairs to her bedroom, where there ensued a
-great commotion. Even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had tried to stand upon
-her dignity a little, was unable to do so, and shared the feverish
-excitement that possessed the younger sisters. They were all a little
-off their heads--as, indeed, they must have been more than women
-not to be. The explanations and counter-explanations, the fervid
-congratulations, the irrepressible astonishment, the loving curiosity,
-the tearful raptures, the wild confusion of tongues and miscellaneous
-caresses, were very bewildering and upsetting. They did, in fact, bring
-on that attack of hysterics, the first and last in Elizabeth's life,
-which had been slowly generating in her healthy nervous system under
-the severe and various trials of the day. This little accident sobered
-them down, and reminded them of Mr. Yelverton's command that Elizabeth
-was to be made to rest herself. The heiress was accordingly laid upon
-a sofa, much against her wish, and composed with sal-volatile, and
-eau-de-cologne, and tea, and fans, and a great deal of kissing and
-petting.
-
-"But I _cannot_ understand this excessive, this abnormal haste," Mrs.
-Duff-Scott said, when the girl seemed strong enough to bear being
-mildly argued with. "Mr. Yelverton explains it very plausibly, but
-still I can't understand it, from _your_ point of view. Patty's theory
-is altogether untenable."
-
-"I don't understand it either," the bride-elect replied. "I think I had
-an idea that it might prevent him from knowing or realising that I was
-giving him the money instead of his giving it to me--I wanted to be
-beforehand with Mr. Brion. But of course that was absurd. And if you
-can persuade him to put it off for a few weeks--"
-
-"O dear no!--I know him too well. He is not a man to be persuaded.
-Well, I am thankful he is going to let you be married in church. I
-expected he would insist on the registry office. And he has promised to
-bring you back to me at the end of a fortnight or so, to stay here all
-the time till you go home. That is something." The fairy godmother was
-certainly a little huffy--for all these wonderful things had come to
-pass without her permission or assistance--but in her heart of hearts,
-as Mr. Yelverton had suspected, she was charmed with the situation, and
-as brimful of sympathy for the girl in her extraordinary circumstances
-as her own mother could have been.
-
-They had a quiet dinner at eight o'clock, for which the major, who had
-been despatched to his solicitors (to see about the drawing up of that
-"instrument" which Miss Yelverton's _fiancé_ and cousin required her to
-sign on her own behalf before her individuality was irrevocably merged
-in his), returned too late to dress, creeping into the house gently
-as if he had no business to be there; and Elizabeth sat at her host's
-right hand, the recipient of the tenderest attentions and tit-bits.
-The little man, whose twinkling eye had lost its wonted humour, was
-profoundly touched by the events that had transpired, and saddened by
-the prospect of losing that sister of the three whom he had made his
-own particular chum, and with the presentiment that her departure would
-mean the loss of the others also. He could not even concern himself
-about the consequences to his wife of their removal from the circle
-of her activities, so possessed was he by the sad vision of his house
-left desolate. Perhaps the major felt himself getting old at last, and
-realised that cakes and ale could not be heaped upon his board for
-ever. He was certainly conscious of a check in his prosperous career,
-by the translation of the Miss Kings, and a feeling of injury in that
-Providence had not given him children that he _could_ have kept around
-him for the solace of his declining years. It was hard to have just
-learned what it was to have charming daughters, and then to be bereaved
-of them like this, at a moment's notice. Yet he bore his disappointment
-with admirable grace; for the little major, despite all the traditions
-of his long-protracted youth, was the most unselfish of mortals, and a
-gentleman to the marrow of his bones.
-
-In the evening he went to town again, to find Mr. Yelverton. Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, when dinner was over, had a consultation with her cook,
-and made arrangements for a festive luncheon for the following day.
-The girls went upstairs again, and thither their adopted mother
-presently followed them, and they spent an hour together in Elizabeth's
-bedroom, absorbed in the sad but delightful business of overhauling
-her portmanteau. By this time they were able to discuss the situation
-with sobriety--a sobriety infused with much chastened emotion, to be
-sure, but still far removed from the ferment of hysterics. Patty, in
-particular, had a very bracing air about her.
-
-"Now I call this _life_," she said, flourishing open the skirt of one
-of Elizabeth's dresses to see if it was fit to be worn on a wedding
-journey; "I call this really _living_. One feels as if one's faculties
-were given for some purpose. After all, it is not necessary to go
-to Europe to see the world. It is not necessary to travel to gain
-experience and to have adventures. Is not this frock too shabby, Mrs.
-Duff-Scott--all things considered?"
-
-"Certainly," assented that lady, promptly. "Put in her new cashmere and
-the Indian silk, and throw away those old things now."
-
-"Go and get the Indian silk, Nelly. It is in the wardrobe. And don't
-hang over Elizabeth in that doleful manner, as if she were going to
-have her head cut off, like Lady Jane Grey. She is one of the happiest
-women on the face of the earth--or, if she isn't, she ought to be--with
-such a prospect before her. Think of it! It is enough to make one gnash
-one's teeth with envy."
-
-"Let us hope she will indeed realise her prospects," said Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, feeling called upon to reprove and moderate the pagan
-spirit that breathed in Patty's words. "Let us hope she will be as
-happy in the future as she is now."
-
-"Oh, she will--she will! Let us hope she will have enough troubles to
-keep her from being _too_ happy--too happy to last," said the girl
-audaciously; "that is the danger she will want preserving from."
-
-"You may say what you like, but it is a rash venture," persisted the
-matron, shaking her head. "She has known him but for such a _very_
-short time. Really, I feel that I am much to blame to let her run into
-it like this--with so little knowledge of what she is undertaking.
-And he _has_ a difficult temperament, Elizabeth. There is no denying
-it--good and nice as he is, he is terribly obstinate about getting
-his own way. And if he is so _now_, what will he be, do you suppose,
-presently?"
-
-Patty, sitting on her heels on the floor, with her sister's clothes
-spread around her, looked up and laughed.
-
-"Ah! that is one safeguard against too much happiness, perhaps. I do
-think, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, that you have met your master, my dear."
-
-"I don't think it," replied Elizabeth, serenely. "I know I have."
-
-"And you are quite content to be mastered?"
-
-"Yes--by him."
-
-"Of course you are. Who would marry a chicken-hearted milksop if she
-could get a splendid tyrant like that?" exclaimed Patty, fervently,
-for the moment forgetting there were such things as woman's rights
-in the world. "I wouldn't give a straw for a man who let you have
-your own way--unless, of course, he was no wiser than you. A man who
-sets up to domineer when he can't carry it out thoroughly is the most
-detestable and contemptible of created beings, but there is no want of
-thoroughness about _him_. To see him standing up at the table in the
-library this afternoon and defying Mrs. Duff-Scott to prevent him from
-marrying you to-morrow did one's heart good. It did indeed."
-
-"I daresay," said the fairy godmother. "But I should like to see _you_
-with a man like that to deal with. It is really a pity he did not take
-to you instead of Elizabeth. I should have liked to see what would have
-happened. The 'Taming of the Shrew' would have been a trifle to it."
-
-"Well," said Patty, "he will be my brother and lawful guardian
-to-morrow, and I suppose I shall have to accept his authority to a
-certain extent. Then you will see what will happen." She was silent
-for a few minutes, folding the Indian silk into the portmanteau, and a
-slow smile spread over her face. "We shall have some fights," she said,
-laughing softly. "But it will be worth while to fight with him."
-
-"Elizabeth will never fight with him," said Eleanor.
-
-"Elizabeth!" echoed Patty. "She will be wax--she will be
-butter--simply. She would spoil him if he could be spoiled. But I don't
-think he is spoilable. He is too tough. He is what we may call an ash
-tree man. And what isn't ash-tree is leather."
-
-"You are not complimentary," said Nelly, fearing that Elizabeth's
-feelings might be hurt by what seemed an allusion to the bridegroom's
-complexion.
-
-"Pooh! He is not the sort of man to compliment. Elizabeth knows what
-I mean. I feel inclined to puff myself out when I think of his being
-our own kith and kin--a man like that. I shall have ever so much more
-confidence in myself now that I know I have his blood in my veins;
-one can't be so near a relation without sharing some of the virtue of
-it--and a little of that sort ought to go a long way. Ha!"--lifting her
-finger for silence as she heard a sound in the hall below--"there he
-is."
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott's maid came running upstairs to say, "Please'm, could
-you and the young ladies come down to the library for a few minutes?"
-She was breathless and fluttered, scenting mystery in the air, and she
-looked at Elizabeth with intense interest. "The major and Mr. Yelverton
-is 'ome," she added, "and some other gentlemen 'ave come. Shall I just
-put your 'air straight, Miss?"
-
-She was a little Cockney who had waited on fine ladies in London, and
-was one of Mrs. Duff-Scott's household treasures. In a twinkling she
-had "settled up" Elizabeth's rather dishevelled braids and twitched
-her frills and draperies into trim order; then, without offering to
-straighten any one else, she withdrew into the background until she
-could safely watch them go downstairs to the hall, where she knew Mr.
-Yelverton was waiting. Looking over the balustrade presently, she
-saw the four ladies join him; three of them were passing on to the
-library, as feeling themselves _de trop_, but were called back. She
-could not hear what was said, but she saw what was done, to the very
-best advantage. Mr. Yelverton fitted a substantial wedding-ring upon
-Miss King's finger, and then, removing it, put another ring in its
-place; a deeply-interested and sympathetic trio standing by to witness
-the little ceremony. The maid slipped down by the back-stairs to the
-servants' hall, and communicated the result of her observations to
-her fellow-servants. Mr. Yelverton meanwhile led Elizabeth into the
-library, where were seated at the same table where Mr. Brion had read
-his documents earlier in the day, three sedate gentlemen, Mr. Brion
-being one of them, with other documents spread out before them. The
-major was languidly fetching pens and ink from the writing-table in the
-window, and smiling furtively. He seemed to be amused by this latest
-phase of the Yelverton affair. His eyes twinkled with sagacious humour
-politely repressed, when he saw the betrothed couple enter the room
-together.
-
-He hastened forward to put a chair for the interesting "client,"
-for this one night his ward, at the head of the table; the girls and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott grouped themselves before the hearth to watch the
-proceedings, and whisper their comments thereupon. The bridegroom took
-his stand at Elizabeth's elbow, and intimated that it was his part to
-direct her what to do.
-
-"Why should I do anything?" she inquired, looking round her from face
-to face with a vague idea of seeking protection in legal quarters. "It
-cannot make the least difference. I know that a woman's property, if
-you don't meddle with it, is her husband's when she is married"--this
-was before the late amendment of the law on this matter, and she was,
-as one of the lawyers advised her, correctly informed--"and if ever it
-should be so, it should be so in _our_ case. I cannot, I will not, have
-any separate rights. No"--as Mr. Yelverton laid a paper before her--"I
-don't want to read it."
-
-"Well, you need not read it," he said, laughing. "Mr. Brion does that
-for you. But I want you to sign. It is nothing to what you will have to
-do before we get this business settled."
-
-"Mr. Yelverton is an honourable man, my dear," said Mr. Brion, with
-some energy--and his brother lawyers nodded in acquiescence--as he gave
-her a pen.
-
-"You need not tell me that," she replied, superbly. And, seeing no help
-for it, she took the pen and signed "Elizabeth Yelverton" (having to
-be reminded of her true name on each occasion) with the most reckless
-unconcern, determined that if she had signed away her husband's liberty
-to use her property as he liked, she would sign it back again when she
-had married him.
-
-And this was the last event of that eventful day. At midnight, lawyers
-and lover went away, and the tired girls to bed, and Elizabeth and
-Patty spent their last night together in each other's arms.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLIV.
-
-
-THE WEDDING DAY.
-
-
-After all, Elizabeth's wedding ceremonies, though shorn of much
-customary state, were not so wildly unconventional as to shock the
-feelings of society. Save in the matter of that excessive haste--which
-Mr. Yelverton took pains to show was not haste at all, seeing that,
-on the one hand, his time was limited, and that, on the other, there
-was absolutely nothing to wait for--all things were done decently
-and in order; and Mrs. Duff-Scott even went so far as to confess,
-when the bride and bridegroom had departed, that the fashion of their
-nuptials was "good art;" and that these were not the days to follow
-stereotyped customs blindfold. There was no unnecessary secrecy about
-it. Overnight, just, and only just, before she went to bed, the
-mistress of the house had explained the main facts of the case to her
-head servants, who, she knew, would not be able to repeat the story
-until too late for the publication of it to cause any inconvenience.
-She told them how the three Miss Kings--who had never been Miss Kings
-after all--had come in for large fortunes, under a will that had been
-long mislaid and accidentally recovered; and how Miss Elizabeth, who
-had been engaged for some considerable time (O, mendacious matron!),
-was to be married to her cousin, Mr. Yelverton, in the morning--very
-quietly, because both of them had a dislike to publicity and fuss. And
-in the morning the little Cockney lady's-maid, bringing them their
-tea, brought a first instalment of congratulations to the bride and
-her sisters, who had to hold a _levée_ in the servants' hall as soon
-as they went downstairs. The household, if not boiling over with the
-excitement inseparable from a marriage _à la mode_, was in a pleasant
-simmer of decorous enjoyment; and the arrangements for the domestic
-celebration of the event lacked nothing in either completeness or
-taste. The gardener brought his choicest flowers for the table and
-for the bride's bouquet, which was kept in water until her return
-from church; and the cook surpassed himself in his efforts to provide
-a wedding breakfast that should be both faultless and unique. The
-men servants wore bits of strong-scented orange blossom in their
-button-holes, and the women white ribbons in their caps. They did what
-they could, in short, to honour the occasion and the young lady who had
-won their affection before she came into her inheritance of wealth, and
-the result to themselves and the family was quite satisfactory.
-
-There was a great deal of cold weather in the last month of 1880,
-summer time though it was, and this special morning was very cold.
-Elizabeth had not the face to come down to the early breakfast and
-a blazing fire in the gown she had worn the day before, and Mrs.
-Duff-Scott would not hear of her going to church in it. "Do you
-suppose he is quite an idiot?" she indignantly demanded (forgetting
-the absolute indifference to weather shown in the conventional bridal
-costume), when the bride gave an excuse for her own unreasonableness.
-"Do you suppose he wants you to catch your death of cold on your
-wedding day?"
-
-"What does it matter?" said Patty. "He won't care what you have on. Put
-it in the portmanteau and wear it at dinner every night, if he likes to
-see you in it. This morning you had better make yourself warm. He never
-expected the day to turn out so cold as this."
-
-And while they were talking of it Mr. Yelverton himself appeared,
-contrary to etiquette and his own arrangements. "Good morning," he
-said, shaking hands impartially all round. "I just came in to tell you
-that it is exceedingly cold, and that Elizabeth had better put a warm
-dress on. One would think it was an English December day by the feel of
-the wind."
-
-She got up from the breakfast-table and went out of the room, hurried
-away by Mrs. Duff-Scott; but in a minute she came back again.
-
-"Did you come for anything in particular?" she asked, anxiously.
-
-"No," he said, "only to take care that you did not put on that thin
-dress. And to see that you were alive," he added, dropping his voice.
-
-"And we really are to be married this morning?"
-
-"We really are, Elizabeth. In three quarters of an hour, if you can be
-at the church so soon. I am on my way there now. I am just going round
-to Myrtle Street to pick up old Brion."
-
-"Pick up young Brion, too," she urged earnestly, thinking of Patty.
-"Tell him I specially wished it."
-
-"He won't come," said Mr. Yelverton; "I asked him yesterday. His father
-says his liver must be out of order, he has grown so perverse and
-irritable lately. He won't do anything that he is wanted to do."
-
-"Ah, poor boy! We must look after him, you and I, when we come back.
-Where are we going, Kingscote?"
-
-"My darling, I fear you will think my plans very prosaic. I think we
-are just going to Geelong--till to-morrow or next day. You see it is
-so cold, and I don't want you to be fagged with a long journey. Mount
-Macedon would have been charming, but I could not get accommodation.
-At Geelong, where we are both strangers, we shall be practically to
-ourselves, and it is better to make sure of a good hotel than of
-romantic scenery, if you have to choose between the two--for the
-present, at any rate--vulgar and sordid as that sentiment may appear.
-We can go where we like afterwards. I have just got a telegram to say
-that things will be ready for us. You left it to me, you know."
-
-"I am only too happy to leave everything to you," she said, at once.
-"And I don't care where we go---it will be the same everywhere."
-
-"I think it will, Elizabeth--I think we shall be more independent
-of our circumstances than most people. Still I am glad to have made
-sure of a warm fire and a good dinner for you at your journey's end.
-We start at twenty minutes past four, I may tell you, and we are to
-get home--_home_, my dear, which will be wherever you and I can be
-together, henceforth--at about half-past six. That will give you time
-to rest before dinner. And you will not be very tired, after such a
-little journey, will you?"
-
-"Elizabeth!" called a voice from the corridor above their heads, "send
-Mr. Yelverton away, and come upstairs at once."
-
-So Mr. Yelverton departed in his cab, to pick up old Brion and await
-his bride at the nearest church; and he was presently followed by
-the major in his brougham, and a little later by Mrs. Duff-Scott's
-capacious open carriage, containing herself and the three sisters, all
-in woollen walking dresses and furs. And Elizabeth really was married,
-still to her own great surprise. She stood in the cold and silent
-church, and took Kingscote, her lover, to be her lawful husband, and
-legally ratified that irrevocable contract in the clearest handwriting.
-He led her out into the windy road, when it was over, and put her into
-the brougham--the major taking her place in the other carriage, and on
-their way back both bride and bridegroom were very serious over their
-exploit.
-
-"You have the most wonderful trust in me," he said to her, holding
-her still ungloved hand, and slipping the wedding ring round on her
-finger--"the most amazing trust."
-
-"I have," she assented, simply.
-
-"It rather frightens me," he went on, "to see you taking me so
-absolutely for granted. Do you really think I am quite perfect,
-Elizabeth?"
-
-"No," she replied, promptly.
-
-"Well, I am glad of that. For I am far from it, I assure you." Then he
-added, after a pause, "What are the faults you have to find with me,
-then?"
-
-"None--none," she responded fervently. "Your faults are no faults to
-me, for they are part of you. I don't want you perfect--I only want you
-to be always as I know you now."
-
-"I think I am rather a tyrant," he said, beginning to criticise himself
-freely, now that she showed no disposition to do it, "and perhaps I
-shall bully you if you allow me too much latitude. I am too fond of
-driving straight at everything I want, Elizabeth--I might drive over
-you, without thinking, some day, if you give me my own way always."
-
-"You may drive over me, if you like, and welcome," she said, smiling.
-
-"You have no consideration for your rights as a woman and a matron?--no
-proper pride?--no respect for your dignity, at all?"
-
-"None whatever--now."
-
-"Ah, well, after all, I think it is a good thing for you that I have
-got you. You might have fallen into worse hands. You are just made to
-be a victim. And you will be better off as my victim than you might
-have been as another man's victim."
-
-"Much better," she said. "But I don't think I should have been another
-man's victim."
-
-When they reached Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, Patty and Eleanor, who had
-arrived a few minutes earlier, met their brother and sister, kissed
-them both, and took Elizabeth upstairs, where they tenderly drew
-off her furs and her bonnet, and waited upon her with a reverential
-recognition of her new and high estate. During their absence, Mr.
-Yelverton, Mr. Brion, and their host and hostess stood round the
-drawing-room fire, talking over a plan they had hatched between them,
-prior to taking leave of the old lawyer, who had to depart for his
-country home and business by an afternoon boat. This plan provided for
-a temporary disposal of that home and business at an early date, in
-order that Mr. Brion might accompany the entire party--the major and
-his wife, Mr. Yelverton and the three sisters--to England as the legal
-adviser of the latter, it having been deemed expedient to take these
-measures to facilitate the conveyance and distribution of the great
-Yelverton property. The old man was delighted at the prospect of his
-trip, which it was intended should be made both profitable and pleasant
-to him, and at the certainty of being identified for some time longer
-with the welfare of his young friends. Mrs. Duff-Scott was also ardent
-in her anticipation of seeing Elizabeth installed at Yelverton, of
-investigating the philanthropical enterprises of Elizabeth's husband,
-and of keeping, during the most critical and most interesting period
-of their career, the two unappropriated heiresses under her wing. The
-major was pleased to join this family party, and looked forward with
-some avidity to the enjoyment of certain London experiences that he had
-missed from his cup of blessings of late years.
-
-"And the dear girls will not be separated, except for this little week
-or two," said the fairy godmother, wiping away a surreptitious tear.
-"How happy that will make them!"
-
-They entered the room as she spoke, clinging together; and they sat
-down round the hearthrug, and were drawn into the discussion. Yes, it
-did make them happy, they said; it was the sweetest and brightest of
-plans and prospects. Only Patty, thinking of Elizabeth and Nelly going
-and Paul Brion left behind, felt her heart torn in two.
-
-The wedding breakfast was the mid-day lunch, to which they were
-summoned by the butler with his bridal favour in his button-hole. The
-little party of seven, when they went into the dining-room, found
-that apartment decorated with flowers and evergreens in a manner
-wonderful to behold, considering the short notice that had been given.
-The table was glorious with white blossoms of every description, the
-orange predominating and saturating the air with its almost too strong
-fragrance; and the dishes and the wines would have done honour to the
-bridal banquet of a princess. Little did anyone care for dishes and
-wines, except the host and hostess, who would have been less than
-mortal had they not felt interested therein; and most of them were glad
-to get the meal over. Some healths were drunk in the major's best dry
-champagne, and three little speeches were delivered; and then Mr. Brion
-respectfully begged to be excused, said good-bye all round, made his
-Grandisonian bow, and departed.
-
-"Tell Paul," said Elizabeth (she could call him Paul now), "that we
-have missed him to-day."
-
-"I will, my dear, I will," said the old man. And when he delivered that
-message half-an-hour later, he was hurt to see in what a bad spirit it
-was received. "I daresay!" was Paul's cynical comment.
-
-When Mr. Brion was gone, the little family returned to the
-drawing-room, and again sat round the bright fire, and behaved
-themselves as if nothing had happened. Elizabeth spread out her hands
-to the warmth, and gazed at her thick wedding ring meditatively: and
-the girls, who hung about her, gazed at it also with fascinated eyes.
-Mr. Yelverton sat a little apart, and watched his wife furtively. Mrs.
-Duff-Scott chatted, recalling the topography and notable features of
-Geelong. They had afternoon tea, as usual (only earlier than usual),
-in the familiar precious teacups, out of the familiar Queen Anne
-teapot. There was an every-day homeliness about this quiet hour, and
-yet it seemed that years had come and gone since yesterday. Presently
-Mr. Yelverton's watch-case was heard to shut with a sharp click, and
-the bride turned her head quickly and looked at him. He nodded. And
-as she rose from her low chair, holding out her hand to the faithful
-Patty, the wheels of the brougham crunched over the gravel in front of
-the windows. It was time to go.
-
-And in ten minutes more they were gone. Like that monarch who went
-into his own kingdom and shut the door, Elizabeth went into hers--to
-assume the crown and sceptre of a sovereignty than which no woman
-can boast a greater, let her be who she may--passing wholly into her
-strong husband's keeping without one shadow of regret or mistrust left
-in her heart, either for herself or him. They were driven to Spencer
-Street, where, while they waited a few minutes for their train, people
-who knew them stared at them, recognising the situation. They paced
-up and down the platform, side by side, she in her modest cloth dress
-and furs; and, far from avoiding observation, they rather courted it
-unconsciously, in a quiet way. They were so proud of belonging to each
-other, and from the enclosure of their own kingdom the outside world
-seemed such an enormous distance off. They went to Geelong in a saloon
-car full of people--what did it matter to them?--and at the seaside
-station found a carriage waiting for them. And by half-past six, as
-her husband said, Elizabeth reached home. There was a bright and cosy
-sitting-room, with a table prettily set for their _tête-à-tête_ dinner,
-and a bright fire (of wood and not coal--a real bush fire) crackling
-on the hearth. In an inner room there was a fire too; and here, when
-her portmanteau had been unstrapped, and while Kingscote was consulting
-with the landlord, she hastily threw off her wraps and travelling
-dress, twisted up her fine hair afresh, put on that delicate gown that
-she had worn yesterday morning--could it possibly, she asked herself,
-have been _only_ yesterday morning?--and made herself as fair to look
-upon as she knew how. And, when she opened the door softly, trembling
-with excitement and happiness, he was waiting for her, standing on the
-hearthrug, with his back to the fire--looking at her as he had looked
-that day, not so very long ago, when they were in the cave together,
-he on one side of the gulf and she on the other. He held out his arms
-again, and this time she sprang into them, and lifted her own to clasp
-his neck. And so they stood, without moving or speaking--"resting
-before dinner"--until the waiter, heralding his approach by a discreet
-tap at the door, came in with the soup-tureen.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLV.
-
-
-IN SILK ATTIRE.
-
-
-The bride and bridegroom did not return to Melbourne until the day
-before Christmas--Friday the 24th, which was a warm, and bright, and
-proper summer day, but working up for a spell of north winds and bush
-fires before the year ran out. They had been wandering happily amongst
-the lovely vales and mountains of that sequestered district of Victoria
-which has become vaguely known as the "Kelly Country," and finding out
-before they left it, to their great satisfaction, that Australia could
-show them scenery so variously romantic as to put the charms of the
-best hotels into the shade. Even that terrestrial paradise on the ferny
-slopes of Upper Macedon was, if not eclipsed, forgotten, in the beauty
-of the wilder woodland of the far Upper Murray, which was beyond the
-reach of railways. They had also been again to visit the old house by
-the sea and Mr. Brion; had dawdled along the familiar shore in twilight
-and moonlight; had driven to the caves and eaten lunch once more in the
-green dell among the bracken fronds; had visited the graves of that
-other pair of married lovers--that Kingscote and Elizabeth of the last
-generation--and made arrangements for the perpetual protection from
-disturbance and desecration of that sadly sacred spot. And it was only
-on receipt of an urgent telegram from Mrs. Duff-Scott, to remind them
-that Christmas was approaching, and that she had devised festivities
-which were to be more in honour of them than of the season, that they
-remembered how long they had been away, and that it had become time to
-return to their anxious relatives.
-
-They arrived in Melbourne by the 3.41 train from Ballarat, where
-they had broken a long journey the evening before, and found Patty
-and Eleanor and the major's servants waiting for them at Spencer
-Street. The meeting between the sisters, after their first separation,
-was silent, but intensely impressive. On the platform though they
-were, they held each other's hands and gazed into each other's eyes,
-unconscious of the attention they attracted, unable to find words
-to express how much they had missed each other and how glad they
-were to be reunited. They drove home together in a state of absolute
-happiness; and at home Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major were standing on
-their doorstep as the carriage swept up the broad drive to the house,
-as full of tender welcomes for the bride as any father or mother could
-have been, rejoicing over a recovered child. Elizabeth thought of
-the last Christmas Eve which she and her sisters, newly orphaned and
-alone in the world, poor in purse and destitute of kith and kin, spent
-in that humble little bark-roofed cottage on the solitary cliff; and
-she marvelled at the wonderful and dazzling changes that the year had
-brought. Only one year out of twenty-nine!--and yet it seemed to have
-held the whole history of her life. She was taken into the drawing-room
-and put into a downy chair, and fed with bread and butter and tea and
-choice morsels of news, while Patty knelt on the floor beside her,
-and her husband stood on the hearthrug watching her, with, his air
-of quiet but proud proprietorship, as he chatted of their travels to
-the major. It was very delightful. She wondered if it were really
-herself--Elizabeth King that used to be--whose lines had fallen on
-these pleasant places.
-
-While the afternoon tea was in progress, Eleanor fidgetted impatiently
-about the room. She was so graceful and undulating in her movements
-that her fidgetting was only perceived to be such by those who knew
-her ways; but Elizabeth marked her gentle restlessness, in spite of
-personal preoccupations.
-
-"Do you want me to go upstairs with you?" she inquired with her kind
-eyes, setting down her teacup; and Nelly almost flew to escort her out
-of the room. There was to be a large dinner party at Mrs. Duff-Scott's
-to-night, to "meet Mr. and Mrs. Yelverton on their return," all
-Melbourne having been made acquainted with the romance of their
-cousinship and marriage, and the extent of their worldly possessions,
-during their absence.
-
-"It is to be so large," said Patty, as her brother-in-law shut the
-drawing-room door upon the trio, "that even Mrs. Aarons will be
-included in it."
-
-"Mrs. Aarons!" echoed Elizabeth, who knew that the fairy godmother had
-repaid that lady's hospitality and attentions with her second-best
-bit of sang-de-boeuf crackle and her sole specimen of genuine Rose
-du Barry--dear and precious treasures sacrificed to the demands of
-conscience which proclaimed Mrs. Aarons wronged and insulted by being
-excluded from the Duff-Scott dinner list. "And she is really coming?"
-
-"She really is--though it is her own right to receive, as I
-think Mrs. Duff-Scott perfectly remembered when she sent her
-invitation--accompanied, of course, by Mr. Aarons."
-
-"And now," said Nelly, looking back, "Patty has got her old wish--she
-really _is_ in a position to turn up her nose, at last."
-
-"Oh," said Patty, vehemently, "don't remind me of that wicked, vulgar,
-indecent speech! Poor woman, who am I that I should turn up my nose at
-her? I am very glad she is coming--I think she ought to have been asked
-long ago. Why not? She is just as good as we are, every bit."
-
-Eleanor laughed softly. "Ah, what a difference in one's sentiments does
-a large fortune make--doesn't it, Elizabeth? Patty doesn't want to
-turn up her nose at Mrs. Aarons, because, don't you see, she knows she
-can crush her quite naturally and comfortably by keeping it down. And,
-besides, when one has got one's revenge--when one has paid off one's
-old score--one doesn't want to be mean and barbarous. Oh," exclaimed
-Nelly, rapturously, "I never thought that being rich was so delicious
-as it is!"
-
-"I hope it won't spoil you," said Elizabeth.
-
-"I hope it won't spoil _you_," retorted the girl, saucily. "You are in
-far greater danger than I am."
-
-By this time they had reached the top of the stairs, and Eleanor, who
-had led the way, opened the door, not of Elizabeth's old bedroom, but
-of the state guest-chamber of the house; and she motioned the bride
-to enter with a low bow. Here was the explanation of that impatience
-to get her upstairs. Elizabeth took a few steps over the threshold
-and then stood still, while the tears rushed into her eyes. The room
-had been elaborately dressed in white lace and white ribbons; the
-dressing-table was decorated with white flowers; the bed was covered
-with an æsthetic satin quilt, and on the bed was spread out a bridal
-robe--white brocade, the bodice frilled with Brussels lace--with white
-shoes, white gloves, white silk stockings, white feather fan, white
-everything _en suite_.
-
-"This is your dress for to-night," said Patty, coaxing it with soft
-hands. "And you will find lots more in the wardrobe. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-has been fitting you up while you have been away."
-
-Upon which Nelly threw open the doors of the wardrobe and pulled out
-the drawers, and displayed with great pride the piles and layers of new
-clothes that the fairy godmother had laboriously gathered together;
-the cream, or, to speak more correctly (if less poetically), the
-butter, churned from the finest material that the Melbourne shops
-could produce, and "made up" by a Collins Street mademoiselle, whose
-handiwork was as recognisable to the local initiated as that of Elise
-herself. The bride had been allowed no choice in the matter of her own
-trousseau, but she did not feel that she had missed anything by that.
-She stood and gazed at the beautiful garments, which were all dim and
-misty as seen through her tears, with lips and hands trembling, and a
-sense of misgiving lest such extravagant indulgence of all a woman's
-possible desires should tempt Fate to lay hands prematurely upon her.
-Then she went to find her friend--who had had so much enjoyment in the
-preparation of her surprise--and did what she could by dumb caresses to
-express her inexpressible sentiments.
-
-Then in course of time these upsetting incidents were got over, and
-cheerful calmness supervened. As the night drew on, Mrs. Duff-Scott
-retired to put on her war paint. Nelly also departed to arrange her
-own toilet, which was a matter of considerable importance to her in
-these days. The girl who had worn cotton gloves to keep the sun from
-her hands, a year ago, had developed a great faculty for taking care of
-her beauty and taking pains with her clothes. Patty lingered behind to
-wait on Elizabeth. And in the interval before the bridegroom came up,
-these two had a little confidential chat. "What have you been doing, my
-darling," said the elder sister, "while I have been away?"
-
-"Oh, nothing much," said Patty, rather drearily. "Shopping about your
-things most of the time, and getting ready for our voyage. They say
-we are to go as far as Italy next month, because January is the best
-time for the Red Sea. And they want the law business settled. It is
-dreadfully soon, isn't it?" This was not the tone of voice in which
-Italy was talked of a year ago.
-
-"And you haven't--seen anybody?"
-
-"No, I haven't seen anybody. Except once--and then he took off his hat
-without looking at me."
-
-Elizabeth sighed. She was herself so safe and happy with her beloved
-that she could not bear to think of this other pair estranged and
-apart, making themselves so miserable.
-
-"And what about Nelly and Mr. Westmoreland?" she inquired presently.
-
-"Nelly is a baby," said Patty, with lofty scorn, "and Mr. Westmoreland
-is a great lout. You have no idea what a spectacle they are making of
-themselves."
-
-"What--is it going on again?"
-
-"Yes, it is going on--but not in the old style. Mr. Westmoreland
-has fallen in love with her really now--as far as such a brainless
-hippopotamus is capable of falling in love, that is to say. I suppose,
-the fact of her having a great fortune and high connections makes all
-the difference. And she is really uncommonly pretty. It is only in
-these last weeks that I have fully understood how much prettier she
-is than other girls, and I believe he, to do him justice, has always
-understood it in his stupid, coarse way."
-
-"And Nelly?"
-
-"Nelly," said Patty, "has been finding out a great deal lately. She
-knows well enough how pretty she is, and she knows what money and all
-the other things are worth. She is tasting the sweets of power, and
-she likes it--she likes it too much, I think--she will grow into a
-bit of a snob, if she doesn't mind. She is 'coming the swell' over
-Mr. Westmoreland, to use one of his own choice idioms--not exactly
-rudely, because she has such pretty manners, but with the most superb
-impertinence, all the same--and practising coquetry as if she had been
-beset with abject lovers all her life. She sits upon him and teases him
-and aggravates him till he doesn't know how to contain himself. It is
-_too_ ridiculous."
-
-"I should have thought he was the last man to let himself be sat upon."
-
-"So should I. But he courts it--he obtrudes his infatuated
-servility--he goes and asks her, as it were, to sit upon him. It has
-the charm of novelty and difficulty, I suppose. People must get tired
-of having their own way always."
-
-"But I can't understand Nelly."
-
-"You soon will. You will see to-night how she goes on, for he is coming
-to dinner. She will tantalise him till he will forget where he is, and
-lose all sense of decency, and be fit to stamp and roar like a great
-buffalo. She says it is 'taking it out of him.' And she will look at
-the time so sweet and serene and unconscious--bah! I could box her
-ears," concluded Patty.
-
-"And Mrs. Duff-Scott encourages him still, then?"
-
-"No. That is another change. Mrs. Duff-Scott has withdrawn her gracious
-favour. She doesn't want him now. She thinks she will make a pair
-of duchesses of us when she gets us to London, don't you see? Dear
-woman, I'm afraid she will be grievously disappointed, so far as I am
-concerned. No, ever since the day you went away--which was the very day
-that Mr. Westmoreland began to come back--she has given him the cold
-shoulder. You know _what_ a cold shoulder it can be! There is not a man
-alive who could stand up against it, except him. But he doesn't care.
-He can't, or won't, see that he is not wanted. I suppose it doesn't
-occur to him that _he_ can possibly be unwelcome anywhere. He loafs
-about the house--he drops on us at Alston and Brown's--he turns up
-at the theatre--at the Exhibition--at Mullen's--everywhere. We can't
-escape him. Nelly likes it. If a day passes without her seeing him, she
-gets quite restless. She is like a horrid schoolboy with a cockroach
-on a pin--it is her great amusement in life to see him kicking and
-struggling."
-
-"Perhaps she really does care about him, Patty."
-
-"Not she. She is just having her revenge--heartless little monkey!
-I believe she will be a duchess, after all, with a miserable old
-toothless creature for her husband. It would be no more than she
-deserves. Oh, Elizabeth!"--suddenly changing her voice from sharps to
-flats--"how _beautiful_ you do look! Nelly may be a duchess, and so
-might I, and neither of us would ever beat you for _presence_. I heard
-Mrs. Duff-Scott the other day congratulating herself that the prettiest
-of her three daughters were still left to dispose of. I don't believe
-we are the prettiest, but, if we are, what is mere prettiness compared
-with having a head set on like yours and a figure like a Greek statue?"
-
-Elizabeth had been proceeding with her toilet, in order to have
-leisure to gossip with her husband when he came up; and now she stood
-before her long glass in her bridal dress, which had been composed by
-Mrs. Duff-Scott with an unlimited expenditure of taste and care. The
-material of it was exceptionally, if not obtrusively, rich--like a
-thick, dull, soft silk cloth, covered all over with a running pattern
-of flowers severely conventionalised; and it was made as plain as plain
-could be, falling straight to her feet in front, and sweeping back in
-great heavy folds behind, and fitting like a pliant glove to the curves
-of her lovely shape. Only round the bodice, cut neither low nor high,
-and round her rather massive elbows, had full ruffles of the lace that
-was its sole trimming been allowed; and altogether Mrs. Yelverton's
-strong points were brought out by her costume in a marvellously
-effective manner.
-
-There was a sound at this moment in the adjoining room, on hearing
-which Patty abruptly departed; and the bride stood listening to her
-lord's footsteps, and still looking at herself in the glass. He
-entered her room, and she did not turn or raise her eyes, but a soft
-smile spread over her face as if a sun had risen and covered her with
-sudden light and warmth. She tried to see if the waist of her gown was
-wrinkled, or the set of it awry, but it was no use. When he came close
-to her and stooped to kiss her white neck, she lost all recollection of
-details.
-
-"You want," he said, about ten minutes afterwards, when he had himself
-turned her round and round, and fingered the thick brocade and the lace
-critically, "you want diamonds with such a stately dress."
-
-"Oh, no," she said; "I won't have any diamonds."
-
-"You _won't_, did you say? This language to _me_, Elizabeth!"
-
-"The diamonds shall go in beer and tobacco, Kingscote."
-
-"My dear, they can't."
-
-"Why not?"
-
-"Because the Yelverton diamonds are heirlooms."
-
-"Oh, dear me! Are there Yelverton diamonds too?"
-
-"There are, I grieve to say. They have been laid up under lock and key
-for about forty years, and they must be very old-fashioned. But they
-are considered rather fine, and they are yours for the present, and as
-you can't make any use of them they may as well fulfil their purpose of
-being ornamental. You must wear them by-and-by, you know, when you go
-to Court."
-
-"To Court?" reproachfully. "Is that the kind of life we are going to
-lead?"
-
-"Just occasionally. We are going to combine things, and our duties to
-ourselves and to society. It is not going to be all Buckingham Palace,
-nor yet all Whitechapel, but a judicious blending of the two."
-
-"And Yelverton?"
-
-"And Yelverton of course. Yelverton is to be always there--our place of
-rest--our base of operations--our workshop--our fortress--our home with
-a capital H."
-
-"Oh," she said, "we seem to have the shares of so many poor people
-besides our own. It overwhelms me to think of it."
-
-"Don't think of it," he said, as she laid her head on his shoulder, and
-he smoothed her fine brown hair with his big palm. "Don't be afraid
-that we are destined to be too happy. We shall be handicapped yet."
-
-They did not go down until the carriages had begun to arrive, and then
-they descended the wide stairs dawdlingly, she leaning on him, with her
-two white-gloved hands clasped round his coat sleeve, and he bending
-his tall head towards her--talking still of their own affairs, and
-quite indifferent to the sensation they were about to make. When they
-entered the dim-coloured drawing-room, which was suffused with a low
-murmur of conversation, and by the mild radiance of many wax candles
-and coloured lamps, Elizabeth was made to understand by hostess and
-guests the exceptional position of Mrs. Yelverton of Yelverton, and
-wherein and how enormously it differed from that of Elizabeth King.
-But she was not so much taken up with her own state and circumstance
-as to forget those two who had been her charge for so many years. She
-searched for Nelly first. And Nelly was in the music-room, sitting at
-the piano, and looking dazzlingly fair under the gaslight in the white
-dress that she had worn at the club ball, and with dark red roses at
-her throat and in her yellow hair. She was playing Schubert's A Minor
-Sonata ravishingly--for the benefit of Mr. Smith, apparently, who sat,
-the recipient of smiles and whispers, beside her, rapt in ecstasies
-of appreciation; and she was taking not the slightest notice of Mr.
-Westmoreland, who, leaning over the other end of the piano on his
-folded arms, was openly sighing his soul into his lady's face. Then
-Elizabeth looked for Patty. And Patty she found on that settee within
-the alcove at the opposite end of the big room--also in her white ball
-dress, and also looking charming--engaged in what appeared to be an
-interesting and animated dialogue with the voluble Mrs. Aarons.
-
-The young matron sighed as she contrasted her own blessed lot with
-theirs--with Nelly's, ignorant of what love was, and with Patty's,
-knowing it, and yet having no comfort in the knowing. She did not know
-which to pity most.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLVI.
-
-
-PATTY CHOOSES HER CAREER.
-
-
-The dinner party on Christmas Eve was the first of a series of
-brilliant festivities, extending all through the hot last week of
-1880, and over the cool new year (for which fires were lighted and
-furs brought out again), and into the sultry middle of January, and up
-to the memorable anniversary of the day on which the three Miss Kings
-had first arrived in Melbourne; and when they were over this was the
-state of the sisters' affairs:--Elizabeth a little tired with so much
-dissipation, but content to do all that was asked of her, since she was
-not asked to leave her husband's side; Eleanor, still revelling in the
-delights of wealth and power, and in Mr. Westmoreland's accumulating
-torments; and Patty worn and pale with sleepless nights and heart-sick
-with hope deferred, longing to set herself straight with Paul Brion
-before she left Australia, and seeing her chances of doing so dwindling
-and fading day by day. And now they were beginning to prepare for their
-voyage to a world yet larger and fuller than the one in which they had
-lived and learned so much.
-
-One afternoon, while Mrs. Duff-Scott and Eleanor paid calls, Elizabeth
-and Patty went for the last time to Myrtle Street, to pack up the
-bureau and some of their smaller household effects in preparation
-for the men who were to clear the rooms on the morrow. Mr. Yelverton
-accompanied them, and lingered in the small sitting-room for awhile,
-helping here and there, or pretending to do so. For his entertainment
-they boiled the kettle and set out the cheap cups and saucers, and they
-had afternoon tea together, and Patty played the Moonlight Sonata; and
-then Elizabeth bade her husband go and amuse himself at his club and
-come back to them in an hour's time. He went, accordingly; and the two
-sisters pinned up their skirts and tucked up their sleeves, and worked
-with great diligence when he was no longer there to distract them. They
-worked so well that at the end of half an hour they had nothing left
-to do, except a little sorting of house linen and books. Elizabeth
-undertaking this business, Patty pulled down her sleeves and walked to
-the window; and she stood there for a little while, leaning her arm on
-the frame and her head on her arm.
-
-"Paul Brion is at home, Elizabeth," she said, presently.
-
-"Is he, dear?" responded the elder sister, who had begun to think
-(because her husband thought it) that it was a pity Paul Brion, being
-so hopelessly cantankerous, should be allowed to bother them any more.
-
-"Yes. And, Elizabeth, I hope you won't mind--it is very improper, I
-know--but _I shall go and see him._ It is my last chance. I will go and
-say good-bye to Mrs. M'Intyre, and then I will run up to his room and
-speak to him--just for one minute. It is my last chance," she repeated;
-"I shall never have another."
-
-"But, my darling--"
-
-"Oh, don't be afraid"--drawing herself up haughtily--"I am not going to
-be _quite_ a fool. I shall not throw myself into his arms. I am simply
-going to apologise for cutting him on Cup Day. I am simply going to set
-myself right with him before I go away--for his father's sake."
-
-"It is a risky experiment, my dear, whichever way you look at it. I
-think you had better write."
-
-"No. I have no faith in writing. You cannot make a letter say what
-you mean. And he will not come to us--he will not share his father's
-friendship for Kingscote--he was not at home when you and Kingscote
-called on him--he was not even at Mrs. Aarons's on Friday. There is no
-way to get at him but to go and see him now. I hear him in his room,
-and he is alone. I will not trouble him long--I will let him see that
-I can do without him quite as well as he can do without me--but I must
-and will explain the horrible mistake that I know he has fallen into
-about me, before I lose the chance for the rest of my life."
-
-"My dear, how can you? How can you tell him your true reason for
-cutting him? How can you do it at all, without implying more than you
-would like to imply? You had better leave it, Patty. Or let me go for
-you, my darling."
-
-But Patty insisted upon going herself, conscientiously assuring her
-sister that she would do it in ten minutes, without saying anything
-improper about Mrs. Aarons, and without giving the young man the
-smallest reason to suppose that she cared for him any more than she
-cared for his father, or was in the least degree desirous of being
-cared for by him. And this was how she did it.
-
-Paul was sitting at his table, with papers strewn before him. He had
-been writing since his mid-day breakfast, and was half way through
-a brilliant article on "Patronage in the Railway Department," when
-the sound of the piano next door, heard for the first time after a
-long interval, scattered his political ideas and set him dreaming and
-meditating for the rest of the afternoon. He was leaning back in his
-chair, with his pipe in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, and his
-legs stretched out rigidly under the table, when he heard a tap at the
-door. He said "Come in," listlessly, expecting Betsy's familiar face;
-and when, instead of an uninteresting housemaid, he saw the beautiful
-form of his beloved standing on the threshold, he was so stunned with
-astonishment that at first he could not speak.
-
-"Miss--Miss Yelverton!" he exclaimed, flinging his pipe aside and
-struggling to his feet.
-
-"I hope I am not disturbing you," said Patty, very stiffly. "I have
-only come for a moment--because we are going away, and--and--and I had
-something to say to you before we went. We have been so unfortunate--my
-sister and brother-in-law were so unfortunate--as to miss seeing you
-the other day. I--we have come this afternoon to do some packing,
-because we are giving up our old rooms, and I thought--I thought--"
-
-She was stammering fearfully, and her face was scarlet with confusion
-and embarrassment. She was beginning already to realise the difficulty
-of her undertaking.
-
-"Won't you sit down?" he said, wheeling his tobacco-scented arm-chair
-out of its corner. He, too, was very much off his balance and
-bewildered by the situation, and his voice, though grave, was shaken.
-
-"No, thank you," she replied, with what she intended to be a haughty
-and distant bow. "I only came for a moment--as I happened to be saying
-good-bye to Mrs. M'Intyre. My sister is waiting for me. We are going
-home directly. I just wanted--I only wanted"--she lifted her eyes, full
-of wistful appeal, suddenly to his--"I wanted just to beg your pardon,
-that's all. I was very rude to you one day, and you have never forgiven
-me for it. I wanted to tell you that--that it was not what you thought
-it was--that I had a reason you did not know of for doing it, and that
-the moment after I was sorry--I have been sorry every hour of my life
-since, because I knew I had given you a wrong impression, and I have
-not been able to rectify it."
-
-"I don't quite understand--" he began.
-
-"No, I know--I know. And I can't explain. Don't ask me to explain.
-Only _believe_," she said earnestly, standing before him and leaning
-on the table, "that I have never, never been ungrateful for all the
-kindness you showed us when we came here a year ago--I have always
-been the same. It was not because I forgot that you were our best
-friend--the best friend we ever had--that I--that I"--her voice was
-breaking, and she was searching for her pocket-handkerchief--"that I
-behaved to you as I did."
-
-"Can't you tell me how it was?" he asked, anxiously. "You have nothing
-to be grateful for, Miss Patty--Miss Yelverton, I ought to say--and
-I cannot feel that I have anything to forgive. But I should like to
-know--yes, now that you have spoken of it, I think you ought to tell
-me--why you did it."
-
-"I cannot--I cannot. It was something that had been said of you. I
-believed it for a moment, because--because it looked as if it were
-true--but only for a moment. When I came to think of it I knew it was
-impossible."
-
-Paul Brion's keen face, that had been pale and strained, cleared
-suddenly, and his dark eyes brightened. He was quite satisfied with
-this explanation. He knew what Patty meant as well as if there had been
-but one word for a spade, and she had used it--as well, and even better
-than she could have imagined; for she forgot that she had no right or
-reason to resent his shortcomings, save on the ground of a special
-interest in him, and he was quick to remember it.
-
-"Oh, do sit down a moment," he said, pushing the arm-chair a few inches
-forward. He was trying to think what he might dare to say to her to
-show how thankful he was. It was impossible for her to help seeing the
-change in him.
-
-"No," she replied, hastily pulling herself together. "I must go
-now. I had no business to come here at all--it was only because it
-seemed the last chance of speaking to you. I have said what I came to
-say, and now I must go back to my sister." She looked all round the
-well-remembered room--at the green rep suite, and the flowery carpet,
-and the cedar chiffonnier, and the Cenci over the fire-place--at Paul's
-bookshelves and littered writing-table, and his pipes and letters on
-the chimney-piece, and his newspapers on the floor; and then she looked
-at him with eyes that _would_ cry, though she did her very best to help
-it. "Good-bye," she said, turning towards the door.
-
-He took her outstretched hand and held it "Good-bye--if it must be so,"
-he said. "You are really going away by the next mail?"
-
-"Yes."
-
-"And not coming back again?"
-
-"I don't know."
-
-"Well," he said, "you are rich, and a great lady now. I can only wish
-with all my heart for your happiness--I cannot hope that I shall ever
-be privileged to contribute to it again. I am out of it now, Miss
-Patty."
-
-She left her right hand in his, and with the other put her handkerchief
-to her eyes. "Why should you be out of it?" she sobbed. "Your father
-is not out of it. It is you who have deserted us--we should never have
-deserted you."
-
-"I thought you threw me over that day on the racecourse, and I have
-only tried to keep my place."
-
-"But I have told you I never meant that."
-
-"Yes, thank God! Whatever happens, I shall have this day to
-remember--that you came to me voluntarily to tell me that you had never
-been unworthy of yourself. You have asked me to forgive you, but it is
-I that want to be forgiven--for insulting you by thinking that money
-and grandeur and fine clothes could change you."
-
-"They will never change me," said Patty, who had broken down
-altogether, and was making no secret of her tears. In fact, they were
-past making a secret of. She had determined to have no tender sentiment
-when she sought this interview, but she found herself powerless to
-resist the pathos of the situation. To be parting from Paul Brion--and
-it seemed as if it were really going to be a parting--was too
-heartbreaking to bear as she would have liked to bear it.
-
-"When you were poor," he said, hurried along by a very strong current
-of emotions of various kinds, "when you lived here on the other side of
-the wall--if you had come to me--if you had spoken to me, and treated
-me like this _then_--"
-
-She drew her hand from his grasp, and tried to collect herself.
-"Hush--we must not go on talking," she said, with a flurried air; "you
-must not keep me here now."
-
-"No, I will not keep you--I will not take advantage of you now," he
-replied, "though I am horribly tempted. But if it had been as it used
-to be--if we were both poor alike, as we were then--if you were Patty
-King instead of Miss Yelverton--I would not let you out of this room
-without telling me something more. Oh, why did you come at all?" he
-burst out, in a sudden rage of passion, quivering all over as he looked
-at her with the desire to seize her and kiss her and satisfy his
-starving heart.
-
-"You have been hard to me always--from first to last--but this is the
-very cruellest thing you have ever done. To come here and drive me
-wild like this, and then go and leave me us if I were Mrs. M'Intyre or
-the landlord you were paying off next door. I wonder what you think
-I am made of? I have stood everything--I have stood all your snubs,
-and slights, and hard usage of me--I have been humble and patient as
-I never was to anybody who treated me so in my life before--but that
-doesn't mean that I am made of wood or stone. There are limits to
-one's powers of endurance, and though I have borne so much, I _can't_
-bear _this_. I tell you fairly it is trying me too far." He stood at
-the table fluttering his papers with a hand as unsteady as that of
-a drunkard, and glaring at her, not straight into her eyes--which,
-indeed, were cast abjectly on the floor--but all over her pretty,
-forlorn figure, shrinking and cowering before him. "You are kind enough
-to everybody else," he went on; "you might at least show some common
-humanity to me. I am not a coxcomb, I hope, but I know you can't have
-helped knowing what I have felt for you--no woman can help knowing when
-a man cares for her, though he never says a word about it. A dog who
-loves you will get some consideration for it, but you are having no
-consideration for me. I hope I am not rude--I'm afraid I am forgetting
-my manners, Miss Patty--but a man can't think of manners when he is
-driven out of his senses. Forgive me, I am speaking to you too roughly.
-It was kind of you to come and tell me what you have told me--I am not
-ungrateful for that--but it was a cruel kindness. Why didn't you send
-me a note--a little, cold, formal note? or why did you not send Mrs.
-Yelverton to explain things? That would have done just as well. You
-have paid me a great honour, I know; but I can't look at it like that.
-After all, I was making up my mind to lose you, and I think I could
-have borne it, and got on somehow, and got something out of life in
-spite of it. But now how can I bear it?--how can I bear it _now?_"
-
-Patty bowed like a reed to this unexpected storm, which, nevertheless,
-thrilled her with wild elation and rapture, through and through. She
-had no sense of either pride or shame; she never for a moment regretted
-that she had not written a note, or sent Mrs. Yelverton in her
-place. But what she said and what she did I will leave the reader to
-conjecture. There has been too much love-making in these pages of late.
-Tableau. We will ring the curtain down.
-
-Meanwhile Elizabeth sat alone when her work was done, wondering what
-was happening at Mrs. M'Intyre's, until her husband came to tell her
-that it was past six o'clock, and time to go home to dress for dinner.
-"The child can't possibly be with _him_," said Mr. Yelverton, rather
-severely. "She must be gossiping with the landlady."
-
-"I think I will go and fetch her," said Elizabeth. But as she was
-patting on her bonnet, Patty came upstairs, smiling and preening her
-feathers, so to speak--bringing Paul with her.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLVII.
-
-
-A FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOUR.
-
-
-When Mrs. Duff-Scott came to hear of all this, she was terribly vexed
-with Patty. Indeed, no one dared to tell her the whole truth, and to
-this day she does not know that the engagement was made in the young
-bachelor's sitting-room, whither Patty had sought him because he would
-not seek her. She thinks the pair met at No. 6, under the lax and
-injudicious chaperonage of Elizabeth; and, in the first blush of her
-disappointment and indignation, she was firmly convinced, though too
-well bred to express her conviction, that the son had taken advantage
-of the father's privileged position to entrap the young heiress for
-the sake of her thirty thousand pounds. Things did not go smoothly
-with Patty, as they had done with her sister. Elizabeth herself was a
-rock of shelter and a storehouse of consolation from the moment that
-the pair came up to the dismantled room where she and her husband were
-having a lovers' _tête-à-tête_ of their own, and she saw that the long
-misunderstanding was at an end; but no one else except Mrs. M'Intyre
-(who, poor woman, was held of no account), took kindly to the alliance
-so unexpectedly proposed. Quite the contrary, in fact. Mr. Yelverton,
-notwithstanding his late experiences, had no sympathy whatever for
-the young fellow who had flattered him by following his example. The
-philanthropist, with all his full-blown modern radicalism, was also a
-man of long descent and great connections, and some subtle instinct
-of race and habit rose up in opposition to the claims of an obscure
-press writer to enter his distinguished family. It was one thing for a
-Yelverton man to marry a humbly-circumstanced woman, as he had himself
-been prepared to do, but quite another thing for a humbly-circumstanced
-man to aspire to the hand of a Yelverton woman, and that woman rich and
-beautiful, his own ward and sister. He was not aware of this strong
-sentiment, but believed his objections arose from a proper solicitude
-for Patty's welfare. Paul had been rude and impertinent, wanting in
-respect for her and hers; he had an ill-conditioned, sulky temper;
-he lived an irregular life, from hand to mouth; he had no money; he
-had no reputable friends. Therefore, when Paul (with some defiance of
-mien, as one who knew that it was a merely formal courtesy) requested
-the consent of the head of the house to his union with the lady of his
-choice, the head of the house, though elaborately polite, was very
-high and mighty, and--Patty and Elizabeth being out of the way, shut
-up together to kiss in comfort in one of the little bedrooms at the
-back--made some very plain statements of his views to the ineligible
-suitor, which fanned the vital spark in that young man's ardent spirit
-to a white heat of wrath. By-and-by Mr. Yelverton modified those views,
-like the just and large-hearted student of humanity that he was, and
-was brought to see that a man can do no more for a woman than love
-her, be he who he may, and that a woman, whether queen or peasant,
-millionaire or pauper, can never give more than value for that "value
-received." And by-and-by Paul learned to respect his brother-in-law for
-a man whose manhood was his own, and to trust his motives absolutely,
-even when he did not understand his actions. But just at first things
-were unpleasant. Mr. Yelverton touched the young man's sensitive pride,
-already morbidly exercised by his consciousness of the disparity
-between Patty's social position and fortunes and his own, by some
-indirect allusion to that painful circumstance, and brought upon
-himself a revengeful reminder that his (Mr. Yelverton's) marriage with
-Elizabeth might not be considered by superficial persons to be entirely
-above suspicion. Things were, indeed, very unpleasant. Paul, irritated
-in the first rapture of happiness, used more bad language (in thought
-if not in speech) than he had done since Cup Day, when he went back to
-his unfinished article on Political Patronage; Patty drove home with a
-burning sense of being of age and her own mistress; and Elizabeth sat
-in the carriage beside her, silent and thoughtful, feeling that the
-first little cloud (that first one which, however faint and small, is
-so incredible and so terrible) had made its appearance on the hitherto
-stainless horizon of her married life.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, when they got home, received the blow with a stern
-fortitude that was almost worse than Mr. Yelverton's prompt resistance,
-and much worse than the mild but equally decided opposition of that
-punctilious old gentleman at Seaview Villa, who, by-and-by, used all
-his influence to keep the pair apart whom he would have given his
-heart's blood to see united, out of a fastidious sense of what he
-conceived to be his social and professional duty. Between them all,
-they nearly drove the two high-spirited victims into further following
-the example of the head of the house--the imminent danger of which
-became apparent to Patty's confidante Elizabeth, who gave timely
-warning of it to her husband. This latter pair, who had themselves
-carried matters with such a very high hand, were far from desiring
-that Paul and Patty should make assignations at the Exhibition with a
-view to circumventing their adversaries by a clandestine or otherwise
-untimely marriage (such divergence of opinion with respect to one's own
-affairs and other people's being very common in this world, the gentle
-reader may observe, even in the case of the most high-minded people).
-
-"Kingscote," said Elizabeth, when one night she sat brushing her hair
-before the looking-glass, and he, still in his evening dress, lounged
-in an arm-chair by the dressing-table, talking to her, "Kingscote, I
-am afraid you are too hard on Patty--you and the Duff-Scotts--keeping
-her from Paul still, though she has but three days left, and I don't
-believe she will stand it."
-
-"My dear, we are not hard upon her, are we? It is for her sake. If we
-can tide over these few days and get her away all right, a year or two
-of absence, and all the new interests that she will find in Europe and
-in her changed position, will probably cure her of her fancy for a
-fellow who is not good enough for her."
-
-"That shows how little you know her," said Elizabeth, with a melancholy
-smile. "She is not a girl to take 'fancies' in that direction, and
-having given her heart--and she has not given it so easily as you
-imagine--she will be as faithful to him--as faithful"--casting about
-for an adequate illustration--"as I should have been to you, Kingscote."
-
-"Perhaps so, dear. I myself think it very likely. And in such a case
-no harm is done. They will test each other, and if they both stand the
-test it will be better and happier for them to have borne it, and we
-shall feel then that we are justified in letting them marry. But at
-present they know so little of each other--she has had no fair choice
-of a husband--and she is too good to be thrown away. I feel responsible
-for her, don't you see? And I only want her to have all her chances. I
-will be the last to hinder the course of true love when once it proves
-itself to _be_ true love."
-
-"_We_ did not think it necessary to prove _our_ love--and I don't think
-we should have allowed anybody else to prove it--by a long probation,
-Kingscote."
-
-"My darling, we were different," he said, promptly.
-
-She did not ask him to explain wherein they were different, he and she,
-who had met for the first time less than four months ago; she shared
-the usual unconscious prejudice that we all have in favour of our own
-sincerity and trustworthiness, and wisdom and foresight, and assumed as
-a matter of course that their case was an exceptional one. Still she
-had faith in others as well as in herself and her second self.
-
-"I know Patty," she said, laying her hair brush on her knee and
-looking with solemn earnestness into her husband's rough-hewn but
-impressive face--a face that seemed to her to contain every element
-of noble manhood, and that would have been weakened and spoiled by
-mere superficial beauty--"I know Patty, Kingscote, better than anyone
-knows her except herself. She is like a little briar rose--sweet and
-tender if you are gentle and sympathetic with her, but certain to
-prick if you handle her roughly. And so strong in the stem--so tough
-and strong--that you cannot root her out or twist her any way that she
-doesn't feel naturally inclined to grow--not if you use all your power
-to make her."
-
-"Poor little Patty!" he said, smiling. "That is a very pathetic image
-of her. But I don't like to figure in your parable as the blind
-genius of brute force--a horny-handed hedger and ditcher with a smock
-frock and a bill-hook. I am quite capable of feeling the beauty, and
-understanding the moral qualities of a wild rose--at least, I thought I
-was. Perhaps I am mistaken. Tell me what you would do, if you were in
-my place?"
-
-Elizabeth slipped from her chair and down upon her knees beside him,
-with her long hair and her long dressing-gown flowing about her, and
-laid her head where it was glad of any excuse to be laid--a locality
-at this moment indicated by the polished and unyielding surface of
-his starched shirt front. "You know I never likened you to a hedger
-and ditcher," she said, fondly. "No one is so wise and thoughtful
-and far-sighted as you. It is only that you don't know Patty quite
-yet--you will do soon--and what might be the perfect management of
-such a crisis in another girl's affairs is likely not to succeed with
-her--just simply and only for the reason that she is a little peculiar,
-and you have not yet had time to learn that."
-
-"It is time that I should learn," he said, lifting her into a restful
-position and settling himself for a comfortable talk. "Tell me what you
-think and know yourself, and what, in your judgment, it would be best
-to do."
-
-"In my judgment, then, it would be best," said Elizabeth, brief
-interval given up to the enjoyment of a wordless _tête-à-tête_, "to
-let Patty and Paul be together a little before they part. For this
-reason--that they _will_ be together, whether they are let or not.
-Isn't it preferable to make concessions before they are ignominiously
-extorted from you? And if Patty has much longer to bear seeing her
-lover, as she thinks, humiliated and insulted, by being ignored as her
-lover in this house, she will go to the other extreme--she will go away
-from us to him--by way of making up to him for it. It is like what you
-say of the smouldering, poverty-bred anarchy in your European national
-life--that if you don't find a vent for the accumulating electricity
-generating in the human sewer--how do you put it?--it is no use to try
-to draw it off after the storm has burst."
-
-"Elizabeth," said her husband, reproachfully, "that is worse than being
-called a hedger and ditcher."
-
-"Well, you know what I mean."
-
-"Tell me what you mean in the vulgar tongue, my dear. Do you want me to
-go and call on Mr. Paul Brion and tell him that we have thought better
-of it?"
-
-"Not exactly that. But if you would persuade Mrs. Duff-Scott to be
-nice about it--no one can be more enchantingly nice than she, when she
-likes, but when she doesn't like she is enough to drive a man--a proud
-man like Paul Brion--simply frantic. And Patty will never stand it--she
-will not hold out--she will not go away leaving things as they are now.
-We could not expect it of her."
-
-"Well? And how should Mrs. Duff-Scott show herself nice to Mr. Brion?"
-
-"She might treat him as--as she did you, Kingscote, when you were
-wanting me."
-
-"But she approved of me, you see. She doesn't approve of him."
-
-"You are both gentlemen, anyhow--though he is poor. _I_ would have
-been the more tender and considerate to him, because he is poor. He is
-not too poor for Patty--nor would he have been if she had no fortune
-herself. As it is, there is abundance. And, Kingscote, though I don't
-mean for a moment to disparage you--"
-
-"I should hope not, Elizabeth."
-
-"Still I can't help thinking that to have brains as he has is to be
-essentially a rich and distinguished man. And to be a writer for a
-high-class newspaper, which you say yourself is the greatest and best
-educator in the world--to spend himself in making other men see what is
-right and useful--in spreading light and knowledge that no money could
-pay for, and all the time effacing himself, and taking no reward of
-honour or credit for it--surely that must be the noblest profession,
-and one that should make a man anybody's equal--even yours, my love!"
-
-She lifted herself up to make this eloquent appeal, and dropped back on
-his shoulder again, and wound her arm about his neck and his bent head
-with tender deprecation. He was deeply touched and stirred, and did not
-speak for a moment. Then he said gruffly, "I shall go and see him in
-the morning, Elizabeth. Tell me what I shall say to him, my dear."
-
-"Say," said Elizabeth, "that you would rather not have a fixed
-engagement at first, in order that Patty may be unhampered during
-the time she is away--in order that she may be free to make other
-matrimonial arrangements when she gets into the great world, if she
-_likes_--but that you will leave that to him. Tell him that if love is
-not to be kept faithful without vows and promises, it is not love nor
-worth keeping--but I daresay he knows that. Tell him that, except for
-being obliged to go to England just now on the family affairs, Patty is
-free to do exactly as she likes--which she is by law, you know, for she
-is over three-and-twenty--and that we will be happy to see her happy,
-whatever way she chooses. And then let him come here and see her. Ask
-Mrs. Duff-Scott to be nice and kind, and to give him an invitation--she
-will do anything for you--and then treat them both as if they were
-engaged for just this little time until we leave. It will comfort them
-so much, poor things! It will put them on their honour. It will draw
-off the electricity, you know, and prevent catastrophes. And it will
-make not the slightest difference in the final issue. But, oh," she
-added impulsively, "you don't want me to tell you what to do, you are
-so much wiser than I am."
-
-"I told you we should give and take," he responded; "I told you we
-should teach and lead each other--sometimes I and sometimes you. That
-is what we are doing already--it is as it should be. I shall go and see
-Paul Brion in the morning. Confound him!" he added, as he got up out of
-his chair to go to his dressing-room.
-
-And so it came to pass that the young press writer, newly risen from
-his bed, and meditating desperate things over his coffee and cutlet,
-received a friendly embassy from the great powers that had taken up
-arms against him. Mr. Yelverton was the bearer of despatches from
-his sovereign, Mrs. Duff-Scott, in the shape of a gracious note of
-invitation to dinner, which--after a long discussion of the situation
-with her envoy--Mr. Paul Brion permitted himself to accept politely.
-The interview between the two men was productive of a strong sense
-of relief and satisfaction on both sides, and it brought about the
-cessation of all open hostilities.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLVIII.
-
-
-PROBATION.
-
-
-Mr. Yelverton did not return home from his mission until Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's farewell kettle-drum was in full blast. He found the two
-drawing-rooms filled with a fashionable crowd; and the hum of sprightly
-conversation, the tinkle of teaspoons, the rustle of crisp draperies,
-the all-pervading clamour of soft feminine voices, raised in staccato
-exclamations and laughter, were such that he did not see his way to
-getting a word in edgeways. Round each of the Yelverton sisters the
-press of bland and attentive visitors was noticeably great. They were
-swallowed up in the compact groups around them. This I am tempted to
-impute to the fact of their recent elevation to rank and wealth, and to
-a certain extent it may be admitted that that fact was influential. And
-why not? But in justice I must state that the three pretty Miss Kings
-had become favourites in Melbourne society while the utmost ignorance
-prevailed as to their birth and antecedents, in conjunction with the
-most exact knowledge as to the narrowness of their incomes. Melbourne
-society, if a little too loosely constituted to please the tastes of
-a British prig, born and bred to class exclusiveness, is, I honestly
-believe, as free as may be from the elaborate snobbishness with which
-that typical individual (though rather as his misfortune than his
-fault) must be credited.
-
-In Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room were numerous representatives of
-this society--its most select circle, in fact--numbering amongst them
-women of all sorts; women like Mrs. Duff-Scott herself, who busied
-themselves with hospitals and benevolent schemes, conscious of natural
-aspirations and abilities for better things than dressing and gossiping
-and intriguing for social triumphs; women like Mrs. Aarons, who had
-had to struggle desperately to rise with the "cream" to the top of the
-cup, and whose every nerve was strained to retain the advantages so
-hardly won; women to whom scandal was the breath of their nostrils,
-and the dissemination thereof the occupation of their lives; women
-whose highest ambition was to make a large waist into a small one;
-women with the still higher ambition to have a house that was more
-pleasant and popular than anybody else's. All sorts and conditions of
-women, indeed; including a good proportion of those whose womanhood
-was unspoiled and unspoilable even by the deteriorating influences
-of luxury and idleness, and whose intellect and mental culture and
-charming qualities generally were such as one would need to hunt well
-to find anything better in the same line elsewhere. These people had
-all accepted the Miss Kings cordially when Mrs. Duff-Scott brought them
-into their circle and enabled the girls to do their duty therein by
-dressing well, and looking pretty, and contributing a graceful element
-to fashionable gatherings by their very attractive manners. That was
-all that was demanded of them, and, as Miss Kings only, they would
-doubtless have had a brilliant career and never been made to feel the
-want of either pedigree or fortune. Now, as representatives of a great
-family and possessors of independent wealth, they were overwhelmed with
-attentions; but this, I maintain, was due to the interesting nature
-of the situation rather than to that worship of worldly prosperity
-which (because he has plenty of it) is supposed to characterise the
-successful colonist.
-
-Mr. Yelverton looked round, and dropped into a chair near the door,
-to talk to a group of ladies with whom he had friendly relations
-until he could find an opportunity to rejoin his family. The hostess
-was dispensing tea, with Nelly's assistance--Nelly being herself
-attended by Mr. Westmoreland, who dogged her footsteps with patient and
-abject assiduity--other men straying about amongst the crowd with the
-precious little fragile cups and saucers in their hands. Elizabeth was
-surrounded by young matrons fervently interested in her new condition,
-and pouring out upon her their several experiences of European life,
-in the form of information and advice for her own guidance. The best
-shops, the best dressmakers, the best hotels, the best travelling
-routes, and generally the best things to do and see, were emphatically
-and at great length impressed upon her, and she made notes of them on
-the back of an envelope with polite gratitude, invariably convinced
-that her husband knew all about such things far better than anybody
-else could do. Patty was in the music-room, not playing, but sitting
-at the piano, and when Kingscote turned his head in her direction he
-met a full and glowing look of inquiry from her bright eyes that told
-him she knew or guessed the nature of his recent errand. There was such
-an invitation in her face that he found himself drawn from his chair
-as by a strong magnet. He and she had already had those "fights" which
-she had prophetically anticipated. Lately their relations had been such
-that he had permitted himself to call her a "spitfire" in speaking of
-her to her own sister. But they were friends, tacitly trusting each
-other at heart even when most openly at war, and the force that drew
-them apart was always returned in the rebound that united them when
-their quarrels were over. They seemed to be all over for the present.
-As he approached her she resumed her talk with the ladies beside her,
-and dropped her eyes as if taking no notice of him; but she had the
-greatest difficulty to keep herself down on the music-stool and resist
-an inclination to kiss him that for the first time beset her. She
-did, indeed, suddenly put out her hand to him--her left hand--with a
-vigour of intention that called faint smiles to the faces of the fair
-spectators; who concluded that Mr. Yelverton had been out of town and
-was receiving a welcome home after a too long absence. Then Patty was
-seized with an ungovernable restlessness. She quivered all over; she
-fidgetted in her seat; she did not know who spoke to her or what she
-was talking about; her fingers went fluttering up and down the keyboard.
-
-"Play us something, dear Miss Yelverton," said a lady sitting by. "Let
-us hear your lovely touch once more."
-
-"I don't think I can," said Patty, falteringly--the first time she had
-ever made such a reply to such a demand. She got up and began to turn
-over some loose music that lay about on the piano. Her brother-in-law
-essayed to help her; he saw what an agony of suspense and expectation
-she was in.
-
-"You know where I have been?" he inquired in a careless tone, speaking
-low, so that only she could hear.
-
-"Yes"--breathlessly--"I think so."
-
-"I went to take an invitation from Mrs. Duff-Scott."
-
-"Yes?"
-
-"I had a pleasant talk. I am very glad I went. He is coming to dine
-here to-night."
-
-"Is he?"
-
-"Mrs. Duff-Scott thought you would all like to see him before you went
-away. Let us have the 'Moonlight Sonata,' shall we? Beauty fades and
-mere goodness is apt to pall, as Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins would say,
-but one never gets tired of the 'Moonlight Sonata,' when it is played
-as you play it. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Aarons?"
-
-"I do, indeed," responded that lady, fervently. She agreed with
-everybody in his rank of life. And she implored Patty to give them the
-"Moonlight Sonata."
-
-Patty did--disdaining "notes," and sitting at the piano like a
-young queen upon her throne. She laid her fingers on the keyboard
-with a touch as light as thistle-down, but only so light because
-it was so strong, and played with a hushed passion and subdued
-power that testified to the effect on her of her brother-in-law's
-communication--her face set and calm, but radiant in its sudden
-peacefulness. Her way, too, as well as Elizabeth's, was opening before
-her now. She lost sight of the gorgeous ladies around her for a little
-while, and saw only the comfortable path which she and Paul would tread
-together thenceforth. She played the "Moonlight Sonata" to _him_,
-sitting in his own chamber corner, with his pipe, resting himself after
-his work. "I will never," she said to herself, with a little remote
-smile that nobody saw, "I will never have a room in my house that he
-shall not smoke in, if he likes. When he is with me, he shall enjoy
-himself." In those sweet few minutes she sketched the entire programme
-of her married life.
-
-The crowd thinned by degrees, and filtered away; the drawing-rooms
-were deserted, save for the soft-footed servants who came in to set
-them in order, and light the wax candles and rosy lamps, and the
-great gas-burner over the piano, which was as the sun amongst his
-planet family. Night came, and the ladies returned in their pretty
-dinner costumes; and the major stole downstairs after them, and smiled
-and chuckled silently over the new affair as he had done over the
-old--looking on like a benevolent, superannuated Jove upon these simple
-little romances from the high Olympus of his own brilliant past; and
-then (preceded by no carriage wheels) there was a step on the gravel
-and a ring at the door bell, and the guest of the evening was announced.
-
-When Paul came in, correctly appointed, and looking so fierce and
-commanding that Patty's heart swelled with pride as she gazed at him,
-seeing how well--how almost too well, indeed--he upheld his dignity
-and hers, which had been subjected to so many trials, he found himself
-received with a cordiality that left him nothing to find fault with.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was an impulsive, and generous, and well-bred woman,
-not given to do things by halves. She still hoped that Patty would not
-marry this young man, and did not mean to let her if she could help it;
-but, having gone the length of inviting him to her house, she treated
-him accordingly. She greeted him as if he were an old friend, and she
-chatted to him pleasantly while they waited for dinner, questioning him
-with subtle flattery about his professional affairs, and implying that
-reverence for the majesty of the press which is so gratifying to all
-enlightened people. Then she took his arm into dinner, and continued
-to talk to him throughout the meal as only one hostess in a hundred,
-really nice and clever, with a hospitable soul, and a warm heart, and
-abundant tact and good taste, can talk, and was surprised herself to
-find how much she appreciated it. She intended to make the poor young
-fellow enjoy his brief taste of Paradise, since she had given herself
-leave to do so, and Paul responded by shining for her entertainment
-with a mental effulgence that astonished and charmed her. He put forth
-his very best wares for her inspection, and at the same time, in a
-difficult position, conducted himself with irreproachable propriety. By
-the time she left the table she was ready to own herself heartily sorry
-that fickle fortune had not endowed him according to his deserts.
-
-"I _do_ so like really interesting and intellectual young men, who
-don't give themselves any airs about it," she said to nobody in
-particular, when she strolled back to the drawing-room with her three
-girls; "and one does so _very_ seldom meet with them!" She threw
-herself into a low chair, snatched up a fan, and began to fan herself
-vigorously. The discovery that a press writer of Paul Brion's standing
-meant a cultured man of the world impressed her strongly; the thought
-of him as a new son for herself, clever, enterprising, active-minded
-as she was--a man to be governed, perhaps, in a motherly way, and
-to be proud of whether he let himself be governed or not--danced
-tantalisingly through her brain. She felt it necessary to put a very
-strong check upon herself to keep her from being foolish.
-
-She escaped that danger, however. A high sense of duty to Patty held
-her back from foolishness. Still she could not help being kind to
-the young couple while she had the opportunity; turning her head
-when they strolled into the conservatory after the men came in from
-the dining-room, and otherwise shutting her eyes to their joint
-proceedings. And they had a peaceful and sad and happy time, by her
-gracious favour, for two days and a half--until the mail ship carried
-one of them to England, and left the other behind.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XLIX.
-
-
-YELVERTON.
-
-
-Patty went "home," and stayed there for two years; but it was never
-home to her, though all her friends and connections, save one, were
-with her--because that one was absent. She saw "the great Alps and the
-Doge's palace," and all the beauty and glory of that great world that
-she had so ardently dreamed of and longed for; travelling in comfort
-and luxury, and enjoying herself thoroughly all the while. She was
-presented at Court--"Miss Yelverton, by her sister, Mrs. Kingscote
-Yelverton"--and held a distinguished place in the _Court Journal_ and
-in the gossip of London society for the better part of two seasons. She
-was taught to know that she was a beauty, if she had never known it
-before; she was made to understand the value of a high social position
-and the inestimable advantage of large means (and she did understand it
-perfectly, being a young person abundantly gifted with common sense);
-and she was offered these good things for the rest of her life, and a
-coronet into the bargain. Nevertheless, she chose to abide by her first
-choice, and to remain faithful to her penniless press writer under all
-temptations. She passed through the fire of every trying ordeal that
-the ingenuity of Mrs. Duff-Scott could devise; her unpledged constancy
-underwent the severest tests that, in the case of a girl of her tastes
-and character, it could possibly be subjected to; and at the end of a
-year and a half, when the owner of the coronet above-mentioned raised
-the question of her matrimonial prospects, she announced to him, and
-subsequently to her family, that they had been irrevocably settled
-long ago; that she was entirely unchanged in her sentiments and
-relations towards Paul Brion; and that she intended, moreover, if they
-had no objection, to return to Australia to marry him.
-
-It was in September when she thus declared herself--after keeping
-a hopeful silence, for the most part, concerning her love affairs,
-since she disgraced herself before a crowd of people by weeping in
-her sweetheart's arms on the deck of the mail steamer at the moment
-when she was bidden by a cruel fate to part from him. The Yelverton
-family had spent the previous winter in the South of Europe, "doing"
-the palaces, and churches, and picture galleries that were such an
-old story to most people of their class, but to the unsophisticated
-sisters so fresh and wonderful an experience--an experience that
-fulfilled all expectations, moreover, which such realisations of young
-dreams so seldom do. Generally, when at last one has one's wish of
-this sort, the spirit that conceived the charms and pleasures of it
-is quenched by bodily wearinesses and vexations and the thousand and
-one petty accidents that circumvent one's schemes. One is burdened
-and fretted with uncongenial companions, perhaps, or one is worried
-and hampered for want of money; or one is nervous or bilious, or one
-is too old and careworn to enjoy as one might once have done; in some
-way or other one's heart's desire comes to one as if only to show the
-"leanness withal" in the soul that seemed (until thus proved) to have
-such power to assimilate happiness and enrich itself thereby. But with
-the Yelverton sisters there was no disillusionment of this sort. They
-had their little drawbacks, of course. Elizabeth was not always in
-good health; Patty pined for her Paul; Eleanor sprained her ankle and
-had to lie on Roman sofas while the others were exploring Roman ruins
-out of doors; and there were features about the winter, even in those
-famous climes, which gave them sensible discomfort and occasionally
-set them on the verge of discontent. But, looking back upon their
-travels, they have no recollection of these things. Young, and strong,
-and rich, with no troubles to speak of and the keenest appetites to
-see and learn, they had as good a time as pleasure-seeking mortals
-can hope for in this world; the memories of it, tenderly stored up to
-the smallest detail, will be a joy for ever to all of them. On their
-return to England they took up their abode in the London house, and for
-some weeks they revelled delightedly in balls, drums, garden parties,
-concerts, and so on, under the supervision and generalship of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott; and they also made acquaintance with the widely-ramifying
-Whitechapel institutions. Early in the summer Elizabeth and her husband
-went to Yelverton, which in their absence had been prepared for "the
-family" to live in again. A neighbouring country house and several
-cottages had been rented and fitted up for the waifs and strays, where
-they had been made as comfortable as before, and were still under the
-eye of their protector; and the ancestral furniture that had been
-removed for their convenience and its own safety was put back in its
-place, and bright (no, not bright--Mrs. Duff-Scott undertook the task
-of fitting them up--but eminently artistic and charming) rooms were
-newly decorated and made ready for Elizabeth's occupation.
-
-She went there early in June--she and her husband alone, leaving Mrs.
-Duff-Scott and the girls in London. Mr. Yelverton had always a little
-jealousy about keeping his wife to himself on these specially sacred
-occasions, and he invited no one to join them during their first days
-at home, and instructed Mr. Le Breton to repress any tendency that
-might be apparent in tenants or _protégés_ to make a public festival of
-their arrival there. The _rôle_ of squire was in no way to his taste,
-nor that of Lady Bountiful to hers. And yet he had planned for their
-home-coming with the utmost care and forethought, that nothing should
-be wanting to make it satisfying and complete--as he had planned for
-their wedding journey on the eve of their hurried marriage.
-
-It is too late in my story to say much about Yelverton. It merits a
-description, but a description would be out of place, and serve no
-purpose now. Those who are familiar with old Elizabethan country seats,
-and the general environment of a hereditary dweller therein, will
-have a sufficient idea of Elizabeth's home; and those who have never
-seen such things--who have not grown up in personal association with
-the traditions of an "old family"--will not care to be told about it.
-In the near future (for, though his brother magnates of the county,
-hearing of the restoration of the house, congratulated themselves that
-Yelverton's marriage had cured him of his crack-brained fads, he only
-delivered her property intact to his wife in order that they might be
-crack-brained together, at her instance and with her legal permission
-in new and worse directions afterwards) Yelverton will lose many of
-its time-honoured aristocratic distinctions; oxen and sheep will take
-the place of its antlered herds, and the vulgar plough and ploughman
-will break up the broad park lawns, where now the pheasant walks in
-the evening, and the fox, stealing out from his cover, haunts for his
-dainty meal. But when Elizabeth saw it that tender June night, just
-when the sun was setting, as in England it only sets in June, all its
-old-world charm of feudal state and beauty, jealously walled off from
-the common herd outside as one man's heritage by divine right and for
-his exclusive enjoyment, lay about it, as it had lain for generations
-past. Will she ever forget that drive in the summer evening from the
-little country railway station to her ancestral home?--the silent road,
-with the great trees almost meeting overhead; the snug farm-houses, old
-and picturesque, and standing behind their white gates amongst their
-hollyhocks and bee-hives; the thatched cottages by the roadside, with
-groups of wide-eyed children standing at the doors to see the carriage
-pass; the smell of the hay and the red clover in the fields, and the
-honeysuckle and the sweet-briar in the hedges; the sound of the wood
-pigeons cooing in the plantations; the first sight of her own lodge
-gates, with their great ramping griffins stonily pawing the air, and of
-those miles and miles of shadow-dappled sward within, those mysterious
-dark coverts, whence now and then a stag looked out at her and went
-crashing back to his ferny lair, and those odorous avenues of beech
-and lime, still haunted by belated bees and buzzing cockchafers, under
-which she passed to the inner enclosure of lawns and gardens where the
-old house stood, with open doors of welcome, awaiting her. What an old
-house! She had seen such in pictures--in the little prints that adorned
-old-fashioned pocket-books of her mother's time---but the reality, as
-in the case of the Continental palaces, transcended all her dreams.
-White smoke curled up to the sky from the fluted chimney-stacks; the
-diamond-paned casements--little sections of the enormous mullioned
-windows--were set wide to the evening breezes and sunshine; on the
-steps before the porch a group of servants, respectful but not
-obsequious, stood ready to receive their new mistress, and to efface
-themselves as soon as they had made her welcome.
-
-"It is more than my share," she said, almost oppressed by all these
-evidences of her prosperity, and thinking of her mother's different
-lot. "It doesn't seem fair, Kingscote."
-
-"It is not fair," he replied. "But that is not your fault, nor mine.
-We are not going to keep it all to ourselves, you and I--because a
-king happened to fall in love with one of our grandmothers, who was
-no better than she should be--which is our title to be great folks, I
-believe. We are going to let other people have a share. But just for
-a little while we'll be selfish, Elizabeth; it's a luxury we don't
-indulge in often."
-
-So he led her into the beautiful house, after giving her a solemn kiss
-upon the threshold; and passing through the great hall, she was taken
-to a vast but charming bedroom that had been newly fitted up for her
-on the ground floor, and thence to an adjoining sitting-room, looking
-out upon a shady lawn--a homely, cosy little room that he had himself
-arranged for her private use, and which no one was to be allowed to
-have the run of, he told her, except him.
-
-"I want to feel that there is one place where we can be together,"
-he said, "whenever we want to be together, sure of being always
-undisturbed. It won't matter how full the house is, nor how much bustle
-and business goes on, if we can keep this nest for ourselves, to come
-to when we are tired and when we want to talk. It is not your boudoir,
-you know--that is in another place--and it is not your morning room; it
-is a little sanctuary apart, where nobody is to be allowed to set foot,
-save our own two selves and the housemaid."
-
-"It shall be," said his wife, with kindling eyes. "I will take care of
-that."
-
-"Very well. That is a bargain. We will take possession to-night. We
-will inaugurate our occupation by having our tea here. You shall not be
-fatigued by sitting up to dinner--you shall have a Myrtle Street tea,
-and I will wait on you."
-
-She was placed in a deep arm-chair, beside a hearth whereon burned the
-first wood fire that she had seen since she left Australia--billets
-of elm-wood split from the butts of dead and felled giants that had
-lived their life out on the Yelverton acres--with her feet on a rug
-of Tasmanian opossum skins, and a bouquet of golden wattle blossoms
-(procured with as much difficulty in England as the lilies of the
-valley had been in Australia) on a table beside her, scenting the room
-with its sweet and familiar fragrance. And here tea was brought in--a
-dainty little nondescript meal, with very little about it to remind her
-of Myrtle Street, save its comfortable informality; and the servant was
-dismissed, and the husband waited upon his wife--helping her from the
-little savoury dishes that she did not know, nor care to ask, the name
-of--pouring the cream into the cup that for so many years had held her
-strongest beverage, dusting the sugar over her strawberries--all the
-time keeping her at rest in her soft chair, with the sense of being
-at home and in peace and safety under his protection working like a
-delicious opiate on her tired nerves and brain.
-
-This was how they came to Yelverton. And for some days thereafter they
-indulged in the luxury of selfishness--they took their happiness in
-both hands, and made all they could of it, conscious they were well
-within their just rights and privileges--gaining experiences that all
-the rest of their lives would be the better for, and putting off from
-day to day, and from week to week, that summons to join them, which the
-matron and girls in London were ready to obey at a moment's notice.
-Husband and wife sat in their gable room, reading, resting, talking,
-love-making. They explored all the nooks and corners of their old
-house, investigated its multifarious antiquities, studied its bygone
-history, exhumed the pathetic memorials of the Kingscote and Elizabeth
-whose inheritance had come to them in so strange a way. They rambled
-in the beautiful summer woods, she with her needlework, he with his
-book--sometimes with a luncheon basket, when they would stay out all
-day; and they took quiet drives, all by themselves in a light buggy,
-as if they were in Australia still--apparently with no consciousness
-of that toiling and moiling world outside their park-gates which had
-once been of so much importance to them. And then one day Elizabeth
-complained of feeling unusually tired. The walks and drives came to an
-end, and the sitting-room was left empty. There was a breathless hush
-all over the great house for a little while; whispers and rustlings to
-and fro; and then a little cry--which, weak and small as it was, and
-shut in with double doors and curtains, somehow managed to make itself
-heard from the attic to the basement--announced that a new generation
-of Yelvertons of Yelverton had come into the world.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott returned home from a series of Belgravian
-entertainments, with that coronet of Patty's capture on her mind,
-in the small hours of the morning following this eventful day; and
-she found a telegram on her hall table, and learned, to her intense
-indignation, that Elizabeth had dared to have a baby without her (Mrs.
-Duff-Scott) being there to assist at the all-important ceremony.
-
-"It's just like him," she exclaimed to the much-excited sisters, who
-were ready to melt into tears over the good news. "It is just what I
-expected he would do when he took her off by herself in that way. It
-is the marriage over again. He wants to manage everything in his own
-fashion, and to have no interference from anybody. But this is really
-carrying independence too far. Supposing anything had gone wrong
-with Elizabeth? And how am I to know that her nurse is an efficient
-person?--and that the poor dear infant will be properly looked after?"
-
-"You may depend," said Patty, who did not grudge her sister her new
-happiness, but envied it from the bottom of her honest woman's heart,
-"You may depend he has taken every care of that. He is not a man to
-leave things to chance--at any rate, not where _she_ is concerned."
-
-"Rubbish!" retorted the disappointed matron, who, though she had had
-no children of her own--perhaps because she had had none--had looked
-forward to a vicarious participation in Elizabeth's experiences at
-this time with the strongest interest and eagerness; "as if a man has
-any business to take upon himself to meddle at all in such matters! It
-is not fair to Elizabeth. She has a right to have us with her. I gave
-way about the wedding, but here I must draw the line. She is in her
-own house, and I shall go to her at once. Tell your maid to pack up,
-dears--we will start to-morrow."
-
-But they did not. They stayed in London, with what patience they could,
-subsisting on daily letters and telegrams, until the season there was
-over, and the baby at Yelverton was three weeks old. Then, though no
-explanations were made, they became aware that they would be no longer
-considered _de trop_ by the baby's father, and rushed from the town to
-the country house with all possible haste.
-
-"You are a tyrant," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, when the master came forth to
-meet her. "I always said so, and now I know it."
-
-"I was afraid she would get talking and exerting herself too much if
-she had you all about her," he replied, with his imperturbable smile.
-
-"And you didn't think that _we_ might possibly have a grain of sense,
-as well as you?"
-
-"I didn't think of anything," he said coolly, "except to make sure of
-her safety as far as possible."
-
-"O yes, I know"--laughing and brushing past him--"all you think of is
-to get your own way. Well, let us see the poor dear girl now we are
-here. I know how she must have been pining to show her baby to her
-sisters all this while, when you wouldn't let her."
-
-The next time he found himself alone with his wife, Mr. Yelverton asked
-her, with some conscientious misgiving, whether she _had_ been pining
-for this forbidden pleasure, and whether he really was a tyrant.
-Of course, Elizabeth scouted any suggestion of such an idea as most
-horrible and preposterous, but the fact was--
-
-Never mind. We all have our little failings, and the intelligent reader
-will not expect to find the perfect man any more than the perfect
-woman in this present world. And if he--or, I should say, she--_could_
-find him, no doubt she would be dreadfully disappointed, and not like
-him half so well as the imperfect ones. Elizabeth, who, as Patty had
-predicted, was "butter" in his hands, would not have had her husband
-less fond of his own way on any account.
-
-For some time everybody was taken up with the baby, who was felt to be
-the realisation of that ideal which Dan and the magpies had faintly
-typified in the past. Dan himself lay humbly on the hem of the mother's
-skirts, or under her chair, resting his disjointed nose on his paws,
-and blinking meditatively at the rival who had for ever superseded
-him. Like a philosophical dog as he was, he accepted superannuation
-without a protest as the inevitable and universal lot, and, when no one
-took any notice of him, coiled himself on the softest thing he could
-find and went to sleep, or if he couldn't go to sleep, amused himself
-snapping at the English flies. The girls forgot, or temporarily laid
-aside, their own affairs, in the excitement of a constant struggle
-for possession of the person of the little heir, whom they regarded
-with passionate solicitude or devouring envy and jealousy according
-as they were successful or otherwise. The nurse's post was a sinecure
-at this time. The aunts hushed the infant to sleep, and kept watch by
-his cradle, and carried him up and down the garden terraces with a
-parasol over his head. The mother insisted upon performing his toilet,
-and generally taking a much larger share of him than was proper for
-a mother in her rank of life; and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, for whom
-china had lost its remaining charms, assumed privileges as a deputy
-grandmother which it was found expedient to respect. In this absorbing
-domesticity the summer passed away. The harvest of field and orchard
-was by-and-by gathered in; the dark-green woods and avenues turned
-red, and brown, and orange under the mellow autumn sun; the wild
-fruits in the hedgerows ripened; the swallows took wing. To Yelverton
-came a party of guests--country neighbours and distinguished public
-men, of a class that had not been there a-visiting for years past;
-who shot the well-stocked covers, and otherwise disported themselves
-after the manner of their kind. And amongst the nobilities was that
-coronet, that incarnation of dignity and magnificence, which had been
-singled out as an appropriate mate for Patty. It, or he, was offered
-in form, and with circumstances of state and ceremony befitting the
-great occasion; and Patty was summoned to a consultation with her
-family--every member of which, not even excepting Elizabeth herself,
-was anxious to see the coronet on Patty's brow (which shows how
-hereditary superstitions and social prejudices linger in the blood,
-even after they seem to be eradicated from the brain)--for the purpose
-of receiving their advice, and stating her own intentions.
-
-"My intention," said Patty, firmly, with her little nose uplifted,
-and a high colour in her face, "is to put an end to this useless and
-culpable waste of time. The man I love and am _engaged to_ is working,
-and slaving, and waiting for me; and I, like the rest of you, am
-neglecting him, and sacrificing him, as if he were of no consequence
-whatever. _This_ shows me how I have been treating him. I will not
-do it any more. I did not become Miss Yelverton to repudiate all I
-undertook when I was only Patty King. I am Yelverton by name, but I am
-King by nature, still. I don't want to be a great swell. I have seen
-the world, and I am satisfied. Now I want to go home to Paul--as I
-ought to have done before. I will ask you, if you please, Kingscote, to
-take my passage for me at once. I shall go back next month, and I shall
-marry Paul Brion as soon as the steamer gets to Melbourne."
-
-Her brother-in-law put out his hand, and drew her to him, and kissed
-her. "Well done," he said, speaking boldly from his honest heart. "So
-you shall."
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER L.
-
-
-"THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE."
-
-
-Patty softened down the terms in which she made her declaration of
-independence, when she found that it was received in so proper a
-spirit. She asked them if they had _any objection_--which, after
-telling them that it didn't matter whether they had or not, was a
-graceful act, tending to make things pleasant without committing
-anybody. But if they had objections (as of course they had) they
-abandoned them at this crisis. It was no use to fight against Paul
-Brion, so they accepted him, and made the best of him. The head of
-the family suddenly and forcibly realised that he should have been
-disappointed in his little sister-in law if she had acted otherwise;
-and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who would always so much rather help than
-hinder a generous project, no matter how opposed to the ethics of her
-class, was surprised herself by the readiness with which she turned her
-back on faded old lords and dissipated young baronets, and gave herself
-up to the pleasant task of making true lovers happy. Elizabeth repented
-swiftly of her own disloyalty to plighted love, temporary and shadowy
-as it was; and, seeing how matters really stood, acquiesced in the
-situation with a sense of great thankfulness that her Patty was proved
-so incorruptible by the tests she had gone through. Mrs. Yelverton's
-only trouble was the fear of separation in the family, which the
-ratification of the engagement seemed likely to bring about.
-
-But Patty was dissuaded from her daring enterprise, as first proposed;
-and Paul was written to by her brother and guardian, and adjured to
-detach himself from his newspaper for a while and come to England
-for a holiday--which, it was delicately hinted, might take the form
-of a bridal tour. And in that little sitting-room, sacred to the
-private interviews of the master and mistress of the house, great
-schemes were conceived and elaborated for the purpose of seducing Mrs.
-Brion's husband to remain in England for good and all. They settled
-his future for him in what seemed to them an irresistibly attractive
-way. He was to rent a certain picturesque manor-house in the Yelverton
-neighbourhood, and there, keeping Patty within her sister's reach,
-take up that wholesome, out-door country life which they were sure
-would be so good for his health and his temper. He could do a little
-high farming, and "whiles" write famous books; or, if his tastes and
-habits unfitted him for such a humdrum career, he could live in the
-world of London art and intellect, and be a "power" on behalf of those
-social reforms for which his brother-in-law so ardently laboured.
-Mr. Brion, senior, who had long ago returned to Seaview Villa, was,
-of course, to be sent for back again, to shelter himself under the
-broad Yelverton wing. The plan was all arranged in the most harmonious
-manner, and Elizabeth's heart grew more light and confident every time
-she discussed it.
-
-Paul received his pressing invitation--which he understood to mean,
-as it did, a permission to go and marry Patty from her sister's
-house---just after having been informed by Mrs. Aarons, "as a positive
-fact," that Miss Yelverton was shortly to be made a countess. He
-did not believe this piece of news, though Mrs. Aarons, who had an
-unaccountably large number of friends in the highest circles of London
-society, was ready to vouch for its authenticity with her life, if
-necessary; but, all the same, it made him feel moody, and surly, and
-ill-used, and miserable. It was his dark hour before the dawn. In
-Australia the summer was coming on. It was the middle of November. The
-"Cup" carnival was over for another year. The war in Egypt was also
-over, and the campaign of Murdoch's cricketers in England--two events
-which it seemed somehow natural to bracket together. The Honourable
-Ivo Bligh and his team had just arrived in Melbourne. The Austral had
-just been sunk in Sydney Harbour. It was early summer with us here,
-the brightest and gayest time of the whole year. In England the bitter
-winter was at hand--that dreaded English winter which the Australian
-shudders to think of, but which the Yelverton family had agreed to
-spend in their ancestral house, in order to naturalise and acclimatise
-the sisters, and that duty might be done in respect of those who had to
-bear the full extent of its bitterness, in hunger, and cold, and want.
-When Mr. Yelverton wrote to Paul to ask him to visit them, Patty wrote
-also to suggest that his precious health might suffer by coming over at
-such a season, and to advise him to wait until February or March. But
-the moment her lover had read those letters, he put on his hat and went
-forth to his office to demand leave for six months, and in a few days
-was on board the returning mail steamer on his way to England. He did
-not feel like waiting now--after waiting for two years--and she was not
-in the least afraid that he would accept her advice.
-
-Paul's answers arrived by post, as he was himself speeding through
-Europe--not so much absorbed in his mission as to neglect note-making
-by the way, and able to write brilliant articles on Gambetta's death,
-and other affairs of the moment, while waiting for boat or train to
-carry him to his beloved; and it was still only the first week in
-January when they received a telegram at Yelverton announcing his
-imminent arrival. Mr. Yelverton himself went to London to meet him,
-and Elizabeth rolled herself in furs and an opossum rug in her snug
-brougham and drove to the country railway station to meet them both,
-leaving Patty sitting by the wood fire in the hall. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was in town, and Eleanor with her, trying to see Rossetti's pictures
-through the murky darkness of the winter days, but in reality bent on
-giving the long-divided lovers as much as possible of their own society
-for a little while. The carriage went forth early in the afternoon,
-with its lamps lighted, and it returned when the cold night had settled
-down on the dreary landscape at five o'clock. Paul, ulstered and
-comfortered, walked into the dimly-lighted, warm, vast space, hung
-round with ghostly banners and antlers, and coats of mail, and pictures
-whereof little was visible but the frames, and marched straight into
-the ruddy circle of the firelight, where the small figure awaited him
-by the twinkling tea-table, herself only an outline against the dusk
-behind her; and the pair stood on the hearthrug and kissed each other
-silently, while Elizabeth, accompanied by her husband, went to take her
-bonnet off, and to see how Kingscote junior was getting on.
-
-After that Paul and Patty parted no more. They had a few peaceful
-weeks at Yelverton, during which the newspaper in Melbourne got
-nothing whatever from the fertile brain of its brilliant contributor
-(which, Patty thought, must certainly be a most serious matter for the
-proprietors); and in which interval they made compensation for all past
-shortcomings as far as their opportunities, which were profuse and
-various, allowed. It delighted Paul to cast up at Patty the several
-slights and snubs that she had inflicted on him in the old Myrtle
-Street days, and it was her great luxury in life to make atonement for
-them all--to pay him back a hundredfold for all that he had suffered on
-her account. The number of "soft things" that she played upon the piano
-from morning till night would alone have set him up in "Fridays" for
-the two years that he had been driven to Mrs. Aarons for entertainment;
-and the abject meekness of the little spitfire that he used to know
-was enough to provoke him to bully her, if he had had anything of the
-bully in him. The butter-like consistency to which she melted in this
-freezing English winter time was such as to disqualify her for ever
-from sitting in judgment upon Elizabeth's conjugal attitude. She fell
-so low, indeed, that she became, in her turn, a mark for Eleanor's
-scoffing criticism.
-
-"Well, I never thought to see you grovel to any living being--let alone
-a _man_--as you do to him," said that young lady on one occasion, with
-an impudent smile. "The citizens of Calais on their knees to Edward the
-Third were truculent swaggerers by comparison."
-
-"You mind your own business," retorted Patty, with a flash of her
-ancient spirit.
-
-Whereat Nelly rejoined that she would mind it by keeping her _fiancé_
-in his proper place when _her_ time came to have a _fiancé. She_ would
-not let him put a rope round her neck and tie it to his button-hole
-like a hat-string. She'd see him farther first.
-
-February came, and Mrs. Duff-Scott returned, and preparations for the
-wedding were set going. The fairy godmother was determined to make up
-for the disappointment she had suffered in Elizabeth's case by making a
-great festival of the second marriage of the family, and they let her
-have her wish, the result being that the bride of the poor press-writer
-had a _trousseau_ worthy of that coronet which she had extravagantly
-thrown away, and presents the list and description of which filled a
-whole column of the _Yelverton Advertiser_, and made the hearts of all
-the local maidens to burn with envy. In March they were married in
-Yelverton village church. They went to London for a week, and came back
-for a fortnight; and in April they crossed the sea again, bound for
-their Melbourne home.
-
-For all the beautiful arrangements that had been planned for them fell
-through. The Yelvertons had reckoned without their host--as is the
-incurable habit of sanguine human nature--with the usual result. Paul
-had no mind to abandon his chosen career and the country that, as a
-true Australian, he loved and served as he could never love and serve
-another, because he had married into a great English family; and Patty
-would not allow him to be persuaded. Though her heart was torn in
-two at the thought of parting with Elizabeth, and with that precious
-baby who was Elizabeth's rival in her affections, she promptly and
-uncomplainingly tore herself from both of them to follow her husband
-whithersoever it seemed good to him to go.
-
-"One cannot have everything in this world," said Patty philosophically,
-"and you and I, Elizabeth, have considerably more than our fair share.
-If we hadn't to pay something for our happiness, how could we expect it
-to last?"
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LI.
-
-
-PATIENCE REWARDED.
-
-
-Eleanor, like Patty, withstood the seductions of English life and
-miscellaneous English admirers, and lived to be Miss Yelverton in her
-turn, unappropriated and independent. And, like both her sisters,
-though more by accident than of deliberate intention, she remained
-true to her first love, and, after seeing the world and supping
-full of pleasure and luxury, returned to Melbourne and married Mr.
-Westmoreland. That is to say, Mr. Westmoreland followed her to England,
-and followed her all over Europe--dogging her from place to place with
-a steadfast persistence that certainly deserved reward--until the
-major and Mrs. Duff-Scott, returning home almost immediately after
-Patty's marriage and departure, brought their one ewe lamb, which the
-Yelvertons had not the conscience to immediately deprive them of, back
-to Australia with them; when her persevering suitor promptly took his
-passage in the same ship. All this time Mr. Westmoreland had been
-as much in love as his capacity for the tender passion--much larger
-than was generally supposed--permitted. Whether it was that she was
-the only woman who dared to bully him and trample on him, and thereby
-won his admiration and respect--or whether his passion required that
-the object of it should be difficult of attainment--or whether her
-grace and beauty were literally irresistible to him--or whether he
-was merely the sport of that unaccountable fate which seems to govern
-or misgovern these affairs, it is not necessary to conjecture. No one
-asks for reasons when a man or woman falls a victim to this sort of
-infatuation. Some said it was because she had become rich and grand,
-but that was not the case--except in so far as the change in her
-social circumstances had made her tyrannical and impudent, in which
-sense wealth and consequence had certainly enhanced her attractions in
-his eyes. Thirty thousand pounds, though a very respectable marriage
-portion in England, is not sufficient to make a fortune-hunter of an
-Australian suitor in his position; and let me do the Australian suitor
-of all ranks justice and here state that fortune hunting, through the
-medium of matrimony, is a weakness that his worst enemy cannot accuse
-him of--whatever his other faults may be. Mr. Westmoreland, being fond
-of money, as a constitutional and hereditary peculiarity--if you
-can call that a peculiarity--was tempted to marry it once, when that
-stout and swarthy person in the satin gown and diamonds exercised her
-fascinations on him at the club ball, and he could have married it at
-any time of his bachelor life, the above possessor of it being, like
-Barkis, "willin'", and even more than "willin'". Her fortune was such
-that Eleanor's thirty thousand was but a drop in the bucket compared
-with it, and yet even he did not value it in comparison with the favour
-of that capricious young lady. So he followed her about from day to
-day and from place to place, as if he had no other aim in life than
-to keep her within sight, making himself an insufferable nuisance to
-her friends very often, but apparently not offending her by his open
-and inveterate pursuit. She was not kind, but she was not cruel, and
-yet she was both in turn to a distracting degree. She made his life
-an ecstasy of miserable longing for her, keeping him by her side like
-a big dog on a chain, and feeding him with stones (in the prettiest
-manner) when he asked for bread. But she grew very partial to her
-big dog in the process of tormenting him and witnessing his touching
-patience under it. She was "used to him," she said; and when, from
-some untoward circumstance over which he had no control, he was for a
-little while absent from her, she felt the gap he left. She sensibly
-missed him. Moreover, though she trampled on him herself, it hurt her
-to see others do it; and when Mrs. Duff-Scott and Kingscote Yelverton
-respectively aired their opinions of his character and conduct, she
-instantly went over to his side, and protested in her heart, if not in
-words, against the injustice and opprobrium that he incurred for her
-sake. So, when Elizabeth became the much-occupied mother of a family,
-and when Patty was married and gone off into the world with her Paul,
-Eleanor, left alone in her independence, began to reckon up what it was
-worth. The spectacle of her sisters' wedded lives gave her pleasant
-notions of matrimony, and the state of single blessedness, as such,
-never had any particular charms for her. Was it worth while, she asked
-herself, to be cruel any more?--and might she not just as well have a
-house and home of her own as Elizabeth and Patty? Her lover was only
-a big dog upon a chain, but then why shouldn't he be? Husbands were
-not required to be all of the same pattern. She didn't want to be
-domineered over. And she didn't see anybody she liked better. She might
-go farther and fare worse. And--she was getting older every day.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott broke in upon these meditations with the demand that
-she (Eleanor) should return with her to Melbourne, if only for a year
-or two, so that she should not be entirely bereft and desolate.
-
-"I must start at once," said the energetic woman, suddenly seized with
-a paroxysm of home sickness and a sense of the necessity to be doing
-something now that at Yelverton there seemed nothing more to do, and in
-order to shake off the depressing effect of the first break in their
-little circle. "I have been away too long--it is time to be looking
-after my own business. Besides, I can't allow Patty to remain in that
-young man's lodgings--full of dusty papers and tobacco smoke, and
-where, I daresay, she hasn't so much as a peg to hang her dresses on.
-She must get a house at once, and I must be there to see about it, and
-to help her to choose the furniture. Elizabeth, my darling, you have
-your husband and child--I am leaving you happy and comfortable--and
-I will come and see you again in a year or two, or perhaps you and
-Kingscote will take a trip over yourselves and spend a winter with us.
-But I must go now. And do, do--oh, _do_ let me keep Nelly for a little
-while longer! You know I will take care of her, and I couldn't bear the
-sight of my house with none of you in it!"
-
-So she went, and of course she took Eleanor, who secretly longed for
-the land of sunshine after her full dose of "that horrid English
-climate," and who, with a sister at either end of the world, perhaps
-missed Patty, who had been her companion by night as well as by day,
-more than she would miss Elizabeth. The girl was very ready to go. She
-wept bitterly when the actual parting came, but she got over it in a
-way that gave great satisfaction to Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major, and
-relieved them of all fear that they had been selfish about bringing
-her away. They joined the mail steamer at Venice, and there found Mr.
-Westmoreland on board. He had been summoned by his agent at home he
-explained; one of his partners wanted to retire, and he had to be there
-to sign papers. And since it had so happened that he was obliged to
-go back by this particular boat, he hoped the ladies would make him
-useful, and let him look after their luggage and things. Eleanor was
-properly and conventionally astonished by the curious coincidence,
-but had known that it would happen just as well as he. The chaperon,
-for her part, was indignant and annoyed by it--for a little while;
-afterwards she, too, reflected that Eleanor had spent two unproductive
-years in England and was growing older every day. Also that she might
-certainly go farther and fare worse. So Mr. Westmoreland was accepted
-as a member of the travelling party. All the heavy duties of escort
-were relegated to him by the major, and Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him hither
-and thither in a way that he had never been accustomed to. But he was
-meek and biddable in these days, and did not mind what uses he put
-his noble self to for his lady's sake. And she was very gracious. The
-conditions of ship life, at once so favourable and so very unfavourable
-for the growth of tender relations, suited his requirements in every
-way. She could not snub him under the ever-watchful eyes of their
-fellow-passengers. She could not send him away from her. She was even a
-little tempted, by that ingrained vanity of the female heart, to make a
-display before the other and less favoured ladies of the subject-like
-homage which she, queen-like, received. Altogether, things went on
-in a very promising manner. So that when, no farther than the Red
-Sea--while life seemed, as it does in that charming locality, reduced
-to its simple elements, and the pleasure of having a man to fan her was
-a comparatively strong sensation--when at this propitious juncture,
-Mr. Westmoreland bewailed his hard fate for the thousandth time, and
-wondered whether he should ever have the good fortune to find a little
-favour in her sight, it seemed to her that this sort of thing had gone
-on long enough, and that she might as well pacify him and have done
-with it. So she said, looking at him languidly with her sentimental
-blue eyes--"Well, if you'll promise not to bother me any more, I'll
-think about it."
-
-He promised faithfully not to bother her any more, and he did not. But
-he asked her presently, after fanning her in silence for some minutes,
-what colour she would like her carriage painted, and she answered
-promptly, "Dark green."
-
-While they were yet upon the sea, a letter--three letters, in
-fact--were despatched to Yelverton, to ask the consent of the head of
-the family to the newly-formed engagement, and not long after the party
-arrived in Melbourne the desired permission was received, Mr. and Mrs.
-Yelverton having learned the futility of opposition in these matters,
-and having no serious objection to Nelly's choice. And then again Mrs.
-Duff-Scott plunged into the delight of preparation for trousseau and
-wedding festivities--quite willing that the "poor dear fellow," as
-she now called him (having taken him to her capacious heart), should
-receive the reward of his devotion without unnecessary delay. The house
-was already there, a spick and span family mansion in Toorak, built
-by Mr. Westmoreland's father, and inherited by himself ere the first
-gloss was off the furniture; there was nothing to do to that but to
-arrange the chairs and sofas, and scatter Eleanor's wedding presents
-over the tables. There was nothing more _possible_. It was "hopeless,"
-Mrs. Duff-Scott said, surveying the bright and shining rooms through
-her double eye-glass. Unless it were entirely cleared out, and you
-started afresh from the beginning, she would defy you to make anything
-of it. So, as the bridegroom was particularly proud of his furniture,
-which was both new and costly, and would have scouted with indignation
-any suggestion of replacing it, Mrs. Duff-Scott abandoned Eleanor
-æsthetically to her fate. There was nothing to wait for, so the pair
-were made one with great pomp and ceremony not long after their return
-to Australia. Eleanor had the grandest wedding of them all, and really
-did wear "woven dew" on the occasion--with any quantity of lace about
-it of extravagant delicacy and preciousness. And now she has settled
-herself in her great, gay-coloured, handsome house, and is already
-a very fashionable and much-admired and much-sought-after lady--so
-overwhelmed with her social engagements and responsibilities sometimes
-that she says she doesn't know what she should do if she hadn't Patty's
-quiet little house to slip into now and then. But she enjoys it. And
-she enjoys leading her infatuated husband about with her, like a tame
-bear on a string, to show people how very, very infatuated he is. It is
-her idea of married happiness--at present.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER LII.
-
-
-CONCLUSION.
-
-
-While Mrs. Westmoreland thus disports herself in the gay world, Mrs.
-Brion pursues her less brilliant career in much peace and quietness.
-When she and Paul came back to Australia, a bride and bridegroom, free
-to follow their own devices unhampered by any necessity to consider the
-feelings of relatives and friends, nothing would satisfy her but to go
-straight from the ship to Mrs. M'Intyre's, and there temporarily abide
-in those tobacco-perfumed rooms which had once been such forbidden
-ground to her. She scoffed at the Oriental; she turned up her nose at
-the Esplanade; she would not hear of any suites of apartments, no
-matter how superior they might be. Her idea of perfect luxury was to
-go and live as Paul had lived, to find out all the little details of
-his old solitary life which aforetime she had not dared to inquire
-into, to rummage boldly over his bookshelves and desk and cupboards,
-which once it would have been indelicate for her to so much as look
-at, to revel in the sense that it was improper no longer for her to
-make just as free as she liked with his defunct bachelorhood, the
-existing conditions of which had had so many terrors for her. When Paul
-represented that it was not a fit place for her to go into, she told
-him that there was no place in the world so fit, and begged so hard to
-be taken there, if only for a week or two, that he let her have her
-way. And a very happy time they spent at No. 7, notwithstanding many
-little inconveniences. And even the inconveniences had their charm.
-Then Mrs. Duff-Scott and Eleanor came out, when it was felt to be time
-to say good-bye to these humble circumstances--to leave the flowery
-carpet, now faded and threadbare, the dingy rep suite, and the smirking
-Cenci over the mantelpiece, for the delectation of lodgers to whom
-such things were appropriate; and to select a house and furnish it
-as befitted the occupation of Miss Yelverton that was and her (now)
-distinguished husband.
-
-By good fortune (they did not say it was good fortune, but they thought
-it), the old landlord next door saw fit to die at this particular
-juncture, and No. 6 was advertised to be let. Mr. and Mrs. Brion at
-once pounced upon the opportunity to secure the old house, which,
-it seemed to them, was admirably suited to their present modest
-requirements; and, by the joint exercise of Mrs. Duff-Scott's and
-Patty's own excellent taste, educated in England to the last degree
-of modern perfectibility, the purveyors of art furniture in our
-enlightened city transformed the humble dwelling of less than a dozen
-rooms into a little palace of esoteric delights. Such a subdued,
-harmonious brightness, such a refined simplicity, such an unpretentious
-air of comfort pervades it from top to bottom; and as a study of
-colour, Mrs. Duff-Scott will tell you, it is unique in the Australian
-colonies. It does her good--even her--to go and rest her eyes and her
-soul in the contemplation of it. Paul has the bureau in his study (and
-finds it very useful), and Patty has the piano in her drawing-room,
-its keyboard to a retired corner behind a portière (draped where once
-was a partition of folding doors), and its back, turned outwards,
-covered with a piece of South Kensington needlework. In this cosy nest
-of theirs, where Paul, with a new spur to his energies, works his
-special lever of the great machine that makes the world go on (when
-it would fain be lazy and sit down), doing great things for other men
-if gaining little glory for himself--and where Patty has afternoon
-teas and evenings that gather together whatever genuine exponents
-of intellectual culture may be going about, totally eclipsing the
-attractions of Mrs. Aarons's Fridays to serious workers in the fields
-of art and thought, without in any way dimming the brilliancy of those
-entertainments--the married pair seem likely to lead as happy a life
-as can be looked for in this world of compromises. It will not be
-all cakes and ale, by any means. The very happiest lives are rarely
-surfeited with these, perhaps, unwholesome delicacies, and I doubt if
-theirs will even be amongst the happiest. They are too much alike to be
-the ideal match. Patty is thin-skinned and passionate, too ready to be
-hurt to the heart by the mere little pin-pricks and mosquito bites of
-life; and Paul is proud and crotchety, and, like the great Napoleon,
-given to kick the fire with his boots when he is put out. There will
-be many little gusts of temper, little clouds of misunderstanding,
-disappointments, and bereavements, and sickness of mind and body; but,
-with all this, they will find their lot so blessed, by reason of the
-mutual love and sympathy that, through all vicissitudes, will surely
-grow deeper and stronger every day they live together, that they will
-not know how to conceive a better one. And, after all, that is the most
-one can ask or wish for in this world.
-
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, being thus deprived of all her children, and finding
-china no longer the substantial comfort to her that it used to be,
-has fulfilled her husband's darkest predictions and "gone in" for
-philanthropy. In London she served a short but severe apprenticeship to
-that noble cause which seeks to remove the curse of past ignorance and
-cruelty from those to whom it has come down in hereditary entail--those
-on whose unhappy and degraded lives all the powers of evil held
-mortgages (to quote a thoughtful writer) before ever the deeds were
-put into their hands--and who are now preached at and punished for the
-crimes that, not they, but their tyrants of the past committed. She
-took a lesson in that new political economy which is to the old science
-what the spirit of modern religion is to the ecclesiasticism which
-has been its unwilling mother, and has learned that the rich _are_
-responsible for the poor--that, let these interesting debating clubs
-that call themselves the people's parliaments say what they like, the
-moral of the great social problem is that the selfishness of the past
-must be met by unselfishness in the present, if any of us would hope to
-see good days in the future.
-
-"It will not do," says Mrs. Duff-Scott to her clergyman, who deplores
-the dangerous opinions that she has imbibed, "to leave these matters to
-legislation. Of what use is legislation? Here are a lot of ignorant,
-vain men who know nothing about it, fighting with one another for what
-they can get, and the handful amongst them who are really anxious for
-the public good are left nowhere in the scrimmage. It is _we_ who must
-put our shoulders to the wheel, my dear sir--and the sooner we set
-about it the better. Look at the state of Europe"--she waves her hand
-abroad--"and see what things are coming to! The very heart of those
-countries is being eaten out by the cancer-growths of Nihilism and
-all sorts of dreadful isms, because the poor are getting educated to
-understand _why_ they are so poor. Look at wealthy England, with more
-than a million paupers, and millions and millions that are worse than
-paupers--England is comparatively quiet and orderly under it, and why?
-Because a number of good people like Mr. Yelverton"--the clergyman
-shakes his head at the mention of this wicked sinner's name--"have
-given themselves up to struggle honestly and face to face with the
-evils that nothing but a self-sacrificing and independent philanthropy
-can touch. I believe that if England escapes the explosion of this
-fermenting democracy, which is brewing such a revolution as the world
-has never seen, it will be owing to neither Church nor State--unless
-Church and State both mend their ways considerably--but to the
-self-denying work that is being done outside of them by those who have
-a single-hearted desire to help, to _really_ help, their wronged and
-wretched fellow-creatures."
-
-Thus this energetic woman, in the headlong ardour of her new
-conversion. And (if a woman, ready to admit her disabilities as
-such, may say so) it is surely better to be generous in the cause of
-a possibly mistaken conviction of your own, than to be selfish in
-deference to the opinions of other people, which, though they be the
-product of the combined wisdom of all the legislatures of the world,
-find no response in the instincts of your human heart. At any rate, I
-believe we shall be brought to think so some day--that great Someday
-which looms not far ahead of us, when, as a Cornish proverb puts it,
-if we have not ruled ourselves by the rudder we shall be ruled by
-the rock. And so Mrs. Duff-Scott works, and thinks, and writes and
-(of course) talks, and bothers her husband and her acquaintances for
-the public weal, and leads her clergyman a life that makes him wish
-sometimes that he had chosen a less harassing profession; economising
-her money, and her time, and all she has of this world's goods, that
-she may fulfil her sacred obligations to her fellow-creatures and help
-the fortunate new country in which she lives to keep itself from the
-evil ways that have wrought such trouble and danger to the old ones.
-
-And the man who set her to this good work pursues it himself, not in
-haste or under fitful and feverish impulses of what we call enthusiasm,
-but with refreshed energy and redoubled power, by reason of the great
-"means" that are now at his disposal, the faithful companionship that
-at once lightens and strengthens the labour of his hands and brain,
-and the deep passion of love for wife and home which keeps his heart
-warm with vital benevolence for all the world. Mr. Yelverton has
-not become more orthodox since his marriage; but that was not to be
-expected. In these days orthodoxy and goodness are not synonymous
-terms. It is doubtful, indeed, if orthodoxy has not rather become the
-synonym for the opposite of goodness, in the eyes of those who judge
-trees by their fruits and whose ideal of goodness is to love one's
-neighbour as one's self. While it is patent to the candid observer
-that the men who have studied the new book of Genesis which latter-day
-science has written for us, and have known that Exodus from the land of
-bondage which is the inevitable result of such study, conscientiously
-pursued, are, as a rule, distinguished by a large-minded justice and
-charity, sympathy and self-abnegation, a regard for the sacred ties
-of brotherhood binding man with man, which, being incompatible with
-the petty meannesses and cruelties so largely practised in sectarian
-circles, make their unostentatious influence to be felt like sweet and
-wholesome leaven all around them. Such a man is Elizabeth's husband,
-and as time goes on she ceases to wish for any change in him save that
-which means progression in his self-determined course. It was not
-lightly that he flew in the face of the religious traditions of his
-youth; rather did he crawl heavily and unwillingly away from them, in
-irresistible obedience to a conscience so sensitive and well-balanced
-that it ever pointed in the direction of the truth, like the magnetic
-needle to the pole, and in which he dared to trust absolutely, no
-matter how dark the outlook seemed. And now that, after much search,
-he has found his way, as far as he may hope to find it in this world,
-he is too intently concerned to discover what may be ahead of him,
-and in store for those who will follow him, to trouble himself and
-others with irrelevant trifles--to indulge in spites and jealousies,
-in ambitions that lead nowhere, in quarrels and controversies about
-nothing--to waste his precious strength and faculties in the child's
-play that with so many of us is the occupation of life, and like other
-child's play, full of pinches and scratches and selfish squabbling
-over trumpery toys. To one who has learned that "the hope of nature is
-in man," and something of what great nature is, and what man should
-be, there no longer exists much temptation to envy, hatred, malice,
-and uncharitableness, or any other of the vulgar vices of predatory
-humanity, not yet cured of its self-seeking propensities. He is
-educated above that level. His recognition of the brotherhood of men,
-and their common interests and high destiny, makes him feel for others
-in their differences with him, and patient and forbearing with those
-whose privileges have been fewer and whose light is less than his. He
-takes so wide an outlook over life that the little features of the
-foreground, which loom so large to those who cannot or will not look
-beyond them, are dwarfed to insignificance; or, rather, he can fix
-their just relation to the general design in human affairs, and so
-reads them with their context, as it were, and by the light of truth
-and justice spread abroad in his own heart--thus proving how different
-they are in essential value from what they superficially appear. So
-Mr. Yelverton, despite his constitutional imperiousness, is one of
-the most tolerant, fine-tempered, and generous of men; and he goes on
-his way steadily, bending circumstances to his will, but hurting no
-one in the process--rather lifting up and steadying and strengthening
-those with whom he comes in contact by the contagion of his bold spirit
-and his inflexible and incorruptible honesty; and proving himself in
-private life, as such men mostly do, a faithful exponent and practical
-illustration of all the domestic virtues.
-
-Elizabeth is a happy woman, and she knows it well. It seems to her
-that all the prosperity and comfort that should have been her mother's
-has, like the enormous wealth that she inherits, been accumulating
-at compound interest, through the long years representing the lapsed
-generation, for her sole profit and enjoyment. She strolls often
-through the old plantation, where, in a remote nook, a moss-grown
-column stands to mark the spot where a little twig, a hair's breadth
-lack of space, was enough to destroy one strong life and ruin another,
-and to entail such tremendous consequences upon so many people, living
-and unborn; and she frequently drives to Bradenham Abbey to call on or
-to dine with her step-uncle's wife, and sees the stately environment
-of her mother's girlhood--the "beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish
-leather on the walls," the "long gallery with the painted windows and
-the slippery oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a
-row"--which she contrasts with the bark-roofed cottage on the sea-cliff
-within whose narrow walls that beautiful and beloved woman afterwards
-lived and died. And then she goes home to Yelverton to her husband and
-baby, and asks what she has done to deserve to be so much better off
-than those who went before her?
-
-And yet, perhaps, if all accounts were added up, the sum total of loss
-and profit on those respective investments that we make, or that are
-made for us, of our property in life, would not be found to differ
-so very much, one case with another. We can neither suffer nor enjoy
-beyond a certain point. Elizabeth is rich beyond the dreams of avarice
-in all that to such a woman is precious and desirable, and happy in her
-choice and lot beyond her utmost expectations. Yet not so happy as to
-have nothing to wish for--which we know, as well as Patty, means "too
-happy to last." There is that hunger for her absent sisters, which
-tries in vain to satisfy itself in weekly letters of prodigious length,
-left as a sort of hostage to fortune, a valuable if not altogether
-trustworthy security for the safety of her dearest possessions.
-
-
-THE END.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Miss Kings, by Ada Cambridge
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Three Miss Kings, by Ada Cambridge
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
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-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
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-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Three Miss Kings
-       An Australian Story
-
-Author: Ada Cambridge
-
-Release Date: November 18, 2015 [EBook #50476]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THREE MISS KINGS ***
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-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 475px;">
-<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="475" alt="" />
-</div>
-
-<hr class="r5" />
-<h1>THE THREE MISS KINGS</h1>
-
-<h2>An Australian Story</h2>
-
-
-<h3>BY</h3>
-
-<h2>ADA CAMBRIDGE</h2>
-
-
-<h4>AUTHOR OF MY GUARDIAN</h4>
-
-
-<h5>NEW YORK</h5>
-
-<h5>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</h5>
-
-<h5>1891</h5>
-
-
-
-<hr class="full" />
-<p class="caption">CONTENTS</p>
-
-<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" style="font-size: 0.8em;">
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">A DISTANT VIEW</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">A LONELY EYRIE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">IV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">DEPARTURE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">V.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">PAUL</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">A MORNING WALK</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">IX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">MRS. AARONS</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">X.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">THE FIRST INVITATION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">DISAPPOINTMENT</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">TRIUMPH</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">PATTY IN UNDRESS</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">IN THE WOMB OF FATE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">"WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED"</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">AFTERNOON TEA</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">THE FAIRY GODMOTHER</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHINA <i>v.</i> THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">THE "CUP"</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CROSS PURPOSES</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">MR. YELVERTON'S MISSION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">AN OLD STORY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">OUT IN THE COLD</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">WHAT PAUL COULD NOT KNOW</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">SLIGHTED</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">"WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW-MEN"</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">PATTY CONFESSES</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">THE OLD AND THE NEW</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">IN RETREAT</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right"> XXXIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">THE DRIVE HOME</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">SUSPENSE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">HOW ELIZABETH MADE UP HER MIND</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">INVESTIGATION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">DISCOVERY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">THE TIME FOR ACTION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XXXIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">AN ASSIGNATION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XL.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">MRS. DUFF-SCOTT HAS TO BE RECKONED WITH</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">MR. YELVERTON STATES HIS INTENTIONS</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">HER LORD AND MASTER</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">THE WEDDING DAY</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">IN SILK ATTIRE</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">PATTY CHOOSES HER CAREER</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">A FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOUR</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right"> XLVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">PROBATION</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XLIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">YELVERTON</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">L.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_L">"THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE"</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">LI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_LI">PATIENCE REWARDED</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">LII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_LII">CONCLUSION</a></td></tr>
-</table>
-
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h3>THE THREE MISS KINGS.</h3>
-
-
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A DISTANT VIEW.</h4>
-
-
-<p>On the second of January, in the year 1880, three newly-orphaned
-sisters, finding themselves left to their own devices, with an income
-of exactly one hundred pounds a year a-piece, sat down to consult
-together as to the use they should make of their independence.</p>
-
-<p>The place where they sat was a grassy cliff overlooking a wide bay
-of the Southern Ocean&mdash;a lonely spot, whence no sign of human life
-was visible, except in the sail of a little fishing boat far away.
-The low sun, that blazed at the back of their heads, and threw their
-shadows and the shadow of every blade of grass into relief, touched
-that distant sail and made it shine like bridal satin; while a certain
-island rock, the home of sea-birds, blushed like a rose in the same
-necromantic light. As they sat, they could hear the waves breaking and
-seething on the sands and stones beneath them, but could only see the
-level plain of blue and purple water stretching from the toes of their
-boots to the indistinct horizon. That particular Friday was a terribly
-hot day for the colony, as weather records testify, but in this
-favoured spot it had been merely a little too warm for comfort, and,
-the sea-breeze coming up fresher and stronger as the sun went down, it
-was the perfection of an Australian summer evening at the hour of which
-I am writing.</p>
-
-<p>"What I want," said Patty King (Patty was the middle one), "is to
-make a dash&mdash;a straight-out plunge into the world, Elizabeth&mdash;no
-shilly-shallying and dawdling about, frittering our money away before
-we begin. Suppose we go to London&mdash;we shall have enough to cover our
-travelling expenses, and our income to start fair with&mdash;surely we could
-live anywhere on three hundred a year, in the greatest comfort&mdash;and
-take rooms near the British Museum?&mdash;or in South Kensington?&mdash;or
-suppose we go to one of those intellectual German towns, and study
-music and languages? What do you think, Nell? I am sure we could do it
-easily if we tried."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," said Eleanor, the youngest of the trio, "I don't care so long as
-we go <i>somewhere</i>, and do <i>something</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"What do you think, Elizabeth?" pursued the enterprising Patty, alert
-and earnest. "Life is short, and there is so much for us to see and
-learn&mdash;all these years and years we have been out of it so utterly! Oh,
-I wonder how we have borne it! How <i>have</i> we borne it&mdash;to hear about
-things and never to know or do them, like other people! Let us get
-into the thick of it at once, and recover lost time. Once in Europe,
-everything would be to our hand&mdash;everything would be possible. What do
-you think?"</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," said Elizabeth, with characteristic caution, "I think we are
-too young and ignorant to go so far afield just yet."</p>
-
-<p>"We are all over twenty-one," replied Patty quickly, "and though we
-have lived the lives of hermits, we are not more stupid than other
-people. We can speak French and German, and we are quite sharp enough
-to know when we are being cheated. We should travel in perfect safety,
-finding our way as we went along. And we <i>do</i> know something of those
-places&mdash;of Melbourne we know nothing."</p>
-
-<p>"We should never get to the places mother knew&mdash;the sort of life we
-have heard of. And Mr. Brion and Paul are with us here&mdash;they will tell
-us all we want to know. No, Patty, we must not be reckless. We might
-go to Europe by-and-bye, but for the present let Melbourne content us.
-It will be as much of the world as we shall want to begin with, and
-we ought to get some experience before we spend our money&mdash;the little
-capital we have to spend."</p>
-
-<p>"You don't call two hundred and thirty-five pounds a little, do you?"
-interposed Eleanor. This was the price that a well-to-do storekeeper in
-the neighbouring township had offered them for the little house which
-had been their home since she was born, and to her it seemed a fortune.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, dear, we don't quite know yet whether it is little or much,
-for, you see, we don't know what it costs to live as other people do.
-We must not be reckless, Patty&mdash;we must take care of what we have, for
-we have only ourselves in the wide world to depend on, and this is
-all our fortune. I should think no girls were ever so utterly without
-belongings as we are now," she added, with a little break in her gentle
-voice.</p>
-
-<p>She was half lying on the grass, leaning on her elbow and propping her
-head in her hand. The light behind her was growing momentarily less
-fierce, and the breeze from the quiet ocean more cool and delicious;
-and she had taken off her hat in order to see and breathe in freedom.
-A noble figure she was, tall, strong, perfect in proportion, fine in
-texture, full of natural dignity and grace&mdash;the product of several
-generations of healthy and cultured people, and therefore a truly
-well-bred woman. Her face was a little too grave and thoughtful for
-her years, perhaps&mdash;she was not quite eight-and-twenty&mdash;and it was
-not at all handsome, in the vulgar sense of the word. But a sweeter,
-truer, kinder face, with its wide, firm mouth and its open brows, and
-its candid grey eyes, one could not wish to see. She had smooth brown
-hair of excessive fineness and brightness (a peculiarity of good blood
-shared by all the sisters), and it was closely coiled in a knot of
-braids at the back of her head, without any of those curls and fringes
-about the temples that have since become the prevailing fashion. And
-she was dressed in a very common, loosely-made, black print gown,
-with a little frill of crape at her throat, and a leather belt round
-her by no means slender waist. Her feet were encased in large and
-clumsy boots, and her shapely hands, fine-skinned and muscular, were
-not encased at all, but were brown with constant exposure to sun and
-wind, and the wear and tear of miscellaneous housework. The impetuous
-Patty, who sat bolt upright clasping her knees, was like her, but with
-marked differences. She was smaller and slighter in make, though she
-had the same look of abundant health and vigour. Her figure, though it
-had never worn stays, was more after the pattern of modern womanhood
-than Elizabeth's, and her brilliant little face was exquisite in
-outline, in colour, in all the charms of bright and wholesome youth.
-Patty's eyes were dark and keen, and her lips were delicate and red,
-and her hair had two or three ripples in it, and was the colour of
-a half-ripe chestnut. And altogether, she was a very striking and
-unmistakeably handsome girl. She, too, wore a black print gown, and a
-straw sailor hat, with a black ribbon, tilted back on her bead, and
-the same country-made boots, and the same brown and gloveless hands.
-Eleanor, again, with the general family qualities of physical health
-and refinement, had her own characteristics. She was slim and tall&mdash;as
-slim as Patty, and nearly as tall as Elizabeth, as was shown in her
-attitude as she lay full length on the grass, with her feet on the
-edge of the cliff, and her head on her elder sister's knee. She had a
-pure white skin, and sentimental blue eyes, and lovely yellow hair,
-just tinged with red; and her voice was low and sweet, and her manners
-gentle and graceful, and altogether she was one of the most pleasing
-young women that ever blushed unseen like a wild flower in the savage
-solitudes of the bush. This young person was not in black&mdash;because, she
-said, the weather was too hot for black. She wore an old blue gingham
-that had faded to a faint lavender in course of numerous washings, and
-she had a linen handkerchief loosely tied round her neck, and cotton
-gloves on her hands. She was the only one of the sisters to whom it had
-occurred that, having a good complexion, it was worth while to preserve
-it.</p>
-
-<p>The parents of these three girls had been a mysterious couple, about
-whose circumstances and antecedents people knew just as much as they
-liked to conjecture, and no more. Mr. King had been on the diggings
-in the old days&mdash;that much was a fact, to which he had himself been
-known to testify; but where and what he had been before, and why he
-had lived like a pelican in the wilderness ever since, nobody knew,
-though everybody was at liberty to guess. Years and years ago, he
-came to this lone coast&mdash;a region of hopeless sand and scrub, which
-no squatter or free selector with a grain of sense would look at&mdash;and
-here on a bleak headland he built his rude house, piece by piece, in
-great part with his own hands, and fenced his little paddock, and made
-his little garden; and here he had lived till the other day, a morose
-recluse, who shunned his neighbours as they shunned him, and never was
-known to have either business or pleasure, or commerce of any kind
-with his fellow-men. It was supposed that he had made some money at
-the diggings, for he took up no land (there was none fit to take up,
-indeed, within a dozen miles of him), and he kept no stock&mdash;except a
-few cows and pigs for the larder; and at the same time there was never
-any sign of actual poverty in his little establishment, simple and
-humble as it was. And it was also supposed&mdash;nay, it was confidently
-believed&mdash;that he was not, so to speak, "all there." No man who was not
-"touched" would conduct himself with such preposterous eccentricity as
-that which had marked his long career in their midst&mdash;so the neighbours
-argued, not without a show of reason. But the greatest mystery in
-connection with Mr. King was Mrs. King. He was obviously a gentleman,
-in the conventional sense of the word, but she was, in every sense,
-the most beautiful and accomplished lady that ever was seen, according
-to the judgment of those who knew her&mdash;the women who had nursed her in
-her confinements, and washed and scrubbed for her, and the tradesmen
-of the town to whom she had gone in her little buggy for occasional
-stores, and the doctor and the parson, and the children whom she had
-brought up in such a wonderful manner to be copies (though, it was
-thought, poor ones) of herself. And yet she had borne to live all
-the best years of her life, at once a captive and an exile, on that
-desolate sea-shore&mdash;and had loved that harsh and melancholy man with
-the most faithful and entire devotion&mdash;and had suffered her solitude
-and privations, the lack of everything to which she <i>must</i> have been
-once accustomed, and the fret and trouble of her husband's bitter
-moods&mdash;without a murmur that anybody had ever heard.</p>
-
-<p>Both of them were gone now from the cottage on the cliff where they had
-lived so long together. The idolised mother had been dead for several
-years, and the harsh, and therefore not much loved nor much mourned,
-father had lain but a few weeks in his grave beside her; and they had
-left their children, as Elizabeth described it, more utterly without
-belongings than ever girls were before. It was a curious position
-altogether. As far as they knew, they had no relations, and they had
-never had a friend. Not one of them had left their home for a night
-since Eleanor was born, and not one invited guest had slept there
-during the whole of that period. They had never been to school, or had
-any governess but their mother, or any experience of life and the ways
-of the world save what they gained in their association with her, and
-from the books that she and their father selected for them. According
-to all precedent, they ought to have been dull and rustic and stupid
-(it was supposed that they were, because they dressed themselves so
-badly), but they were only simple and truthful in an extraordinary
-degree. They had no idea what was the "correct thing" in costume or
-manners, and they knew little or nothing of the value of money; but
-they were well and widely read, and highly accomplished in all the
-household arts, from playing the piano to making bread and butter, and
-as full of spiritual and intellectual aspirations as the most advanced
-amongst us.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A LONELY EYRIE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>"Then we will say Melbourne to begin with. Not for a permanence, but
-until we have gained a little more experience," said Patty, with
-something of regret and reluctance in her voice. By this time the sun
-had set and drawn off all the glow and colour from sea and shore. The
-island rock was an enchanted castle no longer, and the sails of the
-fishing-boats had ceased to shine. The girls had been discussing their
-schemes for a couple of hours, and had come to several conclusions.</p>
-
-<p>"I think so, Patty. It would be unwise to hurry ourselves in making
-our choice of a home. We will go to Melbourne and look about us. Paul
-Brion is there. He will see after lodgings for us and put us in the
-way of things generally. That will be a great advantage. And then the
-Exhibition will be coming&mdash;it would be a pity to miss that. And we
-shall feel more as if we belonged to the people here than elsewhere,
-don't you think? They are more likely to be kind to our ignorance and
-help us."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, we don't want anyone to help us."</p>
-
-<p>"Someone must teach us what we don't know, directly or indirectly&mdash;and
-we are not above being taught."</p>
-
-<p>"But," insisted Patty, "there is no reason why we should be beholden
-to anybody. Paul Brion may look for some lodgings for us, if he
-likes&mdash;just a place to sleep in for a night or two&mdash;and tell us where
-we can find a house&mdash;that's all we shall want to ask of him or of
-anybody. We will have a house of our own, won't we?&mdash;so as not to be
-overlooked or interfered with."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, of course!" said Eleanor promptly. "A landlady on the premises is
-not to be thought of for a moment. Whatever we do, we don't want to be
-interfered with, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"No, my dear&mdash;you can't desire to be free from interference&mdash;unpleasant
-interference&mdash;more than I do. Only I don't think we shall be able to be
-so independent as Patty thinks. I fancy, too, that we shall not care to
-be, when we begin to live in the world with other people. It will be so
-charming to have friends!"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh&mdash;friends!" Patty exclaimed, with a little toss of the head. "It is
-too soon to think about friends&mdash;when we have so much else to think
-about! We must have some lessons in Melbourne, Elizabeth. We will go
-to that library every day and read. We will make our stay there a
-preparation for England and Germany and Italy. Oh, Nell, Nell! think of
-seeing the great Alps and the Doge's Palace before we die!"</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" responded Eleanor, drawing a long breath.</p>
-
-<p>They all rose from the grass and stood still an instant, side by side,
-for a last look at the calm ocean which had been the background of
-their simple lives. Each was sensible that it was a solemn moment, in
-view of the changes to come, but not a word was spoken to imply regret.
-Like all the rest of us, they were ungrateful for the good things of
-the present and the past, and were not likely to understand how much
-they loved the sea, that, like the nurse of Rorie Mhor, had lulled them
-to sleep every night since they were born, while the sound of its many
-waters was still in their ears.</p>
-
-<p>"Sam Dunn is out late," said Eleanor, pointing to a dark dot far away,
-that was a glittering sail a little while ago.</p>
-
-<p>"It is a good night for fishing," said Patty.</p>
-
-<p>And then they turned their faces landward, and set forth on their road
-home. Climbing to the top of the cliff on the slope of which they had
-been sitting, they stood upon a wide and desolate heath covered in all
-directions with a short, stiff scrub, full of wonderful wild-flowers
-(even at this barren season of the year), but without a tree of any
-sort; a picturesque desert, but still a desert, though with fertile
-country lying all around it&mdash;as utterly waste as the irreclaimable
-Sahara. Through this the girls wended their way by devious tracks
-amongst the bushes, ankle deep in the loose sand; and then again
-striking the cliff, reached a high point from which they had a distant
-view of human habitations&mdash;a little township, fringing a little bay;
-a lighthouse beyond it, with its little star shining steadily through
-the twilight; a little pier, running like a black thread through the
-silvery surf; and even a little steamer from Melbourne lying at the
-pier-head, veiling the rock-island, that now frowned like a fortress
-behind it, in a thin film of grey smoke from its invisible little
-funnels. But they did not go anywhere near these haunts of their
-fellow-men. Hugging the cliff, which was here of a great height,
-and honeycombed with caves in which the green sea-water rumbled and
-thundered like a great drum in the calm weather, and like a furious
-bombardment in a storm, they followed a slender track worn in the scant
-grass by their own light feet, until they came to a little depression
-in the line of the coast&mdash;a hollow scooped out of the great headland
-as if some Titanic monster of a prehistoric period had risen up out of
-the waves and bitten it&mdash;where, sheltered and hidden on three sides by
-grassy banks, sloping gently upward until they overtopped the chimneys,
-and with all the great plain of the sea outspread beneath the front
-verandah, stood the house which had been, but was to be no more, their
-home.</p>
-
-<p>It was well worth the money that the storekeeper had offered for it. It
-was a really charming house, though people had not been accustomed to
-look at it in that light&mdash;though it was built of roughest weatherboard
-that had never known a paint-brush, and heavily roofed with great
-sheets of bark that were an offence to the provincial eye, accustomed
-to the chaste elegance of corrugated zinc. A strong, and sturdy,
-and genuine little house&mdash;as, indeed, it had to be to hold its own
-against the stormy blasts that buffeted it; mellowed and tanned with
-time and weather, and with all its honest, rugged features softened
-under a tender drapery of hardy English ivy and climbing plants that
-patient skill and care had induced to grow, and even to thrive in
-that unfriendly air. The verandah, supported on squat posts, was a
-continuation of the roof; and that roof, with green leaves curling
-upward over it, was so conspicuously solid, and so widely overspread
-and over-shadowed the low walls, that it was about all that could be
-seen of the house from the ridges of the high land around it. But
-lower down, the windows&mdash;nearly all set in rude but substantial door
-frames&mdash;opened like shy eyes in the shadow of the deep eaves of the
-verandah, like eyes that had expression in them; and the retiring
-walls bore on numerous nails and shelves a miscellaneous but orderly
-collection of bird-cages, flower boxes, boating and fishing apparatus,
-and odds and ends of various kinds, that gave a charming homely
-picturesqueness to the quaint aspect of the place. The comparatively
-spacious verandah, running along the front of the house (which had been
-made all front, as far as possible), was the drawing-room and general
-living room of the family during the greater part of the year. Its
-floor, of unplaned hardwood, dark with age and wear, but as exquisitely
-clean as sweeping and scrubbing could make it, was one of the loveliest
-terraces in the country for the view that it afforded&mdash;so our girls
-will maintain, at any rate, to their dying day. Now that they see it no
-more, they have passionate memories of their beloved bay, seen through
-a frame of rustling leaves from that lofty platform&mdash;how it looked in
-the dawn and sunrise, in the intensely blue noon, in the moonlight
-nights, and when gales and tempests were abroad, and how it sounded
-in the hushed darkness when they woke out of their sleep to listen
-to it&mdash;the rhythmic fall of breaking waves on the rocks below, the
-tremulous boom that filled the air and seemed to shake the foundations
-of the solid earth. They have no wish to get back to their early home
-and their hermit life there now&mdash;they have tasted a new wine that is
-better than the old; but, all the same, they think and say that from
-the lonely eyrie where they were nursed and reared they looked out
-upon such a scene as the wide world would never show them any more.
-In the foreground, immediately below the verandah, a little grass, a
-few sturdy shrubs, and such flowers as could keep their footing in so
-exposed a place, clothed the short slope of the edge of the cliff,
-down the steep face of which a breakneck path zig-zagged to the beach,
-where only a narrow strip of white sand, scarcely more than a couple of
-yards wide, was uncovered when the tide was out. Behind the house was a
-well-kept, if rather sterile, kitchen garden; and higher up the cliff,
-but still partly sheltered in the hollow, a very small farm-yard and
-one barren little paddock.</p>
-
-<p>Through a back gate, by way of the farm-yard and kitchen garden, the
-sisters entered their domain when it was late enough to be called
-night, though the twilight lingered, and were welcomed with effusion
-by an ugly but worthy little terrier which had been bidden to keep
-house, and had faithfully discharged that duty during their absence. As
-they approached the house, a pet opossum sprang from the dairy roof to
-Eleanor's shoulder, and a number of tame magpies woke up with a sleepy
-scuffle and gathered round her. A little monkey-bear came cautiously
-down from the only gum tree that grew on the premises, grunting and
-whimpering, and crawled up Patty's skirts; and any quantity of cats
-and kittens appealed to Elizabeth for recognition. The girls spoke to
-them all by name, as if they had been so many children, cuffed them
-playfully for their forward manners, and ordered them to bed or to
-whatever avocations were proper to the hour. When a match was struck
-and the back-door opened, the opossum took a few flying leaps round
-the kitchen, had his ears boxed, and was flung back again upon the
-dairy roof. The little bear clung whining to his mistress, but was
-also put outside with a firm hand; and the cats and magpies were swept
-over the threshold with a broom. "<i>Brats!</i>" cried Patty with ferocious
-vehemence, as she closed the kitchen door sharply, at the risk of
-cutting off some of their noses; "what <i>are</i> we to do with them? They
-seem as if they <i>knew</i> we were going away, the aggravating little
-wretches. There, there"&mdash;raising the most caressing voice in answer
-to the whine of the monkey-bear&mdash;"don't cry, my pet! Get up your tree,
-darling, and have a nice supper and go to sleep."</p>
-
-<p>Then, having listened for a few seconds at the closed door, she
-followed Elizabeth through the kitchen to the sitting-room, and, while
-her sister lit the lamp, stepped through the French window to sniff
-the salt sea air. For some time the humble members of the family were
-heard prowling disconsolately about the house, but none of them, except
-the terrier, appeared upon the verandah, where the ghost of their evil
-genius still sat in his old armchair with his stick by his side. They
-had been driven thence so often and with such memorable indignities
-that it would never occur to them to go there any more. And so the
-sisters were left in peace. Eleanor busied herself in the kitchen for
-awhile, setting her little batch of bread by the embers of the hearth,
-in view of a hot loaf for their early breakfast, while she sang some
-German ballads to herself with an ear for the refinements of both
-language and music that testified to the thoroughness of her mother's
-culture, and of the methods by which it had been imparted. Patty went
-to the dairy for a jug of milk for supper, which frugal meal was
-otherwise prepared by Elizabeth's hands; and at nine o'clock the trio
-gathered round the sitting-room table to refresh themselves with thick
-slices of bread and jam, and half-an-hour's gossip before they went to
-bed.</p>
-
-<p>A pretty and pathetic picture they made as they sat round that
-table, with the dim light of one kerosene lamp on their strikingly
-fair faces&mdash;alone in the little house that was no longer theirs,
-and in the wide world, but so full of faith and hope in the unknown
-future&mdash;discussing ways and means for getting their furniture
-to Melbourne. That time-honoured furniture, and their immediate
-surroundings generally, made a poor setting for such a group&mdash;a long,
-low, canvas-lined room, papered with prints from the <i>Illustrated
-London News</i> (a pictorial European "history of our own times"), from
-the ceiling to the floor, the floor being without a carpet, and the
-glass doors furnished only with a red baize curtain to draw against
-the sea winds of winter nights. The tables and chairs were of the
-same order of architecture as the house; the old mahogany bureau,
-with its brass mounting and multitudinous internal ramifications, was
-ridiculously out of date and out of fashion (as fashion was understood
-in that part of the world); the ancient chintz sofa, though as easy
-as a feather bed, and of a capacity equal to the accommodation of
-Giant Blunderbore, was obviously home-made and not meant to be
-too closely criticised; and even the piano, which was a modern and
-beautiful instrument in itself, hid its music in a stained deal case
-than which no plain egg of a nightingale could be plainer. And yet this
-odd environment for three beautiful and cultured women had a certain
-dignity and harmoniousness about it&mdash;often lacking in later and more
-luxurious surroundings. It was in tune with those simple lives, and
-with the majestic solitude of the great headland and the sea.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PREPARATIONS FOR FLIGHT.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Melbourne people, when they go to bed, chain up their doors carefully,
-and bar all their windows, lest the casual burglar should molest them.
-Bush people, no more afraid of the night than of the day, are often
-quite unable to tell you whether there is such a thing as an effective
-lock upon the premises. So our girls, in their lonely dwelling on the
-cliff, slept in perfect peace and security, with the wind from the sea
-blowing over their faces through the open door-windows at the foot of
-their little beds. Dan Tucker, the terrier, walked softly to and fro
-over their thresholds at intervals in the course of the night, and kept
-away any stray kitten that had not yet learned its proper place; that
-was all the watch and ward that he or they considered necessary.</p>
-
-<p>At five o'clock in the morning, Elizabeth King, who had a little slip
-of a room to herself, just wide enough to allow the leaves of the
-French window at the end of it to be held back, when open, by buttons
-attached to the side walls, stirred in her sleep, stretched herself,
-yawned, and then springing up into a sitting posture, propped herself
-on her pillows to see the new day begin. It was a sight to see, indeed,
-from that point of view; but it was not often that any of them woke
-from their sound and healthy slumber at this time of the year, until
-the sun was high enough to shoot a level ray into their eyes. At five
-o'clock the surface of the great deep had not begun to shine, but it
-was light enough to see the black posts and eaves of the verandah, and
-the stems and leaves that twined about them, outlined sharply upon the
-dim expanse. Elizabeth's bed had no footrail, and there was no chair
-or dressing-table in the way to impede a clear view of sea and sky.
-As she lay, the line of the horizon was drawn straight across the
-doorway, about three feet above the edge of the verandah floor; and
-there a faint pink streak, with fainter flushes on a bank of clouds
-above it, showed where the sun was about to rise. The waves splashed
-heavily on the beach, and boomed in the great caves of the rocks below;
-the sea-gulls called to each other with their queer little cry, at
-once soft and shrill; and the magpies piped and chattered all around
-the house, and more cocks than could anyhow be accounted for crowed
-a mutual defiance far and near. And yet, oh, how still&mdash;how solemnly
-still&mdash;it was! I am not going to describe that sunrise, though I saw
-one exactly like it only this very morning. I have seen people take out
-their tubes and brushes, and sit down with placid confidence to paint
-sun-kissed hills, and rocks, and seas; and, if you woke them up early
-enough, they would "sketch" the pink and golden fire of this flaming
-dawn without a moment's hesitation. But I know better.</p>
-
-<p>Ere the many-coloured transformation scene had melted in dazzle
-of daylight, Elizabeth was dressing herself by her still open
-window&mdash;throwing long shadows as she moved to and fro about the now
-sun-flooded room. Patty was busy in her dairy churning, with a number
-of her pets round the door, hustling each other to get at the milk
-dish set down for their breakfast&mdash;the magpies tugging at the cats and
-kittens by ears and tail, and the cats and kittens cuffing the magpies
-smartly. Eleanor, singing her German ballads still, was hard at work
-in the kitchen, baking delicate loaves for breakfast, and attending to
-kitchen matters generally. The elder sister's office on this occasion
-was to let out and feed the fowls, to sweep and dust, and to prepare
-the table for their morning meal. Never since they had grown out of
-childhood had they known the sensation of being waited upon by a
-servant, and as yet their system of education had been such that they
-did not know what the word "menial" meant. To be together with no one
-to interfere with them, and independent of everybody but themselves,
-was a habit whose origin was too remote for inquiry, and that had
-become a second nature and a settled theory of life&mdash;a sort of instinct
-of pride and modesty, moreover, though an instinct too natural to be
-aware of its own existence.</p>
-
-<p>When the little loaves were done and the big ones put in the oven,
-Eleanor fetched a towel, donned a broad hat, and, passing out at the
-front of the house, ran lightly down the steep track on the face of
-the cliff to their bath-house on the beach&mdash;a little closet of rough
-slabs built in the rock above high water; whence she presently emerged
-in a scanty flannel garment, with her slender white limbs bare, and
-flung herself like a mermaid into the sea. There were sharks in that
-bay sometimes, and there were devil-fish too (Sam Dunn had spread one
-out, star-wise, on a big boulder close by, and it lay there still,
-with its horrible arms dangling from its hideous bag of a body, to be
-a warning to these venturesome young ladies, who, he fully expected,
-would be "et up" some day like little flies by a spider); but they
-found their safety in the perfect transparency of the water, coming
-in from the great pure ocean to the unsullied rocks, and kept a wary
-watch for danger. While Eleanor was disporting herself, Patty joined
-her, and after Patty, Elizabeth; and one by one they came up, glowing
-and dripping, like&mdash;no, I <i>won't</i> be tempted to make that familiar
-classical comparison&mdash;like nothing better than themselves for artistic
-purposes. As Elizabeth, who was the last to leave the water, walked
-up the short flight of steps to her little dressing closet, straight
-and stately, with her full throat and bust and her nobly shaped limbs,
-she was the very model that sculptors dream of and hunt for (as
-many more might be, if brought up as she had been), but seldom are
-fortunate enough to find. In her gown and leather belt, her beauty of
-figure, of course, was not so obvious: the raiment of civilisation,
-however simple, levelled it from the standard of Greek art to that of
-conventional comparison with other dressed-up women&mdash;by which, it must
-be confessed, she suffered.</p>
-
-<p>Having assumed this raiment, she followed her sisters up the cliff
-path to the house; and there she found them talking volubly with Mrs.
-Dunn, who had brought them, with Sam's best respects, a freshly caught
-schnapper for their breakfast. Mrs. Dunn was their nearest neighbour,
-their only help in domestic emergencies, and of late days their devoted
-and confidential friend. Sam, her husband, had for some years been a
-ministering angel in the back yard, a purveyor of firewood and mutton,
-a killer of pigs, and so on; and he also had taken the orphan girls
-under his protection, so far as he could, since they had been "left."</p>
-
-<p>"Look at this!" cried Eleanor, holding it up&mdash;it took both hands to
-hold it, for it weighed about a dozen pounds; "did you ever see such
-a fish, Elizabeth? Breakfast indeed! Yes, we'll have it to breakfast
-to-day and to-morrow too, and for dinner and tea and supper. Oh, how
-stupid Sam is! Why didn't he send it to market? Why didn't he take it
-down to the steamer? He's not a man of business a bit, Mrs. Dunn&mdash;he'll
-never make his fortune this way. Get the pan for me, Patty, and set the
-fat boiling. We'll fry a bit this very minute, and you shall stay and
-help us to eat it, Mrs. Dunn."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, my dear Miss Nelly&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth, take charge of her, and don't let her go. Don't listen to
-her. We have not seen her for three whole days, and we want her to
-tell us about the furniture. Keep her safe, and Patty and I will have
-breakfast ready in a minute."</p>
-
-<p>And in a short time the slice of schnapper was steaming on the table&mdash;a
-most simply appointed breakfast table, but very clean and dainty in
-its simplicity&mdash;and Mrs. Dunn sat down with her young <i>protégées,</i> and
-sipped her tea and gave them matronly advice, with much enjoyment of
-the situation.</p>
-
-<p>Her advice was excellent, and amounted to this&mdash;"Don't you go for to
-take a stick o' that there furniture out o' the place." They were
-to have an auction, she said; and go to Melbourne with the proceeds
-in their pockets. Hawkins would be glad o' the beds, perhaps, with
-his large family; as Mrs. Hawkins had a lovely suite in green rep,
-she wouldn't look at the rest o' the things, which, though very
-comf'able, no doubt&mdash;very nice indeed, my dears&mdash;were not what <i>ladies
-and gentlemen</i> had in their houses <i>now-a-days</i>. "As for that there
-bureau"&mdash;pointing to it with her teaspoon&mdash;"if you set that up in a
-Melbourne parlour, why, you'd just have all your friends laughing at
-you."</p>
-
-<p>The girls looked around the room with quick eyes, and then looked at
-each other with half-grave and half amused dismay. Patty spoke up with
-her usual promptness.</p>
-
-<p>"It doesn't matter in the least to us what other people like to have
-in their houses," said she. "And that bureau, as it happens, is very
-valuable, Mrs. Dunn: it belonged to one of the governors before we had
-it, and Mr. Brion says there is no such cabinet work in these days. He
-says it was made in France more than a hundred years ago."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, my dear. So you might say that there was no such stuff now-a-days
-as what them old gowns was made of, that your poor ma wore when she was
-a girl. But you wouldn't go for to wear them old gowns now. I daresay
-the bureau was a grand piece o' furniture once, but it's out o' fashion
-now, and when a thing is out o' fashion it isn't worth anything. Sell
-it to Mr. Brion if you can; it would be a fine thing for a lawyer's
-office, with all them little shelves and drawers. He might give you
-a five-pound note for it, as he's a friend like, and you could buy a
-handsome new cedar chiffonnier for that."</p>
-
-<p>"Mrs. Dunn," said Eleanor, rising to replenish the worthy matron's
-plate, with Patty's new butter and her own new bread, "we are not going
-to sell that bureau&mdash;no, not to anybody. It has associations, don't you
-understand?&mdash;and also a set of locks that no burglar could pick if he
-tried ever so. We are not going to sell our bureau&mdash;nor our piano&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, but, my dear Miss Nelly&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"My dear Mrs. Dunn, it cost ninety guineas, I do assure you, only five
-years ago, and it is as modern and fashionable as heart could wish."</p>
-
-<p>"Fashionable! why, it might as well be a cupboard bedstead, in that
-there common wood. Mrs. Hawkins gave only fifty pounds for hers, and it
-is real walnut and carved beautiful."</p>
-
-<p>"We are not going to sell that piano, my dear woman." Though Nelly
-appeared to wait meekly upon her elder sisters' judgment, it often
-happened that she decided a question that was put before them in this
-prompt way. "And I'll tell you for why," she continued playfully. "You
-shut your eyes for five minutes&mdash;wait, I'll tie my handkerchief over
-them"&mdash;and she deftly blindfolded the old woman, whose stout frame
-shook with honest giggles of enjoyment at this manifestation of Miss
-Nelly's fun. "Now," said Nelly, "don't laugh&mdash;don't remember that you
-are here with us, or that there is such a thing as a cupboard bedstead
-in the world. Imagine that you are floating down the Rhine on a
-moonlight night&mdash;no, by the way, imagine that you are in a drawing-room
-in Melbourne, furnished with a lovely green rep suite, and a handsome
-new cedar chiffonnier, and a carved walnut piano&mdash;and that a beautiful,
-fashionable lady, with scent on her pocket-handkerchief, is sitting at
-that piano. And&mdash;and listen for a minute."</p>
-
-<p>Whereupon, lifting her hands from the old woman's shoulders, she
-crossed the room, opened the piano noiselessly, and began to play her
-favourite German airs&mdash;the songs of the people, that seem so much
-sweeter and more pathetic and poetic than the songs of any other
-people&mdash;mixing two or three of them together and rendering them with a
-touch and expression that worked like a spell of enchantment upon them
-all. Elizabeth sat back in her chair and lost herself in the visions
-that appeared to her on the ceiling. Patty spread her arms over the
-table and leaned towards the piano, breathing a soft accompaniment
-of German words in tender, sighing undertones, while her warm pulses
-throbbed and her eyes brightened with the unconscious passion that was
-stirred in her fervent soul. Even the weather-beaten old charwoman fell
-into a reverent attitude as of a devotee in church.</p>
-
-<p>"There," said Eleanor, taking her hands from the keys and shutting up
-the instrument, with a suddenness that made them jump. "Now I ask you,
-Mrs. Dunn, as an honest and truthful woman&mdash;<i>can</i> you say that that is
-a piano to be <i>sold?</i>"</p>
-
-<p>"Beautiful, my dear, beautiful&mdash;it's like being in heaven to hear the
-like o' that," the old woman responded warmly, pulling the bandage
-from her eyes. "But you'd draw music from an old packing case, I
-do believe." And it was found that Mrs. Dunn was unshaken in her
-conviction that pianos were valuable in proportion to their external
-splendour, and their tone sweet and powerful by virtue solely of the
-skill of the fingers that played upon them. If Mr. King had given
-ninety guineas for "that there"&mdash;about which she thought there must be
-some mistake&mdash;she could only conclude that his rural innocence had been
-imposed upon by wily city tradesmen.</p>
-
-<p>"Well," said Nelly, who was now busy collecting the crockery on the
-breakfast table, "we must see if we can't furbish it up, Mrs. Dunn.
-We can paint a landscape on the front, perhaps, and tie some pink
-satin ribbons on the handles. Or we might set it behind a curtain, or
-in a dark corner, where it will be heard and not seen. But keep it
-we must&mdash;both that and the bureau. You would not part with those two
-things, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," said Elizabeth, "it would grieve me to part with anything."</p>
-
-<p>"But I think," said Patty, "Mrs. Dunn may be right about the other
-furniture. What would it cost to take all our things to Melbourne, Mrs.
-Dunn?"</p>
-
-<p>"Twice as much as they are worth, Miss Patty&mdash;three times as much.
-Carriage is awful, whether by sea or land."</p>
-
-<p>"It is a great distance," said Patty, thoughtfully, "and it would be
-very awkward. We cannot take them with us, for we shall want first
-to find a place to put them in, and we could not come back to fetch
-them. I think we had better speak to Mr. Hawkins, Elizabeth, and, if
-he doesn't want them, have a little auction. We must keep some things,
-of course; but I am sure Mr. Hawkins would let them stay till we could
-send for them, or Mr. Brion would house them for us."</p>
-
-<p>"We should feel very free that way, and it would be nice to buy new
-things," said Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"Or we might not have to buy&mdash;we might put this money to the other,"
-said Patty. "We might find that we did not like Melbourne, and then we
-could go to Europe at once without any trouble."</p>
-
-<p>"And take the pianner to Europe along with you?" inquired Mrs. Dunn.
-"And that there bureau?"</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>DEPARTURE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>They decided to sell their furniture&mdash;with the exception of the piano
-and the bureau, and sundry treasures that could bestowed away in the
-latter capacious receptacle; and, on being made acquainted with the
-fact, the obliging Mr. Hawkins offered to take it as it stood for a
-lump sum of £50, and his offer was gratefully accepted. Sam Dunn was
-very wroth over this transaction, for he knew the value of the dairy
-and kitchen utensils and farm-yard appliances, which went to the new
-tenant along with the household furniture that Mrs. Dunn, as a candid
-friend, had disparaged and despised; and he reproached Elizabeth,
-tenderly, but with tears in his eyes, for having allowed herself to
-be "done" by not taking Mr. Brion's advice upon the matter, and shook
-his head over the imminent fate of these three innocent and helpless
-lambs about to fling themselves into the jaws of the commercial
-wolves of Melbourne. Elizabeth told him that she did not like to be
-always teasing Mr. Brion, who had already done all the legal business
-necessary to put them in possession of their little property, and had
-refused to take any fee for his trouble; that, as they had nothing more
-to sell, no buyer could "do" them again; and that, finally, they all
-thought fifty pounds a great deal of money, and were quite satisfied
-with their bargain. But Sam, as a practical man, continued to shake his
-head, and bade her remember him when she was in trouble and in need
-of a faithful friend&mdash;assuring her, with a few strong seafaring oaths
-(which did not shock her in the least, for they were meant to emphasise
-the sincerity of his protestations), that she and her sisters should
-never want, if he knew it, while he had a crust of bread and a breath
-in his body.</p>
-
-<p>And so they began to pack up. And the fuss and confusion of that
-occupation&mdash;which becomes so irksome when the charm of novelty is
-past&mdash;was full of enjoyment for them all. It would have done the
-travel-worn cynic good to see them scampering about the house, as
-lightly as the kittens that frisked after them, carrying armfuls of
-house linen and other precious chattels to and fro, and prattling the
-while of their glorious future like so many school children about to
-pay a first visit to the pantomime. It was almost heartless, Mrs.
-Dunn thought&mdash;dropping in occasionally to see how they were getting
-on&mdash;considering what cause had broken up their home, and that their
-father had been so recently taken from them that she (Mrs. Dunn) could
-not bring herself to walk without hesitation into the house, still
-fancying she should see him sitting in his arm-chair and looking at her
-with those hard, unsmiling eyes, as if to ask her what business she had
-there. But Mr. King had been a harsh father, and this is what harsh
-fathers must expect of children who have never learned how to dissemble
-for the sake of appearances. They reverenced his memory and held it
-dear, but he had left them no associations that could sadden them like
-the sight of their mother's clothes folded away in the long unopened
-drawers of the wardrobe in her room&mdash;the room in which he had slept and
-died only a few weeks ago.</p>
-
-<p>These precious garments, smelling of lavender, camphor, and sandalwood,
-were all taken out and looked at, and tenderly smoothed afresh, and
-laid in a deep drawer of the bureau. There were treasures amongst them
-of a value that the girls had no idea of&mdash;old gowns of faded brocade
-and embroidered muslin, a yellow-white Indian shawl so soft that it
-could be drawn through a wedding ring, yellower lace of still more
-wonderful texture, and fans, and scarfs, and veils, and odds and ends
-of ancient finery, that would have been worth considerably more than
-their weight in gold to a modern art collector. But these reminiscences
-of their mother's far-off girlhood, carefully laid in the bottom of the
-drawer, were of no account to them compared with the half-worn gowns
-of cheap stuff and cotton&mdash;still showing the print of her throat and
-arms&mdash;that were spread so reverently on the top of them; and compared
-with the numerous other memorials of her last days&mdash;her workbox, with
-its unfinished bit of needlework, and scissors and thimble, and tapes
-and cottons, just as she had left it&mdash;her Prayer-Book and Bible&mdash;her
-favourite cup, from which she drank her morning tea&mdash;her shabby velvet
-slippers, her stiff-fingered gardening gloves&mdash;all the relics that her
-children had cherished of the daily, homely life that they had been
-privileged to share with her; the bestowal of which was carried on in
-silence, or with tearful whispers, while all the pets were locked out
-of the room, as if it had been a religious function. When this drawer
-was closed, and they had refreshed their saddened spirits with a long
-walk, they set themselves with light hearts to fill the remainder of
-the many shelves and niches of the bureau with piles of books and
-music, painting materials, collections of wild flowers and shells and
-seaweeds, fragments of silver plate that had lain there always, as
-far as they knew, along with some old miniatures and daguerreotypes
-in rusty leather cases, and old bundles of papers that Mr. Brion had
-warned them to take care of&mdash;and with their own portfolios of sketches
-and little personal treasures of various kinds, their father's watch,
-and stick, and spurs, and spectacles&mdash;and so on, and so on.</p>
-
-<p>After this, they had only to pack up their bed and table linen and
-knives and forks, which were to go with them to Melbourne, and to
-arrange their own scanty wardrobes to the best advantage.</p>
-
-<p>"We shall certainly want some clothes," said Eleanor, surveying their
-united stock of available wearing apparel on Elizabeth's bedroom floor.
-"I propose that we appropriate&mdash;say £5&mdash;no, that might not be enough;
-say £10&mdash;from the furniture money to settle ourselves up each with a
-nice costume&mdash;dress, jacket, and bonnet complete&mdash;so that we may look
-like other people when we get to Melbourne."</p>
-
-<p>"We'll get there first," said Patty, "and see what is worn, and the
-price of things. Our black prints are very nice for everyday, and we
-can wear our brown homespuns as soon as we get away from Mrs. Dunn. She
-said it was disrespectful to poor father's memory to put on anything
-but black when she saw you in your blue gingham, Nelly. Poor old soul!
-one would think we were a set of superstitious heathen pagans. I wonder
-where she got all those queer ideas from?"</p>
-
-<p>"She knows a great deal more than we do, Patty," said wise Elizabeth,
-from her kneeling posture on the floor.</p>
-
-<p>They packed all their clothes into two small but weighty brass-bound
-trunks, leaving out their blue ginghams, their well-worn water-proofs,
-and their black-ribboned sailor hats to travel in. Then they turned
-their attention to the animals, and suffered grievous trouble in their
-efforts to secure a comfortable provision for them after their own
-departure. The monkey-bear, the object of their fondest solicitude,
-was entrusted to Sam Dunn, who swore with picturesque energy that he
-would cherish it as his own child. It was put into a large cage with
-about a bushel of fresh gum leaves, and Sam was adjured to restore
-it to liberty as soon as he had induced it to grow fond of him. Then
-Patty and Eleanor took the long walk to the township to call on Mrs.
-Hawkins, in order to entreat her good offices for the rest of their
-pets. But Mrs. Hawkins seized the precious opportunity that they
-offered her for getting the detailed information, such as only women
-could give, concerning the interior construction and capabilities of
-her newly-acquired residence, and she had no attention to spare for
-anything else. The girls left, after sitting on two green rep chairs
-for nearly an hour, with the depressing knowledge that their house was
-to be painted inside and out, and roofed with zinc, and verandahed with
-green trellis-work; and that there was to be a nice road made to it, so
-that the family could drive to and from their place of business; and
-that it was to have "Sea View Villa" painted on the garden gate posts.
-But whether their pets were to be allowed to roam over the transformed
-premises (supposing they had the heart to do so) was more than they
-could tell. So they had an anxious consultation with Elizabeth, all
-the parties concerned being present, cuddled and fondled on arms and
-knees; and the result was a determination <i>not</i> to leave the precious
-darlings to the tender mercies of the Hawkins family. Sam Dunn was to
-take the opossum in a basket to some place where there were trees,
-a river, and other opossums, and there turn him out to unlearn his
-civilisation and acquire the habits and customs of his unsophisticated
-kinsfolk&mdash;a course of study to which your pet opossum submits himself
-very readily as a rule. The magpies were also to be left to shift for
-themselves, for they were in the habit of consorting with other magpies
-in a desultory manner, and they could "find" themselves in board and
-lodging. But the cats&mdash;O, the poor, dear, confiding old cats! O, the
-sweet little playful kitties!&mdash;the girls were distracted to know what
-to do for <i>them</i>. There were so many of them, and they would never be
-induced to leave the place&mdash;that rocky platform so barren of little
-birds, and those ancient buildings where no mouse had been allowed so
-much as to come into the world for years past. They would not be fed,
-of course, when their mistresses were gone. They would get into the
-dairy and the pantry, and steal Mrs. Hawkins's milk and meat&mdash;and it
-was easy to conjecture what would happen <i>then</i>. Mrs. Hawkins had boys
-moreover&mdash;rough boys who went to the State school, and looked capable
-of all the fiendish atrocities that young animals of their age and sex
-were supposed to delight in. Could they leave their beloved ones to the
-mercy of <i>boys?</i> They consulted Sam Dunn, and Sam's advice was&mdash;&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Never mind. Cats and kittens disappeared. And then only Dan Tucker
-was left. Him, at any rate, they declared they would never part with,
-while he had a breath in his faithful body. He should go with them to
-Melbourne, bless his precious heart!&mdash;-or, if need were, to the ends of
-the earth.</p>
-
-<p>And so, at last, all their preparations were made, and the day came
-when, with unexpected regrets and fears, they walked out of the old
-house which had been their only home into the wide world, where they
-were utter strangers. Sam Dunn came with his wood-cart to carry their
-luggage to the steamer (the conveyance they had selected, in preference
-to coach and railway, because it was cheaper, and they were more
-familiar with it); and then they shut up doors and windows, sobbing as
-they went from room to room; stood on the verandah in front of the sea
-to solemnly kiss each other, and walked quietly down to the township,
-hand in hand, and with the terrier at their heels, to have tea with Mr.
-Brion and his old housekeeper before they went on board.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Late in the evening when the sea was lit up with a young moon, Mr.
-Brion, having given them a great deal of serious advice concerning
-their money and other business affairs, escorted our three girls to
-the little jetty where the steamer that called in once a week lay at
-her moorings, ready to start for Melbourne and intermediate ports
-at five o'clock next morning. The old lawyer was a spare, grave,
-gentlemanly-looking old man, and as much a gentleman as he looked, with
-the kindest heart in the world when you could get at it: a man who
-was esteemed and respected, to use the language of the local paper,
-by all his fellow-townsmen, whether friends or foes. They Anglicised
-his name in speaking it, and they wrote it "Bryan" far more often than
-not, though nothing enraged him more than to have his precious vowels
-tampered with; but they liked him so much that they never cast it up to
-him that he was a Frenchman.</p>
-
-<p>This good old man, chivalrous as any paladin, in his shy and secret
-way, always anxious to hide his generous emotions, as the traditional
-Frenchman is anxious to display them, had done a father's part by
-our young orphans since their own father had left them so strangely
-desolate. Sam Dunn had compassed them with sweet observances, as we
-have seen; but Sam was powerless to unravel the web of difficulties,
-legal and otherwise, in which Mr. King's death had plunged them. Mr.
-Brion had done all this, and a great deal more that nobody knew of,
-to protect the girls and their interests at a critical juncture, and
-to give them a fair and clear start on their own account. And in the
-process of thus serving them he had become very much attached to them
-in his old-fashioned, reticent way; and he did not at all like having
-to let them go away alone in this lonely-looking night.</p>
-
-<p>"But Paul will be there to meet you," he said, for the twentieth time,
-laying his hand over Elizabeth's, which rested on his arm. "You may
-trust to Paul&mdash;as soon as the boat is telegraphed he will come to meet
-you&mdash;he will see to everything that is necessary&mdash;you will have no
-bother at all. And, my dear, remember what I say&mdash;let the boy advise
-you for a little while. Let him take care of you, and imagine it is
-I. You may trust him as absolutely as you trust me, and he will not
-presume upon your confidence, believe me. He is not like the young men
-of the country," added Paul's father, putting a little extra stiffness
-into his upright figure. "No, no&mdash;he is quite different."</p>
-
-<p>"I think you have instructed us so fully, dear Mr. Brion, that we shall
-get along very well without having to trouble Mr. Paul," interposed
-Patty, in her clear, quick way, speaking from a little distance.</p>
-
-<p>The steamer, with her lamps lit, was all in a clatter and bustle,
-taking in passengers and cargo. Sam Dunn was on board, having seen the
-boxes stowed away safely; and he came forward to say good-bye to his
-young ladies before driving his cart home.</p>
-
-<p>"I'll miss ye," said the brawny fisherman, with savage tenderness; "and
-the missus'll miss ye. Darned if we shall know the place with you gone
-out of it. Many's the dark night the light o' your winders has been
-better'n the lighthouse to show me the way home."</p>
-
-<p>He pointed to the great headland lying, it seemed now, so far, far
-off, ghostly as a cloud. And presently he went away; and they could
-hear him, as he drove back along the jetty, cursing his old horse&mdash;to
-which he was as much attached as if it had been a human friend&mdash;with
-blood-curdling ferocity.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion stayed with them until it seemed improper to stay any
-longer&mdash;until all the passengers that were to come on board had housed
-themselves for the night, and all the baggage had been snugly stowed
-away&mdash;and then bade them good-bye, with less outward emotion than Sam
-had displayed, but with almost as keen a pang.</p>
-
-<p>"God bless you, my dears," said he, with paternal solemnity. "Take care
-of yourselves, and let Paul do what he can for you. I will send you
-your money every quarter, and you must keep accounts&mdash;keep accounts
-strictly. And ask Paul what you want to know. Then you will get along
-all right, please God."</p>
-
-<p>"O yes, we shall get along all right," repeated Patty, whose sturdy
-optimism never failed her in the most trying moments.</p>
-
-<p>But when the old man was gone, and they stood on the tiny slip of deck
-that was available to stand on, feeling no necessity to cling to the
-railings as the little vessel heaved up and down in the wash of the
-tide that swirled amongst the piers of the jetty&mdash;when they looked at
-the lights of the town sprinkled round the shore and up the hillsides,
-at their own distant headland, unlighted, except by the white haze of
-the moon, at the now deserted jetty, and the apparently illimitable
-sea&mdash;when they realised for the first time that they were alone in this
-great and unknown world&mdash;even Patty's bold heart was inclined to sink a
-little.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," she said, "we <i>must</i> not cry&mdash;it is absurd. What is there
-to cry for? Now, all the things we have been dreaming and longing for
-are going to happen&mdash;the story is beginning. Let us go to bed and get
-a good sleep before the steamer starts so that we are fresh in the
-morning&mdash;so that we don't lose anything. Come, Nelly, let us see if
-poor Dan is comfortable, and have some supper and go to bed."</p>
-
-<p>They cheered themselves with the sandwiches and the gooseberry wine
-that Mr. Brion's housekeeper had put up for them, paid a visit to Dan,
-who was in charge of an amiable cook (whom the old lawyer had tipped
-handsomely), and then faced the dangers and difficulties of getting
-to bed. Descending the brass-bound staircase to the lower regions,
-they paused, their faces flushed up, and they looked at each other as
-if the scene before them was something unfit for the eyes of modest
-girls. They were shocked, as by some specific impropriety, at the
-noise and confusion, the rough jostling and the impure atmosphere,
-in the morsel of a ladies' cabin, from which the tiny slips of bunks
-prepared for them were divided only by a scanty curtain. This was their
-first contact with the world, so to speak, and they fled from it. To
-spend a night in that suffocating hole, with those loud women their
-fellow passengers, was a too appalling prospect. So Elizabeth went to
-the captain, who knew their story, and admired their faces, and was
-inclined to be very kind to them, and asked his permission to occupy
-a retired corner of the deck. On his seeming to hesitate&mdash;they being
-desperately anxious not to give anybody any trouble&mdash;they assured him
-that the place above all others where they would like to make their bed
-was on the wedge-shaped platform in the bows, where they would be out
-of everybody's way.</p>
-
-<p>"But, my dear young lady, there is no railing there," said the captain,
-laughing at the proposal as a joke.</p>
-
-<p>"A good eight inches&mdash;ten inches," said Elizabeth. "Quite enough for
-anybody in the roughest sea."</p>
-
-<p>"For a sailor perhaps, but not for young ladies who get giddy and
-frightened and seasick. Supposing you tumbled off in the dark, and I
-found you gone when I came to look for you in the morning."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>We</i> tumble off!" cried Eleanor. "We never tumbled off anything
-in our lives. We have lived on the cliffs like the goats and the
-gulls&mdash;nothing makes us giddy. And I don't think anything will make us
-seasick&mdash;or frightened either."</p>
-
-<p>"Certainly not frightened," said Patty.</p>
-
-<p>He let them have their way&mdash;taking a great many (as they thought)
-perfectly unnecessary precautions in fixing up their quarters in case
-of a rough sea&mdash;and himself carried out their old opossum rug and an
-armful of pillows to make their nest comfortable. So, in this quiet
-and breezy bedchamber, roofed over by the moonlit sky, they lay down
-with much satisfaction in each other's arms, unwatched and unmolested,
-as they loved to be, save by the faithful Dan Tucker, who found his
-way to their feet in the course of the night. And the steamer left her
-moorings and worked out of the bay into the open ocean, puffing and
-clattering, and danced up and down over the long waves, and they knew
-nothing about it. In the fresh air, with the familiar voice of the sea
-around them, they slept soundly under the opossum rug until the sun was
-high.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PAUL.</h4>
-
-
-<p>They slept for two nights on the tip of the steamer's nose, and they
-did not roll off. They had a long, delightful day at sea, no more
-troubled with seasickness than were the gulls to which they had
-compared themselves, and full of inquiring interest for each of the
-ports they touched at, and for all the little novelties of a first
-voyage. They became great friends with the captain and crew, and with
-some children who were amongst the passengers (the ladies of the party
-were indisposed to fraternise with them, not being able to reconcile
-themselves to the cut and quality of the faded blue gingham gowns,
-or to those eccentric sleeping arrangements, both of which seemed to
-point to impecuniosity&mdash;which is so closely allied to impropriety, as
-everybody knows). They sat down to their meals in the little cabin with
-wonderful appetites; they walked the deck in the fine salt wind with
-feet that were light and firm, and hearts that were high and hopeful
-and full of courage and enterprise. Altogether, they felt that the
-story was beginning pleasantly, and they were eager to turn over the
-pages.</p>
-
-<p>And then, on the brightest of bright summer mornings, they came to
-Melbourne.</p>
-
-<p>They did not quite know what they had expected to see, but what they
-did see astonished them. The wild things caught in the bush, and
-carried in cages to the Eastern market, could not have felt more
-surprised or dismayed by the novelty of the situation than did these
-intrepid damsels when they found themselves fairly launched into the
-world they were so anxious to know. For a few minutes after their
-arrival they stood together silent, breathless, taking it all in; and
-then Patty&mdash;yes, it <i>was</i> Patty&mdash;exclaimed:</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>where</i> is Paul Brion?"</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion was there, and the words had no sooner escaped her lips
-than he appeared before them. "How do you do, Miss King?" he said, not
-holding out his hand, but taking off his hat with one of his father's
-formal salutations, including them all. "I hope you have had a pleasant
-passage. If you will kindly tell me what luggage you have, I will take
-you to your cab; it is waiting for you just here. Three boxes? All
-right. I will see after them."</p>
-
-<p>He was a small, slight, wiry little man, with decidedly brusque, though
-perfectly polite manners; active and self-possessed, and, in a certain
-way of his own, dignified, notwithstanding his low stature. He was not
-handsome, but he had a keen and clever face&mdash;rather fierce as to the
-eyes and mouth, which latter was adorned with a fierce little moustache
-curling up at the corners&mdash;but pleasant to look at, and one that
-inspired trust.</p>
-
-<p>"He is not a bit like his father," said Patty, following him with
-Eleanor, as he led Elizabeth to the cab. Patty was angry with him for
-overhearing that "Where is Paul Brion?"&mdash;as she was convinced he had
-done&mdash;and her tone was disparaging.</p>
-
-<p>"As the mother duck said of the ugly duckling, if he is not pretty he
-has a good disposition," said Eleanor. "He is like his father in that.
-It was very kind of him to come and help us. A press man must always be
-terribly busy."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't see why we couldn't have managed for ourselves. It is nothing
-but to call a cab," said Patty with irritation.</p>
-
-<p>"And where could we have gone to?" asked her sister, reproachfully.</p>
-
-<p>"For the matter of that, where are we going now? We haven't the least
-idea. I think it was very stupid to leave ourselves in the hands of a
-chance young man whom we have hardly ever seen. We make ourselves look
-like a set of helpless infants&mdash;as if we couldn't do without him."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, we can't," said Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"Nonsense. We don't try. But," added Patty, after a pause, "we must
-begin to try&mdash;we must begin at once."</p>
-
-<p>They arrived at the cab, in which Elizabeth had seated herself, with
-the bewildered Dan in her arms, her sweet, open face all smiles and
-sunshine. Paul Brion held the door open, and, as the younger sisters
-passed him, looked at them intently with searching eyes. This was a
-fresh offence to Patty, at whom he certainly looked most. Impressions
-new and strange were crowding upon her brain this morning thick and
-fast. "Elizabeth," she said, unconscious that her brilliant little
-countenance, with that flush of excitement upon it, was enough to
-fascinate the gaze of the dullest man; "Elizabeth, he looks at us as
-if we were curiosities&mdash;he thinks we are dowdy and countryfied and it
-amuses him."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," interposed Eleanor, who, like Elizabeth, was (as she herself
-expressed it) reeking with contentment, "you could not have seen his
-face if you think that. He was as grave as a judge."</p>
-
-<p>"Then he pities us, Nelly, and that is worse. He thinks we are queer
-outlandish creatures&mdash;<i>frights</i>. So we are. Look at those women on the
-other side of the street, how differently they are dressed! We ought
-not to have come in these old clothes, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"But, my darling, we are travelling, and anything does to travel in.
-We will put on our black frocks when we get home, and we will buy
-ourselves some new ones. Don't trouble about such a trifle <i>now</i>,
-Patty&mdash;it is not like you. Oh, see what a perfect day it is! And think
-of our being in Melbourne at last! I am trying to realise it, but it
-almost stuns me. What a place it is! But Mr. Paul says our lodgings
-are in a quiet, airy street&mdash;not in this noisy part. Ah, here he is!
-And there are the three boxes all safe. Thank you so much," she said
-warmly, looking at the young man of the world, who was some five
-years older than herself, with frankest friendliness, as a benevolent
-grandmamma might have looked at an obliging schoolboy. "You are very
-good&mdash;we are very grateful to you."</p>
-
-<p>"And very sorry to have given you so much trouble," added Patty, with
-the air of a young duchess.</p>
-
-<p>He looked at her quickly, and made a slight bow. He did not say that
-what he had done had been no trouble at all, but a pleasure&mdash;he did not
-say a word, indeed; and his silence made her little heart swell with
-mortification. He turned to Elizabeth, and, resting his hands on the
-door-frame, began to explain the nature of the arrangements that he had
-made for them, with business-like brevity.</p>
-
-<p>"Your lodgings are in Myrtle Street, Miss King. That is in East
-Melbourne, you know&mdash;quite close to the gardens&mdash;quite quiet and
-retired, and yet within a short walk of Collins Street, and handy for
-all the places you want to see. You have two bedrooms and a small
-sitting-room of your own, but take your meals with the other people of
-the house; you won't mind that, I hope&mdash;it made a difference of about
-thirty shillings a week, and it is the most usual arrangement. Of
-course you can alter anything you don't like when you get there. The
-landlady is a Scotchwoman&mdash;I know her very well, and can recommend her
-highly&mdash;I think you will like her."</p>
-
-<p>"But won't you come with us?" interposed Elizabeth, putting out her
-hand. "Come and introduce us to her, and see that the cabman takes us
-to the right place. Or perhaps you are too busy to spare the time?"</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I will call on you this afternoon, if you will permit me&mdash;when
-you have had your lunch and are rested a little. Oh, I know the
-cabman quite well, and can answer for his taking you safely. This is
-your address"&mdash;hastily scribbling it on an envelope he drew from his
-pocket&mdash;"and the landlady is Mrs. M'Intyre. Good morning. I will do
-myself the pleasure of calling on you at four or five o'clock."</p>
-
-<p>He thereupon bowed and departed, and the cab rattled away in an
-opposite direction. Patty deeply resented his not coming with them,
-and wondered and wondered why he had refused. Was he too proud, or too
-shy, or too busy, or too indifferent? Did he feel that it was a trouble
-to him to have to look after them? Poor Paul! He would have liked
-to come, to see them comfortably housed and settled; but the simple
-difficulty was that he was afraid to risk giving them offence by paying
-the cab fare, and would not ride with them, a man in charge of three
-ladies, without paying it. And Patty was not educated to the point of
-appreciating that scruple. His desertion of them in the open street was
-a grievance to her. She could not help thinking of it, though there was
-so much else to think of.</p>
-
-<p>The cab turned into Collins Street and rattled merrily up that busy
-thoroughfare in the bright sunshine. They looked at the brilliant
-shop windows, at the gay crowd streaming up and down the pavements,
-and the fine equipages flashing along the road-way at the Town Hall,
-and the churches, and the statues of Burke and Wills&mdash;and were filled
-with admiration and wonder. Then they turned into quieter roads, and
-there was the Exhibition in its web of airy scaffolding, destined to be
-the theatre of great events, in which they would have their share&mdash;an
-inspiring sight. And they went round a few corners, catching refreshing
-glimpses of green trees and shady alleys, and presently arrived at
-Myrtle Street&mdash;quietest of suburban thoroughfares, with its rows of
-trim little houses, half-a-dozen in a block, each with its tiny patch
-of garden in front of it&mdash;where for the present they were to dwell.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. M'Intyre's maid came out to take the parcels, and the landlady
-herself appeared on the doorstep to welcome the new-comers. They
-whispered to themselves hurriedly, "Oh, she has a nice face!"&mdash;and then
-Patty and Elizabeth addressed themselves to the responsible business of
-settling with the cabman.</p>
-
-<p>"How much have we to pay you?" asked Patty with dignity.</p>
-
-<p>"Twelve shillings, please, miss," the man gaily replied.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked at her energetic sister, who had boasted that they
-were quite sharp enough to know when they were being cheated. Upon
-which Patty, with her feathers up, appealed to the landlady. Mrs.
-M'Intyre said the proper sum due to him was just half what he had
-asked. The cabman said that was for one passenger, and not for three.
-Mrs. M'Intyre then represented that eighteen-pence apiece was as much
-as he could claim for the remaining two, that the luggage was a mere
-nothing, and that if he didn't mind what he was about, &amp;c. So the sum
-was reduced to nine shillings, which Elizabeth paid, looking very grave
-over it, for it was still far beyond what she had reckoned on.</p>
-
-<p>Then they went into the house&mdash;the middle house of a smart little
-terrace, with a few ragged fern trees in the front garden&mdash;and Mrs.
-M'Intyre took them up to their rooms, and showed them drawers and
-cupboards, in a motherly and hospitable manner.</p>
-
-<p>"This is the large bedroom, with the two beds, and the small one opens
-off it; so that you will all be close together," said she, displaying
-the neat chambers, one of which was properly but a dressing-closet;
-and our girls, who knew no luxury but absolute cleanliness, took note
-of the whiteness of the floors and bedclothes, and were more than
-satisfied. "And this is your sitting-room," she proceeded, leading the
-way to an adjoining apartment pleasantly lighted by a French window,
-which opened upon a stone (or, rather, what looked like a stone)
-balcony. It had a little "suite" in green rep like Mrs. Hawkins's, and
-Mrs. Dunn's ideal cedar-wood chiffonnier; it had also a comfortable
-solid table with a crimson cloth, and a print of the ubiquitous Cenci
-over the mantelpiece. The carpet was a bed of blooming roses and
-lilies, the effect of which was much improved by the crumb cloth that
-was nailed all over it. It was a tiny room, but it had a cosy look, and
-the new lodgers agreed at once that it was all that could be desired.
-"And I hope you will be comfortable," concluded the amiable landlady,
-"and let me know whenever you want anything. There's a bathroom down
-that passage, and this is your bell, and those drawers have got keys,
-you see, and lunch will be ready in half-an-hour. The dining-room is
-the first door at the bottom of the stairs, and&mdash;phew! that tobacco
-smoke hangs about the place still, in spite of all my cleaning and
-airing. I never allow smoking in the house, Miss King&mdash;not in the
-general way; but a man who has to be up o' nights writing for the
-newspapers, and never getting his proper sleep, it's hard to grudge him
-the comfort of his pipe&mdash;now isn't it? And I have had no ladies here to
-be annoyed by it&mdash;in general I don't take ladies, for gentlemen are so
-much the most comfortable to do for; and Mr. Brion is so considerate,
-and gives so little trouble&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"What! Is Mr. Paul Brion lodging here?" broke in Patty impetuously,
-with her face aflame.</p>
-
-<p>"Not now," Mrs. M'Intyre replied. "He left me last week. These rooms
-that you have got were his&mdash;he has had them for over three years. He
-wanted you to come here, because he thought you would be comfortable
-with me"&mdash;smiling benignly. "He said a man could put up anywhere."</p>
-
-<p>She left them, presently; and as soon as the girls found themselves
-alone, they hurriedly assured each other that nothing should induce
-them to submit to this. It was not to be thought of for a moment. Paul
-Brion must be made to remove the mountainous obligation that he had put
-them under, and return to his rooms instantly. They would not put so
-much as a pocket handkerchief in the drawers and cupboards until this
-point had been settled with him.</p>
-
-<p>At four o'clock, when they had visited the bathroom, arranged their
-pretty hair afresh, and put on the black print gowns&mdash;when they had had
-a quiet lunch with Mrs. M'Intyre (whose other boarders being gentlemen
-in business, did not appear at the mid-day meal), prattling cheerfully
-with the landlady the while, and thinking that the cold beef and salads
-of Melbourne were the most delicious viands ever tasted&mdash;when they had
-examined their rooms minutely, and tried the sofas and easy-chairs, and
-stood for a long while on the balcony looking at the other houses in
-the quiet street&mdash;at four o'clock Paul Brion came; and the maid brought
-up his card, while he gossiped with Mrs. M'Intyre in the hall. He had
-no sooner entered the girls' sitting-room than Elizabeth hastened to
-unburden herself. Patty was burning to be the spokeswoman for the
-occasion, but she knew her place, and she remembered the small effect
-she had produced on him in the morning, and proudly held aloof. In her
-sweet and graceful way, but with as much gravity and earnestness as if
-it were a matter of life and death, Elizabeth explained her view of the
-situation. "Of course we cannot consent to such an arrangement," she
-said gently; "you must have known we could never consent to allow you
-to turn out of your own rooms to accommodate us. You must please come
-back again, Mr. Brion, and let us go elsewhere. There seem to be plenty
-of other lodgings to be had&mdash;even in this street."</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion's face wore a pleasant smile as he listened. "Oh, thank
-you," he replied lightly. "But I am very comfortable where I am&mdash;quite
-as much so as I was here&mdash;rather more, indeed. For the people at No. 6
-have set up a piano on the other side of that wall"&mdash;pointing to the
-cedar chiffonnier&mdash;"and it bothered me dreadfully when I wanted to
-write. It was the piano drove me out&mdash;not you. Perhaps it will drive
-you out too. It is a horrible nuisance, for it is always out of tune;
-and you know the sort of playing that people indulge in who use pianos
-that are out of tune."</p>
-
-<p>So their little demonstration collapsed. Paul had gone away to please
-himself. "And has left <i>us</i> to endure the agonies of a piano out of
-tune," commented Patty.</p>
-
-<p>As the day wore on, reaction from the mood of excitement and exaltation
-with which it began set in. Their spirits flagged. They felt tired and
-desolate in this new world. The unaccustomed hot dinner in the evening,
-at which they sat for nearly an hour in company with strange men who
-asked them questions, and pressed them to eat what they didn't want,
-was very uncongenial to them. And when, as soon as they could, they
-escaped to their own quarters, their little sitting-room, lighted with
-gas and full of hot upstairs air, struck them with its unsympathetic
-and unhomelike aspect. The next door piano was jingling its music-hall
-ditties faintly on the other side of the wall, and poor Dan, who had
-been banished to the back yard, was yelping so piteously that their
-hearts bled to hear him. "We must get a house of our own at once,
-Elizabeth&mdash;at <i>once</i>," exclaimed Eleanor&mdash;"if only for Dan's sake."</p>
-
-<p>"We will never have pets again&mdash;never!" said Patty, with something like
-an incipient sob in her voice, as she paced restlessly about the room.
-"Then we shall not have to ill-treat them and to part from them." She
-was thinking of her little bear, and the opossum, and the magpies, who
-were worse off than Dan.</p>
-
-<p>And Elizabeth sat down at the table, and took out pencil and note-book
-with a careworn face. She was going to keep accounts strictly, as
-Mr. Brion had advised her, and they not only meant to live within
-their income, as a matter of course, but to save a large part of
-it for future European contingencies. And, totting up the items of
-their expenditure for three days&mdash;cost of passage by steamer, cost of
-provisions on board, cab fare, and the sum paid for a week's board and
-lodging in advance&mdash;she found that they had been living for that period
-at the rate of about a thousand a year.</p>
-
-<p>So that, upon the whole, they were not quite so happy as they had
-expected to be, when they went to bed.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A MORNING WALK.</h4>
-
-
-<p>But they slept well in their strange beds, and by morning all their
-little troubles had disappeared. It was impossible not to suppose
-that the pets "at home" were making themselves happy, seeing how the
-sun shone and the sea breezes blew; and Dan, who had reached years of
-discretion, was evidently disposed to submit himself to circumstances.
-Having a good view of the back yard, they could see him lolling
-luxuriously on the warm asphalte, as if he had been accustomed to be
-chained up, and liked it. Concerning their most pressing anxiety&mdash;the
-rapid manner in which money seemed to melt away, leaving so little to
-show for it&mdash;it was pointed out that at least half the sum expended was
-for a special purpose, and chargeable to the reserve fund and not to
-their regular income, from which at present only five pounds had been
-taken, which was to provide all their living for a week to come.</p>
-
-<p>So they went downstairs in serene and hopeful spirits, and gladdened
-the eyes of the gentlemen boarders who were standing about the
-dining-room, devouring the morning's papers while they waited for
-breakfast. There were three of them, and each placed a chair promptly,
-and each offered handsomely to resign his newspaper. Elizabeth took an
-<i>Argus</i> to see what advertisements there were of houses to let; and
-then Mrs. M'Intyre came in with her coffee-pot and her cheerful face,
-and they sat down to breakfast. Mrs. M'Intyre was that rare exception
-to the rule, a boarding-house keeper who had private means as well as
-the liberal disposition of which the poorest have their share, and so
-her breakfast was a good breakfast. And the presence of strangers at
-table was not so unpleasant to our girls on this occasion as the last.</p>
-
-<p>After breakfast they had a solemn consultation, the result being that
-the forenoon was dedicated to the important business of buying their
-clothes and finding their way to and from the shops.</p>
-
-<p>"For we must have <i>bonnets</i>," said Patty, "and that immediately.
-Bonnets, I perceive, are the essential tokens of respectability. And we
-must never ride in a cab again."</p>
-
-<p>They set off at ten o'clock, escorted by Mrs. M'Intyre, who chanced
-to be going to the city to do some marketing. The landlady, being a
-very fat woman, to whom time was precious, took the omnibus, according
-to custom; but her companions with one consent refused to squander
-unnecessary threepences by accompanying her in that vehicle. They had a
-straight road before them all the way from the corner of Myrtle Street
-to the Fishmarket, where she had business; and there they joined her
-when she had completed her purchases, and she gave them a fair start at
-the foot of Collins Street before she left them.</p>
-
-<p>In Collins Street they spent the morning&mdash;a bewildering, exciting,
-anxious morning&mdash;going from shop to shop, and everywhere finding
-that the sum they had brought to spend was utterly inadequate for
-the purpose to which they had dedicated it. They saw any quantity of
-pretty soft stuffs, that were admirably adapted alike to their taste
-and means, but to get them fashioned into gowns seemed to treble their
-price at once; and, as Patty represented, they must have one, at any
-rate, that was made in the mode before they could feel it safe to
-manufacture for themselves. They ended by choosing&mdash;as a measure of
-comparative safety, for thus only could they know what they were doing,
-as Patty said&mdash;three ready-made costumes that took their fancy, the
-combined cost of which was a few shillings over the ten pounds. They
-were merely morning dresses of black woollen stuff; lady-like, and with
-a captivating style of "the world" about them, but in the lowest class
-of goods of that kind dispensed in those magnificent shops. Of course
-that was the end of their purchases for the day; the selection of
-mantles, bonnets, gloves, boots, and all the other little odds and ends
-on Elizabeth's list was reserved for a future occasion. For the idea of
-buying anything on twenty-four hours' credit was never entertained for
-a moment. To be sure, they did ask about the bonnets, and were shown a
-great number, in spite of their polite anxiety not to give unprofitable
-trouble; and not one that they liked was less than several pounds in
-price. Dismayed and disheartened, they "left it" (Patty's suggestion
-again); and they gave the rest of their morning to the dressmaker, who
-undertook to remodel the bodices of the new gowns and make them fit
-properly. This fitting was not altogether a satisfactory business,
-either; for the dressmaker insisted that a well-shaped corset was
-indispensable&mdash;especially in these days, when fit was everything&mdash;and
-they had no corsets and did not wish for any. She was, however, a
-dressmaker of decision and resource, and she sent her assistant for a
-bundle of corsets, in which she encased her helpless victims before she
-would begin the ripping and snipping and pulling and pinning process.
-When they saw their figures in the glass, with their fashionable tight
-skirts and unwrinkled waists, they did not know themselves; and I am
-afraid that Patty and Eleanor, at any rate, were disposed to regard
-corsets favourably and to make light of the discomfort they were
-sensibly conscious of in wearing them. Elizabeth, whose natural shape
-was so beautiful&mdash;albeit she is destined, if the truth must be told, to
-be immensely stout and heavy some day&mdash;was not seduced by this specious
-appearance. She ordered the dressmaker, with a quiet peremptoriness
-that would have become a carriage customer, to make the waists of the
-three gowns "free" and to leave the turnings on; and she took off the
-borrowed corset, and drew a long breath, inwardly determining never to
-wear such a thing again, even to have a dress fitted&mdash;fashion or no
-fashion.</p>
-
-<p>It was half-past twelve by this time, and at one o'clock Mrs. M'Intyre
-would expect them in to lunch. They wanted to go home by way of those
-green enclosures that Paul Brion had told them of, and of which they
-had had a glimpse yesterday&mdash;which the landlady had assured them was
-the easiest thing possible. They had but to walk right up to the top of
-Collins Street, turn to the right, where they would see a gate leading
-into gardens, pass straight through those gardens, cross a road and
-go straight through other gardens, which would bring them within a
-few steps of Myrtle Street&mdash;a way so plain that they couldn't miss
-it if they tried. Ways always do seem so to people who know them. Our
-three girls were self-reliant young women, and kept their wits about
-them very creditably amid their novel and distracting surroundings.
-Nevertheless they were at some loss with respect to this obvious route.
-Because, in the first place, they didn't know which was the top of
-Collins Street and which the bottom.</p>
-
-<p>"Dear me! we shall be reduced to the ignominious necessity of asking
-our way," exclaimed Eleanor, as they stood forlornly on the pavement,
-jostled by the human tide that flowed up and down. "If only we had Paul
-Brion here."</p>
-
-<p>It was very provoking to Patty, but he <i>was</i> there. Being a small man,
-he did not come into view till he was within a couple of yards of them,
-and that was just in time to overhear this invocation. His ordinarily
-fierce aspect, which she had disrespectfully likened to that of Dan
-when another terrier had insulted him, had for the moment disappeared.
-The little man showed all over him the pleased surprise with which he
-had caught the sound of his own name.</p>
-
-<p>"Have you got so far already?" he exclaimed, speaking in his sharp and
-rapid way, while his little moustache bristled with such a smile as
-they had not thought him capable of. "And&mdash;and can I assist you in any
-way?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth explained their dilemma; upon which he declared he was
-himself going to East Melbourne (whence he had just come, after his
-morning sleep and noontide breakfast), and asked leave to escort them
-thither. "How fortunate we are!" Elizabeth said, turning to walk up the
-street by his side; and Eleanor told him he was like his father in the
-opportuneness of his friendly services. But Patty was silent, and raged
-inwardly.</p>
-
-<p>When they had traversed the length of the street, and were come to the
-open space before the Government offices, where they could fall again
-into one group, she made an effort to get rid of him and the burden of
-obligation that he was heaping upon them.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Brion," she began impetuously, "we know where we are now quite
-well&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think you do," he interrupted her, "seeing that you were never
-here before."</p>
-
-<p>"Our landlady gave us directions&mdash;she made it quite plain to us. There
-is no necessity for you to trouble yourself any further. You were not
-going this way when we met you, but exactly in the opposite direction."</p>
-
-<p>"I am going this way now, at any rate," he said, with decision. "I am
-going to show your sisters their way through the gardens. There are a
-good many paths, and they don't all lead to Myrtle Street."</p>
-
-<p>"But we know the points of the compass&mdash;we have our general
-directions," she insisted angrily, as she followed him helplessly
-through the gates. "We are not quite idiots, though we do come from the
-country."</p>
-
-<p>"Patty," interposed Elizabeth, surprised, "I am glad of Mr. Brion's
-kind help, if you are not."</p>
-
-<p>"Patty," echoed Eleanor in an undertone, "that haughty spirit of yours
-will have a fall some day."</p>
-
-<p>Patty felt that it was having a fall now. "I know it is very kind of
-Mr. Brion," she said tremulously, "but how are we to get on and do for
-ourselves if we are treated like children&mdash;I mean if we allow ourselves
-to hang on to other people? We should make our own way, as others have
-to do. I don't suppose <i>you</i> had anyone to lead you about when <i>you</i>
-first came to Melbourne"&mdash;addressing Paul.</p>
-
-<p>"I was a man," he replied. "It is a man's business to take care of
-himself."</p>
-
-<p>"Of course. And equally it is a woman's business to take care of
-herself&mdash;if she has no man in her family."</p>
-
-<p>"Pardon me. In that case it is the business of all the men with whom
-she comes in contact to take care of her&mdash;each as he can."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, what nonsense! You talk as if we lived in the time of the
-Troubadours&mdash;as if you didn't <i>know</i> that all that stuff about women
-has had its day and been laughed out of existence long ago."</p>
-
-<p>"What stuff?"</p>
-
-<p>"That we are helpless imbeciles&mdash;a sort of angelic wax baby, good
-for nothing but to look pretty. As if we were not made of the same
-substance as you, with brains and hands&mdash;not so strong as yours,
-perhaps, but quite strong enough to rely upon when necessary. Oh!"
-exclaimed Patty, with a fierce gesture, "I do so <i>hate</i> that man's cant
-about women&mdash;I have no patience with it!"</p>
-
-<p>"You must have been severely tried," murmured Paul (he was beginning
-to think the middle Miss King a disagreeable person, and to feel
-vindictive towards her). And Eleanor laughed cruelly, and said, "Oh,
-no, she's got it all out of books."</p>
-
-<p>"A great mistake to go by books," said he, with the air of a father.
-"Experience first&mdash;books afterwards, Miss Patty." And he smiled coolly
-into the girl's flaming face.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>AN INTRODUCTION TO MRS. GRUNDY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Patty and her sisters very nearly had their first quarrel over Paul
-Brion. Patty said he was impertinent and patronising, that he presumed
-upon their friendless position to pay them insulting attentions&mdash;that,
-in short, he was a detestable young man whom she, for one, would have
-nothing more to do with. And she warned Elizabeth, in an hysterical,
-high-pitched voice, never to invite him into their house unless
-she wished to see her (Patty) walk out of it. Elizabeth, supported
-by Eleanor, took up the cudgels in his defence, and assured Patty,
-kindly, but with much firmness, that he had behaved with dignity
-and courtesy under great provocation to do otherwise. They also
-pointed out that he was his father's representative; that it would be
-ungracious and unladylike to reject the little services that it was
-certainly a pleasure to him to render, and unworthy of them to assume
-an independence that at present they were unable to support. Which was
-coming as near to "words" as was possible for them to come, and much
-nearer than any of them desired. Patty burst into tears at last, which
-was the signal for everything in the shape of discord and division to
-vanish. Her sisters kissed and fondled her, and assured her that they
-sympathised with her anxiety to be under obligations to nobody from the
-bottom of their hearts; and Patty owned that she had been captious and
-unreasonable, and consented to forgive her enemy for what he hadn't
-done and to be civil to him in future.</p>
-
-<p>And, as the days wore on, even she grew to be thankful for Paul Brion,
-though, of course, she would never own to it. Their troubles were many
-and various, and their helpless ignorance more profound and humiliating
-than they could have believed possible. I will not weary the reader
-by tracing the details of the process by which they became acquainted
-with the mode and cost of living "as other people do," and with the
-ways of the world in general; it would be too long a story. How Patty
-discovered that the cleverest fingers cannot copy a London bonnet
-without some previous knowledge of the science of millinery; how she
-and her sisters, after supplying themselves grudgingly with the mere
-necessaries of a modern outfit, found that the remainder of their
-"furniture money," to the last pound note, was spent; how, after weary
-trampings to and fro in search of a habitable house in a wholesome
-neighbourhood, they learned the ruinous rates of rent and taxes and
-(after much shopping and many consultations with Mrs. M'Intyre) the
-alarming prices of furniture and provisions; how they were driven to
-admit, in spite of Patty, that that landlady on the premises, whom
-Eleanor had declared was not to be thought of, might be a necessary
-safeguard against worse evils; and how they were brought to ask each
-other, in surprise and dismay, "Is it possible that we are poor people
-after all, and not rich, as we supposed?"&mdash;all these things can be
-better imagined than described. Suffice it to say, they passed through
-much tribulation and many bitter and humbling experiences during the
-early months of their sojourn in Melbourne; but when at last they
-reached a comparatively safe haven, and found themselves once more
-secure under their own control, able to regulate their needs and
-their expenditure, and generally to understand the conditions and
-possibilities of their position, Elizabeth and Eleanor made a solemn
-declaration that they were indebted for this happy issue to the good
-offices and faithful friendship of Paul Brion alone, and Patty&mdash;though
-she turned up her nose and said "Pooh!"&mdash;though she hated to be
-indebted to him, or to anybody&mdash;agreed with them.</p>
-
-<p>They settled down to their housekeeping by very slow degrees. For
-some time they stayed with Mrs. M'Intyre, because there really seemed
-nothing else to do that was at all within their means; and from
-this base of operations they made all those expeditions of inquiry
-into city habits and customs, commercial and domestic, which were
-such conspicuous and ignominious failures. As the sense of their
-helplessness grew upon them, they grudgingly admitted the young man
-(who was always at hand, and yet never intruded upon or pestered
-them) to their counsels, and accepted, without seeming to accept, his
-advice; and the more they condescended in this way the better they
-got on. Gradually they fell into the habit of depending on him, by
-tacit consent&mdash;which was the more easy to do because, as his father
-had promised, he did not presume upon their confidence in him. He was
-sharp and brusque, and even inclined to domineer&mdash;to be impertinent, as
-Patty called it&mdash;when they did submit their affairs to his judgment;
-but not the smallest suspicion of an unauthorised motive for his
-evident devotion to their interests appeared in his face, or voice, or
-manner, which were those of the man of business, slightly suggesting
-occasionally the imperious and impartial "nearest male relative."
-They grew to trust him&mdash;for his father's sake, they said, but there
-was nothing vicarious about it; and that they had the rare fortune
-to be justified in doing so, under such unlikely circumstances, made
-up to them for whatever ill luck they might otherwise have seemed to
-encounter in these days. It was he who finally found them their home,
-after their many futile searches&mdash;half a house in their own street and
-terrace, vacated by the marriage and departure to another colony of the
-lady who played the piano that was out of tune. No. 6, it appeared,
-had been divided into flats; the ground floor was occupied by the
-proprietor, his wife, and servant; and the upper, which had a gas stove
-and other kitchen appliances in a back room, was let unfurnished for
-£60 a year. Paul, always poking about in quest of opportunities, heard
-of this one and pounced upon it. He made immediate inquiries into the
-character and antecedents of the landlord of No. 6, the state of the
-drains and chimneys, and paint and paper, of the house; and, having
-satisfied himself that it was as nearly being what our girls wanted
-as anything they would be likely to find, called upon Elizabeth, and
-advised her to secure it forthwith. The sisters were just then adding
-up their accounts&mdash;taking stock of their affairs generally&mdash;and coming
-to desperate resolutions that something must be done; so the suggested
-arrangement, which would deliver them from bondage and from many of
-their worst difficulties, had quite a providential opportuneness about
-it. They took the rooms at once&mdash;four small rooms, including the
-improvised kitchen&mdash;and went into them, in defiance of Mrs. M'Intyre's
-protestations, before they had so much as a bedstead to sleep upon;
-and once more they were happy in the consciousness that they had
-recovered possession of themselves, and could call their souls their
-own. Slowly, bit by bit, the furniture came in&mdash;the barest necessaries
-first, and then odds and ends of comfort and prettiness (not a few
-of them discovered by Paul Brion in out-of-the-way places, where he
-"happened" to be), until the new little home grew to look as homelike
-as the old one. They sent for the bureau and the piano, which went
-a long way towards furnishing the sitting-room; and they bought a
-comfortable second-hand table and some capacious, cheap, wickerwork
-chairs; and they laid a square of matting on the floor, and made some
-chintz curtains for the window, and turned a deal packing-case into
-an ottoman, and another into a set of shelves for their books; and
-over all these little arrangements threw such an air of taste, such
-a complexion of spotless cleanliness and fastidious neatness, as are
-only seen in the homes of "nice" women, that it takes nice people to
-understand the charm of.</p>
-
-<p>One day, when their preparations for regular domestic life were fairly
-completed, Patty, tired after a long spell of amateur carpentering,
-sat down to the piano to rest and refresh herself. The piano had
-been tuned on its arrival in Melbourne; and the man who tuned it had
-stared at her when she told him that it had been made to her mother's
-order, and showed him the famous name above the key-board. He would
-have stared still more had he heard what kind of magic life she could
-summon into the exquisite mechanism boxed up in that poor-looking
-deal case. All the sisters were musicians, strange to say; taught by
-their mother in the noble and simple spirit of the German school, and
-inheriting from her the sensitive ear and heart to understand the
-dignity and mystery, if not the message (which nobody understands) of
-that wonderful language which begins where words leave off. To "play
-the piano" was no mere conventional drawing-room performance with them,
-as they themselves were no conventional drawing-room misses; a "piece"
-of the ordinary pattern would have shocked their sense of art and
-harmony almost as much as it might have shocked Mozart and Mendelssohn,
-and Schubert and Schumann, and the other great masters whose pupils
-they were; while to talk and laugh, either when playing or listening,
-would have been to them like talking and laughing over their prayers.
-But, of the three, Patty was the most truly musical, in the serious
-meaning of the word, inasmuch as her temperament was warmer than those
-of her sisters, her imagination more vivid, her senses generally more
-susceptible to delicate impressions than theirs. The "spirits of the
-air" had all their supernatural power over her receptive and responsive
-soul, and she thrilled like an Æolian harp to the west wind under the
-spell of those emotions that have no name or shape, and for which no
-imagery supplies a comparison, which belong to the ideal world, into
-which those magic spirits summon us, and where the sacred hours of our
-lives&mdash;the sweetest, the saddest, the happiest&mdash;are spent.</p>
-
-<p>To-day she sat down, suddenly prompted by the feeling that she was
-fagged and tired, and began to play mechanically a favourite Beethoven
-sonata; but in five minutes she had played her nerves to rest, and was
-as steeped in dreams as the great master himself must have been when
-he conceived the tender passages that only his spiritual ears could
-hear. Eleanor, who had been sewing industriously, by degrees let her
-fingers falter and her work fall into her lap; and Elizabeth, who had
-been arranging the books in the new book-shelves, presently put down
-her duster to come and stand behind the music-stool, and laid her
-large, cool hands on Patty's head. None of them spoke for some time,
-reverencing the Presence in their quiet room; but the touch of her
-sister's palms upon her hair brought the young musician out of her
-abstractions to a sense of her immediate surroundings again. She laid
-her head back on Elizabeth's breast and drew a long sigh, and left off
-playing. The gesture said, as plainly as words could have said it, that
-she was relieved and revived&mdash;that the spirit of peace and charity had
-descended upon her.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," she said presently, still keeping her seat on the
-music-stool, and stroking her cheek with one of her sister's hands
-while she held the other round her neck, "I begin to think that Paul
-Brion has been a very good friend to us. Don't you?"</p>
-
-<p>"I am not beginning," replied Elizabeth. "I have thought it every
-day since we have known him. And I have wondered often how you could
-dislike him so much."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't dislike him," said Patty, quite amiably.</p>
-
-<p>"I have taken particular notice," remarked Eleanor from the hearthrug,
-"and it is exactly three weeks since you spoke to him, and three weeks
-and five days since you shook hands."</p>
-
-<p>Patty smiled, not changing her position or ceasing to caress her cheek
-with Elizabeth's hand. "Well," she said, "don't you think it would be
-a graceful thing to ask him to come and have tea with us some night?
-We have made our room pretty"&mdash;looking round with contentment&mdash;"and
-we have all we want now. We might get our silver things out of the
-bureau, and make a couple of little dishes, and put some candles about,
-and buy a bunch of flowers&mdash;for once&mdash;what do you say, Nelly? He has
-<i>never</i> been here since we came in&mdash;never farther than the downstairs
-passage&mdash;and wouldn't it be pleasant to have a little house warming,
-and show him our things, and give him some music, and&mdash;and try to make
-him enjoy himself? It would be some return for what he has done for
-us, and his father would be pleased."</p>
-
-<p>That she should make the proposition&mdash;she who, from the first, had not
-only never "got on" with him, but had seemed to regard him with active
-dislike&mdash;surprised both her sisters not a little; but the proposition
-itself appeared to them, as to her, to have every good reason to
-recommend it. They thought it a most happy idea, and adopted it with
-enthusiasm. That very evening they made their plans. They designed the
-simple decorations for their little room, and the appropriate dishes
-for their modest feast. And, when these details had been settled, they
-remembered that on the following night no Parliament would be sitting,
-which meant that Paul would probably come home early (they knew his
-times of coming and going, for he was back at his old quarters now,
-having returned in consequence of the departure of the discordant
-piano, and to oblige Mrs. M'Intyre, he said); and that decided them to
-send him his invitation at once. Patty, while her complaisant mood was
-on her, wrote it herself before she went to bed, and gave it over the
-garden railing to Mrs. M'Intyre's maid.</p>
-
-<p>In the morning, as they were asking which of them should go to town to
-fetch certain materials for their little <i>fête</i>, they heard the door
-bang and the gate rattle at No. 7, and a quick step that they knew. And
-the slavey of No. 6 came upstairs with Paul Brion's answer, which he
-had left as he passed on his way to his office. The note was addressed
-to "Miss King," whose amanuensis Patty had carefully explained herself
-to be when writing her invitation.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>"<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">MY DEAR MISS KING</span>,&mdash;You are indeed very kind, but I fear
-I must deny myself the pleasure you propose&mdash;than which, I
-assure you, I could have none greater. If you will allow
-me, I will come in some day with Mrs. M'Intyre, who is very
-anxious to see your new menage. And when I come, I hope you
-will let me hear that new piano, which is such an amazing
-contrast to the old one.&mdash;Believe me, yours very truly,</p>
-
-<p style="font-size: 0.8em; margin-left: 70%;">"PAUL BRION."</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>This was Paul Brion's note. When the girls had read it, they stood
-still and looked at each other in a long, dead silence. Eleanor was
-the first to speak. Half laughing, but with her delicate face dyed in
-blushes, she whispered under her breath, "Oh&mdash;oh, don't you see what he
-means?"</p>
-
-<p>"He is quite right&mdash;we must thank him," said Elizabeth, gentle as ever,
-but grave and proud. "We ought not to have wanted it&mdash;that is all I am
-sorry for."</p>
-
-<p>But Patty stood in the middle of the room, white to the lips, and
-beside herself with passion. "That we should have made such a
-mistake!&mdash;and for <i>him</i> to rebuke us!" she cried, as if it were more
-than she could bear. "That <i>I</i> should have been the one to write that
-letter! Elizabeth, I suppose he is not to blame&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"No, my dear&mdash;quite the contrary."</p>
-
-<p>"But, all the same, I will never forgive him," said poor Patty in the
-bitterness of her soul.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>MRS. AARONS.</h4>
-
-
-<p>There was no room for doubt as to what Paul Brion had meant. When
-the evening of the next day came&mdash;on which there was no Parliament
-sitting&mdash;he returned to No. 7 to dinner, and after dinner it was
-apparent that neither professional nor other engagements would have
-prevented him from enjoying the society of his fair neighbours if he
-had had a mind for it. His sitting-room opened upon the balcony&mdash;so
-did theirs; there was but a thin partition between them, and the girls
-knew not only when he was at home, but to a great extent what he was
-doing, by the presence and pungency of the odour from his pipe. When
-only faint whiffs stole into their open window from time to time,
-he was in his room, engaged&mdash;it was supposed&mdash;upon those wonderful
-leading articles which were, to them, the great feature of the paper
-to whose staff he belonged. At such times&mdash;for the houses in Myrtle
-Street were of a very lath-and-plastery order&mdash;they were careful to
-make no noise, and especially not to open their piano, that he might
-pursue his arduous labours undisturbed. But sometimes on these "off"
-nights he sat outside his window or strolled up and down the few feet
-of space allotted to him; and they would hear the rustle of the leaves
-of books on the other side of the partition, and the smell of his pipe
-would be very strong. This indicated that he had come home to rest and
-relax himself; on which occasions, prompted by some subtle feminine
-impulse, they would now and then indulge themselves with some of their
-best music&mdash;tacitly agreeing to select the very finest movements from
-the works of those best-beloved old masters whose majestic chimes rang
-out the dark evening of the eighteenth century and rang in the new age
-of art and liberty whose morning light we see&mdash;so as not to suggest,
-except by extreme comparison, the departed lady who played conventional
-rubbish on the instrument that was out of tune. That Paul Brion did not
-know Bach and Spohr, even by name and fame (as he did not), never for
-a moment occurred to them. How were they to know that the science and
-literature of music, in which they had been so well instructed, were
-not the usual study of educated people? They heard that he ceased to
-walk up and down his enclosure when they began to play and sing, and
-they smelt that his pipe was as near their window as it could get until
-they left off. That was enough.</p>
-
-<p>To-night, then, he was strolling and sitting about his section of the
-balcony. They heard him tramping to and fro for a full hour after
-dinner, in a fidgetty manner; and then they heard him drag a chair
-through his window, and sit down on it heavily. It occurred to them
-all that he was doing nothing&mdash;except, perhaps, waiting for a chance
-to see and speak to them. A little intercourse had taken place of late
-in this way&mdash;a very little. One night, when Elizabeth had gone out
-to remonstrate with Dan for barking at inoffensive dogs that went by
-in the street below, Paul, who had been leaning meditatively on his
-balustrade, bent his head a little forward to ask her if she found the
-smell of his tobacco unpleasant. She assured him that none of them
-minded it at all, and remarked that the weather was warm. Upon which
-he replied that the thermometer was so and so, and suggested that she
-must miss the sea breezes very much. She said they missed them very
-much indeed, and inquired if he had heard from his father lately, and
-whether he was well. He was glad to inform her that his father, from
-whom he had just heard, was in excellent health, and further, that
-he had made many inquiries after her and her sisters. She thanked
-Mr. Brion sincerely, and hoped he (Mr. Paul) would give him their
-kindest regards when he wrote again and tell him they were getting on
-admirably. Mr. Paul said he would certainly not forget it. And they
-bade each other a polite good-night. Since then, both Elizabeth and
-Eleanor had had a word to say to him occasionally, when he and they
-simultaneously took the air after the day was over, and simultaneously
-happened to lean over the balustrade. Patty saw no harm in their doing
-so, but was very careful not to do it herself or to let him suppose
-that she was conscious of his near neighbourhood. She played to him
-sometimes with singular pleasure in her performance, but did not once
-put herself in the way of seeing or speaking to him.</p>
-
-<p>To-night, not only she, but all of them, made a stern though unspoken
-vow that they would never&mdash;that they <i>could</i> never&mdash;so much as say
-good-night to him on the balcony any more. The lesson that he had
-taught them was sinking deeply into their hearts; they would never
-forget it again while they lived. They sat at their needlework in the
-bright gaslight, with the window open and the venetian blind down, and
-listened to the sound of his footstep and the dragging of his chair,
-and clearly realised the certainty that it was not because he was too
-busy that he had refused to spend the evening with them, but because
-he had felt obliged to show them that they had asked him to do a thing
-that was improper. Patty's head was bent down over her sewing; her face
-was flushed, her eyes restless, her quick fingers moving with nervous
-vehemence. Breaking her needle suddenly, she looked up and exclaimed,
-"Why are we sitting here so dull and stupid, all silent, like three
-scolded children? Play something, Nellie. Put away that horrid skirt,
-and play something bright and stirring&mdash;a good rousing march, or
-something of that sort."</p>
-
-<p>"The Bridal March from 'Lohengrin,'" suggested Elizabeth, softly.</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Patty; "something that will brace us up, and not make us
-feel small and humble and sat upon." What she meant was "something that
-will make Paul Brion understand that we don't feel small and humble and
-sat upon."</p>
-
-<p>Eleanor rose, and laid her long fingers on the keyboard. She was not in
-the habit of taking things much to heart herself, and she did not quite
-understand her sister's frame of mind. The spirit of mischief prompted
-her to choose the saddest thing in the way of a march that she could
-recall on the spur of the moment&mdash;that funeral march of Beethoven's
-that Patty had always said was capable of reducing her to dust and
-ashes in her most exuberant moments. She threw the most heartbreaking
-expression that art allowed into the stately solemnity of her always
-perfectly balanced execution, partly because she could never render
-such a theme otherwise than reverently, but chiefly for the playful
-purpose of working upon Patty's feelings. Poor Patty had "kept up"
-and maintained a superficial command of herself until now, but this
-unexpected touch of pathos broke her down completely. She laid her arm
-on the table, and her pretty head upon her arm, and broke into a brief
-but passionate fit of weeping, such as she had never indulged in in
-all her life before. At the sound of the first sob Eleanor jumped up
-from the music-stool, contrite and frightened&mdash;Elizabeth in another
-moment had her darling in her arms; and both sisters were seized with
-the fear that Patty was sickening for some illness, caught, probably,
-in the vitiated atmosphere of city streets, to which she had never been
-accustomed.</p>
-
-<p>In the stillness of the night, Paul Brion, leaning over the balustrade
-of the verandah, and whitening his coat against the partition that
-divided his portion of it from theirs, heard the opening bars of
-the funeral march, the gradually swelling sound and thrill of its
-impassioned harmonies, as of a procession tramping towards him along
-the street, and the sudden lapse into untimely silence. And then
-he heard, very faintly, a low cry and a few hurried sobs, and it
-was as if a lash had struck him. He felt sure that it was Patty who
-had been playing (he thought it must always be Patty who made that
-beautiful music), and Patty who had fallen a victim to the spirit of
-melancholy that she had invoked&mdash;simply because she always <i>did</i> seem
-to him to represent the action of the little drama of the sisters'
-lives, and Elizabeth and Eleanor to be the chorus merely; and he had
-a clear conviction, in the midst of much vague surmise, that he was
-involved in the causes that had made her unhappy. For a little while
-he stood still, fixing his eyes upon a neighbouring street lamp and
-scowling frightfully. He heard the girls' open window go down with a
-sharp rattle, and presently heard it open again hastily to admit Dan,
-who had been left outside. Then he himself went back, on tiptoe, to
-his own apartment, with an expression of more than his usual alert
-determination on his face.</p>
-
-<p>Entering his room, he looked at his watch, shut his window and bolted
-it, walked into the adjoining bedchamber, and there, with the gas
-flaring noisily so as to give him as much light as possible, made a
-rapid toilet, exchanging his loose tweeds for evening dress. In less
-than ten minutes he was down in the hall, with his latch key in his
-pocket, shaking himself hurriedly into a light overcoat; and in less
-than half an hour he was standing at the door of a good-sized and
-rather imposing-looking house in the neighbouring suburb, banging it
-in his peremptory fashion with a particularly loud knocker.</p>
-
-<p>Within this house its mistress was receiving, and she was a friend
-of his, as might have been seen by the manner of their greeting when
-the servant announced him, as also by the expression of certain faces
-amongst the guests when they heard his name&mdash;as they could not well
-help hearing it. "Mr.&mdash;<i>Paul</i>&mdash;BRION," the footman shouted, with three
-distinct and well-accentuated shouts, as if his lady were entertaining
-in the Town Hall. It gave Mrs. Aarons great pleasure when her domestic,
-who was a late acquisition, exercised his functions in this impressive
-manner.</p>
-
-<p>She came sailing across the room in a very long-tailed and brilliant
-gown&mdash;a tall, fair, yellow-haired woman, carefully got up in the best
-style of conventional art (as a lady who had her clothes from Paris
-regardless of expense was bound to be)&mdash;flirting her fan coquettishly,
-and smiling an unmistakeable welcome. She was not young, but she looked
-young, and she was not pretty, but she was full of sprightly confidence
-and self-possession, which answered just as well. Least of all was
-she clever, as the two or three of her circle, who were, unwillingly
-recognised; but she was quick-witted and vivacious, accomplished in
-the art of small talk, and ready to lay down the law upon any subject,
-and somehow cleverness was assumed by herself and her world in general
-to be her most remarkable and distinguishing characteristic. And,
-finally, she had no pretensions to hereditary distinction&mdash;very much
-the contrary, indeed; but her husband was rich (he was standing in a
-retired corner, a long-nosed man with dark eyes rather close together,
-amongst a group of her admirers, admiring her as much as any of
-them), and she had known the social equivalent for money obtainable
-by good management in a community that must necessarily make a table
-of precedence for itself; and she had obtained it. She was a woman
-of fashion in her sphere, and her friends were polite enough to have
-no recollection of her antecedents, and no knowledge of the family
-connections whose existence she found it expedient to ignore. It must
-be said of her that her reputation, subject to the usual attacks of
-scandal-loving gossips who were jealous of her success, was perfectly
-untarnished; she was too cold and self-contained to be subject to the
-dangers that might have beset a less worldly woman in her position (for
-that Mr. Aarons was anything more than the minister to her ambitions
-and conveniences nobody for a moment supposed). Nevertheless, to have
-a little court of male admirers always hanging about her was the chief
-pleasure, and the attracting and retaining of their admiration the
-most absorbing pursuit of her life. Paul Brion was the latest, and at
-present the most interesting, of her victims. He had a good position
-in the press world, and had recently been talked of "in society" in
-connection with a particularly striking paper signed "P. B.," which
-had appeared in the literary columns of his journal. Wherefore, in the
-character of a clever woman, Mrs. Aarons had sought him out and added
-him to the attractions of her <i>salon</i> and the number of sympathetic
-friends. And, in spite of his hawk eyes, and his keen discernment
-generally, our young man had the ordinary man's belief that he stood
-on a pedestal among his rivals, and thought her the kindest and most
-discriminating and most charming of women.</p>
-
-<p>At least he had thought so until this moment. Suddenly, as she came
-across the room to meet him, with her long train rustling over the
-carpet in a queenly manner, and a gracious welcome in her pale blue
-eyes, he found himself looking at her critically&mdash;comparing her
-complacent demeanour with the simple dignity of Elizabeth King, and
-her artificial elegance with the wild-flower grace of Eleanor, who was
-also tall and fair&mdash;and her studied sprightliness with Patty's inspired
-vigour&mdash;and her countenance, that was wont to be so attractive, with
-Patty's beautiful and intellectual face.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" said Mrs. Aarons, shaking hands with him impressively, "you have
-remembered my existence, then, <i>at last!</i> Do you know how many weeks it
-is since you honoured me with your company?&mdash;<i>five</i>. And I wonder you
-can stand there and look me in the face."</p>
-
-<p>He said it had been his misfortune and not his fault&mdash;that he had been
-so immersed in business that he had had no time to indulge in pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't tell me. You don't have business on Friday evenings," said Mrs.
-Aarons promptly.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't I?" retorted Mr. Brion (the fact being that he had spent
-several Friday evenings on his balcony, smoking and listening to his
-neighbours' music, in the most absolute and voluptuous idleness).
-"You ladies don't know what a press-man's life is&mdash;his nose to the
-grindstone at all hours of the night and day."</p>
-
-<p>"Poor man! Well, now you are here, come and sit down and tell me what
-you have been doing."</p>
-
-<p>She took a quick glance round the room, saw that her guests were in a
-fair way to support the general intercourse by voluntary contributions,
-set the piano and a thin-voiced young lady and some "Claribel" ditties
-going, and then retired with Paul to a corner sofa for a chat. She was
-inclined to make much of him after his long absence, and he was in a
-mood to be more effusive than his wont. Nevertheless, the young man
-did not advance, as suspicious observers supposed him to be doing, in
-the good graces of his charming friend&mdash;ready as she was to meet him
-half-way.</p>
-
-<p>"Of course I wanted very much to see you&mdash;it seems an awful time since
-I was here&mdash;but I had another reason for coming to-night," said Paul,
-when they had comfortably settled themselves (he was the descendant
-of countless gentlefolk and she had not even a father that she could
-conveniently call her own, yet was she constrained to blush for his bad
-manners and his brutal deficiency in delicacy and tact). "I want to ask
-a favour of you&mdash;you are always so kind and good&mdash;and I think you will
-not mind doing it. It is not much&mdash;at least to you&mdash;but it would be
-very much to them&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"To whom?" inquired Mrs. Aarons, with a little chill of disappointment
-and disapproval already in her voice and face. This was not what
-she felt she had a right to expect under the present combination of
-circumstances.</p>
-
-<p>"Three girls&mdash;three sisters, who are orphans&mdash;in a kind of way, wards
-of my father's," explained Paul, showing a disposition to stammer
-for the first time. "Their name is King, and they have come to live
-in Melbourne, where they don't know anyone&mdash;not a single friend. I
-thought, perhaps, you would just call in and see them some day&mdash;it
-would be so awfully kind of you, if you would. A little notice from a
-woman like <i>you</i> would be just everything to them."</p>
-
-<p>"Are they nice?&mdash;that is to say, are they the sort of people whom one
-would&mdash;a&mdash;care to be responsible for&mdash;you know what I mean? Are they
-<i>ladies?</i>" inquired Mrs. Aarons, who, by virtue of her own extraction,
-was bound to be select and exclusive in her choice of acquaintances.</p>
-
-<p>"Most certainly," replied Paul, with imprudent warmth. "There can be no
-manner of doubt about that. <i>Born</i> ladies."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't ask what they were born," she said quickly, with a toss of the
-head. "What are they <i>now?</i> Who are their connections? What do they
-live on?"</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion gave a succinct and graphic sketch of the superficial
-history and circumstances of his father's "wards," omitting various
-details that instinct warned him might be accounted "low"&mdash;such, for
-instance, as the fact that the single maidservant of the house they
-lived in was nothing more to them than their medium of communication
-with the front door. He dwelt (like the straightforward blunderer
-that he was) on their personal refinement and their high culture and
-accomplishments, how they studied every day at the Public Library,
-taking their frugal lunch at the pastry-cook's&mdash;how they could talk
-French and German like "natives"&mdash;how they played the piano in a way
-that made all the blood in one's veins tingle&mdash;how, in short, they were
-in all things certain to do honour and credit to whoever would spread
-the wing of the matron and chaperon over them. It seemed to him a very
-interesting story, told by himself, and he was quite convinced that it
-must touch the tender woman's heart beating under that pretty dress
-beside him.</p>
-
-<p>"You are a mother yourself," he said (as indeed she was&mdash;the mother
-of four disappointing little Aaronses, who were <i>all</i> long-nosed and
-narrow-eyed and dark, each successive infant more the image of its
-father than the last), "and so you can understand their position&mdash;you
-know how to feel for them." He thought this an irresistible plea,
-and was unprepared for the dead silence with which it was received.
-Glancing up quickly, he saw that she was by no means in the melting
-mood that he had looked for.</p>
-
-<p>"Of course, if you don't wish it&mdash;if it will be troubling you too
-much&mdash;" he began, with his old fierce abruptness, drawing himself
-together.</p>
-
-<p>"It is not that," said she, looking at her fan. "But now I know why you
-have stayed away for five weeks."</p>
-
-<p>"Why <i>I</i> have stayed away&mdash;oh! I understand. But I told you they were
-living <i>alone</i>, did I not? Therefore I have never been into their
-house&mdash;it is quite impossible for me to have the pleasure of their
-society."</p>
-
-<p>"Then you want me to take them up, so that you can have it here? Is
-that it?"</p>
-
-<p>The little man was looking so ferocious, and his departure from her
-side appeared so imminent, that she changed her tone quickly after
-putting this question. "Never mind," she said, laying her jewelled
-fingers on his coat sleeve for a moment, "I will not be jealous&mdash;at
-least I will try not to be. I will go and call on them to-morrow, and
-as soon as they have called on me I will ask them to one of my Fridays.
-Will that do?"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't wish you for a moment to do what would be at all unpleasant to
-yourself," he said, still in a hurt, blunt tone, but visibly softening.</p>
-
-<p>"It won't be unpleasant to me," she said sentimentally, "if it will
-please you."</p>
-
-<p>And Paul went home at midnight, well satisfied with what he had done,
-believing that a woman so "awfully kind" as Mrs. Aarons would be a
-shield and buckler to those defenceless girls.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE FIRST INVITATION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mrs. Aarons kept her promise, and called upon the Kings on Saturday.
-Mrs. M'Intyre saw her get down at the gate of No. 6, at about four
-o'clock in the afternoon, watched the brougham which had brought her
-trundling slowly up and down the street for half-an-hour, and then saw
-her get into it and drive off; which facts, communicated to Paul Brion,
-gave him the greatest satisfaction.</p>
-
-<p>He did not see his neighbours for several days after. He heard their
-piano, and their footsteps and voices on the verandah; but, whenever
-he essayed to go outside his own room for a breath of fresh air, they
-were sure to retire into theirs immediately, like mice into a hole when
-the cat has frightened them. At last he came across them in an alley of
-the Fitzroy Gardens, as he and they were converging upon Myrtle Street
-from different points. They were all together as usual&mdash;the majestic
-Elizabeth in the middle, with her younger sisters on either side of
-her; and they were walking home from an organ recital in the Town Hall
-to their tea, and a cosy evening over a new book, having spent most
-of the morning at the Public Library, and had their mid-day dinner at
-Gunsler's. As he caught sight of them, he was struck by the change
-in their outward appearance that a few weeks of Melbourne experience
-had brought about, and pleased himself with thinking how much their
-distinguished aspect must have impressed that discerning woman of
-the world, who had so kindly condescended to take them up. They were
-dressed in their new gowns, and bonneted, booted, and gloved, in the
-neatest manner; a little air of the mode pervaded them now, while the
-primitive purity of their taste was still unadulterated. They had never
-looked more charming, more obviously "born ladies" than to-day, as he
-saw them after so long an interval.</p>
-
-<p>The three black figures stood the shock of the unexpected meeting
-with admirable fortitude. They came on towards him with no faltering
-of that free and graceful gait that was so noticeable in a city full
-of starched and whale-boned women, and, as he lifted his hat, bowed
-gravely&mdash;Elizabeth only giving him a dignified smile, and wishing him
-a good evening as she went by. He let them pass him, as they seemed
-to wish to pass him; then he turned sharply and followed them. It was
-a chance he might not get again for months, perhaps, and he could not
-afford to let it slip.</p>
-
-<p>"Miss King," he called in his imperative brusque way; and at the sound
-of his voice Elizabeth looked back and waited for him to join her,
-while her younger sisters, at a sign from Patty, walked on at a brisk
-pace, leaving her in command of the situation. "Miss King," said Paul
-earnestly, "I am so glad to have an opportunity of speaking to you&mdash;I
-have been wanting all the week to see you, that I might thank you for
-your kindness in asking me to tea."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," said Elizabeth, whose face was scarlet, "don't mention it, Mr.
-Brion. We thought of it merely as a&mdash;a little attention&mdash;a sort of
-acknowledgment&mdash;to your father; that it might please him, perhaps,
-for you to see that we had settled ourselves, as he could not do so
-himself."</p>
-
-<p>"It would have pleased <i>me</i>, beyond everything in the world, Miss King.
-Only&mdash;only&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I know. We forgot that it was not quite <i>de rigueur</i>&mdash;or, rather,
-we had not learned about those things. We have been so out of the
-world, you see. We were dreadfully ashamed of ourselves," she added
-candidly, with a little embarrassed laugh, "but you must set it down
-to our ignorance of the laws of propriety, and not suppose that we
-consciously disregarded them."</p>
-
-<p>"The laws of propriety!" repeated Paul hotly, his own face red and
-fierce. "It is Schiller, I think, who says that it is the experience
-of corruption which originated them. I hate to hear you speak of
-impropriety, as if you could even conceive the idea of it!"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, we are not in Arcadia now, and we must behave ourselves
-accordingly," said Elizabeth, who was beginning to feel glad in her
-gentle heart that she had been able to make this explanation. "I think
-we are getting corrupted with wonderful rapidity. We have even been
-<i>called upon</i>, quite as if we were people of fashion and consequence,
-by a lady who was dressed in the most magnificent manner, and who came
-in her carriage. Her name was Aarons&mdash;Mrs. Aarons. She said she had
-heard of of our being here, and thought she would like to make our
-acquaintance."</p>
-
-<p>"Did she?" responded Paul warmly, thinking how nice and delicate it
-was of Mrs. Aarons to respect his anxious wish that his name and
-interposition should not be mentioned, which was certainly more than he
-had expected of her. "And were you all at home when she called?"</p>
-
-<p>"As it happened&mdash;yes. It was on Saturday afternoon, when we are
-generally rather busy."</p>
-
-<p>"And have you returned her call yet?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. We don't mean to return it," said Elizabeth composedly; "we did
-not like her enough to wish to make an acquaintance of her. It is no
-good to put ourselves out, and waste our own time and theirs, for
-people whom we are sure not to care about, and who would not care about
-us, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"But I think you would like her if you knew her, Miss King," pleaded
-Paul, much disturbed by this threatened downfall of his schemes. "I
-am sure&mdash;at least, I have always heard, and I can speak a little from
-personal knowledge&mdash;that she is a particularly nice woman; thoroughly
-kind and amiable, and, at the same time, having a good position
-in society, and a remarkably pleasant house, where you might meet
-interesting people whom you <i>would</i> like. Oh, don't condemn her at
-first sight in that way! First impressions are so seldom to be trusted.
-Go and call, at any rate&mdash;indeed, you know, you ought to do that, if
-only for form's sake."</p>
-
-<p>"For politeness, do you mean? Would it be rude not to return her call?"</p>
-
-<p>"It would be thought so, of course."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, I was not sure&mdash;I will call then. I don't <i>mind</i> calling in the
-least. If she has done us a kindness, it is right to acknowledge it in
-whatever is the proper way. It was my sisters&mdash;especially Patty&mdash;who
-took a dislike to her, and particularly wished not to see her again.
-Patty thought she asked too many questions, and that she came from some
-motive of curiosity to pry into our affairs. She was certainly a little
-impertinent, I thought. But then, perhaps, ladies in 'the world' don't
-look at these things as we have been accustomed to do," added Elizabeth
-humbly.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think they do," said Paul.</p>
-
-<p>By this time they had reached the gate through which Patty and Eleanor
-had passed before them out of the gardens. As they silently emerged
-into the road, they saw the pair flitting along the pavement a
-considerable distance ahead of them, and when they turned the corner
-into Myrtle Street both the slender black figures had disappeared. Paul
-wondered to see himself so irritated by this trifling and inevitable
-circumstance. He felt that it would have done him good to speak to
-Patty, if it were only to quarrel with her.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth bade him good-night when she reached the gate of No. 6, where
-the hall door stood open&mdash;putting her warm, strong hand with motherly
-benevolence into his.</p>
-
-<p>"Good-night, Miss King. I am so glad to have seen you," he responded,
-glaring fiercely at the balcony and the blank window overhead.
-"And&mdash;and you will return that call, won't you?"</p>
-
-<p>"O yes&mdash;of course. We will walk there on Monday, as we come home from
-the Library. We are able to find our way about in Melbourne very well
-now, with the help of the map you were so kind as to give us when we
-first came. I can't tell you how useful that has been."</p>
-
-<p>So, with mutual friendship and goodwill, they parted&mdash;Elizabeth to join
-her sisters upstairs, where one was already setting the tea-kettle to
-boil on the gas stove, and the other spreading a snow-white cloth on
-the sitting-room table&mdash;Paul Brion to get half-an-hour's work and a
-hasty dinner before repairing to the reporters' gallery of "the House."</p>
-
-<p>He did not see them again for a long time, and the first news he heard
-of them was from Mrs. Aarons, whom he chanced to meet when she was
-shopping one fine morning in Collins Street.</p>
-
-<p>"You see, I remembered my promise," she said, when matters of
-more personal moment had been disposed of; "I went to see those
-extraordinary <i>protégées</i> of yours."</p>
-
-<p>"Extraordinary&mdash;how extraordinary?" he inquired stiffly.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I put it to you&mdash;<i>are</i> they not extraordinary?"</p>
-
-<p>He was silent for a few seconds, and the points of his moustache went
-up a little. "Perhaps so&mdash;now you mention it," he said. "Perhaps they
-<i>are</i> unlike the&mdash;the usual girl of the period with whom we are
-familiar. But I hope you were favourably impressed with your visit.
-Were you?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, I wasn't. I will be frank with you&mdash;I wasn't. I never expected to
-find people living in that manner&mdash;and dressing in that manner. It is
-not what I am used to."</p>
-
-<p>"But they are very lady-like&mdash;if I am any judge&mdash;and that is the chief
-thing. Very pretty too. Don't you think so?"</p>
-
-<p>"O <i>dear</i> no! The middle one has rather nice eyes perhaps&mdash;though
-she gives herself great airs, I think, considering her position. And
-the youngest is not bad looking. <i>Miss</i> King is <i>plain</i>, decidedly.
-However, I told you I would do something for them, and I have kept my
-word. They are coming to my next Friday. And I do <i>hope</i>," proceeded
-Mrs. Aarons, with an anxious face, "that they will dress themselves
-respectably for the reputation of my house. Do you know anyone who
-could speak to them about it? Could you give them a hint, do you think?"</p>
-
-<p>"<i>I!</i>&mdash;good gracious! I should like to see myself at it," said Paul,
-grimly. "But I don't think," he added, with a fatuity really pitiable
-in a man of his years and experience, "that there is any danger of
-their not looking nice. They must have had their old frocks on when you
-saw them."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>DISAPPOINTMENT.</h4>
-
-
-<p>How they should dress themselves for Mrs. Aarons's Friday was a
-question as full of interest for our girls as if they had been brought
-up in the lap of wealth and fashion. They were not so ignorant of the
-habits and customs of "the world" as not to know that evening dress
-was required of them on this occasion, and they had not seen so many
-shop windows and showrooms without learning something of its general
-features as applied to their sex and to the period. Great were the
-discussions that went on over the momentous subject. Even their studies
-at the Public Library lost their interest and importance, it is to be
-feared, for a day or two, while they were anxiously hesitating, first,
-whether they should accept the invitation, and, secondly, in what
-costume they should make their first appearance in polite society.
-The former of these questions was settled without much trouble.
-Elizabeth's yearning for "friends," the chance of discovering whom
-might be missed by missing this unusual opportunity; Patty's thirst
-for knowledge and experience in all available fields, and Eleanor's
-habit of peaceably falling in with her sisters' views, overcame the
-repugnance that all of them entertained to the idea of being patronised
-by, or beholden for attentions that they could not reciprocate to, Mrs.
-Aarons, against whom they had conceived a prejudice on the first day of
-contact with her which a further acquaintance had not tended to lessen.
-But the latter question was, as I have said, a matter of much debate.
-Could they afford themselves new frocks?&mdash;say, black grenadines that
-would do for the summer afterwards. This suggestion was inquired into
-at several shops and of several dressmakers, and then relinquished,
-but not without a struggle. "We are just recovering ourselves," said
-Elizabeth, with her note-book before her and her pencil in her hand;
-"and if we go on as we are doing now we shall be able to save enough to
-take us to Europe next year without meddling with our house-money. But
-if we break our rules&mdash;well, it will throw us back. And it will be a
-bad precedent, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Then we won't break them," said Patty valiantly. "We will go in our
-black frocks. Perhaps," she added, with some hesitation, "we can find
-something amongst our mother's things to trim us up a little."</p>
-
-<p>"She would like to see us making ourselves look pretty with her
-things," said Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, Nelly. That is what I think. Come along and let us look at
-that bundle of lace that we put in the bottom drawer of the bureau.
-Elizabeth, does lace so fine as that <i>go</i> with woollen frocks, do you
-think? We must not have any incongruities if we can help it."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth thought that plain white ruffles would, perhaps, be best,
-as there was so much danger of incongruities if they trusted to their
-untrained invention. Whereupon Patty pointed out that they would have
-to buy ruffles, while the lace would cost nothing, which consideration,
-added to their secret wish for a little special decoration, now that
-the occasion for it had arisen&mdash;the love of adornment being, though
-refined and chastened, an ingredient of their nature as of every other
-woman's&mdash;carried the day in favour of "mother's things."</p>
-
-<p>"And I think," said Patty, with dignity, when at last Friday came
-and they had spread the selected finery on their little beds, "I
-think that ladies ought to know how to dress themselves better than
-shop-people can tell them. When they want to make themselves smart,
-they should think, first, what they can afford and what will be
-suitable to their position and the occasion, and then they should think
-what would look pretty in a picture. And they should put on <i>that</i>."</p>
-
-<p>Patty, I think, was well aware that she would look pretty in a picture,
-when she had arrayed herself for the evening. Round the neck of her
-black frock she had loosely knotted a length of fine, yellow-white
-Brussels lace, the value of which, enhanced by several darns that
-were almost as invisibly woven as the texture itself, neither she nor
-her sisters had any idea of. Of course it did not "go" with the black
-frock, even though the latter was not what mourning was expected to
-be, but its delicacy was wonderfully thrown up by its contrast with
-that background, and it was a most becoming setting for the wearer's
-brilliant face. Patty had more of the priceless flounce sewn on her
-black sleeves (the little Vandal had cut it into lengths on purpose),
-half of it tucked in at the wrists out of sight; and the ends that
-hung over her breast were loosely fastened down with a quaint old
-silver brooch, in which a few little bits of topaz sparkled. Elizabeth
-was not quite so magnificent. She wore a fichu of black lace over her
-shoulders&mdash;old Spanish, that happened just then to be the desire and
-despair of women of fashion, who could not get it for love or money;
-it was big enough to be called a shawl, and in putting it on Patty had
-to fold and tack it here and there with her needle, to keep it well
-up in its proper place. This was fastened down at the waist with a
-shawl-pin shaped like a gold arrow, that her grandmother had used to
-pin her Paisley over her chest; and, as the eldest daughter, Elizabeth
-wore her mother's slender watch-chain wound round and round her neck,
-and, depending from it, an ancient locket of old red gold, containing
-on its outward face a miniature of that beautiful mother as a girl,
-with a beading of little pearls all round it. Eleanor was dressed up
-in frills of soft, thick Valenciennes, taken from the bodice of one
-of the brocaded gowns; which lace, not being too fragile to handle,
-Elizabeth, ignorant as yet of the artistic excellence of the genuine
-coffee-colour of age, had contrived to wash to a respectable whiteness.
-And to Eleanor was given, from the little stock of family trinkets,
-a string of pearls, fastened with an emerald clasp&mdash;pearls the size
-of small peas, and dingy and yellow from never having been laid out
-on the grass, as, according to a high authority, pearls should be.
-Upon the whole, their finery, turned into money, would probably have
-bought up three of the most magnificent costumes worn in Melbourne that
-night; yet it can scarcely be said to have been effective. Neither Mrs.
-Aarons nor her lady friends had the requisite experience to detect
-its quality and understand what we may call its moral value. Only one
-person amongst the company discovered that Eleanor's pearls were real,
-and perhaps only that one had been educated in lace, save rudimentally,
-in the Melbourne shops. And amongst the <i>nouveaux riches</i>, as poor
-gentlefolks well know, to have no claims to distinction but such as are
-out of date is practically to have none.</p>
-
-<p>Late in the evening, Paul Brion, who had not intended to go to this
-particular Friday, lest his presence should betray to the sisters what
-he was so anxious to conceal from them, found that he could not resist
-the temptation to see with his own eyes how they were getting on; and
-when he had entered the room, which was unusually crowded, and had
-prowled about for a few minutes amongst the unpleasantly tall men who
-obstructed his view in all directions, he was surprised and enraged
-to see the three girls sitting side by side in a corner, looking
-neglected and lonely, and to see insolent women in long-tailed satin
-gowns sweeping past them as if they had not been there. One glance
-was enough to satisfy <i>him</i> that there had been no fear of their not
-looking "nice." Patty's bright and flushed but (just now) severe
-little face, rising so proudly from the soft lace about her throat and
-bosom, seemed to him to stand out clear in a surrounding mist, apart
-and distinct from all the faces in the room&mdash;or in the world, for that
-matter. Elizabeth's dignified serenity in an uncomfortable position
-was the perfection of good breeding, and made a telling contrast to
-the effusive manners of those about her; and fair Eleanor, sitting so
-modestly at Elizabeth's side, with her hands, in a pair of white silk
-mittens, folded in her lap, was as charming to look at as heart of man
-could desire. Other men seemed to be of his opinion, for he saw several
-hovering around them and looking at them with undisguised interest; but
-the ladies, who, he thought, ought to have felt privileged to take them
-up, appeared to regard them coldly, or to turn their backs upon them
-altogether, literally as well as metaphorically. It was plain that Mrs.
-Aarons had introduced them to nobody, probably wishing (as was indeed
-the case&mdash;people of her class being morbidly sensitive to the disgrace
-of unfashionable connections) not to own to them more than she could
-help.</p>
-
-<p>He withdrew from their neighbourhood before they saw him, and went to
-seek his hostess, swelling with remonstrant wrath. He found her on a
-sofa at the other end of the room, talking volubly (she was always
-voluble, but now she was breathless in her volubility) to a lady who
-had never before honoured her Fridays, and who, by doing so to-night,
-had gratified an ambition that had long been paramount amongst the many
-ambitions which, enclosed in a narrow circle as they were, served to
-make the interest and occupation of Mrs. Aarons's life. She looked up
-at Paul as he approached her, and gave him a quick nod and smile, as if
-to say, "I see you, but you must be perfectly aware that I am unable
-to attend to you just now." Paul understood her, and, not having the
-honour of Mrs. Duff-Scott's acquaintance himself, fell back a little
-behind the sofa and waited for his opportunity. As he waited, he could
-not help overhearing the conversation of the two ladies, and deriving a
-little cynical amusement therefrom.</p>
-
-<p>"And, as soon as I heard of it, I <i>begged</i> my husband to go and see if
-it was <i>really</i> a genuine example of Derby-Chelsea; and, you see, it
-<i>was</i>," said Mrs. Aarons, with subdued enthusiasm&mdash;almost with tears of
-emotion.</p>
-
-<p>"It was, indeed," assented Mrs. Duff-Scott earnestly. "There was the
-true mark&mdash;the capital D, with the anchor in the middle of it. It is
-extremely rare, and I had no hope of ever possessing a specimen."</p>
-
-<p>"I <i>knew</i> you would like to have it. I said to Ben. '<i>Do</i> go and snatch
-it up at once for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.' And he was so pleased
-to find he was in time. We were so afraid someone might have been
-before us. But the fact is, people are so ignorant that they have no
-idea of the value of things of that sort&mdash;fortunately."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't call it fortunate at all," the other lady retorted, a little
-brusquely. "I don't like to see people ignorant&mdash;I am quite ready to
-share and share." Then she added, with a smile, "I am sure I can never
-be sufficiently obliged to Mr. Aarons for taking so much trouble on my
-account. I must get him into a corner presently, and find out how much
-I am in his debt&mdash;though, of course, no money can represent the true
-worth of such a treasure, and I shall always feel that I have robbed
-him."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, pray, pray don't talk of <i>payment</i>," the hostess implored, with a
-gesture of her heavily-ringed hands. "You will hurt him <i>dreadfully</i>
-if you think of such a thing. He feels himself richly paid, I assure
-you, by having a chance to do you a little service. And such a mere
-<i>trifle</i> as it is!"</p>
-
-<p>"No, indeed, it is not a trifle, Mrs. Aarons&mdash;very far from it. The
-thing is much too valuable for me to&mdash;to"&mdash;Mrs. Duff-Scott hesitated,
-and her face was rather red&mdash;"to deprive you of it in that way. I don't
-feel that I can take it as a present&mdash;a bit of <i>real</i> Derby-Chelsea
-that you might never find a specimen of again&mdash;really I don't."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>please</i>"&mdash;and Mrs. Aarons's voice was at once reproachful and
-persuasive&mdash;"<i>please!</i> I know you wouldn't wish to hurt us."</p>
-
-<p>A little more discussion ensued, which Paul watched with an amused
-smile; and Mrs. Duff-Scott gave in.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, if you insist&mdash;but you are really too good. It makes me quite
-uncomfortable to take such a treasure from you. However, perhaps, some
-day I may be able to contribute to <i>your</i> collection."</p>
-
-<p>Like her famous model, Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins, Mrs. Aarons stalked
-her big game with all kinds of stratagems, and china was the lure with
-which she had caught Mrs. Duff-Scott. This was a lady who possessed
-not only that most essential and valuable qualification of a lady,
-riches, but had also a history that was an open page to all men. It
-had not much heraldic emblazonment about it, but it showed a fair
-and honourable record of domestic and public circumstances that no
-self-respecting woman could fail to take social credit for. By virtue
-of these advantages, and of a somewhat imperious, though generous
-and unselfish, nature, she certainly did exercise that right to be
-"proud" which, in such a case, the most democratic of communities will
-cheerfully concede. She had been quite inaccessible to Mrs. Aarons,
-whom she was wont to designate a "person," long after that accomplished
-woman had carried the out-works of the social citadel in which she
-dwelt, and no doubt she would have been inaccessible to the last. Only
-she had a weakness&mdash;she had a hobby (to change the metaphor a little)
-that ran away with her, as hobbies will, even in the case of the most
-circumspect of women; and that hobby, exposed to the seductions of a
-kindred hobby, broke down and trampled upon the barriers of caste. It
-was the Derby-Chelsea specimen that had brought Mrs. Duff-Scott to
-occupy a sofa in Mrs. Aarons's drawing-room&mdash;to their mutual surprise,
-when they happened to think of it.</p>
-
-<p>She rose from that sofa now, slightly perturbed, saying she must go
-and find Mr. Aarons and acknowledge the obligation under which he had
-placed her, while all the time she was cudgelling her brains to think
-by what means and how soon she could discharge it&mdash;regretting very
-keenly for the moment that she had put herself in the way of people
-who did not understand the fine manners which would have made such a
-dilemma impossible. Her hostess jumped up immediately, and the two
-ladies passed slowly down the room in the direction of the corner
-where our neglected girls were sitting. Paul followed at a respectful
-distance, and was gratified to see Mrs. Duff-Scott stop at the piano,
-in place of hunting for her host (who was never a conspicuous feature
-of these entertainments), and shake hands cordially with a tall German
-in spectacles who had just risen from the music-stool. He had come
-to Mrs. Aarons's Friday in a professional capacity, but he was a
-sufficiently great artist for a great lady to make an equal of him.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, my dear Herr Wüllner," she said, in a very distinct voice, "I
-was listening, and I thought I could not be mistaken in your touch.
-Heller's <i>Wanderstunden</i>, wasn't it?" And they plunged head first into
-musical talk such as musical people (who never care in the least how
-much unmusical people may be bored by it) love to indulge in whenever
-an occasion offers, while Mrs. Aarons stood by, smiling vaguely, and
-not understanding a word of it. Paul Brion listened to them for a few
-minutes, and a bright idea came into his head.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>TRIUMPH.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Our girls still sat in their corner, but a change had come over them
-within the last few minutes. A stout man sitting near them was talking
-to Elizabeth across Eleanor's lap&mdash;Eleanor lying back in her seat, and
-smiling amiably as she listened to them; and Miss King was looking
-animated and interested, and showed some signs of enjoying herself at
-last. Patty also had lost her air of angry dignity, and was leaning a
-little forward, with her hands clasped on her knees, gazing at Herr
-Wüllner's venerable face with rapt enthusiasm. Paul, regarding her for
-a moment, felt himself possessed of sufficient courage to declare his
-presence, and, waiting until he could catch her eye, bowed pleasantly.
-She looked across at him with no recognition at first, then gave a
-little start, bent her head stiffly, and resumed her attentive perusal
-of Herr Wüllner's person. "Ah," thought Paul, "the old fellow has woke
-her up. And she wants him to play again." Mrs. Duff-Scott had dropped
-into a chair by the piano, and sat there contentedly, talking to the
-delighted musician, who had been as a fish out of water since he came
-into the room, and was now swimming at large in his native element
-again. She was a distinguished looking matron of fifty or thereabouts,
-with a handsome, vivacious, intelligent face and an imposing presence
-generally; and she had an active and well-cultivated mind which
-concerned itself with many other things than china. Having no necessity
-to work, no children on whom to expend her exuberant energies, and
-being incapable of finding the ordinary woman's satisfaction in the
-ordinary routine of society pleasures, she made ardent pursuits for
-herself in several special directions. Music was one. Herr Wüllner
-thought she was the most enlightened being in female shape that he
-had ever known, because she "understood" music&mdash;what was really music
-and what was not (according to his well-trained theories). She had,
-in the first place, the wonderful good sense to know that she could
-not play herself, and she held the opinion that people in general had
-no business to set themselves up to play, but only those who had been
-"called" by Divine permission and then properly instructed in the
-science of their art. "We won't look at bad pictures, nor read trashy
-books," she would say. "Why should our artistic sense be depraved and
-demoralised through our ears any more than through our eyes? Mothers
-should know better, my dear Herr Wüllner, and keep the incapables in
-the background. All girls should learn, if they <i>like</i> learning&mdash;in
-which case it does them good, and delights the domestic circle; but
-if at sixteen they can't play&mdash;what <i>we</i> call play&mdash;after having had
-every chance given them, they should leave off, so as to use the
-time better, or confine their performances to a family audience."
-And Mrs. Duff-Scott had the courage of her convictions, and crushed
-unrelentingly those presumptuous amateurs (together with their
-infatuated mammas) who thought they could play when they couldn't, and
-who regarded music as a mere frivolous drawing-room amusement for the
-encouragement of company conversation. Herr Wüllner delighted in her.
-The two sat talking by the piano, temporarily indifferent to what was
-going on around them, turning over a roll of music sheets that had had
-a great deal of wear and tear, apparently. Mrs. Aarons sat beside them,
-fanning herself and smiling, casting about her for more entertaining
-converse. And Paul Brion stood near his hostess, listening and watching
-for his opportunity. Presently it came.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott lifted up a sheet of crabbed manuscript as yellowed by
-time as Patty's Brussels lace, and said: "This is not quite the thing
-for a mixed audience, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, no, you are right; it is the study of Haydn that a friend of mine
-asked of me yesterday, and that I propose to read to him to-night,"
-said Herr Wüllner, in that precise English and with that delicate
-pronunciation with which the cultivated foreigner so often puts us to
-shame. "It is, you perceive, an arrangement for one violin and a piano
-only&mdash;done by a very distinguished person for a lady who was for a
-short time my pupil, when I was a young man. You have heard it with
-the four-stringed instruments at your house; that was bad&mdash;bad! Ach!
-that second violin squeaked like the squeaking of a pig, and it was
-always in the wrong place. But in good hands it is sublime. This"&mdash;and
-he sighed as he added more sheets to the one she held and was steadily
-perusing&mdash;"this is but a crippled thing, perhaps; the piano, which
-should have none of it, has it all&mdash;and no one can properly translate
-that piano part&mdash;not one in ten thousand. But it is well done. Yes, it
-is very well done. And I have long been wanting my friend to try it
-with me."</p>
-
-<p>"And what about the young lady for whom it was written?&mdash;which part did
-she take?"</p>
-
-<p>"The piano&mdash;the piano. But then she had a wonderful execution and
-sympathy&mdash;it was truly wonderful for a lady, and she so young. Women
-play much better now, as a rule, but I never hear one who is an amateur
-play as she did. And so quick&mdash;so quick! It was an inspiration with
-her. Yes, this was written on purpose for that lady&mdash;I have had it ever
-since&mdash;it has never been published. The manuscript is in her own hand.
-She wrote out much of her music in her own hand. It was many, many
-years ago, and I was a young man then. We were fellow-pupils before I
-became her master, and she was my pupil only for a few weeks. It was a
-farce&mdash;a farce. She did not play the violin, but in everything else she
-was better than I. Ah, she was a great genius, that young lady. She was
-a great loss to the world of art."</p>
-
-<p>"Did she die, Herr Wüllner?"</p>
-
-<p>"She eloped," he said softly, "she ran away with a scapegrace. And the
-ship she sailed in was lost at sea."</p>
-
-<p>"Dear me! How very sad. Well, you must make your friend try it over,
-and, if you manage it all right, bring him with you to my house on
-Monday evening and let me hear it."</p>
-
-<p>"That shall give me great pleasure," said the old man, bowing low.</p>
-
-<p>"You have your violin with you, I suppose?" she asked.</p>
-
-<p>"It is in the hall, under my cloak. I do not bring it into this room,"
-he replied.</p>
-
-<p>"Why not?" she persisted. "Go and fetch it, Herr Wüllner, and let Mrs.
-Aarons hear you play it"&mdash;suddenly bethinking herself of her hostess
-and smiling upon that lady&mdash;"if she has never had that treat before."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Aarons was eager to hear the violin, and Herr Wüllner went
-himself, though reluctantly, to fetch his treasure from the old case
-that he had hidden away below. When he had tuned up his strings a
-little, and had tucked the instrument lovingly under his chin, he
-looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott and said softly, "What?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," cried Mrs. Aarons, striking in, "play that&mdash;you know&mdash;what you
-were talking of just now&mdash;what Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted so much to hear.
-<i>I</i> want to hear it too."</p>
-
-<p>"Impossible&mdash;impossible," he said quickly, almost with a shudder. "It
-has a piano part, and there is no one here to take that."</p>
-
-<p>Then Paul Brion broke in, conscious that he was running heavy risks of
-all sorts, but resolved to seize his chance.</p>
-
-<p>"I think there <i>is</i> someone who could play it," he said to Mrs. Aarons,
-speaking with elaborate distinctness. "The Miss Kings&mdash;one of them, at
-any rate&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Nonsense," interrupted Mrs. Aarons, sharply, but under her breath.
-"Not at all likely." She was annoyed by the suggestion, and wished to
-treat it as if unheard (it was unreasonable, on the face of it, of
-course); but Mrs. Duff-Scott caught at it in her direct way. "Who are
-they? Which are the Miss Kings?" she asked of Paul, putting up her
-eye-glass to see what manner of man had taken upon himself to interfere.</p>
-
-<p>"My dear lady," sighed Herr Wüllner, dropping his bow dejectedly, "it
-is out of the question, absolutely. It is not normal music at its
-best&mdash;and I have it only in manuscript. It is impossible that any lady
-can attempt it."</p>
-
-<p>"She will not attempt it if she cannot do it, Herr Wüllner," said Paul.
-"But you might ask her."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott had followed the direction of his eyes, and her
-attention was violently arrested by the figures of the three girls
-sitting together, who were so remarkably unlike the majority of Mrs.
-Aarons's guests. She took note of all their superficial peculiarities
-in a moment, and the conviction that the lace and the pearls were real
-flashed across her like an inspiration. "Is it the young lady with the
-bright eyes?" she inquired. "What a charming face! Yes, Herr Wüllner,
-we <i>will</i> ask her. Introduce her to me, Mrs. Aarons, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>She rose as she spoke and sailed towards Patty, Mrs. Aarons following;
-and Paul Brion held his breath while he waited to see how his reckless
-enterprise would turn out. In a few minutes Patty came towards the
-piano, with her head up and her face flushed, looking a little defiant,
-but as self-possessed as the great lady who convoyed her across the
-room. The events of the evening had roused her spirit, and strung up
-her nerves like Herr Wüllner's fiddle-strings, and she, too, was in a
-daring and audacious mood.</p>
-
-<p>"This is it," said the old musician, looking at her critically as he
-gave a sheet of manuscript into her hand. It was a wonderful chance, of
-course, but Patty had seen the facsimile of that manuscript many times
-before, and had played from it. It is true she had never played with
-the violin accompaniment&mdash;had never so much as seen a violin until she
-came to Melbourne; but her mother had contrived to make her understand
-how the more delicate and sensitive instrument ought to be deferred to
-in the execution of the piano part, and what the whole should sound
-like, by singing the missing air in her flexible trilling voice; and
-just now she was in that peculiar mood of exaltation that she felt
-inspired to dare anything and assured that she should succeed. "You
-will not be able to read it?" Herr Wüllner suggested persuasively,
-drawing hope from her momentary silence.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, yes," she said, looking up bravely: "I think so. You will stop me,
-please, if I do not play it right." And she seated herself at the piano
-with a quiet air of knowing what she was doing that confounded the two
-ladies who were watching her and deeply interested Mrs. Duff-Scott.
-Paul Brion's heart was beating high with anticipated triumph. Herr
-Wüllner's heart, on the contrary, sank with a mild despair.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, we will have a few bars," he sighed. "And pray, my dear young
-lady, don't bang the piano&mdash;I mean don't play over me. And try to keep
-time. But you will never do it&mdash;with the best intentions, my dear, you
-will never be able to read it from such a manuscript as that."</p>
-
-<p>Patty looked up at him with a sort of radiant calmness, and said
-gently, "Go on. You see you have an opening movement to yourself."</p>
-
-<p>Bewildered, the old man dropped his bow upon the strings, and set forth
-on his hopeless task. And at exactly the right moment the piano glided
-in, so lightly, so tenderly, and yet with such admirable precision and
-delicate clearness, that it justified, for once, its trespass upon
-ground that belonged to more aerial instruments. It was just what Paul
-Brion had counted on&mdash;though Paul Brion had not the least idea what
-a wild chance had brought about the fulfilment of his expectations.
-Patty was able to display her chief accomplishment to the very best
-advantage, and the sisters were thereby promoted to honour. The cold
-shade of neglect and obscurity was to chill them no more from this
-happy moment. It was a much greater triumph than Patty herself had any
-idea of, or than anybody had had the least reason to expect. <i>She</i>
-knew that piles of music, all in this self-same handwriting (she had
-never seen any other and supposed that all manuscript music was alike),
-were stowed away in the old bureau at home, and in the ottoman which
-she had constructed out of a packing-case, and that long familiarity
-had made it as easy to her to read as print; but Herr Wüllner was not
-in a position to make the faintest guess at such a circumstance. When
-Elizabeth moved her seat nearer to the piano, as if to support her
-sister, though he was close enough to see it, he did not recognise in
-the miniature round her neck the face of that young lady of genius who
-eloped with a scapegrace, and was supposed to have been drowned at
-sea with her husband. And yet it was that lady's face. Such wonderful
-coincidences are continually happening in our small world. It was not
-more wonderful than that Herr Wüllner, Mrs. Duff-Scott, Paul Brion, and
-Patty King should have been gathered together round one piano, and that
-piano Mrs. Aarons's.</p>
-
-<p>The guests were laughing and talking and flirting, as they were wont to
-do under cover of the music that generally prevailed at these Friday
-receptions, when an angry "Hush!" from the violinist, repeated by Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, made a little circle of silence round the performers. And
-in this silence Patty carried through her responsible undertaking
-with perfect accuracy and the finest taste&mdash;save for a shadowy mistake
-or two, which, glancing over them as if they were mere phantoms of
-mistakes, and recovering herself instantly, only served to show more
-clearly the finished quality of her execution, and the thoroughness of
-her musical experience. She was conscious herself of being in her very
-best form.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" said Herr Wüllner, drawing a long breath as he uttered the
-exclamation, and softly laying down his violin, "I was mistaken. My
-dear young lady, allow me to beg your pardon, and to thank you." And he
-bowed before Patty until his nose nearly touched his knees.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, who was a woman of impulses, as most nice women are,
-was enthusiastic. Not only had she listened to Patty's performance with
-all her intelligent ears, but she had at the same time investigated
-and appraised the various details of her personal appearance, and been
-particularly interested in that bit of lace about her neck.</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," she said, putting out her hand as the girl rose from the
-music-stool, "come here and sit by me and tell me where you learned to
-play like that."</p>
-
-<p>Patty went over to her readily, won by the kind voice and motherly
-gesture. And, in a very few minutes, Paul had the pleasure of seeing
-the great lady sitting on a sofa with all three sisters around her,
-talking to them, and they to her, as if they had known one another for
-years.</p>
-
-<p>Leaving them thus safe and cared for, he bade good-night to his
-hostess, and went home to his work, in a mood of high contentment.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PATTY IN UNDRESS.</h4>
-
-
-<p>When Paul Brion bade Mrs. Aarons good-night, he perceived that she was
-a little cold to him, and rather wondered at himself that he did not
-feel inclined either to resent or to grieve over that unprecedented
-circumstance.</p>
-
-<p>"I am going to steal away," he said in an airy whisper, coming across
-her in the middle of the room as he made his way to the door. "I have a
-good couple of hours' work to get through to-night."</p>
-
-<p>He was accustomed to speak to her in this familiar and confidential
-fashion, though she was but a recent acquaintance, and she had always
-responded in a highly gratifying way. But now she looked at him
-listlessly, with no change of face, and merely said, "Indeed."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," he repeated; "I have a lot to do before I can go to bed. It
-is delightful to be here; but I must not indulge myself any longer.
-Good-night."</p>
-
-<p>"Good-night," she said, still unsmiling, as she gave him her hand. "I
-am sorry you must go so soon." But she did not look as if she were
-sorry; she looked as if she didn't care a straw whether he went or
-stayed. However, he pressed her hand with the wonted friendly pressure,
-and slipped out of the room, unabashed by her assumed indifference and
-real change of manner, which he was at no great trouble to interpret;
-and he took a cab to his office&mdash;now a humming hive of busy bees
-improving the shining hours of the gaslit night&mdash;and walked back
-from the city through the shadowy gardens to his lodgings, singing a
-tuneless air to himself, which, if devoid of music, was a pleasant
-expression of his frame of mind.</p>
-
-<p>When he reached Myrtle Street the town clocks were striking twelve.
-He looked up at his neighbours' windows as he passed the gate of No.
-6, and saw no light, and supposed they had returned from their revels
-and gone peaceably to bed. He opened his own door softly, as if afraid
-of waking them, and went upstairs to his sitting-room, where Mrs.
-M'Intyre, who loved to make him comfortable, had left him a bit of
-supper, and a speck of gas about the size of a pea in the burner at the
-head of his arm-chair; and he pulled off his dress coat, and kicked
-away his boots, and got his slippers and his dressing-gown, and his
-tobacco and his pipe, and took measures generally for making himself at
-home. But before he had quite settled himself the idea occurred to him
-that his neighbours might <i>not</i> have returned from Mrs. Aarons's, but
-might, indeed (for he knew their frugal and unconventional habits), be
-even then out in the streets, alone and unprotected, walking home by
-night as they walked home by day, unconscious of the perils and dangers
-that beset them. He had not presumed to offer his escort&mdash;he had not
-even spoken to them during the evening, lest he should seem to take
-those liberties that Miss Patty resented so much; but now he angrily
-reproached himself for not having stayed at Mrs. Aarons's until their
-departure, so that he could, at least, have followed and watched over
-them. He put down his pipe hastily, and, opening the window, stepped
-out on the balcony. It was a dark night, and a cold wind was blowing,
-and the quarter-hour after midnight was chiming from the tower of the
-Post Office. He was about to go in for his boots and his overcoat, when
-he was relieved to hear a cab approaching at a smart pace, and to see
-it draw up at the gate of No. 6. Standing still in the shadow of the
-partition that divided his enclosure from theirs, he watched the girls
-descend upon the footpath, one by one, fitfully illuminated from the
-interior of the vehicle. First Eleanor, then Elizabeth, then Patty&mdash;who
-entered the gate and tapped softly at her street door. He expected to
-see the driver dismissed, with probably double the fare to which he was
-entitled; but to his surprise, the cab lingered, and Elizabeth stood at
-the step and began to talk to someone inside. "Thank you so much for
-your kindness," she said, in her gentle but clear tones, which were
-perfectly audible on the balcony. A voice from the cab answered, "Don't
-mention it, my dear. I am very glad to see as much of you as possible,
-for I want to know you. May I come and have a little gossip to-morrow
-afternoon?" It was the voice of Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, after keeping
-them late at Mrs. Aarons's, talking to them, had frustrated their
-intention of making their own way home. That powerful woman had "taken
-them up," literally and figuratively, and she was not one to drop them
-again&mdash;as fine ladies commonly drop interesting impecunious <i>protégées</i>
-when the novelty of their acquaintance has worn off&mdash;save for causes in
-their own conduct and circumstances that were never likely to arise.
-Paul Brion, thoroughly realising that his little schemes had been
-crowned with the most gratifying success, stole back to his rooms, shut
-the window softly, and sat down to his pipe and his manuscripts. And he
-wrote such a maliciously bitter article that, when he took it to the
-office, his editor refused to print it without modifications, on the
-ground that it would land the paper in an action for libel.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile our girls parted from their new friend with affectionate
-good-nights, and were let into their house by the landlady, who had
-herself been entertaining company to a late hour. They went upstairs
-with light feet, too excited to feel tired, and all assembled in
-Elizabeth's meagrely-appointed bedchamber to take off their finery
-and to have a little happy gossip before they went to rest. Elizabeth
-herself, who was not a gushing person, had the most to say at first,
-pouring out her ingenuous heart in grateful reminiscences of the
-unparalleled kindness of Mrs. Duff-Scott. "What a dear, dear woman!"
-she murmured, with soft rapture, as she unwound the watch-chain and
-locket from her neck and disembarrassed herself of her voluminous
-fichu. "You can <i>see</i> that what she does and says is real and
-truthful&mdash;I am certain you can trust her. I do not trust Mrs. Aarons&mdash;I
-do not understand her ways. She wanted us to go and see her, and when
-we went she was unkind to us; at least, she was not polite. I was very
-sorry we had gone to her house&mdash;until Mrs. Duff-Scott came to our sofa
-to speak to us. But now I feel so glad! For it has given us <i>her</i>. And
-she is just the kind of friend I have so often pictured to myself&mdash;so
-often longed to know."</p>
-
-<p>"I think it was Patty's playing that gave us Mrs. Duff-Scott,"
-said Eleanor, who was sitting by the dressing table with her frock
-unbuttoned. "She is fond of music, and really there was no one who
-could play at all except Herr Wüllner&mdash;which was a very strange thing,
-don't you think? And the singing was worse&mdash;such sickly, silly sort of
-songs, with such eccentric accompaniments. I could not understand it,
-unless the fashion has changed since mother was a girl. I suppose it
-has. But when Patty and Herr Wüllner got together it was like another
-atmosphere in the room. How did you come to play so well, Patty?&mdash;to be
-so collected and quiet when there was so much to frighten you? I was so
-nervous that my hands shook, and I had to squeeze them to keep myself
-still."</p>
-
-<p>"I was nervous, too, at first," said Patty, who, divested of her
-dress and laces, was lying all along on Elizabeth's bed, with her
-pretty bare arms flung up over the pillows, and her hands clasped
-one over the other at the back of her head. "When we got there, that
-impudent maid in the room where we took our things off upset me; she
-looked at our old hats and water-proofs as if she had never seen such
-things before&mdash;and they <i>did</i> seem very shabby amongst all the pretty
-cloaks and hoods that the other ladies were taking off. And then it
-was so ignominious to have to find our way to the drawing-room by
-following other people, and to have our names bawled out as if to call
-everybody's attention to us, and then not to <i>have</i> attentions. When we
-trailed about the room, so lost and lonely, with all those fine people
-watching us and staring at us, my knees were shaking under me, and I
-felt hot and cold&mdash;I don't know how I felt. The only comfort I had was
-seeing how calm Elizabeth was. She seemed to stand up for us all, and
-to carry us through it. <i>I</i> felt&mdash;I hate to think I could be such an
-idiot&mdash;so nervous and so unhinged, and so miserable altogether, that
-I should have liked to go away somewhere and have a good cry. But,"
-added Patty, suddenly sitting up in the bed, and removing her hands
-from the back of her head to her knees, "but after a little while it
-got <i>too</i> horrid. And then I got angry, and that made me feel much
-better. And by-and-bye, when they began to play and sing, and I saw how
-ridiculous they made themselves, I brightened up, and was not nervous
-any more&mdash;for I saw that they were rather ignorant people, in spite
-of their airs and their fine clothes. When the girl in that beautiful
-creamy satin dress sang her whining little song about parting and dying
-half a note flat, while she dashed her hands up and down the keyboard,
-and they all hung round her when she had done and said how charming
-it was, I felt that <i>really</i>&mdash;" Patty paused, and stared into the
-obscurity of the room with brilliant, humorous, disdainful eyes, which
-expressed her sentiments with a distinctness that made further words
-unnecessary.</p>
-
-<p>"But, you see, if people don't <i>know</i> that you are superior to them&mdash;"
-suggested Eleanor, folding up Elizabeth's best gloves, and wrapping
-them in tissue paper, with a reflective air.</p>
-
-<p>"Who would care about their knowing?" interposed Elizabeth. "We should
-not be very much superior to anyone if we could indulge in a poor
-ambition to seem so. That is not one of Patty's feelings, I think."</p>
-
-<p>"But it is, then," Patty confessed, with honest promptness. "I found
-it out to-night, Elizabeth. When I saw those conceited people sweeping
-about in their splendid trains and looking as if all Melbourne belonged
-to them&mdash;when I heard that girl singing that preposterous twaddle,
-and herself and all her friends thinking she was a perfect genius&mdash;I
-felt that I would give anything, <i>anything</i>, just to rise up and be
-very grand and magnificent for a little while and crush them all into
-vulgarity and insignificance."</p>
-
-<p>"Patty!" murmured Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, my dear, it shocks you, I know. But you wouldn't have me disguise
-the truth from you, would you? I wanted to pay them out. I saw they
-were turning up their noses at us, and I longed&mdash;I <i>raged</i>&mdash;to be in
-a position to turn up my nose at them, if only for five minutes. I
-thought to myself, oh, if the door should suddenly open and that big
-footman shout out, 'His Grace the Duke of So and So;' and they should
-all be ready to drop on their knees before such a grand person&mdash;as
-you know they would be, Elizabeth; they would <i>grovel</i>, simply&mdash;and he
-should look with a sort of gracious, ducal haughtiness over their heads
-and say to Mrs. Aarons, 'I am told that I shall find here the daughters
-of my brother, who disappeared from home when he was young, along with
-his wife, the Princess So and So.' You know, Elizabeth, our father, who
-never would talk about his family to anybody, <i>might</i> have been a duke
-or an earl in disguise, for anything we know, and our mother was the
-very image of what a princess <i>ought</i> to be&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"We should have been found out before this, if we had been such
-illustrious persons," said Elizabeth, calmly.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, of course&mdash;of course. But one needn't be so practical. You are
-free to think what you like, however improbable it may be. And that is
-what I thought of. Then I thought, suppose a telegram should be brought
-in, saying that some enormously wealthy squatter, with several millions
-of money and no children, had left us all his fortune&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I should think that kind of news would come by post," suggested
-Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"It might and it mightn't, Nelly. The old squatter might have been that
-queer old man who comes to the Library sometimes, and seems to take
-such interest in seeing us reading so hard. He might have thought that
-girls who were so studious would have serious views of life and the
-value of money. Or he might have overheard us castle-building about
-Europe, and determined to help us to realise our dreams. Or he might
-have fallen in love with Elizabeth&mdash;at a distance, you know, and in a
-humble, old-fashioned, hopeless way."</p>
-
-<p>"But that doesn't account for the telegram, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"And have felt himself dying, perhaps," continued Patty, quite
-solemnly, with her bright eyes fixed on her invisible drama, "and have
-thought he would like to see us&mdash;to speak to Elizabeth&mdash;to give some
-directions and last wishes to us&mdash;before he went. No," she added,
-checking herself with a laugh and shaking herself up, "I don't think it
-was that. I think the lawyer came himself to tell us. The lawyer had
-opened the will, and he was a friend of Mrs. Aarons's, and he came to
-tell her of the wonderful thing that had happened. 'Everyone has been
-wondering whom he would leave his money to,' he says to her, 'but no
-one ever expected this. He has left it to three poor girls whom no one
-has ever heard of, and whom he never spoke to in his life. I am now
-going to find them out, for they are living somewhere in Melbourne.
-Their name is King, and they are sisters, without father or mother, or
-friends or fortune&mdash;mere nobodies, in fact. But now they will be the
-richest women in Australia.' And Mrs. Aarons suddenly remembers us,
-away there in the corner of the room, and it flashes across her that
-<i>we</i> are the great heiresses. And she tells the other ladies, and they
-all flock round us, and&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"And you find yourself in the position to turn up your nose at them,"
-laughed Eleanor. "No one would have guessed your thoughts, Patty,
-seeing you sitting on that sofa, looking so severe and dignified."</p>
-
-<p>"But I had other thoughts," said Patty, quickly. "These were just
-passing ideas, of course. What really <i>did</i> take hold of me was an
-intense desire to be asked to play, so that I might show them how much
-better we could play than they could. Especially after I heard Herr
-Wüllner. I knew he, at least, would appreciate the difference&mdash;and
-I thought Mrs. Duff-Scott looked like a person who would, also. And
-perhaps&mdash;perhaps&mdash;Paul Brion."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, Patty!" exclaimed Elizabeth, smiling, but reproachful. "Did
-you really want to go to the piano for the sake of showing off your
-skill&mdash;to mortify those poor women who had not been taught as well as
-you had?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said Patty, hardily. "I really did. When Mrs. Duff-Scott came
-and asked me to join Herr Wüllner in that duet, I felt that, failing
-the duke and the lawyer, it was just the opportunity that I had been
-looking and longing for. And it was because I felt that I was going to
-do so much better than they could that I was in such good spirits, and
-got on&mdash;as I flatter myself I did&mdash;so splendidly."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I don't believe you," said Elizabeth. "You could never
-have rendered that beautiful music as you did simply from pure
-vindictiveness. It is not in you."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Patty, throwing herself back on the bed and flinging up
-her arms again, "no&mdash;when I come to think of it&mdash;I was not vindictive
-all the time. At first I was <i>savage</i>&mdash;O yes, there is no doubt about
-it. Then Herr Wüllner's fears and frights were so charming that I
-got amused a little; I felt jocose and mischievous. Then I felt Mrs.
-Duff-Scott looking at me&mdash;<i>studying</i> me&mdash;and that made me serious
-again, and also quieted me down and steadied me. Then I was a little
-afraid that I <i>might</i> blunder over the music&mdash;it was a long time since
-I had played that thing, and the manuscript was pale and smudged&mdash;and
-so I had to brace myself up and forget about the outside people. And
-as soon as Herr Wüllner reached me, and I began safely and found that
-we were making it, oh, so sweet! between us&mdash;then I lost sight of lots
-of things. I mean I began to see and think of lots of other things. I
-remembered playing it with mother&mdash;it was like the echo of her voice,
-that violin!&mdash;and the sun shining through a bit of the red curtain
-into our sitting-room at home, and flickering on the wall over the
-piano, where it used to stand; and the sound of the sea under the
-cliffs&mdash;<i>whish-sh-sh-sh</i>&mdash;in the still afternoon&mdash;" Patty broke off
-abruptly, with a little laugh that was half a sob, and flung herself
-from the bed with vehemence. "But it won't do to go on chattering like
-this&mdash;we shall have daylight here directly," she said, gathering up her
-frock and shoes.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>IN THE WOMB OF FATE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott came for her gossip on Saturday afternoon, and it
-was a long one, and deeply interesting to all concerned. The girls
-took her to their trustful hearts, and told her their past history
-and present circumstances in such a way that she understood them even
-better than they did themselves. They introduced her to their entire
-suite of rooms, including the infinitesimal kitchen and its gas stove;
-they unlocked the drawers and cupboards of the old bureau to show her
-their own and their mother's sketches, and the family miniatures, and
-even the jewels they had worn the night before, about which she was
-frankly curious, and which she examined with the same discriminating
-intelligence that she brought to bear upon old china. They chattered
-to her, they played to her, they set the kettle on the gas-stove and
-made tea for her, with a familiar and yet modest friendliness that
-was a pleasant contrast to the attitude in which feminine attentions
-were too often offered to her. In return, she put off that armour of
-self-defence in which she usually performed her social duties, fearing
-no danger to pride or principle from an unreserved intercourse with
-such unsophisticated and yet singularly well-bred young women; and she
-revelled in unguarded and unlimited gossip as freely as if they had
-been her own sisters or her grown-up children. She gave them a great
-deal of very plain, but very wholesome, advice as to the necessity
-that lay upon them to walk circumspectly in the new life they had
-entered upon; and they accepted it in a spirit of meek gratitude that
-would have astonished Paul Brion beyond measure. All sorts of delicate
-difficulties were touched upon in connection with the non-existent
-chaperon and the omnipotent and omnipresent Mrs. Grundy, and not only
-touched upon, but frankly discussed, between the kindly woman of the
-world who wished to serve them and the proud but modest girls who were
-but too anxious to learn of one who they felt was authorised to teach
-them. In short, they sat together for more than two hours, and learned
-in that one interview to know and trust each other better than some of
-us will do after living for two years under the same roof. When at last
-the lady called her coachman, who had been mooning up and down Myrtle
-Street, half asleep upon his box, to the gate of No. 6, she had made a
-compact with herself to "look after" the three sweet and pretty sisters
-who had so oddly fallen in her way with systematic vigilance; and
-they were unconsciously of one mind, that to be looked after by Mrs.
-Duff-Scott was the most delightful experience, by far, that Melbourne
-had yet given them.</p>
-
-<p>On the following Monday they went to her house, and spent a ravishing
-evening in a beautiful, cosy, stately, deeply-coloured, softly-lighted
-room, that was full of wonderful and historical bric-à-brac such as
-they had never seen before, listening to Herr Wüllner and three brother
-artists playing violins and a violoncello in a way that brought tears
-to their eyes and unspeakable emotions into their responsive hearts.
-Never had they had such a time as this. There was no Mr. Duff-Scott&mdash;he
-was away from home just now, looking after property in Queensland;
-and no Mrs. Aarons&mdash;she was not privileged to join any but large and
-comprehensive parties in this select "set." There were no conceited
-women to stare at and to snub them, and no girls to sing sickly
-ballads, half a note flat. Only two or three unpretentious music-loving
-ladies, who smiled on them and were kind to them, and two or three
-quiet men who paid them charmingly delicate attentions; nothing that
-was unpleasant or unharmonious&mdash;nothing to jar with the exquisite music
-of a well-trained quartette, which was like a new revelation to them
-of the possibilities of art and life. They went home that night in a
-cab, escorted by one of the quiet men, whose provincial rank was such
-that the landlady curtsied like an English rustic, when she opened
-the door to him, and paid her young lodgers marked attentions for days
-afterwards in honour of their acquaintance with such a distinguished
-individual. And Paul Brion, who was carefully informed by Mrs. M'Intyre
-of their rise and progress in the world that was not his world, said
-how glad he was that they had been recognised and appreciated for what
-they were, and went on writing smart literary and political and social
-criticisms for his paper, that were continually proving too smart for
-prudent journalism.</p>
-
-<p>Then Mrs. Duff-Scott left Melbourne for a visit to some relations
-in Brisbane, and to join her husband on his homeward journey, and
-the girls fell back into their old quiet life for a while. It was an
-exceedingly simple and homely life. They rose early every morning&mdash;not
-much after the hour at which their neighbour on the other side of the
-wall was accustomed to go to bed&mdash;and aired, and swept, and scrubbed
-their little rooms, and made their beds, and polished their furniture,
-and generally set their dwelling in an exquisite order that is not at
-all universal with housewives in these days, but must always be the
-instinct of really well-bred women. They breakfasted frugally after the
-most of this was done, and took a corresponding meal in the evening,
-the staple of both being bread and butter; and at mid-day they saved
-"messing" and the smell of cooking about their rooms, and saved also
-the precious hours of the morning for their studies, by dining at a
-restaurant in the city, where they enjoyed a comfortable and abundant
-repast for a shilling apiece. Every day at about ten o'clock they
-walked through the leafy Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, and the bright
-and busy streets that never lost their charm of novelty, to the Public
-Library, where with pencils and note-books on the table before them,
-they read and studied upon a systematic principle until the clock
-struck one; at which hour they closed their books and set off with
-never-failing appetites in search of dinner. After dinner, if it was
-Thursday, they stayed in town for the organ recital at the Town Hall;
-but on other days they generally sauntered quietly home, with a new
-novel from Mullen's (they were very fond of novels), and made up their
-fire, and had a cup of tea, and sat down to rest and chat over their
-needlework, while one read aloud or practised her music, until the time
-came to lay the cloth for the unfashionable tea-supper at night-fall.
-And these countrified young people invariably began to yawn at eight
-o'clock, and might have been found in bed and asleep, five nights out
-of six, at half-past nine.</p>
-
-<p>So the days wore on, one very much like another, and all very gentle
-and peaceful, though not without the small annoyances that beset the
-most flowery paths of this mortal life, until October came&mdash;until
-the gardens through which they passed to and from the city, morning
-and afternoon (though there were other and shorter routes to choose
-from), were thick with young green leaves and odorous with innumerable
-blossoms&mdash;until the winter was over, and the loveliest month of the
-Australian year, when the brief spring hurries to meet the voluptuous
-summer, made even Melbourne delightful. And in October the great
-event that was recorded in the annals of the colony inaugurated a new
-departure in their career.</p>
-
-<p>On the Thursday immediately preceding the opening of the Exhibition
-they did not go to the Library as usual, nor to Gunsler's for their
-lunch. Like a number of other people, their habits were deranged and
-themselves demoralised by anticipations of the impending festival. They
-stayed at home to make themselves new bonnets for the occasion, and
-took a cold dinner while at their work, and two of them did not stir
-outside their rooms from morn till dewy eve for so much as a glance
-into Myrtle Street from the balcony.</p>
-
-<p>But in the afternoon it was found that half a yard more of ribbon was
-required to complete the last of the bonnets, and Patty volunteered to
-"run into town" to fetch it. At about four o'clock she set off alone
-by way of an adjoining road which was an omnibus route, intending to
-expend threepence, for once, in the purchase of a little precious time,
-but every omnibus was full, and she had to walk the whole way. The
-pavements were crowded with hurrying folk, who jostled and obstructed
-her. Collins Street, when she turned into it, seemed riotous with
-abnormal life, and she went from shop to shop and could not get waited
-on until the usual closing hour was past, and the evening beginning
-to grow dark. Then she got what she wanted, and set off home by way
-of the Gardens, feeling a little daunted by the noise and bustle of
-the streets, and fancying she would be secure when once those green
-alleys, always so peaceful, were reached. But to-night even the gardens
-were infested by the spirit of unrest and enterprise that pervaded the
-city. The quiet walks were not quiet now, and the sense of her belated
-isolation in the growing dusk seemed more formidable here instead of
-less. For hardly had she passed through the gates into the Treasury
-enclosure than she was conscious of being watched and peered at by
-strange men, who appeared to swarm all over the place; and by the time
-she had reached the Gardens nearer home the appalling fact was forced
-upon her that a tobacco-scented individual was dogging her steps, as if
-with an intention of accosting her. She was bold, but her imagination
-was easily wrought upon; and the formless danger, of a kind in which
-she was totally inexperienced, gave a shock to her nerves. So that when
-presently, as she hurriedly pattered on, hearing the heavier tread and
-an occasional artificial cough behind her, she suddenly saw a still
-more expeditious pedestrian hastening by, and recognised Paul's light
-figure and active gait, the words seemed to utter themselves without
-conscious effort of hers&mdash;"Mr. Brion!&mdash;oh, Mr. Brion, is that you?"</p>
-
-<p>He stopped at the first sound of her voice, looked back and saw her,
-saw the man behind her, and comprehended the situation immediately.
-Without speaking, he stepped to her side and offered his arm, which
-she took for one happy moment when the delightful sense of his
-protection was too strong for her, and then&mdash;reacting violently from
-that mood&mdash;released. "I&mdash;I am <i>mortified</i> with myself for being such
-a fool," she said angrily; "but really that person did frighten me. I
-don't know what is the matter with Melbourne to-night&mdash;I suppose it is
-the Exhibition." And she went on to explain how she came to be abroad
-alone at that hour, and to explain away, as she hoped, her apparent
-satisfaction in meeting him. "It seems to promise for a fine day, does
-it not?" she concluded airily, looking up at the sky.</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion put his hands in his pockets. He was mortified, too. When he
-spoke, it was with icy composure.</p>
-
-<p>"Are you going to the opening?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said Patty. "Of course we are."</p>
-
-<p>"With your swell friends, I suppose?"</p>
-
-<p>"Whom do you mean by our swell friends? Mrs. Duff-Scott is not in
-Melbourne, I believe&mdash;if you allude to her. But she is not swell. The
-only swell person we know is Mrs. Aarons, and she is not our friend."</p>
-
-<p>He allowed the allusion to Mrs. Aarons to pass. "Well, I hope you will
-have good seats," he said, moodily. "It will be a disgusting crush and
-scramble, I expect."</p>
-
-<p>"Seats? Oh, we are not going to have seats," said Patty. "We are going
-to mingle with the common herd, and look on at the civic functions,
-humbly, from the outside. <i>We</i> are not swell"&mdash;dwelling upon the
-adjective with a malicious enjoyment of the suspicion that he had not
-meant to use it&mdash;"and we like to be independent."</p>
-
-<p>"O yes, I know you do. But you'll find the Rights of Woman not much
-good to you to-morrow in the Melbourne streets, I fancy, if you go
-there on foot without an escort. May I ask how you propose to take care
-of yourselves?"</p>
-
-<p>"We are going," said Patty, "to start very early indeed, and to take
-up a certain advantageous position that we have already selected
-before the streets fill. We shall have a little elevation above the
-heads of the crowd, and a wall at our backs, and&mdash;the three of us
-together&mdash;we shall see the procession beautifully, and be quite safe
-and comfortable."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I hope you won't find yourself mistaken," he replied.</p>
-
-<p>A few minutes later Patty burst into the room where her sisters were
-sitting, placidly occupied with their bonnet-making, her eyes shining
-with excitement. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth," she cried breathlessly, "Paul
-Brion is going to ask you to let him be our escort to-morrow. But you
-won't&mdash;oh, you <i>won't</i>&mdash;have him, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, dear," said Elizabeth, serenely; "not if you would rather not. Why
-should we? It will be broad daylight, when there can be no harm in our
-being out without an escort. We shall be much happier by ourselves."</p>
-
-<p>"Much happier than with <i>him</i>," added Patty, sharply.</p>
-
-<p>And they went on with their preparations for the great day that had
-been so long desired, little thinking what it was to bring forth.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>ELIZABETH FINDS A FRIEND.</h4>
-
-
-<p>They had an early breakfast, dressed themselves with great care in
-their best frocks and the new bonnets, and, each carrying an umbrella,
-set forth with a cheerful resolve to see what was to be seen of the
-ceremonies of the day, blissfully ignorant of the nature of their
-undertaking. Paul Brion, out of bed betimes, heard their voices and the
-click of their gate, and stepped into his balcony to see them start.
-He took note of the pretty costumes, that had a gala air about them,
-and of the fresh and striking beauty of at least two of the three
-sweet faces; and he groaned to think of such women being hustled and
-battered, helplessly, in the fierce crush of a solid street crowd. But
-they had no fear whatever for themselves.</p>
-
-<p>However, they had not gone far before they perceived that the idea of
-securing a good position early in the day had occurred to a great many
-people besides themselves. Even sleepy Myrtle Street was awake and
-active, and the adjoining road, when they turned into it, was teeming
-with holiday life. They took their favourite route through the Fitzroy
-and Treasury Gardens, and found those sylvan glades alive with traffic:
-and, by the time they got into Spring Street, the crowd had thickened
-to an extent that embarrassed their progress and made it devious and
-slow. And they had scarcely passed the Treasury buildings when Eleanor,
-who had been suffering from a slight sore throat, began to cough and
-shiver, and aroused the maternal anxiety of her careful elder sister.
-"O, my dear," said Elizabeth, coming to an abrupt standstill on the
-pavement, "have you nothing but that wisp of muslin round your neck?
-And the day so cold&mdash;and looking so like rain! It will never do for you
-to stand about for hours in this wind, with the chance of getting wet,
-unless you are wrapped up better. We must run home again and fix you
-up. And I think it would be wiser if we were all to change our things
-and put on our old bonnets."</p>
-
-<p>"Now, look here, Elizabeth," said Patty, with strong emphasis; "you see
-that street, don't you?"&mdash;and she pointed down the main thoroughfare of
-the city, which was already gorged with people throughout its length.
-"You see that, and that"&mdash;and she indicated the swarming road ahead of
-them and the populous valley in the opposite direction. "If there is
-such a crowd now, what will there be in half-an-hour's time? And we
-couldn't do it in half-an-hour. Let us make Nelly tie up her throat
-in our three pocket-handkerchiefs, and push on and get our places.
-Otherwise we shall be out of it altogether&mdash;we shall see <i>nothing</i>."</p>
-
-<p>But the gentle Elizabeth was obdurate on some occasions, and this was
-one of them. Eleanor was chilled with the cold, and it was not to be
-thought of that she should run the risk of an illness from imprudent
-exposure&mdash;no, not for all the exhibitions in the world. So they
-compromised the case by deciding that Patty and Eleanor should "run"
-home together, while the elder sister awaited their return, keeping
-possession of a little post of vantage on the Treasury steps&mdash;where
-they would be able to see the procession, if not the Exhibition&mdash;in
-case the crowd should be too great by-and-bye to allow of their getting
-farther.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, make yourself as big as you can," said Patty, resignedly.</p>
-
-<p>"And, whatever you do," implored Eleanor, "don't stir an inch from
-where you are until we come back, lest we should lose you."</p>
-
-<p>Upon which they set off in hot haste to Myrtle Street.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth, when they were gone, saw with alarm the rapid growth of
-the crowd around her. It filled up the street in all directions, and
-condensed into a solid mass on the Treasury steps, very soon absorbing
-the modest amount of space that she had hoped to reserve for her
-sisters. In much less than half-an-hour she was so hopelessly wedged
-in her place that, tall and strong as she was, she was almost lifted
-off her feet; and there was no prospect of restoring communications
-with Patty and Eleanor until the show was over. In a fever of anxiety,
-bitterly regretting that she had consented to part from them, she kept
-her eyes turned towards the gate of the Gardens, whence she expected
-them to emerge; and then she saw, presently, the figure of their good
-genius and deliverer from all dilemmas, Paul Brion, fighting his way
-towards her. The little man pursued an energetic course through the
-crowd, which almost covered him, hurling himself along with a velocity
-that was out of all proportion to his bulk; and from time to time she
-saw his quick eyes flashing over other people's shoulders, and that he
-was looking eagerly in all directions. It seemed hopeless to expect him
-to distinguish her in the sea of faces around him, but he did. Sunk in
-the human tide that rose in the street above the level of his head,
-he made desperately for a footing on a higher plane, and in so doing
-caught sight of her and battled his way to her side. "Oh, <i>here</i> you
-are!" he exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "I have been so anxious about
-you. But where is Miss Patty? Where are your sisters?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, Mr. Brion," she responded, "you always seem to turn up to help us
-as soon as we get into trouble, and I am <i>so</i> thankful to see you! The
-girls had to go home for something, and were to meet me here, and I
-don't know what will become of them in this crowd."</p>
-
-<p>"Which way were they to come?" he inquired eagerly.</p>
-
-<p>"By the Gardens. But the gates are completely blocked."</p>
-
-<p>"I will go and find them," he said. "Don't be anxious about them. They
-will be in there&mdash;they will be all right. You will come too, won't you?
-I think I can manage to get you through."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't," she replied. "I promised I would not stir from this place,
-and I must not, in case they should be in the street, or we should miss
-them."</p>
-
-<p>"'The boy stood on the burning deck,'" he quoted, with a laugh. He
-could afford a little jest, though she was so serious, for he was happy
-in the conviction that the girls had been unable to reach the street,
-that he should find them disconsolate in the gardens, and compel Miss
-Patty to feel, if not to acknowledge, that he was of some use and
-comfort to her, after all. "But I hate to leave you here," he added,
-glaring upon her uncomfortable but inoffensive neighbours, "all alone
-by yourself."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't mind me," said Elizabeth, cheerfully. "If you can only find
-Patty and Nelly, and be so good as to take care of them, <i>I</i> shall be
-all right."</p>
-
-<p>And so, with apparent reluctance, but the utmost real alacrity, he left
-her, flinging himself from the steps into the crowd like a swimmer
-diving into the sea, and she saw him disappear with an easy mind.</p>
-
-<p>Then began the tramp of the procession, first in sections, then in
-imposing columns, with bands playing, and flags flying, and horses
-prancing, and the people shouting and cheering as it went by. There
-were the smart men of the Naval Reserve and the sailors of the
-warships&mdash;English and French, German and Italian, eight or nine hundred
-strong&mdash;with their merry buglers in the midst of them; and there were
-the troops of the military, with their music and accoutrements; and all
-the long procession of the trades' associations, and the fire brigades,
-with the drubbing of drums and the blare of trumpets and the shrill
-whistle of innumerable fifes accompanying their triumphal progress.
-And by-and-bye the boom of the saluting guns from the Prince's Bridge
-battery, and the seven carriages from Government House rolling slowly
-up the street and round the corner, with their dashing cavalry escort,
-amid the lusty cheers of Her Majesty's loyal subjects on the line of
-route assembled.</p>
-
-<p>But long before the Queen's representative made his appearance upon
-the scene, Elizabeth had ceased to see or care for the great spectacle
-that she had been so anxious to witness. Moment by moment the crowd
-about her grew more dense and dogged, more pitilessly indifferent to
-the comfort of one another, more evidently minded that the fittest
-should survive in the fight for existence on the Treasury steps. Rough
-men pushed her forward and backward, and from side to side, treading
-on her feet, and tearing the stitches of her gown, and knocking her
-bonnet awry, until she felt bruised and sick with the buffetings that
-she got, and the keen consciousness of the indignity of her position.
-She could scarcely breathe for the pressure around her, though the
-breath of all sorts of unpleasant people was freely poured into her
-face. She would have struggled away and gone home&mdash;convinced of the
-comforting fact that Patty and Eleanor were safely out of it in Paul
-Brion's protection&mdash;but she could not stir an inch by her own volition.
-When she did stir it was by some violent propelling power in another
-person, and this was exercised presently in such a way as to completely
-overbalance her. A sudden wave of movement broke against a stout
-woman standing immediately behind her, and the stout woman, quite
-unintentionally, pushed her to the edge of the step, and flung her upon
-the shoulder of a brawny larrikin who had fought his way backwards and
-upwards into a position whence he could see the pageant of the street
-to his satisfaction. The larrikin half turned, struck her savagely
-in the breast with his elbow, demanding, with a roar and an oath,
-where she was a-shoving to; and between her two assailants, faint and
-frightened, she lost her footing, and all but fell headlong into the
-seething mass beneath her.</p>
-
-<p>But as she was falling&mdash;a moment so agonising at the time, and so
-delightful to remember afterwards&mdash;some one caught her round the waist
-with a strong grip, and lifted her up, and set her safely on her feet
-again. It was a man who had been standing within a little distance of
-her, tall enough to overtop the crowd, and strong enough to maintain an
-upright position in it; she had noticed him for some time, and that he
-had seemed not seriously incommoded by the bustling and scuffling that
-rendered her so helpless; but she had not noticed his gradual approach
-to her side. Now, looking up with a little sob of relief, her instant
-recognition of him as a gentleman was followed by an instinctive
-identification of him as a sort of Cinderella's prince.</p>
-
-<p>In short, there is no need to make a mystery of the matter. At
-half-past ten o'clock in the morning of the first of October in the
-year 1880, when she was plunged into the most wretched and terrifying
-circumstances of her life&mdash;at the instant when she was struck by the
-larrikin's elbow and felt herself about to be crushed under the feet of
-the crowd&mdash;Elizabeth King met her happy fate. She found that friend for
-whom, hungrily if unconsciously, her tender heart had longed.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>"WE WERE NOT STRANGERS, AS TO US AND ALL IT SEEMED."</h4>
-
-
-<p>"Stand here, and I can shelter you a little," he said, in a quiet tone
-that contrasted refreshingly with the hoarse excitement around them.
-He drew her close to his side by the same grip of her waist that had
-lifted her bodily when she was off her feet, and, immediately releasing
-her, stretched a strong left arm between her exposed shoulder and the
-crush of the crowd. The arm was irresistibly pressed upon her own
-arm, and bent across her in a curve that was neither more nor less
-than a vehement embrace, and so she stood in a condition of delicious
-astonishment, one tingling blush from head to foot. It would have been
-horrible had it been anyone else.</p>
-
-<p>"I am so sorry," he said, "but I cannot help it. If you don't mind
-standing as you are for a few minutes, you will be all right directly.
-As soon as the procession has passed the crowd will scatter to follow
-it."</p>
-
-<p>They looked at each other across a space of half-a-dozen inches or
-so, and in that momentary glance, upon which everything that mutually
-concerned them depended, were severally relieved and satisfied. He was
-not handsome&mdash;he had even a reputation for ugliness; but there are
-some kinds of ugliness that are practically handsomer than many kinds
-of beauty, and his was of that sort. He had a leathery, sun-dried,
-weather-beaten, whiskerless, red moustached face, and he had a
-roughly-moulded, broad-based, ostentatious nose; his mouth was large,
-and his light grey eyes deeply set and small. Yet it was a strikingly
-distinguished and attractive face, and Elizabeth fell in love with it
-there and then. Similarly, her face, at once modest and candid, was an
-open book to his experienced glance, and provisionally delighted him.
-He was as glad as she was that fate had selected him to deliver her in
-her moment of peril, out of the many who might have held out a helping
-hand to her and did not.</p>
-
-<p>"I am afraid you cannot see very well," he remarked presently. There
-were sounds in the distance that indicated the approach of the
-vice-regal carriages, and people were craning their necks over each
-other's shoulders and standing on tiptoe to catch the first glimpse of
-them. Just in front of her the exuberant larrikin was making himself as
-tall as possible.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, thank you&mdash;I don't want to see," she replied hastily.</p>
-
-<p>"But that was what you came here for&mdash;like the rest of us&mdash;wasn't it?"</p>
-
-<p>"I did not know what I was coming for," she said, desperately,
-determined to set herself right in his eyes. "I never saw anything like
-this before&mdash;I was never in a crowd&mdash;I did not know what it was like."</p>
-
-<p>"Some one should have told you, then."</p>
-
-<p>"We have not any one belonging to us to tell us things."</p>
-
-<p>"Indeed?"</p>
-
-<p>"My sisters and I have lived in the bush always, until now. We have no
-parents. We have not seen much yet. We came out this morning, thinking
-we could stand together in a corner and look on quietly&mdash;we did not
-expect this."</p>
-
-<p>"And your sisters&mdash;?"</p>
-
-<p>"They went home again. They are all right, I hope."</p>
-
-<p>"And left you here alone?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth explained the state of the case more fully, and by the time
-she had done so the Governors' carriages were in sight. The people
-were shouting and cheering; the larrikin was dancing up and down in
-his hob-nailed boots, and bumping heavily upon the arm that shielded
-her. Shrinking from him, she drew her feet back another inch or two;
-upon which the right arm as well as the left was firmly folded round
-her. And the pressure of those two arms, stretched like iron bars to
-defend her from harm, the throbbing of his heart upon her shoulder, the
-sound of his deep-chested breathing in her ear&mdash;no consideration of
-the involuntary and unromantic necessity of the situation could calm
-the tremulous excitement communicated to her by these things. Oh, how
-hideous, how simply insupportable it would have been, had she been thus
-cast upon another breast and into other arms than HIS! As it was, it
-was all right. He said he feared she was terribly uncomfortable, but,
-though she did not contradict him, she felt in the secret depths of her
-primitive soul that she had never been more comfortable. To be cared
-for and protected was a new sensation, and, though she had had to bear
-anxious responsibilities for herself and others, she had no natural
-vocation for independence. Many a time since have they spoken of this
-first half hour with pride, boasting of how they trusted each other at
-sight, needing no proofs from experience like other people&mdash;a foolish
-boast, for they were but a man and woman, and not gods. "I took you to
-my heart the first moment I saw you," he says. "And I knew, even as
-soon as that, that it was my own place," she calmly replies. Whereas
-good luck, and not their own wisdom, justified them.</p>
-
-<p>He spoke to her with studied coldness while necessarily holding her
-embraced, as it were, to protect her from the crowd; at the same
-time he put himself to some trouble to make conversation, which was
-less embarrassing to her than silence. He remarked that he was fond
-of crowds himself&mdash;found them intensely interesting&mdash;and spoke of
-Thackeray's paper on the crowd that went to see the man hanged (which
-she had never read) as illustrating the kind of interest he meant.
-He had lately seen the crowd at the opening of the Trocadero Palace,
-and that which celebrated the completion of Cologne Cathedral; facts
-which proclaimed him a "globe-trotter" and new arrival in Melbourne.
-The few words in which he described the festival at Cologne fired her
-imagination, fed so long upon dreams of foreign travel, and made her
-forget for the moment that he was not an old acquaintance.</p>
-
-<p>"It was at about this hour of the day," he said, "and I stood with the
-throng in the streets, as I am doing now. They put the last stone on
-the top of the cross on one of the towers more than six hundred years
-after the foundation stone was laid. The people were wild with joy, and
-hung out their flags all over the place. One old fellow came up to me
-and wanted to kiss me&mdash;he thought I must be as overcome as he was."</p>
-
-<p>"And were you not impressed?"</p>
-
-<p>"Of course I was. It was very pathetic," he replied, gently. And she
-thought "pathetic" an odd word to use. Why pathetic? She did not like
-to ask him. Then he made the further curious statement that this crowd
-was the tamest he had ever seen.</p>
-
-<p>"<i>I</i> don't call it tame," she said, with a laugh, as the yells of the
-larrikin and his fellows rent the air around them.</p>
-
-<p>He responded to her laugh with a pleasant smile, and his voice was
-friendlier when he spoke again. "But I am quite delighted with it,
-unimpressive as it is. It is composed of people who are not <i>wanting
-anything</i>. I don't know that I was ever in a crowd of that sort before.
-I feel, for once, that I can breathe in peace."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, I wish I could feel so!" she cried. The carriages, in their slow
-progress, were now turning at the top of Collins Street, and the hubbub
-around them had reached its height.</p>
-
-<p>"It will soon be over now," he murmured encouragingly.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she replied. In a few minutes the crush would lessen, and he
-and she would part. That was what they thought, to the exclusion of all
-interest in the passing spectacle. Even as she spoke, the noise and
-confusion that had made a solitude for their quiet intercourse sensibly
-subsided. The tail of the procession was well in sight; the heaving
-crowd on the Treasury steps was swaying and breaking like a huge wave
-upon the street; the larrikin was gone. It was time for the unknown
-gentleman to resume the conventional attitude, and for Elizabeth to
-remember that he was a total stranger to her.</p>
-
-<p>"You had better take my arm," he said, as she hastily disengaged
-herself before it was safe to do so, and was immediately caught in the
-eddy that was setting strongly in the direction of the Exhibition. "If
-you don't mind waiting here for a few minutes longer, you will be able
-to get home comfortably."</p>
-
-<p>She struggled back to his side, and took his arm, and waited; but they
-did not talk any more. They watched the disintegration and dispersion
-of the great mass that had hemmed them in together, until at last they
-stood in ease and freedom almost alone upon that coign of vantage which
-had been won with so much difficulty&mdash;two rather imposing figures,
-if anyone had cared to notice them. Then she withdrew her hand, and
-said, with a little stiff bow and a bright and becoming colour in her
-face&mdash;"<i>Thank</i> you."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't mention it," he replied, with perfect gravity. "I am very happy
-to have been of any service to you."</p>
-
-<p>Still they did not move from where they stood.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't you want to see the rest of it?" she asked timidly.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you?" he responded, looking at her with a smile.</p>
-
-<p>"O dear no, thank you! I have had quite enough, and I am very anxious
-to find my sisters."</p>
-
-<p>"Then allow me to be your escort until you are clear of the streets."
-He did not put it as a request, and he began to descend the steps
-before she could make up her mind how to answer him. So she found
-herself walking beside him along the footpath and through the Gardens,
-wondering who he was, and how she could politely dismiss him&mdash;or how
-soon he would dismiss her. Now and then she snatched a sidelong glance
-at him, and noted his great stature and the easy dignity with which he
-carried himself, and transferred one by one the striking features of
-his countenance to her faithful memory. He made a powerful impression
-upon her. Thinking of him, she had almost forgotten how anxious she
-was to find her sisters until, with a start, she suddenly caught sight
-of them sitting comfortably on a bench in an alley of the Fitzroy
-Gardens, Eleanor and Patty side by side, and Paul Brion on the other
-side of Eleanor. The three sprang up as soon as they saw her coming,
-with gestures of eager welcome.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" said Elizabeth, her face flaming with an entirely unnecessary
-blush, "there are my sisters. I&mdash;I am all right now. I need not trouble
-you any further. Thank you very much."</p>
-
-<p>She paused, and so did he. She bent her head without lifting her eyes,
-and he took off his hat to her with profound respect. And so they
-parted&mdash;for a little while.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>AFTERNOON TEA.</h4>
-
-
-<p>When he had turned and left her, Elizabeth faced her sisters with
-that vivid blush still on her cheeks, and a general appearance of
-embarrassment that was too novel to escape notice. Patty and Eleanor
-stared for a moment, and Eleanor laughed.</p>
-
-<p>"Who is he?" she inquired saucily.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "Where have you been, dears? How have
-you got on? I have been so anxious about you."</p>
-
-<p>"But who is he?" persisted Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"I have not the least idea, I tell you. Perhaps Mr. Brion knows."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Mr. Brion. "He is a perfect stranger to me."</p>
-
-<p>"He is a new arrival, I suppose," said Elizabeth, stealing a backward
-glance at her hero, whom the others were watching intently as he walked
-away. "Yes, he can have but just arrived, for he saw the last stone put
-to the building of Cologne Cathedral, and that was not more than six or
-seven weeks ago. He has come out to see the Exhibition, probably. He
-seems to be a great traveller."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," said Eleanor, turning with a grimace to Patty, "here have we been
-mooning about in the gardens, and she has been seeing everything, and
-having adventures into the bargain!"</p>
-
-<p>"It is very little I have seen," her elder sister remarked, "and this
-will tell you the nature of my adventures"&mdash;and she showed them a rent
-in her gown. "I was nearly torn to pieces by the crowd after you left.
-I am only too thankful you were out of it."</p>
-
-<p>"But we are not at all thankful," pouted Eleanor. "Are we, Patty?"
-(Patty was silent, but apparently amiable.) "It is only the stitching
-that is undone&mdash;you can mend it in five minutes. We wouldn't have
-minded little trifles of that sort&mdash;not in the least&mdash;to have seen the
-procession, and made the acquaintance of distinguished travellers. Were
-there many more of them about, do you suppose?"</p>
-
-<p>"O no," replied Elizabeth, promptly. "Only he."</p>
-
-<p>"And you managed to find him! Why shouldn't we have found him
-too&mdash;Patty and I? Do tell us his name, Elizabeth, and how you happened
-on him, and what he has been saying and doing."</p>
-
-<p>"He took care of me, dear&mdash;that's all. I was crushed almost into a
-pulp, and he allowed me to&mdash;to stand beside him until the worst of it
-was over."</p>
-
-<p>"How interesting!" ejaculated Eleanor. "And then he talked to you about
-Cologne Cathedral?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. But never mind about him. Tell me where Mr. Brion found you, and
-what you have been doing."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>we</i> have not been doing anything&mdash;far from it. I <i>wish</i> you knew
-his name, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"But, my dear, I don't. So leave off asking silly questions. I daresay
-we shall never see or hear of him again."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't you believe it! I'm <i>certain</i> we shall see him again. He
-will be at the Exhibition some day when we go there&mdash;to-morrow, very
-likely."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, well, never mind. What are we going to do now?"</p>
-
-<p>They consulted with Paul for a few minutes, and he took them where they
-could get a distant view of the crowds swarming around the Exhibition,
-and hear the confused clamour of the bands&mdash;which seemed to gratify
-the two younger sisters very much, in the absence of more pronounced
-excitement. They walked about until they saw the Royal Standard hoisted
-over the great dome, and heard the saluting guns proclaim that the
-Exhibition was open; and then they returned to Myrtle Street, with a
-sense of having had breakfast in the remote past, and of having spent
-an enormously long morning not unpleasantly, upon the whole.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. M'Intyre was standing at her gate when they reached home, and
-stopped them to ask what they had seen, and how they had enjoyed
-themselves. <i>She</i> had stayed quietly in the house, and busied herself
-in the manufacture of meringues and lemon cheese-cakes&mdash;having, she
-explained, superfluous eggs in the larder, and a new lodger coming in;
-and she evidently prided herself upon her well-spent time. "And if
-you'll stay, you shall have some," she said, and she opened the gate
-hospitably. "Now, don't say no, Miss King&mdash;don't, Miss Nelly. It's past
-one, and I've got a nice cutlet and mashed potatoes just coming on the
-table. Bring them along, Mr. Brion. I'm sure they'll come if <i>you</i> ask
-them."</p>
-
-<p>"We'll come without that," said Eleanor, walking boldly in. "At least,
-I will. <i>I</i> couldn't resist cutlets and mashed potatoes under present
-circumstances&mdash;not to speak of lemon cheese-cakes and meringues&mdash;and
-your society, Mrs. M'Intyre."</p>
-
-<p>Paul held the gate open, and Elizabeth followed Eleanor, and Patty
-followed Elizabeth. Patty did not look at him, but she was in a
-peaceable disposition; seeing which, he felt happier than he had been
-for months. They lunched together, with much enjoyment of the viands
-placed before them, and of each other's company, feeling distinctly
-that, however small had been their share in the demonstrations of the
-day, the festival spirit was with them; and when they rose from the
-table there was an obvious reluctance to separate.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, I'll tell you what," said Eleanor; "we have had dinner with you,
-Mrs. M'Intyre, and now you ought to come and have afternoon tea with
-us. You have not been in to see us for <i>years</i>."</p>
-
-<p>She looked at Elizabeth, who hastened to endorse the invitation, and
-Mrs. M'Intyre consented to think about it.</p>
-
-<p>"And may not I come too?" pleaded Paul, not daring to glance at his
-little mistress, but appealing fervently to Elizabeth. "Mayn't I come
-with Mrs. M'Intyre for a cup of tea, too?"</p>
-
-<p>"Of course you may," said Elizabeth, and Eleanor nodded acquiescence,
-and Patty gazed serenely out of the window. "Go and have your smoke
-comfortably, and come in in about an hour."</p>
-
-<p>With which the sisters left, and, as soon as they reached their
-own quarters, set to work with something like enthusiasm to make
-preparations for their expected guests. Before the hour was up, a
-bright fire was blazing in their sitting-room, and a little table
-beside it was spread comfortably with a snow-white cloth, and twinkling
-crockery and spoons. The kettle was singing on the hearth, and a
-plate of buttered muffins reposed under a napkin in the fender. The
-window was open; so was the piano. Patty was flying from place to
-place, with a duster in her hand, changing the position of the chairs,
-and polishing the spotless surfaces of the furniture generally, with
-anxious industry. <i>She</i> had not asked Paul Brion to come to see them,
-but since he was coming they might as well have the place decent, she
-said.</p>
-
-<p>When he came at last meekly creeping upstairs at Mrs. M'Intyre's heels,
-Patty was nowhere to be seen. He looked all round as he crossed the
-threshold, and took in the delicate air of cheerfulness, the almost
-austere simplicity and orderliness that characterised the little room,
-and made it quite different from any room he had ever seen; and then
-his heart sank, and a cloud of disappointment fell over his eager face.
-He braced himself to bear it. He made up his mind at once that he
-had had his share of luck for that day, and must not expect anything
-more. However, some minutes later, when Mrs. M'Intyre had made herself
-comfortable by unhooking her jacket, and untying her bonnet strings,
-and when Elizabeth was preparing to pour out the tea, Patty sauntered
-in with some needlework in her hand&mdash;stitching as she walked&mdash;and took
-a retired seat by the window. He seized upon a cup of tea and carried
-it to her, and stood there as if to secure her before she could escape
-again. As he approached she bent her head lower over her work, and
-a little colour stole into her face; and then she lifted herself up
-defiantly.</p>
-
-<p>"Here is your tea, Miss Patty," he said, humbly.</p>
-
-<p>"Thanks. Just put it down there, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>She nodded towards a chair near her, and he set the cup down on it
-carefully. But he did not go.</p>
-
-<p>"You are very busy," he remarked.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she replied, shortly. "I have wasted all the morning. Now I must
-try to make up for it."</p>
-
-<p>"Are you too busy to play something&mdash;presently, I mean, when you have
-had your tea? I must go and work too, directly. I should so enjoy to
-hear you play before I go."</p>
-
-<p>She laid her sewing on her knee, reached for her cup, and began to
-sip it with a relenting face. She asked him what kind of music he
-preferred, and he said he didn't care, but he thought he liked "soft
-things" best. "There was a thing you played last Sunday night," he
-suggested; "quite late, just before you went to bed. It has been
-running in my head ever since."</p>
-
-<p>She balanced her teaspoon in her hand, and puckered her brows
-thoughtfully. "Let me think&mdash;what was I playing on Sunday night?" she
-murmured to herself. "It must have been one of the <i>Lieder</i> surely&mdash;or,
-perhaps, a Beethoven sonata? Or Batiste's andante in G perhaps?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, I don't know the name of anything. I only remember that it was
-very lovely and sad."</p>
-
-<p>"But we shouldn't play sad things in the broad daylight, when people
-want to gossip over their tea," she said, glancing at Mrs. M'Intyre,
-who was energetically describing to Elizabeth the only proper way of
-making tomato sauce. But she got up, all the same, and went over to the
-piano, and began to play the andante just above a whisper, caressing
-the soft pedal with her foot.</p>
-
-<p>"Was that it?" she asked gently, smiling at him as he drew up a low
-wicker chair and sat down at her elbow to listen.</p>
-
-<p>"Go on," he murmured gratefully. "It was <i>like</i> that."</p>
-
-<p>And she went on&mdash;while Mrs. M'Intyre, having concluded her remarks upon
-tomato sauce, detailed the results of her wide experience in orange
-marmalade and quince jelly, and Elizabeth and Eleanor did their best
-to profit by her wisdom&mdash;playing to him alone. It did not last very
-long&mdash;a quarter of an hour perhaps&mdash;but every moment was an ecstasy
-to Paul Brion. Even more than the music, delicious as it was, Patty's
-gentle and approachable mood enchanted him. She had never been like
-that to him before. He sat on his low chair, and looked up at her
-tender profile as she drooped a little over the keys, throbbing with
-a new sense of her sweetness and beauty, and learning more about his
-own heart in those few minutes than all the previous weeks and months
-of their acquaintance had taught him. And then the spell that had been
-weaving and winding them together, as it seemed to him, was suddenly
-and rudely broken. There was a clatter of wheels and hoofs along the
-street, a swinging gate and a jangling door bell; and Eleanor, running
-to the window, uttered an exclamation that effectually wakened him from
-his dreams.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>Elizabeth&mdash;Patty&mdash;</i>it is Mrs. Duff-Scott!"</p>
-
-<p>In another minute the great lady herself stood amongst them, rustling
-over the matting in her splendid gown, almost filling the little room
-with her presence. Mrs. M'Intyre gave way before her, and edged towards
-the door with modest, deprecatory movements, but Paul stood where
-he had risen, as stiff as a poker, and glared at her with murderous
-ferocity.</p>
-
-<p>"You see I have come back, my dears," she exclaimed, cordially, kissing
-the girls one after the other. "And I am so sorry I could not get to
-you in time to make arrangements for taking you with me to see the
-opening&mdash;I quite intended to take you. But I only returned last night."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, thank you," responded Elizabeth, with warm gratitude, "it is treat
-enough for us to see you again." And then, hesitating a little as she
-wondered whether it was or was not a proper thing to do, she looked at
-her other guests and murmured their names. Upon which Mrs. M'Intyre
-made a servile curtsey, unworthy of a daughter of a free country, and
-Paul a most reluctant inclination of the head. To which again Mrs.
-Duff-Scott responded by a slight nod and a glance of good-humoured
-curiosity at them both.</p>
-
-<p>"I'll say good afternoon, Miss King," said Mr. Brion haughtily.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>good</i> afternoon," replied Elizabeth, smiling sweetly. And she and
-her sisters shook hands with him and with his landlady, and the pair
-departed in some haste, Paul in a worse temper than he had ever known
-himself to indulge in; and he was not much mollified by the sudden
-appearance of Elizabeth, as he was fumbling with the handle of the
-front door, bearing her evident if unspoken apologies for having seemed
-to turn him out.</p>
-
-<p>"You will come with Mrs. M'Intyre another time," she suggested kindly,
-"and have some more music? I would have asked you to stay longer
-to-day, but we haven't seen Mrs. Duff-Scott for such a long time&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, pray don't mention it," he interrupted stiffly. "I should have had
-to leave in any case, for my work is all behind-hand."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, that is because we have been wasting your time!"</p>
-
-<p>"Not at all. I am only too happy to be of use&mdash;in the absence of your
-other friends."</p>
-
-<p>She would not notice this little sneer, but said good-bye and turned
-to walk upstairs. Paul, ashamed of himself, made an effort to detain
-her. "Is there anything I can do for you, Miss King?" he asked, gruffly
-indeed, but with an appeal for forbearance in his eyes. "Do you want
-your books changed or anything?"</p>
-
-<p>She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, and thought for a moment;
-and then she said, dropping her eyes, "I&mdash;I think <i>you</i> have a book
-that I should like to borrow&mdash;if I might."</p>
-
-<p>"Most happy. What book is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete
-edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present.
-I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about
-a man being hanged&mdash;and a crowd&mdash;" She broke off with an embarrassed
-laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded.</p>
-
-<p>"You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled
-'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches'&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"That is the book I mean."</p>
-
-<p>"All right&mdash;I'll get it and send it in to you at once&mdash;with pleasure."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, <i>thank</i> you. I'm <i>so</i> much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest
-care of it," she assured him fervently.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE FAIRY GODMOTHER.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying
-to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father
-was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been
-inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere
-accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions
-upon the subject.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't encourage him, my dears&mdash;don't encourage him to come again," she
-was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two
-very different people, whatever they may think."</p>
-
-<p>"We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has
-done so much for us."</p>
-
-<p>"Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls <i>can't</i> be grateful to young
-men&mdash;don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got
-<i>me</i> to do things for you."</p>
-
-<p>"But he helped us when we had no one else."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him&mdash;a
-privilege&mdash;for <i>him</i> to be grateful for rather than you. But&mdash;well,
-Elizabeth knows what I mean"&mdash;turning an expressive glance towards the
-discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and
-Elizabeth answered both of them at once.</p>
-
-<p>"You must not ask us to give up Paul Brion," she said, promptly.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. "I only ask you to keep him in his
-place. He is not the kind of person to indulge with tea and music, you
-know&mdash;that is what I mean."</p>
-
-<p>"You speak as if you knew something against him," murmured Patty, with
-heightened colour.</p>
-
-<p>"I know this much, my dear," replied the elder woman, gravely; "he is
-<i>a friend of Mrs. Aarons's</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"And is not Mrs. Aarons&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"She is very well, in her way. But she likes to have men dangling about
-her. She means no harm, I am sure," added Mrs. Duff-Scott, who, in
-the matter of scandal, prided herself on being a non-conductor, "but
-still it is not nice, you know. And I don't think that her men friends
-are the kind of friends for you. You don't mind my speaking frankly,
-my love? I am an old woman, you know, and I have had a great deal of
-experience."</p>
-
-<p>She was assured that they did not mind it, but were, on the contrary,
-indebted to her for her good advice. And the subject of Paul Brion was
-dropped. Patty was effectually silenced by that unexpected reference
-to Mrs. Aarons, and by the rush of recollections, embracing him and
-her together, which suddenly gave form and colour to the horrible
-idea of him as a victim to a married woman's fascinations. She turned
-away abruptly, with a painful blush that not only crimsoned her from
-throat to temples, but seemed to make her tingle to her toes; and,
-like the headlong and pitiless young zealot that she was, determined
-to thrust him out for ever from the sacred precincts of her regard.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was satisfied too. She was always sure of her own power
-to speak plainly without giving offence, and she found it absolutely
-necessary to protect these ingenuous maidens from their own ignorance.
-Needless to say that, since she had adopted them into her social
-circle, she had laid plans for their ultimate settlement therein. In
-her impulsive benevolence she had even gone the length of marking
-down the three husbands whom she considered respectively appropriate
-to the requirements of the case, and promised herself a great deal of
-interest and pleasure in the vicarious pursuit of them through the
-ensuing season. Wherefore she was much relieved to have come across
-this obscure writer for the press, and to have had the good chance, at
-the outset of her campaign, to counteract his possibly antagonistic
-influence. She knew her girls quite well enough to make sure that her
-hint would take its full effect.</p>
-
-<p>She leaned back in her chair comfortably, and drew off her gloves,
-while they put fresh tea in the teapot, and cut her thin shavings of
-bread and butter; and she sat with them until six o'clock, gossiping
-pleasantly. After giving them a history of the morning's ceremonies,
-as witnessed by the Government's invited guests inside the Exhibition
-building, she launched into hospitable schemes for their enjoyment of
-the gay time that had set in. "Now that I am come back," she said, "I
-shall take care that you shall go out and see everything there is to be
-seen. You have never had such a chance to learn something of the world,
-and I can't allow you to neglect it."</p>
-
-<p>"Dear Mrs. Duff-Scott," said Elizabeth, "we have already been indulging
-ourselves too much, I am afraid. We have done no reading&mdash;at least none
-worth doing&mdash;for days. We are getting all behind-hand. The whole of
-yesterday and all this morning&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"What did you do this morning?" Mrs. Duff-Scott interrupted quickly.</p>
-
-<p>They gave her a sketch of their adventures, merely suppressing
-the incident of the elder sister's encounter with the mysterious
-person whom the younger ones had begun to style "Elizabeth's young
-man"&mdash;though why they suppressed that none of them could have explained.</p>
-
-<p>"Very well," was her comment upon the little narrative, which told her
-far more than it told them. "That shows you that I am right. There are
-a great many things for you to learn that all the books in the Public
-Library could not teach you. Take my advice, and give up literary
-studies for a little while. Give them up altogether, and come and learn
-what the world and your fellow-creatures are made of. Make a school of
-the Exhibition while it lasts, and let me give you lessons in&mdash;a&mdash;what
-shall I call it&mdash;social science?&mdash;the study of human nature?"</p>
-
-<p>Nothing could be more charming than to have lessons from her, they told
-her; and they had intended to go to school to the Exhibition as often
-as they could. But&mdash;but their literary studies were their equipment for
-the larger and fuller life that they looked forward to in the great
-world beyond the seas. Perhaps she did not understand that?</p>
-
-<p>"I understand this, my dears," the matron replied, with energy. "There
-is no greater mistake in life than to sacrifice the substance of the
-present for the shadow of the future. We most of us do it&mdash;until we
-get old&mdash;and then we look back to see how foolish and wasteful we
-have been, and that is not much comfort to us. What we've got, we've
-got; what we are going to have nobody can tell. Lay in all the store
-you can, of course&mdash;take all reasonable precautions to insure as
-satisfactory a future as possible&mdash;but don't forget that the Present is
-the great time, the most important stage of your existence, no matter
-what your circumstances may be."</p>
-
-<p>The girls listened to her thoughtfully, allowing that she might be
-right, but suspending their judgment in the matter. They were all too
-young to be convinced by another person's experience.</p>
-
-<p>"You let Europe take care of itself for a bit," their friend proceeded,
-"and come out and see what Australia in holiday time is like, and what
-the fleeting hour will give you. I will fetch you to-morrow for a long
-day at the Exhibition to begin with, and then I'll&mdash;I'll&mdash;" She broke
-off and looked from one to another with an unwonted and surprising
-embarrassment, and then went on impetuously.</p>
-
-<p>"My dears, I don't know how to put it so as not to hurt or burden you,
-but you won't misunderstand me if I express myself awkwardly&mdash;you
-won't have any of that absurd conventional pride about not being
-under obligations&mdash;it is a selfish feeling, a want of trust and true
-generosity, when it is the case of a friend who&mdash;" She stammered and
-hesitated, this self-possessed empress of a woman, and was obviously at
-a loss for words wherein to give her meaning. Elizabeth, seeing what it
-was that she wanted to say, sank on her knees before her, and took her
-hands and kissed them. But over her sister's bent head Patty stood up
-stiffly, with a burning colour in her face. Mrs. Duff-Scott, absently
-fondling Elizabeth, addressed herself to Patty when she spoke again.</p>
-
-<p>"As an ordinary rule," she said, "one should not accept things
-from another who is not a relation&mdash;I know that. <i>Not</i> because it
-is improper&mdash;it ought to be the most proper thing in the world for
-people to help each other&mdash;but because in so many cases it can never
-happen without bitter mortifications afterwards. People are so&mdash;so
-superficial? But I&mdash;Patty, dear, I am an old woman, and I have a great
-deal of money, and I have no children; and I have never been able to
-fill the great gap where the children should be with music and china,
-or any interest of that sort. And you are alone in the world, and I
-have taken a fancy to you&mdash;I have grown <i>fond</i> of you&mdash;and I have
-made a little plan for having you about me, to be a sort of adopted
-daughters for whom I could feel free to do little motherly things in
-return for your love and confidence in me. You will indulge me, and let
-me have my way, won't you? It will be doing more for me, I am sure,
-than I could do for you."</p>
-
-<p>"O no&mdash;no&mdash;<i>no!</i>" said Patty, with a deep breath, but stretching her
-hands with deprecating tenderness towards their guest. "You would
-do everything for us, and we <i>could</i> do nothing for you. You would
-overwhelm us! And not only that; perhaps&mdash;perhaps, by-and-bye, you
-would not care about us so much as you do now&mdash;we might want to do
-something that you didn't like, something we felt ourselves <i>obliged</i>
-to do, however much you disliked it&mdash;and if you got vexed with us, or
-tired of us&mdash;oh, think what that would be! Think how you would regret
-that you had&mdash;had&mdash;made us seem to belong to you. And how we should
-hate ourselves."</p>
-
-<p>She looked at Mrs. Duff-Scott with a world of ardent apology in her
-eyes, before which the matron's fell, discouraged and displeased.</p>
-
-<p>"You make me feel that I am an impulsive and romantic girl, and that
-<i>you</i> are the wise old woman of the world," she said with a proud sigh.</p>
-
-<p>But at this, Patty, pierced to the heart, flung her arms round Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's neck, and crushed the most beautiful bonnet in Melbourne
-remorselessly out of shape against her young breast. That settled the
-question, for all practical purposes. Mrs. Duff-Scott went home at six
-o'clock, feeling that she had achieved her purpose, and entered into
-some of the dear privileges of maternity. It was more delightful than
-any "find" of old china. She did not go to sleep until she had talked
-both her husband and herself into a headache with her numerous plans
-for the welfare of her <i>protégées</i>, and until she had designed down to
-the smallest detail the most becoming costumes she could think of for
-them to wear, when she took them with her to the Cup.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Paul Brion was wakened from his sleep next morning by the sound of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's carriage wheels and prancing horses, and sauntering to
-his sitting-room window about ten minutes later, had the satisfaction
-of seeing his young neighbours step into the distinguished vehicle and
-drive away. There was Elizabeth reposing by her chaperon's side, as
-serene as a princess who had never set foot on common earth; and there
-were Patty and Eleanor, smiling and animated, lovelier than their wont,
-if that could be, nestling under the shadow of two tall men-servants
-in irreproachable liveries, with cockades upon their hats. It was a
-pretty sight, but it spoiled his appetite for his breakfast. He could
-no longer pretend that he was thankful for the fruition of his desires
-on their behalf. He could only feel that they were gone, and that he
-was left behind&mdash;that a great gulf had suddenly opened between them and
-him and the humble and happy circumstances of yesterday, with no bridge
-across it that he could walk over.</p>
-
-<p>The girls, for their part, practically forgot him, and enjoyed the
-difference between to-day and yesterday in the most worldly and
-womanly manner. The sensation of bowling along the streets in a
-perfectly-appointed carriage was as delicious to them as it is to most
-of us who are too poor to indulge in it as a habit; for the time being
-it answered all the purposes of happiness as thoroughly as if they had
-never had any higher ambition than to cut a dash. They went shopping
-with the fairy godmother before they went to the Exhibition, and that,
-too, was absorbingly delightful&mdash;both to Elizabeth, who went in with
-Mrs. Duff-Scott to assist her in her purchases, and to the younger
-sisters, who reposed majestically in the carriage at the door. Patty's
-quick eyes caught sight of Mrs. Aarons and a pair of her long-nosed
-children walking on the pavement, and she cheerfully owned herself a
-snob and gloried in it. It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, she said,
-to sit there and look down upon Mrs. Aarons.</p>
-
-<p>As they passed the Melbourne Club on their way to the Exhibition, the
-coachman was hailed by the elder of two gentlemen who were sauntering
-down the steps, and they were introduced for the first time to the
-fairy godmother's husband. Major Duff-Scott, an ex-officer of dragoons
-and a late prominent public man of his colony (he was prominent
-still, but for his social, and not his official qualifications), was
-a well-dressed and well-preserved old gentleman, who, having sown a
-large and miscellaneous crop of wild oats in the course of a long
-career, had been rewarded with great wealth and all the privileges
-of the highest respectability. He had been a prodigal, but he had
-enjoyed it&mdash;never knowing the bitterness of either hunger or husks.
-He had tasted dry bread at times, as a matter of course, but only
-just enough of it to give a proper relish to the abundant cakes and
-ale that were his portion; and the proverb which says you cannot eat
-your cake and have it was a perfectly dead letter in his case. He had
-been eating his all his life, and he had got it still. In person he
-was the most gentle-looking little man imaginable&mdash;about half the size
-of his imposing wife, thin and spare, and with a little stoop in his
-shoulders; but there was an alertness in his step and a brightness in
-his eye, twinkling remotely between the shadow of his hat brim and a
-bulging mass of white moustache that covered all the lower part of
-his small face, which had suggestions of youth and vigour about them
-that were lacking in the figure and physiognomy of the young man at
-his side. When he came up to the carriage door to be introduced to his
-wife's <i>protégées</i>, whom he greeted with as much cordiality as Mrs.
-Duff-Scott could have desired, they did not know why it was that they
-so immediately lost the sense of awe with which they had contemplated
-the approach of a person destined to have so formidable a relation to
-themselves. They shook hands with him, they made modest replies to his
-polite inquiries, they looked beyond his ostensible person to the eyes
-that looked at them; and then their three grave faces relaxed, and in
-half a minute were brimming over with smiles. They felt at home with
-Major Duff-Scott at once.</p>
-
-<p>"Come, come," said the fairy godmother rather impatiently, when
-something like a fine aroma of badinage was beginning to perfume
-the conversation, "you must not stop us now. We want to have a long
-morning. You can join us at the Exhibition presently, if you like,
-and bring Mr. Westmoreland." She indicated the young man who had
-been talking to her while her spouse made the acquaintance of her
-companions, and who happened to be one of the three husbands whom she
-had selected for those young ladies. He was the richest of them all,
-and the most stupid, and therefore he seemed to be cut out for Patty,
-who, being so intellectual and so enterprising, would not only make
-a good use of his money, but would make the best that was to be made
-of <i>him</i>. "My dears," she said, turning towards the girls, "let me
-introduce Mr. Westmoreland to you. Mr. Westmoreland, Miss King&mdash;Miss
-Eleanor King&mdash;Miss <i>Patty</i> King."</p>
-
-<p>The heavy young man made a heavy bow to each, and then stared straight
-at Eleanor, and studied her with calm attention until the carriage bore
-her from his sight. She, with her tender blue eyes and her yellow hair,
-and her skin like the petals of a blush rose, was what he was pleased
-to call, in speaking of her a little later to a confidential friend,
-the "girl for him." Of Patty he took no notice whatever.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to Carlton, stopped to speak to an
-acquaintance who was driving in an opposite direction, and by the time
-she reached the Exhibition, she found that her husband's hansom had
-arrived before her, and that he and Mr. Westmoreland were waiting at
-the entrance to offer their services as escort to the party. The major
-was the best of husbands, but he was not in the habit of paying her
-these small attentions; and Mr. Westmoreland had never been known,
-within her memory of him, to put himself to so much trouble for a
-lady's convenience. Wherefore the fairy godmother smiled upon them
-both, and felt that the Fates were altogether propitious to her little
-schemes. They walked up the pathway in a group, fell necessarily into
-single file in the narrow passage where they received and returned
-their tickets, and collected in a group again under the great dome,
-where they stood to look round on the twenty acres of covered space
-heaped with the treasures of those nations which Victoria welcomed in
-great letters on the walls. Mrs. Duff-Scott hooked her gold-rimmed
-glasses over her nose, and pointed out to her husband wherein the
-building was deficient, and wherein superfluous, in its internal
-arrangements and decorations. In her opinion&mdash;which placed the matter
-beyond discussion&mdash;the symbolical groups over the arches were all out
-of drawing, the colouring of the whole place vulgar to a degree, and
-the painted clouds inside the cupola enough to make one sick. The
-major endorsed her criticisms, perfunctorily, with amused little nods,
-glancing hither and thither in the directions she desired. "Ah, my
-dear," said he, "you mustn't expect everybody to have such good taste
-as yours." Mr. Westmoreland seemed to have exhausted the Exhibition,
-for his part; he had seen it all the day before, he explained, and he
-did not see what there was to make a fuss about. With the exception
-of some mysteries in the basement, into which he darkly hinted a
-desire to initiate the major presently, it had nothing about it to
-interest a man who, like him, had just returned from Europe and had
-seen the Paris affair. But to our girls it was an enchanted palace of
-delights&mdash;far exceeding their most extravagant anticipations. They
-gave no verbal expression to their sentiments, but they looked at each
-other with faces full of exalted emotion, and tacitly agreed that they
-were perfectly satisfied. The fascination of the place, as a storehouse
-of genuine samples of the treasures of that great world which they
-had never seen, laid hold of them with a grip that left a lasting
-impression. Even the <i>rococo</i> magnificence of the architecture and its
-adornments, which Mrs. Duff-Scott, enlightened by a large experience,
-despised, affected their untrained imaginations with all the force of
-the highest artistic sublimity. A longing took possession of them all
-at the same moment to steal back to-morrow&mdash;next day&mdash;as soon as they
-were free again to follow their own devices&mdash;and wander about the great
-and wonderful labyrinth by themselves and revel unobserved in their
-secret enthusiasms.</p>
-
-<p>However, they enjoyed themselves to-day beyond all expectation. After
-skimming the cream of the many sensations offered to them, sauntering
-up and down and round and round through the larger thoroughfares in
-a straggling group, the little party, fixing upon their place of
-rendezvous and lunching arrangements, paired themselves for a closer
-inspection of such works of art as they were severally inclined to.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott kept Patty by her side, partly because Mr. Westmoreland
-did not seem to want her, and partly because the girl was such an
-interesting companion, being wholly absorbed in what she had come
-to see, and full of intelligent appreciation of everything that was
-pointed out to her; and this pair went a-hunting in the wildernesses of
-miscellaneous pottery for such unique and precious "bits" as might be
-secured, on the early bird principle, for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection.
-Very soon that lady's card was hanging round the necks of all sorts of
-quaint vessels that she had greedily pounced upon (and which further
-researches proved to be relatively unworthy of notice) in her anxiety
-to outwit and frustrate the birds that would come round presently;
-while Patty was having her first lesson in china, and showing herself a
-delightfully precocious pupil. Mr. Westmoreland confined his attentions
-exclusively to Eleanor, who by-and-bye found herself interested in
-being made so much of, and even inclined to be a little frivolous. She
-did not know whether to take him as a joke or in earnest, but either
-way he was amusing. He strolled heavily along by her side for awhile
-in the wake of Mrs. Duff-Scott and Patty, paying no attention to the
-dazzling wares around him, but a great deal to his companion. He kept
-turning his head to gaze at her, with solemn, ruminating eyes, until at
-last, tired of pretending she did not notice it, she looked back at him
-and laughed. This seemed to put him at his ease with her at once.</p>
-
-<p>"What are you laughing at?" he asked, with more animation than she
-thought him capable of.</p>
-
-<p>"Nothing," said she.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, but you were laughing at something. What was it? Was it because I
-was staring at you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, you <i>do</i> stare," she admitted.</p>
-
-<p>"I can't help it. No one could help staring at you."</p>
-
-<p>"Why? Am I such a curiosity?"</p>
-
-<p>"You know why. Don't pretend you don't."</p>
-
-<p>She blushed at this, making herself look prettier than ever; it was not
-in her to pretend she didn't know&mdash;nor yet to pretend that his crude
-flattery displeased her.</p>
-
-<p>"A cat may look at a king," he remarked, his heavy face quite lit up
-with his enjoyment of his own delicate raillery.</p>
-
-<p>"O yes, certainly," she retorted. "But you see I am not a king, and you
-are not a cat."</p>
-
-<p>"'Pon my word, you're awfully sharp," he rejoined, admiringly. And
-he laughed over this little joke at intervals for several minutes.
-Then by degrees they dropped away from their party, and went straying
-up and down the nave <i>tête-à-tête</i> amongst the crowd, looking at the
-exhibits and not much understanding what they looked at; and they
-carried on their conversation in much the same style as they began it,
-with, I grieve to say, considerable mutual enjoyment. By-and-bye Mr.
-Westmoreland took his young companion to the German tent, where the
-Hanau jewels were, by way of giving her the greatest treat he could
-think of. He betted her sixpence that he could tell her which necklace
-she liked the best, and he showed her the several articles (worth
-some thousands of pounds) which he should have selected for his wife,
-had he had a wife&mdash;declaring in the same breath that they were very
-poor things in comparison with such and such other things that he had
-seen elsewhere. Then they strolled along the gallery, glancing at the
-pictures as they went, Eleanor making mental notes for future study,
-but finding herself unable to study anything in Mr. Westmoreland's
-company. And then suddenly came a tall figure towards them&mdash;a
-gentlemanly man with a brown face and a red moustache&mdash;at sight of whom
-she gave a a little start of delighted recognition.</p>
-
-<p>"Hullo!" cried Mr. Westmoreland, "there's old Yelverton, I do declare.
-He <i>said</i> he'd come over to have a look at the Exhibition."</p>
-
-<p>Old Yelverton was no other than "Elizabeth's young man."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>CHINA V. THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Meanwhile, Major Duff-Scott took charge of Elizabeth, and he was
-very well satisfied with the arrangement that left her to his care.
-He always preferred a mature woman to a young girl, as being a more
-interesting and intelligent companion, and he admired her when on a
-generous scale, as is the wont of small men. Elizabeth's frank face
-and simple manners and majestic physical proportions struck him as an
-admirable combination. "A fine woman," he called her, speaking of her
-later to his wife: "reminds me of what you were when I married you,
-my dear." And when he got to know her better he called her "a fine
-creature"&mdash;which meant that he recognised other good qualities in her
-besides that of a lofty stature.</p>
-
-<p>As soon as Mrs. Duff-Scott stated her intention of going to see "what
-she could pick up," the major waved his hand and begged that he might
-be allowed to resign all his responsibilities on her behalf. "Buy what
-you like, my dear, buy what you like," he said plaintively, "but don't
-ask me to come and look on while you do it. Take Westmoreland&mdash;I'm sure
-he would enjoy it immensely."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't flatter yourselves that I shall ask either of you," retorted his
-wife. "You would be rather in the way than otherwise. I've got Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, she's got Patty!" he repeated, looking with gentle mournfulness at
-the young lady in question, while his far-off eyes twinkled under his
-hat brim. "I trust you are fond of china, Miss Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"I am fond of <i>everything</i>," Patty fervently replied.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, that's right. You and Mrs. Duff-Scott will get on together
-admirably, I foresee. Come, Miss King"&mdash;turning to Elizabeth&mdash;"let us
-go and see what <i>we</i> can discover in the way of desirable bric-à-brac.
-We'll have a look at the Murano ware for you, my dear, if you
-like"&mdash;again addressing his wife softly&mdash;"and come back and tell you
-if there is anything particularly choice. I know they have a lovely
-bonnet there, all made of the sweetest Venetian glass and trimmed with
-blue velvet. But you could take the velvet off, you know, and trim it
-with a mirror. Those wreaths of leaves and flowers, and beautiful pink
-braids&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, go along!" she interrupted impatiently. "Elizabeth, take care of
-him, and don't let him buy anything, but see what is there and tell me.
-I'm not going to put any of that modern stuff with my sixteenth century
-cup and bottle," she added, looking at nobody in particular, with a
-sudden brightening of her eyes; "but if there is anything pretty that
-will do for my new cabinet in the morning room&mdash;or for the table&mdash;I
-should like to have the first choice."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well," assented her husband, meekly. "Come along, Miss King.
-We'll promise not to buy anything." He and Elizabeth then set off on
-their own account, and Elizabeth found herself led straight to the foot
-of a staircase, where the little major offered his arm to assist her in
-the ascent.</p>
-
-<p>"But the Murano Court is not upstairs, is it?" she asked, hesitating.</p>
-
-<p>"O no," he replied; "it is over there," giving a little backward nod.</p>
-
-<p>"And are we not going to look at the glass?"</p>
-
-<p>"Not at present," he said, softly. "That will keep. We'll look at it
-by-and-bye. First, I am going to show you the pictures. You are fond of
-pictures, are you not?"</p>
-
-<p>"I am, indeed."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I was certain of it. Come along, then, I can show you a few
-tolerably good ones. Won't you take my arm?"</p>
-
-<p>She took his arm, as he seemed to expect it, though it would have
-been more reasonable if he had taken hers; and they marched upstairs,
-slowly, in face of the crowd that was coming down.</p>
-
-<p>"My wife," said the major, sententiously, "is one of the best women
-that ever breathed."</p>
-
-<p>"I am <i>sure</i> she is," assented Elizabeth, with warmth.</p>
-
-<p>"No," he said, "<i>you</i> can't be sure; that is why I tell you. I have
-known her a long time, and experience has proved it to me. She is one
-of the best women that ever lived. But she has her faults. I think I
-ought to warn you, Miss King, that she has her faults."</p>
-
-<p>"I think you ought not," said Elizabeth, with instinctive propriety.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," he went on, "it is a point of honour. I owe it to you, as the
-head of my house&mdash;the nominal head, you understand&mdash;the responsible
-head&mdash;not to let you labour under any delusion respecting us. It
-is best that you should know the truth at once. Mrs. Duff-Scott is
-<i>energetic</i>. She is fearfully, I may say abnormally, energetic."</p>
-
-<p>"I think," replied Elizabeth, with decision, "that that is one of the
-finest qualities in the world."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, do you?" he rejoined sadly. "That is because you are young. I
-used to think so, too, when I was young. But I don't now&mdash;experience
-has taught me better. What I object to in my wife is that experience
-doesn't teach her anything. She <i>won't</i> learn. She persists in keeping
-all her youthful illusions, in the most obstinate and unjustifiable
-manner."</p>
-
-<p>Here they reached the gallery and the pictures, but the major saw two
-empty chairs, and, sitting down on one of them, bade his companion
-rest herself on the other until she had recovered from the fatigue of
-getting upstairs.</p>
-
-<p>"There is no hurry," he said wearily; "we have plenty of time." And
-then he looked at her with that twinkle in his eye, and said gently,
-"Miss King, you are very musical, I hear. Is that a fact?"</p>
-
-<p>"We are very, very fond of music," she said, smiling. "It is rather a
-hobby with us, I think."</p>
-
-<p>"A hobby! Ah, that's delightful. I'm so glad it is a hobby. You don't,
-by happy chance, play the violin, do you?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. We only know the piano."</p>
-
-<p>"You all play the piano?&mdash;old masters, and that sort of thing?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. My sister Patty plays best. Her touch and expression are
-beautiful."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" he exclaimed again, softly, as if with much inward satisfaction.
-He was sitting languidly on his chair, nursing his knee, and gazing
-through the balustrade of the gallery upon the crowd below. Elizabeth
-was on the point of suggesting that they might now go and look at the
-pictures, when he began upon a fresh topic.</p>
-
-<p>"And about china, Miss King? Tell me, do you know anything about china?"</p>
-
-<p>"I'm afraid not," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"You don't know the difference between Chelsea and Derby-Chelsea, for
-instance?"</p>
-
-<p>"No."</p>
-
-<p>"Nor between old Majolica and modern?"</p>
-
-<p>"No."</p>
-
-<p>"Nor between a Limoges enamel of the sixteenth century&mdash;everything
-<i>good</i> belongs to the sixteenth century, you must remember&mdash;and what
-they call Limoges now-a-days?"</p>
-
-<p>"No."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, well, I think very few people do," said the major, resignedly.
-"But, at any rate"&mdash;speaking in a tone of encouragement&mdash;"you <i>do</i> know
-Sèvres and Dresden when you see them?&mdash;you could tell one of <i>them</i>
-from the other?"</p>
-
-<p>"Really," Elizabeth replied, beginning to blush for her surpassing
-ignorance, "I am very sorry to have to confess it, but I don't believe
-I could."</p>
-
-<p>The major softly unclasped his knees and leaned back in his chair, and
-sighed.</p>
-
-<p>"But I could learn," suggested Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, so you can," he responded, brightening. "You can learn, of course.
-<i>Will</i> you learn? You can't think what a favour it would be to me if
-you would learn. Do promise me that you will."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I will not promise. I should do it to please myself&mdash;and, of
-course, because it is a thing that Mrs. Duff-Scott takes an interest
-in," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"That is just what I mean. It is <i>because</i> Mrs. Duff-Scott takes such
-an interest in china that I want you to cultivate a taste for it.
-You see it is this way," he proceeded argumentatively, again, still
-clasping his knees, and looking up at her with a quaint smile from
-under his hat brim. "I will be frank with you, Miss King&mdash;it is this
-way. I want to induce you to enter into an alliance with me, offensive
-and defensive, against that terrible energy which, as I said, is my
-wife's alarming characteristic. For her own good, you understand&mdash;for
-my comfort incidentally, but for her own good in the first place, I
-want you to help me to keep her energy within bounds. As long as she
-is happy with music and china we shall be all right, but if she goes
-beyond things of that sort&mdash;well, I tremble for the consequences. They
-would be fatal&mdash;fatal!"</p>
-
-<p>"Where are you afraid she should go to?" asked Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"I am afraid she should go into <i>philanthropy</i>," the major solemnly
-rejoined. "That is the bug-bear&mdash;the spectre&mdash;the haunting terror of
-my life. I never see a seedy man in a black frock coat, nor an elderly
-female in spectacles, about the house or speaking to my wife in the
-street, that I don't shake in my shoes&mdash;literally shake in my shoes, I
-do assure you. I can't think how it is that she has never taken up the
-Cause of Humanity," he proceeded reflectively. "If we had not settled
-down in Australia, she <i>must</i> have done it&mdash;she could not have helped
-herself. But even here she is beset with temptations. <i>I</i> can see them
-in every direction. I can't think how it is that she doesn't see them
-too."</p>
-
-<p>"No doubt she sees them," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"O no, she does not. The moment she sees them&mdash;the moment she casts
-a serious eye upon them&mdash;that moment she will be a lost woman, and I
-shall be a desperate man."</p>
-
-<p>The major shuddered visibly, and Elizabeth laughed at his distress.
-"Whenever it happens that Mrs. Duff-Scott goes into philanthropy," she
-said, a little in joke and a great deal in earnest, "I shall certainly
-be proud to accompany her, if she will have me." And, as she spoke,
-there flashed into her mind some idea of the meaning of certain little
-sentences that were breathed into her ear yesterday. The major talked
-on as before, and she tried to attend to what he said, but she found
-herself thinking less of him now than of her unknown friend&mdash;less
-occupied with the substantial figures upon the stage of action around
-her than with the delusive scene-painting in the background of her own
-imagination. Beyond the crowd that flowed up and down the gallery, she
-saw a dim panorama of other crowds&mdash;phantom crowds&mdash;that gradually
-absorbed her attention. They were in the streets of Cologne, looking
-up at those mighty walls and towers that had been six centuries
-a-building, shouting and shaking hands with each other; and in the
-midst of them <i>he</i> was standing, grave and critical, observing their
-excitement and finding it "pathetic"&mdash;nothing more. They were in
-London streets in the early daylight&mdash;daylight at half-past three
-in the morning! that was a strange thing to think of&mdash;a "gentle and
-good-humoured" mob, yet full of tragic interest for the philosopher
-watching its movements, listening to its talk, speculating upon its
-potential value in the sum of humankind. It was the typical crowd that
-he was in the habit of studying&mdash;not like the people who thronged
-the Treasury steps this time yesterday. Surely it was the <i>Cause of
-Humanity</i> that had laid hold of <i>him</i>. That was the explanation of the
-interest he took in some crowds, and of the delight that he found in
-the uninterestingness of others. That was what he meant when he told
-her she ought to read Thackeray's paper to help her to understand him.</p>
-
-<p>Pondering over this thought, fitfully, amid the distractions of the
-conversation, she raised her head and saw Eleanor coming towards her.</p>
-
-<p>"There's Westmoreland and your sister," said the major. "And one of
-those strangers who are swarming all about the place just now, and
-crowding us out of our club. It's Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton he
-calls himself. He is rather a swell when he's at home, they tell me;
-but Westmoreland has no business to foist his acquaintance on your
-sister. He'll have my wife about him if he is not more careful than
-that."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth saw them approaching, and forgot all about the crowd under
-Cologne Cathedral and the crowd that went to see the man hanged.
-She remembered only the crowd of yesterday, and how that stately
-gentleman&mdash;could it be possible?&mdash;had stood with her amid the crush and
-clamour, holding her in his arms. For the first time she was able to
-look at him fairly and see what he was like; and it seemed to her that
-she had never seen a man of such a noble presence. His eyes were fixed
-upon her as she raised hers to his face, regarding her steadily, but
-with inscrutable gravity and absolute respect. The major rose to salute
-him in response to Mr. Westmoreland's rather imperious demand. "My old
-friend, whom I met in Paris," said Mr. Westmoreland; "come over to have
-a look at us. Want you to know him, major. We must do our best to make
-him enjoy himself, you know."</p>
-
-<p>"Didn't I tell you?" whispered Eleanor, creeping round the back of her
-sister's chair. "Didn't I tell you he would be here?"</p>
-
-<p>And at the same moment Elizabeth heard some one murmur over her head,
-"Miss King, allow me to introduce Mr. Yelverton&mdash;my friend, whom I knew
-in Paris&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>And so he and she not only met again, but received Mrs. Grundy's
-gracious permission to make each other's acquaintance.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE "CUP."</h4>
-
-
-<p>Out of the many Cup Days that have gladdened the hearts of countless
-holiday-makers on the Flemington course assembled, perhaps that of
-1880 was the most "all round" satisfactory and delightful to everybody
-concerned&mdash;except the bookmakers, and nobody grieves much over their
-disasters (though there are several legitimate and highly respected
-lines of business that are conducted on precisely the same system as
-governs their nefarious practices). It was, indeed, considered that
-the discomfiture of the bookmakers was a part of the brilliant success
-of the occasion. In the capricious spring-time of the year, when cold
-winds, or hot winds, or storms of rain, or clouds of dust, might any of
-them have been expected, this second of November displayed a perfect
-pattern of the boasted Australian climate to the foreigners of all
-nations who had been invited to enjoy it&mdash;a sweet blue sky, a fresh and
-delicate air, a broad glow of soft and mellow sunshine, of a quality
-to sufficiently account for the holiday-making propensities of the
-Australian people, and for the fascination that draws them home, in
-spite of all intentions to the contrary, when they have gone to look
-for happiness in other lands. The great racing-ground was in its finest
-order, the running track sanded and rolled, the lawns watered to a
-velvet greenness, the promenade level and speckless and elastic to the
-feet as a ball-room floor; and by noon more than a hundred thousand
-spectators, well-dressed and well-to-do&mdash;so orderly in their coming
-and going, and when congregated in solid masses together, that the
-policeman, though doubtless ubiquitous, was forgotten&mdash;were waiting
-to see the triumph of Grand Flâneur. At which time, and throughout
-the afternoon, Melbourne city was as a city of the dead; shops and
-warehouses deserted, and the empty streets echoing to a passing
-footfall with the hollow distinctness of midnight or the early hours of
-Sunday morning.</p>
-
-<p>While a full half of the crowd was being conveyed to the course by
-innumerable trains, the sunny road was alive with vehicles of every
-description&mdash;spring-carts and lorries, cabs and buggies, broughams
-and landaus, and four-in-hand coaches&mdash;all filled to their utmost
-capacity, and displaying the sweetest things in bonnets and parasols.
-And amongst the best-appointed carriages Major Duff-Scott's was
-conspicuous, not only for its build and finish, and the excellence of
-the horses that drew it, and the fit of the livery of the coachman
-who drove it, but for the beauty and charming costumes of the ladies
-inside. The major himself, festive in light grey, with his member's
-card in his button-hole and his field-glass slung over his shoulder,
-occupied the place of the usual footman on the box seat in order that
-all the three sisters should accompany his wife; and Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-having set her heart on dressing her girls for the occasion, had been
-allowed to have her own way, with the happiest results. The good woman
-sat back in her corner, forgetting her own Parisian elegance and how
-it would compare with the Cup Day elegance of rival matrons in the
-van of rank and fashion, while she revelled in the contemplation of
-the young pair before her, on whom her best taste had been exercised.
-Elizabeth, by her side, was perfectly satisfactory in straw-coloured
-Indian silk, ruffled with some of her own fine old lace, and wearing
-a delicate French bonnet and parasol to match, with a bunch of
-Camille de Rohan roses at her throat for colour; but Elizabeth was
-not a striking beauty, nor of a style to be experimented on. Patty
-and Eleanor were; and they had been "treated" accordingly. Patty was
-a harmony in pink&mdash;the faintest shell-pink&mdash;and Eleanor a study in
-the softest, palest shade of china-blue; both their dresses being of
-muslin, lightly frilled, and tied round the waist with sashes; while
-they wore bewitching little cap-like bonnets, with swathes of tulle
-under their chins. The effect&mdash;designed for a sunny morning, and to
-be set off by the subdued richness of her own olive-tinted robes&mdash;was
-all that Mrs. Duff-Scott anticipated. The two girls were exquisitely
-sylph-like, and harmonious, and refined&mdash;looking prettier than they had
-ever done in their lives, because they knew themselves that they were
-looking so&mdash;and it was confidently expected by their chaperon that they
-would do considerable execution before the day was over. At the back
-of the carriage was strapped a hamper containing luncheon sufficient
-for all the potential husbands that the racecourse might produce, and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was prepared to exercise discriminating but extensive
-hospitality.</p>
-
-<p>It was not more than eleven o'clock when they entered the carriage
-enclosure and were landed at the foot of the terrace steps, and already
-more carriages than one would have imagined the combined colonies could
-produce were standing empty and in close order in the paddock on one
-hand, while on the other the grand stand was packed from end to end.
-Lawn and terrace were swarming with those brilliant toilets which are
-the feature of our great annual <i>fête</i> day, and the chief subject of
-interest in the newspapers of the day after.</p>
-
-<p>"Dear me, what a crowd!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott, as her horses drew
-up on the smooth gravel, and she glanced eagerly up the steps. "We
-shall not be able to find anyone."</p>
-
-<p>But they had no sooner alighted and shaken out their skirts than
-down from the terrace stepped Mr. Westmoreland, the first and most
-substantial instalment of expected cavaliers, to assist the major to
-convoy his party to the field. Mr. Westmoreland was unusually alert
-and animated, and he pounced upon Eleanor, after hurriedly saluting
-the other ladies, with such an open preference that Mrs. Duff-Scott
-readjusted her schemes upon the spot. If the young man insisted upon
-choosing the youngest instead of the middle one, he must be allowed to
-do so, was the matron's prompt conclusion. She would rather have begun
-at the top and worked downwards, leaving fair Eleanor to be disposed of
-after the elder sisters were settled; but she recognised the wisdom of
-taking the goods the gods provided as she could get them.</p>
-
-<p>"I do declare," said Mr. Westmoreland, looking straight at the girl's
-face, framed in the soft little bonnet, and the pale blue disc of her
-parasol, "I do declare I never saw anybody look so&mdash;so&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Come, come," interrupted the chaperon, "I don't allow speeches of
-that sort." She spoke quite sharply, this astute diplomatist, so that
-the young man who was used to being allowed, and even encouraged, to
-make speeches of that sort, experienced the strange sensation of being
-snubbed, and was half inclined to be sulky over it; and at the same
-moment she quietly seconded his manoeuvres to get to Eleanor's side,
-and took care that he had his chances generally for the rest of the day.</p>
-
-<p>They joined the two great streams of gorgeous promenaders slowly pacing
-up and down the long green lawn. Every seat in the stand was occupied
-and the gangways and gallery so tightly packed that when the Governor
-arrived presently, driving his own four-in-hand, with the Duke of
-Manchester beside him, there was some difficulty in squeezing out a
-path whereby he and his party might ascend to their box. But there were
-frequent benches on the grass, and it was of far more consequence to
-have freedom to move and display one's clothes, and opportunities of
-meeting one's friends, and observing the social aspect of the affair
-generally, than it was to see the racing to the best advantage&mdash;since
-one had to choose between the two. At least, that was understood to
-be the opinion of the ladies present; and Cup Day, notwithstanding
-its tremendous issues, is a ladies' day. The major, than whom no man
-better loved a first-class race, had had a good time at the Derby on
-the previous Saturday, and looked forward to enjoying himself as a man
-and a sportsman when Saturday should come again; but to-day, though
-sharing a warm interest in the great event with those who thronged
-the betting and saddling paddock, he meekly gave himself up to be his
-wife's attendant and to help her to entertain her <i>protégées</i>. He did
-not find this task a hard one, nor wanting in abundant consolations. He
-took off Elizabeth, in the first place, to show her the arrangements
-of the course, of which, by virtue of the badge in his button-hole, he
-was naturally proud; and it pleased him to meet his friends at every
-step, and to note the grave respect with which they saluted him out of
-compliment to the lady at his side&mdash;obviously wondering who was that
-fine creature with Duff-Scott. He showed her the scratching-house, with
-its four-faced clock in its tall tower, and made erasures on his own
-card and hers from the latest corrected lists that it displayed; and he
-taught her the rudiments of betting as practised by her sex. Then he
-initiated her into the mysteries of the electric bells and telegraphs,
-and all the other V.R.C. appliances for conducting business in an
-enlightened manner; showed her the bookmakers noisily pursuing their
-ill-fated enterprises; showed her the beautiful horses pacing up and
-down and round and round, fresh and full of enthusiasm for their day's
-work. And he had much satisfaction in her intelligent and cheerful
-appreciation of these new experiences.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Mrs. Duff-Scott, in the care of Mr. Westmoreland, awaited
-their return on the lawn, slowly sweeping to and fro, with her train
-rustling over the grass behind her, and feeling that she had never
-enjoyed a Cup Day half so much before. Her girls were admired to her
-heart's content, and she literally basked in the radiance of their
-success. She regarded them, indeed, with an enthusiasm of affection and
-interest that her husband felt to be the most substantial safeguard
-against promiscuous philanthropy that had yet been afforded her. How
-hungrily had she longed for children of her own! How she had envied
-other women their grown-up daughters!&mdash;always with the sense that hers
-would have been, like her cabinets of china, so much more choice and
-so much better "arranged" than theirs. And now that she had discovered
-these charming orphans, who had beauty, and breeding, and culture,
-and not a relative or connection in the world, she did not know how
-to restrain the extravagance of her satisfaction. As she rustled
-majestically up and down the lawn, with one fair girl on one side of
-her and one on the other, while men and women turned at every step to
-stare at them, her heart swelled and throbbed with the long-latent
-pride of motherhood, and a sense that she had at last stumbled upon
-the particular "specimen" that she had all her life been hunting for.
-The only drawback to her enjoyment in them was the consciousness that,
-though they were nobody else's, they were not altogether hers. She
-would have given half her fortune to be able to buy them, as she would
-buy three bits of precious crockery, for her absolute possession, body
-and soul&mdash;to dress, to manage, to marry as she liked.</p>
-
-<p>The major kept Elizabeth walking about with him until the hour
-approached for the Maiden Plate race and luncheon. And when at last
-they joined their party they found that Mrs. Duff-Scott was already
-getting together her guests for the latter entertainment. She was
-seated on a bench, between Eleanor and Patty, and before her stood a
-group of men, in various attitudes of animation and repose, conspicuous
-amongst whom was the tall form of Mr. Kingscote Yelverton. Elizabeth
-had only had distant glimpses of him during the four weeks that had
-passed since he was introduced to her, her chaperon not having seemed
-inclined to cultivate his acquaintance&mdash;probably because she had not
-sought it for herself; but now the girl saw, with a quickened pulse,
-that the happiness of speaking to him again was in store for her. He
-seemed to be aware of her approach as soon as she was within sight,
-and lifted his head and turned to watch her&mdash;still sustaining his
-dialogue with Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had singled him out to talk to; and
-Elizabeth, feeling his eyes upon her, had a sudden sense of discomfort
-in her beautiful dress and her changed surroundings. She was sure that
-he would draw comparisons, and she did not feel herself elevated by the
-new dignities that had been conferred upon her.</p>
-
-<p>Coming up to her party, she was introduced to several
-strangers&mdash;amongst others, to the husband Mrs. Duff-Scott had selected
-for her, a portly widower with a grey beard&mdash;and in the conversation
-that ensued she quite ignored the only person in the group of whose
-presence she was distinctly conscious. She neither looked at him nor
-spoke to him, though aware of every word and glance and movement of
-his; until presently they were all standing upon the slope of grass
-connecting the terrace with the lawn to see the first race as best
-they could, and then she found herself once more by his side. And not
-only by his side, but, as those who could not gain a footing upon the
-stand congregated upon the terrace elevation, gradually wedged against
-him almost as tightly as on the former memorable occasion. Below them
-stood Mrs. Duff-Scott, protected by Mr. Westmoreland, and Patty and
-Eleanor, guarded vigilantly by the little major. It was Mr. Yelverton
-himself who had quietly seen and seized upon his chance of renewing his
-original relations with Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Miss King," he said, in a low tone of authority, "take my arm&mdash;it will
-steady you."</p>
-
-<p>She took his arm, and felt at once that she was in shelter and safety.
-Strong as she was, her impulse to lean on him was almost irresistible.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, give me your parasol," he said. The noonday sun was pouring down,
-but at this critical juncture the convenience of the greatest number
-had to be considered, and unselfish women were patiently exposing their
-best complexions to destruction. Of course Elizabeth declared she
-should do very well until the race was over. Whereupon her companion
-took her parasol gently from her hand, opened it, and held it&mdash;as from
-his great height he was able to do&mdash;so that it shaded her without
-incommoding other people. And so they stood, in silent enjoyment,
-both thinking of where and how something like this&mdash;and yet something
-so very different&mdash;had happened before, but neither of them saying a
-word to betray their thoughts, until the first race was run, and the
-excitement of it cooled down, and they were summoned by Mrs. Duff-Scott
-to follow her to the carriage-paddock for lunch.</p>
-
-<p>Down on the lawn again they sauntered side by side, finding themselves
-<i>tête-à-tête</i> without listeners for the first time since they had been
-introduced to each other. Elizabeth made a tremendous effort to ignore
-the secret intimacy between them. "It is a lovely day, is it not?" she
-lightly remarked, from under the dome of her straw-coloured parasol. "I
-don't think there has been such a fine Cup Day for years."</p>
-
-<p>"Lovely," he assented. "Have you often been here before?"</p>
-
-<p>"I?&mdash;oh, no. I have never been here before."</p>
-
-<p>He was silent a moment, while he looked intently at what he could see
-of her. She had no air of rustic inexperience of the world to-day. "You
-are beginning to understand crowds," he said.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;I am, a little." Then, glancing up at him, she said, "How does
-<i>this</i> crowd affect you? Do you find it all interesting?"</p>
-
-<p>He met her eyes gravely, and then lifted his own towards the hill above
-the grand stand, which was now literally black with human beings, like
-a swarming ant-hill.</p>
-
-<p>"I think it might be more interesting up yonder," he said; and then
-added, after a pause&mdash;"if we could be there."</p>
-
-<p>Eleanor was walking just in front of them, chatting airily with her
-admirer, Mr. Westmoreland, who certainly was making no secret of
-his admiration; and she turned round when she heard this. "Ah, Mr.
-Yelverton," she said, lightly, "you are very disappointing. You don't
-care for our great Flemington show. You are not a connoisseur in
-ladies' dresses, I suppose."</p>
-
-<p>"I know when a lady's dress is becoming, Miss Eleanor," he promptly
-responded, with a smile and bow. At which she blushed and laughed, and
-turned her back again. For the moment he was a man like other men who
-enjoy social success and favour&mdash;ready to be all things to all women;
-but it was only for the moment. Elizabeth noted, with a swelling sense
-of pride and pleasure, that he was not like that to her.</p>
-
-<p>"I am out of my element in an affair of this kind," he said, in the
-undertone that was meant for her ear alone.</p>
-
-<p>"What is your element?"</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps I oughtn't to call it my element&mdash;the groove I have got
-into&mdash;my 'walk of life,' so to speak."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes?"</p>
-
-<p>"I'll tell you about it some day&mdash;if I ever get the chance. I can't
-here."</p>
-
-<p>"I should like to know. And I can guess a little. You don't spend life
-wholly in getting pleasure for yourself&mdash;you help others."</p>
-
-<p>"What makes you think that?"</p>
-
-<p>"I am sure of it."</p>
-
-<p>"Thank you."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth blushed, and could not think of a remark to make, though she
-tried hard.</p>
-
-<p>"Just at present," he went on, "I am on pleasure bent entirely. I am
-taking several months' holiday&mdash;doing nothing but amusing myself."</p>
-
-<p>"A holiday implies work."</p>
-
-<p>"I suppose we all work, more or less."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no, we don't. Not voluntarily&mdash;not disinterestedly&mdash;in that way."</p>
-
-<p>"You mean in my way?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, I see that Westmoreland has been romancing."</p>
-
-<p>"I have not heard a word from Mr. Westmoreland&mdash;he has never spoken of
-you to me."</p>
-
-<p>"Who, then?"</p>
-
-<p>"Nobody."</p>
-
-<p>"These are your own conjectures?"</p>
-
-<p>She made no reply, and they crossed the gravelled drive and entered the
-labyrinth of carriages where the major's servants had prepared luncheon
-in and around his own spacious vehicle, which was in a position to
-lend itself to commissariat purposes. They all assembled there, the
-ladies in the carriage, the gentlemen outside, and napkins and plates
-were handed round and champagne uncorked; and they ate and drank
-together, and were a very cheerful party. Mr. Yelverton contributed
-witty nothings to the general entertainment&mdash;with so much happy tact
-that Mrs. Duff-Scott was charmed with him, and said afterwards that
-she had never met a man with finer manners. While the other men waited
-upon their hostess and the younger sisters, he stood for the most part
-quietly at Elizabeth's elbow, joining freely in the badinage round him
-without once addressing her&mdash;silently replenishing her plate and her
-glass when either required it with an air of making her his special
-charge that was too unobtrusive to attract outside attention, but
-which was more eloquent than any verbal intercourse could have been to
-themselves. Elizabeth attempted no analysis of her sweet and strange
-sensations. She took them from his hand, as she took her boned turkey
-and champagne, without question or protest. She only felt that she was
-happy and satisfied as she had never been before.</p>
-
-<p>Later in the afternoon, when the great Cup race and all the excitement
-of the day was over, Mrs. Duff-Scott gathered her brood together and
-took leave of her casual male guests.</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Good</i>-bye, Mr. Yelverton," she said cordially, when his turn came to
-bid her adieu; "you will come and see me at my own house, I hope?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked up at him when she heard the words. She could not
-help it&mdash;she did not know what she did. And in her eyes he read the
-invitation that he declared gravely he would do himself the honour to
-accept.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>CROSS PURPOSES.</h4>
-
-
-<p>While Elizabeth was thus happily absorbed in her "young man," and
-Eleanor making an evident conquest of Mr. Westmoreland, Patty, who was
-rather accustomed to the lion's share of whatever interesting thing
-was going on, had very little enjoyment. For the first hour or two she
-was delighted with the beauty of the scene and the weather and her own
-personal circumstances, and she entered into the festive spirit of the
-day with the ardour of her energetic temperament. But in a little while
-the glamour faded. A serpent revealed itself in Paradise, and all her
-innocent pleasure was at an end.</p>
-
-<p>That serpent was Mrs. Aarons. Or, rather, it was a hydra-headed
-monster, consisting of Mrs. Aarons and Paul Brion combined. Poor Paul
-had come to spend a holiday afternoon at the races like everybody
-else, travelling to the course by train along with the undistinguished
-multitude, with the harmless intention of recruiting his mind, and, at
-the same time, storing it with new impressions. He had meant to enjoy
-himself in a quiet and independent fashion, strolling amongst the crowd
-and studying its various aspects from the point of view of a writer
-for the press to whom men and women are "material" and "subjects," and
-then to go home as soon as the Cup race was over, and, after an early
-dinner, to spend a peaceful solitary evening, embodying the results of
-his observations in a brilliant article for his newspaper. But, before
-he had well thought out the plan of his paper, he encountered Mrs.
-Aarons; and to her he was a helpless captive for the whole live-long
-afternoon. Mrs. Aarons had come to the course in all due state, attired
-in one of the few real amongst the many reputed Worth dresses of the
-day, and reclining in her own landau, with her long-nosed husband
-at her side. But after her arrival, having lost the shelter of her
-carriage, and being amongst the many who were shut out from the grand
-stand, she had felt just a little unprotected and uncared-for. The
-first time she stopped to speak to a friend, Mr. Aarons took the
-opportunity to slip off to the saddling paddock, where the astute
-speculator was speedily absorbed in a more congenial occupation than
-that of idling up and down the promenade; and the other gentlemen who
-were so assiduous in their attendance upon her in the ordinary way
-had their own female relatives to look after on this extraordinary
-occasion. She joined one set and then another of casual acquaintances
-whom she chanced to meet, but her hold upon them all was more or less
-precarious; so that when by-and-bye she saw Paul Brion, threading his
-way alone amongst the throng, she pounced upon him thankfully, and
-confided herself to his protection. Paul had no choice but to accept
-the post of escort assigned to him under such circumstances, nor was
-he at all unwilling to become her companion. He had been rather out
-in the cold lately. Patty, though nominally at home in Myrtle Street,
-had been practically living with Mrs. Duff-Scott for the last few
-weeks, and he had scarcely had a glimpse of her, and he had left off
-going to Mrs. Aarons's Fridays since the evening that she snubbed him
-for Patty's sake. The result was that he was in a mood to appreciate
-women's society and to be inclined to melt when the sunshine of his old
-friend's favour was poured upon him again.</p>
-
-<p>They greeted each other amicably, therefore, and made up the intangible
-quarrel that was between them. Mrs. Aarons justified her reputation as
-a clever woman by speedily causing him to regard her as the injured
-party, and to wonder how he could have been such a brute as to wound
-her tender susceptibilities as he had done. She insinuated, with
-the utmost tact, that she had suffered exceedingly from the absence
-of his society, and was evidently in a mood to revive the slightly
-sentimental intercourse that he had not found disagreeable in earlier
-days. Paul, however, was never less inclined to be sentimental in her
-company than he was to-day, in spite of his cordial disposition. He
-was changed from what he was in those earlier days; he felt it as soon
-as she began to talk to him, and perfectly understood the meaning of
-it. After a little while she felt, too, that he was changed, and she
-adapted herself to him accordingly. They fell into easy chat as they
-strolled up and down, and were very friendly in a harmless way. They
-did not discuss their private feelings at all, but only the topics that
-were in every-day use&mdash;the weather, the races, the trial of Ned Kelly,
-the wreck of the Sorata, the decay of Berryism&mdash;anything that happened
-to come into their heads or to be suggested by the scene around them.
-Nevertheless, they had a look of being very intimate with each other
-to the superficial eye of Mrs. Grundy. People with nothing better to
-do stared at them as they meandered in and out amongst the crowd, he
-and she <i>tête-à-tête</i> by their solitary selves; and those who knew they
-were legally unrelated were quick to discover a want of conventional
-discretion in their behaviour. Mrs. Duff-Scott, for instance, who
-abhorred scandal, made use of them to point a delicate moral for the
-edification of her girls.</p>
-
-<p>Paul, who was a good talker, was giving his companion an animated
-account of the French plays going on at one of the theatres just
-then&mdash;which she had not yet been to see&mdash;and describing with great
-warmth the graceful and finished acting of charming Madame Audrée,
-when he was suddenly aware of Patty King passing close beside him.
-Patty was walking at her chaperon's side, with her head erect, and her
-white parasol, with its pink lining, held well back over her shoulder,
-a vision of loveliness in her diaphanous dress. He caught his breath
-at sight of her, looking so different from her ordinary self, and was
-about to raise his hat, when&mdash;to his deep dismay and surprise&mdash;she
-swept haughtily past him, meeting his eyes fairly, with a cold disdain,
-but making no sign of recognition.</p>
-
-<p>The blood rushed into his face, and he set his teeth, and walked on
-silently, not seeing where he went. For a moment he felt stunned with
-the shock. Then he was brought to himself by a harsh laugh from Mrs.
-Aarons. "Dear me," said she, in a high tone, "the Miss Kings have
-become so grand that we are beneath their notice. You and I are not
-good enough for them now, Mr. Brion. We must hide our diminished heads."</p>
-
-<p>"I see," he assented, with savage quietness. "Very well. I am quite
-ready to hide mine."</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Patty, at the farther end of the lawn, was overwhelmed
-with remorse for what she had done. At the first sight of him, in
-close intercourse with that woman who, Mrs. Duff-Scott again reminded
-her, was not "nice"&mdash;who, though a wife and mother, liked men to
-"dangle" round her&mdash;she had arraigned and judged and sentenced him
-with the swift severity of youth, that knows nothing of the complex
-trials and sufferings which teach older people to bear and forbear
-with one another. But when it was over, and she had seen his shocked
-and bewildered face, all her instinctive trust in him revived, and
-she would have given anything to be able to make reparation for her
-cruelty. The whole afternoon she was looking for him, hoping for a
-chance to show him somehow that she did not altogether "mean it," but,
-though she saw him several times&mdash;eating his lunch with Mrs. Aarons
-under the refreshment shed close by the Duff-Scott carriage, watching
-Grand Flâneur win the greatest of his half-dozen successive victories
-from the same point of view as that taken by the Duff-Scott party&mdash;he
-never turned his head again in her direction or seemed to have the
-faintest consciousness that she was there.</p>
-
-<p>And next day, when no longer in her glorious apparel, but walking
-quietly home from the Library with Eleanor, she met him unexpectedly,
-face to face, in the Fitzroy Gardens. And then <i>he</i> cut <i>her</i>&mdash;dead.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>MR. YELVERTON'S MISSION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>On a Thursday evening in the race week&mdash;two days after the "Cup,"
-Mrs. Duff-Scott took her girls to the Town Hall to one of a series of
-concerts that were given at that time by Henri Ketten, the Hungarian
-pianist, and the Austrian band that had come out to Melbourne to give
-<i>éclat</i> to the Exhibition.</p>
-
-<p>It was a fine clear night, and the great hall was full when they
-arrived, notwithstanding the fact that half-a-dozen theatres were
-open and displaying their most attractive novelties, for music-loving
-souls are pretty numerous in this part of the world, taking all things
-into consideration. Australians may not have such an enlightened
-appreciation of high-class music as, say, the educated Viennese,
-who live and breathe and have their being in it. There are, indeed,
-sad instances on record of a great artist, or a choice combination
-of artists, having appealed in vain for sympathy to the Melbourne
-public&mdash;that is to say, having found not numbers of paying and
-applauding listeners, but only a select and fervent few. But such
-instances are rare, and to be accounted for as the result, not of
-indifference, but of inexperience. The rule is&mdash;as I think most of
-our distinguished musical visitors will testify&mdash;that we are a people
-peculiarly ready to recognise whatever is good that comes to us, and
-to acknowledge and appreciate it with ungrudging generosity. And so
-the Austrian band, though it had many critics, never played to a thin
-audience or to inattentive ears; and no city in Europe (according
-to his own death-bed testimony) ever offered such incense of loving
-enthusiasm to Ketten's genius as burnt steadily in Melbourne from the
-moment that he laid his fingers on the keyboard, at the Opera House,
-until he took his reluctant departure. This, I hasten to explain (lest
-I should be accused of "blowing"), is not due to any exceptional virtue
-of discrimination on our part, but to our good fortune in having
-inherited an enterprising and active intelligence from the brave men
-who had the courage and energy to make a new country, and to that
-country being such a land of plenty that those who live in it have easy
-times and abundant leisure to enjoy themselves.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott sailed into the hall, with her girls around her, and
-many eyes were turned to look at them and to watch their progress to
-their seats. By this time "the pretty Miss Kings" had become well-known
-and much talked about, and the public interest in what they wore,
-and what gentlemen were in attendance on them, was apt to be keen on
-these occasions. To-night the younger girls, with their lovely hair
-lifted from their white necks and coiled high at the back of their
-heads, wore picturesque flowered gowns of blue and white stuff, while
-the elder sister was characteristically dignified in black. And the
-gentlemen in attendance upon them were Mr. Westmoreland, still devoted
-to Eleanor, and the portly widower, whom Mrs. Duff-Scott had intended
-for Elizabeth, but who was perversely addicted to Patty. The little
-party took their places in the body of the hall, in preference to the
-gallery, and seated themselves in two rows of three&mdash;the widower behind
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, Patty next him behind Eleanor, and Elizabeth behind
-Mr. Westmoreland. And when the concert began there was an empty chair
-beside Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>By-and-bye, when the overture was at an end&mdash;when the sonorous tinkling
-and trumpeting of the orchestra had ceased, and she was listening, in
-soft rapture, to Ketten's delicate improvisation, at once echo and
-prelude, reminiscent of the idea that the band had been elaborating,
-and prophetic of the beautiful Beethoven sonata that he was thus
-tenderly approaching, Elizabeth was aware that the empty chair was
-taken, and knew, without turning her head, by whom. She tried not to
-blush and feel fluttered&mdash;she was too old, she told herself, for that
-nonsense&mdash;but for half a minute or so it was an effort to control
-these sentimental tendencies. He laid his light overcoat over the back
-of his chair, and sat down quietly. Mrs. Duff-Scott looked over her
-shoulder, and gave him a pleasant nod. Mr. Westmoreland said, "Hullo!
-Got back again?" And then Elizabeth felt sufficiently composed to turn
-and hold out her hand, which he took in a strong clasp that was not
-far removed from a squeeze. They did not speak to each other; nor did
-they look at each other, though Mr. Yelverton was speedily informed of
-all the details of his neighbour's appearance, and she took no time to
-ascertain that he looked particularly handsome in his evening dress
-(but <i>she</i> always thought him handsome; big nose, leather cheeks, red
-moustache, and all), and that his well-cut coat and trousers were not
-in their first freshness. Then the concert went on as before&mdash;but
-not as before&mdash;and they sat side by side and listened. Elizabeth's
-programme lay on her knee, and he took it up to study it, and laid it
-lightly on her knee again. Presently she pointed to one and another of
-the selections on the list, about which she had her own strong musical
-feelings, and he looked down at them and nodded, understanding what
-she meant. And again they sat back in their chairs, and gazed serenely
-at the stage under the great organ, at Herr Wildner cutting the air
-with his baton, or at poor Ketten, with his long, white, solemn face,
-sitting at the piano in a bower of votive wreaths and bouquets, raining
-his magic finger-tips like a sparkling cascade upon the keyboard,
-and wrinkling the skin of his forehead up and down. But they had no
-audible conversation throughout the whole performance. When, between
-the two divisions of the programme, the usual interval occurred for the
-relaxation and refreshment of the performers and their audience, Mr.
-Westmoreland turned round, with his elbow over the back of his chair,
-and appropriated an opportunity to which they had secretly been looking
-forward. "So you've got back?" he remarked for the second time. "I
-thought you were going to make a round of the country?"</p>
-
-<p>"I shall do it in instalments," replied Mr. Yelverton.</p>
-
-<p>"You won't have time to do much that way, if you are going home again
-next month. Will you?"</p>
-
-<p>"I can extend my time a little, if necessary."</p>
-
-<p>"Can you? Oh, I thought there was some awfully urgent business that you
-had to get back for&mdash;a new costermonger's theatre to open, or a street
-Arab's public-house&mdash;eh?"</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Westmoreland laughed, as at a good joke that he had got hold
-of, but Mr. Yelverton was imperturbably grave. "I have business in
-Australia just now," he said, "and I'm going to finish that first."</p>
-
-<p>Here the portly widower, who had overheard the dialogue, leaned over
-Patty to join in the conversation. He was a wealthy person of the
-name of Smith, who, like Mr. Phillips's father in the <i>Undiscovered
-Country</i>, had been in business "on that obscure line which divides
-the wholesale merchant's social acceptability from the lost condition
-of the retail trader," but who, on his retirement with a fortune, had
-safely scaled the most exclusive heights of respectability. "I say," he
-called out, addressing Mr. Yelverton, "you're not going to write a book
-about us, I hope, like Trollope and those fellows? We're suspicious
-of people who come here utter strangers, and think they can learn all
-about us in two or three weeks."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton reassured him upon this point, and then Mrs. Duff-Scott
-broke in. "You have not been to call on me yet, Mr. Yelverton."</p>
-
-<p>"No. I hope to have that pleasure to-morrow," he replied. "I am told
-that Friday is your reception day."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, you needn't have waited for that. Any day before four. Come
-to-morrow and dine with us, will you? We are going to have a few
-friends and a little music in the evening. I suppose you are fond of
-music&mdash;being here."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton said he was very fond of music, though he did not
-understand much about it, and that he would be very happy to dine with
-her next day. Then, after a little more desultory talk, the orchestra
-returned to the stage and began the second overture&mdash;from Mozart this
-time&mdash;and they all became silent listeners again.</p>
-
-<p>When at last the concert was over, Elizabeth and her "young man" found
-themselves once more navigating a slow course together through a
-crowd. Mrs. Duff-Scott, with Mr. Westmoreland and Eleanor, moved off
-in advance; Mr. Smith offered his arm to Patty and followed; and so,
-by the favour of fate and circumstances, the remaining pair were left
-with no choice but to accompany each other. "Wait a moment," said Mr.
-Yelverton, as she stepped out from her seat, taking her shawl&mdash;a soft
-white Rampore chuddah, that was the fairy godmother's latest gift&mdash;from
-her arms. "You will feel it cold in the passages." She stood still
-obediently, and he put the shawl over her shoulders and folded one end
-of it lightly round her throat. Then he held his arm, and her hand
-was drawn closely to his side; and so they set forth towards the door,
-having put a dozen yards between themselves and the rest of their party.</p>
-
-<p>"You are living with Mrs. Duff-Scott, are you not?" he asked abruptly.</p>
-
-<p>"Not quite that," she replied. "Mrs. Duff-Scott would like us to be
-there always, but we think it better to be at home sometimes."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;I should think it is better," he replied.</p>
-
-<p>"But we are with her very often&mdash;nearly every day," she added.</p>
-
-<p>"Shall you be there to-morrow?" he asked, not looking at her. "Shall I
-see you there in the evening?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think so," she replied rather unsteadily. And, after a little while,
-she felt emboldened to ask a few questions of him. "Are you really only
-making a flying visit to Australia, Mr. Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>"I had intended that it should be very short," he said; "but I shall
-not go away quite yet."</p>
-
-<p>"You have many interests at home&mdash;to call you back?" she ventured to
-say, with a little timidity about touching on his private affairs.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. You are thinking of what Westmoreland said? He is a scoffer&mdash;he
-doesn't understand. You mustn't mind what he says. But I should like,"
-he added, as they drew near the door and saw Mrs. Duff-Scott looking
-back for them, "I should very much like to tell you something about it
-myself. I think&mdash;I feel sure&mdash;it would interest you. Perhaps I may have
-an opportunity to-morrow night."</p>
-
-<p>Here Mrs. Duff-Scott's emissary, Mr. Smith, who had been sent back
-to his duty, claimed Elizabeth on her chaperon's behalf. She and her
-lover had no time to say anything more, except good-night. But that
-good-night&mdash;and their anticipations&mdash;satisfied them.</p>
-
-<p>On reaching Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, where the girls were to sleep,
-they found the major awaiting their return, and were hospitably
-invited&mdash;along with Mr. Westmoreland, who had been allowed to "see them
-safely home," on the box-seat of the carriage&mdash;into the library, where
-they found a bright little fire in the grate, and refreshments on the
-table. The little man, apparently, was as paternal in his dispositions
-towards the orphans as his wife could desire, and was becoming quite
-weaned from his bad club habits under the influence of his new
-domestic ties.</p>
-
-<p>"Dear me, <i>how</i> nice!&mdash;<i>how</i> comfortable!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-sailing up to the hearth and seating herself in a deep leather chair.
-"Come in, Mr. Westmoreland. Come along to the fire, dears." And she
-called her brood around her. Eleanor, who had caressing ways, knelt
-down at her chaperon's feet on the soft oriental carpet, and she pulled
-out the frills of lace round the girl's white neck and elbows with a
-motherly gesture.</p>
-
-<p>"Dear child!" she ejaculated fondly, "doesn't she"&mdash;appealing to her
-husband&mdash;"remind you exactly of a bit of fifteenth century Nankin?"</p>
-
-<p>"I should like to see the bit of porcelain, Nankin or otherwise, that
-would remind me exactly of Miss Nelly," replied the gallant major,
-bowing to the kneeling girl. "I would buy that bit, whatever price it
-was."</p>
-
-<p>"That's supposing you could get it," interrupted Mr. Westmoreland, with
-a laugh.</p>
-
-<p>"It is the very shade of blue, with that grey tinge in it," murmured
-Mrs. Duff-Scott. But at the same time she was thinking of a new topic.
-"I have asked Mr. Yelverton to dine with us to-morrow, my dear," she
-remarked, suddenly, to her spouse. "We wanted another man to make up
-our number."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, have you? All right. I shall be very glad to see him. He's a
-gentlemanly fellow, is Yelverton. Very rich, too, they tell me. But we
-don't see much of him."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Mr. Westmoreland, withdrawing his eyes from the
-contemplation of Eleanor and her æsthetic gown, "he's not a society
-man. He don't go much into clubs, Yelverton. He's one of the richest
-commoners in Great Britain&mdash;give you my word, sir, he's got a princely
-fortune, all to his own cheek&mdash;and he lets his places and lives in
-chambers in Piccadilly, and spends nearly all his time when he's at
-home in the slums and gutters of Whitechapel. He's got a mania for
-philanthropy, unfortunately. It's an awful pity, for he really <i>would</i>
-be a good fellow."</p>
-
-<p>At the word "philanthropy," the major made a clandestine grimace to
-Elizabeth, but composed his face immediately, seeing that she was not
-regarding him, but gazing with serious eyes at the narrator of Mr.
-Yelverton's peculiarities.</p>
-
-<p>"He's been poking into every hole and corner," continued Mr.
-Westmoreland, "since he came here, overhauling the factory places, and
-finding out the prices of things, and the land regulations, and I don't
-know what. He's just been to Sandhurst, to look at the mines&mdash;doing a
-little amateur emigration business, I expect. Seems a strange thing,"
-concluded the young man, thoughtfully, "for a rich swell of his class
-to be bothering himself about things of that sort."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott had been listening attentively, and at this she
-roused herself and sat up in her chair. "It is the rich who <i>should</i>
-do it," said she, with energy. "And I admire him&mdash;I admire him, that
-he has given up his own selfish ease to help those whose lives are
-hard and miserable. I believe the squalid wretchedness of places
-like Whitechapel&mdash;though I have never been there&mdash;is something
-dreadful&mdash;dreadful! I admire him," she repeated defiantly. "I think
-it's a pity a few more of us are not like him. I shall talk to him
-about it. I&mdash;I shall see if I can't help him."</p>
-
-<p>This time Elizabeth did look at the major, who was making a feint of
-putting his handkerchief to his eyes. She smiled at him sweetly, and
-then she walked over to Mrs. Duff-Scott, put her strong arms round the
-matron's shoulders, and kissed her fervently.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>AN OLD STORY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room, at nine or ten o'clock on Friday
-evening, was a pleasant sight. Very spacious, very voluptuous, in
-a subdued, majestic, high-toned way; very dim&mdash;with splashes of
-richness&mdash;as to walls and ceilings; very glowing and splendid&mdash;with
-folds of velvety darkness&mdash;as to window curtains and portières.
-The colouring of it was such as required a strong light to show
-how beautiful it was, but with a proud reserve, and to mark its
-unostentatious superiority over the glittering salons of the
-uneducated <i>nouveaux riches</i>, it was always more or less in a warm
-and mellow twilight, veiling its sombre magnificence from the vulgar
-eye. Just now its main compartment was lit by wax candles in archaic
-candlesticks amongst the flowers and <i>bric-à-brac</i> of an <i>étagère</i> over
-the mantelpiece, and by seven shaded and coloured lamps, of various
-artistic devices, judiciously distributed over the abundant table-space
-so as to suffuse with a soft illumination the occupants of most of
-the wonderfully stuffed and rotund chairs and lounges grouped about
-the floor; and yet the side of the room was decidedly bad for reading
-in. "It does not light up well," was the consolation of women of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's acquaintance, who still clung to pale walls and primary
-colours and cut-glass chandeliers, either from necessity or choice.
-"Pooh!" Mrs. Duff-Scott used to retort, hearing of this just criticism;
-"as if I <i>wanted</i> it to light up!" But she had compromised with her
-principles in the arrangement of the smaller division of the room,
-where, between and beyond a pair of vaguely tinted portières, stood the
-piano, and all other material appliances for heightening the spiritual
-enjoyment of musical people. Here she had grudgingly retained the
-gas-burner of utilitarian Philistinism. It hung down from the ceiling
-straight over the piano, a circlet of gaudy yellow flames, that made
-the face of every plaque upon the wall to glitter. But the brilliant
-corona was borne in no gas-fitter's vehicle; its shrine was of dull
-brass, mediæval and precious, said to have been manufactured, in the
-first instance, for either papal or imperial purposes&mdash;it didn't matter
-which.</p>
-
-<p>In this bright music-room was gathered to-night a little company of
-the elect&mdash;Herr Wüllner and his violin, together with three other
-stringed instruments and their human complement. Patty at the piano,
-Eleanor, Mrs. Duff-Scott, and half-a-dozen more enthusiasts&mdash;with a
-mixed audience around them. In the dim, big room beyond, the major
-entertained the inartistic, outlawed few who did not care, nor pretend
-to care, for aught but the sensual comfort of downy chairs and after
-dinner chit-chat. And, at the farthest end, in a recess of curtained
-window that had no lamps about it, sat Elizabeth and Mr. Yelverton,
-side by side, on a low settee&mdash;not indifferent to the pathetic wail of
-the far-distant violins, but finding more entertainment in their own
-talk than the finest music could have afforded them.</p>
-
-<p>"I had a friend who gave up everything to go and work amongst the
-London poor&mdash;in the usual clerical way, you know, with schools and
-guilds and all the right and proper things. He used to ask me for
-money, and insist on my helping him with a lecture or a reading now
-and then, and I got drawn in. I had always had an idea of doing
-something&mdash;taking a line of some sort&mdash;and somehow this got hold of me.
-I couldn't see all that misery&mdash;you've no idea of it, Miss King&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I have read of it," she said.</p>
-
-<p>"You would have to see it to realise it in the least. After I saw it I
-couldn't turn my back and go home and enjoy myself as if nothing had
-happened. And I had no family to consider. I got drawn in."</p>
-
-<p>"And <i>that</i> is your work?" said Elizabeth. "I <i>knew</i> it."</p>
-
-<p>"No. My friend talks of 'his work'&mdash;a lot of them have 'their
-work'&mdash;it's splendid, too&mdash;but they don't allow me to use that word,
-and I don't want it. What I do is all wrong, they say&mdash;not only
-useless, but mischievous."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't believe it," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Nor I, of course&mdash;though they may be right. We can only judge
-according to our lights. To me, it seems that when things are as bad
-as possible, a well meaning person can't make them worse and <i>may</i>
-make them better. They say 'no,' and argue it all out as plainly as
-possible. Yet I stick to my view&mdash;I go on in my own line. It doesn't
-interfere with theirs, though they say it does."</p>
-
-<p>"And what is it?" she asked, with her sympathetic eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, you'll hardly understand, for you don't know the class&mdash;the
-lowest deep of all&mdash;those who can't be dealt with by the Societies&mdash;the
-poor wretches whom nothing will raise, and who are abandoned as
-hopeless, outside the pale of everything. They are my line."</p>
-
-<p>"Can there be any abandoned as hopeless?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. They really are so, you know. Neither religion nor political
-economy can do anything for them, though efforts are made for the
-children. Poor, sodden, senseless, vicious lumps of misery, with the
-last spark of soul bred out of them&mdash;a sort of animated garbage that
-cumbers the ground and makes the air stink&mdash;given up as a bad job, and
-only wanted out of the way&mdash;from the first they were on my mind more
-than all the others. And when I saw them left to rot like that, I felt
-I might have a free hand."</p>
-
-<p>"And can you succeed where so many have failed?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, what I do doesn't involve success or failure. It's outside all
-that, just as they are. They're only brutes in human shape&mdash;hardly
-human shape either; but I have a feeling for brutes. I love horses
-and dogs&mdash;I can't bear to see things suffer. So that's all I do&mdash;just
-comfort them where I can, in their own way; not the parson's
-way&mdash;that's no use. I wouldn't mock them by speaking of religion&mdash;I
-suppose religion, as we know it, has had a large hand in making them
-what they are; and to go and tell them that God ordained their
-miserable pariah-dog lot would be rank blasphemy. I leave all that. I
-don't bother about their souls, because I know they haven't got any; I
-see their wretched bodies, and that's enough for me. It's something not
-to let them go out of the world without <i>ever</i> knowing what it is to be
-physically comfortable. It eases my conscience, as a man who has never
-been hungry, except for the pleasure of it."</p>
-
-<p>"And do they blame you for that?"</p>
-
-<p>"They say I pauperise them and demoralise them," he answered, with
-a sudden laugh; "that I disorganise the schemes of the legitimate
-workers&mdash;that I outrage every principle of political economy. Well, I
-do <i>that</i>, certainly. But that I make things worse&mdash;that I retard the
-legitimate workers&mdash;I won't believe. If I do," he concluded, "I can't
-help it."</p>
-
-<p>"No," breathed Elizabeth, softly.</p>
-
-<p>"There's only one thing in which I and the legitimate workers are
-alike&mdash;everybody is alike in that, I suppose&mdash;the want of money. Only
-in the matter of beer and tobacco, what interest I could get on a few
-hundred pounds! What I could do in the way of filling empty stomachs
-and easing aches and pains if I had control of large means! What a good
-word 'means' is, isn't it? We want 'means' for all the ends we seek&mdash;no
-matter what they are."</p>
-
-<p>"I thought," said Elizabeth, "that you were rich. Mr. Westmoreland told
-us so."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, in a way, I am," he rejoined. "I hold large estates in my own
-name, and can draw fifty or sixty thousand a year interest from them if
-I like. But there have been events&mdash;there are peculiar circumstances
-in connection with the inheritance of the property, which make me
-feel myself not quite entitled to use it freely&mdash;not yet. I <i>will</i>
-use it, after this year, if nothing happens. I think I <i>ought</i> to;
-but I have put it off hitherto so as to make as sure as possible
-that I was lawfully in possession. I will tell you how it is," he
-proceeded, leaning forward and clasping his knee with his big brown
-hands. "I am used to speaking of the main facts freely, because I am
-always in hopes of discovering something as I go about the world. A
-good many years ago my father's second brother disappeared, and was
-never heard of afterwards. He and the eldest brother, at that time
-the head of the family, and in possession of the property, quarrelled
-about&mdash;well, about a woman whom both were in love with; and the elder
-one was found dead&mdash;shot dead&mdash;in a plantation not far from the house
-on the evening of the day of the quarrel, an hour after the total
-disappearance of the other. My uncle Kingscote&mdash;I was named after him,
-and he was my godfather&mdash;was last seen going out towards the plantation
-with his gun; he was traced to London within the next few days; and
-it was almost&mdash;but just not quite certainly&mdash;proved that he had there
-gone on board a ship that sailed for South America and was lost. He
-was advertised for in every respectable newspaper in the world, at
-intervals, for twenty years afterwards&mdash;during which time the estate
-was in Chancery, before they would grant it to my father, from whom it
-descended to me&mdash;and I should think the agony columns of all countries
-never had one message cast into such various shapes. But he never gave
-a sign. All sorts of apparent clues were followed up, but they led to
-nothing. If alive he must have known that it was all right, and would
-have come home to take his property. He <i>must</i> have gone down in that
-ship."</p>
-
-<p>"But&mdash;oh, surely he would never have come back to take the property of
-a murdered brother!" exclaimed Elizabeth, in a shocked voice.</p>
-
-<p>"His brother was not murdered," Mr. Yelverton replied. "Many people
-thought so, of course&mdash;people have a way of thinking the worst in
-these cases, not from malice, but because it is more interesting&mdash;and
-a tradition to that effect survives still, I am afraid. But my
-uncle's family never suspected him of such a crime. The thing was not
-legally proved, one way or the other. There were strong indications
-in the position of the gun which lay by his side, and in the general
-appearance of the spot where he was found, that my uncle, Patrick
-Yelverton, accidentally shot himself; that was the opinion of the
-coroner's jury, and the conviction of the family. But poor Kingscote
-evidently assumed that he would be accused of murder. Perhaps&mdash;it is
-very possible&mdash;some rough-tempered action of his might have caused
-the catastrophe, and his remorse have had the same effect as fear in
-prompting him to efface himself. Anyway, no one who knew him well
-believed him capable of doing his brother a mischief wilfully. His
-innocence was, indeed, proved by the fact that he married the lady
-who had been at the bottom of the trouble&mdash;by no fault of hers, poor
-soul!&mdash;after he escaped to London; and, wherever he went to, he took
-her with him. She disappeared a few days after he did, and was lost
-as completely, from that time. The record and circumstances of their
-marriage were discovered; and that was all. He would not have married
-her&mdash;she would not have married him&mdash;had he been a murderer."</p>
-
-<p>"Do you think not?" said Elizabeth. "That is always assumed as a
-matter of course, in books&mdash;that murder and&mdash;and other disgraces are
-irrevocable barriers between those who love each other, when they
-discover them. But I do not understand why. With such an awful misery
-to bear, they would want all that their love could give them so much
-<i>more</i>&mdash;not less."</p>
-
-<p>"You see," said Mr. Yelverton, regarding her with great interest, "it
-is a sort of point of honour with the one in misfortune not to drag the
-other down. When we are married, as when we are dead, 'it is for a long
-time.'"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth made no answer, but there was a quiet smile about her lips
-that plainly testified to her want of sympathy with this view. After
-a silence of a few seconds, her companion leaned forward and looked
-directly into her face. "Would <i>you</i> stick to the man you loved if he
-had forfeited his good name or were in risk of the gallows?&mdash;I mean if
-he were really a criminal, and not only a suspected one?" he asked with
-impressive slowness.</p>
-
-<p>"If I had found him worthy to be loved before that," she replied,
-speaking collectedly, but dismayed to find herself growing crimson,
-"and if he cared for me&mdash;and leant on me&mdash;oh, yes! It might be wrong,
-but I should do it. Surely any woman would. I don't see how she could
-help herself."</p>
-
-<p>He changed his position, and looked away from her face into the room
-with a light in his deep-set eyes. "You ought to have been Elizabeth
-Leigh's daughter," he said. "I did not think there were any more women
-like her in the world."</p>
-
-<p>"I am like other women," said Elizabeth, humbly, "only more ignorant."</p>
-
-<p>He made no comment&mdash;they both found it rather difficult to speak
-at this point&mdash;and, after an expressive pause, she went on, rather
-hurriedly, "Was Elizabeth Leigh the lady who married your uncle?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," he replied, bringing himself back to his story with an effort,
-"she was. She was a lovely woman, bright and clever, fond of dress and
-fun and admiration, like other women; but with a solid foundation to
-her character that you will forgive my saying is rare to your sex&mdash;as
-far, at least, as I am able to judge. I saw her when I was a little
-schoolboy, but I can picture her now, as if it were but yesterday.
-What vigour she had! What a wholesome zest for life! And yet she gave
-up everything to go into exile and obscurity with the man she loved.
-Ah, <i>what</i> a woman! She <i>ought</i> not to have died. She should have lived
-and reigned at Yelverton, and had a houseful of children. It is still
-possible&mdash;barely, barely possible&mdash;that she did live, and that I shall
-some day stumble over a handsome young cousin who will tell me that he
-is the head of the family."</p>
-
-<p>"O no," said Elizabeth, "not after all these years. Give up thinking
-of such a thing. Take your own money now, as soon as you go home,
-and"&mdash;looking up with a smile&mdash;"buy all the beer and tobacco that you
-want."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>OUT IN THE COLD.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Paul Brion, meanwhile, plodded on in his old groove, which no longer
-fitted him as it used to do, and vexed the soul of his benevolent
-landlady with the unprecedented shortness of his temper. She didn't
-know how to take him, she said, he was that cantankerous and
-"contrairy:" but she triumphantly recognised the result that she had
-all along expected would follow a long course of turning night into
-day, and therefore was not surprised at the change in him. "Your brain
-is over-wrought," she said, soothingly, when one day a compunctious
-spirit moved him to apologise for his moroseness; "your nervous system
-is unstrung. You've been going on too long, and you want a spell. You
-just take a holiday straight off, and go right away, and don't look
-at an ink-bottle for a month. It will save you a brain fever, mark
-my words." But Paul was consistent in his perversity, and refused to
-take good advice. He did think, for a moment, that he might as well
-have a little run and see how his father was getting on; and for
-several days he entertained the more serious project of "cutting" the
-colony altogether and going to seek his fortune in London. All the
-same, he stayed on with Mrs. M'Intyre, producing his weekly tale of
-political articles and promiscuous essays, and sitting up all night,
-and sleeping all the morning, with his habitual irregular regularity.
-But the flavour had gone out of work and recreation alike, and not
-all Mrs. Aarons's blandishments, which were now exercised upon him for
-an hour or two every Friday evening, were of any avail to coax it back
-again. Those three Miss Kings, whom his father had sent to him, and
-whom Mrs. Duff-Scott had taken away from him, had spoiled the taste
-of life. That was the fact, though he would not own it. "What care I?
-They are nothing to me," he used to say to himself when fighting an
-occasional spasm of rage or jealousy. He really persuaded himself very
-often that they were nothing to him, and that his bitter feeling was
-caused solely by the spectacle of their deterioration. To see them
-exchanging all their great plans and high aspirations for these vulgar
-social triumphs&mdash;giving up their studies at the Library to attend
-dancing classes, and to dawdle about the Block, and gossip in the
-Exhibition&mdash;laying aside their high-bred independence to accept the
-patronage of a fine lady who might drop them as suddenly as she took
-them up&mdash;was it not enough to make a man's heart bleed?</p>
-
-<p>As for Patty, he made up his mind that he could never forgive <i>her</i>.
-Now and then he would steal out upon his balcony to listen to a
-Schubert serenade or a Beethoven sonata in the tender stillness of a
-summer night, and then he would have that sensation of bleeding at the
-heart which melted, and unnerved, and unmanned him; but, for the most
-part, every sight and sound and reminiscence of her were so many fiery
-styptics applied to his wound, scorching up all tender emotions in one
-great angry pain. Outwardly he shunned her, cut her&mdash;withered her up,
-indeed&mdash;with his ostentatiously expressed indifference; but secretly
-he spent hours of the day and night dogging her from place to place,
-when he ought to have been at work or in his bed, merely that he might
-get a glimpse of her in a crowd, and some notion of what she was doing.
-He haunted the Exhibition with the same disregard for the legitimate
-attractions of that social head-centre as prevailed with the majority
-of its visitors, to whom it was a daily trysting-place; and there
-he had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing her every now and then.
-Once she was in the Indian Court, so fragrant with sandalwood, and
-she was looking with ardent eyes at gossamer muslins and embroidered
-cashmeres, while young Westmoreland leaned on the glass case beside
-her in an attitude of insufferable familiarity. It was an indication,
-to the jealous lover, that the woman who had elevated her sex from
-the rather low place that it had held in his estimation before he
-knew her, and made it sacred to him for her sake, was, after all,
-"no better than the rest of them." He had dreamed of her as a man's
-true helpmate and companion, able to walk hand in hand with him on
-the high roads of human progress, and finding her vocation and her
-happiness in that spiritual and intellectual fellowship; and here she
-was lost in the greedy contemplation of a bit of fine embroidery that
-had cost some poor creature his eyesight already, and was presently
-to cost again what would perhaps provision a starving family for a
-twelvemonth&mdash;just like any other ignorant and frivolous female who
-had sold her soul to the demon of fashion. He marched home to Myrtle
-Street with the zeal of the reformer (which draws its inspiration from
-such unsuspected sources) red-hot in his busy brain. He lit his pipe,
-spread out his paper, dipped his pen in the ink-bottle, and began to
-deal with the question of "Woman's Clothes in Relation to her Moral
-and Intellectual Development" in what he conceived to be a thoroughly
-impersonal and benevolent temper. His words should be brief, he said
-to himself, but they should be pregnant with suggestive truth. He
-would lay a light touch upon this great sore that had eaten so deeply
-into one member of the body politic, causing all the members to suffer
-with it; but he would diagnose it faithfully, without fear or favour,
-and show wherein it had hindered the natural advancement of the race,
-and to what fatal issues its unchecked development tended. It was a
-serious matter, that had too long been left unnoticed by the leaders
-of the thought of the day. "It is a <i>problem</i>," he wrote, with a
-splutter of his pen, charging his grievance full tilt with his most
-effective term; "it is, we conscientiously believe, one of the great
-problems of this problem-haunted and problem-fighting age&mdash;one of the
-wrongs that it is the mission of the reforming Modern Spirit to set
-right&mdash;though the subject is so inextricably entangled and wrapped up
-in its amusing associations that at present its naked gravity is only
-recognised by the philosophic few. It is all very well to make fun of
-it; and, indeed, it is a very good thing to make fun of it&mdash;for every
-reform must have a beginning, and there is no better weapon than just
-and judicious ridicule wherewith Reason can open her attack upon the
-solid and solemn front of time-honoured Prejudice. The heavy artillery
-of argument has no effect until the enemy has contracted an internal
-weakness by being made to imbibe the idea that he is absurd. A little
-wit, in the early stage of the campaign, is worth a deal of logic. But
-still there it stands&mdash;this great, relentless, crushing, cruel <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">CUSTOM</span>
-(which requires capital letters to emphasise it suitably)&mdash;and there
-are moments when we <i>can't</i> be witty about it&mdash;when our hearts burn
-within us at the spectacle of our human counterpart still, with a few
-bright exceptions, in the stage of intellectual childhood, while we
-fight the battle of the world's progress alone&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>Here the typical strong-minded female, against whom he had fulminated
-in frequent wrath, suddenly appeared before him, side by side with a
-vision of Patty in her shell-pink Cup dress; and his sword arm failed
-him. He paused, and laid down his pen, and leaned his head on his hand;
-and he was thereupon seized with a raging desire to be rich, in order
-that he might buy Indian embroideries for his beloved, and clothe her
-like a king's daughter in glorious apparel. Somehow that remarkable
-paper which was to inaugurate so vast a revolution in the social system
-never got written. At least, it did not for two or three years, and
-then it came forth in so mild a form that its original design was
-unrecognisable. (N.B.&mdash;In this latest contribution to the Dress Reform
-Question, women, to the peril of their immortal intellects, were
-invited to make themselves as pretty as they could, no hard condition
-being laid upon them, save that they should try to dress to please the
-eyes of men instead of to rival and outshine each other&mdash;that they
-should cultivate such sense of art and reason as might happily have
-survived in them&mdash;and, above all, from the high principles of religion
-and philanthropy, that they should abstain from bringing in new
-fashions violently&mdash;or, indeed, at all&mdash;leaving the spirit of beauty
-and the spirit of usefulness to produce their healthy offspring by the
-natural processes. In the composition of this paper he had the great
-advantage of being able to study both his own and the woman's point of
-view.)</p>
-
-<p>The next day he went to the Exhibition again, and again he saw Patty,
-with no happier result than before. She was standing amongst the
-carriages with Mr. Smith&mdash;popularly believed to have been for years on
-the look-out for a pretty young second wife&mdash;who was pointing out to
-her the charms of a seductive little lady's phaeton, painted lake and
-lined with claret, with a little "dickey" for a groom behind; no doubt
-tempting her with the idea of driving such a one of her own some day.
-This was even more bitter to Paul than the former encounter. He could
-bear with Mr. Westmoreland, whose youth entitled him to place himself
-somewhat on an equality with her, and whom, moreover, his rival (as
-he thought himself) secretly regarded as beneath contempt; but this
-grey-bearded widower, whose defunct wife might almost have been her
-grandmother, Paul felt he could <i>not</i> bear, in any sort of conjunction
-with his maiden queen, who, though in such dire disgrace, was his queen
-always. He went hastily away that he might not see them together, and
-get bad thoughts into his head&mdash;such as, for instance, that Patty might
-be contemplating the incredible degradation of matrimony with the
-widower, in order to be able to drive the prettiest pony carriage in
-town.</p>
-
-<p>He went away, but he came back again in a day or two. And then he saw
-her standing in the nave, with Mr. Smith again, looking at Kate Kelly,
-newly robed in black, and prancing up and down, in flowing hair and
-three-inch veil, and high heels and furbelows, putting on all sorts
-of airs and graces because, a few hours before, Ned had crowned his
-exploits and added a new distinction to the family by being hung in
-gaol; and she (Patty) could not only bear that shabby and shameless
-spectacle, but was even listening while Mr. Smith cut jokes about
-it&mdash;this pitiful demolishment of our imagined Kate Kelly, our Grizell
-Hume of the bush&mdash;and smiling at his misplaced humour. The fact being
-that poor Patty was aware of her lover's proximity, and was moved to
-unnatural and hysteric mirth in order that he might not carry away the
-mistaken notion that she was fretting for him. But Paul, who could see
-no further through a stone wall than other men, was profoundly shocked
-and disgusted.</p>
-
-<p>And yet once more he saw his beloved, whom he tried so hard to hate.
-On the night of the 17th&mdash;a Wednesday night&mdash;he had yawned through
-an uninteresting, and to him unprofitable, session of the Assembly,
-dealing with such mere practical matters as the passing in committee
-of clauses of railway bills and rabbit bills, which neither enlivened
-the spirits and speeches of honourable members nor left a press critic
-anything in particular to criticise; and at a few minutes after
-midnight he was sauntering through the streets to his office, and
-chanced to pass the Town Hall, where the great ball of the Exhibition
-year was going on. It was not chance, perhaps, that led him that
-way&mdash;along by the chief entrance, round which carriages and cabs were
-standing in a dense black mass, and where even the pavements were too
-much crowded by loiterers to be comfortable to the pedestrian abroad
-on business. But it was chance that gave him a glimpse of Patty at
-the only moment of the night when he could have seen her. As he
-went by he looked up at the lighted vestibule with a sneer. He was
-not himself of the class which went to balls of that description&mdash;he
-honestly believed he had no desire to be, and that, as a worker for
-his bread, endowed with brains instead of money, he was at an infinite
-advantage over those who did; but he knew that the three Miss Kings
-would be numbered with the elect. He pictured Patty in gorgeous array,
-bare-necked and bare-armed, displaying her dancing-class acquirements
-for the edification of the gilded youth of the Melbourne Club, whirling
-round and round, with flushed cheeks and flying draperies, in the
-arms of young Westmoreland and his brother hosts, intoxicated with
-flattery and unwholesome excitement, and he made up his mind that
-she was only beginning the orgy of the night, and might be expected
-to trail home, dishevelled, when the stars grew pale in the summer
-dawn. However, as this surmise occurred to him it was dispelled by the
-vision of Mrs. Duff-Scott coming out of the light and descending the
-flight of steps in front of him. He recognised her majestic figure in
-spite of its wraps, and the sound of her voice directing the major
-to call the carriage up. She had a regal&mdash;or, I should rather say,
-vice-regal&mdash;habit of leaving a ball-room early (generally after having
-been amongst the first to be taken to supper), as he might have known
-had he known a little more about her. It was one of the trivial little
-customs that indicated her rank. Paul looked up at her for a moment, to
-make sure that she had all her party with her; and then he drew into
-the shadow of a group of bystanders to watch them drive off.</p>
-
-<p>First came the chaperon herself, with Eleanor leaning lightly on her
-arm, and a couple of hosts in attendance. Eleanor was not bare-armed
-and necked, nor was she dishevelled; she had just refreshed herself
-with chicken and champagne, and was looking as composed and fair
-and refined as possible in her delicate white gown and unruffled
-yellow hair&mdash;like a tall lily, I feel I ought (and for a moment was
-tempted) to add, only that I know no girl ever did look like a lily
-since the world was made, nor ever will, no matter what the processes
-of evolution may come to. This pair, or quartette, were followed by
-Elizabeth, escorted on one side by the little major and on the other by
-big Mr. Yelverton. She, too, had neither tumbled draperies nor towsled
-head, but looked serene and dignified as usual, holding a bouquet to
-her breast with the one hand, and with the other thriftily guarding her
-skirts from contact with the pavement. But Mr. Brion took no notice of
-her. His attention was concentrated on his Patty, who appeared last of
-all, under the charge of that ubiquitous widower (whom he was beginning
-to hate with a deadly hatred), Mr. Smith. She was as beautiful
-as&mdash;whatever classical or horticultural object the reader likes to
-imagine&mdash;in the uncertain light and in her jealous lover's estimation,
-when she chanced, after stepping down to his level, to stand within a
-couple of yards of him to wait for the carriage. No bronze, or dead
-leaf, or half-ripe chestnut (to which I inadvertently likened it) was
-fit to be named in the same breath with that wavy hair that he could
-almost touch, and not all the jewellers' shops in Melbourne could have
-furnished a comparison worthy of her lovely eyes. She, too, was dressed
-in snowy, foamy, feathery white (I use these adjectives in deference to
-immemorial custom, and not because they accurately describe the finer
-qualities of Indian muslin and Mechlin lace), ruffled round her white
-throat and elbows in the most delicately modest fashion; and not a
-scrap of precious stone or metal was to be seen anywhere to vulgarise
-the maidenly simplicity of her attire. He had never seen her look so
-charming&mdash;he had never given himself so entirely to the influence of
-her beauty. And she stood there, so close that he could see the rise
-and fall of the laces on her breast with her gentle breathing, silent
-and patient, paying no attention to the blandishments of her cavalier,
-looking tired and pre-occupied, and as far as possible from the
-condition in which he had pictured her. Yet, when presently he emerged
-from his obscurity, and strode away, he felt that he had never been in
-such a rage of wrath against her. And why, may it be asked? What had
-poor Patty done this time? <i>She had not known that he was there beside
-her.</i> It was the greatest offence of all that she had committed, and
-the culmination of his wrongs.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>WHAT PAUL COULD NOT KNOW.</h4>
-
-
-<p>It was a pity that Paul Brion, looking at Patty's charming figure in
-the gaslight, could not have looked into her heart. It is a pity, for
-us all, that there is no Palace of Truth amongst our sacred edifices,
-into which we could go&mdash;say, once a week&mdash;and show ourselves as we
-are to our neighbours and ourselves. If we could know our friends from
-our enemies, whom to trust and whom to shun&mdash;if we could vindicate
-ourselves from the false testimony of appearances in the eyes of
-those whom we love and by whom we desire to be loved&mdash;not to speak of
-larger privileges&mdash;what a different world it would be! But we can't,
-unfortunately. And so Paul carried away with him the impression that
-his Patty had become a fine lady&mdash;too fine to have any longer a thought
-for him&mdash;than which he had never conceived a baser calumny in his life.</p>
-
-<p>Nor was he the only one who misread her superficial aspect that night.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, the most discerning of women, had a fixed belief
-that her girls, all of them, thoroughly enjoyed their first ball.
-From the moment that they entered the room, a few minutes in advance
-of the Governor's party, received by a dozen or two of hosts drawn
-up in line on either side of the doorway, it was patent to her that
-they would do her every sort of credit; and this anticipation, at any
-rate, was abundantly realised. For the greater part of the evening
-she herself was enthroned under the gallery, which roofed a series of
-small drawing-rooms on this occasion, eminently adapted to matronly
-requirements; and from her arm-chair or sofa corner she looked out
-through curtains of æsthetic hues upon the pretty scene which had
-almost as fresh an interest for her to-night as it had for them. And
-no mother could have been more proud than she when one or other was
-taken from her side by the most eligible and satisfactory partners,
-or when for brief minutes they came back to her and gave her an
-opportunity to pull out a fold or a frill that had become disarranged,
-or when at intervals during their absence she caught sight of them
-amongst the throng, looking so distinguished in their expensively
-simple toilettes&mdash;those unpretending white muslins upon which she had
-not hesitated to spend the price of her own black velvet and Venetian
-point, whereof the costly richness was obvious to the least instructed
-observer&mdash;and evidently receiving as much homage and attention as they
-well knew what to do with. Now it was Eleanor going by on the arm of
-a naval foreigner, to whom she was chatting in that pure German (or
-equally pure French) that was one of her unaccountable accomplishments,
-or dancing as if she had danced from childhood with a more important
-somebody else. Now it was Patty, sitting bowered in azaleas on the
-steps under the great organ, while the Austrian band (bowered almost
-out of sight) discoursed Strauss waltzes over her head, and Mr. Smith
-sat in a significant attitude on the crimson carpet at her feet. And
-again it was Elizabeth, up in the gallery, which was a forest of fern
-trees to-night, sitting under the shade of the great green fronds with
-Mr. Yelverton, who had such an evident partiality for her society.
-Strange to say, Mrs. Duff-Scott, acute as she was in such matters, had
-never thought of Mr. Yelverton as a possible husband, and did not so
-think of him now&mdash;while noting his proceedings. She was taking so deep
-an interest in him as a philanthropist and social philosopher that
-she forgot he might have other and less exceptional characteristics;
-and she left off scheming for Elizabeth when Mr. Smith made choice
-of Patty, and was fully occupied in her manoeuvres and anxieties for
-the welfare of the younger sisters. That Patty should be the second
-Mrs. Smith she had quite made up her mind, and that Eleanor should be
-Mrs. Westmoreland was equally a settled thing. With these two affairs
-approaching a crisis together, she had quite enough to think of; and,
-with the prospect of losing two of her children so soon after becoming
-possessed of them, she was naturally in no hurry to deprive herself
-of the third. She was beginning to regard Elizabeth as destined to
-be her surviving comfort when the others were gone, and therefore
-abandoned all matrimonial projects on her behalf. Concerning Patty,
-the fairy godmother felt that her mind was at rest; half-a-dozen times
-in an hour and a half did she see the girl in some sort of association
-with Mr. Smith&mdash;who finally took her in to supper, and from supper
-to the cloak-room and carriage. For her she had reached the question
-of the trousseau and whom she would invite for bridesmaids. About
-Eleanor she was not so easy. It did not seem that Mr. Westmoreland
-lived up to his privileges; he did not dance with her at all, and was
-remarkably attentive to a plain heiress in a vulgar satin gown and
-diamonds. However, that was nothing. The bachelors of the club had all
-the roomful to entertain, and were obliged to lay aside their private
-preferences for the occasion. He had made his attentions to Eleanor
-so conspicuous that his proposal was only required as a matter of
-form; and Mrs. Duff-Scott felt that she would rather get the fuss of
-one engagement over before another came on. So, when the dissipations
-of the night were past, she retired from the field with a pleasant
-sense of almost unalloyed success, and fondly believed that her pretty
-<i>protégées</i> were as satisfied with the situation as she was.</p>
-
-<p>But she was wrong. She was mistaken about them all&mdash;and most of all
-about Patty. When she first came into the room, and the fairy-land
-effect of the decorations burst upon her&mdash;when she passed up the
-lane of bachelor hosts, running the gauntlet of their respectful but
-admiring observation, like a young queen receiving homage&mdash;when the
-little major took her for a slow promenade round the hall and made
-her pause for a moment in front of one of the great mirrors that
-flanked the flowery orchestra, to show her herself in full length and
-in the most charming relief against her brilliant surroundings&mdash;the
-girl certainly did enjoy herself in a manner that bordered closely
-upon intoxication. She said very little, but her eyes were radiant
-and her whole face and figure rapturous, all her delicate soul spread
-out like a flower opened to the sunshine under the sensuous and
-artistic influences thus suddenly poured upon her. And then, after an
-interval of vague wonder as to what it was that was missing from the
-completeness of her pleasure&mdash;what it was that, being absent, spoiled
-the flavour of it all&mdash;there came an overpowering longing for her
-lover's presence and companionship, that lover without whom few balls
-are worth the trouble of dressing for, unless I am much mistaken. And
-after she found out that she wanted Paul Brion, who was not there,
-her gaiety became an excited restlessness, and her enjoyment of the
-pretty scene around her changed to passionate discontent. Why was
-he not there? She curled her lip in indignant scorn. Because he was
-poor, and a worker for his bread, and therefore was not accounted the
-equal of Mr. Westmoreland and Mr. Smith. She was too young and ardent
-to take into account the multitudes of other reasons which entirely
-removed it from the sphere of social grievances; like many another
-woman, she could see only one side of a subject at a time, and looked
-at that through a telescope. It seemed to her a despicably vulgar
-thing, and an indication of the utter rottenness of the whole fabric
-of society, that a high-born man of distinguished attainments should
-by common consent be neglected and despised simply because he was not
-rich. That was how she looked at it. And if Paul Brion had not been
-thought good enough for a select assembly, why had <i>she</i> been invited?
-Her answer to this question was a still more painful testimony to the
-generally improper state of things, and brought her to long for her
-own legitimate and humble environment, in which she could enjoy her
-independence and self-respect, and (which was the idea that tantalised
-her most just now) solace her lover with Beethoven sonatas when he
-was tired of writing, and wanted a rest. From the longing to see
-him in the ballroom, to have him with her as other girls had their
-natural counterparts, to share with her in the various delights of
-this great occasion, she fell to longing to go home to him&mdash;to belong
-to Myrtle Street and obscurity again, just as he did, and because he
-did. Why should she be listening to the Austrian band, eating ices
-and strawberries, rustling to and fro amongst the flowers and fine
-ladies, flaunting herself in this dazzling crowd of rich and idle
-people, while he plodded at his desk or smoked a lonely pipe on his
-balcony, out of it all, and with nothing to cheer him? Then the memory
-of their estrangement, and how it had come about, and how little chance
-there seemed now of any return to old relations and those blessed
-opportunities that she had so perversely thrown away, wrought upon her
-high-strung nerves, and inspired her with a kind of heroism of despair.
-Poor, thin-skinned Patty! She was sensitive to circumstances to a
-degree that almost merited the term "morbid," which is so convenient
-as a description of people of that sort. A ray of sunshine would light
-up the whole world, and show her her own pathway in it, shining into
-the farthest future with a divine effulgence of happiness and success;
-and the patter of rain upon the window on a dark day could beat down
-hope and discourage effort as effectually as if its natural mission
-were to bring misfortune. At one moment she would be inflated with a
-proud belief in herself and her own value and dignity, that gave her
-the strength of a giant to be and do and suffer; and then, at some
-little touch of failure, some discovery that she was mortal and a woman
-liable to blunder, as were other women, she would collapse into nothing
-and fling herself into the abysses of shame and self-condemnation as
-a worthless and useless thing. When this happened, her only chance of
-rescue and restoration in her own esteem was to do penance in some
-striking shape&mdash;to prove herself to herself as having some genuineness
-of moral substance in her, though it were only to own honestly how
-little it was. It was above all things necessary to her to have her
-own good opinion; what others thought of her was comparatively of no
-consequence.</p>
-
-<p>She had been dancing for some time before the intercourse with Mr.
-Smith, that so gratified Mrs. Duff-Scott, set in. The portly widower
-found her fanning herself on a sofa in the neighbourhood of her
-chaperon, for the moment unattended by cavaliers; and, approaching
-her with one of the frequent little plates and spoons that were
-handed about, invited her favour through the medium of three colossal
-strawberries veiled in sugar and cream.</p>
-
-<p>"I am so grieved that I am not a dancing man," he sighed as she refused
-his offering on the ground that she had already eaten strawberries
-twice; "I would ask leave to inscribe my humble name on your programme,
-Miss Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't see anything to grieve about," she replied, "in not being a
-dancing man. I am sure I don't want to dance. And you may inscribe your
-name on my programme and welcome"&mdash;holding it out to him. "It will keep
-other people from doing it."</p>
-
-<p>The delighted old fellow felt that this was indeed meeting him half
-way, and he put his name down for all the available round dances that
-were to take place before morning, with her free permission. Then, as
-the band struck up for the first of them, and the people about them
-began to crystallise into pairs and groups, and the smart man-o'-wars
-men stretched their crimson rope across the hall to divide the crowd,
-Mr. Smith took his young lady on his arm and went off to enjoy himself.
-First to the buffet, crowned with noble icebergs to cool the air, and
-groaning with such miscellaneous refreshment that supper, in its due
-course, came to her as a surprise and a superfluity, where he insisted
-that she should support her much-tried strength (as he did his own)
-with a sandwich and champagne. Then up a narrow staircase to the groves
-above&mdash;where already sat Elizabeth in a distant and secluded bower with
-Mr. Yelverton, lost, apparently, to all that went on around her. Here
-Mr. Smith took a front seat, that the young men might see and envy him,
-and set himself to the improvement of his opportunity.</p>
-
-<p>"And so you don't care about dancing," he remarked tenderly; "you, with
-these little fairy feet! I wonder why that is?"</p>
-
-<p>"Because I am not used to it," said Patty, leaning her white arms on
-the ledge in front of her and looking down at the shining sea of heads
-below. "I have been brought up to other accomplishments."</p>
-
-<p>"Music," he murmured; "and&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"And scrubbing and sweeping, and washing and ironing, and churning and
-bread-making, and cleaning dirty pots and kettles," said Patty, with
-elaborate distinctness.</p>
-
-<p>"Ha-ha!" chuckled Mr. Smith. "I should like to see you cleaning pots
-and kettles! Cinderella after twelve o'clock, eh?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said she; "you have expressed it exactly. After twelve
-o'clock&mdash;what time is it now?&mdash;after twelve o'clock, or it may be a
-little later, I shall be Cinderella again. I shall take off my glass
-slippers, and go back to my kitchen." And she had an impulse to rise
-and run round the gallery to beg Elizabeth to get permission for their
-return to their own lodgings after the ball; only Elizabeth seemed to
-be enjoying her <i>tête-à-tête</i> so much that she had not the heart to
-disturb her. Then she looked up at Mr. Smith, who stared at her in a
-puzzled and embarrassed way. "You don't seem to believe me," she said,
-with a defiant smile. "Did you think I was a fine lady, like all these
-other people?"</p>
-
-<p>"I have always thought you the most lovely&mdash;the most charming&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Nonsense. I see you don't understand at all. So just listen, and I
-will tell you." Whereupon Patty proceeded to sketch herself and her
-domestic circumstances in what, had it been another person, would have
-been a simply brutal manner. She made herself out to be a Cinderella
-indeed, in her life and habits, a parasite, a sycophant, a jay in
-borrowed plumage&mdash;everything that was sordid and "low," and calculated
-to shock the sensibilities of a "new rich" man; making her statement
-with calm energy and in the most terse and expressive terms. It was her
-penance, and it did her good. It made her feel that she was genuine in
-her unworthiness, which was the great thing just now; and it made her
-feel, also, that she was set back in her proper place at Paul Brion's
-side&mdash;or, rather, at his feet. It also comforted her, for some reason,
-to be able, as a matter of duty, to disgust Mr. Smith.</p>
-
-<p>But Mr. Smith, though he was a "new rich" man, and not given to tell
-people who did not know it what he had been before he got his money,
-was still a man, and a shrewd man too. And he was not at all disgusted.
-Very far, indeed, from it. This admirable honesty, so rare in a young
-person of her sex and charms&mdash;this touching confidence in him as a
-lover and a gentleman&mdash;put the crowning grace to Patty's attractions
-and made her irresistible. Which was not what she meant to do at all.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>SLIGHTED.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Some hours earlier on the same evening, Eleanor, dressing for dinner
-and the ball in her spacious bedroom at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, felt
-that <i>she</i>, at any rate, was arming herself for conquest. No misgivings
-of any sort troubled the serene and rather shallow waters of that
-young lady's mind. While her sisters were tossing to and fro in the
-perturbations of the tender passion, she had calmly taken her bearings,
-so to speak, and was sailing a straight course. She had summed up her
-possibilities and arranged her programme accordingly. In short, she had
-made up her mind to marry Mr. Westmoreland&mdash;who, if not all that could
-be desired in a man and a husband, was well enough&mdash;and thereby to
-take a short cut to Europe, and to all those other goals towards which
-her feet were set. As Mr. Westmoreland himself boasted, some years
-afterwards, Eleanor was not a fool; and I feel sure that this negative
-excellence, herein displayed, will not fail to commend itself to the
-gentle reader of her little history.</p>
-
-<p>She had made up her mind to marry Mr. Westmoreland, and to-night she
-meant that he should ask her. Looking at her graceful person in the
-long glass, with a soft smile on her face, she had no doubt of her
-power to draw forth that necessary question at any convenient moment.
-It had not taken her long to learn her power; nor had she failed to see
-that it had its limitations, and that possibly other and greater men
-might be unaffected by it. She was a very sensible young woman, but I
-would not have any one run off with the idea that she was mercenary
-and calculating in the sordid sense. No, she was not in love, like
-Elizabeth and Patty; but that was not her fault. And in arranging her
-matrimonial plans she was actuated by all sorts of tender and human
-motives. In the first place, she liked her admirer, who was fond of her
-and a good comrade, and whom she naturally invested with many ideal
-excellences that he did not actually possess; and she liked (as will
-any single woman honestly tell me that she does not?) the thought of
-the dignities and privileges of a wife, and of that dearer and deeper
-happiness that lay behind. She was in haste to snatch at them while
-she had the chance, lest the dreadful fate of a childless old maid
-should some day overtake her&mdash;as undoubtedly it did overtake the very
-prettiest girls sometimes. And she was in love with the prospect of
-wealth at her own disposal, after her narrow experiences; not from any
-vulgar love of luxury and display, but for the sake of the enriched
-life, bright and full of beauty and knowledge, that it would make
-possible for her sisters as well as herself. If these motives seem
-poor and inadequate, in comparison with the great motive of all (as
-no doubt they are), we must remember that they are at the bottom of a
-considerable proportion of the marriages of real life, and not perhaps
-the least successful ones. It goes against me to admit so much, but one
-must take things as one finds them.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth came in to lace up her bodice&mdash;Elizabeth, whose own soft eyes
-were shining, and who walked across the floor with an elastic step,
-trailing her long robes behind her; and Eleanor vented upon her some of
-the fancies which were seething in her small head. "Don't we look like
-brides?" she said, nodding at their reflections in the glass.</p>
-
-<p>"Or bridesmaids," said Elizabeth. "Brides wear silks and satins mostly,
-I believe."</p>
-
-<p>"If they only knew it," said Eleanor reflectively, "muslin and lace are
-much more becoming to the complexion. When I am married, Elizabeth,
-I think I shall have my dress made of that 'woven dew' that we were
-looking at in the Exhibition the other day."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear girl, when you are married you will do nothing so
-preposterous. Do you suppose we are always going to let Mrs. Duff-Scott
-squander her money on us like this? I was telling her in her room just
-now that we must begin to draw the line. It is <i>too</i> much. The lace on
-these gowns cost a little fortune. But lace is always family property,
-and I shall pick it off and make her take it back again. So just be
-very careful not to tear it, dear."</p>
-
-<p>"She won't take it back," said Eleanor, fingering it delicately;
-"she looks on us as her children, for whom nothing is too good. And
-perhaps&mdash;perhaps some day we may have it in our power to do things for
-<i>her</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"I wish I could think so. But there is no chance of that."</p>
-
-<p>"How can you tell? When we are married, we may be very well off&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"That would be to desert her, Nelly, and to cut off all our
-opportunities for repaying her."</p>
-
-<p>"No. It would please her more than anything. We might settle down
-close to her&mdash;one of us, at any rate&mdash;and she could advise us about
-furnishing and housekeeping. To have the choosing of the colours for
-our drawing-rooms, and all that sort of thing, would give her ecstasies
-of delight."</p>
-
-<p>"Bless her!" was Elizabeth's pious and fervent rejoinder.</p>
-
-<p>Then Eleanor laid out her fan and gloves for the evening, and the
-girls went down to dinner. Patty was in the music-room, working off
-her excitement in one of Liszt's rhapsodies, to which Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was listening with critical approval&mdash;the girl very seldom putting her
-brilliant powers of execution to such evident proof; and the major was
-smiling to himself as he paced gently up and down the Persian carpeted
-parquet of the long drawing-room beyond, waiting for the sound of the
-dinner bell, and the appearance of his dear Elizabeth. As soon as she
-came in, he went up to her, still subtly smiling, carrying a beautiful
-bouquet in his hand. It was composed almost entirely of that flower
-which is so sweet and lovely, but so rare in Australia, the lily of
-the valley (and lest the reader should say it was impossible, I can
-tell him or her that I saw it and smelt it that very night, and in that
-very Melbourne ballroom where Elizabeth disported herself, with my own
-eyes and nose), the great cluster of white bells delicately thinned and
-veiled in the finest and most ethereal feathers of maiden-hair. "For
-you," said the major, looking at her with his sagacious eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh!" she cried, taking it with tremulous eagerness, and inhaling its
-delicious perfume in a long breath. "Real lilies of the valley, and I
-have never seen them before. But not for me, surely," she added; "I
-have already the beautiful bouquet you told the gardener to cut for me."</p>
-
-<p>"You may make that over to my wife," said the major, plaintively. "I
-thought she was above carrying flowers about with her to parties&mdash;she
-used to say it was bad art&mdash;you did, my dear, so don't deny it; you
-told me distinctly that that was not what flowers were meant for. But
-she says she will have your bouquet, Elizabeth, so that you may not be
-afraid of hurting my feelings by taking this that is so much better.
-Where the fellow got it from I can't imagine. I only know of one place
-where lilies of the valley grow, and they are not for sale <i>there</i>."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked at him with slowly-crimsoning cheeks. "What fellow?"
-she asked.</p>
-
-<p>He returned her look with one that only Major Duff-Scott's eyes could
-give. "I don't know," he said softly.</p>
-
-<p>"He <i>does</i> know," his wife broke in; "I can see by his manner that he
-knows perfectly well."</p>
-
-<p>"I assure you, on my word of honour, that I don't," protested the
-little major, still with a distant sparkle in his quaint eyes. "It was
-brought to the door just now by somebody, who said it was for Miss
-King&mdash;that's all."</p>
-
-<p>"It might be for any of them," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, slightly put out
-by the liberty that somebody had taken without her leave. "They are all
-Miss Kings to outside people. It was a very stupid way of sending it."</p>
-
-<p>"Will you take it for yourself?" said Elizabeth, holding it out to her
-chaperon. "Let me keep my own, and you take this."</p>
-
-<p>"O no," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, flinging out her hands. "That would never
-do. It was meant for one of you, of course&mdash;not for me. <i>I</i> think Mr.
-Smith sent it. It must have been either he or Mr. Westmoreland, and I
-fancy Mr. Westmoreland would not choose lilies of the valley, even if
-he could get them. I think you had better draw lots for it, pending
-further information."</p>
-
-<p>Patty, rising from the piano with a laugh, declared that <i>she</i> would
-not have it, on any account. Eleanor believed that it was meant for
-her, and that Mr. Westmoreland had better taste than people gave him
-credit for; and she had a mind to put in her claim for it. But the
-major set her aside gently. "No," he said, "it belongs to Elizabeth.
-I don't know who sent it&mdash;you may shake your head at me, my dear; I
-can't help it if you don't believe me&mdash;but I am convinced that it is
-Elizabeth's lawful property."</p>
-
-<p>"As if that didn't <i>prove</i> that you know!" retorted Mrs. Duff-Scott.</p>
-
-<p>He was still looking at Elizabeth, who was holding her lilies of the
-valley to her breast. His eyes asked her whether she did not endorse
-his views, and when she lifted her face at the sound of the dinner
-bell, she satisfied him, without at all intending to do so, that she
-did. <i>She</i> knew that the bouquet had been sent for her.</p>
-
-<p>It was carefully set into the top of a cloisonné pot in a cool corner
-until dinner was over, and until the girls were wrapped up and the
-carriage waiting for them at the hall door. Then the elder sister
-fetched it from the drawing-room, and carried it out into the balmy
-summer night, still held against her breast as if she were afraid it
-might be taken from her; and the younger sister gazed at it smilingly,
-convinced that it was Mr. Westmoreland's tribute to herself, and
-magnanimously determined to beg him not to let Elizabeth know it.
-Thus the evening began happily for both of them. And by-and-bye their
-carriage slowly ploughed its way to the Town Hall entrance, and they
-went up the stone stairs to the vestibule and the cloak-room and the
-ball-room, and had their names shouted out so that every ear listening
-for them should hear and heed, and were received by the hospitable
-bachelors and passed into the great hall that was so dazzlingly
-splendid to their unsophisticated eyes; and the first face that Eleanor
-was aware of was Mr. Westmoreland's, standing out solidly from the
-double row of them that lined the doorway. She gave him a side-long
-glance as she bowed and passed, and then stood by her chaperon's side
-in the middle of the room, and waited for him to come to her. But he
-did not come. She waited, and watched, and listened, with her thanks
-and explanations all ready, chatting smilingly to her party the while
-in perfect ease of mind; but, to her great surprise, she waited in
-vain. Perhaps he had to stand by the door till the Governor came;
-perhaps he had other duties to perform that kept him from her and his
-private pursuits; perhaps he had forgotten that he had asked her for
-the first dance two days ago; perhaps he had noticed her bouquet, and
-had supposed that she had given it away, and was offended with her.
-She had a serene and patient temperament, and did not allow herself to
-be put out; it would all be explained presently. And in the meantime
-the major introduced his friends to her, and she began to fill her
-programme rapidly.</p>
-
-<p>The evening passed on. Mrs. Duff-Scott settled herself in the
-particular one of the series of boudoirs under the gallery that struck
-her as having a commanding prospect. The Governor came, the band
-played, the guests danced, and promenaded, and danced again; and Mr.
-Westmoreland was nowhere to be seen. Eleanor was beset with other
-partners, and thought it well to punish him by letting them forestall
-him as they would; and, provisionally, she captivated a couple of naval
-officers by her proficiency in foreign languages, and made various men
-happy by her graceful and gay demeanour. By-and-bye, however, she came
-across her recreant admirer&mdash;as she was bound to do some time. He was
-leaning against a pillar, his dull eyes roving over the crowd before
-him, evidently looking for some one. She thought he was looking for her.</p>
-
-<p>"Well?" she said, archly, pausing before him, on the arm of an
-Exhibition commissioner with whom she was about to plunge into the
-intricacies of the lancers. Mr. Westmoreland looked at her with a start
-and in momentary confusion.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh&mdash;er," he stammered, hurriedly, "<i>here</i> you are! Where have you been
-hiding yourself all the evening?" Then, after a pause, "Got any dances
-saved for me?"</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Saved</i>, indeed!" she retorted. "What next? When you don't take the
-trouble to come and ask for them!"</p>
-
-<p>"I am so engaged to-night, Miss Eleanor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I see you are. Never mind&mdash;I can get on without you." She walked on a
-step, and turned back. "Did you send me a pretty bouquet just now?" she
-whispered, touching his arm. "I think you did, and it was so good of
-you, but there was some mistake about it&mdash;" She checked herself, seeing
-a blank look in his face, and blushed violently. "Oh, it was <i>not</i>
-you!" she exclaimed, in a shocked voice, wishing the ball-room floor
-would open and swallow her up.</p>
-
-<p>"Really," he said, "I&mdash;I was very remiss&mdash;I'm awfully sorry." And he
-gave her to understand, to her profound consternation, that he had
-fully intended to send her a bouquet, but had forgotten it in the rush
-of his many important engagements.</p>
-
-<p>She passed on to her lancers with a wan smile, and presently saw him,
-under those seductive fern trees upstairs, with the person whom he
-had been looking for when she accosted him. "There's Westmoreland and
-his old flame," remarked her then partner, a club-frequenting youth
-who knew all about everybody. "<i>He</i> calls her the handsomest woman
-out&mdash;because she's got a lot of money, I suppose. All the Westmorelands
-are worshippers of the golden calf, father and son&mdash;a regular set of
-screws the old fellows were, and he's got the family eye to the main
-chance. Trust him! <i>I</i> can't see anything in her; can you? She's as
-round as a tub, and as swarthy as a gipsy. I like women"&mdash;looking at
-his partner&mdash;"to be tall, and slender, and fair. That's <i>my</i> style."</p>
-
-<p>This was how poor Eleanor's pleasure in her first ball was spoiled.
-I am aware that it looks a very poor and shabby little episode, not
-worthy of a chapter to itself; but then things are not always what they
-seem, and, as a matter of fact, the life histories of a large majority
-of us are made up of just such unheroic passages.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>"WRITE ME AS ONE WHO LOVES HIS FELLOW MEN."</h4>
-
-
-<p>When Elizabeth went into the room, watchfully attended by the major,
-who was deeply interested in her proceedings, she was perhaps the
-happiest woman of all that gala company. She was in love, and she was
-going to meet her lover&mdash;which things meant to her something different
-from what they mean to girls brought up in conventional habits of
-thought. Eve in the Garden of Eden could not have been more pure and
-unsophisticated, more absolutely natural, more warmly human, more
-blindly confiding and incautious than she; therefore she had obeyed her
-strongest instinct without hesitation or reserve, and had given herself
-up to the delight of loving without thought of cost or consequences.
-Where her affections were concerned she was incapable of compromise or
-calculation; it was only the noble and simple rectitude that was the
-foundation of her character and education which could "save her from
-herself," as we call it, and that only in the last extremity. Just
-now she was in the full flood-tide, and she let herself go with it
-without an effort. Adam's "graceful consort" could not have had a more
-primitive notion of what was appropriate and expected of her under the
-circumstances. She stood in the brilliant ball-room, without a particle
-of self-consciousness, in an attitude of unaffected dignity, and with a
-radiance of gentle happiness all over her, that made her beautiful to
-look at, though she was not technically beautiful. The major watched
-her with profound interest, reading her like an open book; he knew what
-was happening, and what was going to happen (he mostly did), though
-he had a habit of keeping his own counsel about his own discoveries.
-He noted her pose, which, besides being so admirably graceful, so
-evidently implied expectancy; the way she held her flowers to her
-breast, her chin just touched by the fringes of maiden-hair, while she
-gently turned her head from side to side. And he saw her lift her eyes
-to the gallery, saw at the same moment a light spread over her face
-that had a superficial resemblance to a smile, though her sensitive
-mouth never changed its expression of firm repose; and, chuckling
-silently to himself, he walked away to find a sofa for his wife.</p>
-
-<p>Presently Mrs. Duff-Scott, suitably enthroned, and with her younger
-girls already carried off by her husband from her side, saw Mr.
-Yelverton approaching her, and rejoiced at the prospect of securing his
-society for herself and having the tedium of the chaperon's inactivity
-relieved by sensible conversation. "Ah, so you are here!" she exclaimed
-cordially; "I thought balls were things quite out of your line."</p>
-
-<p>"So they are," he said, shaking hands with her and Elizabeth
-impartially, without a glance at the latter. "But I consider it a duty
-to investigate the customs of the country. I like to look all round
-when I am about it."</p>
-
-<p>"Quite right. This is distinctly one of our institutions, and I am very
-glad you are not above taking notice of it."</p>
-
-<p>"I am not above taking notice of anything, I hope."</p>
-
-<p>"No, of course not. You are a true philosopher. There is no
-dilettantism about you. That is what I like in you," she added frankly.
-"Come and sit down here between Miss King and me, and talk to us. I
-want to know how the emigration business is getting on."</p>
-
-<p>He sat down between the two ladies, Elizabeth drawing back her white
-skirts.</p>
-
-<p>"I have been doing no business, emigration or other," he said; "I have
-been spending my time in pleasure."</p>
-
-<p>"Is it possible? Well, I am glad to hear it. I should very much like
-to know what stands for pleasure with you, only it would be too rude a
-question."</p>
-
-<p>"I have been in the country," he said, smiling.</p>
-
-<p>"H&mdash;m&mdash;that's not saying much. You don't mean to tell me, I see.
-Talking of the country&mdash;look at Elizabeth's bouquet. Did you think we
-could raise lilies of the valley like those?"</p>
-
-<p>He bent his head slightly to smell them. "I heard that they did grow
-hereabouts," he said; and his eyes and Elizabeth's met for a moment
-over the fragrant flowers that she held between them, while Mrs.
-Duff-Scott detailed the negligent circumstances of their presentation,
-which left it a matter of doubt where they came from and for whom they
-were intended.</p>
-
-<p>"I want to find Mr. Smith," said she; "I fancy he can give us
-information."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think so," said Mr. Yelverton; "he was showing me a lily of
-the valley in his button-hole just now as a great rarity in these
-parts."</p>
-
-<p>Then it flashed across Mrs. Duff-Scott that Paul Brion might have been
-the donor, and she said no more.</p>
-
-<p>For some time the trio sat upon the sofa, and the matron and the
-philanthropist discussed political economy in its modern developments.
-They talked about emigration; they talked about protection&mdash;and wherein
-a promising, but inexperienced, young country was doing its best to
-retard the wheels of progress&mdash;as if they were at a committee meeting
-rather than disporting themselves at a ball. The major found partners
-for the younger girls, but he left Elizabeth to her devices; at least
-he did so for a long time&mdash;until it seemed to him that she was being
-neglected by her companions. Then he started across the room to rescue
-her from her obscurity. At the moment that he came in sight, Mr.
-Yelverton turned to her. "What about dancing, Miss King?" he said,
-quickly. "May I be allowed to do my best?"</p>
-
-<p>"I cannot dance," said Elizabeth. "I began too late&mdash;I can't take to
-it, somehow."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, "that is nonsense. All you want is
-practice. And I am not going to allow you to become a wall-flower." She
-turned her head to greet some newly-arrived friends, and Mr. Yelverton
-rose and offered his arm to Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Let us go and practise," he said, and straightway they passed down the
-room, threading a crowd once more, and went upstairs to the gallery,
-which was a primeval forest in its solitude at this comparatively
-early hour. "There is no reason why you should dance if you don't like
-it," he remarked; "we can sit here and look on." Then, when she was
-comfortably settled in her cushions under the fern trees, he leaned
-forward and touched her bouquet with a gesture that was significant of
-the unacknowledged but well-understood intimacy between them. "I am so
-glad I was able to get them for you," he said; "I wanted you to know
-what they were really like&mdash;when you told me how much your mother had
-loved them."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't thank you," she replied.</p>
-
-<p>"Do not," he said. "It is for me to thank you for accepting them. I
-wish you could see them in my garden at Yelverton. There is a dark
-corner between two gables of the house where they make a perfect carpet
-in April."</p>
-
-<p>She lifted those she held to her face, and sniffed luxuriously.</p>
-
-<p>"There is a room in that recess," he went on, "a lady's sitting-room.
-Not a very healthy spot, by the way, it is too dank and dark. It was
-fitted up for poor Elizabeth Leigh when my two uncles, Patrick and
-Kingscote, expected her to come and live there, each wanting her for
-his wife&mdash;so my grandmother used to say. It has never been altered,
-though nearly all the rest of the house has been turned inside out. I
-think the lilies of the valley were planted there for her. I wish you
-could see that room. You would like sitting by the open window&mdash;it is
-one of those old diamond-paned casements, and has got some interesting
-stained glass in it&mdash;and seeing the sun shine on the grey walls
-outside, and smelling the lilies in that green well that the sun cannot
-reach down below. It is just one of those things that would suit you."</p>
-
-<p>She listened silently, gazing at the great organ opposite, towering out
-of the groves of flowers at its base, without seeing what it was she
-looked at. After a pause he went on, still leaning forward, with his
-arms resting on his knees. "I can think of nothing now but how much I
-want you to see and know everything that makes my life at home," he
-said.</p>
-
-<p>"Tell me about it," she said, with the woman's instinctive desire for
-delay at this juncture, not because she didn't want to hear the rest,
-but to prolong the sweetness of anticipation; "tell me what your life
-at Yelverton is like."</p>
-
-<p>"I have not had much of it at present," he replied, after a brief
-pause. "The place was let for a long while. Then, when I took it over
-again, I made it into a sort of convalescent home, and training-place,
-and general starting-point for girls and children&mdash;<i>protégées</i> of my
-friend who does slumming in the orthodox way. Though he disapproves
-of me he makes use of me, and, of course, I don't disapprove of him,
-and am very glad to help him. The house is too big for me alone, and
-it seems the best use I can put it to. Of course I keep control of
-it; I take the poor things in on the condition that they are to be
-disciplined after my system and not his&mdash;his may be the best, but they
-don't enjoy it as they do mine&mdash;and when I am at home I run down once a
-week or so to see how they are getting on."</p>
-
-<p>"And how is it now?"</p>
-
-<p>"Now the house is just packed, I believe, from top to bottom. I got
-a letter a few days ago from my faithful lieutenant, who looks after
-things for me, to say that it couldn't hold many more, and that the
-funds of the institution are stretched to their utmost capacity to
-provide supplies."</p>
-
-<p>"The funds? Oh, you must certainly use that other money now!"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I shall use it now. I have, indeed, already appropriated a small
-instalment. I told Le Breton to draw on it, rather than let one child
-go that we could take&mdash;rather than let one opportunity be lost."</p>
-
-<p>"You have other people working with you, then?"</p>
-
-<p>"A good many&mdash;yes, and a very miscellaneous lot you would think them.
-Le Breton is the one I trust as I do myself. I could not have been here
-now if it had not been for him. He is my right hand."</p>
-
-<p>"Who is he?" she asked, fascinated, in spite of her preoccupations, by
-this sketch of a life that had really found its mission in the world,
-and one so beneficent and so satisfying.</p>
-
-<p>"He is a very interesting man," said Mr. Yelverton, who still leaned
-towards her, touching her flowers occasionally with a tender audacity;
-"a man to respect and admire&mdash;a brave man who would have been burnt at
-the stake had he lived a few centuries ago. He was once a clergyman,
-but he gave that up."</p>
-
-<p>"He gave it up!" repeated Elizabeth, who had read "Thomas à Kempis" and
-the <i>Christian Year</i> daily since she was a child, as her mother had
-done before her.</p>
-
-<p>"He couldn't stand it," said Mr. Yelverton, simply. "You see he was a
-man with a very literal, and straight-going, and independent mind&mdash;a
-mind that could nohow bend itself to the necessities of the case. I
-don't suppose he ever really gave himself up out of his own control,
-but, at any rate, when he got to know the world and the kind of time
-that we had come to, he couldn't pretend to shut his eyes. He couldn't
-make-believe that he was all the same as he had been when a mere lad
-of three-and-twenty, and that nothing had happened to change things
-while he had been learning and growing. And once he fell out with
-his conscience there was no patching up the breach with compromises
-for <i>him</i>. He tried it, poor fellow&mdash;he had a tough tussle before he
-gave in. It was a great step to take, you know&mdash;a martyrdom with all
-the pain and none of the glory&mdash;that nobody could sympathise with or
-understand."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth was sitting very still, watching with unseeing eyes the
-glitter of a conspicuous diamond tiara in the moving crowd below. She,
-at any rate, could neither sympathise nor understand.</p>
-
-<p>"He was in the thick of his troubles when I first met him," Mr.
-Yelverton went on. "He was working hard in one of the East End
-parishes, doing his level best, as the Yankees say, and tormented all
-the time, not only by his own scruples and self-accusations, but by a
-perfect hornet's nest of ecclesiastical persecutors. I said to him. 'Be
-an honest man, and give up being a parson&mdash;'"</p>
-
-<p>"Isn't it possible to be <i>both?</i>" Elizabeth broke in.</p>
-
-<p>"No doubt it is. But it was not possible for him. Seeing that, I
-advised him to let go, and leave those that could to hold on&mdash;as I am
-glad they do hold on, for we want the brake down at the rate we are
-going. He was in agonies of dread about the future, because he had a
-wife and children, so I offered him a salary equal to the emoluments
-of his living to come and work with me. 'You and I will do what good
-we can together,' I said, 'without pretending to be anything more than
-what we <i>know</i> we are.' And so he cast in his lot with me, and we have
-worked together ever since. They call him all sorts of bad names, but
-he doesn't care&mdash;at least not much. It is such a relief to him to be
-able to hold his head up as a free man&mdash;and he does work with such a
-zest compared to what he did!"</p>
-
-<p>"And you," said Elizabeth, drawing short breaths, "what are you?&mdash;are
-you a Dissenter, too?"</p>
-
-<p>"Very much so, I think," he said, smiling at a term that to him, an
-Englishman, was obsolete, while to her, an Australian born, it had
-still its ancient British significance (for she had been born and
-reared in her hermit home, the devoutest of English-churchwomen).</p>
-
-<p>"And yet, in one sense, no one could be less so."</p>
-
-<p>"But <i>what</i> are you?" she urged, suddenly revealing to him that she was
-frightened by this ambiguity.</p>
-
-<p>"Really, I don't know," he replied, looking at her gravely. "I think
-if I had to label my religious faith in the usual way, with a motto, I
-should say I was a Humanitarian. The word has been a good deal battered
-about and spoiled, but it expresses my creed better than any other."</p>
-
-<p>"A Humanitarian!" she ejaculated with a cold and sinking heart. "Is
-that all?" To her, in such a connection, it was but another word for an
-infidel.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PATTY CONFESSES.</h4>
-
-
-<p>A little group of their male attendants stood in the lobby, while Mrs.
-Duff-Scott and the girls put on their wraps in the cloak-room. When the
-ladies reappeared, they fell into the order in which Paul, unseen in
-the shadows of the street, saw them descend the steps to the pavement.</p>
-
-<p>"May I come and see you to-morrow morning?" asked Mr. Yelverton of
-Elizabeth, whom he especially escorted.</p>
-
-<p>"Not&mdash;not to-morrow," she replied. "We shall be at Myrtle Street, and
-we never receive any visitors there."</p>
-
-<p>"At Myrtle Street!" exclaimed the major, who also walked beside her.
-"Surely you are not going to run off to Myrtle Street to-morrow?"</p>
-
-<p>"We are going there now," said she, "if we can get in. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-knows."</p>
-
-<p>"Let them alone," said the chaperon, looking back over her shoulder.
-"If they have a fancy to go home they shall go. I won't have them
-persuaded." She was as reluctant to leave them at Myrtle Street as the
-major could be, but she carefully abstained, as she always did, from
-interfering with their wishes when nothing of importance was involved.
-She was wise enough to know that she would have the stronger hold on
-them by seeming to leave them their liberty.</p>
-
-<p>They were put into the carriage by their attentive cavaliers, the major
-taking his now frequent box seat in order to accompany them; and Mr.
-Smith and Mr. Yelverton were left standing on the pavement. Arrived
-at Myrtle Street, it was found that the house was still open, and the
-girls bade the elder couple an effusively affectionate and compunctious
-good-night.</p>
-
-<p>"And when shall I see you again?" Mrs. Duff-Scott inquired, with a
-carefully composed smile and cheerful air.</p>
-
-<p>"To-morrow," said Elizabeth, eagerly; "to-morrow, of course, some of
-us will come." All three girls had a painful feeling that they were
-ungrateful, while under obligations to be grateful, in spite of their
-friend's effort to prevent it, as they stood a moment in the warm night
-at their street door, and watched the carriage roll away. And yet they
-were so glad to be on their own "tauri" to-night&mdash;even Eleanor, who had
-grown more out of tune with the old frugal life than any of them.</p>
-
-<p>They were let in by the ground-floor landlady, with whom they chatted
-for a few minutes, arranging about the materials for their breakfast;
-then they went upstairs to their lonely little bedrooms, where they
-lit their candles and began at once to prepare for bed. They were dead
-tired, they said, and wanted to sleep and not to talk.</p>
-
-<p>But a full hour after their separation for the night, each one was as
-wide awake as she had been all day. Elizabeth was kneeling on the floor
-by her bedside, still half-dressed&mdash;she had not changed her attitude
-for a long time, though the undulations of her body showed how far from
-passive rest she was&mdash;when Patty, clothed only in her night-gown, crept
-in, making no noise with her bare feet.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," she whispered, laying her hand on her sister's shoulder,
-"are you asleep?&mdash;or are you saying your prayers?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth, startled, lifted up her head, and disclosed to Patty's gaze
-in the candle-light a pale, and strained, and careworn face, "I was
-saying my prayers," she replied, with a dazed look. "Why are you out of
-bed, my darling? What is the matter?"</p>
-
-<p>"That is what I want to know," said Patty, sitting down on the bed.
-"What is the matter with us all? What has come to us? Nelly has been
-crying ever since I put the light out&mdash;she thought I couldn't hear her,
-but she was mistaken&mdash;sobbing and sniffing under the bedclothes, and
-blowing her nose in that elaborately cautious way&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, poor, dear child!" interrupted the maternal elder sister, making a
-start towards the door.</p>
-
-<p>"No, don't go to her," said Patty, putting out her hand; "leave her
-alone&mdash;she is quiet now. Besides, you couldn't do her any good. Do you
-know what she is fretting about? Because Mr. Westmoreland has been
-neglecting her. Would you believe it? She is caring about it, after
-all&mdash;and we thought it was only fun. She doesn't care about <i>him</i>, she
-couldn't do that&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"We can't tell," interrupted Elizabeth. "It is not for us to say.
-Perhaps she does, poor child!"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, she <i>couldn't</i>," Patty scornfully insisted. "That is quite
-impossible. No, she has got fond of this life that we are living now
-with Mrs. Duff-Scott&mdash;I have seen it, how it has laid hold of her&mdash;and
-she would like to marry him so that she could have it always. That is
-what <i>she</i> has come to. Oh, Elizabeth, don't you wish we had gone to
-Europe at the very first, and never come to Melbourne at all!" Here
-Patty herself broke down, and uttered a little shaking, hysterical sob.
-"Everything seems to be going wrong with us here! It does not look so,
-I know, but at the bottom of my heart I feel it. Why did we turn aside
-to waste and spoil ourselves like this, instead of going on to the life
-that we had laid out&mdash;a real life, that we should never have had to be
-ashamed of?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth was silent for a few minutes, soothing her sister's
-excitement with maternal caresses, and at the same time thinking with
-all her might. "We must try not to get confused," she said presently.
-"Life is life, you know, Patty, wherever you are&mdash;all the other things
-are incidental. And we need not try to struggle with everything at
-once. I think we have done our best, when we have had anything to
-do&mdash;any serious step to take&mdash;since we came to Melbourne; and in Europe
-we could have done no more. It seemed right to please Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-and to accept such a treasure as her friendship when it came to us in
-what seemed such a providential way&mdash;did it not? It seemed so to me. It
-would have been ungenerous to have held out against her&mdash;and we were
-always a little given to be too proud of standing alone. It makes her
-happy to have us. I don't know what work we could have done that would
-have been more profitable than that. Patty"&mdash;after another thoughtful
-pause&mdash;"I don't think it is that <i>things</i> are going wrong, dear. It is
-only that we have to manage them, and to steer our way, and to take
-care of ourselves, and that is so trying and perplexing. God knows <i>I</i>
-find it difficult! So, I suppose, does everyone."</p>
-
-<p>"You, Elizabeth? <i>You</i> always seem to know what is right. And you are
-so good that you never ought to have troubles."</p>
-
-<p>"If Nelly is susceptible to such a temptation as Mr. Westmoreland&mdash;Mr.
-Westmoreland, because he is rich&mdash;she would not have gone far with us,
-in any case," Elizabeth went on, putting aside the allusion to herself.
-"Europe would not have strengthened her. It would have been all the
-same. While, as for you, my darling&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I!" broke in Patty excitedly. "I should have been happy now, and
-not as I am! I should have been saved from making a fool of myself if I
-had gone to Europe! I should have been worth something, and able to do
-something, there!"</p>
-
-<p>"How can you tell, dear child? And why do you suppose you have been
-foolish? <i>I</i> don't think so. On the contrary, it has often seemed to me
-that you have been the sensible one of us all."</p>
-
-<p>"O, Elizabeth, don't laugh at me!" wailed Patty, reproachfully.</p>
-
-<p>"I laugh at you, my darling! What an idea! I mean it, every word. You
-see everything in a distorted and exaggerated way just now, because
-you are tired and your nerves are over-wrought. You are not yourself
-to-night, Patty. You will cheer up&mdash;we shall all cheer up&mdash;when we
-have had a good sleep and a little quiet time to think things over."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I am not myself, indeed," assented Patty, with moody passion. "I
-am not myself at all&mdash;to be made to feel so weak and miserable!" She
-put her face down in her hands and began to cry with more abandonment
-at the thought of how weak she had become.</p>
-
-<p>"But Patty, dearest, there must be something the matter with you," her
-motherly elder sister cried, much distressed by this abnormal symptom.
-"Are you feeling ill? Don't frighten me like this."</p>
-
-<p>The girl laid her head upon her sister's shoulder, and there let
-herself loose from all restraint. "You <i>know</i> what is the matter," she
-sobbed; "you know as well as I do what is the matter&mdash;that it is Paul
-Brion who worries me so and makes me so utterly wretched."</p>
-
-<p>"Paul Brion! <i>He</i> worry you, Patty&mdash;<i>he</i> make you wretched?"</p>
-
-<p>"You have always been delicate and considerate, Elizabeth&mdash;you have
-never said anything&mdash;but I know you know all about it, and how spoiled
-I am, and how spoiled everything is because of him. I hate to talk of
-it&mdash;I can't bear even you to see that I am fretting about him&mdash;but I
-can't help it! and I know you understand. When I have had just one good
-cry," she concluded, with a fresh and violent burst of tears, "perhaps
-I shall get on better."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth stared at the wall over her sister's head in dumb amazement,
-evidently not deserving the credit for perspicacity accorded to her.
-"Do you mean," she said slowly, "do you really mean&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," sobbed Patty, desperate, for the moment dead to shame.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, how blind&mdash;how wickedly blind&mdash;how stupid&mdash;how selfish I have
-been!" Elizabeth exclaimed, after another pause in which to collect
-her shocked and bewildered faculties. "I never dreamt about it, my
-darling&mdash;never, for a single moment. I thought&mdash;I always had the
-settled impression that you did not like him."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't like him," said Patty, fiercely, lifting herself up. "I love
-him&mdash;I <i>love</i> him! I must say it right out once, if I never speak
-another word," and she bent her head back a little, and stretched out
-her arms with an indescribable gesture as if she saw him standing
-before her. "He is a man&mdash;a real, true, strong man&mdash;who works, and
-thinks, and lives&mdash;lives! It is all serious with him, as I wanted
-it to be with me&mdash;and I <i>might</i> have been worthy of him! A little
-while ago we were so near to each other&mdash;so near that we almost
-<i>touched</i>&mdash;and now no two people could be farther apart. I have done
-him wrong&mdash;I have been a wicked fool, but I am punished for it out of
-all proportion. <i>He</i> flirt with a married woman! What could I have
-been dreaming of? Oh, how <i>disgusting</i> I must be to have allowed such
-an idea to come into my head! And yet it was only a little thing,
-Elizabeth, when you come to think of it relatively&mdash;the only time I
-ever really did him injustice, and it was only for a moment. No one can
-always do what is right and fair without making a mistake sometimes&mdash;it
-was just a mistake for want of thinking. But it has taken him from me
-as completely as if I had committed suicide, and was dead and buried
-and done with. It has made him <i>hate</i> me. No wonder! If he cared about
-me, I wouldn't be too proud to beg his pardon, but he doesn't&mdash;he
-doesn't! And so I must face it out, or else he will think I am running
-after him, and he will despise me more than he does already."</p>
-
-<p>"But if he was doing no harm," said Elizabeth, soothingly, "he could
-not suppose that you thought he was."</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Patty, "he will never think I was so disgusting as to think
-<i>that</i> of him. But it is as bad as if he did. That at least was a
-great, outrageous, downright wrong, worth fighting about, and not the
-pitiful shabby thing that it appears to him. For, of course, he thinks
-I did it because I was too grand to notice him while I was wearing a
-fine dress and swelling about with great people. It never occurred
-to me that it would be possible for him or anybody to suspect me of
-<i>that</i>," said Patty, proudly, drawing herself up; "but afterwards I
-saw that he could not help doing it. And ever since then it has been
-getting worse and worse&mdash;everything has seemed to point to its being
-so. Haven't you noticed? I never see him except I am with people who
-<i>are</i> above noticing him; and Mr. Smith&mdash;oh, what I have suffered from
-Mr. Smith to-night, Elizabeth!&mdash;has all this time been thinking I was
-going to marry him, and I can see now how it must have looked to other
-people as if I was. Just think of it!"&mdash;with a gesture of intense
-disgust. "As if any girl could stoop to that, after having had such a
-contrast before her eyes! No wonder he hates me and despises me&mdash;no
-wonder he looks at me as if I were the dirt beneath his feet. I wish I
-were," she added, with reckless passion; "oh, my dear love, I only wish
-I were!"</p>
-
-<p>When she was about it, Patty cleansed her stuffed bosom thoroughly.
-It was not her way to do things by halves. She rhapsodised about her
-love and her lover with a wild extravagance that was proportionate
-to the strained reserve and restraint that she had so long put upon
-her emotions. After which came the inevitable reaction. The fit being
-over, she braced herself up again, and was twice as strong-minded and
-self-sufficient as before. When the morning came, and she and Elizabeth
-busied themselves with housework&mdash;Eleanor being relegated to the sofa
-with a sick headache&mdash;the girl who had dissolved herself in tears and
-given way to temporary insanity, as she chose herself to call it, so
-recently, was bright, and brusque, and cheerful, in spite of sultry
-weather; and not only did she pretend, even to her confidante, that the
-young man on the other side of the wall had no place in her thoughts,
-but she hardened her heart to adamant against <i>him</i>, for having been
-the cause of her humiliating lapse from dignity. It was quite a lucky
-chance, indeed, that she did not straightway go and accept the hand
-and fortune of Mr. Smith, by way of making reparation for the outrage
-committed vicariously by Paul Brion on her self-respect.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE OLD AND THE NEW.</h4>
-
-
-<p>The weather was scorchingly hot and a thunderstorm brewing when the
-girls sat down to their frugal lunch at mid-day. It was composed of
-bread and butter and pickled fish, for which, under the circumstances,
-they had not appetite enough. They trifled with the homely viands for
-awhile, in a manner quite unusual with them, in whatever state of the
-atmosphere; and then they said they would "make up" at tea time, if
-weather permitted, and cleared the table. Eleanor was sent to lie down
-in her room, Patty volunteered to read a pleasant novel to the invalid,
-and Elizabeth put on her bonnet to pay her promised visit to Mrs.
-Duff-Scott.</p>
-
-<p>She found her friend in the cool music-room, standing by the piano, on
-which some loose white sheets were scattered. The major sat on a sofa,
-surveying the energetic woman with a sad and pensive smile.</p>
-
-<p>"Are you looking over new music?" asked Elizabeth, as she walked in.</p>
-
-<p>"O my dear, is that you? How good of you to venture out in this
-heat!&mdash;but I knew you would," exclaimed the lady of the house, coming
-forward with outstretched arms of welcome. "Music, did you say?&mdash;O
-<i>dear</i> no!" as if music were the last thing likely to interest her. "It
-is something of far more importance."</p>
-
-<p>"Yelverton has been here," said the major, sadly; "and he has been
-sketching some plans for Whitechapel cottages. My wife thinks they are
-most artistic."</p>
-
-<p>"So they are," she insisted, hardly, "though I don't believe I used the
-word; for things are artistic when they are suitable for the purpose
-they are meant for, and only pretend to be what they are. Look at
-this, Elizabeth. You see it is of no use to build Peabody houses in
-these frightfully low neighbourhoods, where half-starved creatures are
-packed together like herrings in a barrel&mdash;Mr. Yelverton has explained
-that quite clearly. The better class of poor come to live in them, and
-the poorest of all are worse off instead of better, because they have
-less room than they had before. You <i>must</i> take into consideration
-that there is only a certain amount of space, and if you build model
-lodgings here, and a school there, and a new street somewhere else, you
-do good, of course, but you herd the poor street-hawkers and people of
-that class more and more thickly into their wretched dens, where they
-haven't enough room to breathe as it is&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I think I'll go, my dear, if you'll excuse me," interrupted the major,
-humbly, in tones of deep dejection.</p>
-
-<p>"And therefore," proceeded Mrs. Duff-Scott, taking no notice of her
-husband, "the proper and reasonable thing to do&mdash;if you want to help
-those who are most in need of help&mdash;is to let fine schemes alone. Mr.
-Yelverton expects to come into a large property soon, and he means to
-buy into those wretched neighbourhoods, where he can, and to build
-for one-room tenants&mdash;for cheapness and low rents. He will get about
-four per cent. on his money, but that he will use to improve with&mdash;I
-mean for putting them in the way of sanitary habits, poor creatures.
-He makes a great point of teaching them sanitation. He seems to think
-more of that than about teaching them the Bible, and really one
-can hardly wonder at it when one sees the frightful depravity and
-general demoralisation that come of ignorance and stupidity in those
-matters&mdash;and he sees so much of it. He seems to be always rooting
-about in those sewers and dunghills, as he calls them&mdash;he is rather
-addicted to strong expressions, if you notice&mdash;and turning things out
-from the very bottom. He is queer in some of his notions, but he is a
-good man, Elizabeth. One can forgive him his little crotchets, for the
-sake of all the good he does&mdash;it must be incalculable! He shrinks from
-nothing, and spends himself trying to better the things that are so bad
-that most people feel there is nothing for it but to shut their eyes to
-them&mdash;without making any fuss about it either, or setting himself up
-for a saint. Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Scott, throwing a contemptuous
-glance around her museum of precious curiosities, "how inconceivably
-petty and selfish it seems to care for rubbish like this, when there
-are such miseries in the world that we might lighten, as he does, if we
-would only set ourselves to it in the same spirit."</p>
-
-<p><i>Rubbish!</i>&mdash;those priceless pots and plates, those brasses and ivories
-and enamels, those oriental carpets and tapestries, those unique
-miscellaneous relics of the mediæval prime! Truly the Cause of Humanity
-had taken hold of Mrs. Duff-Scott at last.</p>
-
-<p>She sat down in an arm-chair, having invited Elizabeth to take off
-her hat and make herself as comfortable as the state of the weather
-permitted, and began to wave a large fan to and fro while she looked
-into vacant space with shining eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"He is a strange man," she said musingly. "A most interesting,
-admirable man, but full of queer ideas&mdash;not at all like any man I ever
-met before. He has been lunching with us, Elizabeth&mdash;he came quite
-early&mdash;and we have had an immense deal of talk. I wish you had been
-here to listen to him&mdash;though I don't know that it would have been very
-good for you, either. He is extremely free, and what you might call
-revolutionary, in his opinions; he treats the most sacred subjects as
-if they were to be judged and criticised like common subjects. He talks
-of the religions of the world, for instance, as if they were all on
-the same foundation, and calls the Bible our Veda or Koran&mdash;says they
-are all alike inspired writings because they respectively express the
-religious spirit, craving for knowledge of the mystery of life and the
-unseen, that is an integral part of man's nature, and universal in
-all races, though developed according to circumstances. He says all
-mankind are children of God, and brothers, and that he declines to make
-invidious distinctions. And personal religion to him seems nothing more
-than the most rudimentary morality&mdash;simply to speak the truth and to
-be unselfish&mdash;just as to be selfish or untrue are the only sins he
-will acknowledge that we are responsible for out of the long catalogue
-of sins that stain this unhappy world. He won't call it an unhappy
-world, by the way, in spite of the cruel things he sees; he is the most
-optimistic of unbelievers. It will all come right some day&mdash;and our
-time will be called the dark ages by our remote descendants. Ever since
-men and women came first, they have been getting better and higher&mdash;the
-world increases in human goodness steadily, and will go on doing so as
-long as it is a world&mdash;and that because of the natural instincts and
-aspirations of human nature, and not from what we have always supposed
-all our improvement came from&mdash;rather in spite of that, indeed."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott poured out this information, which had been seething in
-her active mind, volubly and with a desire to relieve herself to some
-one; but here she checked herself, feeling that she had better have
-left it all unsaid, not less for Elizabeth's sake than for her own. She
-got up out of her seat and began to pace about the room with a restless
-air. She was genuinely troubled. It was as if a window in a closed
-chamber had been opened, letting in a too strong wind that was blowing
-the delicate furniture all about; now, with the woman's instinctive
-timidity and fear (that may be less a weakness than a safeguard), she
-was eager to shut it to again, though suspecting that it might be
-too late to repair the damage done. Now that she took time to think
-about it, she felt particularly guilty on Elizabeth's account, who had
-not had her experience, and was not furnished with her ripe judgment
-and powers of discrimination as a preservative against the danger of
-contact with heterodox ideas.</p>
-
-<p>"I ought not to repeat such things," she exclaimed, vexedly, beginning
-to gather up the plans of the Whitechapel cottages, but observing
-only her companion's strained and wistful face. "The mere independent
-hypotheses and speculations of one man, when no two seem ever to think
-alike! I suppose those who study ancient history and literatures,
-and the sciences generally, get into the habit of pulling things to
-pieces&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Those who learn most <i>ought</i> to know most," suggested Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"They ought, my dear; but it doesn't follow."</p>
-
-<p>"Not when they are so earnest in trying to find out?"</p>
-
-<p>"No; that very earnestness is against them&mdash;they over-reach themselves.
-They get confused, too, with learning so much, and mixing so many
-things up together." Mrs. Duff-Scott was a little reckless as to means
-so long as she could compass the desired end&mdash;which was the shutting
-of that metaphorical window which she had incautiously set (or left)
-open.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, he believes in God&mdash;that all men are God's children," the
-girl continued, clinging where she could. "That seems like religion
-to me&mdash;it is a good and loving way to think of God, that He gave His
-spirit to all alike from the beginning&mdash;that He is so just and kind to
-all, and not only to a few."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, he believes in God. He believes in the Bible, too, in a sort of
-a way. He says he would have the lessons of the New Testament and the
-life of Christ disseminated far and wide, but not as they are now, with
-the moral left out, and not as if those who wrote them were wise enough
-for all time. But, whatever his beliefs may be," said Mrs. Duff-Scott,
-"they are not what will satisfy us, Elizabeth. You and I must hold fast
-to our faith in Christ, dear child, or I don't know what would become
-of us. We will let 'whys' alone&mdash;we will not trouble ourselves to try
-and find out mysteries that no doubt are wisely withheld from us, and
-that anyhow we should never be able to understand."</p>
-
-<p>Here the servant entered with a gliding step, opened a little
-Sutherland table before his mistress's chair, spread the æsthetic
-cloth, and set out the dainty tea service. Outside the storm had burst,
-and was now spending itself and cooling the hot air in a steady shower
-that made a rushing sound on the gravel. Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had
-reseated herself, leant back silently with an air of reaction after her
-strong emotion in the expression of her handsome face and form, and
-Elizabeth mechanically got up to pour out the tea. Presently, as still
-in silence they began to sip and munch their afternoon repast, the girl
-saw on the piano near which she stood a photograph that arrested her
-attention. "What is this?" she asked. "Did he bring this too?" It was a
-copy of Luke Fildes' picture of "The Casuals." Mrs. Duff-Scott took it
-from her hand.</p>
-
-<p>"No, it is mine," she said. "I have had it here for some time, in a
-portfolio amongst others, and never took any particular notice of it. I
-just had an idea that it was an unpleasant and disagreeable subject. I
-never gave it a thought&mdash;what it really meant&mdash;until this morning, when
-he was talking to me, and happened to mention it. I remembered that I
-had it, and I got it out to look at it. Oh!" setting down her teacup
-and holding it fairly in both hands before her&mdash;"isn't it a terrible
-sermon? Isn't it heartbreaking to think that it is <i>true?</i> And he says
-the truth is understated."</p>
-
-<p>Like the great Buddha, when he returned from his first excursion beyond
-his palace gates, Elizabeth's mind was temporarily darkened by the new
-knowledge of the world that she was acquiring, and she looked at the
-picture with a fast-beating heart. "Sphinxes set up against that dead
-wall," she quoted from a little printed foot-note, "and none likely to
-be at the pains of solving them until the general overthrow." She was
-leaning over her friend's shoulder, and the tears were dropping from
-her eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"They are Dickens's words," said Mrs. Duff-Scott.</p>
-
-<p>"Why is it like this, I wonder?" the girl murmured, after a long,
-impressive pause. "We must not think it is God's fault&mdash;that can't
-be. It must be somebody else's fault. It cannot have been <i>intended</i>
-that a great part of the human race should be forced, from no fault of
-their own, to accept such a cruel lot&mdash;to be made to starve, when so
-many roll in riches&mdash;to be driven to crime because they cannot help
-it&mdash;to be driven to <i>hell</i> when they <i>need not</i> have gone there&mdash;if
-there is such a place&mdash;if there is any truth in what we have been
-taught. But"&mdash;with a kind of sad indignation&mdash;"if religion has been
-doing its best for ever so many centuries, and this is all that there
-is to show for it&mdash;doesn't that seem to say that <i>he</i> may be right,
-and that religion has been altogether misinterpreted&mdash;that we have all
-along been making mistakes&mdash;" She checked herself, with a feeling of
-dismay at her own words; and Mrs. Duff-Scott made haste to put away
-the picture, evidently much disturbed. Both women had taken the "short
-views" of life so often advocated, not from philosophical choice, but
-from disinclination, and perhaps inability, to take long ones; and
-they had the ordinary woman's conception of religion as exclusively
-an ecclesiastical matter. This rough disturbance of old habits of
-thought and sentiments of reverence and duty was very alarming; but
-while Elizabeth was rashly confident, because she was inexperienced,
-and because she longed to put faith in her beloved, Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was seized with a sort of panic of remorseful misgiving. To shut that
-window had become an absolute necessity, no matter by what means.</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," she said, in desperation, "whatever you do, you must not
-begin to ask questions of that sort. We can never find out the answers,
-and it leads to endless trouble. God's ways are not as our ways&mdash;we
-are not in the secrets of His providence. It is for us to trust Him
-to know what is best. If you admit one doubt, Elizabeth, you will see
-that everything will go. Thousands are finding that out now-a-days,
-to their bitter cost. Indeed, I don't know what we are coming to&mdash;the
-'general overthrow,' I suppose. I hope I, at any rate, shall not live
-to see it. What would life be worth to us&mdash;<i>any</i> of us, even the best
-off&mdash;if we lost our faith in God and our hope of immortality? Just try
-to imagine it for a moment."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked at her mentor, who had again risen and was walking
-about the room. The girl's eyes were full of solemn thought. "Not
-much," she replied, gravely. "But I was never afraid of losing faith in
-God."</p>
-
-<p>"It is best to be afraid," replied Mrs. Duff-Scott, with decision.
-"It is best not to run into temptation. Don't think about these
-difficulties, Elizabeth&mdash;leave them, leave them. You would only
-unsettle yourself and become wretched and discontented, and you would
-never be any the wiser."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth thought over this for a few minutes, while Mrs. Duff-Scott
-mechanically took up a brass lota and dusted it with her handkerchief.</p>
-
-<p>"Then you think one ought not to read books, or to talk to people&mdash;to
-try to find out the ground one stands on&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"No, no, no&mdash;let it alone altogether. You know the ground you ought to
-stand on quite well. You don't want to see where you are if you can
-feel that God is with you. Blessed are they that have not seen and
-yet have believed!" she ended in a voice broken with strong feeling,
-clasping her hands with a little fervent, prayerful gesture.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth drew a long breath, and in her turn began to walk restlessly
-up and down the room. She had one more question to ask, but the asking
-of it almost choked her. "Then you would say&mdash;I suppose you think
-it would be wrong&mdash;for one who was a believer to marry one who was
-not?&mdash;however good, and noble, and useful he or she might be&mdash;however
-religious <i>practically</i>&mdash;however blameless in character?"</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, forgetting for the moment that there was such a person
-as Mr. Yelverton in the world, sat down once more in an arm-chair,
-and addressed herself to the proposition on its abstract merits. She
-had worked herself up, by this time, into a state of highly fervid
-orthodoxy. Her hour of weakness was past, and she was fain to put forth
-and test her reserves of strength. Wherefore she had very clear views
-as to the iniquity of an unequal yoking together with unbelievers, and
-the peril of touching the unclean thing; and she stated them plainly
-and with all her wonted incisive vigour.</p>
-
-<p>When it was all over, Elizabeth put on her hat and walked back through
-the pattering rain to Myrtle Street, heavy-hearted and heavy-footed, as
-if a weight of twenty years had been laid on her since the morning.</p>
-
-<p>"Patty," she said, when her sister, warmly welcoming her return,
-exclaimed at her pale face and weary air, and made her take the sofa
-that Eleanor had vacated, "Patty, let us go away for a few weeks, shall
-we? I want a breath of fresh air, and to be in peace and quiet for a
-little, to think things over."</p>
-
-<p>"So do I," said Patty. "So does Nelly. Let us write to Sam Dunn to find
-us lodgings."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>IN RETREAT.</h4>
-
-
-<p>"Is it possible that we have only been away for nine months?"
-murmured Elizabeth, as the little steamer worked its way up to the
-well-remembered jetty, and she looked once more on surf and headland,
-island rock and scattered township, lying under the desolate moorlands
-along the shore. "Doesn't it seem <i>at least</i> nine years?"</p>
-
-<p>"Or ninety," replied Patty. "I feel like a new generation. How exactly
-the same everything is! Here they have all been going on as they always
-did. There is Mrs. Dunn, dear old woman!&mdash;in the identical gown that
-she had on the day we went away."</p>
-
-<p>Everything was the same, but they were incredibly changed. There was no
-sleeping on the nose of the vessel now; no shrinking from association
-with their fellow-passengers. The skipper touched his cap to them,
-which he never used to do in the old times; and the idlers on the
-pier, when the vessel came in, stared at them as if they had indeed
-been away for ninety years. Mrs. Dunn took in at a glance the details
-of their travelling costumes, which were of a cut and quality not
-often seen in those parts; and, woman-like, straightway readjusted her
-smiles and manners, unconsciously becoming at once more effusive and
-more respectful than (with the ancient waterproofs in her mind's eye)
-she had prepared herself to be. But Sam saw only the three fair faces,
-that were to him as unchanged as his own heart; and he launched himself
-fearlessly into the boat as soon as it came alongside, with horny hand
-outstretched, and boisterous welcomes.</p>
-
-<p>"So y'are come back again?" he cried, "and darn glad I am to see yer,
-and no mistake." He added a great deal more in the way of greeting
-and congratulation before he got them up the landing stage and into
-the capacious arms of Mrs. Dunn&mdash;who was quite agreeably surprised to
-be hugged and kissed by three such fashionable young ladies. Then he
-proceeded to business with a triumphant air. "Now, Miss 'Lisbeth, yer
-see here's the cart&mdash;that's for the luggage. Me and the old hoss is
-going to take it straight up. And there is a buggy awaiting for you.
-And Mr. Brion told me to say as he was sorry he couldn't come down to
-the boat, but it's court day, yer see, and he's got a case on, and he's
-obliged to stop till he's done wi' that."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," exclaimed Elizabeth, hastily, "did you tell Mr. Brion that we
-were coming?"</p>
-
-<p>"Why, of course, miss. I went and told him the very first thing&mdash;'twas
-only right, him being such a friend&mdash;your only friend here, as one may
-say."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no, Sam, we have you."</p>
-
-<p>"Me!"&mdash;with scornful humility&mdash;"I'm nothing. Yes, of course I went and
-told him. And he wouldn't let us get no lodgings; he said you was just
-to go and stay wi' Mrs. Harris and him. He would ha' wrote to tell yer,
-but there worn't time."</p>
-
-<p>"And much more comfortable you'll be than at them lodging places," put
-in Mrs. Dunn. "There's nothing empty now that's at all fit for you. The
-season is just a-coming on, you see, and we're like to be pretty full
-this year."</p>
-
-<p>"But we wanted to be away from the town, Mrs. Dunn."</p>
-
-<p>"And so you will be away from the town. Why, bless me, you can't be
-much farther away&mdash;to be anywhere at all&mdash;than up there," pointing to
-the headland where their old home was dimly visible in the November
-sunshine. "There's only Mrs. Harris and the gal, and <i>they</i> won't
-interfere with you."</p>
-
-<p>"Up <i>there!</i>" exclaimed the sisters in a breath. And Mr. and Mrs. Dunn
-looked with broad grins at one another.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the fisherman. "You don't mean as Master
-Paul never let on about his pa and him buying the old place, do you?
-Why, they've had it, and the old man has been living there&mdash;he comes
-down every morning and goes up every night&mdash;walks both ways, he do,
-like a young chap&mdash;this two or three months past. Mrs. Hawkins she
-couldn't bear the lonesomeness of it when the winter come on, and was
-right down glad to get out of it. They gave Hawkins nearly double what
-<i>you</i> got for it. I told yer at the time that yer was a-throwing of it
-away."</p>
-
-<p>The girls tried to look as if they had known all about it, while they
-digested their surprise. It was a very great surprise, almost amounting
-to a shock.</p>
-
-<p>"And how <i>is</i> Mr. Paul?" asked Mrs. Dunn of Patty. "Dear young man,
-it's a long time since we've seen anything of him! I hope he's keeping
-his health well!"</p>
-
-<p>"I think so&mdash;I hope so," said Patty gently. "He works very hard, you
-know, writing things for the papers. He is wanted too much to be able
-to take holidays like ordinary people. They couldn't get on without
-him."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth turned round in astonishment: she had expected to see her
-sister in a blaze of wrath over Sam's unexpected communications. "I'm
-afraid you won't like this arrangement, dearie," she whispered. "What
-had we better do?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, go&mdash;go," replied Patty, with a tremulous eagerness that she vainly
-tried to hide. "I don't mind it. I&mdash;I am glad to see Mr. Brion. It will
-be very nice to stay with him&mdash;and in our own dear old house too. Oh, I
-wouldn't refuse to go for anything! Besides we <i>can't</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I don't see how we can," acquiesced Elizabeth, cheerfully. Patty
-having no objection, she was delighted with the prospect.</p>
-
-<p>They walked up the little pier in a group, the "hoss" following them
-with the reins upon his neck; and, while Elizabeth and Patty mounted
-the buggy provided by Mr. Brion, Eleanor gratified the old fisherman
-and his wife by choosing to stay with them and ride up in the cart. It
-was a lovely morning, just approaching noon, the sky as blue as&mdash;no,
-<i>not</i> as a turquoise or a sapphire&mdash;but as nothing save itself can be
-in a climate like ours, saturated with light and lucent colour, and
-giving to the sea its own but an intenser hue. I can see it all in my
-mind's eye&mdash;as my bodily eyes have seen it often&mdash;that dome above, that
-plain below, the white clouds throwing violet shadows on the water, the
-white gulls dipping their red legs in the shining surf and reflecting
-the sunlight on their white wings; but I cannot describe it. It is
-beyond the range of pen and ink, as of brush and pigments. As the buggy
-lightly climbed the steep cliff, opening the view wider at every step,
-the sisters sat hand in hand, leaning forward to take it all in; but
-they, too, said nothing&mdash;only inhaled long draughts of the delicious
-salt air, and felt in every invigorated fibre of them that they had
-done well to come. Reaching the crest of the bluff, and descending into
-the broken basin&mdash;or saucer, rather&mdash;in which Seaview Villa nestled,
-they uttered simultaneously an indignant moan at the spectacle of Mrs.
-Hawkins's devastations. There was the bright paint, and the whitewash,
-and the iron roof, and the fantastic trellis; and there was <i>not</i> the
-ivy that had mantled the eaves and the chimney stacks, nor the creepers
-that had fought so hard for existence, nor the squat verandah posts
-which they had bountifully embraced&mdash;nor any of the features that had
-made the old house distinct and characteristic.</p>
-
-<p>"Never mind," said Patty, who was the first to recover herself. "It
-looks very smart and tidy. I daresay it wanted doing up badly. After
-all, I'd sooner see it look as unlike home as possible, now that it
-isn't home."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Harris came out and warmly welcomed them in Mr. Brion's name.
-She took them into the old sitting-room, now utterly transformed, but
-cosy and inviting, notwithstanding, with the lawyer's substantial old
-leather chairs and sofas about it, and a round table in the middle
-set out for lunch, and the sea and sky shining in through the open
-verandah doors. She pressed them to have wine and cake to "stay" them
-till Eleanor and lunch time arrived; and she bustled about with them in
-their rooms&mdash;their own old bedrooms, in one of which was a collection
-of Paul's schoolboy books and treasures, while they took off their hats
-and washed their hands and faces; and was very motherly and hospitable,
-and made them feel still more pleased that they had come. They feasted,
-with fine appetites, on fish and gooseberry-fool at one o'clock, while
-Sam and Mrs. Dunn were entertained by the housekeeper in the kitchen;
-and in the afternoon, the cart and "hoss" having departed, they sat on
-the verandah in basket chairs, and drank tea, and idled, and enjoyed
-the situation thoroughly. Patty got a dog's-eared novel of Mayne
-Reid's from the book-case in her bedroom, and turned over the pages
-without reading them to look at the pencil marks and thumb stains; and
-Eleanor dozed and fanned herself; and Elizabeth sewed and thought. And
-then their host came home, riding up from the township on a fast and
-panting steed, quite thrown off his balance by emotion. He was abject
-in his apologies for having been deterred by cruel fate and business
-from meeting them at the steamer and conducting them in person to his
-house, and superfluous in expressions of delight at the honour they had
-conferred on him.</p>
-
-<p>"And how did you leave my boy?" he asked presently, when due inquiries
-after their own health and welfare had been satisfied. He spoke as
-if they and Paul had all been living under one roof. "And when is he
-coming to see his old father again?"</p>
-
-<p>Patty, who was sitting beside her host&mdash;"in his pocket," Nelly
-declared&mdash;and was simply servile in her affectionate demonstrations,
-undertook to describe Paul's condition and circumstances, and she
-implied a familiar knowledge of them which considerably astonished her
-sisters. She also gave the father a full history of all the son's good
-deeds in relation to themselves&mdash;described how he had befriended them
-in this and that emergency, and asserted warmly, and with a grave face,
-that she didn't know what they <i>should</i> have done without him.</p>
-
-<p>"That's right&mdash;that's right!" said the old man, laying her hand on his
-knee and patting it fondly. "I was sure he would&mdash;I knew you'd find out
-his worth when you came to know him. We must write to him to-morrow,
-and tell him you have arrived safely. He doesn't know I have got you,
-eh? We must tell him. Perhaps we can induce him to take a little
-holiday himself&mdash;I am sure it is high time he had one&mdash;and join us for
-a few days. What do you think?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, I am <i>sure</i> he can't come away just now," protested Patty, pale
-with eagerness and horror. "In the middle of the Exhibition&mdash;and a
-parliamentary crisis coming on&mdash;it would be quite impossible!"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know&mdash;I don't know. I fancy 'impossible' is not a word you
-will find in his dictionary," said the old gentleman encouragingly.
-"When he hears of our little arrangement, he'll want to take a hand, as
-the Yankees say. He won't like to be left out&mdash;no, no."</p>
-
-<p>"But, dear Mr. Brion," Patty strenuously implored&mdash;for this was really
-a matter of life and death, "do think what a critical time it is! They
-never <i>can</i> spare him now."</p>
-
-<p>"Then they ought to spare him. Because he is the best man they have,
-that is no reason why they should work him to death. They don't
-consider him sufficiently. He gives in to them too much. He is not a
-machine."</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps he would come," said Patty, "but it would be against his
-judgment&mdash;it would be at a heavy cost to his country&mdash;it would be just
-to please us&mdash;oh, don't let us tempt him to desert his post, which <i>no</i>
-one could fill in his absence! Don't let us unsettle and disturb him at
-such a time, when he is doing so much good, and when he wants his mind
-kept calm. Wait for a little while; he might get away for Christmas
-perhaps."</p>
-
-<p>"But by Christmas, I am afraid, you would be gone."</p>
-
-<p>"Never mind. We see him in Melbourne. And we came here to get away from
-all Melbourne associations."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, well, we'll see. But I am afraid you will be very dull with only
-an old fellow like me to entertain you."</p>
-
-<p>"Dull!" they all exclaimed in a breath. It was just what they wanted,
-to be so peaceful and quiet&mdash;and, above all things, to have him (Mr.
-Brion, senior) entirely to themselves.</p>
-
-<p>The polite old man looked as if he were scarcely equal to the weight
-of the honour and pleasure they conferred upon him. He was excessively
-happy. As the hours and days went on, his happiness increased. His
-punctilious courtesy merged more and more into a familiar and paternal
-devotion that took all kinds of touching shapes; and he felt more
-and more at a loss to express adequately the tender solicitude and
-profound satisfaction inspired in his good old heart by the sojourn of
-such charming guests within his gates. To Patty he became especially
-attached; which was not to be wondered at, seeing how susceptible he
-was and how lavishly she exercised her fascinations upon him. She
-walked to his office with him in the morning; she walked to meet him
-when he came hastening back in the afternoon; she read the newspaper
-(containing Paul's peerless articles) to him in the evening, and mixed
-his modest glass of grog for him before he went to bed. In short,
-she made him understand what it was to have a charming and devoted
-daughter, though she had no design in doing so&mdash;no motive but to
-gratify her affection for Paul in the only way open to her. So the old
-gentleman was very happy&mdash;and so were they. But still it seemed to
-him that he must be happier than they were, and that, being a total
-reversal of the proper order of things, troubled him. He had a pang
-every morning when he wrenched himself away from them&mdash;leaving them,
-as he called it, alone&mdash;though loneliness was the very last sensation
-likely to afflict them. It seemed so inhospitable, so improper, that
-they should be thrown upon their own resources, and the company of a
-housekeeper of humble status, for the greater part of the day&mdash;that
-they should be without a male attendant and devotee, while a man
-existed who was privileged to wait on them. If only Paul had been at
-home! Paul would have taken them for walks, for drives, for boating
-excursions, for pic-nics; he would have done the honours of Seaview
-Villa as the best of hosts and gentlemen. However, Paul, alas! was tied
-to his newspaper in Melbourne, and the old man had a business that he
-was cruelly bound to attend to&mdash;at any rate, sometimes. But at other
-times he contrived to shirk his business and then he racked his brains
-for projects whereby he might give them pleasure.</p>
-
-<p>"Let's see," he said one evening, a few days after their arrival; "I
-suppose you have been to the caves too often to care to go again?"</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Elizabeth; "we have never been to the caves at all."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>What</i>&mdash;living within half-a-dozen miles of them all your lives! Well,
-I believe there are many more like you. If they had been fifty miles
-away, you would have gone about once a twelvemonth."</p>
-
-<p>"No, Mr. Brion; we were never in the habit of going sight-seeing. My
-father seldom left the house, and my mother only when necessary; and we
-had no one else to take us."</p>
-
-<p>"Then I'll take you, and we will go to-morrow. Mrs. Harris shall pack
-us a basket for lunch, and we'll make a day of it. Dear, dear, what a
-pity Paul couldn't be here, to go with us!"</p>
-
-<p>The next morning, which was brilliantly fine, brought the girls an
-anxiously-expected letter from Mrs. Duff-Scott. Sam Dunn, who was an
-occasional postman for the solitary house, delivered it, along with
-a present of fresh fish, while Mr. Brion was absent in the township,
-negotiating for a buggy and horses for his expedition. The fairy
-godmother had given but a grudging permission for this <i>villeggiatura</i>
-of theirs, and they were all relieved to have her assurance that she
-was not seriously vexed with them. Her envelope was inscribed to "Miss
-King," but the long letter enclosed was addressed to her "dearest
-children" collectively, tenderly inquiring how they were getting
-on and when they were coming back, pathetically describing her own
-solitude&mdash;so unlike what it was before she knew the comfort of their
-companionship&mdash;and detailing various items of society news. Folded in
-this, however, was the traditional lady's postscript, scribbled on
-a small half-sheet and marked "private," which Elizabeth took away
-to read by herself. She wondered, with a little alarm, what serious
-matter it was that required a confidential postscript, and this was
-what she read:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>"I have been thinking over our talk the other day, dear. Perhaps I
-spoke too strongly. One is apt to make arbitrary generalisations on the
-spur of the moment, and to forget how circumstances may alter cases.
-There is another side to the question that should not be overlooked.
-The believing wife or husband may be the salvation of <i>the other</i>, and
-when the other is <i>honest</i> and <i>earnest</i>, though <i>mistaken</i>, there is
-the strongest hope of this. It requires thinking of on <i>all</i> sides, my
-darling, and I fear I spoke without thinking enough. Consult your own
-heart&mdash;I am sure it will advise you well."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth folded up the note, and put it into her pocket. Then&mdash;for
-she was alone in her own little bedroom&mdash;she sat down to think of it;
-to wonder what had reminded Mrs. Duff-Scott of their conversation the
-"other day"&mdash;what had induced her to temporise with the convictions
-which then appeared so sincere and absolute. But she could make nothing
-of it. It was a riddle without the key.</p>
-
-<p>Then she heard the sound of buggy wheels, hurried steps on the
-verandah, and the voice of Mr. Brion calling her.</p>
-
-<p>"My dear," said the old man when she went out to him, speaking in some
-haste and agitation, "I have just met at the hotel a friend of yours
-from Melbourne&mdash;Mr. Yelverton. He came by the coach last night. He
-says Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him up to see how you are getting on, and to
-report to her. He is going away again to-morrow, and I did not like to
-put off our trip, so I have asked him to join us. I hope I have not
-done wrong"&mdash;looking anxiously into her rapidly changing face&mdash;"I hope
-you won't think that I have taken a liberty, my dear."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.</h4>
-
-
-<p>He was talking to Patty and Eleanor in the garden when Elizabeth went
-out to him, looking cool and colonial in a silk coat and a solar
-topee. The girls were chatting gaily; the old lawyer was sketching a
-programme of the day's proceedings, and generally doing the honours
-of his neighbourhood with polite vivacity. Two buggies, one single
-and one double, in charge of a groom from the hotel, were drawn up by
-the gate, and Mrs. Harris and "the gal" were busily packing them with
-luncheon baskets and rugs. There was a cloudless summer sky overhead&mdash;a
-miracle of loveliness spread out before them in the shining plain of
-the sea; and the delicate, fresh, salt air, tremulous with the boom of
-subterranean breakers, was more potent than any wine to make glad the
-heart of man and to give him a cheerful countenance.</p>
-
-<p>Very cheerfully did Mr. Yelverton come forward to greet his beloved,
-albeit a little moved with the sentiment of the occasion. He had parted
-from her in a ball-room, with a half-spoken confession of&mdash;something
-that she knew all about quite as well as he did&mdash;on his lips; and he
-had followed her now to say the rest, and to hear what she had to reply
-to it. This was perfectly understood by both of them, as they shook
-hands, with a little conventional air of unexpectedness, and he told
-her that he had come at Mrs. Duff-Scott's orders.</p>
-
-<p>"She could not rest," he said, gravely, "until she was sure that you
-had found pleasant quarters, and were comfortable. She worried about
-you&mdash;and so she sent me up."</p>
-
-<p>"It was troubling you too much," Elizabeth murmured, evading his direct
-eyes, but quite unable to hide her agitation from him.</p>
-
-<p>"You say that from politeness, I suppose? No, it was not troubling
-me at all&mdash;quite the contrary. I am delighted with my trip. And I am
-glad," he concluded, dropping his voice, "to see the place where you
-were brought up. This was your home, was it not?" He looked all round
-him.</p>
-
-<p>"It was not like this when we were here," she replied. "The house was
-old then&mdash;now it is new. They have done it up."</p>
-
-<p>"I see. Have you a sketch of it as it used to be? You draw, I know.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott has been showing me your drawings."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I have one. It hangs in the Melbourne sitting-room."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion broke in upon this dialogue. "Now, my dears, I think we are
-all ready," he said. "Elizabeth, you and I will go in the little buggy
-and lead the way. Perhaps Mr. Yelverton will be good enough to take
-charge of the two young ladies. Will you prefer to drive yourself, Mr.
-Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton said he preferred to be driven, as he was not acquainted
-with the road; and Elizabeth, throned in the seat of honour in the
-little buggy, looked back with envious eyes to watch his arrangements
-for her sisters' comfort. He put Patty beside the groom on the front
-seat, and carefully tucked her up from the dust; and then he placed
-Eleanor at the back, climbed to her side, and opened a large umbrella
-which he held so that it protected both of them. In this order the
-two vehicles set forth, and for the greater part of the way, owing to
-the superior lightness of the smaller one, they were not within sight
-of each other; during which time Elizabeth was a silent listener to
-her host's amiable prattle, and reproaching herself for not feeling
-interested in it. She kept looking through the pane of glass behind
-her, and round the side of the hood, and wondering where the others
-were, and whether they were keeping the road.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, they can't miss it," was Mr. Brion's invariable comment. "They
-will follow our tracks. If not, the man knows our destination."</p>
-
-<p>For the old lawyer was making those short cuts which are so dear to
-all Jehus of the bush; preferring a straight mile of heavy sand to a
-devious mile and a quarter of metal, and ploughing through the stiff
-scrub that covered the waste moors of the district rather by the sun's
-than by the surveyor's direction. It made the drive more interesting,
-of course. The bushes that rustled through the wheels and scratched the
-horses' legs were wonderful with wild flowers of every hue, and the
-orchids that were trampled into the sand, and gathered by handfuls to
-die in the buggy, were remarkable for their fantastic variety. And then
-there were lizards and butterflies, and other common objects of the
-country, not so easily discerned on a beaten track. But Elizabeth could
-not bring herself to care much for these things to-day.</p>
-
-<p>They reached high land after a while, whence, looking back, they saw
-the other buggy crawling towards them a mile or two away, and, looking
-forward, saw, beyond a green and wild foreground, the brilliant sea
-again, with a rocky cape jutting out into it, sprinkled with a few
-white houses on its landward shoulder&mdash;a scene that was too beautiful,
-on such a morning, to be disregarded. Here the girl sat at ease, while
-the horses took breath, thoroughly appreciating her opportunities;
-wondering, not what Mr. Yelverton was doing or was going to do, but how
-it was that she had never been this way before. Then Mr. Brion turned
-and drove down the other side of the hill, and exclaimed "Here we are!"
-in triumph.</p>
-
-<p>It was a shallow basin of a dell, in the midst of romantic glens,
-sandy, and full of bushes and wild flowers, and bracken and tussocky
-grass, and shady with tall-stemmed gum trees. As the buggy bumped
-and bounced into the hollow, shaving the dead logs that lay about in
-a manner which reflected great credit upon the lawyer's navigation,
-Elizabeth, feeling the cool shadows close over her head, and aware
-that they had reached their destination, looked all round her for the
-yawning cavern that she had specially come to see.</p>
-
-<p>"Where are the caves?" she inquired&mdash;to Mr. Brion's intense
-gratification.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, where are they?" he retorted, enjoying his little joke. "Well, we
-have just been driving over them."</p>
-
-<p>"But the mouth, I mean?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, the mouth&mdash;the mouth is here. We were very nearly driving over
-that too. But we'll have lunch first, my dear, before we investigate
-the caves&mdash;if it's agreeable to you. I will take the horses out, and
-we'll find a nice place to camp before they come."</p>
-
-<p>Presently the other buggy climbed over the ridge and down into the
-hollow; and Mr. Yelverton beheld Elizabeth kneeling amongst the bracken
-fronds, with the dappled sun and shade on her bare head and her blue
-cotton gown, busily trying to spread a table-cloth on the least uneven
-piece of ground that she could find, where it lay like a miniature
-snow-clad landscape, all hills except where the dishes weighed it to
-the earth. He hastened to help her as soon as he had lifted Patty and
-Eleanor from their seats.</p>
-
-<p>"You are making yourself hot," he said, with his quiet air of authority
-and proprietorship. "You sit down, and let me do it. I am quite used
-to commissariat business, and can set a table beautifully." He took
-some tumblers from her hand, and, looking into her agitated face, said
-suddenly, "I could not help coming, Elizabeth&mdash;I could not leave it
-broken off like that&mdash;I wanted to know why you ran away from me&mdash;and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott gave me leave. You will let me talk to you presently?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, not now&mdash;not now!" she replied, in a hurried, low tone, turning
-her head from side to side. "I must have time to think&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Time to think!" he repeated, with just a touch of reproach in his
-grave surprise. And he put down the tumblers carefully, got up, and
-walked away. Upon which, Elizabeth, reacting violently from the mood
-in which she had received him, had an agonising fear that he would
-impute her indecision to want of love for him, or insensibility to his
-love for her&mdash;though, till now, that had seemed an impossibility. In
-a few minutes he returned with her sisters and Mr. Brion, all bearing
-dishes and bottles, and buggy cushions and rugs; and, when the luncheon
-was ready, and the groom had retired to feed and water his horses, she
-lifted her eyes to her tall lover's face with a look that he understood
-far better than she did. He quietly came round from the log on which he
-had been about to seat himself, and laid his long limbs on the sand and
-bracken at her side.</p>
-
-<p>"What will you have?" he asked carelessly; "roast beef and salad, or
-chicken pie? I can recommend the salad, which has travelled remarkably
-well." And all the time he was looking at her with happy contentment, a
-little smile under his red moustache; and her heart was beating so that
-she could not answer him.</p>
-
-<p>The luncheon was discussed at leisure, and, as far as Mr. Brion could
-judge, was a highly successful entertainment. The younger girls,
-whatever might be going to happen to-morrow, could not help enjoying
-themselves to-day&mdash;could not help getting a little intoxicated with the
-sweetness of the summer air and the influences of the scene generally,
-and breaking out in fun and laughter; even Elizabeth, with her
-desperate anxieties, was not proof against the contagion of their good
-spirits now and then. The travelled stranger, who talked a great deal,
-was the most entertaining of guests, and the host congratulated himself
-continually on having added him to the party. "We only want Paul now
-to make it all complete," said the happy old man, as he gave Patty,
-who had a dreadful appetite after her long drive, a second helping of
-chicken pie.</p>
-
-<p>When the sylvan meal was ended, and the unsightly remnants cleared
-away, the two men smoked a soothing cigarette under the trees, while
-the girls tucked up their clean gowns a little and tied handkerchiefs
-over their heads, and then Mr. Brion, armed with matches and a pound
-of candles, marched them off to see the caves. He took them but a
-little way from where they had camped, and disclosed in the hillside
-what looked like a good-sized wombat or rabbit hole. "Now, you stay
-here while I go and light up a bit," he said, impressively, and he
-straightway slid down and disappeared into the hole. They stooped and
-peered after him, and saw a rather muddy narrow shaft slanting down
-into the earth, through which the human adult could only pass "end on."
-The girls were rather dismayed at the prospect.</p>
-
-<p>"It is a case of faith," said Mr. Yelverton. "We must trust ourselves
-to Mr. Brion entirely or give it up."</p>
-
-<p>"We will trust Mr. Brion," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>A few minutes later the old man's voice was heard from below. "Now,
-come along! Just creep down for a step or two, and I will reach your
-hand. Who is coming first?"</p>
-
-<p>They looked at each other for a moment, and Patty's quick eye caught
-something from Mr. Yelverton's. "I will go first," she said; "and you
-can follow me, Nelly." And down she went, half sliding, half sitting,
-and when nearly out of sight stretched up her arm to steady her sister.
-"It's all right," she cried; "there's plenty of room. Come along!"</p>
-
-<p>When they had both disappeared, Mr. Yelverton took Elizabeth's
-unlighted candle from her hand and put it into his pocket. "There is no
-need for you to be bothered with that," he said: "one will do for us."
-And he let himself a little way down the shaft, and put up his hand to
-draw her after him.</p>
-
-<p>In a few seconds they stood upright, and were able, by the light of
-the three candles just dispersing into the interior, to see what
-kind of place they had come to. They were limestone caves, ramifying
-underground for a quarter of a mile or so in direct length, and
-spreading wide on either side in a labyrinth of chambers and passages.
-The roof was hung with a few stalactites, but mostly crusted with soft
-bosses, like enormous cauliflowers, that yielded to the touch; lofty
-in places, so that the candle-light scarcely reached it, and in places
-so low that one could not pass under it. The floor, if floor it could
-be called, was a confusion of hills and vales and black abysses, stony
-here, and dusty there, and wet and slippery elsewhere&mdash;altogether an
-uncanny place, full of weird suggestions. The enterprising and fearless
-Patty was far ahead, exploring on her own account, and Mr. Brion,
-escorting Eleanor, dwindling away visibly into a mere pin's point,
-before Mr. Yelverton and Elizabeth had got their candle lighted and
-begun their investigations. A voice came floating back to them through
-the immense darkness, duplicated in ever so many echoes: "Are you all
-right, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," shouted Mr. Yelverton instantly, like a soldier answering to the
-roll-call. Then he took her hand, and, holding the candle high, led her
-carefully in the direction of the voice. She was terribly nervous and
-excited by the situation, which had come upon her unawares, and she
-had an impulse to move on hastily, as if to join her sisters. Bat her
-lover held her back with a turn of his strong wrist.</p>
-
-<p>"Don't hurry," he said, in a tone that revealed to her how he
-appreciated his opportunity, and how he would certainly turn it to
-account; "it is not safe in such a place as this. And you can trust
-<i>me</i> to take care of you as well as Mr. Brion, can't you?"</p>
-
-<p>She did not answer, and he did not press the question. They crept
-up, and slid down, and leapt over, the dark obstructions in their
-devious course for a little while in silence&mdash;two lonely atoms in the
-vast and lifeless gloom. Fainter and fainter grew the voices in the
-distance&mdash;fainter and fainter the three tiny specks of light, which
-seemed as far away as the stars in heaven. There was something dreadful
-in their isolation in the black bowels of the earth, but an unspeakably
-poignant bliss in being thus cast away together. There was no room for
-thought of anything outside that.</p>
-
-<p>Groping along hand in hand, they came to a chasm that yawned,
-bridgeless, across their path. It was about three feet wide, and
-perhaps it was not much deeper, but it looked like the bottomless pit,
-and was very terrifying. Bidding Elizabeth to wait where she was,
-Mr. Yelverton leaped over by himself, and, dropping some tallow on a
-boulder near him, fixed his candle to the rock. Then he held out his
-arms and called her to come to him.</p>
-
-<p>For a moment she hesitated, knowing what awaited her, and then she
-leaped blindly, fell a little short, and knocked the candle from its
-insecure socket into the gulf beneath her. She uttered a sharp cry as
-she felt herself falling, and the next instant found herself dragged up
-in her lover's strong arms, and folded with a savage tenderness to his
-breast. <i>This</i> time he held her as if he did not mean to let her go.</p>
-
-<p>"Hush!&mdash;you are quite safe," he whispered to her in the pitch darkness.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE DRIVE HOME.</h4>
-
-
-<p>The girls were boiling a kettle and making afternoon tea, while the men
-were getting their horses and buggy furniture together, at about four
-o'clock. Elizabeth was on her knees, feeding the gipsy fire with dry
-sticks, when Mr. Yelverton came to her with an alert step.</p>
-
-<p>"I am going to drive the little buggy back," he said, "and you are
-coming with me. The others will start first, and we will follow."</p>
-
-<p>She looked up with a startled expression that puzzled and disappointed
-him.</p>
-
-<p>"<i>What!</i>" he exclaimed, "do you mean to say that you would rather not?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no, I did not mean that," she faltered hurriedly; and into her
-averted face, which had been deadly pale since she came out of the
-cave, the hot blood flushed, remembering how long he and she had stood
-there together in a profound and breathless solitude, and the very
-blackest night that ever Egypt knew, after he took her into his arms,
-and before they remembered that they had a second candle and matches
-to light it with. In that interval, when she laid her head upon his
-shoulder, and he his red moustache upon her responsive lips, she had
-virtually accepted him, though she had not meant to do so. "No," she
-repeated, as he silently watched her, "you know it is not that."</p>
-
-<p>"What then? Do you think it is improper?"</p>
-
-<p>"Of course not."</p>
-
-<p>"You would really like it, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;yes. I will come with you. We can talk as we go home."</p>
-
-<p>"We can. That was precisely my object in making the arrangement."</p>
-
-<p>Eleanor, presiding over her crockery at a little distance, called to
-them to ask whether the water boiled&mdash;and they perceived that it did.
-Mr. Yelverton carried the kettle to the teapot, and presently busied
-himself in handing the cups&mdash;so refreshing at the close of a summer
-picnic, when exercise and sun and lunch together have resulted in
-inevitable lassitude and incipient headaches&mdash;and doling out slices of
-thin bread and butter as Patty deftly shaved them from the loaf. They
-squatted round amongst the fern fronds and tussocks, and poured their
-tea vulgarly into their saucers&mdash;being warned by Mr. Brion that they
-had no time to waste&mdash;and then packed up, and washed their hands, and
-tied on their hats, and shook out their skirts, and set forth home
-again, declaring they had had the most beautiful time. The large buggy
-started first, the host driving; and Mr. Yelverton was informed that
-another track would be taken for the return journey, and that he was
-to be very careful not to lose himself.</p>
-
-<p>"If we do lose ourselves," said Mr. Yelverton, as his escort
-disappeared over the crest of the hill, and he still stood in the
-valley&mdash;apparently in no haste to follow&mdash;tucking a light rug over his
-companion's knees, "it won't matter very much, will it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, yes, it will," she replied anxiously. "I don't know the way at
-all."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well; then we will keep them in sight. But only just in sight&mdash;no
-more. Will you have the hood up or down?"</p>
-
-<p>"Down," she said. "The day is too lovely to be shut out."</p>
-
-<p>"It is, it is. I think it is just about the most lovely day I ever
-knew&mdash;not even excepting the first of October."</p>
-
-<p>"The first of October was not a lovely day at all. It was cold and
-dismal."</p>
-
-<p>"That was its superficial appearance." He let down the hood and
-climbed to his seat beside her, taking the reins from her hand. He had
-completely laid aside his sedate demeanour, and, though self-contained
-still, had a light in his eyes that made her tremble. "On your
-conscience," he said, looking at her, "can you say that the first of
-October was a dismal day? We may as well begin as we mean to go on,"
-he added, as she did not answer; "and we will make a bargain, in the
-first place, never to say a word that we don't mean, nor to keep back
-one that we do mean from each other. You will agree to that, won't you,
-Elizabeth?"&mdash;his disengaged arm was round her shoulder and he had drawn
-her face up to his. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth,"&mdash;repeating the syllables
-fondly&mdash;"what a sweet and honest name it is! Kiss me, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>Instead of kissing him she began to sob. "Oh, don't, don't!" she cried,
-making a movement to free herself&mdash;at which he instantly released
-her. "Let us go on&mdash;they will be wondering where we are. I am very
-foolish&mdash;I can't help it&mdash;I will tell you presently!"</p>
-
-<p>She took out her handkerchief, and tried to calm herself as she sat
-back in the buggy; and he, without speaking, touched his horses
-with his whip and drove slowly out of the shady dell into the clear
-sunshine. For a mile or more of up-and-down tracking, where the wheels
-of the leading vehicle had left devious ruts in sand and grass to
-guide them, they sat side by side in silence&mdash;she fighting with and
-gradually overcoming her excitement, and he gravely waiting, with a
-not less strong emotion, until she had recovered herself. And then
-he turned to her, and laid his powerful hand on hers that had dropped
-dejectedly into her lap, and said gently, though with decision&mdash;"Now
-tell me, dear. What is the matter? I <i>must</i> know. It is not&mdash;it is
-<i>not</i>"&mdash;contracting his fingers sharply&mdash;"that you don't mean what you
-have been telling me, after all? For though not in words, you <i>have</i>
-been telling me, have you not?"</p>
-
-<p>"No," she sighed; "it is not that."</p>
-
-<p>"I knew it. I was sure it could not be. Then what else can
-matter?&mdash;what else should trouble you? Is it about your sisters? You
-<i>know</i> they will be all right. They will not lose you&mdash;they will gain
-me. I flatter myself they will be all the better for gaining me,
-Elizabeth. I hoped you would think so?"</p>
-
-<p>"I do think so."</p>
-
-<p>"What then? Tell me."</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Yelverton, it is so hard to tell you&mdash;I don't know how to do it.
-But I am afraid&mdash;I am afraid&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Of what? Of <i>me?</i>"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no! But I want to do what is right. And it seems to me that to let
-myself be happy like this would be wrong&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Wrong to let yourself be happy? Good heavens! Who has been teaching
-you such blasphemy as that?"</p>
-
-<p>"No one has taught me anything, except my mother. But she was so good,
-and she had so many troubles, and she said that she would never have
-been able to bear them&mdash;to have borne life&mdash;had she not been stayed
-up by her religious faith. She told us, when it seemed to her that we
-might some day be cast upon the world to shift for ourselves, never
-to let go of that&mdash;to suffer and renounce everything rather than be
-tempted to give up that."</p>
-
-<p>"Who has asked you to give it up?" he responded, with grave and gentle
-earnestness. "Not I. I would be the last man to dream of such a thing."</p>
-
-<p>"But you&mdash;<i>you</i> have given up religion!" she broke forth, despairingly.</p>
-
-<p>"Have I? I don't think so. Tell me what you mean by religion?"</p>
-
-<p>"I mean what we have been brought up to believe."</p>
-
-<p>"By the churches?"</p>
-
-<p>"By the Church&mdash;the English Church&mdash;which I have always held to be the
-true Church."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear child, every Church holds itself to be the true Church, and
-all the others to be false ones. Why should yours be right any more
-than other people's?"</p>
-
-<p>"My mother taught us so," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. Your mother made it true, as she would have made any other true,
-by the religious spirit that she brought into it. They are <i>all</i>
-true&mdash;not only those we know of, but Buddhism and Mohammedanism, and
-even the queer faiths and superstitions of barbarian races, for they
-all have the same origin and object; and at the same time they are all
-so adulterated with human errors and vices, according to the sort of
-people who have had the charge of them, that you can't say any one of
-them is pure. No more pure than we are, and no less. For you to say
-that the rest are mistaken is just the pot calling the kettle black,
-Elizabeth. You may be a few degrees nearer the truth than those are who
-are less educated and civilised, but even that at present does not look
-so certain that you are justified in boasting about it&mdash;I mean your
-Church, you know, not you."</p>
-
-<p>"But we go by our Bible&mdash;we trust, not in ourselves, but in <i>that</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"So do the 'Dissenters,' as you call them."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I am speaking of all of us&mdash;all who are Christian people. What
-guide should we have if we let our Bible go?"</p>
-
-<p>"Why should you let it go? I have not let it go. If you read it
-intelligently it is truly a Holy Scripture&mdash;far more so than when you
-make a sort of charm and fetish of it. You should study its origin
-and history, and try to get at its meaning as you would at that of
-any other book. It has a very wonderful history, which in its turn is
-derived from other wonderful histories, which people will perversely
-shut their eyes to; and because of this undiscriminating ignorance,
-which is the blindness of those who won't see or who are afraid to see,
-it remains to this day the least understood of all ancient records.
-Some parts of it, you know, are a collection of myths and legends,
-which you will find in the same shape in older writings&mdash;the first dim
-forms of human thought about God and man and the mysteries of creation;
-and a great many good people read <i>these</i> as gospel truth, in spite
-of the evidence of all their senses to the contrary, and take them
-as being of the same value and importance as the beautiful books of
-the later time. And there are other Bibles in the world besides ours,
-whether we choose to acknowledge them or not."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth listened with terror. "And do you say it is <i>not</i> the light
-of the world after all?" she cried in a shaken voice.</p>
-
-<p>"There should be no preaching to the heathen, and spreading the good
-tidings over all lands?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, there should," he replied; "oh, yes, certainly there should.
-But it should be done as it was by Christ, to whom all were with Him
-who were not against Him, and with a feeling that we should share all
-we know, and help each other to find out the best way. Not by rudely
-wrenching from the heathen, as we call him, all his immemorial moral
-standards, which, if you study them closely, are often found, rough as
-they are, to be thoroughly effective and serviceable, and giving him
-nothing in their places except outworn myths, and senseless hymns, and
-a patter of Scripture phrases that he can't possibly make head or tail
-of. That, I often think, is beginning the work of salvation by turning
-him from a religious man into an irreligious one. Your Church creed,"
-he went on, "is just the garment of religion, and you wear finely-woven
-stuffs while the blacks wear blankets and 'possum-skins; they are all
-little systems that have their day and cease to be&mdash;that change and
-change as the fashion of the world changes. But the spirit of man&mdash;the
-indestructible intelligence that makes him apprehend the mystery of his
-existence and of the great Power that surrounds it&mdash;which in the early
-stages makes him cringe and fear, and later on to love and trust&mdash;that
-is the <i>body</i>. That is religion, as I take it. It is in the nature of
-man, and not to be given or taken away. Only the more freely we let
-that inner voice speak and guide us, the better we are, and the better
-we make the world and help things on. That's my creed, Elizabeth. You
-confuse things," he went on, after a pause, during which she kept an
-attentive silence, "when you confound religion and churchism together,
-as if they were identical. I have given up churchism, in your sense,
-because, though I have hunted the churches through and through, one
-after another, I have found in them no adequate equipment for the
-work of my life. The world has gone on, and they have not gone on.
-The world has discovered breechloaders, so to speak, and they go to
-the field with the old blunderbusses of centuries ago. Centuries!&mdash;of
-the prehistoric ages, it seems, now. My dear, I have lived over forty
-years&mdash;did you know I was so old as that?&mdash;seeking and striving to get
-hold of what I could in the way of a light and a guide to help me to
-make the best of my life and to do what little I might to better the
-world and brighten the hard lot of the poor and miserable. Is that
-giving up religion? I am not a churchman&mdash;I would be if I could, it
-is not my fault&mdash;but if I can't accept those tests, which revolt the
-reason and consciousness of a thinking man, am I therefore irreligious?
-<i>Am</i> I, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"You bewilder me," she said; "I have never made these distinctions. I
-have been taught in the Church&mdash;I have found comfort there and help. I
-am afraid to begin to question the things that I have been taught&mdash;I
-should get lost altogether, trying to find a new way."</p>
-
-<p>"Then don't begin," he said. "<i>I</i> will not meddle with your faith&mdash;God
-forbid! Keep it while you can, and get all possible help and comfort
-out of it."</p>
-
-<p>"But you have meddled with it already," she said, sighing. "The little
-that you have said has shaken it like an earthquake."</p>
-
-<p>"If it is worth anything," he responded, "it is not shaken so easily."</p>
-
-<p>"And <i>you</i> may be able to do good in your own strength," she went on,
-"but how could I?&mdash;a woman, so weak, so ignorant as I?"</p>
-
-<p>"Do you want a policeman to keep you straight? I have a better opinion
-of you. Oh, you will be all right, my darling; don't fear. If you only
-honestly believe what you <i>do</i> believe, and follow the truth as it
-reveals itself to you, no matter in what shape, and no matter where it
-leads you, you will be all right. Be only sincere with yourself, and
-don't pretend&mdash;don't, whatever you do, pretend to <i>anything</i>. Surely
-that is the best religion, whether it enables you to keep within church
-walls or drives you out into the wilderness. Doesn't it stand to
-reason? We can only do our best, Elizabeth, and leave it." He put his
-arm round her again, and drew her head down to his shoulder. They were
-driving through a lone, unpeopled land, and the leading buggy was but a
-speck on the horizon.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh!" she sighed, closing her eyes wearily, "if I only knew <i>what</i> was
-best!"</p>
-
-<p>"Well," he said, "I will not ask you to trust me since you don't seem
-equal to it. You must decide for yourself. But, Elizabeth, if you
-<i>knew</i> what a life it was that I had planned! We were to be married
-at once&mdash;within a few weeks&mdash;and I was to take you home to <i>my</i> home.
-Patty and Nelly were to follow us later on, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, who
-wants to come over to see my London work, which she thinks will help
-her to do something here when she returns. You and I were to go away
-alone&mdash;wouldn't you have liked that, my love?&mdash;to be always with me,
-and taken care of and kept from harm and trouble, as I kept you to-day
-and on that Exhibition morning. Yes, and we were to take up that
-fortune that has been accumulating so long, and take Yelverton, and
-make our home and head-quarters there; and we were to live a great deal
-in London, and go backwards and forwards and all about amongst those
-unhappy ones, brightening up their lives because our own were so bright
-and sweet. You were to help me, as only a woman like you&mdash;the woman
-I have been looking for all my life&mdash;could help; but I was not going
-to let you work too hard&mdash;you were to be cared for and made happy,
-first of all&mdash;before all the world. And I <i>could</i> make you happy&mdash;I
-could, I could&mdash;if you would let me try." He was carried away for the
-moment with the rush of his passionate desire for that life that he was
-contemplating, and held her and kissed her as if he would compel her to
-come to him. Then with a strong effort he controlled himself, and went
-on quietly, though in a rather unsteady voice: "Don't you think we can
-be together without harming each other? We shall both have the same
-aims&mdash;to live the best life and do the most good that we can&mdash;what will
-the details matter? We could not thwart each other really&mdash;it would be
-impossible. The same spirit would be in us; it is only the letter we
-should differ about."</p>
-
-<p>"If we were together," she said, "we should not differ about anything.
-Spirit or letter, I should grow to think as you did."</p>
-
-<p>"I believe you would, Elizabeth&mdash;I believe you would. And I should grow
-to think as you did. No doubt we should influence each other&mdash;it would
-not be all on one side. Can't you trust me, my dear? Can't we trust
-each other? You will have temptations, wherever you go, and with me,
-at least, you will always know where you are. If your faith is a true
-faith it will stand all that I shall do to it, and if your love for me
-is a true love&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>He paused, and she looked up at him with a look in her swimming eyes
-that settled that doubt promptly.</p>
-
-<p>"Then you will do it, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," she said, "you know you can <i>make</i> me do it, whether it is right
-or wrong!"</p>
-
-<p>It was a confession of her love, and of its power over her that
-appealed to every sentiment of duty and chivalry in him. "No," he said,
-very gravely and with a great effort, "I will not make you do anything
-wrong. You shall feel that it is not wrong before you do it."</p>
-
-<p>An hour later they had reached the shore again, and were in sight of
-the headland and the smoke from the kitchen chimney of Seaview Villa,
-and in sight of their companions dismounting at Mr. Brion's garden
-gate. They had not lost themselves, though they had taken so little
-heed of the way. The sun was setting as they climbed the cliff, and
-flamed gloriously in their faces and across the bay. Sea and sky were
-bathed in indescribable colour and beauty. Checking their tired horses
-to gaze upon the scene, on the eve of an indefinite separation, the
-lovers realised to the full the sweetness of being together and what it
-would be to part.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>SUSPENSE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mr. Brion stood at his gate when the little buggy drove up, beaming
-with contentment and hospitality. He respectfully begged that Mr.
-Yelverton would grant them the favour of his company a little
-longer&mdash;would take pot-luck and smoke an evening pipe before he
-returned to his hotel in the town, whither he, Mr. Brion, would be
-only too happy to drive him. Mr. Yelverton declared, and with perfect
-truth, that nothing would give him greater pleasure. Whereupon the
-hotel servant was dismissed in charge of the larger vehicle, and the
-horses of the other were put into the stable. The girls went in to wash
-and dress, and the housekeeper put forth her best efforts to raise the
-character of the dinner from the respectable to the genteel in honour
-of a guest who was presumably accustomed to genteel dining.</p>
-
-<p>The meal was served in the one sitting-room of the house, by the
-light of a single lamp on the round table and a flood of moonlight
-that poured in from the sea through the wide-open doors. After the
-feasts and fatigues of the day, no one had any appetite to speak of
-for the company dishes that Mrs. Harris hastily compounded, course by
-course, in the kitchen; but everyone felt that the meal was a pleasant
-one, notwithstanding. Mr. Yelverton, his host, and Patty, who was
-unusually sprightly, had the conversation to themselves. Patty talked
-incessantly. Nelly was amiable and charming, but decidedly sleepy;
-and Elizabeth, at her lover's side, was not, perhaps, unhappy, but
-visibly pale and noticeably silent. After dinner they went out upon
-the verandah, and sat there in a group on the comfortable old chairs
-and about the floor, and drank coffee, and chatted in subdued tones,
-and looked at the lovely water shining in the moonlight, and listened
-to it booming and splashing on the beach below. The two men, by virtue
-of their respective and yet common qualities, "took to" each other,
-and, by the time the girls had persuaded them to light the soothing
-cigarette, Mr. Brion was talking freely of his clever lad in Melbourne,
-and Mr. Yelverton of the mysterious disappearance of his uncle, as if
-it were quite a usual thing with them to confide their family affairs
-to strangers. Eleanor meanwhile swayed herself softly to and fro in
-a ragged rocking chair, half awake and half asleep; Elizabeth, still
-irresistibly attracted to the neighbourhood of her beloved, sat in the
-shadow of his large form, listening and pondering, with her eyes fixed
-on the veiled horizon, and all her senses on the alert; Patty squatted
-on the edge of the verandah, leaning against a post and looking up into
-the sky. She was the leading spirit of the group to-night. It was a
-long time since she had been so lively and entertaining.</p>
-
-<p>"I wonder," she conjectured, in a pause of the conversation, "whether
-the inhabitants of any of those other worlds are sitting out on their
-verandahs to-night, and looking at <i>us</i>. I suppose we are not so
-absolutely insignificant but that <i>some</i> of them, our own brother
-and sister planets, at any rate, can see us if they use their best
-telescopes&mdash;are we, Mr. Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>"We will hope not," said Mr. Yelverton.</p>
-
-<p>"To think that the moon&mdash;miserable impostor that she is!&mdash;should
-be able to put them out," continued Patty, still gazing at the
-palely-shining stars. "The other Sunday we heard a clergyman liken her
-to something or other which on its appearance quenched the ineffectual
-fires of the <i>lesser</i> luminaries&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"He said the sun," corrected Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, it's all the same. What's the sun? The stars he hides are
-better suns than he is&mdash;not to speak of their being no end to them. It
-shows how easily we allow ourselves to be taken in by mere superficial
-appearances."</p>
-
-<p>"The sun and moon quench the stars for <i>us</i>, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Pooh! That's a very petty parish-vestry sort of way to look at things.
-Just what you might expect in a little bit of a world like this. In
-Jupiter now"&mdash;she paused, and turned her bright eyes upon a deep-set
-pair that were watching her amusedly. "Mr. Yelverton, I hope you are
-not going to insist upon it that Jupiter is too hot to do anything but
-blaze and shine and keep life going on his little satellites&mdash;are you?"</p>
-
-<p>"O dear no!" he replied. "I wouldn't dream of such a thing."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well. We will assume, then, that Jupiter is a habitable world, as
-there is no reason why he shouldn't be that <i>I</i> can see&mdash;-just for the
-sake of enlarging Elizabeth's mind. And, having assumed that, the least
-we can suppose&mdash;seeing that a few billions of years are of no account
-in the chronology of the heavenly bodies&mdash;is that a world on such a
-superior scale was fully up to <i>our</i> little standard before we began.
-I mean our present standard. Don't you think we may reasonably suppose
-that, Mr. Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>"In the absence of information to the contrary, I think we may," he
-said. "Though I would ask to be allowed to reserve my own opinion."</p>
-
-<p>"Certainly. I don't ask for anybody's opinion. I am merely throwing
-out suggestions. I want to extend Elizabeth's vision in these matters
-beyond the range of the sun and moon. So I say that Jupiter&mdash;and if not
-Jupiter, one of the countless millions of cooler planets, perhaps ever
-so much bigger than he is, which lie out in the other sun-systems&mdash;was
-well on with his railways and telegraphs when we began to get a crust,
-and to condense vapours. You will allow me to say as much as that, for
-the sake of argument?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think you argue beautifully," said Mr. Yelverton.</p>
-
-<p>"Very well then. Millions of years ago, if you had lived in Jupiter,
-you could have travelled in luxury as long as your life lasted, and
-seen countries whose numbers and resources never came to an end. Think
-of the railway system, and the shipping interest, of a world of that
-size!"</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Don't</i>, Patty," interposed Elizabeth. "Think what a little, little
-life it would have been, by comparison! If we can't make it do us now,
-what would its insufficiency be under such conditions?"</p>
-
-<p>Patty waved her hand to indicate the irrelevancy of the suggestion.
-"In a planet where, we are told, there are no vicissitudes of climate,
-people can't catch colds, Elizabeth; and colds, all the doctors say,
-are the primary cause of illness, and it is because they get ill that
-people die. That is a detail. Don't interrupt me. So you see, Mr.
-Yelverton, assuming that they knew all that we know, and did all that
-we do, before the fire and the water made our rocks and seas, and the
-chalk beds grew, and the slimy things crawled, and primitive man began
-to chip stones into wedges to kill the saurians with&mdash;just imagine for
-a moment the state of civilisation that must exist in Jupiter, <i>now</i>.
-Not necessarily our own Jupiter&mdash;any of the older and more improved
-Jupiters that must be spinning about in space."</p>
-
-<p>"I can't," said Mr. Yelverton. "My imagination is not equal to such a
-task."</p>
-
-<p>"I want Elizabeth to think of it," said Patty. "She is a little
-inclined to be provincial, as you see, and I want to elevate her ideas."</p>
-
-<p>"Thank you, dear," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"It is a pity," Patty went on, "that we can't have a Federal
-Convention. That's what we want. If only the inhabited planets
-could send representatives to meet and confer together somewhere
-occasionally, then we should all have broad views&mdash;then we might find
-out at once how to set everything right, without any more trouble."</p>
-
-<p>"Space would have to be annihilated indeed, Miss Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I know&mdash;I know. Of course I know it can't be done&mdash;at any
-rate, not <i>yet</i>&mdash;not in the present embryonic stage of things. If a
-meteor takes a million years to travel from star to star, going at
-the rate of thousands of miles per second&mdash;and keeps on paying visits
-indefinitely&mdash;Ah, what was that?"</p>
-
-<p>She sprang from her low seat suddenly, all her celestial fancies
-scattered to the mundane winds, at the sound of a wakeful magpie
-beginning to pipe plaintively on the house roof. She thought she
-recognised one of the dear voices of the past. "<i>Can</i> it be Peter?" she
-cried, breathlessly. "Oh, Elizabeth, I do believe it is Peter! Do come
-out and let us call him down!"</p>
-
-<p>They hurried, hand in hand, down to the shelving terrace that divided
-the verandah from the edge of the cliff, and there called and cooed and
-coaxed in their most seductive tones. The magpie looked at them for a
-moment, with his head cocked on one side, and then flew away.</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Patty, with a groan, "it is <i>not</i> Peter! They are all gone,
-every one of them. I have no doubt the Hawkins boys shot them&mdash;little
-bloodthirsty wretches! Come down to the beach, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>They descended the steep and perilous footpath zig-zagging down the
-face of the cliff, with the confidence of young goats, and reaching the
-little bathing-house, sat down on the threshold. The tide was high, and
-the surf seething within a few inches of the bottom step of the short
-ladder up and down which they had glided bare-footed daily for so many
-years. The fine spray damped their faces; the salt sea-breezes fanned
-them deliciously. Patty put her arms impulsively round her sister's
-neck.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, Elizabeth," she said, "I am so glad for you&mdash;I <i>am</i> so glad! It
-has crossed my mind several times, but I was never sure of it till
-to-day, and I wouldn't say anything until I was sure, or until you told
-me yourself."</p>
-
-<p>"My darling," said Elizabeth, responding to the caress, "don't be sure
-yet. <i>I</i> am not sure."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>You</i> are not!" exclaimed Patty, with derisive energy. "Don't try to
-make me believe you are a born idiot, now, because I know you too well.
-Why, a baby in arms could see it!"</p>
-
-<p>"I see it, dear, of course; both of us see it. We understand each
-other. But&mdash;but I don't know yet whether I shall accept him, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't you?" responded Patty. She had taken her arms from her sister's
-neck, and was clasping her knees with them in a most unsympathetic
-attitude. "Do you happen to know whether you love him, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," whispered Elizabeth, blushing in the darkness; "I know that."</p>
-
-<p>"And whether he loves you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"Of course you do. You can't help knowing it. Nobody could. And if,"
-proceeded Patty sternly, fixing the fatuous countenance of the man in
-the moon with a baleful eye, "if, under those circumstances, you don't
-accept him, you deserve to be a miserable, lonely woman for all the
-rest of your wretched life. That's my opinion if you ask me for it."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth looked at the sea in tranquil contemplation for a few
-seconds. Then she told Patty the story of her perplexity from the
-beginning to the end.</p>
-
-<p>"Now <i>what</i> would you do?" she finally asked of her sister, who had
-listened with the utmost interest and intelligent sympathy. "If it were
-your own case, my darling, and you wanted to do what was right, <i>how</i>
-would you decide?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, Elizabeth," said Patty; "I'll tell you the truth. I should not
-stop to think whether it was right or wrong."</p>
-
-<p>"Patty!"</p>
-
-<p>"No. A year ago I would not have said so&mdash;a year ago I might have been
-able to give you the very best advice. But now&mdash;but now"&mdash;the girl
-stretched out her hands with the pathetic gesture that Elizabeth had
-seen and been struck with once before&mdash;"now, if it were my own case, I
-should take the man I loved, no matter <i>what</i> he was, if he would take
-me."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth heaved a long sigh from the bottom of her troubled heart. She
-felt that Patty, to whom she had looked for help, had made her burden
-of responsibility heavier instead of lighter. "Let us go up to the
-house again," she said wearily. "There is no need to decide to-night."</p>
-
-<p>When they reached the house, they found Eleanor gone to bed, and the
-gentlemen sitting on the verandah together, still talking of Mr.
-Yelverton's family history, in which the lawyer was professionally
-interested. The horses were in the little buggy, which stood at the
-gate.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, here they are!" said Mr. Brion. "Mr. Yelverton is waiting to say
-good-night, my dears. He has to settle at the hotel, and go on board
-to-night."</p>
-
-<p>Patty bade her potential brother-in-law an affectionate farewell, and
-then vanished into her bedroom. The old man bustled off at her heels,
-under pretence of speaking to the lad-of-all-work who held the horses;
-and Elizabeth and her lover were left for a brief interval alone.</p>
-
-<p>"You will not keep me in suspense longer than you can help, will you?"
-Mr. Yelverton said, holding her hands. "Won't a week be long enough?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she said; "I will decide it in a week."</p>
-
-<p>"And may I come back to you here, to learn my fate? Or will you come to
-Melbourne to me?"</p>
-
-<p>"Had I not better write?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. Certainly not."</p>
-
-<p>"Then I will come to you," she said.</p>
-
-<p>He drew her to him and kissed her forehead gravely. "Good-night, my
-love," he said. "You will be my love, whatever happens."</p>
-
-<p>And so he departed to the township, accompanied by his hospitable host,
-and she went miserable to bed. And at the first pale streak of dawn
-the little steamer sounded her whistle and puffed away from the little
-jetty, carrying him back to the world, and she stood on the cliff, a
-mile away from Seaview Villa, to watch the last whiff of smoke from its
-funnels fade like a breath upon the horizon.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>HOW ELIZABETH MADE UP HER MIND.</h4>
-
-
-<p>If we could trace back the wonderful things that happen to us "by
-accident," or, as some pious souls believe, by the operation of a
-special Providence or in answer to prayer, to their remote origin,
-how far should we not have to go? Into the mists of antiquity, and
-beyond&mdash;even to the primal source whence the world was derived, and
-the consideration of the accident of its separation from its parent
-globe; nay, of the accident which separated our sun itself from the
-countless dust of other suns that strew the illimitable ether&mdash;still
-leaving the root of the matter in undiscoverable mystery. The chain of
-causes has no beginning for us, as the sequence of effects has no end.
-These considerations occurred to me just now, when I sat down, cheerful
-and confident, to relate how it came to pass (and what multitudinous
-trifles could have prevented it from coming to pass) that an
-extraordinary accident happened to the three Miss Kings in the course
-of the week following Mr. Yelverton's departure. Thinking it over, I
-find that I cannot relate it. It would make this chapter like the first
-half-dozen in the book of Chronicles, only much worse. If Mr. King
-had not inherited a bad temper from his great-great-grandfathers&mdash;I
-could get as far as that. But the task is beyond me. I give it up,
-and content myself with a narration of the little event (in the
-immeasurable chain of events) which, at this date of which I am
-writing&mdash;in the ephemeral summer time of these three brief little
-lives&mdash;loomed so large, and had such striking consequences.</p>
-
-<p>It happened&mdash;or, as far as my story is concerned, it began to
-happen&mdash;while the steamer that carried away Mr. Yelverton was still
-ploughing the ocean waves, with that interesting passenger on board.
-Seaview Villa lay upon the headland, serene and peaceful in the
-sunshine of as perfect a morning as visitors to the seaside could
-wish to see, all its door-windows open to the south wind, and the
-sibilant music of the little wavelets at its feet. The occupants of
-the house had risen from their beds, and were pursuing the trivial
-round and common task of another day, with placid enjoyment of its
-atmospheric charms, and with no presentiment of what was to befall
-them. The girls went down to their bath-house before breakfast, and
-spent half an hour in the sunny water, diving, and floating, and
-playing all the pranks of childhood over again; and then they attacked
-a dish of fried flathead with appetites that a schoolboy might have
-envied. After breakfast the lawyer had to go to his office, and his
-guests accompanied him part of the way. On their return, Sam Dunn
-came to see them, with the information that his best boat, which bore
-the inappropriate title of "The Rose in June," was moored on the
-beach below, and an invitation to his young ladies to come out for
-a sail in her while the sea was so calm and the wind so fair. This
-invitation Elizabeth declined for herself; she was still wondering in
-which direction the right path lay&mdash;whether towards the fruition of
-her desires or the renunciation of all that now made life beautiful
-and valuable to her&mdash;and finding no solution to the problem either in
-meditation or prayer; and she had little inclination to waste any of
-the short time that remained to her for making up her mind. But to
-Patty and Eleanor it was irresistible. They scampered off to their
-bedrooms to put on their oldest frocks, hats, and boots, rushed into
-the kitchen to Mrs. Harris to beg for a bundle of sandwiches, and set
-forth on their expedition in the highest spirits&mdash;as if they had never
-been away from Sam Dunn and the sea, to learn life, and love, and
-trouble, and etiquette amongst city folks.</p>
-
-<p>When they were gone, the house was very still for several hours.
-Elizabeth sat on the verandah, sewing and thinking, and watching the
-white sail of "The Rose in June" through a telescope; then she had her
-lunch brought to her on a white-napkined tray; after eating which in
-solitude she went back to her sewing, and thinking, and watching again.
-So four o'clock&mdash;the fateful hour&mdash;drew on. At a little before four,
-Mr. Brion came home, hot and dusty from his long walk, had a bath and
-changed his clothes, and sat down to enjoy himself in his arm-chair.
-Mrs. Harris brought in the afternoon tea things, with some newly-baked
-cakes; Elizabeth put down her work and seated herself at the table to
-brew the refreshing cup. Then home came Patty and Eleanor, happy and
-hungry, tanned and draggled, and in the gayest temper, having been
-sailing Sam's boat for him all the day and generally roughing it with
-great ardour. They were just in time for the tea and cakes, and sat
-down as they were, with hats tilted back on their wind-roughened heads,
-to regale themselves therewith.</p>
-
-<p>When Patty was in the middle of her third cake, she suddenly remembered
-something. She plunged her hand into her pocket, and drew forth a
-small object. It was as if one touched the button of that wonderful
-electric apparatus whereby the great ships that are launched by
-princesses are sent gliding out of dock into the sea. "Look," she said,
-opening her hand carefully, "what he has given me. It is a Queensland
-opal. A mate of his, he says, gave it to him, but I have a terrible
-suspicion that the dear fellow bought it. Mates don't give such things
-for nothing. Is it not a beauty?"&mdash;and she held between her thumb and
-finger a silky-looking flattened stone, on which, when it caught the
-light, a strong blue sheen was visible. "I shall have it cut and made
-into something when we go back to town, and I shall keep it <i>for ever</i>,
-in memory of Sam Dunn," said Patty with enthusiasm.</p>
-
-<p>And then, when they had all examined and appraised it thoroughly, she
-carried it to the mantelpiece, intending to place it there in safety
-until she went to her own room. But she had no sooner laid it down,
-pushing it gently up to the wall, than there was a little click and a
-faint rattle, and it was gone.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," she exclaimed, "what <i>shall</i> I do? It has fallen behind the
-mantelpiece! I <i>quite</i> forgot that old hole&mdash;and it is there still.
-Surely," she continued angrily, stamping her foot, "when Mr. Hawkins
-took the trouble to do all this"&mdash;and she indicated the surface of the
-woodwork, which had been painted in a wild and ghastly imitation of
-marble&mdash;"he might have taken a little more, and fixed the thing close
-up to the wall?"</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion examined the mantelpiece, pushed it, shook it, peered
-behind it with one eye, and said that he had himself lost a valuable
-paper-knife in the same distressing manner, and had long intended to
-have the aperture closed up. "And I will get a carpenter to-morrow
-morning, my dear," he boldly declared, "and he shall take the whole
-thing to pieces and fix it again properly. Yes, I will&mdash;as well now as
-any other time&mdash;and we will find your opal."</p>
-
-<p>Having pledged himself to which tremendous purpose, he and they
-finished their tea, and afterwards had their dinner, and afterwards sat
-on the verandah and gossiped, and afterwards went to bed&mdash;and in due
-time got up again&mdash;as if nothing out of the common way had happened!</p>
-
-<p>In the morning Fate sent another of her humble emissaries from the
-township to Seaview Villa, with a bag of tools over his shoulder&mdash;tools
-that were keys to unlock one of her long-kept secrets. And half an
-hour after his arrival they found the opal, and several things
-besides. When, after Mrs. Harris had carefully removed the furniture
-and hearthrug, and spread cornsacks over the carpet, the carpenter
-wrenched the mantelpiece from its fastenings, such a treasure-trove
-was discovered in the rough hollows of the wall and floor as none of
-them had dreamed of. It did not look much at the first glance. There
-were the opal and the paper-knife, half a dozen letters (circulars and
-household bills of Mrs. King's), several pens and pencils, a pair of
-scissors, a silver fruit-knife, a teaspoon, a variety of miscellaneous
-trifles, such as bodkins and corks, and a vast quantity of dust. That
-seemed all. But, kneeling reverently to grope amongst these humble
-relics of the past, Elizabeth found, quite at the bottom of everything,
-a little card. It was an old, old card, dingy and fretted with age,
-and dried and curled up like a dead leaf, and it had a little picture
-on it that had almost faded away. She carefully wiped the dust from it
-with her handkerchief, and looked at it as she knelt; it was a crude
-and youthful water-colour drawing of an extensive Elizabethan house,
-with a great many gables and fluted chimney-stacks, and much exuberance
-of architectural fancy generally. It had been minutely outlined by
-a hand trained to good draughtsmanship, and then coloured much as a
-child would colour a newspaper print from a sixpenny paint-box, and
-less effectively, because there was no light and shade to go upon.
-It was flat and pale, like a builder's plan, only that it had some
-washy grass and trees about it, and a couple of dogs running a race
-in the foreground, which showed its more ambitious pretensions; and
-the whole thing had evidently been composed with the greatest care.
-Elizabeth, studying it attentively, and thinking that she recognised
-her father's hand in certain details, turned the little picture over
-in search of the artist's signature. And there, in a corner, written
-very fine and small, but with elaborate distinctness, she read these
-words:&mdash;"<i>Elizabeth Leigh, from Kingscote Yelverton, Yelverton, June</i>,
-1847."</p>
-
-<p>She stared at the legend&mdash;in which she recognised a peculiar capital
-K of his own invention that her father always used&mdash;with the utmost
-surprise, and with no idea of its tremendous significance. "Why&mdash;why!"
-she gasped, holding it up, "it belongs to <i>him</i>&mdash;it has Mr. Yelverton's
-name upon it! How in the world did it come here? What does it mean?
-Did he drop it here the other day? But, no, that is impossible&mdash;it was
-quite at the bottom&mdash;it must have been lying here for ages. Mr. Brion,
-<i>what</i> does it mean?"</p>
-
-<p>The old man was already stooping over her, trying to take it from her
-hand. "Give it to me, my dear, give it to me," he cried eagerly. "Don't
-tear it&mdash;oh, for God's sake, be careful!&mdash;let me see what it is first."
-He took it from her, read the inscription over and over and over again,
-and then drew a chair to the table and sat down with the card before
-him, his face pale, and his hands shaking. The sisters gathered round
-him, bewildered; Elizabeth still possessed with her first impression
-that the little picture was her lover's property, Eleanor scarcely
-aware of what was going on, and Patty&mdash;always the quickest to reach
-the truth&mdash;already beginning dimly to discern the secret of their
-discovery. The carpenter and the housekeeper stood by, open-mouthed and
-open-eyed; and to them the lawyer tremulously addressed himself.</p>
-
-<p>"You had better go for a little while," he said; "we will put the
-mantelpiece up presently. Yet, stay&mdash;we have found a very important
-document, as I believe, and you are witnesses that we have done so. You
-had better examine it carefully before you go, that you may know it
-when you see it again." Whereupon he solemnly proceeded to print the
-said document upon their memories, and insisted that they should each
-take a copy of the words that made its chief importance, embodying it
-in a sort of affidavit, to which they signed their names. Then he sent
-them out of the room, and confronted the three sisters, in a state of
-great excitement. "I must see Paul," he said hurriedly. "I must have my
-son to help me. We must ransack that old bureau of yours&mdash;there must be
-more in it than we found that time when we looked for the will. Tell
-me, my dears, did your father let you have the run of the bureau, when
-he was alive?"</p>
-
-<p>No, they told him; Mr. King had been extremely particular in allowing
-no one to go to it but himself.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah," said the old man, "we must hunt it from top to bottom&mdash;we must
-break it into pieces, if necessary. I will telegraph to Paul. We must
-go to town at once, my dears, and investigate this matter&mdash;before Mr.
-Yelverton leaves the country."</p>
-
-<p>"He will not leave the country yet," said Elizabeth. "What is it, Mr.
-Brion?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think I see what it is," broke in Patty. "Mr. Brion thinks
-that father was Mr. Yelverton's uncle, who was lost so long ago.
-King&mdash;King&mdash;Mr. Yelverton told us the other day that they called <i>him</i>
-'King,' for short&mdash;and he was named Kingscote Yelverton, like his
-uncle. Mother's name was Elizabeth. I believe Mr. Brion is right And,
-if so&mdash;"</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>"And, if so," Patty repeated, when that wonderful, bewildering day
-was over, and she and her elder sister were packing for their return
-to Melbourne in the small hours of the next morning&mdash;"if so, we are
-the heiresses of all those hundreds of thousands that are supposed
-to belong to our cousin Kingscote. Now, Elizabeth, do you feel like
-depriving him of everything, and stopping his work, and leaving his
-poor starved costermongers to revert to their original condition&mdash;or do
-you not?"</p>
-
-<p>"I would not take it," said Elizabeth, passionately.</p>
-
-<p>"Pooh!&mdash;as if we should be allowed to choose! People can't do as they
-like where fortunes and lawyers are concerned. For Nelly's sake&mdash;not to
-speak of mine&mdash;they will insist on our claim, if we have one; and then
-do you suppose <i>he</i> would keep your money? Of course not&mdash;it's a most
-insulting idea. Therefore the case lies in a nutshell. You will have to
-make up your mind quickly, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"I have made up my mind," said Elizabeth, "if it is a question of which
-of us is most worthy to have wealth, and knows best how to use it."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>INVESTIGATION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>They did not wait for the next steamer, but hurried back to Melbourne
-by train and coach, and reached Myrtle Street once more at a little
-before midnight, the girls dazed with sleep and weariness and the
-strain of so much excitement as they had passed through. They had sent
-no message to Mrs. Duff-Scott at present, preferring to make their
-investigations, in the first place, as privately as possible; and Mr.
-Brion had merely telegraphed to his son that they were returning with
-him on important business. Paul was at the house when they arrived,
-but Mrs. M'Intyre had made hospitable preparations at No. 6 as well
-as at No. 7; and the tired sisters found their rooms aired and their
-beds arranged, a little fire lit, gas burning, kettle boiling, and
-a tempting supper laid out for them when they dragged their weary
-limbs upstairs. Mrs. M'Intyre herself was there to give them welcome,
-and Dan, who had been reluctantly left behind when they went into the
-country, was wild with rapture, almost tearing them to pieces in the
-vehemence of his delight at seeing them again, long past the age of
-gambols as he was. Mr. Brion was consoled for the upsetting of his
-own arrangements, which had been to take his charges to an hotel for
-the night, and there luxuriously entertain them; and he bade them
-an affectionate good-night, and went off contentedly to No. 7 under
-the wing of Paul's landlady, to doze in Paul's arm-chair until that
-brilliant ornament of the press should be released from duty.</p>
-
-<p>Cheered by their little fire&mdash;for, summer though it was, their fatigues
-had made them chilly&mdash;and by Mrs. M'Intyre's ham and chicken and hot
-coffee, the girls sat, talking and resting, for a full hour before they
-went to bed; still dwelling on the strange discovery of the little
-picture behind the mantelpiece, which Mr. Brion had taken possession
-of, and wondering if it would really prove them to be the three Miss
-Yelvertons instead of the three Miss Kings, and co-heiresses of one of
-the largest properties in England.</p>
-
-<p>As they passed the old bureau on their way to their rooms, Elizabeth
-paused and laid her hand on it thoughtfully. "It hardly seems to me
-possible," she said, "that father should have kept such a secret
-all these years, and died without telling us of it. He must have
-seen the advertisements&mdash;he must have known what difficulties he was
-making for everybody. Perhaps he did not write those names on the
-picture&mdash;handwriting is not much to go by, especially when it is so
-old as that; you may see whole schools of boys or girls writing in one
-style. Perhaps father was at school with Mr. Yelverton's uncle. Perhaps
-mother knew Elizabeth Leigh. Perhaps she gave her the sketch&mdash;or
-she might have come by it accidentally. One day she must have found
-it&mdash;slipped in one of her old music-books, maybe&mdash;and taken it out to
-show father; and she put it up on the mantelpiece, and it slipped down
-behind, like Patty's opal. If it had been of so much consequence as it
-seems to us&mdash;if they had desired to leave no trace of their connection
-with the Yelverton family&mdash;surely they would have pulled the house down
-but what they would have recovered it. And then we have hunted the
-bureau over&mdash;we have turned it out again and again&mdash;and never found
-anything."</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Brion thinks there are secret drawers," said Eleanor, who, of all
-the three, was most anxious that their golden expectations should be
-realised. "It is just the kind of cabinet work, he says, that is always
-full of hidden nooks and corners, and he is blaming himself that he did
-not search it more thoroughly in the first instance."</p>
-
-<p>"And he thinks," continued Patty, "that father seemed like a man with
-things on his mind, and believes he <i>would</i> have told us had he had
-more warning of his death. But you know he was seized so suddenly, and
-could not speak afterwards."</p>
-
-<p>"Poor father&mdash;poor father!" sighed Elizabeth, pitifully. They thought
-of his sad life, in the light of this possible theory, with more tender
-compassion than they had ever felt for him before; but the idea that
-he might have murdered his brother, accidentally or otherwise&mdash;and for
-that reason had effaced himself and done bitter penance for the rest of
-his days&mdash;never for a moment occurred to them. "Well, we shall know by
-to-morrow night," said the elder sister, gently. "If the bureau does
-not yield fresh evidence, there is none that we can allow Mr. Brion, or
-anyone else, to act upon. The more I think it over, the more I see how
-easily the whole thing could be explained&mdash;to mean nothing so important
-as Mr. Brion thinks. And, for myself, I should not be disappointed if
-we found ourselves only Miss Kings, without fortune or pedigree, as we
-have always been. We are very happy as we are."</p>
-
-<p>"That is how I felt at first," said Patty. "But I must say I am growing
-more and more in love with the idea of being rich. The delightful
-things that you can do with plenty of money keep flashing into my mind,
-one after the other, till I feel that I never understood what being
-poor meant till now, and that I could not content myself with a hundred
-a year and Mrs. Duff-Scott's benefactions any more. No; the wish may be
-father to the thought, Elizabeth, but I <i>do</i> think it, honestly, that
-we shall turn out to be Mr. Yelverton's cousins&mdash;destined to supersede
-him, to a certain extent."</p>
-
-<p>"I think so, too," said Eleanor, anxiously. "I can't&mdash;I
-<i>won't</i>&mdash;believe that Mr. Brion is mistaken."</p>
-
-<p>So they went, severally affected by their strange circumstances, to
-bed. And in the morning they were up early, and made great haste to get
-their breakfast over, and their sitting-room in order, in readiness for
-the lawyer's visit. They were very much agitated by their suspense and
-anxiety, especially Patty, to whom the impending interview with Paul
-had become of more pressing consequence, temporarily, than even the
-investigations that he was to assist. She had had no communication
-with him whatever since she cut him on the racecourse when he was
-innocently disporting himself with Mrs. Aarons; and her nerves were
-shaken by the prospect of seeing and speaking to him again, and by
-the vehemence of her conflicting hopes and fears. She grew cold and
-hot at the recollection of one or two accidental encounters that had
-taken place <i>since</i> Cup Day, and at the picture of his contemptuous,
-unrecognising face that rose up vividly before her. Elizabeth noticed
-her unusual pallor and restless movements, and how she hovered about
-the window, straining her ears to catch a chance sound of the men's
-voices next door, and made an effort to divert her thoughts. "Come and
-help me, Patty," she said, putting her hand on her sister's shoulder.
-"We have nothing more to do now, so we may as well turn out some of the
-drawers before they come. We can look over dear mother's clothes, and
-see if they have any marks on them that we have overlooked. Mr. Brion
-will want to have everything examined."</p>
-
-<p>So they began to work at the bureau with solemn diligence, and a fresh
-set of emotions were evolved by that occupation, which counteracted,
-without effacing, those others that were in Patty's mind. She became
-absorbed and attentive. They took out all Mrs. King's gowns, and her
-linen, and her little everyday personal belongings, searched them
-carefully for indications of ownership, and, finding none, laid them
-aside in the adjoining bedroom. Then they exhumed all those relics of
-an olden time which had a new significance at the present juncture&mdash;the
-fine laces, the faded brocades, the Indian shawl and Indian muslins,
-the quaint fans and little bits of jewellery&mdash;and arranged them
-carefully on the table for the lawyer's inspection.</p>
-
-<p>"We know <i>now</i>," said Patty, "though we didn't know a few mouths ago,
-that these are things that could only belong to a lady who had been
-rich once."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said Elizabeth. "But there is another point to be considered.
-Elizabeth Leigh ran away with her husband secretly and in haste, and
-under circumstances that make it seem <i>most</i> unlikely that she should
-have hampered herself and him with luggage, or bestowed a thought on
-such trifles as fans and finery."</p>
-
-<p>The younger sisters were a little daunted for a moment by this view of
-the case. Then Eleanor spoke up. "How you do love to throw cold water
-on everything!" she complained, pettishly. "Why shouldn't she think
-of her pretty things? I'm sure if I were going to run away&mdash;no matter
-under what circumstances&mdash;I should take all <i>mine</i>, if I had half
-an hour to pack them up. So would you. At least, I don't know about
-you&mdash;but Patty would. Wouldn't you, Patty?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well," said Patty, thoughtfully, sitting back on her heels and folding
-her hands in her lap, "I really think I should, Elizabeth. If you come
-to think of it, it is the heroines of novels who do those things. They
-throw away lovers, and husbands, and fortunes, and everything else, on
-the slightest provocation; it is a matter of course&mdash;it is the correct
-thing in novels. But in real life girls are fond of all nice things&mdash;at
-least, that is my experience&mdash;and they don't feel like throwing them
-away. Girls in novels would never let Mrs. Duff-Scott give them gowns
-and bonnets, for instance&mdash;they would be too proud; and they would
-burn a bureau any day rather than rummage in it for a title to money
-that a nice man, whom they cared for, was in possession of. Don't tell
-me. You are thinking of the heroines of fiction, Elizabeth, and not of
-Elizabeth Leigh. <i>She</i>, I agree with Nelly&mdash;however much she might have
-been troubled and bothered&mdash;did not leave her little treasures for the
-servants to pawn. Either she took them with her, or someone able to
-keep her destination a secret sent them after her."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, well," said Elizabeth, who had got out her mother's jewellery
-and was gazing fondly at the miniature in the pearl-edged locket, "we
-shall soon know. Get out the books and music, dear."</p>
-
-<p>They were turning over a vast pile of music, which required at least
-half a day to examine properly, when the servant of the house tapped
-at the door to ask, with Mr. Brion's compliments, when it would be
-convenient to Miss King to receive that gentleman. In a few minutes
-father and son were in the room, the former distributing hasty and
-paternal greetings all around, and the latter quietly shaking hands
-with an air of almost aggressive deliberation. Paul was quite polite,
-and to a certain extent friendly, but he was terribly, uncompromisingly
-business-like. Not a moment did he waste in mere social amenities,
-after shaking hands with Patty&mdash;which he did as if he were a wooden
-automaton, and without looking at her&mdash;but plunged at once into the
-matter of the discovered picture, as if time were money and nothing
-else of any consequence. Patty's heart sank, but her spirit rose;
-she determined not to "let herself down" or in any way to "make an
-exhibition of herself," if she could help it. She drew a little aside
-from the bureau, and went on turning over the music&mdash;which presently
-she was able to report valueless as evidence, except negative evidence,
-the name, wherever it had been written at the head of a sheet, having
-been cut out or erased; while Elizabeth took the remaining articles
-from their drawers and pigeon-holes, and piled them on the table and in
-Nelly's arms.</p>
-
-<p>For some time they were all intent upon their search, and very silent;
-and it still seemed that they were to find nothing in the shape of that
-positive proof which Elizabeth, as the head of the family, demanded
-before she would give permission for any action to be taken. There were
-no names in the old volumes of music, and the fly-leaves had been torn
-from the older books. Some pieces of ancient silver plate&mdash;a pair of
-candlesticks, a pair of salt-cellars, a teapot and sugar basin (now
-in daily use), a child's mug, some Queen Anne spoons and ladles&mdash;were
-all unmarked by crest or monogram; and two ivory-painted miniatures
-and three daguerreotypes, representing respectively one old lady in
-high-crowned cap and modest kerchief, one young one with puffs all
-over her head, and a classic absence of bodice to her gown, one little
-fair-haired child, similarly scanty in attire, and one middle-aged
-gentleman with a large shirt frill and a prodigious quantity of
-neck-cloth&mdash;likewise failed to verify themselves by date or inscription
-when carefully prised out of their frames and leather cases with Paul
-Brion's pen-knife. These family portraits, understood by the girls to
-belong to the maternal side of the house, were laid aside, however,
-along with the pearl-rimmed locket and other jewels, and the picture
-that was found behind the mantelpiece; and then, nothing else being
-left, apparently, the two men began an inspection of the papers.</p>
-
-<p>While this was going on, Patty, at a sign from Elizabeth, set up
-the leaves of a little tea-table by the window, spread it with a
-white cloth, and fetched in such a luncheon as the slender larder
-afforded&mdash;the remains of Mrs. M'Intyre's chicken and ham, some bread
-and butter, a plate of biscuits, and a decanter of sherry&mdash;for it was
-past one o'clock, and Mr. Brion and Paul had evidently no intention
-of going away until their investigations were complete. The room was
-quite silent. Her soft steps and the brush of her gown as she passed
-to and fro were distinctly audible to her lover, who would not so much
-as glance at her, but remained sternly intent upon the manuscripts
-before him. These were found to be very interesting, but to have no
-more bearing upon the matter in hand than the rest of the relics that
-had been overhauled; for the most part, they were studies in various
-arts and sciences prepared by Mr. and Mrs. King for their daughters
-during the process of their education, and such odds and ends of
-literature as would be found in a clever woman's common-place books.
-They had all been gone over at the time of Mr. King's death, in a vain
-hunt for testamentary documents; and Elizabeth, looking into the now
-bare shelves and apertures of the bureau, began to think how she could
-console her sisters for the disappointment of their hopes.</p>
-
-<p>"Come and have some lunch," she said to Paul (Mr. Brion was already at
-the table, deprecating the trouble that his dear Patty was taking). "I
-don't think you will find anything more."</p>
-
-<p>The young man stood up with his brows knitted over his keen eyes,
-and glanced askance at the group by the window. "We have not done
-yet," he said decisively; "and we have learned quite enough, in what
-we <i>haven't</i> found, to justify us in consulting Mr. Yelverton's
-solicitors."</p>
-
-<p>"No," she said, "I'll have nothing said to Mr. Yelverton, unless the
-whole thing is proved first."</p>
-
-<p>Never thinking that the thing would be proved, first or last, she
-advanced to the extemporised lunch table, and dispensed the modest
-hospitalities of the establishment with her wonted simple grace. Mr.
-Brion was accommodated with an arm-chair and a music-book to lay
-across his knees, whereon Patty placed the tit-bits of the chicken
-and the knobby top-crust of the loaf, waiting upon him with that
-tender solicitude to which he had grown accustomed, but which was so
-astonishing, and so interesting also, to his son.</p>
-
-<p>"She has spoiled me altogether," said the old man fondly, laying his
-hand on her bright head as she knelt before him to help him to mustard
-and salt. "I don't know how I shall ever manage to get along without
-her now."</p>
-
-<p>"Has this sad fate overtaken you in one short week?" inquired Paul,
-rather grimly. "Your sister should be labelled like an explosive
-compound, Miss King&mdash;'dangerous,' in capital letters." Paul was sitting
-in a low chair by Elizabeth, with his plate on his knee, and he thawed
-a good deal, in spite of fierce intentions to the contrary, under the
-influence of food and wine and the general conversation. He looked at
-Patty now and then, and by-and-bye went so far as to address a remark
-to her. "What did she think of the caves?" he asked, indifferently,
-offering her at the same moment a glass of sherry, which, though
-unaccustomed to fermented liquors, she had not the presence of mind
-to refuse&mdash;and which she took with such a shaking hand that she
-spilled some of it over her apron. And she plunged at once into rapid
-and enthusiastic descriptions of the caves and the delights of their
-expedition thereto, absurdly uplifted by this slight token of interest
-in her proceedings.</p>
-
-<p>When luncheon was over, Elizabeth culled Eleanor&mdash;who, too restless
-to eat much herself, was hovering about the bureau, tapping it here
-and there with a chisel&mdash;to take her turn to be useful by clearing
-the table; and then, as if business were of no consequence, bade her
-guests rest themselves for a little and smoke a cigarette if they felt
-inclined.</p>
-
-<p>"Smoke!" exclaimed Paul, with a little sarcastic laugh. "Oh, no, Miss
-King, that would never do. What would Mrs. Duff-Scott say if she were
-to smell tobacco in your sitting-room?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, what would she say?" returned Elizabeth, gently&mdash;she was very
-gentle with Paul to-day. "Mrs. Duff-Scott, I believe, is rather fond of
-the smell of tobacco, when it is good."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion having satisfied the demands of politeness with profuse
-protestations, suffered himself to indulge in a mild cigarette; but
-Paul would not be persuaded. He resumed his study of the manuscripts
-with an air of determination, as of a man who had idled away precious
-time. He conscientiously endeavoured to fix his attention on the
-important business that he had undertaken, and to forget everything
-else until he had finished it. For a little while Patty wandered up and
-down in an aimless manner, making neat heaps of the various articles
-scattered about the room and watching him furtively; then she softly
-opened the piano, and began to play, just above a whisper, the "Sonata
-Pathetique."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>DISCOVERY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>It was between two and three o'clock; Mr. Brion reposed in his
-arm-chair, smoking a little, talking a little to Elizabeth who sat
-beside him, listening dreamily to the piano, and feeling himself
-more and more inclined to doze and nod his head in the sleepy warmth
-of the afternoon, after his glass of sherry and his recent severe
-fatigues. Elizabeth, by way of entertaining him, sat at his elbow,
-thinking, thinking, with her fingers interlaced in her lap and her
-gaze fixed upon the floor. Patty, intensely alert and wakeful, but
-almost motionless in her straight back and delicately poised head,
-drooped over the keyboard, playing all the "soft things" that she could
-remember without notes; and Paul, who had resisted her enchantments
-as long as he could, leaned back in his chair, with his hand over his
-eyes, having evidently ceased to pay any attention to his papers. And,
-suddenly, Eleanor, who was supposed to be washing plates and dishes in
-the kitchen, flashed into the room, startling them all out of their
-dreams.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth, dear," she exclaimed tremulously, "forgive me for meddling
-with your things. But I was thinking and thinking what else there was
-that we had not examined, and mother's old Bible came into my head&mdash;the
-little old Bible that she always used, and that you kept in your top
-drawer. I could not help looking at it, and here"&mdash;holding out a small
-leather-bound volume, frayed at the corners and fastened with silver
-clasps&mdash;"here is what I have found. The two first leaves are stuck
-together&mdash;I remembered that&mdash;but they are only stuck round the edges;
-there is a little piece in the middle that is loose and rattles, and,
-see, there is writing on it." The girl was excited and eager, and
-almost pushed the Bible into Paul Brion's hands. "Look at it, look
-at it," she cried. "Undo the leaves with your knife and see what the
-writing is."</p>
-
-<p>Paul examined the joined leaves attentively, saw that Eleanor was
-correct in her surmise, and looked at Elizabeth. "May I, Miss King?" he
-asked, his tone showing that he understood how sacred this relic must
-be, and how much it would go against its present possessor to see it
-tampered with.</p>
-
-<p>"I suppose you had better," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>He therefore sat down, laid the book before him, and opened his sharp
-knife. A sense that something was really going to happen now&mdash;that
-the secret of all this careful effacement of the little chronicles
-common and natural to every civilised family would reveal itself in the
-long-hidden page which, alone of all the records of the past, their
-mother had lacked the heart to destroy&mdash;fell upon the three girls; and
-they gathered round to watch the operation with pale faces and beating
-hearts. Paul was a long time about it, for he tried to part the leaves
-without cutting them, and they were too tightly stuck together. He had
-at last to make a little hole in which to insert his knife, and then
-it was a most difficult matter to cut away the plain sheet without
-injuring the written one. Presently, however, he opened a little door
-in the middle of the page, held the flap up, glanced at what was behind
-it for a moment, looked significantly at his father, and silently
-handed the open book to Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, trembling with
-excitement and apprehension, lifting up the little flap in her turn,
-read this clear inscription&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="center">
-"To my darling child, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">ELIZABETH</span>,<br />
-From her loving mother,<br />
-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">ELEANOR D'ARCY LEIGH.</span><br />
-Bradenham Abbey. Christmas, 1839.<br />
-Psalm xv., 1, 2."<br />
-</p>
-
-<p>There was a dead silence while they all looked at the fine brown
-writing&mdash;that delicate caligraphy which, like fine needlework, went
-out of fashion when our grandmothers passed away&mdash;of which every
-letter, though pale, was perfectly legible. A flood of recollection
-poured into the minds of the three girls, especially the elder ones,
-at the sight of those two words, "Bradenham Abbey," in the corner of
-the uncovered portion of the page. "Leigh" and "D'Arcy" were both
-unfamiliar names&mdash;or had been until lately&mdash;but Bradenham had a place
-in the archives of memory, and came forth at this summons from its
-dusty and forgotten nook. When they were children their mother used
-to tell them stories by the firelight in winter evenings, and amongst
-those stories were several whose scenes were laid in the tapestried
-chambers and ghostly corridors, and about the parks and deer-drives
-and lake-shores of a great "place" in an English county&mdash;a place that
-had once been a famous monastery, every feature and aspect of which
-Mrs. King had at various times described so minutely that they were
-almost as familiar with it as if they had seen it for themselves.
-These stories generally came to an untimely end by the narrator
-falling into an impenetrable brown study or being overtaken by an
-unaccountable disposition to cry&mdash;which gave them, of course, a special
-and mysterious fascination for the children. While still little things
-in pinafores, they were quick enough to perceive that mother had a
-personal interest in that wonderful place of which they never tired
-of hearing, and which evidently did not belong to the realms of
-Make-believe, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty and Blue-beard's
-castle; and therefore they were always, if unconsciously, trying to
-understand what that interest was. And when, one day when she was
-painting a wreath of forget-me-nots on some little trifle intended for
-a bazaar, and, her husband coming to look over her, she said to him
-impulsively, "Oh, do you remember how they grew in the sedges round the
-Swan's Pool at Bradenham?"&mdash;and when he sternly bade her hush, and not
-speak of Bradenham unless she wished to drive him mad&mdash;then Patty and
-Elizabeth, who heard them both, knew that Bradenham was the name of the
-great house where monks had lived, in the grounds of which, as they
-had had innumerable proofs, pools and swans abounded. It was the first
-time they had heard it, but it was too important a piece of information
-to be forgotten. On this memorable day, so many years after, when they
-read "Bradenham Abbey" in the well-worn Bible, they looked at each
-other, immediately recalling that long-ago incident; but their hearts
-were too full to speak. It was Mr. Brion who broke the silence that had
-fallen upon them all.</p>
-
-<p>"This, added to our other discoveries, is conclusive, I think,"
-said the old lawyer, standing up in order to deliver his opinion
-impressively, and resting his hands on the table. "At any rate, I
-must insist on placing the results of our investigation before Mr.
-Yelverton&mdash;yes, Elizabeth, you must forgive me, my dear, if I take
-the matter into my own hands. Paul will agree with me that we have
-passed the time for sentiment. We will have another look into the
-bureau&mdash;because it seems incredible that any man should deliberately
-rob his children of their rights, even if he repudiated his own, and
-therefore I think there <i>must</i> be legal instruments <i>somewhere</i>; but,
-supposing none are with us, it will not be difficult, I imagine, to
-supply what is wanting to complete our case from other sources&mdash;from
-other records of the family, in fact. Mr. Yelverton himself, in
-five minutes, would be able to throw a great deal of light upon our
-discoveries. It is absolutely necessary to consult him."</p>
-
-<p>"I would not mind so much," said Elizabeth, who was deadly pale, "if it
-were to be fought out with strangers. But <i>he</i> would give it all up at
-once, without waiting to see&mdash;without asking us to prove&mdash;that we had a
-strictly legal title."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't you believe it," interposed Paul sententiously.</p>
-
-<p>She rose from her chair in majestic silence, and moved towards the
-bureau. She would not bandy her lover's name nor discuss his character
-with those who did not know him as she did. Paul followed her, with his
-chisel in his hand.</p>
-
-<p>"Let us look for that secret drawer, at any rate," he said. "I feel
-pretty certain there must be one, now. Mr. King took great pains to
-prevent identification during his lifetime, but, as my father says,
-that is a very different thing from disinheriting <i>you</i>. If you will
-allow me, I'll take every moveable part out first."</p>
-
-<p>He did so, while she watched and assisted him. All the brass-handled
-drawers, and sliding shelves, and partitions were withdrawn from their
-closely-fitting sockets, leaving a number of holes and spaces each
-differing in size and shape from the rest. Then he drew up a chair in
-front of the exposed skeleton, and gazed at it thoughtfully; after
-which he began to make careful measurements inside and out, to tap the
-woodwork in every direction, and to prise some of its strong joints
-asunder. This work continued until four o'clock, when, notwithstanding
-the highly stimulating excitement of the day's proceedings, the girls
-began to feel that craving for a cup of tea which is as strong upon the
-average woman at this time as the craving for a nobbler of whisky is
-upon the&mdash;shall I say average man?&mdash;when the sight of a public-house
-appeals to his nobler appetite. Not that they wanted to eat and
-drink&mdash;far from it; the cup of tea was the symbol of rest and relief
-for a little while from the stress and strain of labour and worry, and
-that was what they were in need of. Elizabeth looked at her watch and
-then at Patty, and the two girls slipped out of the room together,
-leaving Eleanor to watch operations at the bureau. Reaching their
-little kitchen, they mechanically lit the gas in the stove, and set
-the kettle on to boil; and then they went to the open window, which
-commanded an unattractive view of the back yard, and stood there side
-by side, leaning on each other.</p>
-
-<p>"In 1839," said Patty, "she must have been a girl, a child, and living
-at Bradenham <i>at home</i>. Think of it, Elizabeth&mdash;with a mother loving
-her and petting her as she did us. She was twenty-five when she
-married; she must have been about sixteen when that Bible was given
-to her&mdash;ever so much younger than any of us are now. <i>She</i> lived in
-those beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish leather on the walls&mdash;<i>she</i>
-danced in that long gallery with the painted windows and the slippery
-oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a row&mdash;no doubt
-she rode about herself with those hunting parties in the winter, and
-rowed and skated on the lake&mdash;I can imagine it, what a life it must
-have been. Can't you see her, before she grew stout and careworn,
-and her bright hair got dull, and her pretty hands rough with hard
-work&mdash;young, and lovely, and happy, and petted by everybody&mdash;wearing
-beautiful clothes, and never knowing what it was to have to do anything
-for herself? I can. And it seems dreadful to think that she had to
-remember all that, living as she did afterwards. If only he had made it
-up to her!&mdash;but I don't think he did, Elizabeth&mdash;I don't think he did.
-He used to be so cross to her sometimes. Oh, bless her, bless her! Why
-didn't she tell <i>us</i>, so that <i>we</i> could have done more to comfort her?"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think she ever repented," said Elizabeth, who remembered more
-about her mother than Patty could do. "She did it because she loved him
-better than Bradenham and wealth and her own personal comfort; and she
-loved him like that always, even when he was cross. Poor father! No
-wonder he was cross!"</p>
-
-<p>"Why didn't he go back&mdash;for her sake, if not for ours&mdash;when he saw the
-advertisements? Elizabeth, my idea is that the death of his brother
-gave a permanent shock to his brain. I think he could never have been
-quite himself afterwards. It was a sort of mania with him to disconnect
-himself from everything that could suggest the tragedy&mdash;to get as far
-away as possible from any association with it."</p>
-
-<p>"I think so, too," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>Thus they talked by the kitchen window until the kettle bubbled on the
-stove; and then, recalled to the passing hour and their own personal
-affairs, they collected cups and saucers, sugar-basin and milk-jug,
-and cut bread and butter for the afternoon repast. Just as their
-preparations were completed, Eleanor came flying along the passage from
-the sitting-room. "They have found a secret drawer," she cried in an
-excited whisper. "At least not a drawer, but a double partition that
-seems to have been glued up; and Mr. Brion is sure, by the dull sound
-of the wood, that there are things in it. Come and see!"</p>
-
-<p>She flew back again, not even waiting to help her sisters with the tea.
-Silently Elizabeth took up the tray of cups and saucers, and Patty the
-teapot and the plate of bread and butter; and they followed her with
-beating hearts. This was the crisis of their long day's trial. Paul
-was tearing at the intestines of the bureau like a cat at the wainscot
-that has just given sanctuary to a mouse, and his father was too much
-absorbed in helping him to notice their return.</p>
-
-<p>"Now, pull, pull!" cried the old man, at the moment when the sisters
-closed the door behind them. "Break it, if it won't come. A&mdash;a&mdash;ah!" as
-a sudden crash of splintered wood resounded through the room, "there
-they are at last! I <i>thought</i> they must be here somewhere!"</p>
-
-<p>"What is it?" inquired Elizabeth, setting down her tea-tray, and
-hastily running to his side. He was stripping a pink tape from a thin
-bundle of blue papers in a most unprofessional state of excitement and
-agitation.</p>
-
-<p>"What is it?" he echoed triumphantly. "This is what it is, my
-dear"&mdash;and he began in a loud voice to read from the outside of the
-blue packet, to which he pointed with a shaking finger&mdash;"The will
-of Kingscote Yelverton, formerly of Yelverton, in the county of
-Kent&mdash;Elizabeth Yelverton, sole executrix."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE TIME FOR ACTION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Yes, it was their father's will&mdash;the will they had vainly hunted for
-a year ago, little thinking what manner of will it was; executed when
-Eleanor was a baby in long clothes, and providing for their inheritance
-of that enormous English fortune. When they were a little recovered
-from the shock of this last overwhelming surprise, Mr. Brion broke
-the seal of the document, and formally and solemnly read it to them.
-It was very short, but perfectly correct in form, and the testator
-(after giving to his wife, in the event of her surviving him, the sole
-control of the entire property, which was unentailed, for her lifetime)
-bequeathed to his younger daughters, and to any other children who
-might have followed them, a portion of thirty thousand pounds apiece,
-and left the eldest, Elizabeth, heiress of Yelverton and residuary
-legatee. Patty and Eleanor were thus to be made rich beyond <i>their</i>
-dreams of avarice, but Elizabeth, who had been her father's favourite,
-was to inherit a colossal fortune. That was, of course, supposing such
-wealth existed in fact as well as in the imagination of this incredible
-madman. Paul and his father found themselves unable to conceive of such
-a thing as that any one in his senses should possess these rare and
-precious privileges, so passionately desired and so recklessly sought
-and sinned for by those who had them not, and should yet abjure, them
-voluntarily, and against every natural temptation and moral obligation
-to do otherwise. It was something wholly outside the common course of
-human affairs, and unintelligible to men of business. Both of them
-felt that they must get out of the region of romance and into the
-practical domain of other lawyers' offices before they could cope
-effectively with the anomalies of the case. As it stood, it was beyond
-their grasp. While the girls, sitting together by the table, strove to
-digest the meaning of the legal phrases that had fallen so strangely on
-their ears, Mr. Brion and Paul exchanged <i>sotto voce</i> suggestions and
-opinions over the parchment spread out before them. Then presently the
-old man opened a second document, glanced silently down the first page,
-cleared his throat, and looking over his spectacles, said solemnly, "My
-dears, give me your attention for a few minutes."</p>
-
-<p>Each changed her position a little, and looked at him steadily. Paul
-leaned back in his chair, and put his hand over his eyes.</p>
-
-<p>"What I have just been reading to you," said Mr. Brion, "is your
-father's last will and testament, as I believe. It appears that his
-surname was Yelverton, and that King was only an abbreviation of his
-Christian name&mdash;assumed as the surname for the purpose of eluding the
-search made for him by his family. Now, certain circumstances have come
-to our knowledge lately, referring, apparently, to this inexplicable
-conduct on your father's part." He paused, coughed, and nervously
-smoothed out the sheets before him, glancing hither and thither
-over their contents. "Elizabeth, my dear," he went on, "I think you
-heard Mr. Yelverton's account of his uncle's strange disappearance
-after&mdash;ahem&mdash;after a certain unfortunate catastrophe?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," said Elizabeth. "We all know about that."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, it seems&mdash;of course we must not jump at conclusions too hastily,
-but still it appears to me a reasonable conjecture&mdash;that your father
-and Mr. Yelverton's lost uncle <i>were</i> one and the same person. The
-affair altogether is so extraordinary, so altogether unaccountable, on
-the face of it, that we shall require a great deal of proof&mdash;and of
-course Mr. Yelverton himself will require the very fullest and most
-absolute legal proof&mdash;before we can accept the theory as an established
-fact&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Did I not say so?" Elizabeth interrupted eagerly, surprised by
-the old man's sudden assumption of scepticism now that all doubt
-and uncertainty seemed to be over. "I wish that nothing should be
-done&mdash;that no steps of any sort should be taken&mdash;until it is all proved
-to the last letter."</p>
-
-<p>"Well," said Mr. Brion, at once abandoning his cautious attitude, "we
-must take steps to obtain proof before we <i>can</i> obtain it. And, as it
-providentially happens, we have received the most opportune and, as I
-believe, the most unimpeachable testimony from Mr. Yelverton himself,
-who is the loser by our gain, and who gave us the information which is
-so singularly corroborated in these documents before the existence of
-such documents was known to anybody. But if more were wanted&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"More <i>is</i> wanted," urged Elizabeth. "We cannot take advantage of his
-own admissions to ruin him."</p>
-
-<p>"If more were wanted," Mr. Brion repeated, with growing solemnity
-of manner, "we have here a paper under your father's hand, and duly
-witnessed by the same persons who witnessed the will&mdash;where are you
-going, Paul?" For at this point Paul rose and walked quietly towards
-the door.</p>
-
-<p>"Go on," said the young man. "I will come back presently."</p>
-
-<p>"But where are you going?" his father repeated with irritation. "Can't
-you wait until this business is finished?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think," said Paul, "that the Miss Kings&mdash;the Miss Yelvertons, I
-suppose I ought to say&mdash;would rather be by themselves while you read
-that paper. It is not just like the will, you know; it is a private
-matter&mdash;not for outsiders to listen to."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth rose promptly and went towards him, laying her hand on
-his arm. "Do you think we consider <i>you</i> an outsider?" she said,
-reproachfully. "You are one of us&mdash;you are in the place of our
-brother&mdash;we want you to help us now more than we have ever done. Come
-and sit down&mdash;that is, of course, if you can spare time for our affairs
-when you have so many important ones of your own."</p>
-
-<p>He went and sat down, taking the seat by Patty to which Elizabeth
-pointed him. Patty looked up at him wistfully, and then leaned her
-elbows on the table and put her face in her hands. Her lover laid his
-arm gently on the back of her chair.</p>
-
-<p>"Shall I begin, my dear?" asked the lawyer hesitatingly. "I am afraid
-it will be painful to you, Elizabeth. Perhaps, as Paul says, it would
-be better for you to read it by yourselves. I will leave it with you
-for a little while, if you promise faithfully to be very careful with
-it."</p>
-
-<p>But Elizabeth wished it to be read as the will was read, and the old
-man, vaguely suspecting that she might be illegally generous to the
-superseded representative of the Yelverton name and property, was
-glad to keep the paper in his own hands, and proceeded to recite its
-contents. "I, Kingscote Yelverton, calling myself John King, do hereby
-declare," &amp;c.</p>
-
-<p>It was the story of Kingscote Yelverton's unfortunate life, put on
-record in the form of an affidavit for the benefit of his children,
-apparently with the intention that they should claim their inheritance
-when he was gone. The witnesses were an old midwife, long since
-dead, and a young Scripture reader, now a middle-aged and prosperous
-ecclesiastic in a distant colony; both of whom the lawyer remembered
-as features of the "old days" when he himself was a new-comer to the
-out-of-the-world place that counted Mr. King as its oldest inhabitant.
-It was a touching little document, in the sad story that it told
-and the severe formality of the style of telling it. Kingscote
-Yelverton, it was stated, was the second of three brothers, sons of
-a long line of Yelvertons of Yelverton, of which three, however,
-according to hereditary custom, only one was privileged to inherit
-the ancestral wealth. This one, Patrick, a bachelor, had already come
-into his kingdom; the youngest, a briefless barrister in comfortable
-circumstances, had married a farmer's daughter in very early youth
-(while reading for university honours during a long vacation spent in
-the farmer's house), and was the father of a sturdy schoolboy while
-himself not long emancipated from the rule of pastors and masters;
-and Kingscote was a flourishing young captain in the Guards&mdash;when
-the tragedy which shattered the family to pieces, and threw its vast
-property into Chancery, took place. Bradenham Abbey was neighbour to
-Yelverton, and Cuthbert Leigh of Bradenham was kin to the Yelvertons of
-Yelverton. Cuthbert Leigh had a beautiful daughter by his first wife,
-Eleanor D'Arcy; when this daughter was sixteen her mother died, and a
-stepmother soon after took Eleanor D'Arcy's place; and not long after
-the stepmother came to Bradenham Cuthbert Leigh himself died, leaving
-an infant son and heir; and not long after <i>that</i> Mrs. Cuthbert Leigh
-married again, and her new husband administered Bradenham&mdash;in the
-interest of the heir eventually, but of himself and his own children in
-the meantime. So it happened that Elizabeth Leigh was rather elbowed
-out of her rights and privileges as her father's daughter; which being
-the case, her distant cousin and near friend, Mrs. Patrick Yelverton,
-mother of the ill-fated brothers (who lived, poor soul, to see her
-house left desolate), fetched the girl away from the home which was
-hers no more, and took her to live under her own wing at Yelverton.
-Then the troubles began. Elizabeth was young and fair; indeed, all
-accounts of her agreed in presenting the portrait of a woman who must
-have been irresistible to the normal and unappropriated man brought
-into close contact with her. At Yelverton she was the daily companion
-of the unwedded master of the house, and he succumbed accordingly.
-As an impartial chronicler, I may hazard the suggestion that she
-enjoyed a flirtation within lady-like limits, and was not without some
-responsibility in the matter. It was clear also that the dowager Mrs.
-Patrick, anxious to see her first-born suitably married and settled,
-and placed safely beyond the reach of designing farmers' daughters,
-contrived her best to effect a union between the two. But while
-Patrick was over head and ears in love, and Elizabeth was dallying
-with him, and the old mother planning new furniture for the stately
-rooms where the queen was to reign who should succeed her, Kingscote
-the guardsman&mdash;Kingscote, the handsome, strong-willed, fiery-tempered
-second son&mdash;came home. To him the girl's heart, with the immemorial and
-incurable perversity of hearts, turned forthwith, like a flower to the
-sun; and a very short furlough had but half run out when she was as
-deeply over head and ears in love with Kingscote as Patrick was with
-her. Kingscote also loved her passionately&mdash;on his own testimony, he
-loved her as never man loved before, though he made a proud confession
-that he had still been utterly unworthy of her; and so the materials
-for the tragedy were laid, like a housemaid's fire, ready for the match
-that kindled them. Elizabeth found her position untenable amid the
-strenuous and conflicting attentions bestowed on her by the mother and
-sons, and went away for a time to visit some of her other relatives;
-and when her presence and influence were withdrawn from Yelverton, the
-smothered enmity of the brothers broke out, and they had their first
-and last and fatal quarrel about her. She had left a miniature of
-herself hanging in their mother's boudoir; this miniature Patrick laid
-hands on, and carried off to his private rooms; wherefrom Kingscote,
-in a violent passion (as Elizabeth's accepted lover), abstracted it by
-force. Then the master of the house, always too much inclined to assert
-himself as such, being highly incensed in his turn at the liberty that
-had been taken with him, marched into his brother's bedroom, where
-the disputed treasure was hidden, found it, and put it in his breast
-until he could discover a safer place for it. They behaved like a
-pair of ill-regulated schoolboys, in short, as men do when love and
-jealousy combine to derange their nervous systems, and wrought their
-own irreparable ruin over this miserable trifle. Patrick, flushed with
-a lurid triumph at his temporary success, strolled away from the house
-for an aimless walk, but afterwards went to a gamekeeper's cottage to
-give some instructions that occurred to him. The gamekeeper was not at
-home, and the squire returned by way of a lonely track through a thick
-plantation, where some of the keeper's work had to be inspected. Here
-he met Kingscote, striding along with his gun over his shoulder. The
-guardsman had discovered his loss, and was in search of his brother,
-intending to make a calm statement of his right to the possession of
-the picture by virtue of his rights in the person of the fair original,
-but at the same time passionately determined that this sort of thing
-should be put a stop to. There was a short parley, a brief but fierce
-altercation, a momentary struggle&mdash;on one side to keep, on the other
-to take, the worthless little bone of contention&mdash;and it was all over.
-Patrick, sent backward by a sweep of his strong brother's arm, fell
-over the gun that had been carelessly propped against a sapling; the
-stock of the gun, flying up, was caught by a tough twig which dragged
-across the hammers, and as the man and the weapon tumbled to the ground
-together one hammer fell, and the exploded charge entered the squire's
-neck, just under the chin, and, passing upward to the brain, killed
-him. It was an accident, as all the family believed; but to the author
-of the mischance it was nothing less than murder. He was guilty of his
-brother's blood, and he accepted the portion of Cain&mdash;to be a fugitive
-and a vagabond on the face of the earth&mdash;in expiation of it. Partly
-with the idea of sparing pain and disgrace to his family (believing
-that the only evidence available would convict him of murder in a court
-of law), and partly because he felt that, if acquitted, it would be
-too horrible and impossible to take an inheritance that had come to
-him by such means, in the overwhelming desperation of his remorse and
-despair he took that determination to blot himself out which was never
-afterwards revoked. Returning to the house, he collected some money
-and a few valuables, and, unsuspected and unnoticed, took leave of his
-home, and his name, and his place in the world, and was half way to
-London, and beyond recall, before the dead body in the plantation was
-discovered. In London Elizabeth Leigh was staying with an old Miss
-D'Arcy, quietly studying her music and taking a rest while the society
-which was so fond of her was out of town; and the stricken man could
-not carry out his resolve without bidding farewell to his beloved. He
-had a clandestine interview with Elizabeth, to whom alone he confided
-the circumstances of his wretched plight. The girl, of course, advised
-him to return to Yelverton, and bravely meet and bear whatever might
-befall; and it would have been well for him and for her if he had taken
-that advice. But he would not listen to it, nor be turned from his
-fixed purpose to banish and efface himself, if possible, for the rest
-of his life; seeing which, the devoted woman chose to share his fate.
-Whether he could and should have spared her that enormous sacrifice,
-or whether she was happier in making it than she would otherwise have
-been, only themselves ever knew. She did her woman's part in helping
-and sustaining and consoling him through all the blighted years that he
-was suffered to live and fret her with his brooding melancholy and his
-broken-spirited moroseness, and doubtless she found her true vocation
-in that thorny path of love.</p>
-
-<p>The story, as told by himself for the information of his children (who,
-as children ever do, came in time to have interests of their own that
-transcended in importance those that were merely personal to their
-parents), was much more brief and bald than this, and the reading of it
-did not take many minutes. When he had finished it, in dead silence,
-the lawyer took from the packet of papers a third and smaller document,
-which he also proceeded to read aloud to those whom it concerned. This
-proved to be a certificate of the marriage of Kingscote Yelverton and
-Elizabeth Leigh, celebrated in an obscure London parish by a curate
-who had been the bridegroom's Eton and Oxford chum, and witnessed by
-a pair of humble folk who had had great difficulty in composing their
-respective signatures, on the 25th of November in the year 1849. And,
-finally, half-folded round the packet, there was a slip of paper, on
-which was written&mdash;"Not to be opened until my death."</p>
-
-<p>"And it might never have been opened until you were <i>all</i> dead!"
-exclaimed the lawyer, holding up his hands. "He must have meant to give
-it to you at the last, and did not reckon on being struck helpless in a
-moment when his time came."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, poor father!" sobbed Elizabeth, whose head lay on the table,
-crushed down in her handkerchief. And the other sisters put their arms
-about her, Patty with a set white face and Eleanor whimpering a little.
-But Mr. Brion and Paul were incensed with the dead man, and could not
-pity him at present.</p>
-
-<p>It was late before the two friendly advisers, summoned to dinner by
-their landlady, went back to No. 7, and they did not like going. It
-did not seem to them at all right that the three girls should be
-left alone under present circumstances. Mr. Brion wanted to summon
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, or even Mrs. M'Intyre, to bear them company and see
-that they did not faint, or have hysterics, or otherwise "give way,"
-under the exceptional strain put upon their nervous systems. Then he
-wanted them to come next door for that dinner which he felt they must
-certainly stand much in need of, and for which they did not seem to
-have adequate materials; or to let him take them to the nearest hotel,
-or to Mrs. Duff-Scott's; or, at least, to permit him to give them some
-brandy and water; and he was genuinely distressed because they refused
-to be nourished and comforted and appropriately cared for in any of
-these ways.</p>
-
-<p>"We want to be quiet for a little, dear Mr. Brion, that we may talk
-things over by ourselves&mdash;if you don't mind," Elizabeth said; and
-the tone of her voice silenced all his protests. The old man kissed
-them, for the first time in his life, uttering a few broken words of
-congratulation on the wonderful change in their fortunes; and Paul
-shook hands with great gravity and without saying anything at all, even
-though Patty, looking up into his inscrutable face, mutely asked for
-his sympathy with her wistful, wet eyes. And they went away.</p>
-
-<p>As they were letting themselves out of the house, assisted by the
-ground-floor domestic, who, scenting mystery in the air, politely
-volunteered to open the hall door in order that she might investigate
-the countenances of the Miss Kings' visitors and perchance gather some
-enlightenment therefrom, Patty, dry-eyed and excited, came flying
-downstairs, and pounced upon the old man.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Brion, Mr. Brion, Elizabeth says she hopes you will be <i>sure</i>
-not to divulge what we have discovered to <i>anybody</i>," she panted
-breathlessly (at the same time glancing at her lover's back as he stood
-on the door-step). "It is of the utmost consequence to her to keep it
-quiet for a little longer."</p>
-
-<p>"But, my dear, what object can Elizabeth have in waiting <i>now?</i> Surely
-it is better to have it over at once, and settled. I thought of walking
-up to the club by-and-bye, with the papers, and having a word with Mr.
-Yelverton."</p>
-
-<p>"Of course it is better to have it over," assented Patty.</p>
-
-<p>"I know your time is precious, and I myself am simply frantic till I
-can tell Mrs. Duff-Scott. So is Elizabeth. But there is something she
-must do first&mdash;I can't tell you the particulars&mdash;but she <i>must</i> have a
-few hours' start&mdash;say till to-morrow evening&mdash;before you speak to Mr.
-Yelverton or take any steps. I am sure she will do <i>whatever</i> you wish,
-after that."</p>
-
-<p>The lawyer hesitated, suspicious of the wisdom of the delay, but not
-seeing how much harm could happen, seeing that he had all the precious
-documents in his own breast pocket; then he reluctantly granted Patty's
-request, and the girl went upstairs again with feet not quite so light
-as those that had carried her down. Upstairs, however, she subordinated
-her own interests to the consideration of her sister's more pressing
-affairs.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," she said, with fervid and portentous solemnity, "this
-is a crisis for you, and you must be bold and brave. It is no time
-for shilly-shallying&mdash;you have twenty-four hours before you, and you
-must <i>act</i>. If you don't, you will see that he will just throw up
-everything, and be too proud to take it back. He will lose all his
-money and the influence for good that it gives him, and <i>you</i> will lose
-<i>him</i>."</p>
-
-<p>"How shall I act?" asked Elizabeth, leaning instinctively upon this
-more courageous spirit.</p>
-
-<p>"How?" echoed Patty, looking at her sister with brilliant eyes. "Oh!"
-drawing a long breath, and speaking with a yearning passion that it was
-beyond the power of good grammar to express&mdash;"oh, if it was only <i>me!</i>"</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>AN ASSIGNATION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>That evening Mr. Yelverton was leisurely finishing his dinner at the
-club when a note was brought to him. He thought he knew the writing,
-though he had never seen it before, and put it into his pocket until he
-could politely detach himself from three semi-hosts, semi-guests, with
-whom he was dining. Then he went upstairs rather quickly, tearing open
-his letter as he went, and, arrived at the reading-room, sat down at
-a table, took pen in hand, and dashed off an immediate reply. "I will
-certainly be there," he wrote, in a hand more vigorous than elegant.
-"I will wait for you in the German picture gallery. Come as early as
-possible, while the place is quiet." And, having closed his missive
-and consigned it to the bag, he remained in a comfortable arm-chair
-in the quiet room, all by himself, meditating. He felt he had a great
-deal to think about, and it indisposed him for convivialities. The week
-since his parting with Elizabeth, long as it had seemed to him, had
-not quite run out, and she had made an assignation which, though it
-might have appeared unequivocal to the casual eye, was to him extremely
-perplexing. She had come back, and she wanted to see him, and she
-wanted to see him alone, and she asked him if he would meet her at the
-Exhibition in the morning. And she addressed him as her dearest friend,
-and signed herself affectionately his. He tried very hard, but he could
-not extract his expected comfort from such a communication, made under
-such circumstances.</p>
-
-<p>In the morning he was amongst the first batch of breakfasters in the
-club coffee-room, and amongst the first to represent the public at
-the ticket-windows of the Carlton Palace. When he entered the great
-building, it was in the possession of officials and workmen, and
-echoed in a hollow manner to his solid footfall. Without a glance to
-right or left, he walked upstairs to the gallery and into that cosiest
-nook of the whole Exhibition, the German room, and there waited for
-his mistress. This restful room, with its carpeted floor and velvety
-settees (so grateful to the weary), its great Meissen vases in the
-middle, and casts of antique statues all round, was quite empty of
-visitors, and looked as pleasant and convenient a place of rendezvous
-as lovers could desire. If only Elizabeth would come quickly, he
-thought, they might have the most delicious quiet talk, sitting side
-by side on a semi-circular ottoman opposite to Lindenschmidt's "Death
-of Adonis"&mdash;not regarding that unhappy subject, of course, nor any
-other object but themselves. He would not sit down until she came,
-but strolled round and round, pausing now and then to investigate a
-picture, but thinking of nothing but his beloved, for whose light step
-he was listening. If his bodily eyes were fixed on the "Cloister Pond"
-or "Evening," or any other of the tranquil landscapes pictured on the
-wall, he thought of Elizabeth resting with him under green trees, far
-from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, absolutely his own, and in a
-world that (practically) held nobody but him and her. If he looked at
-autumnal rain slanting fiercely across the canvas, he thought how he
-would protect and shield her in all the storms that might visit her
-life&mdash;"My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter
-thee!" And visions of a fair morning in Thuringia, of a lake in the
-Bavarian mountains, of a glacier in the Engadine, and of Venice in
-four or five aspects of sunlight and moonlight, suggested his wedding
-journey and how beautiful the world she had so longed to see&mdash;the world
-that he knew so well&mdash;would look henceforth, if&mdash;if&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>There was a step upon the corridor outside, and he turned sharply from
-his contemplation of a little picture of an Isle of Wight sunrise to
-meet her as she came in. She had been walking hurriedly, but in the
-doorway she paused, seeing him striding towards her, and stood for a
-moment confused and hesitating, overcome with embarrassment. It was a
-bright morning, and she had dressed herself in a delicate linen gown,
-fitting easily to the sweeping curves of her noble figure&mdash;a gown
-over which Mrs. Duff-Scott had spent hours of careful thought and a
-considerable amount of money, but which was so simple and unpretending
-in its effects as to suggest the domestic needle and the judicious
-outlay of a few shillings to those admirable critics of the other sex
-who have so little knowledge of such matters and so much good taste;
-and all the details of her costume were in harmony with this central
-feature&mdash;her drooping straw hat, tied with soft Indian muslin under
-the chin, her Swedish gloves, her neat French shoes, her parasol&mdash;and
-the effect was insidious but impressive. She had got herself up
-carefully for her lover's eyes, and nobody could have looked less got
-up than she. Mr. Yelverton thought how much more charming was a homely
-every-day style than the elaborate dressing of the ball-room and the
-block, and that it was certainly evident to any sensible person that
-a woman like Elizabeth needed no arts of the milliner to make her
-attractive. He took her hand in a strong clasp, and held it in silence
-for a moment, his left hand laid over her fine unwrinkled glove, while
-he looked into her downcast face for some sign of the nature of her
-errand.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, my love," he murmured eagerly, "what is it? Don't keep me in
-suspense. Is it yes or no, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>Her embarrassment melted away before the look he bent upon her, as a
-morning mist before the sun. She lifted her eyes to his&mdash;those honest
-eyes that he could read like a book&mdash;and her lips parted in an effort
-to speak. The next instant, before a word was said, he had her in
-his arms, and her mouth met his under the red moustache in a long,
-and close, and breathless kiss; and both of them knew that they were
-to part no more till their lives' end. While that brief ceremony of
-betrothal lasted, they might have been in the black grotto where they
-kissed each other first, so oblivious were they of their surroundings;
-but they took in presently the meaning of certain sounds in the gallery
-on the other side of the curtain, and resumed their normal attitudes.
-"Come and sit down," said Mr. Yelverton, drawing her into the room.
-"Come and let's have a talk." And he set her down on the velvet ottoman
-and took a seat beside her&mdash;leaning forward with an arm on his knee
-to barricade her from an invasion of the public as far as possible.
-His thoughts turned, naturally enough, to their late very important
-interview in the caves.</p>
-
-<p>"We will go back there," he said, expressing his desire frankly. "When
-we are married, Elizabeth, we will go to your old home again together,
-before we set out on longer travels, and you and I will have a picnic
-to the caves all alone by ourselves, in that little buggy that we drove
-the other day. Shall we?"</p>
-
-<p>"We might tumble into one of those terrible black holes," she replied,
-"if we went there again."</p>
-
-<p>"True&mdash;we might. And when we are married we must not run any
-unnecessary risks. We will live together as long as we possibly can,
-Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>She had drawn off her right glove, and now slipped her hand into
-his. He grasped it fervently, and kneaded it like a lump of stiff
-dough (excuse the homely simile, dear reader&mdash;it has the merit of
-appropriateness, which is more than you can say for the lilies and
-jewellery) between his two strong palms. How he did long for that dark
-cave!&mdash;for any nook or corner that would have hidden him and her from
-sight for the next half hour.</p>
-
-<p>"Why couldn't you have told me a week ago?" he demanded, with a thrill
-in his deep voice. "You must have known you would take me then, or
-you would not have come to me like this to-day. Why didn't you give
-yourself to me at first? Then we should have been together all this
-time&mdash;all these precious days that we have wasted&mdash;and we should have
-been by the sea at this moment, sitting under those big rocks, or
-wandering away into the bush, where nobody could interfere with us."</p>
-
-<p>As he spoke, a party of ladies strolled into the court, and he leaned
-back upon his cushioned seat to wait until they were gone again. They
-looked at the pictures, with one eye on him, dawdled up and down for
-five minutes, trying to assert their right to be there if they chose;
-and then, too uncomfortably conscious of being <i>de trop</i>, departed.
-After which the lovers were alone again for a little while. Mr.
-Yelverton resumed possession of Elizabeth's hand, and repeated his
-rather cruel question.</p>
-
-<p>"Didn't you know all along that it must come to this?"</p>
-
-<p>"A week ago I did not know what I know now," she replied.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, my dear, you knew it in your heart, but you would not listen to
-your heart."</p>
-
-<p>He thought he understood it all, perfectly. He pictured her regret and
-hungry longing for him after he was gone, how she had fought against
-it for a time, and how it had precipitately driven her to Melbourne at
-last, and driven her to summon him in this importunate fashion to her
-side. It was exactly what he would have done, he thought, had he been
-in her place.</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Yelverton&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>She was beginning to speak seriously, but he stopped her. "No," he
-said, "I am not going to be called Mr. Yelverton by <i>you</i>. Never again,
-remember. My name is Kingscote, if you wish to know. My people at home,
-when I had any people, called me King. I think you might as well call
-me King&mdash;it will keep your dear name alive in the family when you no
-longer answer to it yourself. Now"&mdash;as she paused, and was looking at
-him rather strangely&mdash;"what were you going to say?"</p>
-
-<p>"I was going to say that I have not wasted this week since you went
-away. A great deal has happened&mdash;a great many changes&mdash;and I was helped
-by something outside myself to make up my mind."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't believe it&mdash;I don't believe it, Elizabeth. You know you love
-me, and you know that, whatever your religious sentiments may be,
-you would not do violence to them for anything <i>less</i> than that. You
-are taking me because you love me too well to give me up&mdash;for any
-consideration whatever. So don't say you are not."</p>
-
-<p>She touched his shoulder for a moment with her cheek. "Oh, I do love
-you, I do love you!" she murmured, drawing a long, sighing breath.</p>
-
-<p>He knew it well, and he did not know how to bear to sit there, unable
-to respond to her touching confession. He could only knead her hand
-between his palms.</p>
-
-<p>"And you are going to trust me, my love&mdash;me and yourself? You are not
-afraid now?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, I don't think I am afraid." She caught her breath a little, and
-looked grave and anxious as she said it, haunted still by the feeling
-that duty meant sacrifice and that happiness meant sin in some more or
-less insidious shape; a habit of thought in which she, like so many
-more of us, had been educated until it had taken the likeness of a
-natural instinct. "I don't think I am afraid. Religion, as you say,
-is a living thing, independent of the creeds that it is dressed in.
-And&mdash;and&mdash;you <i>must</i> be a good man!"</p>
-
-<p>"Don't begin by making that an article of faith," he returned promptly.
-"To set up for being a good man is the last thing I would dream of.
-Like other men, I am good as far as I was born and have been made so,
-and neither more nor less. All I can take credit for on my own account
-is that I try to live up to the light that has been given me."</p>
-
-<p>"What can anyone do more?" she said, eagerly. "It is better than
-believing at haphazard and not trying at all&mdash;which is what so many
-good people are content with."</p>
-
-<p>"It seems better to me," he said.</p>
-
-<p>"I will trust you&mdash;I will trust you," she went on, leaning towards
-him as he sat beside her. "You are doing more good in the world than
-I had even thought of until I knew you. It is I who will not be up to
-the mark&mdash;not you. But I will help you as much as you will let me&mdash;I
-am going to give my life to helping you. And at least&mdash;at least&mdash;you
-believe in God," she concluded, yearning for some tangible and definite
-evidence of faith, as she had understood faith, wherewith to comfort
-her conscientious soul. "We are together in <i>that</i>&mdash;the chief thing of
-all&mdash;are we not?"</p>
-
-<p>He was a scrupulously truthful man, and he hesitated for a moment.
-"Yes, my dear," he said, gravely. "I believe in God&mdash;that is to say,
-I <i>feel</i> Him&mdash;I lean my littleness on a greatness that I know is all
-around me and upholding me, which is Something that even God seems a
-word too mean for. I think," he added, "that God, to me, is not what He
-has been taught to seem to you."</p>
-
-<p>"Never mind," she said, in a low voice, responding to the spirit rather
-than the letter of his words. "Whatever you believe you are sure to
-believe thoroughly, and if you believe in God, your God must be a true
-God. I feel it, though I don't know it."</p>
-
-<p>"You feel that things will all come right for us if we have faith in
-our own hearts, and love and trust each other. So do I, Elizabeth."
-There was nobody looking, and he put his arm round her shoulder for a
-moment. "And we may consider our religious controversy closed then? We
-need not trouble ourselves about that any more?"</p>
-
-<p>"I would not say 'closed.' Don't you think we ought to talk of <i>all</i>
-our thoughts&mdash;and especially those that trouble us&mdash;to each other?"</p>
-
-<p>"I do&mdash;I do, indeed. And so we shall. Ours is going to be a real
-marriage. We shall be, not two, but one. Only for the present we may
-put this topic aside, as being no longer an obstruction in the way of
-our arrangements, mayn't we?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she said. And the die was cast.</p>
-
-<p>"Very well, then." He seemed to pull himself together at this point,
-and into his fine frame and his vigorous face a new energy was infused,
-the force of which seemed to be communicated to the air around her, and
-made her heart beat more strongly to the quicker pulse of his. "Very
-well, then. Now tell me, Elizabeth&mdash;without any formality, while you
-and I are here together&mdash;when shall we be married?"</p>
-
-<p>The question had a tone of masterful command about it, for, though
-he knew how spontaneous and straightforward she was, her natural
-delicacy unspoiled by artificial sentiment, he yet prepared himself
-to encounter a certain amount of maidenly reluctance to meet a man's
-reasonable views upon this matter. But she answered him without delay
-or hesitation, impelled by the terrors that beset her and thinking of
-Patty's awful warnings and prophesyings&mdash;"I will leave you to say when."</p>
-
-<p>"Will you really? Do you mean you will <i>really?</i>" His deep-set eyes
-glowed, and his voice had a thrilling tremor in it as he made this
-incredulous inquiry. "Then I say we will be married soon&mdash;<i>very</i>
-soon&mdash;so as not to lose a day more than we can help. Will you agree to
-that?"</p>
-
-<p>She looked a little frightened, but she stood her ground. "If you
-wish," she whispered, all the tone shaken out of her voice.</p>
-
-<p>"If <i>I</i> wish!" A palpitating silence held them for a moment. Then "What
-do you say to <i>to-morrow?</i>" he suggested.</p>
-
-<p>She looked up at him, blushing violently.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, you are thinking how forward I am!" she exclaimed, drawing her
-hand from his.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," he remonstrated, with swift energy, "did I not ask
-you, ever so long ago, not to be conventional? Why should I think
-you forward? How can you be forward&mdash;with <i>me?</i> You are the most
-delicate-minded woman I ever knew, and I think you are showing yourself
-so at this moment&mdash;when anything short of perfect truth and candour
-would have disappointed me. Now, I am quite serious&mdash;will you marry
-me to-morrow? There is no reason why you should not, that I can see.
-Just think of it, calmly. Mrs. Duff-Scott gave her consent a fortnight
-ago&mdash;yes, she gave it privately, to <i>me</i>; and Patty and Nelly, I know,
-would be delighted. As for you and me, what have we&mdash;honestly, what
-<i>have</i> we&mdash;to wait for? Each of us is without any tie to be broken by
-it. Those who look to us will all be better off. I want to get home
-soon, and you have taken me, Elizabeth&mdash;it will be all the same in the
-end&mdash;you know that no probation will prove us unfit or unwilling to
-marry&mdash;the <i>raison d'être</i> of an engagement does not exist for us. And
-I am not young, my love, and life is short and uncertain; while you&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I am not young either," she interrupted. "I shall soon be thirty."</p>
-
-<p>"Shall you? I am glad of it. Well, think of it then&mdash;<i>why</i> should we
-not do it, so exceptionally circumstanced as we are? We can take the
-afternoon train to somewhere&mdash;say to Macedon, to live up there amongst
-the mountains for a little while&mdash;till we decide what next to do, while
-our sisters enjoy themselves with Mrs. Duff-Scott. I can make all
-arrangements to-day, except for wedding cake and bridesmaids&mdash;and we
-would rather be without them. Come here to-morrow morning, my darling,
-as soon as the place is open, in that same pretty gown that you have
-got on now; and we will take a cab and go and get married peaceably,
-without all the town staring at us. I will see Mrs. Duff-Scott and make
-it all right. She shall meet us at the church, with the girls, and the
-major to give you away. Will you? Seriously, <i>will</i> you?"</p>
-
-<p>She was silent for some time, while he leaned forward and watched her
-face. He saw, to his surprise, that she was actually thinking over
-it, and he did not interrupt her. She was, indeed, possessed by the
-idea that this wild project offered safety to them both in face of the
-impending catastrophe. If she could not secure him in the possession of
-his property before he was made aware that he had lost it, she might
-anticipate his possible refusal to let her be his benefactor, and the
-hindrances and difficulties that seemed likely to sunder them after
-having come so near to each other. She lifted her eyes from the carpet
-presently, and looked into his.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you mean that you <i>will?</i>" he exclaimed, the fierceness of his
-delight tempered by a still evident incredulity.</p>
-
-<p>"I will," she said, "if&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Hush&mdash;hush! Don't let there be any ifs, Elizabeth!"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;listen. If Mrs. Duff-Scott will freely consent and approve&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"You may consider <i>that</i> settled, anyhow. I know she will."</p>
-
-<p>"And if you will see Mr. Brion to-night&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Brion? What do we want with Mr. Brion? Settlements?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. But he has something to tell you about me&mdash;about my
-family&mdash;something that you <i>must</i> know before we can be married."</p>
-
-<p>"What is it? Can't <i>you</i> tell me what it is?" He looked surprised and
-uneasy. "Don't frighten me, Elizabeth&mdash;it is nothing to matter, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know. I hope not. I cannot tell you myself. He will explain
-everything if you will see him this evening. He came back to Melbourne
-with us, and he is waiting to see you."</p>
-
-<p>"Tell me this much, at any rate," said Mr. Yelverton, anxiously; "it is
-no just cause or impediment to our being married to-morrow, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. At least, I don't think so. I hope you won't."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>I</i> shan't if <i>you</i> don't, you may depend upon that." He made up
-his mind on the spot that there were some shady pages in her family
-history that a sense of honour prompted her to reveal to him before
-he married her, and congratulated himself that she was not like the
-conventional heroine, who would have been too proud to make him happy
-under such circumstances. "I am not afraid of Mr. Brion, if you are
-not," he repeated. "And we will shunt him for the present, with your
-permission. Somehow I can't bring myself to think of anybody just now
-except you and me." The picture galleries were pretty full by this
-time, and the public was invading the privacy of the German Court
-rather freely. "Come and let us walk about a little," he said, rising
-from the ottoman, "and enjoy the sensation of being alone in a crowd."
-And they sauntered out into the corridor, and down the stairs, and up
-and down the long nave, side by side&mdash;a distinguished and imposing if
-not strictly handsome couple&mdash;passing shoals of people, and bowing now
-and then to an acquaintance; mixing unsuspected with the common herd,
-and hugging the delicious consciousness that in secret they were alone
-and apart from everybody. They talked with more ease and freedom than
-when <i>tête-à-tête</i> on their settee upstairs.</p>
-
-<p>"And so, by this time to-morrow, we shall be man and wife," Mr.
-Yelverton said, musingly. "Doesn't your head swim a little when you
-think of that, Elizabeth? <i>I</i> feel as if I had been drinking, and I
-am terribly afraid of finding myself sober presently. No, I am not
-afraid," he continued, correcting himself. "You have given me your
-promise, and you won't go back on it, as the Yankees say, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>"If either of us goes back," said Elizabeth, unblushingly; "it won't be
-me."</p>
-
-<p>"You seem to think it possible that <i>I</i> may go back? Don't you flatter
-yourself, my young friend. When you come here to-morrow, as you will,
-in that pretty cool gown&mdash;I stipulate for that gown remember&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Even if it is a cold day?&mdash;or pouring with rain?"</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I don't know. Couldn't you put a warm jacket over it? When you
-come here to-morrow, I say, you will find me waiting for you, the
-embodiment of relentless fate, with the wedding ring in my pocket. By
-the way&mdash;that reminds me&mdash;how am I to know the size of your finger? And
-you have not got your engagement ring yet! I'll tell you what we'll do,
-Elizabeth; we'll choose a ring out of the Exhibition, and we'll cheat
-the customs for once. The small things are smuggled out of the place
-all day long, and every day, as you may see by taking stock of the show
-cases occasionally. We'll be smugglers too&mdash;it is in a good cause&mdash;and
-I'll go so far as to use bribery and corruption, if necessary, to get
-possession of that ring to-day. I'll say, 'Let me have it now, or I
-won't have it at all,' and you will see they'll let me have it. I will
-then put it on your finger, and you shall wear it for a little while,
-and then I will borrow it to get the size of your wedding ring from it.
-By-and-bye, you know, when we are at home at Yelverton&mdash;years hence,
-when we are old people&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't talk of our being old people!" she interrupted, quickly.</p>
-
-<p>"No, I won't&mdash;it will be a long time yet, dear. By-and-bye, when we are
-at home at Yelverton, you will look at your ring, and think of this
-day, and of the German picture gallery&mdash;of the dear Exhibition which
-brought us together, and where you gave yourself to me&mdash;long after I
-had given myself to <i>you</i>, Elizabeth! It is most appropriate that your
-engagement ring should be got here. Come along and let us choose it.
-What stones do you like best?"</p>
-
-<p>They spent nearly an hour amongst the jewellery of all nations before
-Mr. Yelverton could decide on what he liked. At last he selected from
-a medley of glittering trinkets a sober ring that did not glitter,
-and yet was rare and valuable&mdash;a broad, plain band of gold set with
-a lovely cameo carved out of an opal stone. "There is some little
-originality about it," he said, as he tried it on her finger, which it
-fitted perfectly, "and, though the intaglio looks so delicate, it will
-stand wear and tear, and last for ever. That is the chief thing. Do you
-like it? Or would you rather have diamonds?"</p>
-
-<p>She had no words to say how much she liked it, and how much she
-preferred it to diamonds. And so, after a few severe struggles, carried
-on in a foreign tongue, he obtained immediate possession of his
-purchase, and she carried it away on her finger.</p>
-
-<p>"Now," said he, looking at his watch, "are you in any great hurry to
-get home?"</p>
-
-<p>She thought of her non-existent trousseau, and the packing of her
-portmanteau for her wedding journey; nevertheless, she intimated her
-willingness to stay a little while longer.</p>
-
-<p>"Very well. We will go and have our lunch then. We'll join the <i>table
-d'hôte</i> of the Exhibition, Elizabeth&mdash;that will give us a foretaste
-of our Continental travels. To-morrow we shall have lunch&mdash;where? At
-Mrs. Duff-Scott's, I suppose&mdash;it would be too hard upon her to leave
-her literally at the church door. Yes, we shall have lunch at Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's, and I suppose the major will insist our drinking our
-healths in champagne, and making us a pretty speech. Never mind, we
-will have our dinner in peace. To-morrow evening we shall be at home,
-Elizabeth, and you and I will dine <i>tête-à-tête</i>, without even a single
-parlourmaid to stand behind our chairs. I don't quite know yet where
-I shall discover those blessed four walls that we shall dine in, nor
-what sort of dinner it will be&mdash;but I will find out before I sleep
-to-night."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>MRS. DUFF-SCOTT HAS TO BE RECKONED WITH.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Prosaic as were their surroundings and their occupation&mdash;sitting at
-a long table, he at the end and she at the corner on his left hand,
-amongst a scattered crowd of hungry folk, in the refreshment room of
-the Exhibition, eating sweetbreads and drinking champagne and soda
-water&mdash;it was like a dream to Elizabeth, this foretaste of Continental
-travels. In the background of her consciousness she had a sense of
-having acted madly, if not absurdly, in committing herself to the
-programme that her audacious lover had drawn out; but the thoughts and
-fancies floating on the surface of her mind were too absorbing for the
-present to leave room for serious reflections. Dreaming as she was,
-she not only enjoyed the homely charm of sitting at meat with him in
-this informal, independent manner, but she enjoyed her lunch as well,
-after her rather exhausting emotions. It is commonly supposed, I know,
-that overpowering happiness takes away the appetite; but experience has
-taught me that it is not invariably the case. The misery of suspense
-and dread can make you sicken at the sight of food, but the bliss of
-rest and security in having got what you want has an invigorating
-effect, physically as well as spiritually, if you are a healthy person.
-So I say that Elizabeth was unsentimentally hungry, and enjoyed her
-sweetbreads. They chatted happily over their meal, like truant children
-playing on the edge of a precipice. Mr. Yelverton had the lion's share
-in the conversation, and talked with distracting persistence of the
-journey to-morrow, and the lighter features of the stupendous scheme
-that they had so abruptly adopted. Elizabeth smiled and blushed and
-listened, venturing occasionally upon a gentle repartee. Presently,
-however, she started a topic on her own account "Tell me," she said,
-"do you object to first cousins marrying?"</p>
-
-<p>"Dear child, I don't object to anything to-day," he replied. "As long
-as I am allowed to marry you, I am quite willing to let other men
-please themselves."</p>
-
-<p>"But tell me seriously&mdash;do you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Must I be serious? Well, let me think. No, I don't know that I
-object&mdash;there is so very little that I object to, you see, in the way
-of things that people want to do&mdash;but I think, perhaps, that, all
-things being equal, a man would not <i>choose</i> to marry so near a blood
-relation."</p>
-
-<p>"You <i>do</i> think it wrong, then?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think it not only wrong but utterly preposterous and indefensible,"
-he said, "that it should be lawful and virtuous for a man to marry his
-first cousin and wicked and indecent to marry his sister-in-law&mdash;or
-his aunt-in-law for the matter of that&mdash;or any other free woman who
-has no connection with him except through other people's marriages.
-If a legal restriction in such matters can ever be necessary or
-justifiable, it should be in the way of preventing the union of people
-of the same blood. Sense and the laws of physiology have something to
-say to <i>that</i>&mdash;they have nothing whatever to say to the relations that
-are of no kin to each other. Them's my sentiments, Miss King, if you
-particularly wish to know them."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth put her knife and fork together on her plate softly. It was a
-gesture of elaborate caution, meant to cover her conscious agitation.
-"Then you would not&mdash;if it were your own case&mdash;marry your cousin?" she
-asked, after a pause, in a very small and gentle voice. He was studying
-the <i>menu</i> on her behalf, and wondering if the strawberries and cream
-would be fresh. Consequently he did not notice how pale she had grown,
-all of a sudden.</p>
-
-<p>"Well," he said, "you see I have no cousin, to begin with. And if I had
-I could not possibly want to marry her, since I am going to marry you
-to-morrow, and a man is only allowed to have one wife at a time. So my
-own case doesn't come in."</p>
-
-<p>"But if <i>I</i> had been your cousin?" she urged, breathlessly, but with
-her eyes on her plate. "Supposing, for the sake of argument, that <i>I</i>
-had been of your blood&mdash;would you still have had me?"</p>
-
-<p>"Ah!" he said, laughing, "that is, indeed, a home question."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Would</i> you?" she persisted.</p>
-
-<p>"Would I?" he echoed, putting a hand under the table to touch hers. "I
-really think I would, Elizabeth. I'm afraid that nothing short of your
-having been my own full sister could have saved you."</p>
-
-<p>After that she regained her colour and brightness, and was able to
-enjoy the early strawberries and cream&mdash;which did happen to be fresh.</p>
-
-<p>They did not hurry themselves over their lunch, and when they left the
-refreshment-room they went and sat down on two chairs by the Brinsmead
-pianos and listened to a little music (in that worst place that ever
-was for hearing it). Then Mr. Yelverton took his <i>fiancée</i> to get a cup
-of Indian tea. Then he looked at his watch gravely.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you know," he said, "I really have an immense deal of business to
-get through before night if we are to be married to-morrow morning."</p>
-
-<p>"There is no reason why we should be married to-morrow morning," was
-her immediate comment "Indeed&mdash;indeed, it is far too soon."</p>
-
-<p>"It may be soon, Elizabeth, but I deny that it is too soon, reluctant
-as I am to contradict you. And, whether or no, the date is fixed,
-<i>irrevocably</i>. We have only to consider"&mdash;he broke off, and consulted
-his watch again, thinking of railway and telegraph arrangements. "Am I
-obliged to see Mr. Brion to-day?" he asked, abruptly. "Can't I put him
-off till another time? Because, you know, he may say just whatever he
-likes, and it won't make the smallest particle of difference."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," she replied earnestly, "you <i>must</i> see him. I can't marry
-you till he has told you everything. I wish I could!" she added,
-impulsively.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, if I must I must&mdash;though I know it doesn't matter the least bit.
-Will he keep me long, do you suppose?"</p>
-
-<p>"I think, very likely, he will."</p>
-
-<p>"Then, my darling, we must go. Give me your ring&mdash;you shall have it
-back to-night. Go and pack your portmanteau this afternoon, so that you
-have a little spare time for Mrs. Duff-Scott. She will be sure to want
-you in the evening. You need not take much, you know&mdash;just enough for a
-week or two. She will be only too delighted to look after your clothes
-while you are away, and"&mdash;with a smile&mdash;"we'll buy the trousseau in
-Paris on our way home. I am credibly informed that Paris is the proper
-place to go to for the trousseau of a lady of quality."</p>
-
-<p>"Trousseaus are nonsense," said Elizabeth, who perfectly understood
-his motives for this proposition, "in these days of rapidly changing
-fashions, unless the bride cannot trust her husband to give her enough
-pocket money."</p>
-
-<p>"Precisely. That is just what I think. And I don't want to be deprived
-of the pleasure of dressing you. But for a week or two, Elizabeth, we
-are going out of the world just as far as we can get, where you won't
-want much dressing. Take only what is necessary for comfort, dear,
-enough for a fortnight&mdash;or say three weeks. That will do. And tell me
-where I shall find Mr. Brion."</p>
-
-<p>They were passing out of the Exhibition building&mdash;passing that noble
-group of listening hounds and huntsman that stood between the front
-entrance and the gate&mdash;and Elizabeth was wondering how she should
-find Mr. Brion at once and make sure of that evening interview, when
-she caught sight of the old lawyer himself coming into the flowery
-enclosure from the street. "Why, there he is!" she exclaimed. "And my
-sisters are with him."</p>
-
-<p>"We are taking him out for an airing," exclaimed Eleanor, who was
-glorious in her Cup-day costume, and evidently in an effervescence of
-good spirits, when she recognised the engaged pair. "Mr. Paul was too
-busy to attend to him, and he had nobody but us, poor man! So we are
-going to show him round. Would you believe that he has never seen the
-Exhibition, Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>They had scarcely exchanged greetings with each other when, out of an
-open carriage at the gate, stepped Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to that
-extensive kettle-drum which was held in the Exhibition at this hour.
-When she saw her girls, their festive raiment, and their cavaliers, the
-fairy godmother's face was a study.</p>
-
-<p>"What!" she exclaimed, with heart-rending reproach, "you are back in
-Melbourne! You are walking about with&mdash;with your friends"&mdash;hooking on
-her eye-glass the better to wither poor Mr. Brion, who wasted upon her
-a bow that would have done credit to Lord Chesterfield&mdash;"and <i>I</i> am not
-told!"</p>
-
-<p>Patty came forward, radiant with suppressed excitement. "She must be
-told," exclaimed the girl, breathlessly. "Elizabeth, we are all here
-now. And it is Mrs. Duff-Scott's <i>right</i> to know what we know. And Mr.
-Yelverton's too."</p>
-
-<p>"You may tell them now," said Elizabeth, who was as white as the muslin
-round her chin. "Take them all to Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, and explain
-everything, and get it over&mdash;while I go home."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>MR. YELVERTON STATES HIS INTENTIONS.</h4>
-
-
-<p>"I don't think you know Mr. Brion," said Mr. Yelverton, first lifting
-his hat and shaking hands with Mrs. Duff-Scott, and then, with an airy
-and audacious cheerfulness, introducing the old man (whose name and
-association with her <i>protégées</i> she immediately recalled to mind);
-"Mr. Brion&mdash;Mrs. Duff-Scott."</p>
-
-<p>The fairy godmother bowed frigidly, nearly shutting her eyes as she
-did so, and for a moment the little group kept an embarrassed silence,
-while a sort of electric current of intelligence passed between Patty
-and her new-found cousin. Mr. Yelverton was, as we say, not the same
-man that he had been a few hours before. Quiet in his manner, as he
-ever was, there was yet an aspect of glowing energy about him, an air
-of being at high pressure, that did not escape the immediate notice of
-the girl's vigilant and sympathetic eyes. I have described him very
-badly if I have not made the reader understand the virile breadth and
-strength of his emotional nature, and how it would be affected by his
-present situation. The hot blue blood and superfine culture of that
-ardent young aristocrat who became his father at such an early age,
-and the wholesome physical and moral solidity of the farmer's fair and
-rustic daughter who was his mother, were blended together in him; with
-the result that he was a man at all points, having all the strongest
-human instincts alive and active in him. He was not the orthodox
-philanthropist, the half-feminine, half-neuter specialist with a hobby,
-the foot-rule reformer, the prig with a mission to set the world
-right; his benevolence was simply the natural expression of a sense of
-sympathy and brotherhood between him and his fellows, and the spirit
-which produced that was not limited in any direction. From the same
-source came a passionately quick and keen apprehension of the nature of
-the closest bond of all, not given to the selfish and narrow-hearted.
-Amongst his abstract brothers and sisters he had been looking always
-for his own concrete mate, and having found her and secured her, he was
-as a king newly anointed, whose crown had just been set upon his head.</p>
-
-<p>"Will you come?" said Patty to him, trying not to look too conscious
-of the change she saw in him. "It is time to have done with all our
-secrets now."</p>
-
-<p>"I agree with you," he replied. "And I will come with pleasure." Mrs.
-Duff-Scott was accordingly made to understand, with some difficulty,
-that the mystery which puzzled her had a deep significance, and that
-she was desired to take steps at once whereby she might be made
-acquainted with it. Much bewildered, but without relaxing her offended
-air&mdash;for she conceived that no explanation would make any difference in
-the central fact that Mr. Yelverton and Mr. Brion had taken precedence
-of her in the confidence of her own adopted daughters&mdash;she returned to
-her carriage, all the little party following meekly at her heels. The
-girls were put in first&mdash;even Elizabeth, who, insisting upon detaching
-herself from the assembling council, had to submit to be conveyed to
-Myrtle Street; and the two men, lifting their hats to the departing
-vehicle, were left on the footpath together. The lawyer was very grave,
-and slightly nervous and embarrassed. To his companion he had all the
-air of a man with a necessary but disagreeable duty to perform.</p>
-
-<p>"What is all this about?" Mr. Yelverton demanded with a little anxious
-irritation in his tone. "Nothing of any great consequence, is it?"</p>
-
-<p>"I&mdash;I'm afraid you will think it rather a serious matter," the lawyer
-replied, with hesitation. "Still," he added, earnestly, "if you
-are their friend, as I believe you are&mdash;knowing that they have no
-responsibility in the matter&mdash;you will not let it make any difference
-in your feeling for them&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"There is not the <i>faintest</i> danger of that," Mr. Yelverton promptly
-and haughtily interposed.</p>
-
-<p>"I am sure of it&mdash;I am sure of it. Well, you shall know all in half
-an hour. If you will kindly find Major Duff-Scott&mdash;he has constituted
-himself their guardian, in a way, and ought to be present&mdash;I will just
-run round to my lodgings in Myrtle Street."</p>
-
-<p>"Are you going to fetch your son?" asked Mr. Yelverton, quickly. "Don't
-you think that, under the circumstances&mdash;supposing matters have to be
-talked of that will be painful to the Miss Kings&mdash;the fewer present the
-better?"</p>
-
-<p>"Certainly. I am not going to fetch my son, who, by the way, already
-knows all there is to know, but some documents relating to the affair,
-which he keeps in his strong-box for safety. Major Duff-Scott is the
-only person whose presence we require, since&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Since what?"</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Brion was going to say, "Since your solicitors are not at hand,"
-but checked himself. "Never mind," he said, "never mind. I cannot say
-any more now."</p>
-
-<p>"All right. I'll go and find the major. Thank Heaven, he's no gossip,
-and I think he is too real a friend of the Miss Kings to care what he
-hears any more than I do." But Mr. Yelverton got anxious about this
-point after it occurred to him, and went off thoughtfully to the club,
-congratulating himself that, thanks to his sweetheart's reasonableness,
-he was in a position which gave him the privilege of protecting them
-should the issue of this mysterious business leave them in need of
-protection.</p>
-
-<p>At the club he found the major, talking desultory politics with other
-ex-guardians of the State now shelved in luxurious irresponsibility
-with him; and the little man was quite ready to obey his friend's
-summons to attend the family council.</p>
-
-<p>"The Miss Kings are back," said Mr. Yelverton, "and old Brion, the
-lawyer, is with them, and there are some important matters to be talked
-over this afternoon, and you must come and hear."</p>
-
-<p>The major said that he was at the Miss Kings' service, and got his
-hat. He asked no questions as he passed through the lobby and down
-the steps to Mr. Yelverton's cab, which waited in the street. In his
-own mind he concluded that Elizabeth's engagement had "come off," and
-this legal consultation had some more or less direct reference to
-settlements, and the relations of the bride-elect's sisters to her
-new lot in life. What chiefly occupied his thoughts was the fear that
-he was going to be asked to give up Patty and Eleanor, and all the
-way from the club to his house he was wondering how far his and his
-wife's rights in them extended, and how far his energetic better half
-might be relied upon to defend and maintain them. At the house they
-found that Mr. Brion had already arrived, and that Mrs. Duff-Scott was
-assembling her party in the library, as being an appropriate place for
-the discussion of business in which men were so largely concerned. It
-was a spacious, pleasant room; the books ranging all round from the
-floor to about a third of the way up the wall, like a big dado; the top
-shelf supporting bric-à-brac of a stately and substantial order, and
-the deep red walls, which had a Pompeian frieze that was one of the
-artistic features of the house, bearing those pictures in oils which
-were the major's special pride as a connoisseur and man of family, and
-which held their permanent place of honour irrespective of the waves of
-fashion that ebbed and flowed around them. There was a Turkey carpet
-on the polished floor, and soft, thick oriental stuffs on the chairs
-and sofas and in the drapery of the wide bow-window&mdash;stuffs of dim but
-richly-coloured silk and wool, with tints of gold thread where the
-light fell. There was a many-drawered and amply-furnished writing table
-in that bow-window, the most comfortable and handy elbow tables by the
-hearth, and another and substantial one for general use in the centre
-of the floor. And altogether it was a pleasant place both to use and to
-look at, and was particularly pleasant in its shadowed coolness this
-summer afternoon. At the centre table sat the lady of the house, with
-an air of reproachful patience, talking surface talk with the girls
-about their country trip. Eleanor stood near her, looking very charming
-in her pale blue gown, with her flushed cheeks, and brightened eyes.
-Patty supported Mr. Brion, who was not quite at home in this strange
-atmosphere, and she watched the door with a face of radiant excitement.</p>
-
-<p>"Where is Elizabeth?" asked the major, having hospitably shaken hands
-with the lawyer, whom he had never seen before.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," said Mr. Yelverton, using the name familiarly, as if he
-had never called her by any other, "is not coming."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, indeed. Well, I suppose we are to go on without her, eh?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, I suppose so." They were all seating themselves at the table,
-and as he took a chair by Patty's side he looked round and caught a
-significant glance passing between the major and his wife. "It is not
-of <i>my</i> convening, this meeting," he explained; "whatever business is
-on hand, I know nothing of it at present."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>Don't</i> you?" cried his hostess, opening her eyes.</p>
-
-<p>The major smiled; he, too, was thrown off the scent and puzzled, but
-did not show it as she did.</p>
-
-<p>"No," said Mr. Brion, clearing his throat and putting his hand into his
-breast pocket to take out his papers, "what Mr. Yelverton says is true.
-He knows nothing of it at present. I am very sorry, for his sake, that
-it is so. I may say I am very sorry for everybody's sake, for it is a
-very painful thing to&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>Here Mr. Yelverton rose to his feet abruptly, nipping the exordium in
-the bud. "Allow me one moment," he said with some peremptoriness. "I
-don't know what Mr. Brion means by saying he is sorry for <i>my</i> sake. I
-don't know whether he alludes to a&mdash;a special attachment on my part,
-but I cannot conceive how any revelation he may make can affect me. As
-far as I am concerned&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"My dear sir," interrupted the lawyer in his turn, "if you will wait
-until I have made my explanation, you will understand what I mean."</p>
-
-<p>"Sit down," said Patty, putting a hand on his arm. "You have no idea
-what he is going to say. Sit down and listen."</p>
-
-<p>"I do not want to listen, dear," he said, giving her a quick look. "It
-cannot be anything painful to me unless it is painful to you, and if it
-is painful to you I would rather not hear it."</p>
-
-<p>The major was watching them all, and ruminating on the situation.
-"Wait a bit, Yelverton," he said in his soft voice. "If it's their
-doing there's some good reason for it. Just hear what it is that Mr.
-Brion has to say. I see he has got some legal papers. We must pay
-attention to legal papers, you know."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, for goodness sake, go on!" cried Mrs. Duff-Scott, whose nerves
-were chafed by this delay. "If anything is the matter, let us know the
-worst at once."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well. Mr. Brion shall go on. But before he does so," said Mr.
-Yelverton, still standing, leaning on the table, and looking round
-on the little group with glowing eyes, "I will ask leave to make a
-statement. I am so happy&mdash;Mrs. Duff-Scott would have known it in an
-hour or two&mdash;I am so happy as to be Miss King's promised husband, and I
-hope to be her husband actually by this time to-morrow." Patty gave a
-little hysterical cry, and snatched at her handkerchief, in which her
-face was immediately buried. Mrs. Duff-Scott leaned back in her chair
-with a stoical composure, as if inured to thunderbolts, and waited for
-what would happen next. "I know it is very short notice," he went on,
-looking at the elder lady with a half-tender, half-defiant smile, "but
-my available time here is limited, and Elizabeth and I did not begin to
-care for each other yesterday. I persuaded her this morning to consent
-to an early and quiet marriage, for various reasons that I do not need
-to enter into now; and she has given her consent&mdash;provided only that
-Mrs. Duff-Scott has no objection."</p>
-
-<p>"But I have the greatest objection," said that lady, emphatically.
-"Not to your marrying Elizabeth&mdash;you know I am quite agreeable to
-<i>that</i>&mdash;but to your doing it in such an unreasonable way. To-morrow!
-you must be joking. It is preposterous, on the face of it."</p>
-
-<p>"You are thinking of clothes, of course."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I am not thinking of clothes. I am thinking of what people will
-say. You can have no idea of the extraordinary tales that will get
-about. I must consider Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>I</i> consider Elizabeth," he said. "And before Mr. Brion makes his
-communication, whatever it may be, I should like to have it settled and
-understood that the arrangements she and I have made will be permitted
-to stand." He paused, and stood looking at Mrs. Duff-Scott, with an air
-that impressed her with the hopelessness of attempting to oppose such a
-man as that.</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know what to say," she said. "We will talk it over presently."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I want it settled now. Elizabeth will do whatever you desire, but
-I want her to please me." The major chuckled, and, hearing him, Mr.
-Yelverton laughed for a moment, and then bent his emphatic eyes upon
-the old man sitting silent before his unopened papers. "I want you and
-everybody to understand that whatever is to be said concerns my wife
-and sisters, Mr. Brion."</p>
-
-<p>"Very good, sir," said Mr. Brion. "I am delighted to hear it. At the
-same time I would suggest that it might be wiser not to hurry things
-quite so much."</p>
-
-<p>At this point Patty, who had been laughing and crying in her
-handkerchief, and clinging to Eleanor, who had come round the table
-and was hanging over her, suddenly broke into the discussion. "Oh, let
-them, let them, let them!" she exclaimed eagerly, to the bewilderment
-of the uninitiated, who were quite sure that some social disability
-was about to be attached to the bride elect, from which her lover
-was striving to rescue her. "Do let them be married to-morrow, dear
-Mrs. Duff-Scott, if Mr. Yelverton wishes it. Elizabeth knows why she
-consents&mdash;I know, too&mdash;so does Nelly. Give them your permission now, as
-he says, before Mr. Brion goes on&mdash;how can anyone say anything against
-it if <i>you</i> approve? Let it be all settled now&mdash;absolutely settled&mdash;so
-that no one can undo it afterwards." She turned and looked at the
-major with such a peculiar light and earnestness in her face that
-the little man, utterly adrift himself, determined at once to anchor
-himself to her. "Look here," he said, in his gentle way, but with no
-sign of indecision, "I am the head of the house, and if anybody has any
-authority over Elizabeth here, it is I. Forgive me, my dear"&mdash;to his
-wife at the other end of the table&mdash;"if I seem to take too much upon
-myself, but it appears to me that I ought to act in this emergency. Mr.
-Yelverton, we have every reason to trust your motives and conduct, and
-Elizabeth's also; and she is her own mistress in every way. So you may
-tell her from my wife and me that we hope she will do whatever seems
-right to herself, and that what makes her happy will make us so."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott got up from her chair proudly, as if to leave the room
-where this outrage had been put upon her; but she sat down again and
-wept a few tears instead. At the unwonted sight of which Patty flew
-round to her and took her majestic head into her young arms. "Ah! how
-ungrateful we <i>seem</i> to hurt and vex you," she murmured, in the tone of
-a mother talking to a suffering child, "but you don't know how it is
-all going to turn out. If you give them your consent now, you will see
-how glad you will be in a little while."</p>
-
-<p>"It doesn't seem that anybody cares much whether I give my consent or
-not," said Mrs. Duff-Scott. But she wiped away her tears, kissed her
-consoler, and made an effort to be cheerful and business-like. "There,
-there&mdash;we have wasted enough time," she said, brusquely. "Go on, Mr.
-Brion, or we shall have dinner time here before we begin."</p>
-
-<p>"Shall I go on?" asked Mr. Brion, looking round.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton, who was very grave, nodded.</p>
-
-<p>And Mr. Brion went on.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>HER LORD AND MASTER.</h4>
-
-
-<p>It was not much after three o'clock when Elizabeth walked slowly
-upstairs to her room, bearing single-handed her own responsibilities.
-Now that she was alone and undisturbed, she began to realise how
-great they were. She sat down on her little bed to think what she was
-doing&mdash;to look back upon the past, and forward into the future&mdash;until
-her head spun round. When she could think no more, she slid down
-upon her knees and prayed a fervent, wordless prayer&mdash;rested her
-over-weighted soul on the pillars of the universe, which bore up the
-strange little world in which she was but an infinitesimal atom&mdash;and,
-feeling that there was a strong foundation somewhere, and perhaps
-even feeling dimly that she had touched her point of contact with it
-only just now when she touched her true love's lips, she felt less
-intolerably burdened with the charge of herself. She rose up with her
-nerves steadied and her brain composed. What was done was done, and
-it had been done for the best. "We can but do our best, and leave
-it," he had said; and, thinking of his words, a sense of his robust
-faith, which she did not call faith, permeated her unsettled mind
-and comforted her with the feeling that she would have support and
-strength in him. She could not repent. She could not wish anything to
-be altered. She loved him and needed him; and he loved and needed her,
-and had a right to her. Yes, he had a right to her, independently of
-that fortune which was hers and which she dared not take away from him
-while he was using it so much better than she could, he was her mate
-and lord, and she belonged to him. What reason was there against her
-marrying him? Only one; Mrs. Duff-Scott's reason, which even she had
-abandoned, apparently&mdash;one obligation of duty, which conscience, left
-to its own delicate sense of good and evil, refused to insist upon as
-such. And what reason was there against marrying him to-morrow, if he
-desired it, and by doing which, while they would be made so happy, no
-one else could be made unhappy? She was unlearned in the social views
-and customs concerning such matters, and said in her simple heart there
-was no reason whatever&mdash;none, none.</p>
-
-<p>So she set to work on her preparations, her eyes shining and her hands
-trembling with the overwhelming bliss of her anticipations, which
-awed and dazzled her; beset at intervals with chill misgivings, and
-thrills of panic, dread and fear, as to what effect upon her blessed
-fortune that afternoon's work at Mrs. Duff-Scott's house might have.
-She took off her pretty gown, which he had sanctified by his approval,
-and laid it tenderly on the bed; put on a loose wrapper, pulled out
-drawers and opened cupboards, and proceeded to pack her portmanteau
-for that wedding journey which she still could not believe was to be
-taken to-morrow. If such a sudden demand upon the resources of her
-wardrobe had been made a few months ago, she would have been greatly
-perplexed to meet it. Now she had, not only a commodious portmanteau
-(procured for their country visit), but drawers full of fine linen,
-piles of handkerchiefs, boxes of gloves, everything that she could need
-for an indefinite sojourn either in the world or out of it. When Mrs.
-Duff-Scott had gained their consent to be allowed to become a mother
-to them, she had lost no time in fitting them all out as became her
-adopted daughters, in defiance of any scruples or protests that they
-might make. Elizabeth's trousseau, it seemed to her, as she filled one
-side of the portmanteau with dainty underclothes delicately stitched
-and embroidered and frilled with lace, had been already provided for
-her, and while her heart went out in gratitude to her munificent
-friend, she could not help feeling that one of the dearest privileges
-of being rich was to have the power to acknowledge that munificence
-suitably. Only that very day, for the first time, she had seen an
-indication that tended to confirm her and Patty's instinctive sense
-that they had made a mistake in permitting themselves to accept so
-many favours. Eleanor, feeling herself already rich and the potential
-possessor of unlimited fine clothes, had put on her Cup dress and
-bonnet to walk out with Mr. Brion; and Mrs. Duff-Scott, when she
-met her in the Exhibition grounds, and while thrown for a moment off
-her usual even balance, had looked at the girl with a disapproving
-eye, which plainly accused her of extravagance&mdash;in other words, of
-wasting her (Mrs. Duff-Scott's) substance in riotous living. That
-little incident, so slight and momentary as it was, would have been
-as terrible a blow to them as was Paul Brion's refusal of their
-invitation to tea, had it not been that they were no longer poor, but
-in a position to discharge their obligations. She thought how Mrs.
-Duff-Scott would come to Yelverton by-and-bye, and to the London house,
-and how she (Elizabeth) would lavish the best of everything upon her.
-It was a delightful thought.</p>
-
-<p>While she was building air castles, she sorted and folded her clothes
-methodically, and with motherly care turned over those belonging to
-her sisters, to see that they were well provided for and in need
-of nothing for the time of her brief absence. While investigating
-Patty's wardrobe, she thought much of her dear companion and that
-next-door neighbour, still in their unreconciled trouble, and still
-so far from the safe haven to which she was drawing nigh; and she was
-not too selfish in her own happiness to be unable to concern herself
-anxiously about theirs. Well, even this was to be set right now. She
-and Kingscote, with their mutually augmented wisdom and power, would
-be able to settle that matter, one way or another, when they returned
-from their wedding journey. Kingscote, who was never daunted by any
-difficulties, would find a way to solve this one, and to do what
-was best for Patty. Then it occurred to her that if Patty and Paul
-were married, Paul might want to keep his wife in Australia, and the
-sisters, who had never been away from each other, might be doomed
-to live apart. But she persuaded herself that this also would be
-prevented, and that Paul, stiff-necked as he was, would not let Patty
-be unhappy, as she certainly would be if separated by the width of the
-world from herself&mdash;not if Kingscote were at hand, to point it out
-to him in his authoritative and convincing manner. As for Nelly, she
-was to comfort Mrs. Duff-Scott for awhile, and then she was to come,
-bringing the fairy godmother with her, to Yelverton, to live under her
-brother-cousin's protection until she, too, was married&mdash;to someone
-better, far better, than Mr. Westmoreland. Perhaps the Duff-Scotts
-themselves would be tempted (by the charms of West-End and Whitechapel
-society, respectively) to settle in England too. In which case there
-would be nothing left to wish for.</p>
-
-<p>At five o'clock she had finished her packing, put on her dress&mdash;not
-the wedding dress, which was laid smoothly on a cupboard shelf&mdash;and
-sat down by the sitting-room window to wait for her sisters, or for
-somebody, to come to her. This half-hour of unoccupied suspense was
-a very trying time; all her tremulous elation died down, all her
-blissful anticipations became overcast with chill forebodings, as
-a sunny sky with creeping clouds, while she bent strained eyes and
-ears upon the street, watching for the news that did not come. In
-uncontrollable excitement and restlessness, she abandoned her post
-towards six o'clock, and set herself to prepare tea in the expectation
-of her sisters' return. She spread the cloth and set out the cups and
-saucers, the bread and butter, the modest tin of sardines. As the warm
-day was manifestly about to close with a keen south wind, she thought
-she would light a fire in the sitting-room and make some toast. It
-was better to have something to do to distract her from her fierce
-anxieties, and, moreover, she wished the little home nest to be as cosy
-and comfortable as possible to-night, which might be the last night
-that the sisters would be there together&mdash;the closing scene of their
-independent life. So she turned up her cuffs, put on gloves and apron,
-and fetched wood and coals from their small store in the back-yard;
-and then she laid and lit a fire, blew it into as cheerful a blaze as
-the unsatisfactory nature of city fuel and a city grate permitted,
-and, having shaken down her neat dress and washed her hands, proceeded
-to make the toast. She was at this work, kneeling on the hearthrug,
-and staring intently into the fire over a newly-cut slice of bread
-that she had just put upon the fork, when she heard a sound that made
-her heart stand still. It was the sound of a cab rattling into the
-street and bumping against the kerb at her own gate. Springing to her
-feet and listening breathlessly, she heard the gate open to a quiet,
-strong hand that belonged to neither of her sisters, and a solid tread
-on the flags that paved a footpath through the little garden to the
-door. At the door a quick rapping, at once light and powerful, brought
-the servant from her underground kitchen, and a sonorous, low voice
-spoke in the hall and echoed up the stairs&mdash;the well-known voice of
-Kingscote Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton, unaccompanied by anybody
-else&mdash;paying his first visit to this virgin retreat, where, as he knew
-very well, his sweetheart at this moment was alone, and where, as he
-also knew, the unchaperoned male had no business to be. Evidently his
-presence announced a crisis that transcended all the circumstances and
-conventionalities of every-day life.</p>
-
-<p>He walked upstairs to her sitting-room, and rapped at the door. She
-could not tell him to come in, for her heart seemed to be beating in
-her throat, and she felt too suffocated to speak; she stumbled across
-to the door, and, opening it, looked at him dumbly, with a face as
-white as the white frills of her gown. He, for his part, neither spoke
-to her nor kissed her; his whole aspect indicated strong emotion,
-but he was so portentously grave, and almost stern, that her heart,
-which had fluttered so wildly at the sight of him, collapsed and sank.
-Taking her hand gently, he shut the door, led her across the room to
-the hearthrug, and stood, her embodied fate, before her. She was so
-overwhelmed with fear of what he might be going to say that she turned
-and hid her face in her hands against the edge of the mantelpiece, that
-she might brace herself to bear it without showing him how stricken she
-was.</p>
-
-<p>"Well," he said, after a little pause, "I have been having a great
-surprise, Elizabeth. I little thought what you were letting me in for
-when you arranged that interview with Mr. Brion. I never was so utterly
-out of my reckoning as I have found myself to-day."</p>
-
-<p>She did not speak, but waited in breathless anguish for the sentence
-that she foreboded was to be passed upon her&mdash;condemning her to keep
-that miserable money in exchange for him.</p>
-
-<p>"I know all about the great discovery now," he went on. "I have read
-all the papers. I can testify that they are perfectly genuine. I have
-seen the marriage register that that one was copied from&mdash;I can verify
-all those dates, and names, and places&mdash;there is not a flaw anywhere
-in Mr. Brion's case. You are really my cousins, and you&mdash;<i>you</i>,
-Elizabeth&mdash;are the head of the family now. There was no entail&mdash;it was
-cut off before my uncle Patrick's time, and he died before he made a
-will: so everything is yours." After a pause, he added, brokenly, "I
-wish you joy, my dear. I should be a hypocrite if I said I was glad,
-but&mdash;but I wish you joy all the same."</p>
-
-<p>She gave a short, dry sob, keeping her face hidden; evidently, even to
-him, she was not having much joy in her good fortune just now. He moved
-closer to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.</p>
-
-<p>"I have come now to fetch you," he said, in a low, grave tone, that was
-still unsteady. "Mrs. Duff-Scott wanted to come herself, but I asked
-her to let me come alone, because I have something to say to you that
-is only between ourselves."</p>
-
-<p>Then her nervous terrors found voice. "Oh, tell me what it is!" she
-cried, trembling like a leaf. "Don't keep me in suspense. If you have
-anything cruel to say, say it quickly."</p>
-
-<p>"Anything cruel?" he repeated. "I don't think you are really afraid
-of that&mdash;from me. No, I haven't anything cruel to say&mdash;only a simple
-question to ask&mdash;which you will have to answer me honestly, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>She waited in silence, and he went on. "Didn't you tell
-me"&mdash;emphasising each word heavily&mdash;"that you had been induced by
-something outside yourself to decide in my favour?"</p>
-
-<p>"Not altogether induced," she protested; "helped perhaps."</p>
-
-<p>"Helped, then&mdash;influenced&mdash;by outside considerations?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes," she assented, with heroic truthfulness.</p>
-
-<p>"You were alluding to this discovery, of course?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"And you have consented to marry me in order that I may not be deprived
-of my property?" She did not speak immediately, from purely physical
-incapacity, and he went on with a hardening voice. "I will not be
-married on those grounds, Elizabeth. You must have <i>known</i> that I would
-not."</p>
-
-<p>For a moment she stood with her face hidden, struggling with a rising
-tide of tears that, when these terrible words were spoken, would not
-be kept in check; then she lifted her head, and flung out her arms,
-and clasped him round his great shoulders. (It is not, I own, what a
-heroine should have done, whose duty was to carry a difficulty of this
-sort through half a volume at least, but I am nevertheless convinced
-that my real Elizabeth did it, though I was not there to see&mdash;standing,
-as she did, within a few inches of her lover, and with nothing to
-prevent their coming to a reasonable understanding.) "Oh," she cried,
-between her long-drawn sobs, "<i>don't</i> cast me off because of that
-horrid money! I could not bear it <i>now!</i>"</p>
-
-<p>"What!" he responded, stooping over her and holding her to his breast,
-speaking in a voice as shaken as her own, "is it really so? Is it for
-love of me only, my darling, my darling?"&mdash;pouring his long pent-up
-passion over her with a force that seemed to carry her off her feet and
-make the room spin round. "Would you have me if there was no property
-in the question, simply because you feel, as I do, that we could not do
-without each other? Then we will be married to-morrow, Elizabeth, and
-all the world shall be welcome to brand me a schemer and fortune-hunter
-if it likes."</p>
-
-<p>She got her breath in a few seconds, and recovered sufficient
-consciousness to grasp the vanishing tail of those last words.</p>
-
-<p>"A fortune-hunter! Oh, how <i>preposterous!</i> A fortune-hunter!"</p>
-
-<p>"That is what I shall seem," he insisted, with a smile, "to that worthy
-public for whose opinion some people care so much."</p>
-
-<p>"But you don't care?"</p>
-
-<p>"No; I don't care."</p>
-
-<p>She considered a moment, with her tall head at rest on his tall
-shoulder; then new lights dawned on her. "But I must care for you," she
-said, straightening herself. "I must not allow anything so unjust&mdash;so
-outrageous&mdash;to be said of you&mdash;of <i>you</i>, and through my fault. Look
-here"&mdash;very seriously&mdash;"let us put off our marriage for a while&mdash;for
-just so long as may enable me to show the world, as I very easily can,
-that it is <i>I</i> who am seeking <i>you</i>&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Like a queen selecting her prince consort?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, like Esther&mdash;seeking favour of her king. I would not be too proud
-to run after you&mdash;" She broke off, with a hysterical laugh, as she
-realised the nature of her proposal.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, my darling, that would be very sweet," said he, drowning her
-once more in ineffable caresses, "but to be married to-morrow will
-be sweeter still. No, we won't wait&mdash;I <i>can't</i>&mdash;unless there is an
-absolute necessity for it. That game would certainly not be worth the
-candle. What is the world to me if I have got you? I said we would be
-married to-morrow; I told Mrs. Duff-Scott so, and got her consent&mdash;not
-without some difficulty, I must own&mdash;before Mr. Brion opened his
-budget. I would not hear what he had to say&mdash;little thinking what it
-was I was going to hear!&mdash;until I had announced my intentions and the
-date of our wedding. Think of my cheek! Conceive of such unparalleled
-impudence! But now that everything is square between us, that date
-shall be kept&mdash;it shall be faithfully kept. Come, then, I must take you
-away. Have you done your packing? Mrs. Duff-Scott says we are to bring
-that portmanteau with us, that she may see for herself if you have
-furnished it properly. And you are not to come back here&mdash;you are not
-to come to me to the Exhibition to-morrow. She was terribly scandalised
-at that item in our programme."</p>
-
-<p>"In yours," said Elizabeth, ungenerously.</p>
-
-<p>"In mine. I accept it cheerfully. So she is going to take charge of you
-from this hour until you are Mrs. Yelverton, and in my sole care for
-the rest of your life&mdash;or mine. Poor woman, she is greatly cut up by
-the loss of that grand wedding that she would have had if we had let
-her."</p>
-
-<p>"I am sure she must be cut up," said Elizabeth, whose face was suffused
-with blushes, and whose eyes looked troubled. "She must be shocked and
-vexed at such&mdash;such precipitancy. It really does not seem decorous,"
-she confessed, with tardy scrupulousness; "do you think it does?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, yes, I think it is quite decorous. It may not be conventional, but
-that is quite another thing."</p>
-
-<p>"It is like a clandestine marriage&mdash;almost like an elopement. It <i>must</i>
-vex her to see me acting so&mdash;so&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"So what? No, I don't think it does. She <i>was</i> a little vexed at first,
-but she has got over it. In her heart of hearts I believe she would be
-disappointed now if we didn't do it. She likes a little bit of innocent
-unconventionalism as well as anybody, and the romance of the whole
-thing has taken hold of her. Besides," added Mr. Yelverton, "you know
-she intended us for each other, sooner or later."</p>
-
-<p>"You have said as much before, but <i>I</i> don't know anything about it,"
-laughed Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, she told me I might have you&mdash;weeks ago."</p>
-
-<p>"She was very generous."</p>
-
-<p>"She was. She was more generous than she knew. Well"&mdash;catching himself
-up suddenly&mdash;"we really must go to her now, Elizabeth. I told her I
-would only come in here, where I have no business to be to-day, for
-half a minute, and I have stayed more than half an hour. It is nearly
-dinner time, and I have a great deal to do this evening. I have more to
-do even than I bargained for."</p>
-
-<p>"Why more?" she asked, apprehensively.</p>
-
-<p>"I am going to have some papers prepared by Mr. Brion and the major's
-lawyers, which you will have to sign before you surrender your
-independence to-morrow."</p>
-
-<p>"I won't sign anything," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, won't you! We'll see about that."</p>
-
-<p>"I know what it means. You will make me sign away your freedom to use
-that money as your own&mdash;and I won't do it."</p>
-
-<p>"We'll see," he repeated, smiling with an air which said plainly that
-if she thought herself a free agent she was very much mistaken.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING.</h4>
-
-
-<p>"Now, where is that portmanteau?"</p>
-
-<p>"It is in my room."</p>
-
-<p>"Strapped up?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"Let me take it down to the cab. Have you anything else to do?"</p>
-
-<p>"Only to change my dress."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't be long about it; it is seven o'clock. I will wait for you
-downstairs."</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton walked into the passage, possessed himself of the
-portmanteau, and descended the stairs to the little hall below. The
-wide-eyed maid-of-all-work hastened to offer her services. She had
-never volunteered to carry luggage for the Miss Kings, but she seemed
-horrified at the sight of this stalwart gentleman making a porter of
-himself. "Allow me, sir," she said, sweetly, with her most engaging
-smile.</p>
-
-<p>"Thank you, my girl; I think I am better able to carry it than you
-are," he said, pleasantly. But he scrutinised her face with his keen
-eyes for a moment, and then took a sovereign from his pocket and
-slipped it into her hand. "Go and see if you can help Miss King," he
-said. "And ask her if there is anything you can do for her while she is
-away from home."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, sir"&mdash;simpering and blushing&mdash;"I'm sure&mdash;<i>anything</i>&mdash;" and
-she rushed upstairs and offered her services to Elizabeth in such
-acceptable fashion that the bride-elect was touched almost to tears, as
-by the discovery of a new friend. It seemed to her that she had never
-properly appreciated Mary Ann before.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton meanwhile paced a few steps to and fro on the footpath
-outside the gate, looking at his watch frequently. Paul Brion was at
-home, listening to his father's account of the afternoon's events and
-the news of the imminent marriage, with moody brow and heavy heart; it
-was the end of the romance for <i>him</i>, he felt, and he was realising
-what a stale and flat residuum remained in his cup of life. He had seen
-Mr. Yelverton go to No. 6 with fierce resentment of the liberty that
-the fortunate lover permitted himself to take with those sacred rights
-of single womanhood which he, Paul, had been so scrupulous to observe;
-now he watched the tall man pacing to and fro in the street below,
-waiting for his bride, with a sense of the inequalities of fortune that
-made him almost bloodthirsty. He saw the portmanteau set on end by the
-cabdriver's seat; he saw Elizabeth come forth with a bag in one hand
-and an umbrella in the other, followed by the servant with an ulster
-and a bonnet-box. He watched the dispossessed master of Yelverton, who,
-after all, had lost nothing, and had gained so much, and the great
-heiress who was to know Myrtle Street and obscurity no more, as they
-took their seats in the vehicle, she handed in by him with such tender
-and yet masterful care. He had an impulse to go out upon the balcony
-to bid her good-bye and God-speed, but he checked it proudly; and,
-surveying her departure from the window of his sitting-room, convinced
-himself that she was too much taken up with her own happiness to so
-much as remember his existence. It was the closing scene of the Myrtle
-Street drama&mdash;the last chapter of the charming little homely story
-which had been the romance of his life. No more would he see the girls
-going in and out of the gate of No. 7, nor meet them in the gardens
-and the street, nor be privileged to offer them his assistance and
-advice. No more would he sit on his balcony of nights to listen to
-Beethoven sonatas and Schubert serenades. The sponge had been passed
-over all those pleasant things, and had wiped them out as if they had
-never been. There were no longer any Miss Kings. And for Paul there
-was no longer anything left in life but arid and flavourless newspaper
-work&mdash;the ceaseless grinding of his brains in the great mill of the
-Press, which gave to the world its daily bread of wisdom, but had no
-guerdon for the producers of that invaluable grist.</p>
-
-<p>In truth, Elizabeth <i>did</i> forget all about him. She did not lift her
-eyes to the window where he sat; she could see and think of nothing but
-herself and her lover, and the wonderful circumstances that immediately
-surrounded them. When the cabman closed the door upon them, and they
-rattled away down the quiet street, it was borne in upon her that she
-really <i>was</i> going to be married on the morrow; and that circumstance
-was far more than enough to absorb her whole attention. In the suburbs
-through which they passed it was growing dusk, and the lamps were
-lighted. A few carriages were taking people out to dinner. It was
-already evening&mdash;the day was over. Mrs. Duff-Scott was standing on her
-doorstep as they drove up to the house, anxiously looking out for them.
-She had not changed her morning dress; nor had Patty, who stood beside
-her. All the rules of daily life were suspended at this crisis. A grave
-footman came to the door of the cab, out of which Mr. Yelverton helped
-Elizabeth, and then led her into the hall, where she was received in
-the fairy godmother's open arms.</p>
-
-<p>"Take care of her," he said to Patty, "and make her rest herself. I
-will come back about nine or ten o'clock."</p>
-
-<p>Patty nodded. Mrs. Duff-Scott tried to keep him to dinner, but he
-said he had no time to stay. So the cab departed with him, and his
-betrothed was hurried upstairs to her bedroom, where there ensued a
-great commotion. Even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who had tried to stand upon
-her dignity a little, was unable to do so, and shared the feverish
-excitement that possessed the younger sisters. They were all a little
-off their heads&mdash;as, indeed, they must have been more than women
-not to be. The explanations and counter-explanations, the fervid
-congratulations, the irrepressible astonishment, the loving curiosity,
-the tearful raptures, the wild confusion of tongues and miscellaneous
-caresses, were very bewildering and upsetting. They did, in fact, bring
-on that attack of hysterics, the first and last in Elizabeth's life,
-which had been slowly generating in her healthy nervous system under
-the severe and various trials of the day. This little accident sobered
-them down, and reminded them of Mr. Yelverton's command that Elizabeth
-was to be made to rest herself. The heiress was accordingly laid upon
-a sofa, much against her wish, and composed with sal-volatile, and
-eau-de-cologne, and tea, and fans, and a great deal of kissing and
-petting.</p>
-
-<p>"But I <i>cannot</i> understand this excessive, this abnormal haste," Mrs.
-Duff-Scott said, when the girl seemed strong enough to bear being
-mildly argued with. "Mr. Yelverton explains it very plausibly, but
-still I can't understand it, from <i>your</i> point of view. Patty's theory
-is altogether untenable."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't understand it either," the bride-elect replied. "I think I had
-an idea that it might prevent him from knowing or realising that I was
-giving him the money instead of his giving it to me&mdash;I wanted to be
-beforehand with Mr. Brion. But of course that was absurd. And if you
-can persuade him to put it off for a few weeks&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"O dear no!&mdash;I know him too well. He is not a man to be persuaded.
-Well, I am thankful he is going to let you be married in church. I
-expected he would insist on the registry office. And he has promised to
-bring you back to me at the end of a fortnight or so, to stay here all
-the time till you go home. That is something." The fairy godmother was
-certainly a little huffy&mdash;for all these wonderful things had come to
-pass without her permission or assistance&mdash;but in her heart of hearts,
-as Mr. Yelverton had suspected, she was charmed with the situation, and
-as brimful of sympathy for the girl in her extraordinary circumstances
-as her own mother could have been.</p>
-
-<p>They had a quiet dinner at eight o'clock, for which the major, who had
-been despatched to his solicitors (to see about the drawing up of that
-"instrument" which Miss Yelverton's <i>fiancé</i> and cousin required her to
-sign on her own behalf before her individuality was irrevocably merged
-in his), returned too late to dress, creeping into the house gently
-as if he had no business to be there; and Elizabeth sat at her host's
-right hand, the recipient of the tenderest attentions and tit-bits.
-The little man, whose twinkling eye had lost its wonted humour, was
-profoundly touched by the events that had transpired, and saddened by
-the prospect of losing that sister of the three whom he had made his
-own particular chum, and with the presentiment that her departure would
-mean the loss of the others also. He could not even concern himself
-about the consequences to his wife of their removal from the circle
-of her activities, so possessed was he by the sad vision of his house
-left desolate. Perhaps the major felt himself getting old at last, and
-realised that cakes and ale could not be heaped upon his board for
-ever. He was certainly conscious of a check in his prosperous career,
-by the translation of the Miss Kings, and a feeling of injury in that
-Providence had not given him children that he <i>could</i> have kept around
-him for the solace of his declining years. It was hard to have just
-learned what it was to have charming daughters, and then to be bereaved
-of them like this, at a moment's notice. Yet he bore his disappointment
-with admirable grace; for the little major, despite all the traditions
-of his long-protracted youth, was the most unselfish of mortals, and a
-gentleman to the marrow of his bones.</p>
-
-<p>In the evening he went to town again, to find Mr. Yelverton. Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, when dinner was over, had a consultation with her cook,
-and made arrangements for a festive luncheon for the following day.
-The girls went upstairs again, and thither their adopted mother
-presently followed them, and they spent an hour together in Elizabeth's
-bedroom, absorbed in the sad but delightful business of overhauling
-her portmanteau. By this time they were able to discuss the situation
-with sobriety&mdash;a sobriety infused with much chastened emotion, to be
-sure, but still far removed from the ferment of hysterics. Patty, in
-particular, had a very bracing air about her.</p>
-
-<p>"Now I call this <i>life</i>," she said, flourishing open the skirt of one
-of Elizabeth's dresses to see if it was fit to be worn on a wedding
-journey; "I call this really <i>living</i>. One feels as if one's faculties
-were given for some purpose. After all, it is not necessary to go
-to Europe to see the world. It is not necessary to travel to gain
-experience and to have adventures. Is not this frock too shabby, Mrs.
-Duff-Scott&mdash;all things considered?"</p>
-
-<p>"Certainly," assented that lady, promptly. "Put in her new cashmere and
-the Indian silk, and throw away those old things now."</p>
-
-<p>"Go and get the Indian silk, Nelly. It is in the wardrobe. And don't
-hang over Elizabeth in that doleful manner, as if she were going to
-have her head cut off, like Lady Jane Grey. She is one of the happiest
-women on the face of the earth&mdash;or, if she isn't, she ought to be&mdash;with
-such a prospect before her. Think of it! It is enough to make one gnash
-one's teeth with envy."</p>
-
-<p>"Let us hope she will indeed realise her prospects," said Mrs.
-Duff-Scott, feeling called upon to reprove and moderate the pagan
-spirit that breathed in Patty's words. "Let us hope she will be as
-happy in the future as she is now."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, she will&mdash;she will! Let us hope she will have enough troubles to
-keep her from being <i>too</i> happy&mdash;too happy to last," said the girl
-audaciously; "that is the danger she will want preserving from."</p>
-
-<p>"You may say what you like, but it is a rash venture," persisted the
-matron, shaking her head. "She has known him but for such a <i>very</i>
-short time. Really, I feel that I am much to blame to let her run into
-it like this&mdash;with so little knowledge of what she is undertaking.
-And he <i>has</i> a difficult temperament, Elizabeth. There is no denying
-it&mdash;good and nice as he is, he is terribly obstinate about getting
-his own way. And if he is so <i>now</i>, what will he be, do you suppose,
-presently?"</p>
-
-<p>Patty, sitting on her heels on the floor, with her sister's clothes
-spread around her, looked up and laughed.</p>
-
-<p>"Ah! that is one safeguard against too much happiness, perhaps. I do
-think, with Mrs. Duff-Scott, that you have met your master, my dear."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think it," replied Elizabeth, serenely. "I know I have."</p>
-
-<p>"And you are quite content to be mastered?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes&mdash;by him."</p>
-
-<p>"Of course you are. Who would marry a chicken-hearted milksop if she
-could get a splendid tyrant like that?" exclaimed Patty, fervently,
-for the moment forgetting there were such things as woman's rights
-in the world. "I wouldn't give a straw for a man who let you have
-your own way&mdash;unless, of course, he was no wiser than you. A man who
-sets up to domineer when he can't carry it out thoroughly is the most
-detestable and contemptible of created beings, but there is no want of
-thoroughness about <i>him</i>. To see him standing up at the table in the
-library this afternoon and defying Mrs. Duff-Scott to prevent him from
-marrying you to-morrow did one's heart good. It did indeed."</p>
-
-<p>"I daresay," said the fairy godmother. "But I should like to see <i>you</i>
-with a man like that to deal with. It is really a pity he did not take
-to you instead of Elizabeth. I should have liked to see what would have
-happened. The 'Taming of the Shrew' would have been a trifle to it."</p>
-
-<p>"Well," said Patty, "he will be my brother and lawful guardian
-to-morrow, and I suppose I shall have to accept his authority to a
-certain extent. Then you will see what will happen." She was silent
-for a few minutes, folding the Indian silk into the portmanteau, and a
-slow smile spread over her face. "We shall have some fights," she said,
-laughing softly. "But it will be worth while to fight with him."</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth will never fight with him," said Eleanor.</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth!" echoed Patty. "She will be wax&mdash;she will be
-butter&mdash;simply. She would spoil him if he could be spoiled. But I don't
-think he is spoilable. He is too tough. He is what we may call an ash
-tree man. And what isn't ash-tree is leather."</p>
-
-<p>"You are not complimentary," said Nelly, fearing that Elizabeth's
-feelings might be hurt by what seemed an allusion to the bridegroom's
-complexion.</p>
-
-<p>"Pooh! He is not the sort of man to compliment. Elizabeth knows what
-I mean. I feel inclined to puff myself out when I think of his being
-our own kith and kin&mdash;a man like that. I shall have ever so much more
-confidence in myself now that I know I have his blood in my veins;
-one can't be so near a relation without sharing some of the virtue of
-it&mdash;and a little of that sort ought to go a long way. Ha!"&mdash;lifting her
-finger for silence as she heard a sound in the hall below&mdash;"there he
-is."</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott's maid came running upstairs to say, "Please'm, could
-you and the young ladies come down to the library for a few minutes?"
-She was breathless and fluttered, scenting mystery in the air, and she
-looked at Elizabeth with intense interest. "The major and Mr. Yelverton
-is 'ome," she added, "and some other gentlemen 'ave come. Shall I just
-put your 'air straight, Miss?"</p>
-
-<p>She was a little Cockney who had waited on fine ladies in London, and
-was one of Mrs. Duff-Scott's household treasures. In a twinkling she
-had "settled up" Elizabeth's rather dishevelled braids and twitched
-her frills and draperies into trim order; then, without offering to
-straighten any one else, she withdrew into the background until she
-could safely watch them go downstairs to the hall, where she knew Mr.
-Yelverton was waiting. Looking over the balustrade presently, she
-saw the four ladies join him; three of them were passing on to the
-library, as feeling themselves <i>de trop</i>, but were called back. She
-could not hear what was said, but she saw what was done, to the very
-best advantage. Mr. Yelverton fitted a substantial wedding-ring upon
-Miss King's finger, and then, removing it, put another ring in its
-place; a deeply-interested and sympathetic trio standing by to witness
-the little ceremony. The maid slipped down by the back-stairs to the
-servants' hall, and communicated the result of her observations to
-her fellow-servants. Mr. Yelverton meanwhile led Elizabeth into the
-library, where were seated at the same table where Mr. Brion had read
-his documents earlier in the day, three sedate gentlemen, Mr. Brion
-being one of them, with other documents spread out before them. The
-major was languidly fetching pens and ink from the writing-table in the
-window, and smiling furtively. He seemed to be amused by this latest
-phase of the Yelverton affair. His eyes twinkled with sagacious humour
-politely repressed, when he saw the betrothed couple enter the room
-together.</p>
-
-<p>He hastened forward to put a chair for the interesting "client,"
-for this one night his ward, at the head of the table; the girls and
-Mrs. Duff-Scott grouped themselves before the hearth to watch the
-proceedings, and whisper their comments thereupon. The bridegroom took
-his stand at Elizabeth's elbow, and intimated that it was his part to
-direct her what to do.</p>
-
-<p>"Why should I do anything?" she inquired, looking round her from face
-to face with a vague idea of seeking protection in legal quarters. "It
-cannot make the least difference. I know that a woman's property, if
-you don't meddle with it, is her husband's when she is married"&mdash;this
-was before the late amendment of the law on this matter, and she was,
-as one of the lawyers advised her, correctly informed&mdash;"and if ever it
-should be so, it should be so in <i>our</i> case. I cannot, I will not, have
-any separate rights. No"&mdash;as Mr. Yelverton laid a paper before her&mdash;"I
-don't want to read it."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, you need not read it," he said, laughing. "Mr. Brion does that
-for you. But I want you to sign. It is nothing to what you will have to
-do before we get this business settled."</p>
-
-<p>"Mr. Yelverton is an honourable man, my dear," said Mr. Brion, with
-some energy&mdash;and his brother lawyers nodded in acquiescence&mdash;as he gave
-her a pen.</p>
-
-<p>"You need not tell me that," she replied, superbly. And, seeing no help
-for it, she took the pen and signed "Elizabeth Yelverton" (having to
-be reminded of her true name on each occasion) with the most reckless
-unconcern, determined that if she had signed away her husband's liberty
-to use her property as he liked, she would sign it back again when she
-had married him.</p>
-
-<p>And this was the last event of that eventful day. At midnight, lawyers
-and lover went away, and the tired girls to bed, and Elizabeth and
-Patty spent their last night together in each other's arms.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>THE WEDDING DAY.</h4>
-
-
-<p>After all, Elizabeth's wedding ceremonies, though shorn of much
-customary state, were not so wildly unconventional as to shock the
-feelings of society. Save in the matter of that excessive haste&mdash;which
-Mr. Yelverton took pains to show was not haste at all, seeing that,
-on the one hand, his time was limited, and that, on the other, there
-was absolutely nothing to wait for&mdash;all things were done decently
-and in order; and Mrs. Duff-Scott even went so far as to confess,
-when the bride and bridegroom had departed, that the fashion of their
-nuptials was "good art;" and that these were not the days to follow
-stereotyped customs blindfold. There was no unnecessary secrecy about
-it. Overnight, just, and only just, before she went to bed, the
-mistress of the house had explained the main facts of the case to her
-head servants, who, she knew, would not be able to repeat the story
-until too late for the publication of it to cause any inconvenience.
-She told them how the three Miss Kings&mdash;who had never been Miss Kings
-after all&mdash;had come in for large fortunes, under a will that had been
-long mislaid and accidentally recovered; and how Miss Elizabeth, who
-had been engaged for some considerable time (O, mendacious matron!),
-was to be married to her cousin, Mr. Yelverton, in the morning&mdash;very
-quietly, because both of them had a dislike to publicity and fuss. And
-in the morning the little Cockney lady's-maid, bringing them their
-tea, brought a first instalment of congratulations to the bride and
-her sisters, who had to hold a <i>levée</i> in the servants' hall as soon
-as they went downstairs. The household, if not boiling over with the
-excitement inseparable from a marriage <i>à la mode</i>, was in a pleasant
-simmer of decorous enjoyment; and the arrangements for the domestic
-celebration of the event lacked nothing in either completeness or
-taste. The gardener brought his choicest flowers for the table and
-for the bride's bouquet, which was kept in water until her return
-from church; and the cook surpassed himself in his efforts to provide
-a wedding breakfast that should be both faultless and unique. The
-men servants wore bits of strong-scented orange blossom in their
-button-holes, and the women white ribbons in their caps. They did what
-they could, in short, to honour the occasion and the young lady who had
-won their affection before she came into her inheritance of wealth, and
-the result to themselves and the family was quite satisfactory.</p>
-
-<p>There was a great deal of cold weather in the last month of 1880,
-summer time though it was, and this special morning was very cold.
-Elizabeth had not the face to come down to the early breakfast and
-a blazing fire in the gown she had worn the day before, and Mrs.
-Duff-Scott would not hear of her going to church in it. "Do you
-suppose he is quite an idiot?" she indignantly demanded (forgetting
-the absolute indifference to weather shown in the conventional bridal
-costume), when the bride gave an excuse for her own unreasonableness.
-"Do you suppose he wants you to catch your death of cold on your
-wedding day?"</p>
-
-<p>"What does it matter?" said Patty. "He won't care what you have on. Put
-it in the portmanteau and wear it at dinner every night, if he likes to
-see you in it. This morning you had better make yourself warm. He never
-expected the day to turn out so cold as this."</p>
-
-<p>And while they were talking of it Mr. Yelverton himself appeared,
-contrary to etiquette and his own arrangements. "Good morning," he
-said, shaking hands impartially all round. "I just came in to tell you
-that it is exceedingly cold, and that Elizabeth had better put a warm
-dress on. One would think it was an English December day by the feel of
-the wind."</p>
-
-<p>She got up from the breakfast-table and went out of the room, hurried
-away by Mrs. Duff-Scott; but in a minute she came back again.</p>
-
-<p>"Did you come for anything in particular?" she asked, anxiously.</p>
-
-<p>"No," he said, "only to take care that you did not put on that thin
-dress. And to see that you were alive," he added, dropping his voice.</p>
-
-<p>"And we really are to be married this morning?"</p>
-
-<p>"We really are, Elizabeth. In three quarters of an hour, if you can be
-at the church so soon. I am on my way there now. I am just going round
-to Myrtle Street to pick up old Brion."</p>
-
-<p>"Pick up young Brion, too," she urged earnestly, thinking of Patty.
-"Tell him I specially wished it."</p>
-
-<p>"He won't come," said Mr. Yelverton; "I asked him yesterday. His father
-says his liver must be out of order, he has grown so perverse and
-irritable lately. He won't do anything that he is wanted to do."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, poor boy! We must look after him, you and I, when we come back.
-Where are we going, Kingscote?"</p>
-
-<p>"My darling, I fear you will think my plans very prosaic. I think we
-are just going to Geelong&mdash;till to-morrow or next day. You see it is
-so cold, and I don't want you to be fagged with a long journey. Mount
-Macedon would have been charming, but I could not get accommodation.
-At Geelong, where we are both strangers, we shall be practically to
-ourselves, and it is better to make sure of a good hotel than of
-romantic scenery, if you have to choose between the two&mdash;for the
-present, at any rate&mdash;vulgar and sordid as that sentiment may appear.
-We can go where we like afterwards. I have just got a telegram to say
-that things will be ready for us. You left it to me, you know."</p>
-
-<p>"I am only too happy to leave everything to you," she said, at once.
-"And I don't care where we go&mdash;-it will be the same everywhere."</p>
-
-<p>"I think it will, Elizabeth&mdash;I think we shall be more independent
-of our circumstances than most people. Still I am glad to have made
-sure of a warm fire and a good dinner for you at your journey's end.
-We start at twenty minutes past four, I may tell you, and we are to
-get home&mdash;<i>home</i>, my dear, which will be wherever you and I can be
-together, henceforth&mdash;at about half-past six. That will give you time
-to rest before dinner. And you will not be very tired, after such a
-little journey, will you?"</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth!" called a voice from the corridor above their heads, "send
-Mr. Yelverton away, and come upstairs at once."</p>
-
-<p>So Mr. Yelverton departed in his cab, to pick up old Brion and await
-his bride at the nearest church; and he was presently followed by
-the major in his brougham, and a little later by Mrs. Duff-Scott's
-capacious open carriage, containing herself and the three sisters, all
-in woollen walking dresses and furs. And Elizabeth really was married,
-still to her own great surprise. She stood in the cold and silent
-church, and took Kingscote, her lover, to be her lawful husband, and
-legally ratified that irrevocable contract in the clearest handwriting.
-He led her out into the windy road, when it was over, and put her into
-the brougham&mdash;the major taking her place in the other carriage, and on
-their way back both bride and bridegroom were very serious over their
-exploit.</p>
-
-<p>"You have the most wonderful trust in me," he said to her, holding
-her still ungloved hand, and slipping the wedding ring round on her
-finger&mdash;"the most amazing trust."</p>
-
-<p>"I have," she assented, simply.</p>
-
-<p>"It rather frightens me," he went on, "to see you taking me so
-absolutely for granted. Do you really think I am quite perfect,
-Elizabeth?"</p>
-
-<p>"No," she replied, promptly.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I am glad of that. For I am far from it, I assure you." Then he
-added, after a pause, "What are the faults you have to find with me,
-then?"</p>
-
-<p>"None&mdash;none," she responded fervently. "Your faults are no faults to
-me, for they are part of you. I don't want you perfect&mdash;I only want you
-to be always as I know you now."</p>
-
-<p>"I think I am rather a tyrant," he said, beginning to criticise himself
-freely, now that she showed no disposition to do it, "and perhaps I
-shall bully you if you allow me too much latitude. I am too fond of
-driving straight at everything I want, Elizabeth&mdash;I might drive over
-you, without thinking, some day, if you give me my own way always."</p>
-
-<p>"You may drive over me, if you like, and welcome," she said, smiling.</p>
-
-<p>"You have no consideration for your rights as a woman and a matron?&mdash;no
-proper pride?&mdash;no respect for your dignity, at all?"</p>
-
-<p>"None whatever&mdash;now."</p>
-
-<p>"Ah, well, after all, I think it is a good thing for you that I have
-got you. You might have fallen into worse hands. You are just made to
-be a victim. And you will be better off as my victim than you might
-have been as another man's victim."</p>
-
-<p>"Much better," she said. "But I don't think I should have been another
-man's victim."</p>
-
-<p>When they reached Mrs. Duff-Scott's house, Patty and Eleanor, who had
-arrived a few minutes earlier, met their brother and sister, kissed
-them both, and took Elizabeth upstairs, where they tenderly drew
-off her furs and her bonnet, and waited upon her with a reverential
-recognition of her new and high estate. During their absence, Mr.
-Yelverton, Mr. Brion, and their host and hostess stood round the
-drawing-room fire, talking over a plan they had hatched between them,
-prior to taking leave of the old lawyer, who had to depart for his
-country home and business by an afternoon boat. This plan provided for
-a temporary disposal of that home and business at an early date, in
-order that Mr. Brion might accompany the entire party&mdash;the major and
-his wife, Mr. Yelverton and the three sisters&mdash;to England as the legal
-adviser of the latter, it having been deemed expedient to take these
-measures to facilitate the conveyance and distribution of the great
-Yelverton property. The old man was delighted at the prospect of his
-trip, which it was intended should be made both profitable and pleasant
-to him, and at the certainty of being identified for some time longer
-with the welfare of his young friends. Mrs. Duff-Scott was also ardent
-in her anticipation of seeing Elizabeth installed at Yelverton, of
-investigating the philanthropical enterprises of Elizabeth's husband,
-and of keeping, during the most critical and most interesting period
-of their career, the two unappropriated heiresses under her wing. The
-major was pleased to join this family party, and looked forward with
-some avidity to the enjoyment of certain London experiences that he had
-missed from his cup of blessings of late years.</p>
-
-<p>"And the dear girls will not be separated, except for this little week
-or two," said the fairy godmother, wiping away a surreptitious tear.
-"How happy that will make them!"</p>
-
-<p>They entered the room as she spoke, clinging together; and they sat
-down round the hearthrug, and were drawn into the discussion. Yes, it
-did make them happy, they said; it was the sweetest and brightest of
-plans and prospects. Only Patty, thinking of Elizabeth and Nelly going
-and Paul Brion left behind, felt her heart torn in two.</p>
-
-<p>The wedding breakfast was the mid-day lunch, to which they were
-summoned by the butler with his bridal favour in his button-hole. The
-little party of seven, when they went into the dining-room, found
-that apartment decorated with flowers and evergreens in a manner
-wonderful to behold, considering the short notice that had been given.
-The table was glorious with white blossoms of every description, the
-orange predominating and saturating the air with its almost too strong
-fragrance; and the dishes and the wines would have done honour to the
-bridal banquet of a princess. Little did anyone care for dishes and
-wines, except the host and hostess, who would have been less than
-mortal had they not felt interested therein; and most of them were glad
-to get the meal over. Some healths were drunk in the major's best dry
-champagne, and three little speeches were delivered; and then Mr. Brion
-respectfully begged to be excused, said good-bye all round, made his
-Grandisonian bow, and departed.</p>
-
-<p>"Tell Paul," said Elizabeth (she could call him Paul now), "that we
-have missed him to-day."</p>
-
-<p>"I will, my dear, I will," said the old man. And when he delivered that
-message half-an-hour later, he was hurt to see in what a bad spirit it
-was received. "I daresay!" was Paul's cynical comment.</p>
-
-<p>When Mr. Brion was gone, the little family returned to the
-drawing-room, and again sat round the bright fire, and behaved
-themselves as if nothing had happened. Elizabeth spread out her hands
-to the warmth, and gazed at her thick wedding ring meditatively: and
-the girls, who hung about her, gazed at it also with fascinated eyes.
-Mr. Yelverton sat a little apart, and watched his wife furtively. Mrs.
-Duff-Scott chatted, recalling the topography and notable features of
-Geelong. They had afternoon tea, as usual (only earlier than usual),
-in the familiar precious teacups, out of the familiar Queen Anne
-teapot. There was an every-day homeliness about this quiet hour, and
-yet it seemed that years had come and gone since yesterday. Presently
-Mr. Yelverton's watch-case was heard to shut with a sharp click, and
-the bride turned her head quickly and looked at him. He nodded. And
-as she rose from her low chair, holding out her hand to the faithful
-Patty, the wheels of the brougham crunched over the gravel in front of
-the windows. It was time to go.</p>
-
-<p>And in ten minutes more they were gone. Like that monarch who went
-into his own kingdom and shut the door, Elizabeth went into hers&mdash;to
-assume the crown and sceptre of a sovereignty than which no woman
-can boast a greater, let her be who she may&mdash;passing wholly into her
-strong husband's keeping without one shadow of regret or mistrust left
-in her heart, either for herself or him. They were driven to Spencer
-Street, where, while they waited a few minutes for their train, people
-who knew them stared at them, recognising the situation. They paced
-up and down the platform, side by side, she in her modest cloth dress
-and furs; and, far from avoiding observation, they rather courted it
-unconsciously, in a quiet way. They were so proud of belonging to each
-other, and from the enclosure of their own kingdom the outside world
-seemed such an enormous distance off. They went to Geelong in a saloon
-car full of people&mdash;what did it matter to them?&mdash;and at the seaside
-station found a carriage waiting for them. And by half-past six, as
-her husband said, Elizabeth reached home. There was a bright and cosy
-sitting-room, with a table prettily set for their <i>tête-à-tête</i> dinner,
-and a bright fire (of wood and not coal&mdash;a real bush fire) crackling
-on the hearth. In an inner room there was a fire too; and here, when
-her portmanteau had been unstrapped, and while Kingscote was consulting
-with the landlord, she hastily threw off her wraps and travelling
-dress, twisted up her fine hair afresh, put on that delicate gown that
-she had worn yesterday morning&mdash;could it possibly, she asked herself,
-have been <i>only</i> yesterday morning?&mdash;and made herself as fair to look
-upon as she knew how. And, when she opened the door softly, trembling
-with excitement and happiness, he was waiting for her, standing on the
-hearthrug, with his back to the fire&mdash;looking at her as he had looked
-that day, not so very long ago, when they were in the cave together,
-he on one side of the gulf and she on the other. He held out his arms
-again, and this time she sprang into them, and lifted her own to clasp
-his neck. And so they stood, without moving or speaking&mdash;"resting
-before dinner"&mdash;until the waiter, heralding his approach by a discreet
-tap at the door, came in with the soup-tureen.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>IN SILK ATTIRE.</h4>
-
-
-<p>The bride and bridegroom did not return to Melbourne until the day
-before Christmas&mdash;Friday the 24th, which was a warm, and bright, and
-proper summer day, but working up for a spell of north winds and bush
-fires before the year ran out. They had been wandering happily amongst
-the lovely vales and mountains of that sequestered district of Victoria
-which has become vaguely known as the "Kelly Country," and finding out
-before they left it, to their great satisfaction, that Australia could
-show them scenery so variously romantic as to put the charms of the
-best hotels into the shade. Even that terrestrial paradise on the ferny
-slopes of Upper Macedon was, if not eclipsed, forgotten, in the beauty
-of the wilder woodland of the far Upper Murray, which was beyond the
-reach of railways. They had also been again to visit the old house by
-the sea and Mr. Brion; had dawdled along the familiar shore in twilight
-and moonlight; had driven to the caves and eaten lunch once more in the
-green dell among the bracken fronds; had visited the graves of that
-other pair of married lovers&mdash;that Kingscote and Elizabeth of the last
-generation&mdash;and made arrangements for the perpetual protection from
-disturbance and desecration of that sadly sacred spot. And it was only
-on receipt of an urgent telegram from Mrs. Duff-Scott, to remind them
-that Christmas was approaching, and that she had devised festivities
-which were to be more in honour of them than of the season, that they
-remembered how long they had been away, and that it had become time to
-return to their anxious relatives.</p>
-
-<p>They arrived in Melbourne by the 3.41 train from Ballarat, where
-they had broken a long journey the evening before, and found Patty
-and Eleanor and the major's servants waiting for them at Spencer
-Street. The meeting between the sisters, after their first separation,
-was silent, but intensely impressive. On the platform though they
-were, they held each other's hands and gazed into each other's eyes,
-unconscious of the attention they attracted, unable to find words
-to express how much they had missed each other and how glad they
-were to be reunited. They drove home together in a state of absolute
-happiness; and at home Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major were standing on
-their doorstep as the carriage swept up the broad drive to the house,
-as full of tender welcomes for the bride as any father or mother could
-have been, rejoicing over a recovered child. Elizabeth thought of
-the last Christmas Eve which she and her sisters, newly orphaned and
-alone in the world, poor in purse and destitute of kith and kin, spent
-in that humble little bark-roofed cottage on the solitary cliff; and
-she marvelled at the wonderful and dazzling changes that the year had
-brought. Only one year out of twenty-nine!&mdash;and yet it seemed to have
-held the whole history of her life. She was taken into the drawing-room
-and put into a downy chair, and fed with bread and butter and tea and
-choice morsels of news, while Patty knelt on the floor beside her,
-and her husband stood on the hearthrug watching her, with, his air
-of quiet but proud proprietorship, as he chatted of their travels to
-the major. It was very delightful. She wondered if it were really
-herself&mdash;Elizabeth King that used to be&mdash;whose lines had fallen on
-these pleasant places.</p>
-
-<p>While the afternoon tea was in progress, Eleanor fidgetted impatiently
-about the room. She was so graceful and undulating in her movements
-that her fidgetting was only perceived to be such by those who knew
-her ways; but Elizabeth marked her gentle restlessness, in spite of
-personal preoccupations.</p>
-
-<p>"Do you want me to go upstairs with you?" she inquired with her kind
-eyes, setting down her teacup; and Nelly almost flew to escort her out
-of the room. There was to be a large dinner party at Mrs. Duff-Scott's
-to-night, to "meet Mr. and Mrs. Yelverton on their return," all
-Melbourne having been made acquainted with the romance of their
-cousinship and marriage, and the extent of their worldly possessions,
-during their absence.</p>
-
-<p>"It is to be so large," said Patty, as her brother-in-law shut the
-drawing-room door upon the trio, "that even Mrs. Aarons will be
-included in it."</p>
-
-<p>"Mrs. Aarons!" echoed Elizabeth, who knew that the fairy godmother had
-repaid that lady's hospitality and attentions with her second-best
-bit of sang-de-boeuf crackle and her sole specimen of genuine Rose
-du Barry&mdash;dear and precious treasures sacrificed to the demands of
-conscience which proclaimed Mrs. Aarons wronged and insulted by being
-excluded from the Duff-Scott dinner list. "And she is really coming?"</p>
-
-<p>"She really is&mdash;though it is her own right to receive, as I
-think Mrs. Duff-Scott perfectly remembered when she sent her
-invitation&mdash;accompanied, of course, by Mr. Aarons."</p>
-
-<p>"And now," said Nelly, looking back, "Patty has got her old wish&mdash;she
-really <i>is</i> in a position to turn up her nose, at last."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," said Patty, vehemently, "don't remind me of that wicked, vulgar,
-indecent speech! Poor woman, who am I that I should turn up my nose at
-her? I am very glad she is coming&mdash;I think she ought to have been asked
-long ago. Why not? She is just as good as we are, every bit."</p>
-
-<p>Eleanor laughed softly. "Ah, what a difference in one's sentiments does
-a large fortune make&mdash;doesn't it, Elizabeth? Patty doesn't want to
-turn up her nose at Mrs. Aarons, because, don't you see, she knows she
-can crush her quite naturally and comfortably by keeping it down. And,
-besides, when one has got one's revenge&mdash;when one has paid off one's
-old score&mdash;one doesn't want to be mean and barbarous. Oh," exclaimed
-Nelly, rapturously, "I never thought that being rich was so delicious
-as it is!"</p>
-
-<p>"I hope it won't spoil you," said Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>"I hope it won't spoil <i>you</i>," retorted the girl, saucily. "You are in
-far greater danger than I am."</p>
-
-<p>By this time they had reached the top of the stairs, and Eleanor, who
-had led the way, opened the door, not of Elizabeth's old bedroom, but
-of the state guest-chamber of the house; and she motioned the bride
-to enter with a low bow. Here was the explanation of that impatience
-to get her upstairs. Elizabeth took a few steps over the threshold
-and then stood still, while the tears rushed into her eyes. The room
-had been elaborately dressed in white lace and white ribbons; the
-dressing-table was decorated with white flowers; the bed was covered
-with an æsthetic satin quilt, and on the bed was spread out a bridal
-robe&mdash;white brocade, the bodice frilled with Brussels lace&mdash;with white
-shoes, white gloves, white silk stockings, white feather fan, white
-everything <i>en suite</i>.</p>
-
-<p>"This is your dress for to-night," said Patty, coaxing it with soft
-hands. "And you will find lots more in the wardrobe. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-has been fitting you up while you have been away."</p>
-
-<p>Upon which Nelly threw open the doors of the wardrobe and pulled out
-the drawers, and displayed with great pride the piles and layers of new
-clothes that the fairy godmother had laboriously gathered together;
-the cream, or, to speak more correctly (if less poetically), the
-butter, churned from the finest material that the Melbourne shops
-could produce, and "made up" by a Collins Street mademoiselle, whose
-handiwork was as recognisable to the local initiated as that of Elise
-herself. The bride had been allowed no choice in the matter of her own
-trousseau, but she did not feel that she had missed anything by that.
-She stood and gazed at the beautiful garments, which were all dim and
-misty as seen through her tears, with lips and hands trembling, and a
-sense of misgiving lest such extravagant indulgence of all a woman's
-possible desires should tempt Fate to lay hands prematurely upon her.
-Then she went to find her friend&mdash;who had had so much enjoyment in the
-preparation of her surprise&mdash;and did what she could by dumb caresses to
-express her inexpressible sentiments.</p>
-
-<p>Then in course of time these upsetting incidents were got over, and
-cheerful calmness supervened. As the night drew on, Mrs. Duff-Scott
-retired to put on her war paint. Nelly also departed to arrange her
-own toilet, which was a matter of considerable importance to her in
-these days. The girl who had worn cotton gloves to keep the sun from
-her hands, a year ago, had developed a great faculty for taking care of
-her beauty and taking pains with her clothes. Patty lingered behind to
-wait on Elizabeth. And in the interval before the bridegroom came up,
-these two had a little confidential chat. "What have you been doing, my
-darling," said the elder sister, "while I have been away?"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, nothing much," said Patty, rather drearily. "Shopping about your
-things most of the time, and getting ready for our voyage. They say
-we are to go as far as Italy next month, because January is the best
-time for the Red Sea. And they want the law business settled. It is
-dreadfully soon, isn't it?" This was not the tone of voice in which
-Italy was talked of a year ago.</p>
-
-<p>"And you haven't&mdash;seen anybody?"</p>
-
-<p>"No, I haven't seen anybody. Except once&mdash;and then he took off his hat
-without looking at me."</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth sighed. She was herself so safe and happy with her beloved
-that she could not bear to think of this other pair estranged and
-apart, making themselves so miserable.</p>
-
-<p>"And what about Nelly and Mr. Westmoreland?" she inquired presently.</p>
-
-<p>"Nelly is a baby," said Patty, with lofty scorn, "and Mr. Westmoreland
-is a great lout. You have no idea what a spectacle they are making of
-themselves."</p>
-
-<p>"What&mdash;is it going on again?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, it is going on&mdash;but not in the old style. Mr. Westmoreland
-has fallen in love with her really now&mdash;as far as such a brainless
-hippopotamus is capable of falling in love, that is to say. I suppose,
-the fact of her having a great fortune and high connections makes all
-the difference. And she is really uncommonly pretty. It is only in
-these last weeks that I have fully understood how much prettier she
-is than other girls, and I believe he, to do him justice, has always
-understood it in his stupid, coarse way."</p>
-
-<p>"And Nelly?"</p>
-
-<p>"Nelly," said Patty, "has been finding out a great deal lately. She
-knows well enough how pretty she is, and she knows what money and all
-the other things are worth. She is tasting the sweets of power, and
-she likes it&mdash;she likes it too much, I think&mdash;she will grow into a
-bit of a snob, if she doesn't mind. She is 'coming the swell' over
-Mr. Westmoreland, to use one of his own choice idioms&mdash;not exactly
-rudely, because she has such pretty manners, but with the most superb
-impertinence, all the same&mdash;and practising coquetry as if she had been
-beset with abject lovers all her life. She sits upon him and teases him
-and aggravates him till he doesn't know how to contain himself. It is
-<i>too</i> ridiculous."</p>
-
-<p>"I should have thought he was the last man to let himself be sat upon."</p>
-
-<p>"So should I. But he courts it&mdash;he obtrudes his infatuated
-servility&mdash;he goes and asks her, as it were, to sit upon him. It has
-the charm of novelty and difficulty, I suppose. People must get tired
-of having their own way always."</p>
-
-<p>"But I can't understand Nelly."</p>
-
-<p>"You soon will. You will see to-night how she goes on, for he is coming
-to dinner. She will tantalise him till he will forget where he is, and
-lose all sense of decency, and be fit to stamp and roar like a great
-buffalo. She says it is 'taking it out of him.' And she will look at
-the time so sweet and serene and unconscious&mdash;bah! I could box her
-ears," concluded Patty.</p>
-
-<p>"And Mrs. Duff-Scott encourages him still, then?"</p>
-
-<p>"No. That is another change. Mrs. Duff-Scott has withdrawn her gracious
-favour. She doesn't want him now. She thinks she will make a pair
-of duchesses of us when she gets us to London, don't you see? Dear
-woman, I'm afraid she will be grievously disappointed, so far as I am
-concerned. No, ever since the day you went away&mdash;which was the very day
-that Mr. Westmoreland began to come back&mdash;she has given him the cold
-shoulder. You know <i>what</i> a cold shoulder it can be! There is not a man
-alive who could stand up against it, except him. But he doesn't care.
-He can't, or won't, see that he is not wanted. I suppose it doesn't
-occur to him that <i>he</i> can possibly be unwelcome anywhere. He loafs
-about the house&mdash;he drops on us at Alston and Brown's&mdash;he turns up
-at the theatre&mdash;at the Exhibition&mdash;at Mullen's&mdash;everywhere. We can't
-escape him. Nelly likes it. If a day passes without her seeing him, she
-gets quite restless. She is like a horrid schoolboy with a cockroach
-on a pin&mdash;it is her great amusement in life to see him kicking and
-struggling."</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps she really does care about him, Patty."</p>
-
-<p>"Not she. She is just having her revenge&mdash;heartless little monkey!
-I believe she will be a duchess, after all, with a miserable old
-toothless creature for her husband. It would be no more than she
-deserves. Oh, Elizabeth!"&mdash;suddenly changing her voice from sharps to
-flats&mdash;"how <i>beautiful</i> you do look! Nelly may be a duchess, and so
-might I, and neither of us would ever beat you for <i>presence</i>. I heard
-Mrs. Duff-Scott the other day congratulating herself that the prettiest
-of her three daughters were still left to dispose of. I don't believe
-we are the prettiest, but, if we are, what is mere prettiness compared
-with having a head set on like yours and a figure like a Greek statue?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth had been proceeding with her toilet, in order to have
-leisure to gossip with her husband when he came up; and now she stood
-before her long glass in her bridal dress, which had been composed by
-Mrs. Duff-Scott with an unlimited expenditure of taste and care. The
-material of it was exceptionally, if not obtrusively, rich&mdash;like a
-thick, dull, soft silk cloth, covered all over with a running pattern
-of flowers severely conventionalised; and it was made as plain as plain
-could be, falling straight to her feet in front, and sweeping back in
-great heavy folds behind, and fitting like a pliant glove to the curves
-of her lovely shape. Only round the bodice, cut neither low nor high,
-and round her rather massive elbows, had full ruffles of the lace that
-was its sole trimming been allowed; and altogether Mrs. Yelverton's
-strong points were brought out by her costume in a marvellously
-effective manner.</p>
-
-<p>There was a sound at this moment in the adjoining room, on hearing
-which Patty abruptly departed; and the bride stood listening to her
-lord's footsteps, and still looking at herself in the glass. He
-entered her room, and she did not turn or raise her eyes, but a soft
-smile spread over her face as if a sun had risen and covered her with
-sudden light and warmth. She tried to see if the waist of her gown was
-wrinkled, or the set of it awry, but it was no use. When he came close
-to her and stooped to kiss her white neck, she lost all recollection of
-details.</p>
-
-<p>"You want," he said, about ten minutes afterwards, when he had himself
-turned her round and round, and fingered the thick brocade and the lace
-critically, "you want diamonds with such a stately dress."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, no," she said; "I won't have any diamonds."</p>
-
-<p>"You <i>won't</i>, did you say? This language to <i>me</i>, Elizabeth!"</p>
-
-<p>"The diamonds shall go in beer and tobacco, Kingscote."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear, they can't."</p>
-
-<p>"Why not?"</p>
-
-<p>"Because the Yelverton diamonds are heirlooms."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, dear me! Are there Yelverton diamonds too?"</p>
-
-<p>"There are, I grieve to say. They have been laid up under lock and key
-for about forty years, and they must be very old-fashioned. But they
-are considered rather fine, and they are yours for the present, and as
-you can't make any use of them they may as well fulfil their purpose of
-being ornamental. You must wear them by-and-by, you know, when you go
-to Court."</p>
-
-<p>"To Court?" reproachfully. "Is that the kind of life we are going to
-lead?"</p>
-
-<p>"Just occasionally. We are going to combine things, and our duties to
-ourselves and to society. It is not going to be all Buckingham Palace,
-nor yet all Whitechapel, but a judicious blending of the two."</p>
-
-<p>"And Yelverton?"</p>
-
-<p>"And Yelverton of course. Yelverton is to be always there&mdash;our place of
-rest&mdash;our base of operations&mdash;our workshop&mdash;our fortress&mdash;our home with
-a capital H."</p>
-
-<p>"Oh," she said, "we seem to have the shares of so many poor people
-besides our own. It overwhelms me to think of it."</p>
-
-<p>"Don't think of it," he said, as she laid her head on his shoulder, and
-he smoothed her fine brown hair with his big palm. "Don't be afraid
-that we are destined to be too happy. We shall be handicapped yet."</p>
-
-<p>They did not go down until the carriages had begun to arrive, and then
-they descended the wide stairs dawdlingly, she leaning on him, with her
-two white-gloved hands clasped round his coat sleeve, and he bending
-his tall head towards her&mdash;talking still of their own affairs, and
-quite indifferent to the sensation they were about to make. When they
-entered the dim-coloured drawing-room, which was suffused with a low
-murmur of conversation, and by the mild radiance of many wax candles
-and coloured lamps, Elizabeth was made to understand by hostess and
-guests the exceptional position of Mrs. Yelverton of Yelverton, and
-wherein and how enormously it differed from that of Elizabeth King.
-But she was not so much taken up with her own state and circumstance
-as to forget those two who had been her charge for so many years. She
-searched for Nelly first. And Nelly was in the music-room, sitting at
-the piano, and looking dazzlingly fair under the gaslight in the white
-dress that she had worn at the club ball, and with dark red roses at
-her throat and in her yellow hair. She was playing Schubert's A Minor
-Sonata ravishingly&mdash;for the benefit of Mr. Smith, apparently, who sat,
-the recipient of smiles and whispers, beside her, rapt in ecstasies
-of appreciation; and she was taking not the slightest notice of Mr.
-Westmoreland, who, leaning over the other end of the piano on his
-folded arms, was openly sighing his soul into his lady's face. Then
-Elizabeth looked for Patty. And Patty she found on that settee within
-the alcove at the opposite end of the big room&mdash;also in her white ball
-dress, and also looking charming&mdash;engaged in what appeared to be an
-interesting and animated dialogue with the voluble Mrs. Aarons.</p>
-
-<p>The young matron sighed as she contrasted her own blessed lot with
-theirs&mdash;with Nelly's, ignorant of what love was, and with Patty's,
-knowing it, and yet having no comfort in the knowing. She did not know
-which to pity most.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PATTY CHOOSES HER CAREER.</h4>
-
-
-<p>The dinner party on Christmas Eve was the first of a series of
-brilliant festivities, extending all through the hot last week of
-1880, and over the cool new year (for which fires were lighted and
-furs brought out again), and into the sultry middle of January, and up
-to the memorable anniversary of the day on which the three Miss Kings
-had first arrived in Melbourne; and when they were over this was the
-state of the sisters' affairs:&mdash;Elizabeth a little tired with so much
-dissipation, but content to do all that was asked of her, since she was
-not asked to leave her husband's side; Eleanor, still revelling in the
-delights of wealth and power, and in Mr. Westmoreland's accumulating
-torments; and Patty worn and pale with sleepless nights and heart-sick
-with hope deferred, longing to set herself straight with Paul Brion
-before she left Australia, and seeing her chances of doing so dwindling
-and fading day by day. And now they were beginning to prepare for their
-voyage to a world yet larger and fuller than the one in which they had
-lived and learned so much.</p>
-
-<p>One afternoon, while Mrs. Duff-Scott and Eleanor paid calls, Elizabeth
-and Patty went for the last time to Myrtle Street, to pack up the
-bureau and some of their smaller household effects in preparation
-for the men who were to clear the rooms on the morrow. Mr. Yelverton
-accompanied them, and lingered in the small sitting-room for awhile,
-helping here and there, or pretending to do so. For his entertainment
-they boiled the kettle and set out the cheap cups and saucers, and they
-had afternoon tea together, and Patty played the Moonlight Sonata; and
-then Elizabeth bade her husband go and amuse himself at his club and
-come back to them in an hour's time. He went, accordingly; and the two
-sisters pinned up their skirts and tucked up their sleeves, and worked
-with great diligence when he was no longer there to distract them. They
-worked so well that at the end of half an hour they had nothing left
-to do, except a little sorting of house linen and books. Elizabeth
-undertaking this business, Patty pulled down her sleeves and walked to
-the window; and she stood there for a little while, leaning her arm on
-the frame and her head on her arm.</p>
-
-<p>"Paul Brion is at home, Elizabeth," she said, presently.</p>
-
-<p>"Is he, dear?" responded the elder sister, who had begun to think
-(because her husband thought it) that it was a pity Paul Brion, being
-so hopelessly cantankerous, should be allowed to bother them any more.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes. And, Elizabeth, I hope you won't mind&mdash;it is very improper, I
-know&mdash;but <i>I shall go and see him.</i> It is my last chance. I will go and
-say good-bye to Mrs. M'Intyre, and then I will run up to his room and
-speak to him&mdash;just for one minute. It is my last chance," she repeated;
-"I shall never have another."</p>
-
-<p>"But, my darling&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, don't be afraid"&mdash;drawing herself up haughtily&mdash;"I am not going to
-be <i>quite</i> a fool. I shall not throw myself into his arms. I am simply
-going to apologise for cutting him on Cup Day. I am simply going to set
-myself right with him before I go away&mdash;for his father's sake."</p>
-
-<p>"It is a risky experiment, my dear, whichever way you look at it. I
-think you had better write."</p>
-
-<p>"No. I have no faith in writing. You cannot make a letter say what
-you mean. And he will not come to us&mdash;he will not share his father's
-friendship for Kingscote&mdash;he was not at home when you and Kingscote
-called on him&mdash;he was not even at Mrs. Aarons's on Friday. There is no
-way to get at him but to go and see him now. I hear him in his room,
-and he is alone. I will not trouble him long&mdash;I will let him see that
-I can do without him quite as well as he can do without me&mdash;but I must
-and will explain the horrible mistake that I know he has fallen into
-about me, before I lose the chance for the rest of my life."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear, how can you? How can you tell him your true reason for
-cutting him? How can you do it at all, without implying more than you
-would like to imply? You had better leave it, Patty. Or let me go for
-you, my darling."</p>
-
-<p>But Patty insisted upon going herself, conscientiously assuring her
-sister that she would do it in ten minutes, without saying anything
-improper about Mrs. Aarons, and without giving the young man the
-smallest reason to suppose that she cared for him any more than she
-cared for his father, or was in the least degree desirous of being
-cared for by him. And this was how she did it.</p>
-
-<p>Paul was sitting at his table, with papers strewn before him. He had
-been writing since his mid-day breakfast, and was half way through
-a brilliant article on "Patronage in the Railway Department," when
-the sound of the piano next door, heard for the first time after a
-long interval, scattered his political ideas and set him dreaming and
-meditating for the rest of the afternoon. He was leaning back in his
-chair, with his pipe in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, and his
-legs stretched out rigidly under the table, when he heard a tap at the
-door. He said "Come in," listlessly, expecting Betsy's familiar face;
-and when, instead of an uninteresting housemaid, he saw the beautiful
-form of his beloved standing on the threshold, he was so stunned with
-astonishment that at first he could not speak.</p>
-
-<p>"Miss&mdash;Miss Yelverton!" he exclaimed, flinging his pipe aside and
-struggling to his feet.</p>
-
-<p>"I hope I am not disturbing you," said Patty, very stiffly. "I have
-only come for a moment&mdash;because we are going away, and&mdash;and&mdash;and I had
-something to say to you before we went. We have been so unfortunate&mdash;my
-sister and brother-in-law were so unfortunate&mdash;as to miss seeing you
-the other day. I&mdash;we have come this afternoon to do some packing,
-because we are giving up our old rooms, and I thought&mdash;I thought&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>She was stammering fearfully, and her face was scarlet with confusion
-and embarrassment. She was beginning already to realise the difficulty
-of her undertaking.</p>
-
-<p>"Won't you sit down?" he said, wheeling his tobacco-scented arm-chair
-out of its corner. He, too, was very much off his balance and
-bewildered by the situation, and his voice, though grave, was shaken.</p>
-
-<p>"No, thank you," she replied, with what she intended to be a haughty
-and distant bow. "I only came for a moment&mdash;as I happened to be saying
-good-bye to Mrs. M'Intyre. My sister is waiting for me. We are going
-home directly. I just wanted&mdash;I only wanted"&mdash;she lifted her eyes, full
-of wistful appeal, suddenly to his&mdash;"I wanted just to beg your pardon,
-that's all. I was very rude to you one day, and you have never forgiven
-me for it. I wanted to tell you that&mdash;that it was not what you thought
-it was&mdash;that I had a reason you did not know of for doing it, and that
-the moment after I was sorry&mdash;I have been sorry every hour of my life
-since, because I knew I had given you a wrong impression, and I have
-not been able to rectify it."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't quite understand&mdash;" he began.</p>
-
-<p>"No, I know&mdash;I know. And I can't explain. Don't ask me to explain.
-Only <i>believe</i>," she said earnestly, standing before him and leaning
-on the table, "that I have never, never been ungrateful for all the
-kindness you showed us when we came here a year ago&mdash;I have always
-been the same. It was not because I forgot that you were our best
-friend&mdash;the best friend we ever had&mdash;that I&mdash;that I"&mdash;her voice was
-breaking, and she was searching for her pocket-handkerchief&mdash;"that I
-behaved to you as I did."</p>
-
-<p>"Can't you tell me how it was?" he asked, anxiously. "You have nothing
-to be grateful for, Miss Patty&mdash;Miss Yelverton, I ought to say&mdash;and
-I cannot feel that I have anything to forgive. But I should like to
-know&mdash;yes, now that you have spoken of it, I think you ought to tell
-me&mdash;why you did it."</p>
-
-<p>"I cannot&mdash;I cannot. It was something that had been said of you. I
-believed it for a moment, because&mdash;because it looked as if it were
-true&mdash;but only for a moment. When I came to think of it I knew it was
-impossible."</p>
-
-<p>Paul Brion's keen face, that had been pale and strained, cleared
-suddenly, and his dark eyes brightened. He was quite satisfied with
-this explanation. He knew what Patty meant as well as if there had been
-but one word for a spade, and she had used it&mdash;as well, and even better
-than she could have imagined; for she forgot that she had no right or
-reason to resent his shortcomings, save on the ground of a special
-interest in him, and he was quick to remember it.</p>
-
-<p>"Oh, do sit down a moment," he said, pushing the arm-chair a few inches
-forward. He was trying to think what he might dare to say to her to
-show how thankful he was. It was impossible for her to help seeing the
-change in him.</p>
-
-<p>"No," she replied, hastily pulling herself together. "I must go
-now. I had no business to come here at all&mdash;it was only because it
-seemed the last chance of speaking to you. I have said what I came to
-say, and now I must go back to my sister." She looked all round the
-well-remembered room&mdash;at the green rep suite, and the flowery carpet,
-and the cedar chiffonnier, and the Cenci over the fire-place&mdash;at Paul's
-bookshelves and littered writing-table, and his pipes and letters on
-the chimney-piece, and his newspapers on the floor; and then she looked
-at him with eyes that <i>would</i> cry, though she did her very best to help
-it. "Good-bye," she said, turning towards the door.</p>
-
-<p>He took her outstretched hand and held it "Good-bye&mdash;if it must be so,"
-he said. "You are really going away by the next mail?"</p>
-
-<p>"Yes."</p>
-
-<p>"And not coming back again?"</p>
-
-<p>"I don't know."</p>
-
-<p>"Well," he said, "you are rich, and a great lady now. I can only wish
-with all my heart for your happiness&mdash;I cannot hope that I shall ever
-be privileged to contribute to it again. I am out of it now, Miss
-Patty."</p>
-
-<p>She left her right hand in his, and with the other put her handkerchief
-to her eyes. "Why should you be out of it?" she sobbed. "Your father
-is not out of it. It is you who have deserted us&mdash;we should never have
-deserted you."</p>
-
-<p>"I thought you threw me over that day on the racecourse, and I have
-only tried to keep my place."</p>
-
-<p>"But I have told you I never meant that."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes, thank God! Whatever happens, I shall have this day to
-remember&mdash;that you came to me voluntarily to tell me that you had never
-been unworthy of yourself. You have asked me to forgive you, but it is
-I that want to be forgiven&mdash;for insulting you by thinking that money
-and grandeur and fine clothes could change you."</p>
-
-<p>"They will never change me," said Patty, who had broken down
-altogether, and was making no secret of her tears. In fact, they were
-past making a secret of. She had determined to have no tender sentiment
-when she sought this interview, but she found herself powerless to
-resist the pathos of the situation. To be parting from Paul Brion&mdash;and
-it seemed as if it were really going to be a parting&mdash;was too
-heartbreaking to bear as she would have liked to bear it.</p>
-
-<p>"When you were poor," he said, hurried along by a very strong current
-of emotions of various kinds, "when you lived here on the other side of
-the wall&mdash;if you had come to me&mdash;if you had spoken to me, and treated
-me like this <i>then</i>&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>She drew her hand from his grasp, and tried to collect herself.
-"Hush&mdash;we must not go on talking," she said, with a flurried air; "you
-must not keep me here now."</p>
-
-<p>"No, I will not keep you&mdash;I will not take advantage of you now," he
-replied, "though I am horribly tempted. But if it had been as it used
-to be&mdash;if we were both poor alike, as we were then&mdash;if you were Patty
-King instead of Miss Yelverton&mdash;I would not let you out of this room
-without telling me something more. Oh, why did you come at all?" he
-burst out, in a sudden rage of passion, quivering all over as he looked
-at her with the desire to seize her and kiss her and satisfy his
-starving heart.</p>
-
-<p>"You have been hard to me always&mdash;from first to last&mdash;but this is the
-very cruellest thing you have ever done. To come here and drive me
-wild like this, and then go and leave me us if I were Mrs. M'Intyre or
-the landlord you were paying off next door. I wonder what you think
-I am made of? I have stood everything&mdash;I have stood all your snubs,
-and slights, and hard usage of me&mdash;I have been humble and patient as
-I never was to anybody who treated me so in my life before&mdash;but that
-doesn't mean that I am made of wood or stone. There are limits to
-one's powers of endurance, and though I have borne so much, I <i>can't</i>
-bear <i>this</i>. I tell you fairly it is trying me too far." He stood at
-the table fluttering his papers with a hand as unsteady as that of
-a drunkard, and glaring at her, not straight into her eyes&mdash;which,
-indeed, were cast abjectly on the floor&mdash;but all over her pretty,
-forlorn figure, shrinking and cowering before him. "You are kind enough
-to everybody else," he went on; "you might at least show some common
-humanity to me. I am not a coxcomb, I hope, but I know you can't have
-helped knowing what I have felt for you&mdash;no woman can help knowing when
-a man cares for her, though he never says a word about it. A dog who
-loves you will get some consideration for it, but you are having no
-consideration for me. I hope I am not rude&mdash;I'm afraid I am forgetting
-my manners, Miss Patty&mdash;but a man can't think of manners when he is
-driven out of his senses. Forgive me, I am speaking to you too roughly.
-It was kind of you to come and tell me what you have told me&mdash;I am not
-ungrateful for that&mdash;but it was a cruel kindness. Why didn't you send
-me a note&mdash;a little, cold, formal note? or why did you not send Mrs.
-Yelverton to explain things? That would have done just as well. You
-have paid me a great honour, I know; but I can't look at it like that.
-After all, I was making up my mind to lose you, and I think I could
-have borne it, and got on somehow, and got something out of life in
-spite of it. But now how can I bear it?&mdash;how can I bear it <i>now?</i>"</p>
-
-<p>Patty bowed like a reed to this unexpected storm, which, nevertheless,
-thrilled her with wild elation and rapture, through and through. She
-had no sense of either pride or shame; she never for a moment regretted
-that she had not written a note, or sent Mrs. Yelverton in her
-place. But what she said and what she did I will leave the reader to
-conjecture. There has been too much love-making in these pages of late.
-Tableau. We will ring the curtain down.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Elizabeth sat alone when her work was done, wondering what
-was happening at Mrs. M'Intyre's, until her husband came to tell her
-that it was past six o'clock, and time to go home to dress for dinner.
-"The child can't possibly be with <i>him</i>," said Mr. Yelverton, rather
-severely. "She must be gossiping with the landlady."</p>
-
-<p>"I think I will go and fetch her," said Elizabeth. But as she was
-patting on her bonnet, Patty came upstairs, smiling and preening her
-feathers, so to speak&mdash;bringing Paul with her.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>A FAIR FIELD AND NO FAVOUR.</h4>
-
-
-<p>When Mrs. Duff-Scott came to hear of all this, she was terribly vexed
-with Patty. Indeed, no one dared to tell her the whole truth, and to
-this day she does not know that the engagement was made in the young
-bachelor's sitting-room, whither Patty had sought him because he would
-not seek her. She thinks the pair met at No. 6, under the lax and
-injudicious chaperonage of Elizabeth; and, in the first blush of her
-disappointment and indignation, she was firmly convinced, though too
-well bred to express her conviction, that the son had taken advantage
-of the father's privileged position to entrap the young heiress for
-the sake of her thirty thousand pounds. Things did not go smoothly
-with Patty, as they had done with her sister. Elizabeth herself was a
-rock of shelter and a storehouse of consolation from the moment that
-the pair came up to the dismantled room where she and her husband were
-having a lovers' <i>tête-à-tête</i> of their own, and she saw that the long
-misunderstanding was at an end; but no one else except Mrs. M'Intyre
-(who, poor woman, was held of no account), took kindly to the alliance
-so unexpectedly proposed. Quite the contrary, in fact. Mr. Yelverton,
-notwithstanding his late experiences, had no sympathy whatever for
-the young fellow who had flattered him by following his example. The
-philanthropist, with all his full-blown modern radicalism, was also a
-man of long descent and great connections, and some subtle instinct
-of race and habit rose up in opposition to the claims of an obscure
-press writer to enter his distinguished family. It was one thing for a
-Yelverton man to marry a humbly-circumstanced woman, as he had himself
-been prepared to do, but quite another thing for a humbly-circumstanced
-man to aspire to the hand of a Yelverton woman, and that woman rich and
-beautiful, his own ward and sister. He was not aware of this strong
-sentiment, but believed his objections arose from a proper solicitude
-for Patty's welfare. Paul had been rude and impertinent, wanting in
-respect for her and hers; he had an ill-conditioned, sulky temper;
-he lived an irregular life, from hand to mouth; he had no money; he
-had no reputable friends. Therefore, when Paul (with some defiance of
-mien, as one who knew that it was a merely formal courtesy) requested
-the consent of the head of the house to his union with the lady of his
-choice, the head of the house, though elaborately polite, was very
-high and mighty, and&mdash;Patty and Elizabeth being out of the way, shut
-up together to kiss in comfort in one of the little bedrooms at the
-back&mdash;made some very plain statements of his views to the ineligible
-suitor, which fanned the vital spark in that young man's ardent spirit
-to a white heat of wrath. By-and-by Mr. Yelverton modified those views,
-like the just and large-hearted student of humanity that he was, and
-was brought to see that a man can do no more for a woman than love
-her, be he who he may, and that a woman, whether queen or peasant,
-millionaire or pauper, can never give more than value for that "value
-received." And by-and-by Paul learned to respect his brother-in-law for
-a man whose manhood was his own, and to trust his motives absolutely,
-even when he did not understand his actions. But just at first things
-were unpleasant. Mr. Yelverton touched the young man's sensitive pride,
-already morbidly exercised by his consciousness of the disparity
-between Patty's social position and fortunes and his own, by some
-indirect allusion to that painful circumstance, and brought upon
-himself a revengeful reminder that his (Mr. Yelverton's) marriage with
-Elizabeth might not be considered by superficial persons to be entirely
-above suspicion. Things were, indeed, very unpleasant. Paul, irritated
-in the first rapture of happiness, used more bad language (in thought
-if not in speech) than he had done since Cup Day, when he went back to
-his unfinished article on Political Patronage; Patty drove home with a
-burning sense of being of age and her own mistress; and Elizabeth sat
-in the carriage beside her, silent and thoughtful, feeling that the
-first little cloud (that first one which, however faint and small, is
-so incredible and so terrible) had made its appearance on the hitherto
-stainless horizon of her married life.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, when they got home, received the blow with a stern
-fortitude that was almost worse than Mr. Yelverton's prompt resistance,
-and much worse than the mild but equally decided opposition of that
-punctilious old gentleman at Seaview Villa, who, by-and-by, used all
-his influence to keep the pair apart whom he would have given his
-heart's blood to see united, out of a fastidious sense of what he
-conceived to be his social and professional duty. Between them all,
-they nearly drove the two high-spirited victims into further following
-the example of the head of the house&mdash;the imminent danger of which
-became apparent to Patty's confidante Elizabeth, who gave timely
-warning of it to her husband. This latter pair, who had themselves
-carried matters with such a very high hand, were far from desiring
-that Paul and Patty should make assignations at the Exhibition with a
-view to circumventing their adversaries by a clandestine or otherwise
-untimely marriage (such divergence of opinion with respect to one's own
-affairs and other people's being very common in this world, the gentle
-reader may observe, even in the case of the most high-minded people).</p>
-
-<p>"Kingscote," said Elizabeth, when one night she sat brushing her hair
-before the looking-glass, and he, still in his evening dress, lounged
-in an arm-chair by the dressing-table, talking to her, "Kingscote, I
-am afraid you are too hard on Patty&mdash;you and the Duff-Scotts&mdash;keeping
-her from Paul still, though she has but three days left, and I don't
-believe she will stand it."</p>
-
-<p>"My dear, we are not hard upon her, are we? It is for her sake. If we
-can tide over these few days and get her away all right, a year or two
-of absence, and all the new interests that she will find in Europe and
-in her changed position, will probably cure her of her fancy for a
-fellow who is not good enough for her."</p>
-
-<p>"That shows how little you know her," said Elizabeth, with a melancholy
-smile. "She is not a girl to take 'fancies' in that direction, and
-having given her heart&mdash;and she has not given it so easily as you
-imagine&mdash;she will be as faithful to him&mdash;as faithful"&mdash;casting about
-for an adequate illustration&mdash;"as I should have been to you, Kingscote."</p>
-
-<p>"Perhaps so, dear. I myself think it very likely. And in such a case
-no harm is done. They will test each other, and if they both stand the
-test it will be better and happier for them to have borne it, and we
-shall feel then that we are justified in letting them marry. But at
-present they know so little of each other&mdash;she has had no fair choice
-of a husband&mdash;and she is too good to be thrown away. I feel responsible
-for her, don't you see? And I only want her to have all her chances. I
-will be the last to hinder the course of true love when once it proves
-itself to <i>be</i> true love."</p>
-
-<p>"<i>We</i> did not think it necessary to prove <i>our</i> love&mdash;and I don't think
-we should have allowed anybody else to prove it&mdash;by a long probation,
-Kingscote."</p>
-
-<p>"My darling, we were different," he said, promptly.</p>
-
-<p>She did not ask him to explain wherein they were different, he and she,
-who had met for the first time less than four months ago; she shared
-the usual unconscious prejudice that we all have in favour of our own
-sincerity and trustworthiness, and wisdom and foresight, and assumed as
-a matter of course that their case was an exceptional one. Still she
-had faith in others as well as in herself and her second self.</p>
-
-<p>"I know Patty," she said, laying her hair brush on her knee and
-looking with solemn earnestness into her husband's rough-hewn but
-impressive face&mdash;a face that seemed to her to contain every element
-of noble manhood, and that would have been weakened and spoiled by
-mere superficial beauty&mdash;"I know Patty, Kingscote, better than anyone
-knows her except herself. She is like a little briar rose&mdash;sweet and
-tender if you are gentle and sympathetic with her, but certain to
-prick if you handle her roughly. And so strong in the stem&mdash;so tough
-and strong&mdash;that you cannot root her out or twist her any way that she
-doesn't feel naturally inclined to grow&mdash;not if you use all your power
-to make her."</p>
-
-<p>"Poor little Patty!" he said, smiling. "That is a very pathetic image
-of her. But I don't like to figure in your parable as the blind
-genius of brute force&mdash;a horny-handed hedger and ditcher with a smock
-frock and a bill-hook. I am quite capable of feeling the beauty, and
-understanding the moral qualities of a wild rose&mdash;at least, I thought I
-was. Perhaps I am mistaken. Tell me what you would do, if you were in
-my place?"</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth slipped from her chair and down upon her knees beside him,
-with her long hair and her long dressing-gown flowing about her, and
-laid her head where it was glad of any excuse to be laid&mdash;a locality
-at this moment indicated by the polished and unyielding surface of
-his starched shirt front. "You know I never likened you to a hedger
-and ditcher," she said, fondly. "No one is so wise and thoughtful
-and far-sighted as you. It is only that you don't know Patty quite
-yet&mdash;you will do soon&mdash;and what might be the perfect management of
-such a crisis in another girl's affairs is likely not to succeed with
-her&mdash;just simply and only for the reason that she is a little peculiar,
-and you have not yet had time to learn that."</p>
-
-<p>"It is time that I should learn," he said, lifting her into a restful
-position and settling himself for a comfortable talk. "Tell me what you
-think and know yourself, and what, in your judgment, it would be best
-to do."</p>
-
-<p>"In my judgment, then, it would be best," said Elizabeth, brief
-interval given up to the enjoyment of a wordless <i>tête-à-tête</i>, "to
-let Patty and Paul be together a little before they part. For this
-reason&mdash;that they <i>will</i> be together, whether they are let or not.
-Isn't it preferable to make concessions before they are ignominiously
-extorted from you? And if Patty has much longer to bear seeing her
-lover, as she thinks, humiliated and insulted, by being ignored as her
-lover in this house, she will go to the other extreme&mdash;she will go away
-from us to him&mdash;by way of making up to him for it. It is like what you
-say of the smouldering, poverty-bred anarchy in your European national
-life&mdash;that if you don't find a vent for the accumulating electricity
-generating in the human sewer&mdash;how do you put it?&mdash;it is no use to try
-to draw it off after the storm has burst."</p>
-
-<p>"Elizabeth," said her husband, reproachfully, "that is worse than being
-called a hedger and ditcher."</p>
-
-<p>"Well, you know what I mean."</p>
-
-<p>"Tell me what you mean in the vulgar tongue, my dear. Do you want me to
-go and call on Mr. Paul Brion and tell him that we have thought better
-of it?"</p>
-
-<p>"Not exactly that. But if you would persuade Mrs. Duff-Scott to be
-nice about it&mdash;no one can be more enchantingly nice than she, when she
-likes, but when she doesn't like she is enough to drive a man&mdash;a proud
-man like Paul Brion&mdash;simply frantic. And Patty will never stand it&mdash;she
-will not hold out&mdash;she will not go away leaving things as they are now.
-We could not expect it of her."</p>
-
-<p>"Well? And how should Mrs. Duff-Scott show herself nice to Mr. Brion?"</p>
-
-<p>"She might treat him as&mdash;as she did you, Kingscote, when you were
-wanting me."</p>
-
-<p>"But she approved of me, you see. She doesn't approve of him."</p>
-
-<p>"You are both gentlemen, anyhow&mdash;though he is poor. <i>I</i> would have
-been the more tender and considerate to him, because he is poor. He is
-not too poor for Patty&mdash;nor would he have been if she had no fortune
-herself. As it is, there is abundance. And, Kingscote, though I don't
-mean for a moment to disparage you&mdash;"</p>
-
-<p>"I should hope not, Elizabeth."</p>
-
-<p>"Still I can't help thinking that to have brains as he has is to be
-essentially a rich and distinguished man. And to be a writer for a
-high-class newspaper, which you say yourself is the greatest and best
-educator in the world&mdash;to spend himself in making other men see what is
-right and useful&mdash;in spreading light and knowledge that no money could
-pay for, and all the time effacing himself, and taking no reward of
-honour or credit for it&mdash;surely that must be the noblest profession,
-and one that should make a man anybody's equal&mdash;even yours, my love!"</p>
-
-<p>She lifted herself up to make this eloquent appeal, and dropped back on
-his shoulder again, and wound her arm about his neck and his bent head
-with tender deprecation. He was deeply touched and stirred, and did not
-speak for a moment. Then he said gruffly, "I shall go and see him in
-the morning, Elizabeth. Tell me what I shall say to him, my dear."</p>
-
-<p>"Say," said Elizabeth, "that you would rather not have a fixed
-engagement at first, in order that Patty may be unhampered during
-the time she is away&mdash;in order that she may be free to make other
-matrimonial arrangements when she gets into the great world, if she
-<i>likes</i>&mdash;but that you will leave that to him. Tell him that if love is
-not to be kept faithful without vows and promises, it is not love nor
-worth keeping&mdash;but I daresay he knows that. Tell him that, except for
-being obliged to go to England just now on the family affairs, Patty is
-free to do exactly as she likes&mdash;which she is by law, you know, for she
-is over three-and-twenty&mdash;and that we will be happy to see her happy,
-whatever way she chooses. And then let him come here and see her. Ask
-Mrs. Duff-Scott to be nice and kind, and to give him an invitation&mdash;she
-will do anything for you&mdash;and then treat them both as if they were
-engaged for just this little time until we leave. It will comfort them
-so much, poor things! It will put them on their honour. It will draw
-off the electricity, you know, and prevent catastrophes. And it will
-make not the slightest difference in the final issue. But, oh," she
-added impulsively, "you don't want me to tell you what to do, you are
-so much wiser than I am."</p>
-
-<p>"I told you we should give and take," he responded; "I told you we
-should teach and lead each other&mdash;sometimes I and sometimes you. That
-is what we are doing already&mdash;it is as it should be. I shall go and see
-Paul Brion in the morning. Confound him!" he added, as he got up out of
-his chair to go to his dressing-room.</p>
-
-<p>And so it came to pass that the young press writer, newly risen from
-his bed, and meditating desperate things over his coffee and cutlet,
-received a friendly embassy from the great powers that had taken up
-arms against him. Mr. Yelverton was the bearer of despatches from
-his sovereign, Mrs. Duff-Scott, in the shape of a gracious note of
-invitation to dinner, which&mdash;after a long discussion of the situation
-with her envoy&mdash;Mr. Paul Brion permitted himself to accept politely.
-The interview between the two men was productive of a strong sense
-of relief and satisfaction on both sides, and it brought about the
-cessation of all open hostilities.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PROBATION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton did not return home from his mission until Mrs.
-Duff-Scott's farewell kettle-drum was in full blast. He found the two
-drawing-rooms filled with a fashionable crowd; and the hum of sprightly
-conversation, the tinkle of teaspoons, the rustle of crisp draperies,
-the all-pervading clamour of soft feminine voices, raised in staccato
-exclamations and laughter, were such that he did not see his way to
-getting a word in edgeways. Round each of the Yelverton sisters the
-press of bland and attentive visitors was noticeably great. They were
-swallowed up in the compact groups around them. This I am tempted to
-impute to the fact of their recent elevation to rank and wealth, and to
-a certain extent it may be admitted that that fact was influential. And
-why not? But in justice I must state that the three pretty Miss Kings
-had become favourites in Melbourne society while the utmost ignorance
-prevailed as to their birth and antecedents, in conjunction with the
-most exact knowledge as to the narrowness of their incomes. Melbourne
-society, if a little too loosely constituted to please the tastes of
-a British prig, born and bred to class exclusiveness, is, I honestly
-believe, as free as may be from the elaborate snobbishness with which
-that typical individual (though rather as his misfortune than his
-fault) must be credited.</p>
-
-<p>In Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room were numerous representatives of
-this society&mdash;its most select circle, in fact&mdash;numbering amongst them
-women of all sorts; women like Mrs. Duff-Scott herself, who busied
-themselves with hospitals and benevolent schemes, conscious of natural
-aspirations and abilities for better things than dressing and gossiping
-and intriguing for social triumphs; women like Mrs. Aarons, who had
-had to struggle desperately to rise with the "cream" to the top of the
-cup, and whose every nerve was strained to retain the advantages so
-hardly won; women to whom scandal was the breath of their nostrils,
-and the dissemination thereof the occupation of their lives; women
-whose highest ambition was to make a large waist into a small one;
-women with the still higher ambition to have a house that was more
-pleasant and popular than anybody else's. All sorts and conditions of
-women, indeed; including a good proportion of those whose womanhood
-was unspoiled and unspoilable even by the deteriorating influences
-of luxury and idleness, and whose intellect and mental culture and
-charming qualities generally were such as one would need to hunt well
-to find anything better in the same line elsewhere. These people had
-all accepted the Miss Kings cordially when Mrs. Duff-Scott brought them
-into their circle and enabled the girls to do their duty therein by
-dressing well, and looking pretty, and contributing a graceful element
-to fashionable gatherings by their very attractive manners. That was
-all that was demanded of them, and, as Miss Kings only, they would
-doubtless have had a brilliant career and never been made to feel the
-want of either pedigree or fortune. Now, as representatives of a great
-family and possessors of independent wealth, they were overwhelmed with
-attentions; but this, I maintain, was due to the interesting nature
-of the situation rather than to that worship of worldly prosperity
-which (because he has plenty of it) is supposed to characterise the
-successful colonist.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Yelverton looked round, and dropped into a chair near the door,
-to talk to a group of ladies with whom he had friendly relations
-until he could find an opportunity to rejoin his family. The hostess
-was dispensing tea, with Nelly's assistance&mdash;Nelly being herself
-attended by Mr. Westmoreland, who dogged her footsteps with patient and
-abject assiduity&mdash;other men straying about amongst the crowd with the
-precious little fragile cups and saucers in their hands. Elizabeth was
-surrounded by young matrons fervently interested in her new condition,
-and pouring out upon her their several experiences of European life,
-in the form of information and advice for her own guidance. The best
-shops, the best dressmakers, the best hotels, the best travelling
-routes, and generally the best things to do and see, were emphatically
-and at great length impressed upon her, and she made notes of them on
-the back of an envelope with polite gratitude, invariably convinced
-that her husband knew all about such things far better than anybody
-else could do. Patty was in the music-room, not playing, but sitting
-at the piano, and when Kingscote turned his head in her direction he
-met a full and glowing look of inquiry from her bright eyes that told
-him she knew or guessed the nature of his recent errand. There was such
-an invitation in her face that he found himself drawn from his chair
-as by a strong magnet. He and she had already had those "fights" which
-she had prophetically anticipated. Lately their relations had been such
-that he had permitted himself to call her a "spitfire" in speaking of
-her to her own sister. But they were friends, tacitly trusting each
-other at heart even when most openly at war, and the force that drew
-them apart was always returned in the rebound that united them when
-their quarrels were over. They seemed to be all over for the present.
-As he approached her she resumed her talk with the ladies beside her,
-and dropped her eyes as if taking no notice of him; but she had the
-greatest difficulty to keep herself down on the music-stool and resist
-an inclination to kiss him that for the first time beset her. She
-did, indeed, suddenly put out her hand to him&mdash;her left hand&mdash;with a
-vigour of intention that called faint smiles to the faces of the fair
-spectators; who concluded that Mr. Yelverton had been out of town and
-was receiving a welcome home after a too long absence. Then Patty was
-seized with an ungovernable restlessness. She quivered all over; she
-fidgetted in her seat; she did not know who spoke to her or what she
-was talking about; her fingers went fluttering up and down the keyboard.</p>
-
-<p>"Play us something, dear Miss Yelverton," said a lady sitting by. "Let
-us hear your lovely touch once more."</p>
-
-<p>"I don't think I can," said Patty, falteringly&mdash;the first time she had
-ever made such a reply to such a demand. She got up and began to turn
-over some loose music that lay about on the piano. Her brother-in-law
-essayed to help her; he saw what an agony of suspense and expectation
-she was in.</p>
-
-<p>"You know where I have been?" he inquired in a careless tone, speaking
-low, so that only she could hear.</p>
-
-<p>"Yes"&mdash;breathlessly&mdash;"I think so."</p>
-
-<p>"I went to take an invitation from Mrs. Duff-Scott."</p>
-
-<p>"Yes?"</p>
-
-<p>"I had a pleasant talk. I am very glad I went. He is coming to dine
-here to-night."</p>
-
-<p>"Is he?"</p>
-
-<p>"Mrs. Duff-Scott thought you would all like to see him before you went
-away. Let us have the 'Moonlight Sonata,' shall we? Beauty fades and
-mere goodness is apt to pall, as Mrs. Ponsonby de Tompkins would say,
-but one never gets tired of the 'Moonlight Sonata,' when it is played
-as you play it. Don't you agree with me, Mrs. Aarons?"</p>
-
-<p>"I do, indeed," responded that lady, fervently. She agreed with
-everybody in his rank of life. And she implored Patty to give them the
-"Moonlight Sonata."</p>
-
-<p>Patty did&mdash;disdaining "notes," and sitting at the piano like a
-young queen upon her throne. She laid her fingers on the keyboard
-with a touch as light as thistle-down, but only so light because
-it was so strong, and played with a hushed passion and subdued
-power that testified to the effect on her of her brother-in-law's
-communication&mdash;her face set and calm, but radiant in its sudden
-peacefulness. Her way, too, as well as Elizabeth's, was opening before
-her now. She lost sight of the gorgeous ladies around her for a little
-while, and saw only the comfortable path which she and Paul would tread
-together thenceforth. She played the "Moonlight Sonata" to <i>him</i>,
-sitting in his own chamber corner, with his pipe, resting himself after
-his work. "I will never," she said to herself, with a little remote
-smile that nobody saw, "I will never have a room in my house that he
-shall not smoke in, if he likes. When he is with me, he shall enjoy
-himself." In those sweet few minutes she sketched the entire programme
-of her married life.</p>
-
-<p>The crowd thinned by degrees, and filtered away; the drawing-rooms
-were deserted, save for the soft-footed servants who came in to set
-them in order, and light the wax candles and rosy lamps, and the
-great gas-burner over the piano, which was as the sun amongst his
-planet family. Night came, and the ladies returned in their pretty
-dinner costumes; and the major stole downstairs after them, and smiled
-and chuckled silently over the new affair as he had done over the
-old&mdash;looking on like a benevolent, superannuated Jove upon these simple
-little romances from the high Olympus of his own brilliant past; and
-then (preceded by no carriage wheels) there was a step on the gravel
-and a ring at the door bell, and the guest of the evening was announced.</p>
-
-<p>When Paul came in, correctly appointed, and looking so fierce and
-commanding that Patty's heart swelled with pride as she gazed at him,
-seeing how well&mdash;how almost too well, indeed&mdash;he upheld his dignity
-and hers, which had been subjected to so many trials, he found himself
-received with a cordiality that left him nothing to find fault with.
-Mrs. Duff-Scott was an impulsive, and generous, and well-bred woman,
-not given to do things by halves. She still hoped that Patty would not
-marry this young man, and did not mean to let her if she could help it;
-but, having gone the length of inviting him to her house, she treated
-him accordingly. She greeted him as if he were an old friend, and she
-chatted to him pleasantly while they waited for dinner, questioning him
-with subtle flattery about his professional affairs, and implying that
-reverence for the majesty of the press which is so gratifying to all
-enlightened people. Then she took his arm into dinner, and continued
-to talk to him throughout the meal as only one hostess in a hundred,
-really nice and clever, with a hospitable soul, and a warm heart, and
-abundant tact and good taste, can talk, and was surprised herself to
-find how much she appreciated it. She intended to make the poor young
-fellow enjoy his brief taste of Paradise, since she had given herself
-leave to do so, and Paul responded by shining for her entertainment
-with a mental effulgence that astonished and charmed her. He put forth
-his very best wares for her inspection, and at the same time, in a
-difficult position, conducted himself with irreproachable propriety. By
-the time she left the table she was ready to own herself heartily sorry
-that fickle fortune had not endowed him according to his deserts.</p>
-
-<p>"I <i>do</i> so like really interesting and intellectual young men, who
-don't give themselves any airs about it," she said to nobody in
-particular, when she strolled back to the drawing-room with her three
-girls; "and one does so <i>very</i> seldom meet with them!" She threw
-herself into a low chair, snatched up a fan, and began to fan herself
-vigorously. The discovery that a press writer of Paul Brion's standing
-meant a cultured man of the world impressed her strongly; the thought
-of him as a new son for herself, clever, enterprising, active-minded
-as she was&mdash;a man to be governed, perhaps, in a motherly way, and
-to be proud of whether he let himself be governed or not&mdash;danced
-tantalisingly through her brain. She felt it necessary to put a very
-strong check upon herself to keep her from being foolish.</p>
-
-<p>She escaped that danger, however. A high sense of duty to Patty held
-her back from foolishness. Still she could not help being kind to
-the young couple while she had the opportunity; turning her head
-when they strolled into the conservatory after the men came in from
-the dining-room, and otherwise shutting her eyes to their joint
-proceedings. And they had a peaceful and sad and happy time, by her
-gracious favour, for two days and a half&mdash;until the mail ship carried
-one of them to England, and left the other behind.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>YELVERTON.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Patty went "home," and stayed there for two years; but it was never
-home to her, though all her friends and connections, save one, were
-with her&mdash;because that one was absent. She saw "the great Alps and the
-Doge's palace," and all the beauty and glory of that great world that
-she had so ardently dreamed of and longed for; travelling in comfort
-and luxury, and enjoying herself thoroughly all the while. She was
-presented at Court&mdash;"Miss Yelverton, by her sister, Mrs. Kingscote
-Yelverton"&mdash;and held a distinguished place in the <i>Court Journal</i> and
-in the gossip of London society for the better part of two seasons. She
-was taught to know that she was a beauty, if she had never known it
-before; she was made to understand the value of a high social position
-and the inestimable advantage of large means (and she did understand it
-perfectly, being a young person abundantly gifted with common sense);
-and she was offered these good things for the rest of her life, and a
-coronet into the bargain. Nevertheless, she chose to abide by her first
-choice, and to remain faithful to her penniless press writer under all
-temptations. She passed through the fire of every trying ordeal that
-the ingenuity of Mrs. Duff-Scott could devise; her unpledged constancy
-underwent the severest tests that, in the case of a girl of her tastes
-and character, it could possibly be subjected to; and at the end of a
-year and a half, when the owner of the coronet above-mentioned raised
-the question of her matrimonial prospects, she announced to him, and
-subsequently to her family, that they had been irrevocably settled
-long ago; that she was entirely unchanged in her sentiments and
-relations towards Paul Brion; and that she intended, moreover, if they
-had no objection, to return to Australia to marry him.</p>
-
-<p>It was in September when she thus declared herself&mdash;after keeping
-a hopeful silence, for the most part, concerning her love affairs,
-since she disgraced herself before a crowd of people by weeping in
-her sweetheart's arms on the deck of the mail steamer at the moment
-when she was bidden by a cruel fate to part from him. The Yelverton
-family had spent the previous winter in the South of Europe, "doing"
-the palaces, and churches, and picture galleries that were such an
-old story to most people of their class, but to the unsophisticated
-sisters so fresh and wonderful an experience&mdash;an experience that
-fulfilled all expectations, moreover, which such realisations of young
-dreams so seldom do. Generally, when at last one has one's wish of
-this sort, the spirit that conceived the charms and pleasures of it
-is quenched by bodily wearinesses and vexations and the thousand and
-one petty accidents that circumvent one's schemes. One is burdened
-and fretted with uncongenial companions, perhaps, or one is worried
-and hampered for want of money; or one is nervous or bilious, or one
-is too old and careworn to enjoy as one might once have done; in some
-way or other one's heart's desire comes to one as if only to show the
-"leanness withal" in the soul that seemed (until thus proved) to have
-such power to assimilate happiness and enrich itself thereby. But with
-the Yelverton sisters there was no disillusionment of this sort. They
-had their little drawbacks, of course. Elizabeth was not always in
-good health; Patty pined for her Paul; Eleanor sprained her ankle and
-had to lie on Roman sofas while the others were exploring Roman ruins
-out of doors; and there were features about the winter, even in those
-famous climes, which gave them sensible discomfort and occasionally
-set them on the verge of discontent. But, looking back upon their
-travels, they have no recollection of these things. Young, and strong,
-and rich, with no troubles to speak of and the keenest appetites to
-see and learn, they had as good a time as pleasure-seeking mortals
-can hope for in this world; the memories of it, tenderly stored up to
-the smallest detail, will be a joy for ever to all of them. On their
-return to England they took up their abode in the London house, and for
-some weeks they revelled delightedly in balls, drums, garden parties,
-concerts, and so on, under the supervision and generalship of Mrs.
-Duff-Scott; and they also made acquaintance with the widely-ramifying
-Whitechapel institutions. Early in the summer Elizabeth and her husband
-went to Yelverton, which in their absence had been prepared for "the
-family" to live in again. A neighbouring country house and several
-cottages had been rented and fitted up for the waifs and strays, where
-they had been made as comfortable as before, and were still under the
-eye of their protector; and the ancestral furniture that had been
-removed for their convenience and its own safety was put back in its
-place, and bright (no, not bright&mdash;Mrs. Duff-Scott undertook the task
-of fitting them up&mdash;but eminently artistic and charming) rooms were
-newly decorated and made ready for Elizabeth's occupation.</p>
-
-<p>She went there early in June&mdash;she and her husband alone, leaving Mrs.
-Duff-Scott and the girls in London. Mr. Yelverton had always a little
-jealousy about keeping his wife to himself on these specially sacred
-occasions, and he invited no one to join them during their first days
-at home, and instructed Mr. Le Breton to repress any tendency that
-might be apparent in tenants or <i>protégés</i> to make a public festival of
-their arrival there. The <i>rôle</i> of squire was in no way to his taste,
-nor that of Lady Bountiful to hers. And yet he had planned for their
-home-coming with the utmost care and forethought, that nothing should
-be wanting to make it satisfying and complete&mdash;as he had planned for
-their wedding journey on the eve of their hurried marriage.</p>
-
-<p>It is too late in my story to say much about Yelverton. It merits a
-description, but a description would be out of place, and serve no
-purpose now. Those who are familiar with old Elizabethan country seats,
-and the general environment of a hereditary dweller therein, will
-have a sufficient idea of Elizabeth's home; and those who have never
-seen such things&mdash;who have not grown up in personal association with
-the traditions of an "old family"&mdash;will not care to be told about it.
-In the near future (for, though his brother magnates of the county,
-hearing of the restoration of the house, congratulated themselves that
-Yelverton's marriage had cured him of his crack-brained fads, he only
-delivered her property intact to his wife in order that they might be
-crack-brained together, at her instance and with her legal permission
-in new and worse directions afterwards) Yelverton will lose many of
-its time-honoured aristocratic distinctions; oxen and sheep will take
-the place of its antlered herds, and the vulgar plough and ploughman
-will break up the broad park lawns, where now the pheasant walks in
-the evening, and the fox, stealing out from his cover, haunts for his
-dainty meal. But when Elizabeth saw it that tender June night, just
-when the sun was setting, as in England it only sets in June, all its
-old-world charm of feudal state and beauty, jealously walled off from
-the common herd outside as one man's heritage by divine right and for
-his exclusive enjoyment, lay about it, as it had lain for generations
-past. Will she ever forget that drive in the summer evening from the
-little country railway station to her ancestral home?&mdash;the silent road,
-with the great trees almost meeting overhead; the snug farm-houses, old
-and picturesque, and standing behind their white gates amongst their
-hollyhocks and bee-hives; the thatched cottages by the roadside, with
-groups of wide-eyed children standing at the doors to see the carriage
-pass; the smell of the hay and the red clover in the fields, and the
-honeysuckle and the sweet-briar in the hedges; the sound of the wood
-pigeons cooing in the plantations; the first sight of her own lodge
-gates, with their great ramping griffins stonily pawing the air, and of
-those miles and miles of shadow-dappled sward within, those mysterious
-dark coverts, whence now and then a stag looked out at her and went
-crashing back to his ferny lair, and those odorous avenues of beech
-and lime, still haunted by belated bees and buzzing cockchafers, under
-which she passed to the inner enclosure of lawns and gardens where the
-old house stood, with open doors of welcome, awaiting her. What an old
-house! She had seen such in pictures&mdash;in the little prints that adorned
-old-fashioned pocket-books of her mother's time&mdash;-but the reality, as
-in the case of the Continental palaces, transcended all her dreams.
-White smoke curled up to the sky from the fluted chimney-stacks; the
-diamond-paned casements&mdash;little sections of the enormous mullioned
-windows&mdash;were set wide to the evening breezes and sunshine; on the
-steps before the porch a group of servants, respectful but not
-obsequious, stood ready to receive their new mistress, and to efface
-themselves as soon as they had made her welcome.</p>
-
-<p>"It is more than my share," she said, almost oppressed by all these
-evidences of her prosperity, and thinking of her mother's different
-lot. "It doesn't seem fair, Kingscote."</p>
-
-<p>"It is not fair," he replied. "But that is not your fault, nor mine.
-We are not going to keep it all to ourselves, you and I&mdash;because a
-king happened to fall in love with one of our grandmothers, who was
-no better than she should be&mdash;which is our title to be great folks, I
-believe. We are going to let other people have a share. But just for
-a little while we'll be selfish, Elizabeth; it's a luxury we don't
-indulge in often."</p>
-
-<p>So he led her into the beautiful house, after giving her a solemn kiss
-upon the threshold; and passing through the great hall, she was taken
-to a vast but charming bedroom that had been newly fitted up for her
-on the ground floor, and thence to an adjoining sitting-room, looking
-out upon a shady lawn&mdash;a homely, cosy little room that he had himself
-arranged for her private use, and which no one was to be allowed to
-have the run of, he told her, except him.</p>
-
-<p>"I want to feel that there is one place where we can be together,"
-he said, "whenever we want to be together, sure of being always
-undisturbed. It won't matter how full the house is, nor how much bustle
-and business goes on, if we can keep this nest for ourselves, to come
-to when we are tired and when we want to talk. It is not your boudoir,
-you know&mdash;that is in another place&mdash;and it is not your morning room; it
-is a little sanctuary apart, where nobody is to be allowed to set foot,
-save our own two selves and the housemaid."</p>
-
-<p>"It shall be," said his wife, with kindling eyes. "I will take care of
-that."</p>
-
-<p>"Very well. That is a bargain. We will take possession to-night. We
-will inaugurate our occupation by having our tea here. You shall not be
-fatigued by sitting up to dinner&mdash;you shall have a Myrtle Street tea,
-and I will wait on you."</p>
-
-<p>She was placed in a deep arm-chair, beside a hearth whereon burned the
-first wood fire that she had seen since she left Australia&mdash;billets
-of elm-wood split from the butts of dead and felled giants that had
-lived their life out on the Yelverton acres&mdash;with her feet on a rug
-of Tasmanian opossum skins, and a bouquet of golden wattle blossoms
-(procured with as much difficulty in England as the lilies of the
-valley had been in Australia) on a table beside her, scenting the room
-with its sweet and familiar fragrance. And here tea was brought in&mdash;a
-dainty little nondescript meal, with very little about it to remind her
-of Myrtle Street, save its comfortable informality; and the servant was
-dismissed, and the husband waited upon his wife&mdash;helping her from the
-little savoury dishes that she did not know, nor care to ask, the name
-of&mdash;pouring the cream into the cup that for so many years had held her
-strongest beverage, dusting the sugar over her strawberries&mdash;all the
-time keeping her at rest in her soft chair, with the sense of being
-at home and in peace and safety under his protection working like a
-delicious opiate on her tired nerves and brain.</p>
-
-<p>This was how they came to Yelverton. And for some days thereafter they
-indulged in the luxury of selfishness&mdash;they took their happiness in
-both hands, and made all they could of it, conscious they were well
-within their just rights and privileges&mdash;gaining experiences that all
-the rest of their lives would be the better for, and putting off from
-day to day, and from week to week, that summons to join them, which the
-matron and girls in London were ready to obey at a moment's notice.
-Husband and wife sat in their gable room, reading, resting, talking,
-love-making. They explored all the nooks and corners of their old
-house, investigated its multifarious antiquities, studied its bygone
-history, exhumed the pathetic memorials of the Kingscote and Elizabeth
-whose inheritance had come to them in so strange a way. They rambled
-in the beautiful summer woods, she with her needlework, he with his
-book&mdash;sometimes with a luncheon basket, when they would stay out all
-day; and they took quiet drives, all by themselves in a light buggy,
-as if they were in Australia still&mdash;apparently with no consciousness
-of that toiling and moiling world outside their park-gates which had
-once been of so much importance to them. And then one day Elizabeth
-complained of feeling unusually tired. The walks and drives came to an
-end, and the sitting-room was left empty. There was a breathless hush
-all over the great house for a little while; whispers and rustlings to
-and fro; and then a little cry&mdash;which, weak and small as it was, and
-shut in with double doors and curtains, somehow managed to make itself
-heard from the attic to the basement&mdash;announced that a new generation
-of Yelvertons of Yelverton had come into the world.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott returned home from a series of Belgravian
-entertainments, with that coronet of Patty's capture on her mind,
-in the small hours of the morning following this eventful day; and
-she found a telegram on her hall table, and learned, to her intense
-indignation, that Elizabeth had dared to have a baby without her (Mrs.
-Duff-Scott) being there to assist at the all-important ceremony.</p>
-
-<p>"It's just like him," she exclaimed to the much-excited sisters, who
-were ready to melt into tears over the good news. "It is just what I
-expected he would do when he took her off by herself in that way. It
-is the marriage over again. He wants to manage everything in his own
-fashion, and to have no interference from anybody. But this is really
-carrying independence too far. Supposing anything had gone wrong
-with Elizabeth? And how am I to know that her nurse is an efficient
-person?&mdash;and that the poor dear infant will be properly looked after?"</p>
-
-<p>"You may depend," said Patty, who did not grudge her sister her new
-happiness, but envied it from the bottom of her honest woman's heart,
-"You may depend he has taken every care of that. He is not a man to
-leave things to chance&mdash;at any rate, not where <i>she</i> is concerned."</p>
-
-<p>"Rubbish!" retorted the disappointed matron, who, though she had had
-no children of her own&mdash;perhaps because she had had none&mdash;had looked
-forward to a vicarious participation in Elizabeth's experiences at
-this time with the strongest interest and eagerness; "as if a man has
-any business to take upon himself to meddle at all in such matters! It
-is not fair to Elizabeth. She has a right to have us with her. I gave
-way about the wedding, but here I must draw the line. She is in her
-own house, and I shall go to her at once. Tell your maid to pack up,
-dears&mdash;we will start to-morrow."</p>
-
-<p>But they did not. They stayed in London, with what patience they could,
-subsisting on daily letters and telegrams, until the season there was
-over, and the baby at Yelverton was three weeks old. Then, though no
-explanations were made, they became aware that they would be no longer
-considered <i>de trop</i> by the baby's father, and rushed from the town to
-the country house with all possible haste.</p>
-
-<p>"You are a tyrant," said Mrs. Duff-Scott, when the master came forth to
-meet her. "I always said so, and now I know it."</p>
-
-<p>"I was afraid she would get talking and exerting herself too much if
-she had you all about her," he replied, with his imperturbable smile.</p>
-
-<p>"And you didn't think that <i>we</i> might possibly have a grain of sense,
-as well as you?"</p>
-
-<p>"I didn't think of anything," he said coolly, "except to make sure of
-her safety as far as possible."</p>
-
-<p>"O yes, I know"&mdash;laughing and brushing past him&mdash;"all you think of is
-to get your own way. Well, let us see the poor dear girl now we are
-here. I know how she must have been pining to show her baby to her
-sisters all this while, when you wouldn't let her."</p>
-
-<p>The next time he found himself alone with his wife, Mr. Yelverton asked
-her, with some conscientious misgiving, whether she <i>had</i> been pining
-for this forbidden pleasure, and whether he really was a tyrant.
-Of course, Elizabeth scouted any suggestion of such an idea as most
-horrible and preposterous, but the fact was&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Never mind. We all have our little failings, and the intelligent reader
-will not expect to find the perfect man any more than the perfect
-woman in this present world. And if he&mdash;or, I should say, she&mdash;<i>could</i>
-find him, no doubt she would be dreadfully disappointed, and not like
-him half so well as the imperfect ones. Elizabeth, who, as Patty had
-predicted, was "butter" in his hands, would not have had her husband
-less fond of his own way on any account.</p>
-
-<p>For some time everybody was taken up with the baby, who was felt to be
-the realisation of that ideal which Dan and the magpies had faintly
-typified in the past. Dan himself lay humbly on the hem of the mother's
-skirts, or under her chair, resting his disjointed nose on his paws,
-and blinking meditatively at the rival who had for ever superseded
-him. Like a philosophical dog as he was, he accepted superannuation
-without a protest as the inevitable and universal lot, and, when no one
-took any notice of him, coiled himself on the softest thing he could
-find and went to sleep, or if he couldn't go to sleep, amused himself
-snapping at the English flies. The girls forgot, or temporarily laid
-aside, their own affairs, in the excitement of a constant struggle
-for possession of the person of the little heir, whom they regarded
-with passionate solicitude or devouring envy and jealousy according
-as they were successful or otherwise. The nurse's post was a sinecure
-at this time. The aunts hushed the infant to sleep, and kept watch by
-his cradle, and carried him up and down the garden terraces with a
-parasol over his head. The mother insisted upon performing his toilet,
-and generally taking a much larger share of him than was proper for
-a mother in her rank of life; and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, for whom
-china had lost its remaining charms, assumed privileges as a deputy
-grandmother which it was found expedient to respect. In this absorbing
-domesticity the summer passed away. The harvest of field and orchard
-was by-and-by gathered in; the dark-green woods and avenues turned
-red, and brown, and orange under the mellow autumn sun; the wild
-fruits in the hedgerows ripened; the swallows took wing. To Yelverton
-came a party of guests&mdash;country neighbours and distinguished public
-men, of a class that had not been there a-visiting for years past;
-who shot the well-stocked covers, and otherwise disported themselves
-after the manner of their kind. And amongst the nobilities was that
-coronet, that incarnation of dignity and magnificence, which had been
-singled out as an appropriate mate for Patty. It, or he, was offered
-in form, and with circumstances of state and ceremony befitting the
-great occasion; and Patty was summoned to a consultation with her
-family&mdash;every member of which, not even excepting Elizabeth herself,
-was anxious to see the coronet on Patty's brow (which shows how
-hereditary superstitions and social prejudices linger in the blood,
-even after they seem to be eradicated from the brain)&mdash;for the purpose
-of receiving their advice, and stating her own intentions.</p>
-
-<p>"My intention," said Patty, firmly, with her little nose uplifted,
-and a high colour in her face, "is to put an end to this useless and
-culpable waste of time. The man I love and am <i>engaged to</i> is working,
-and slaving, and waiting for me; and I, like the rest of you, am
-neglecting him, and sacrificing him, as if he were of no consequence
-whatever. <i>This</i> shows me how I have been treating him. I will not
-do it any more. I did not become Miss Yelverton to repudiate all I
-undertook when I was only Patty King. I am Yelverton by name, but I am
-King by nature, still. I don't want to be a great swell. I have seen
-the world, and I am satisfied. Now I want to go home to Paul&mdash;as I
-ought to have done before. I will ask you, if you please, Kingscote, to
-take my passage for me at once. I shall go back next month, and I shall
-marry Paul Brion as soon as the steamer gets to Melbourne."</p>
-
-<p>Her brother-in-law put out his hand, and drew her to him, and kissed
-her. "Well done," he said, speaking boldly from his honest heart. "So
-you shall."</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>"THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE."</h4>
-
-
-<p>Patty softened down the terms in which she made her declaration of
-independence, when she found that it was received in so proper a
-spirit. She asked them if they had <i>any objection</i>&mdash;which, after
-telling them that it didn't matter whether they had or not, was a
-graceful act, tending to make things pleasant without committing
-anybody. But if they had objections (as of course they had) they
-abandoned them at this crisis. It was no use to fight against Paul
-Brion, so they accepted him, and made the best of him. The head of
-the family suddenly and forcibly realised that he should have been
-disappointed in his little sister-in law if she had acted otherwise;
-and even Mrs. Duff-Scott, who would always so much rather help than
-hinder a generous project, no matter how opposed to the ethics of her
-class, was surprised herself by the readiness with which she turned her
-back on faded old lords and dissipated young baronets, and gave herself
-up to the pleasant task of making true lovers happy. Elizabeth repented
-swiftly of her own disloyalty to plighted love, temporary and shadowy
-as it was; and, seeing how matters really stood, acquiesced in the
-situation with a sense of great thankfulness that her Patty was proved
-so incorruptible by the tests she had gone through. Mrs. Yelverton's
-only trouble was the fear of separation in the family, which the
-ratification of the engagement seemed likely to bring about.</p>
-
-<p>But Patty was dissuaded from her daring enterprise, as first proposed;
-and Paul was written to by her brother and guardian, and adjured to
-detach himself from his newspaper for a while and come to England
-for a holiday&mdash;which, it was delicately hinted, might take the form
-of a bridal tour. And in that little sitting-room, sacred to the
-private interviews of the master and mistress of the house, great
-schemes were conceived and elaborated for the purpose of seducing Mrs.
-Brion's husband to remain in England for good and all. They settled
-his future for him in what seemed to them an irresistibly attractive
-way. He was to rent a certain picturesque manor-house in the Yelverton
-neighbourhood, and there, keeping Patty within her sister's reach,
-take up that wholesome, out-door country life which they were sure
-would be so good for his health and his temper. He could do a little
-high farming, and "whiles" write famous books; or, if his tastes and
-habits unfitted him for such a humdrum career, he could live in the
-world of London art and intellect, and be a "power" on behalf of those
-social reforms for which his brother-in-law so ardently laboured.
-Mr. Brion, senior, who had long ago returned to Seaview Villa, was,
-of course, to be sent for back again, to shelter himself under the
-broad Yelverton wing. The plan was all arranged in the most harmonious
-manner, and Elizabeth's heart grew more light and confident every time
-she discussed it.</p>
-
-<p>Paul received his pressing invitation&mdash;which he understood to mean,
-as it did, a permission to go and marry Patty from her sister's
-house&mdash;-just after having been informed by Mrs. Aarons, "as a positive
-fact," that Miss Yelverton was shortly to be made a countess. He
-did not believe this piece of news, though Mrs. Aarons, who had an
-unaccountably large number of friends in the highest circles of London
-society, was ready to vouch for its authenticity with her life, if
-necessary; but, all the same, it made him feel moody, and surly, and
-ill-used, and miserable. It was his dark hour before the dawn. In
-Australia the summer was coming on. It was the middle of November. The
-"Cup" carnival was over for another year. The war in Egypt was also
-over, and the campaign of Murdoch's cricketers in England&mdash;two events
-which it seemed somehow natural to bracket together. The Honourable
-Ivo Bligh and his team had just arrived in Melbourne. The Austral had
-just been sunk in Sydney Harbour. It was early summer with us here,
-the brightest and gayest time of the whole year. In England the bitter
-winter was at hand&mdash;that dreaded English winter which the Australian
-shudders to think of, but which the Yelverton family had agreed to
-spend in their ancestral house, in order to naturalise and acclimatise
-the sisters, and that duty might be done in respect of those who had to
-bear the full extent of its bitterness, in hunger, and cold, and want.
-When Mr. Yelverton wrote to Paul to ask him to visit them, Patty wrote
-also to suggest that his precious health might suffer by coming over at
-such a season, and to advise him to wait until February or March. But
-the moment her lover had read those letters, he put on his hat and went
-forth to his office to demand leave for six months, and in a few days
-was on board the returning mail steamer on his way to England. He did
-not feel like waiting now&mdash;after waiting for two years&mdash;and she was not
-in the least afraid that he would accept her advice.</p>
-
-<p>Paul's answers arrived by post, as he was himself speeding through
-Europe&mdash;not so much absorbed in his mission as to neglect note-making
-by the way, and able to write brilliant articles on Gambetta's death,
-and other affairs of the moment, while waiting for boat or train to
-carry him to his beloved; and it was still only the first week in
-January when they received a telegram at Yelverton announcing his
-imminent arrival. Mr. Yelverton himself went to London to meet him,
-and Elizabeth rolled herself in furs and an opossum rug in her snug
-brougham and drove to the country railway station to meet them both,
-leaving Patty sitting by the wood fire in the hall. Mrs. Duff-Scott
-was in town, and Eleanor with her, trying to see Rossetti's pictures
-through the murky darkness of the winter days, but in reality bent on
-giving the long-divided lovers as much as possible of their own society
-for a little while. The carriage went forth early in the afternoon,
-with its lamps lighted, and it returned when the cold night had settled
-down on the dreary landscape at five o'clock. Paul, ulstered and
-comfortered, walked into the dimly-lighted, warm, vast space, hung
-round with ghostly banners and antlers, and coats of mail, and pictures
-whereof little was visible but the frames, and marched straight into
-the ruddy circle of the firelight, where the small figure awaited him
-by the twinkling tea-table, herself only an outline against the dusk
-behind her; and the pair stood on the hearthrug and kissed each other
-silently, while Elizabeth, accompanied by her husband, went to take her
-bonnet off, and to see how Kingscote junior was getting on.</p>
-
-<p>After that Paul and Patty parted no more. They had a few peaceful
-weeks at Yelverton, during which the newspaper in Melbourne got
-nothing whatever from the fertile brain of its brilliant contributor
-(which, Patty thought, must certainly be a most serious matter for the
-proprietors); and in which interval they made compensation for all past
-shortcomings as far as their opportunities, which were profuse and
-various, allowed. It delighted Paul to cast up at Patty the several
-slights and snubs that she had inflicted on him in the old Myrtle
-Street days, and it was her great luxury in life to make atonement for
-them all&mdash;to pay him back a hundredfold for all that he had suffered on
-her account. The number of "soft things" that she played upon the piano
-from morning till night would alone have set him up in "Fridays" for
-the two years that he had been driven to Mrs. Aarons for entertainment;
-and the abject meekness of the little spitfire that he used to know
-was enough to provoke him to bully her, if he had had anything of the
-bully in him. The butter-like consistency to which she melted in this
-freezing English winter time was such as to disqualify her for ever
-from sitting in judgment upon Elizabeth's conjugal attitude. She fell
-so low, indeed, that she became, in her turn, a mark for Eleanor's
-scoffing criticism.</p>
-
-<p>"Well, I never thought to see you grovel to any living being&mdash;let alone
-a <i>man</i>&mdash;as you do to him," said that young lady on one occasion, with
-an impudent smile. "The citizens of Calais on their knees to Edward the
-Third were truculent swaggerers by comparison."</p>
-
-<p>"You mind your own business," retorted Patty, with a flash of her
-ancient spirit.</p>
-
-<p>Whereat Nelly rejoined that she would mind it by keeping her <i>fiancé</i>
-in his proper place when <i>her</i> time came to have a <i>fiancé. She</i> would
-not let him put a rope round her neck and tie it to his button-hole
-like a hat-string. She'd see him farther first.</p>
-
-<p>February came, and Mrs. Duff-Scott returned, and preparations for the
-wedding were set going. The fairy godmother was determined to make up
-for the disappointment she had suffered in Elizabeth's case by making a
-great festival of the second marriage of the family, and they let her
-have her wish, the result being that the bride of the poor press-writer
-had a <i>trousseau</i> worthy of that coronet which she had extravagantly
-thrown away, and presents the list and description of which filled a
-whole column of the <i>Yelverton Advertiser</i>, and made the hearts of all
-the local maidens to burn with envy. In March they were married in
-Yelverton village church. They went to London for a week, and came back
-for a fortnight; and in April they crossed the sea again, bound for
-their Melbourne home.</p>
-
-<p>For all the beautiful arrangements that had been planned for them fell
-through. The Yelvertons had reckoned without their host&mdash;as is the
-incurable habit of sanguine human nature&mdash;with the usual result. Paul
-had no mind to abandon his chosen career and the country that, as a
-true Australian, he loved and served as he could never love and serve
-another, because he had married into a great English family; and Patty
-would not allow him to be persuaded. Though her heart was torn in
-two at the thought of parting with Elizabeth, and with that precious
-baby who was Elizabeth's rival in her affections, she promptly and
-uncomplainingly tore herself from both of them to follow her husband
-whithersoever it seemed good to him to go.</p>
-
-<p>"One cannot have everything in this world," said Patty philosophically,
-"and you and I, Elizabeth, have considerably more than our fair share.
-If we hadn't to pay something for our happiness, how could we expect it
-to last?"</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI">CHAPTER LI.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>PATIENCE REWARDED.</h4>
-
-
-<p>Eleanor, like Patty, withstood the seductions of English life and
-miscellaneous English admirers, and lived to be Miss Yelverton in her
-turn, unappropriated and independent. And, like both her sisters,
-though more by accident than of deliberate intention, she remained
-true to her first love, and, after seeing the world and supping
-full of pleasure and luxury, returned to Melbourne and married Mr.
-Westmoreland. That is to say, Mr. Westmoreland followed her to England,
-and followed her all over Europe&mdash;dogging her from place to place with
-a steadfast persistence that certainly deserved reward&mdash;until the
-major and Mrs. Duff-Scott, returning home almost immediately after
-Patty's marriage and departure, brought their one ewe lamb, which the
-Yelvertons had not the conscience to immediately deprive them of, back
-to Australia with them; when her persevering suitor promptly took his
-passage in the same ship. All this time Mr. Westmoreland had been
-as much in love as his capacity for the tender passion&mdash;much larger
-than was generally supposed&mdash;permitted. Whether it was that she was
-the only woman who dared to bully him and trample on him, and thereby
-won his admiration and respect&mdash;or whether his passion required that
-the object of it should be difficult of attainment&mdash;or whether her
-grace and beauty were literally irresistible to him&mdash;or whether he
-was merely the sport of that unaccountable fate which seems to govern
-or misgovern these affairs, it is not necessary to conjecture. No one
-asks for reasons when a man or woman falls a victim to this sort of
-infatuation. Some said it was because she had become rich and grand,
-but that was not the case&mdash;except in so far as the change in her
-social circumstances had made her tyrannical and impudent, in which
-sense wealth and consequence had certainly enhanced her attractions in
-his eyes. Thirty thousand pounds, though a very respectable marriage
-portion in England, is not sufficient to make a fortune-hunter of an
-Australian suitor in his position; and let me do the Australian suitor
-of all ranks justice and here state that fortune hunting, through the
-medium of matrimony, is a weakness that his worst enemy cannot accuse
-him of&mdash;whatever his other faults may be. Mr. Westmoreland, being fond
-of money, as a constitutional and hereditary peculiarity&mdash;if you
-can call that a peculiarity&mdash;was tempted to marry it once, when that
-stout and swarthy person in the satin gown and diamonds exercised her
-fascinations on him at the club ball, and he could have married it at
-any time of his bachelor life, the above possessor of it being, like
-Barkis, "willin'", and even more than "willin'". Her fortune was such
-that Eleanor's thirty thousand was but a drop in the bucket compared
-with it, and yet even he did not value it in comparison with the favour
-of that capricious young lady. So he followed her about from day to
-day and from place to place, as if he had no other aim in life than
-to keep her within sight, making himself an insufferable nuisance to
-her friends very often, but apparently not offending her by his open
-and inveterate pursuit. She was not kind, but she was not cruel, and
-yet she was both in turn to a distracting degree. She made his life
-an ecstasy of miserable longing for her, keeping him by her side like
-a big dog on a chain, and feeding him with stones (in the prettiest
-manner) when he asked for bread. But she grew very partial to her
-big dog in the process of tormenting him and witnessing his touching
-patience under it. She was "used to him," she said; and when, from
-some untoward circumstance over which he had no control, he was for a
-little while absent from her, she felt the gap he left. She sensibly
-missed him. Moreover, though she trampled on him herself, it hurt her
-to see others do it; and when Mrs. Duff-Scott and Kingscote Yelverton
-respectively aired their opinions of his character and conduct, she
-instantly went over to his side, and protested in her heart, if not in
-words, against the injustice and opprobrium that he incurred for her
-sake. So, when Elizabeth became the much-occupied mother of a family,
-and when Patty was married and gone off into the world with her Paul,
-Eleanor, left alone in her independence, began to reckon up what it was
-worth. The spectacle of her sisters' wedded lives gave her pleasant
-notions of matrimony, and the state of single blessedness, as such,
-never had any particular charms for her. Was it worth while, she asked
-herself, to be cruel any more?&mdash;and might she not just as well have a
-house and home of her own as Elizabeth and Patty? Her lover was only
-a big dog upon a chain, but then why shouldn't he be? Husbands were
-not required to be all of the same pattern. She didn't want to be
-domineered over. And she didn't see anybody she liked better. She might
-go farther and fare worse. And&mdash;she was getting older every day.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott broke in upon these meditations with the demand that
-she (Eleanor) should return with her to Melbourne, if only for a year
-or two, so that she should not be entirely bereft and desolate.</p>
-
-<p>"I must start at once," said the energetic woman, suddenly seized with
-a paroxysm of home sickness and a sense of the necessity to be doing
-something now that at Yelverton there seemed nothing more to do, and in
-order to shake off the depressing effect of the first break in their
-little circle. "I have been away too long&mdash;it is time to be looking
-after my own business. Besides, I can't allow Patty to remain in that
-young man's lodgings&mdash;full of dusty papers and tobacco smoke, and
-where, I daresay, she hasn't so much as a peg to hang her dresses on.
-She must get a house at once, and I must be there to see about it, and
-to help her to choose the furniture. Elizabeth, my darling, you have
-your husband and child&mdash;I am leaving you happy and comfortable&mdash;and
-I will come and see you again in a year or two, or perhaps you and
-Kingscote will take a trip over yourselves and spend a winter with us.
-But I must go now. And do, do&mdash;oh, <i>do</i> let me keep Nelly for a little
-while longer! You know I will take care of her, and I couldn't bear the
-sight of my house with none of you in it!"</p>
-
-<p>So she went, and of course she took Eleanor, who secretly longed for
-the land of sunshine after her full dose of "that horrid English
-climate," and who, with a sister at either end of the world, perhaps
-missed Patty, who had been her companion by night as well as by day,
-more than she would miss Elizabeth. The girl was very ready to go. She
-wept bitterly when the actual parting came, but she got over it in a
-way that gave great satisfaction to Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major, and
-relieved them of all fear that they had been selfish about bringing
-her away. They joined the mail steamer at Venice, and there found Mr.
-Westmoreland on board. He had been summoned by his agent at home he
-explained; one of his partners wanted to retire, and he had to be there
-to sign papers. And since it had so happened that he was obliged to
-go back by this particular boat, he hoped the ladies would make him
-useful, and let him look after their luggage and things. Eleanor was
-properly and conventionally astonished by the curious coincidence,
-but had known that it would happen just as well as he. The chaperon,
-for her part, was indignant and annoyed by it&mdash;for a little while;
-afterwards she, too, reflected that Eleanor had spent two unproductive
-years in England and was growing older every day. Also that she might
-certainly go farther and fare worse. So Mr. Westmoreland was accepted
-as a member of the travelling party. All the heavy duties of escort
-were relegated to him by the major, and Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him hither
-and thither in a way that he had never been accustomed to. But he was
-meek and biddable in these days, and did not mind what uses he put
-his noble self to for his lady's sake. And she was very gracious. The
-conditions of ship life, at once so favourable and so very unfavourable
-for the growth of tender relations, suited his requirements in every
-way. She could not snub him under the ever-watchful eyes of their
-fellow-passengers. She could not send him away from her. She was even a
-little tempted, by that ingrained vanity of the female heart, to make a
-display before the other and less favoured ladies of the subject-like
-homage which she, queen-like, received. Altogether, things went on
-in a very promising manner. So that when, no farther than the Red
-Sea&mdash;while life seemed, as it does in that charming locality, reduced
-to its simple elements, and the pleasure of having a man to fan her was
-a comparatively strong sensation&mdash;when at this propitious juncture,
-Mr. Westmoreland bewailed his hard fate for the thousandth time, and
-wondered whether he should ever have the good fortune to find a little
-favour in her sight, it seemed to her that this sort of thing had gone
-on long enough, and that she might as well pacify him and have done
-with it. So she said, looking at him languidly with her sentimental
-blue eyes&mdash;"Well, if you'll promise not to bother me any more, I'll
-think about it."</p>
-
-<p>He promised faithfully not to bother her any more, and he did not. But
-he asked her presently, after fanning her in silence for some minutes,
-what colour she would like her carriage painted, and she answered
-promptly, "Dark green."</p>
-
-<p>While they were yet upon the sea, a letter&mdash;three letters, in
-fact&mdash;were despatched to Yelverton, to ask the consent of the head of
-the family to the newly-formed engagement, and not long after the party
-arrived in Melbourne the desired permission was received, Mr. and Mrs.
-Yelverton having learned the futility of opposition in these matters,
-and having no serious objection to Nelly's choice. And then again Mrs.
-Duff-Scott plunged into the delight of preparation for trousseau and
-wedding festivities&mdash;quite willing that the "poor dear fellow," as
-she now called him (having taken him to her capacious heart), should
-receive the reward of his devotion without unnecessary delay. The house
-was already there, a spick and span family mansion in Toorak, built
-by Mr. Westmoreland's father, and inherited by himself ere the first
-gloss was off the furniture; there was nothing to do to that but to
-arrange the chairs and sofas, and scatter Eleanor's wedding presents
-over the tables. There was nothing more <i>possible</i>. It was "hopeless,"
-Mrs. Duff-Scott said, surveying the bright and shining rooms through
-her double eye-glass. Unless it were entirely cleared out, and you
-started afresh from the beginning, she would defy you to make anything
-of it. So, as the bridegroom was particularly proud of his furniture,
-which was both new and costly, and would have scouted with indignation
-any suggestion of replacing it, Mrs. Duff-Scott abandoned Eleanor
-æsthetically to her fate. There was nothing to wait for, so the pair
-were made one with great pomp and ceremony not long after their return
-to Australia. Eleanor had the grandest wedding of them all, and really
-did wear "woven dew" on the occasion&mdash;with any quantity of lace about
-it of extravagant delicacy and preciousness. And now she has settled
-herself in her great, gay-coloured, handsome house, and is already
-a very fashionable and much-admired and much-sought-after lady&mdash;so
-overwhelmed with her social engagements and responsibilities sometimes
-that she says she doesn't know what she should do if she hadn't Patty's
-quiet little house to slip into now and then. But she enjoys it. And
-she enjoys leading her infatuated husband about with her, like a tame
-bear on a string, to show people how very, very infatuated he is. It is
-her idea of married happiness&mdash;at present.</p>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<h5><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII">CHAPTER LII.</a></h5>
-
-
-<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4>
-
-
-<p>While Mrs. Westmoreland thus disports herself in the gay world, Mrs.
-Brion pursues her less brilliant career in much peace and quietness.
-When she and Paul came back to Australia, a bride and bridegroom, free
-to follow their own devices unhampered by any necessity to consider the
-feelings of relatives and friends, nothing would satisfy her but to go
-straight from the ship to Mrs. M'Intyre's, and there temporarily abide
-in those tobacco-perfumed rooms which had once been such forbidden
-ground to her. She scoffed at the Oriental; she turned up her nose at
-the Esplanade; she would not hear of any suites of apartments, no
-matter how superior they might be. Her idea of perfect luxury was to
-go and live as Paul had lived, to find out all the little details of
-his old solitary life which aforetime she had not dared to inquire
-into, to rummage boldly over his bookshelves and desk and cupboards,
-which once it would have been indelicate for her to so much as look
-at, to revel in the sense that it was improper no longer for her to
-make just as free as she liked with his defunct bachelorhood, the
-existing conditions of which had had so many terrors for her. When Paul
-represented that it was not a fit place for her to go into, she told
-him that there was no place in the world so fit, and begged so hard to
-be taken there, if only for a week or two, that he let her have her
-way. And a very happy time they spent at No. 7, notwithstanding many
-little inconveniences. And even the inconveniences had their charm.
-Then Mrs. Duff-Scott and Eleanor came out, when it was felt to be time
-to say good-bye to these humble circumstances&mdash;to leave the flowery
-carpet, now faded and threadbare, the dingy rep suite, and the smirking
-Cenci over the mantelpiece, for the delectation of lodgers to whom
-such things were appropriate; and to select a house and furnish it
-as befitted the occupation of Miss Yelverton that was and her (now)
-distinguished husband.</p>
-
-<p>By good fortune (they did not say it was good fortune, but they thought
-it), the old landlord next door saw fit to die at this particular
-juncture, and No. 6 was advertised to be let. Mr. and Mrs. Brion at
-once pounced upon the opportunity to secure the old house, which,
-it seemed to them, was admirably suited to their present modest
-requirements; and, by the joint exercise of Mrs. Duff-Scott's and
-Patty's own excellent taste, educated in England to the last degree
-of modern perfectibility, the purveyors of art furniture in our
-enlightened city transformed the humble dwelling of less than a dozen
-rooms into a little palace of esoteric delights. Such a subdued,
-harmonious brightness, such a refined simplicity, such an unpretentious
-air of comfort pervades it from top to bottom; and as a study of
-colour, Mrs. Duff-Scott will tell you, it is unique in the Australian
-colonies. It does her good&mdash;even her&mdash;to go and rest her eyes and her
-soul in the contemplation of it. Paul has the bureau in his study (and
-finds it very useful), and Patty has the piano in her drawing-room,
-its keyboard to a retired corner behind a portière (draped where once
-was a partition of folding doors), and its back, turned outwards,
-covered with a piece of South Kensington needlework. In this cosy nest
-of theirs, where Paul, with a new spur to his energies, works his
-special lever of the great machine that makes the world go on (when
-it would fain be lazy and sit down), doing great things for other men
-if gaining little glory for himself&mdash;and where Patty has afternoon
-teas and evenings that gather together whatever genuine exponents
-of intellectual culture may be going about, totally eclipsing the
-attractions of Mrs. Aarons's Fridays to serious workers in the fields
-of art and thought, without in any way dimming the brilliancy of those
-entertainments&mdash;the married pair seem likely to lead as happy a life
-as can be looked for in this world of compromises. It will not be
-all cakes and ale, by any means. The very happiest lives are rarely
-surfeited with these, perhaps, unwholesome delicacies, and I doubt if
-theirs will even be amongst the happiest. They are too much alike to be
-the ideal match. Patty is thin-skinned and passionate, too ready to be
-hurt to the heart by the mere little pin-pricks and mosquito bites of
-life; and Paul is proud and crotchety, and, like the great Napoleon,
-given to kick the fire with his boots when he is put out. There will
-be many little gusts of temper, little clouds of misunderstanding,
-disappointments, and bereavements, and sickness of mind and body; but,
-with all this, they will find their lot so blessed, by reason of the
-mutual love and sympathy that, through all vicissitudes, will surely
-grow deeper and stronger every day they live together, that they will
-not know how to conceive a better one. And, after all, that is the most
-one can ask or wish for in this world.</p>
-
-<p>Mrs. Duff-Scott, being thus deprived of all her children, and finding
-china no longer the substantial comfort to her that it used to be,
-has fulfilled her husband's darkest predictions and "gone in" for
-philanthropy. In London she served a short but severe apprenticeship to
-that noble cause which seeks to remove the curse of past ignorance and
-cruelty from those to whom it has come down in hereditary entail&mdash;those
-on whose unhappy and degraded lives all the powers of evil held
-mortgages (to quote a thoughtful writer) before ever the deeds were
-put into their hands&mdash;and who are now preached at and punished for the
-crimes that, not they, but their tyrants of the past committed. She
-took a lesson in that new political economy which is to the old science
-what the spirit of modern religion is to the ecclesiasticism which
-has been its unwilling mother, and has learned that the rich <i>are</i>
-responsible for the poor&mdash;that, let these interesting debating clubs
-that call themselves the people's parliaments say what they like, the
-moral of the great social problem is that the selfishness of the past
-must be met by unselfishness in the present, if any of us would hope to
-see good days in the future.</p>
-
-<p>"It will not do," says Mrs. Duff-Scott to her clergyman, who deplores
-the dangerous opinions that she has imbibed, "to leave these matters to
-legislation. Of what use is legislation? Here are a lot of ignorant,
-vain men who know nothing about it, fighting with one another for what
-they can get, and the handful amongst them who are really anxious for
-the public good are left nowhere in the scrimmage. It is <i>we</i> who must
-put our shoulders to the wheel, my dear sir&mdash;and the sooner we set
-about it the better. Look at the state of Europe"&mdash;she waves her hand
-abroad&mdash;"and see what things are coming to! The very heart of those
-countries is being eaten out by the cancer-growths of Nihilism and
-all sorts of dreadful isms, because the poor are getting educated to
-understand <i>why</i> they are so poor. Look at wealthy England, with more
-than a million paupers, and millions and millions that are worse than
-paupers&mdash;England is comparatively quiet and orderly under it, and why?
-Because a number of good people like Mr. Yelverton"&mdash;the clergyman
-shakes his head at the mention of this wicked sinner's name&mdash;"have
-given themselves up to struggle honestly and face to face with the
-evils that nothing but a self-sacrificing and independent philanthropy
-can touch. I believe that if England escapes the explosion of this
-fermenting democracy, which is brewing such a revolution as the world
-has never seen, it will be owing to neither Church nor State&mdash;unless
-Church and State both mend their ways considerably&mdash;but to the
-self-denying work that is being done outside of them by those who have
-a single-hearted desire to help, to <i>really</i> help, their wronged and
-wretched fellow-creatures."</p>
-
-<p>Thus this energetic woman, in the headlong ardour of her new
-conversion. And (if a woman, ready to admit her disabilities as
-such, may say so) it is surely better to be generous in the cause of
-a possibly mistaken conviction of your own, than to be selfish in
-deference to the opinions of other people, which, though they be the
-product of the combined wisdom of all the legislatures of the world,
-find no response in the instincts of your human heart. At any rate, I
-believe we shall be brought to think so some day&mdash;that great Someday
-which looms not far ahead of us, when, as a Cornish proverb puts it,
-if we have not ruled ourselves by the rudder we shall be ruled by
-the rock. And so Mrs. Duff-Scott works, and thinks, and writes and
-(of course) talks, and bothers her husband and her acquaintances for
-the public weal, and leads her clergyman a life that makes him wish
-sometimes that he had chosen a less harassing profession; economising
-her money, and her time, and all she has of this world's goods, that
-she may fulfil her sacred obligations to her fellow-creatures and help
-the fortunate new country in which she lives to keep itself from the
-evil ways that have wrought such trouble and danger to the old ones.</p>
-
-<p>And the man who set her to this good work pursues it himself, not in
-haste or under fitful and feverish impulses of what we call enthusiasm,
-but with refreshed energy and redoubled power, by reason of the great
-"means" that are now at his disposal, the faithful companionship that
-at once lightens and strengthens the labour of his hands and brain,
-and the deep passion of love for wife and home which keeps his heart
-warm with vital benevolence for all the world. Mr. Yelverton has
-not become more orthodox since his marriage; but that was not to be
-expected. In these days orthodoxy and goodness are not synonymous
-terms. It is doubtful, indeed, if orthodoxy has not rather become the
-synonym for the opposite of goodness, in the eyes of those who judge
-trees by their fruits and whose ideal of goodness is to love one's
-neighbour as one's self. While it is patent to the candid observer
-that the men who have studied the new book of Genesis which latter-day
-science has written for us, and have known that Exodus from the land of
-bondage which is the inevitable result of such study, conscientiously
-pursued, are, as a rule, distinguished by a large-minded justice and
-charity, sympathy and self-abnegation, a regard for the sacred ties
-of brotherhood binding man with man, which, being incompatible with
-the petty meannesses and cruelties so largely practised in sectarian
-circles, make their unostentatious influence to be felt like sweet and
-wholesome leaven all around them. Such a man is Elizabeth's husband,
-and as time goes on she ceases to wish for any change in him save that
-which means progression in his self-determined course. It was not
-lightly that he flew in the face of the religious traditions of his
-youth; rather did he crawl heavily and unwillingly away from them, in
-irresistible obedience to a conscience so sensitive and well-balanced
-that it ever pointed in the direction of the truth, like the magnetic
-needle to the pole, and in which he dared to trust absolutely, no
-matter how dark the outlook seemed. And now that, after much search,
-he has found his way, as far as he may hope to find it in this world,
-he is too intently concerned to discover what may be ahead of him,
-and in store for those who will follow him, to trouble himself and
-others with irrelevant trifles&mdash;to indulge in spites and jealousies,
-in ambitions that lead nowhere, in quarrels and controversies about
-nothing&mdash;to waste his precious strength and faculties in the child's
-play that with so many of us is the occupation of life, and like other
-child's play, full of pinches and scratches and selfish squabbling
-over trumpery toys. To one who has learned that "the hope of nature is
-in man," and something of what great nature is, and what man should
-be, there no longer exists much temptation to envy, hatred, malice,
-and uncharitableness, or any other of the vulgar vices of predatory
-humanity, not yet cured of its self-seeking propensities. He is
-educated above that level. His recognition of the brotherhood of men,
-and their common interests and high destiny, makes him feel for others
-in their differences with him, and patient and forbearing with those
-whose privileges have been fewer and whose light is less than his. He
-takes so wide an outlook over life that the little features of the
-foreground, which loom so large to those who cannot or will not look
-beyond them, are dwarfed to insignificance; or, rather, he can fix
-their just relation to the general design in human affairs, and so
-reads them with their context, as it were, and by the light of truth
-and justice spread abroad in his own heart&mdash;thus proving how different
-they are in essential value from what they superficially appear. So
-Mr. Yelverton, despite his constitutional imperiousness, is one of
-the most tolerant, fine-tempered, and generous of men; and he goes on
-his way steadily, bending circumstances to his will, but hurting no
-one in the process&mdash;rather lifting up and steadying and strengthening
-those with whom he comes in contact by the contagion of his bold spirit
-and his inflexible and incorruptible honesty; and proving himself in
-private life, as such men mostly do, a faithful exponent and practical
-illustration of all the domestic virtues.</p>
-
-<p>Elizabeth is a happy woman, and she knows it well. It seems to her
-that all the prosperity and comfort that should have been her mother's
-has, like the enormous wealth that she inherits, been accumulating
-at compound interest, through the long years representing the lapsed
-generation, for her sole profit and enjoyment. She strolls often
-through the old plantation, where, in a remote nook, a moss-grown
-column stands to mark the spot where a little twig, a hair's breadth
-lack of space, was enough to destroy one strong life and ruin another,
-and to entail such tremendous consequences upon so many people, living
-and unborn; and she frequently drives to Bradenham Abbey to call on or
-to dine with her step-uncle's wife, and sees the stately environment
-of her mother's girlhood&mdash;the "beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish
-leather on the walls," the "long gallery with the painted windows and
-the slippery oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a
-row"&mdash;which she contrasts with the bark-roofed cottage on the sea-cliff
-within whose narrow walls that beautiful and beloved woman afterwards
-lived and died. And then she goes home to Yelverton to her husband and
-baby, and asks what she has done to deserve to be so much better off
-than those who went before her?</p>
-
-<p>And yet, perhaps, if all accounts were added up, the sum total of loss
-and profit on those respective investments that we make, or that are
-made for us, of our property in life, would not be found to differ
-so very much, one case with another. We can neither suffer nor enjoy
-beyond a certain point. Elizabeth is rich beyond the dreams of avarice
-in all that to such a woman is precious and desirable, and happy in her
-choice and lot beyond her utmost expectations. Yet not so happy as to
-have nothing to wish for&mdash;which we know, as well as Patty, means "too
-happy to last." There is that hunger for her absent sisters, which
-tries in vain to satisfy itself in weekly letters of prodigious length,
-left as a sort of hostage to fortune, a valuable if not altogether
-trustworthy security for the safety of her dearest possessions.</p>
-
-
-<h4>THE END.</h4>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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