George Manville Fenn (continued 3)

This was very wicked, and the domestic young ladies who had made use of such expressions were much to be censured. But certain it was that the Viscountess was far from perfect, and that she was an inveterate match-maker.

Probably she was of opinion that it would be a pleasant little piece of revenge on human nature to inveigle as many of her sex as possible on to the stormy sea of matrimony. At all events, a good many fashionable marriages resulted from plans laid by her ladyship and her female friends.

Lady Littletown’s friends were many, and included Lady Millet, whom she always addressed as “my dear,” in spite of a pique which had arisen consequent upon the latter marrying her eldest daughter to that wealthy parvenu, Mr Frank Morrison.

Now, according to Lady Littletown’s code, this was not correct. Dear friends as they had been, Lady Millet should have obtained her help, seeing that marriages were her métier; but she had obstinately gone her own way, invited her to the wedding, and latterly had actually shown that she was scheming something about two gentlemen whom Lady Littletown had marked down for her own—to wit, Lord Henry Moorpark and Mr Elbraham, the great financier.

“But, poor thing! she did not know how to manage Elbraham,” said Lady Littletown to herself; “and as for dear Lord Henry, not if I know it, dearest I think I can manage that, and you may marry pink-and-white wax-doll Gertrude to someone else.”

So her ladyship issued her cards most discriminatingly and well, in her determination to let no rival in her circle interfere with her rights as high-priestess of Hymen to her dearest friends.

Lady Littletown’s invitations on this occasion had included the Honourable Misses Dymcox and their nieces Clotilde and Marie Riversley; and, like Cinderella of the story, Ruth had rather a hard time with her cousins. For, to the astonishment of the latter, a fashionable dressmaker had been down expressly from London, and their excitement over the handsome robes that had arrived knew no bounds.

Their aunts had been a long time in making a move, and divers had been the consultations with Viscountess Littletown and Lady Anna Maria Morton. When at last that step was taken, it was with firmness and judgment combined.

Poor Ruth was divided between longings to go to the dinner-party and admiration of her cousins’ appearance, which, when they stood at last dressed, an hour before the time, parading the shabby bedroom and sweeping the skimpy pieces of Kidderminster carpet here and there with their stiff trains, was dazzling.

Certainly a handsomer pair of women rarely graced a party, and the Honourable Misses Dymcox, after a careful inspection through their square florid gold-edged eyeglasses, uttered sighs of satisfaction.

For the modiste had done her duty well. The dresses were in the latest style, they fitted to perfection, and the girls’ youth and the luxuriance of their hair quite made up for the want of jewellery to enhance their charms.

The Honourable Misses Dymcox were almost as excited as their nieces, for they, too, managed to get dressed an hour before time in their lavender silk straight-up-and-down garments, to which were tacked a few old pieces of very yellow lace, supposed to be an heirloom, but certainly very unattractive, whatever it may have been when young.

A very weak cup of tea had been taken, the elder ladies being in fear and trembling all the while.

“No, no, children, wait!” exclaimed Miss Philippa. “Joseph, put down the cups, and tell Markes to bring here two large pocket-handkerchiefs.”

In due time Markes appeared.

“Now, children,” said Miss Philippa, “stand up. Markes, have the goodness to tie a handkerchief by two of the corners just under the young ladies’ chins. It would be ruin to those dresses if they spilt any of their tea.”

“If you please, aunt, I don’t want any tea,” said Clotilde.

“Neither do I, aunt,” said Marie.

“Hush, children! You must take your tea. It is imperative that you should enter Lady Littletown’s drawing-room calm, self-possessed, and without any sign of being flushed. Markes, tie on those handkerchiefs.”

A red spot burned in the girls’ cheeks as they submitted to the childish indignity, and when they were duly provided with their bibs they were allowed to drink their thin, washy, half-cold tea, exchanging glances the while, for their emancipation had not yet arrived.

“Ruth, ring the bell,” said Miss Philippa, as soon as the tea was finished, and the handkerchiefs, which had been rising and falling in a troubled fashion, had been removed.

“Take away these teacups, Joseph,” said Miss Philippa. “Has the carriage arrived?”

“No, mum. It wants more than half an hour to the time. Buddy hasn’t been in yet.”

“Hush! Silence!” cried Miss Philippa harshly; “and dear me, Joseph, there is a large place on the back of your head not powdered.”

Joseph was heard to mutter something, and then he went forth in his best livery of pale blue with yellow facings and black knee-breeches, to finish his toilet for the night.

“Oh, here you are, then,” exclaimed Joseph, upon reaching his pantry, a peculiarly close, stuffy little room, smelling very strongly of sink, and furnished with two cupboards, a bracket-flap, and what looked like a third detached cupboard, but which was really the turn-up bedstead on which Joseph slept.

“Yes, here I am, Joey,” said a husky-voiced little red-nosed man, with a very blotchy, pimply face, to wit Isaac Buddy, the sole proprietor of a roomy old-fashioned Clarence fly, which was drawn by a very small shambling horse.

This conveyance was Mr Isaac Buddy’s means of livelihood, for it was to let, as his cards said, “by the day, night, or job,” and the hiring of Mr Isaac Buddy’s fly meant not only, as a matter of course, the hire of the horse to draw it, but of Mr Isaac Buddy himself.

For, out of deference to the feelings and aristocratic ideas of certain of the ladies residing in the private apartments, Mr Buddy had become an actor, who played many parts, and though the fiction was perfectly well understood, nobody ever thought of smiling if they saw Mr Isaac Buddy in a hat with a tarnished gold band on Mondays as Lady Anna Maria Morton’s coachman, or in a hat with a silver band on Tuesday, as Miss Tees’, or on Wednesday in a very hard shiny glazed hat without any nap, as Mrs Mongloff’s, or on other days in costumes to suit.

The Clarence fly of course remained the same, but it was always disguised in a more sounding name, and became “the carriage.”

“There ain’t a drop o’ nothing about handy, is there, Joey?” said Mr Buddy, as the thin footman set the tray down upon the bracket-flap.

“No, that there ain’t,” said Joseph, “without you’d like the pot filled up and have a cup o’ tea.”

“G’orn with yer. Did you ever know me wash myself out with warm water? How’s the old gals?”

“Old style,” replied Joseph; “but I say, Buddy, just cast your eye round as they’re getting in: the young ladies have been done up to rights.”

“I wish someone would find the money to get my old fly done up to rights,” said Mr Buddy, who, apparently quite at home, was standing before a shaving-glass hung against the wall, persuading, with Joseph’s brush, a couple of very obstinate little whiskers to stand out straight forward in the direction their owner wished. “’Spose there’ll be a wedding, then, some day.”

“Well, I dunno,” said Joseph.

“Looks like it, if they’re having ’em fresh painted,” said Mr Buddy, who now touched up his very greasy grey hair, making it stick up in points, in unconscious imitation of that of a clown.

“Here, you’d better look sharp, old man,” said Joseph, “they’re all ready and waiting, and time’s getting on.”

“Which we ain’t, Joey, or we should be doing better than we are, eh?”

“Ah, we should,” said Joseph, making a powder-box squeak as he unscrewed the top; and then taking out the puff, he placed a tea-cloth over his shoulders, and gave his hair a few dabs. “Now then, old man. Have the tea-cloth on?”

“Ah, you may as well,” was the reply; and the cloth having been adjusted by Joseph, the little man stood blinking solemnly while his dingy hair was duly powdered and turned white.

“Why, you might stand a bit o’ wilet powder cump’ny nights, Joey,” said the flyman, solemnly removing a little white meal from amongst the ruddy pimples of his face with the corner of the cloth in regular use for wiping the tea and breakfast service.

“How am I to stand best vi’let powder out o’ what they allow?” replied Joseph. “Flour’s just as good, and don’t cost me nothing. Now then, look sharp.”

As he spoke Joseph pulled open a drawer, from which he drew a drab greatcoat, inside which the little man placed himself, for it was manifestly so much too large that he could hardly be said to have put it on. Then a blue hat-box was pushed off the top of one of the cupboards, out of which a rather ancient hat was extricated, and mounted by the flyman, whose head seemed to have become suddenly wonderfully small; for it was an imposing structure of beaver with very curly brims, apparently kept from coming uncurled by a rigging or series of stays of tarnished silver cord, which ran from the lining up to a Panjandrum-like round button at the top, also of tarnished silver; while a formidable-looking and very spiky black cockade rose something like a patent ventilator from one side.

“That’s about the ticket, ain’t it, Joey?” said the little man, shaking his head so as to get the big hat in a good state of balance, and buttoning himself to the chin.

“Yes, that will do, old man.”

“The ladies want to know if the carriage has come, Joseph,” said Markes, suddenly making her appearance.

“Which you may take your solemn oath it ain’t,” said Mr Buddy, “for not one inch will that there horse stir till I wakes him up.”

“Then do for goodness’ sake, man, look sharp and fetch it,” exclaimed Markes. “I’m sure it’s past the time!”

“Wants five minutes,” said Mr Buddy, nodding his head, and having to dart one hand up to save the hat, which came down over his nose, and would have continued its course to the floor. “I say, your old coachman must have had a head like a bull, to have worn that hat without stuffing. There, I’m off. Soon be back. I say, though,” he whispered, thrusting back his head, and this time holding on by the rigging of the hat, “if it comes to a wedding, the old gals ought to stand some new togs.”

Within a quarter of an hour Mr Isaac Buddy, who had entered the private apartments as flyman, and came out the Honourable Misses Dymcox’s coachman, was at the door with the transformed fly. The ladies were duly packed inside, with many tremors as to their dresses, and Joseph, also in a drab greatcoat and a fearful and wonderful hat—the twin-brother of that upon Mr Buddy’s head—mounted to the seat. Then the carriage jingled and jangled off—a dashing brougham and pair, with flashing lights and the windows down, rattling by them, making Buddy’s nervous nag shy to the near side, as if he meant to mount the side walk out of the way.

“Rie,” whispered Clotilde, with her ruddy lips touching her sister’s ear.

“Yes.”

“That funny little officer was inside.”

“Yes,” muttered Marie to herself, “and the tall one as well; and you know it. I wonder who they are?”

Volume One—Chapter Nine.

The Slave of Fortune.

“I say, look here! You know, Litton, I’m the last man on earth to complain; but you know, damn it, you don’t do your duty by me.”

“You don’t give me credit for what I do do, Elbraham, ’pon my soul you don’t!” said the gentleman addressed—a rather fashionably-dressed, stylish young fellow of eight-and-twenty or thirty, whose hair was closely cropped in the latest style, his well-worn clothes scrupulously brushed, and his hands particularly white.

As he answered he screwed his glass very tightly into his eyes and gazed at the first speaker—a little, pudgy, high-shouldered man, with a very short neck and a very round head, slightly bald. He was carefully dressed, and a marked point in his attire was the utter absence of everything in the shape of jewellery or ornament. His fat white hands did not display so much as a ring; and though a slight prominence in his vest proclaimed the presence of a watch, it was attached to his person by a guard of the finest black silk. His countenance, however, did not match with the refinement of his attire, for it betrayed high living and sensual indulgence. There was an unpleasant look, too, about his eyes; and if to the least cultured person he had asserted in the most emphatic manner that he was a gentleman, it would not have been believed.

But, all the same, he was a man of mark, for this was Samuel Elbraham, the financier, the man who was reputed to have made hundreds of thousands by his connection with the Khedive. Men in society and on ’Change joked about Elbraham, and said that he was a child of Israel, who went down into Egypt and spoiled the Egyptians for everybody’s buying but his own. They called him Potiphar, too, and made it a subject of jest that there was no Potiphar’s wife; but they also said that it did not matter, for these were days when people had arisen who knew not Joseph.

Then they laughed, and wondered whether Potiphar of old went in for a theatre, and supplied rare subsidies of hard cash to a manager, and was very fond of taking parties of friends to his private-box to witness the last new extravaganza, after the said friends had dined with him and drunk his champagne.

Somehow or other, it was the friends who ate his dinners and drank his champagne that made the most jokes about him; but though these witticisms, real or would be, came round to him at times, they troubled him very little.

The conversation above commenced took place in Mr Elbraham’s library, at the riverside residence at Twickenham, the handsomely-furnished place that he, the celebrated converted Israelite, had taken of Lord Washingtower, when a long course of ill-luck on the turf had ended in nearly placing his lordship under the turf, for rumour said that his terrible illness was the result of an attempt to rid himself of his woes by a strong dose of a patent sedative medicine.

As Mr Elbraham spoke he hitched up his shoulders, thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down in front of the books he never read.

“Not give you credit for what you do?” he retorted. “Why, what do you mean?”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Elbraham, please. I’m not your servant.”

“Hang it all, then, what the devil are you? I pay you regular wages.”

“No. Stop, please. I accept a regulated stipend from you, Elbraham.”

“Oh, very good! let’s have it like that, then, Mr Rarthur Litton. I took you up, same as I did your bills, when you were so hard hit that you didn’t know where to go for a fiver. You made certain proposals and promises to me, and, I ask you, what have you done?”

“More than you give me credit for,” was the reply, rather sullenly made.

“You dine with me, you sleep here, and make this place your home whenever you like; and when I look for your help, as I expected, I find that your name is in the papers as the secretary to some confounded Small Fish Protection Society, or as managing director of the Anti-Soap and Soda Laundry Company.”

“I’m sure I’ve done my duty by you, Mr Elbraham,” said the young man hotly. “If you want to quarrel and get rid of me, say so.”

I don’t want to quarrel, and I don’t mean to quarrel, Mr Rarthur Litton. I made a bargain with you, and I mean to keep you to it. You boasted to me of your high connections and your entrée into good society, and undertook to introduce me into some of the best families, so that I might take the position that my wealth enables me to hold. Now, then, please, have I paid up like a man?

“Yes; you have,” was the sulky response.

“And you’ve taken jolly good care to draw more than was your due. Now, what have you done?”

“Well, I taught you to dress like something different to a cad.”

“Humph! You did knock off my studs and rings and things.”

“And I’ve dined with you till I’ve got you to be fit to eat your meals in a Christianlike manner.”

“Look here, Mr Rarthur, sir,” said Elbraham hotly, “is that meant as a sneer?”

“No; of course not.”

“Oh!”

“Then I wanted time to get these things in proper course. Well, come now, I did get you the invitation to Lady Littletown’s.”

“Yes; to a beggarly dinner with an old woman at Hampton. Are you going to dine there?”

“I? No! I come in afterwards at the ‘at home’.”

“Ah! I wanted to talk to you about that affair to-night. You promised without my consent.”

“Of course I did. It was a great chance.”

“A great chance?”

“Of course. You don’t know how big a thing it is to be.”

“Bah! stuff! rubbish! A feed given to all the old pensioned tabbies at Hampton Court.”

“Don’t you make any mistake, sir. There’ll be some big people there.”

“Big! Why, I could buy up dozens of them.”

“Their incomes, perhaps, Mr Elbraham, but not their position and their entrée to good society. Sir, you could not even buy mine.”

“But I could your bills,” said the other, with a grin.

“And hold them over me, you wretched little cad!” said the young man to himself. Then aloud:

“I can assure you, Mr Elbraham, that this dinner will give you the step you wanted. Lady Littletown stands very high in society. The Duchess of Redesby will be there, and Lord Henry Moorpark.”

“What! old Apricot—old yellow and ripe!” said Elbraham with a chuckle.

“Lord Henry Moorpark is a thorough specimen of an English nobleman, Mr Elbraham,” said the secretary stiffly; “and I consider that if the only thing I had done was to gain you an introduction to him, I should have earned all the wages, as you call them, that you have condescended to pay me.”

“Yes, of course—yes, to be sure. There, there, don’t be so hot and peppery, Litton. I’m a bit put out this morning. By the way, would you have the brougham and pair or one horse?”

“Pair, decidedly,” said the young man.

“You’ll not go with me?”

“No; I come afterwards. You shall bring me back if you will.”

“Yes; of course. I’ll put some cigars in the pocket. Would you wear the diamond studs?”

“No. Not a ring, even. Go in black, and hardly speak a word. Do nothing but look the millionaire. The simpler you dress, my dear sir, the richer they will think you.”

“My dear Litton, you’re a treasure—damme, that you are, sir! I say, look here: you don’t happen to want five, or ten, or twenty this morning, do you?”

Mr Arthur Litton did happen to want twenty, not five or ten; and a couple of crisp notes were thrust into his hand.

“Well, I suppose it’s all right, Litton. I shall look out for you there, then; but it’s a deuce of a way to go.”

“It’s worth going to, if it were double the distance, I can assure you. You have money; you want position.”

“All right, then; that’s settled. I’m going to the City now. Are you going in?”

“No, thanks; I shall sit down and do a little writing.”

“Very good; you’ll find the cigars on the shelf.”

“What, those cigars?” He spoke with a slight emphasis on the “those.” “No, thanks; they have too strong a flavour of a hundred-pound bill.”

“What do you mean?”

“Forty pounds in cash, forty in old pale East India sherry, and twenty in weeds.”

“You’re an artful one, you are, Litton—’pon my soul you are. Deuced artful,” said Mr Elbraham, with a curious puckering about the corners of his eyes, intended to do duty for a smile. “But that reminds me, Huish’s bill falls due to-morrow—hundred pounds; mustn’t forget that. Here, pull out your case.”

He unlocked a little cabinet with a tiny key, and opened two or three drawers full of cigars, each with a paper band round its middle.

“Which is it to be?”

The young man smiled, and filled his case, selecting one as well for present smoking. The cabinet was reclosed; there was an interchange of nods; Elbraham went off to the station; Litton sat down and wrote a letter, after which he made a little study of a time-table, hurried off, and, catching a train, was soon after on his way to Hampton, where he was just in time to catch Lady Littletown entering her carriage for a drive.

“Ah, mon cher Arthur!” she exclaimed; “you nearly missed me. There, come in, and I’ll take you part of your way back.”

Litton mounted beside her ladyship, and took his seat as invited.

“Drive slowly,” cried her ladyship; and as the handsome barouche, with its well-appointed pair of bays, went gaily along the pleasant riverside road towards the Palace, Lady Littletown turned her sharp dark eyes searchingly upon her companion.

She was one of those elderly ladies upon whom the effect of time seems to be that of making them sharper and possessed of a keener interest in worldly matters, and one in whose aquiline features there was ample promise of her proving to be a most implacable enemy if offended. Too cautious to allow her heart to be stirred by instincts of an amatory nature, she had found consolation in looking after the matrimonial business of others; and hence her interest in her companion of the hour.

“Well?” she said sharply; “what news?”

“I’ve fixed him for certain. He would have backed out, but for a bit of a chat this morning.”

“Then the nasty, scaly, slippery gold-fish will really come?”

“Yes.”

“Not disappoint me as he did Judy Millet?”

“You may depend upon him this time.”

“Good boy, good boy. Now, look here, Arthur: you are behaving very well over this, and if the affair comes off as I wish, and you behave very nicely, I’ll see next what I can do by way of finding you a wife with a snug fortune; only you must not be too particular about her looks.”

“I leave myself in your ladyship’s hands.”

“There, now you may get down. I’m going to make two or three calls in the Palace.”

“One moment, Lady Littletown,” said Litton eagerly; “I’m just starting a society for the preservation of ancient trees and old—”

“Now, mon cher, that will do,” said the old lady decidedly. “You know I never give money or—”

“I only ask for your name as a patroness or supporter.”

“And you will not have it; so now be a good boy, and go. I’ve got your name down upon my tablets, Arthur, so wait your time. Stop!”

The horses were checked; the footman descended and opened the door, rattling the steps loudly; Arthur Litton leaped out, raised his hat; Lady Littletown kissed the tips of her gloved fingers to him, and the carriage passed on.

“I wonder whether she will,” said the young man, as he walked towards the station. “However, we shall see.”

Volume One—Chapter Ten.

A Dinner for an End.

“My income, my dears, just suffices for my wants,” said Lady Littletown; “and I have never anything to spare for charities and that sort of thing.”

So said her ladyship to her aristocratic friends living in pinched circumstances in the private apartments; and it may or may not have been intended for a hint not to try and borrow money.

“One would like to be charitable and to give largely, but what with one’s household expenses and the horses and carriages, and my month in town in the height of the season, I really sometimes find myself obliged to ask his late lordship’s agent for a few hundreds in advance of the time when the rents are due. But then, you see, one owes so much to one’s position.”

The Honourable Misses Dymcox said one certainly did; Lady Anna Maria Morton, who had been longing for a new silk evening dress for three years, said the same; and, thoroughly feeling it to be a fact, Lady Littletown tried to pay honourably what she owed to society by rigidly living up to the last penny of her fairly handsome income in the pleasant mansion near Hampton Court.

She gave about four dinner-parties in the course of the year, and afterwards received.

This was one of her special parties for a special purpose, and when the last of her fifteen guests had arrived and been looked at through her great gold eyeglass held with the left hand, while the tips of the fingers of the right were given in assurance of her being “so delighted,” her ladyship proceeded to marshal her forces for the procession to the dining-room.

“Here’s what it is to be a lone widow!” she exclaimed playfully. “Moorpark, might I ask you to take the foot of the table?—Miss Marie Riversley.”

Lord Henry had murmured to himself a good deal about being dragged down all the way from Saint James’s Square to Hampton just at a time when his heart told him that he ought to be married, and though terribly dissatisfied with the success which had attended his attentions to Gertrude Millet, his brain was full of her bright, refined features. He, however, now advanced, quite the handsome, stately gentleman, with a pleasant, benevolent look upon his thin face, and at once entered into conversation with the dark beauty to whom he had been introduced.

“Mr Elbraham,” continued Lady Littletown, in a confidential whisper, as she inspected him as if he were for sale, “would you oblige me?—Miss Dymcox’s niece.”

The reputed millionaire started, and a scowl began to dawn in his face, for the name Dymcox brought up the faces of the honourable sisters; but as he was led to dark, glowing, southern-faced Clotilde, the scowl reached no farther than its dawn, and the ruddy sun of his coarse round face rose out of the fog, and beamed its satisfaction upon the handsome girl.

“Oh, I say, Glen, what a shame!” whispered little Dick Millet to his chosen companion, who, consequent upon his being an officer and the friend of dear Lady Millet’s son, had been invited, like his major, to the feast.

Dick began grinding his white teeth in the corner, where he had been making eyes at Clotilde and Marie in turn, whichever looked in his direction; and for the moment he seemed as if he were going to tear either his curly hair or the dainty exotic from his button-hole.

“Hush! be quiet,” was the reply.

“Hurrah! viva!” whispered Dick again. “The Black Douglas is being tacked on to that old scrag.”

“That old scrag” was the Honourable Philippa Dymcox, and “the Black Douglas” Major Edward Malpas, who, probably from disappointment in connection with a late marriage, was contemplatively watching Clotilde; but his courtesy was perfect as he bent toward the Honourable Philippa.

“Now there’s that other old she-dragon, Glen,” whispered Dick. “Oh, I say, it’s too bad of the old woman! I won’t, that I won’t. I didn’t come here to be treated so, and if she says I’m to march in that dreadful skeleton I’ll be taken ill and make a bolt of it. I say, Marcus,” he continued, “my nose is going to bleed,” and as he spoke he took out his delicately-scented pocket-handkerchief.

“Captain Glen, will you take in the Honourable Isabella Dymcox?” said Lady Littletown, showing just a trifle of gold setting as she smiled.

Marcus Glen told the truth when he said he would be most happy, for he recognised in the lady of the old-fashioned lavender poplin one of the companions of Clotilde and Marie in their walk in the Palace gardens.

Dick Millet thrust his scented cambric back into the pocket of his silk-lined coat, and after a glance at the ladies, either of whom he longed to take in to dinner, he had a look round the room to see which would be the most eligible dinner-table companion of those that were left; but to his disgust he began to find that he was being left entirely in the cold, for the hostess, with all the skill of one who has well made her plans beforehand, was rapidly finishing her arrangements.

“It’s enough to make any man’s nose bleed, and compel him to bolt,” muttered the handsome little fellow, who had got himself up in the most irreproachable manner, having even been to town that afternoon on purpose to place himself in a hairdresser’s hands.

“Hang it all! am I nobody?”

It was hard work getting hold of the ends, but Dick managed to give a vicious twist to his delicate floss silk moustache, and he was contemplating a fresh appeal to his scented handkerchief and making the threatened bolt, as he termed it, with the cambric held to his nose, when Lady Littletown approached.

“Now, my dearest Richard,” she exclaimed, and her many years, the speck of gold near one top tooth, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and the suggestions of untruthfulness about her hair, all seemed to be softened down and seen through an eyeglass tinted à la rose, “I’m a very covetous person, and I always make a point, like the wicked old widow I am, of reserving the most beau chevalier for myself. Now you have to take me in, we two last; and you’ll be obliged to help me out of my difficulties if there is anything to carve.”

Dick coloured a little with pride:

“And we, too, must have a pleasant chat about mamma and the dear girls; and, oh, I am so glad you took to the army and are quartered down here. It will be so pleasant for me; but I shall, for mamma’s sake, watch all your doings. I am not going to have you turn out a roué like your wicked Major. Come along.”

So Dick took in her ladyship, feeling taller, and actually seeming to swell a little, as he found himself seated at his hostess’s right hand. Then, the places being found, every guest’s name neatly written on a porcelain ménu, Lord Henry, at the foot of the table, closed his eyes, bent forward, and in a low, reverent voice said grace, to which Mr Elbraham added a very audible “Amen!” and the dinner commenced.

Of course it was all by way of paying her dues to society that things were done so well, for certainly the dinner was as exquisite as the table itself, with its decorations of plate and glass, amidst which, half hidden in almost a redundancy of exotic flowers, was a thoroughly choice dessert. Richard Millet, who rather trembled in the midst of his pride, and had twice in imagination seen wings of chicken, as he dismembered a bird, flying in a cloud of brown sauce into people’s laps, was spared all trouble, for the viands were served à la Russe, and were perfect of their kind.

“I’m deuced glad I came,” thought Mr Elbraham, as the choice, well-iced wines reached him in turn, and after several rather awkward attempts at conversation with Clotilde he found himself getting on much better. For his companion, in spite of her delight at being present at such a party, and having been affectionately kissed by Lady Littletown, and called “My dearest child,” was disappointed because Captain Glen had not spoken to her, neither had he been chosen to take her in to dinner. But, then, he had looked at her—looked at her several times. He admired her. There was no doubt about that. His looks said so plainly; and, for her part, there was something very pleasant to her eyes in the well-built, manly fellow, with his easy, indifferent ways and his gentlemanly, chivalrous attention to her aunt; who, poor soul! was nervous, and fluttered with the unusual excitement.

“I don’t like him; he’s a dreadful creature,” said Clotilde to herself, as her companion grew more at home, and, after a glass or two of a very choice champagne of unusual potency, began to talk to her in a fashion somewhat suggestive of his style at a private supper at the Rantan or at Latellier’s, and ladies who were in the habit of performing show parts in public were present.

“I’m deuced glad I came. She’s a devilish handsome girl, and I like her,” thought Mr Elbraham, and during his next remark, of course inadvertently, his coat-sleeve touched Clotilde’s firm, white, well-rounded arm.

“And so you lead a very quiet, very retired life,” said Lord Henry to Marie, as, scarcely partaking of anything himself, he chivalrously devoted his attention to his companion, enjoying her evident delight and hearty young appetite, which as a rule was none too well satisfied.

She, too, had been, in the midst of her delight in her charming dress, the reflection of her handsome self in Lady Littletown’s mirror, that lady’s affectionate greeting, and the brilliant dinner-table, rather disappointed that she had not been taken in by Captain Glen, or that dark handsome Major, or even by the funny pretty little page style of officer; but by degrees that wore off, and she listened with real pleasure to Lord Henry’s words.

He was quite an elderly gentleman, but, then, he was a nobleman, with a truer feeling of admiration for the beautiful woman he had been called upon to escort. There was something delightfully new, too, in her ways. She was very different to the society young ladies he was accustomed to meet, all gush and strained style of conversation. Marie was as if fresh from a convent, and he was even amused with some of her naïve remarks.

The Honourable Misses Dymcox had given their nieces the most stringent instructions upon etiquette; above all, they were not to taste wine; but while Marie was answering a remark made by Lord Henry, one of the servants filled that faintly prismatic glass, like half a soap-bubble in its beauty, and from old habit Marie lifted the drinking vessel by her hand, tasted, found the clear sparkling wine delicious, and had sipped again and again.

The effect was trifling, but it did remove some of her diffidence, and she found herself chatting willingly enough to her cavalier.

“Oh yes; a very, very retired life. We spend most of our time in the schoolroom, and when we take walks it is in the gardens or in the park with our aunts, at times when none of the London people are down.”

“Have you been on the Continent?”

“Oh no,” replied Marie, “not since Mr Montaigne brought us over to the Palace?”

“May I ask who is Mr Montaigne?”

“He was a very old friend of poor mamma’s.”

“Poor mamma?” said Lord Henry inquiringly.

“Oh yes; poor mamma and papa died when we were very little girls, and we have been with our aunts ever since.”

Lord Henry sipped his wine, gazed sidewise at his beautiful companion, and sighed. He thought of Gertrude Millet, and let his eye rest from time to time upon her brother, vainly trying to trace a resemblance, and also that though Lady Millet had undoubtedly seemed pleased by his advances, Gertrude had been chilling, and Marie Dymcox was not.

Possibly, too, as the old man sighed, he thought that he had no time to lose now that he had been thinking that he would marry, and he sighed again as if in regret of something he had lost, something he might have had, but had been too careless or indifferent to win.

A close observer would have noticed that there were tears in his eyes just then. Lady Littletown was a close observer, and by the aid of her eyeglass she did notice it, and secretly hugged herself.

“But you go out a good deal—to parties, to concerts, or balls?”

“Oh no!” laughed Marie, and her white teeth showed beneath her coral lips, while Major Malpas, who was nearly opposite, looked at her intently from beneath his heavy eyelids, and softly stroked his moustache. “I was never at a party before.”

“And do you like it?” said Lord Henry, beaming upon her, as, with a secret kind of satisfaction, he quietly admired the animated countenance beside him.

“Oh yes, yes,” she said softly. “I can’t help liking it very much.”

“Well,” said Lord Henry, smiling in quite a pleased manner, “why should you help liking it?”

“I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully; “only we are always so quiet at the Palace, and aunts have often said that too much gaiety was bad.”

“Too much, my dear child. Yes, certainly; but a little is very pleasurable, and innocent, and good.”

Marie’s eyes, as they met his, said that they were delighted to hear it, and as she sat and let the quiet, chivalrous old gentleman draw her out, no one would have credited her with being one of the heroines of some of the schoolroom scenes in which poor little Ruth had been the victim.

Lord Henry Moorpark grew more and more thoughtful as he chatted on with his companion. There was something inexpressibly refreshing in Marie’s words and ways, and he, too, congratulated himself upon the dinner-party, which he had looked upon as a nuisance, and to which he had come solely out of respect for Lady Littletown, turning out so pleasurable and fresh.

He was not the only elderly guest who thoroughly enjoyed the dinner, for the Honourable Isabella Dymcox partook of her share of the courses in a state of, for her, unwonted flutter. In accordance with the plotting and planning that had been at work in the Palace coterie, she had come fully prepared to give a furtive observation to what was going on with Clotilde and Marie, the children who, with her sister, she was fain to confess had arrived at a marriageable age; but from the moment she had laid her tremulous hand upon Marcus Glen’s arm, and had been led by him to her seat, her nieces had been forgotten.

Certainly Glen had several times over exchanged glances with Clotilde, and taken notice of the fact that Elbraham was growing more and more familiar and loud; but all the same he had found ample time to devote himself with a good deal of assiduity to Miss Isabella, making her at first surprised and cold, soon after pleased and full of agreeable thoughts, and at last thoroughly gratified at the way in which her companion attended to her lightest wishes and conversed upon society at Hampton Court.

“I—I won’t be so foolish as so think he means anything,” said Miss Isabella to herself; “for he is quite young and manly-looking, almost handsome, while I am getting very old indeed, and all hope of that is past; but he is very nice and gentlemanly, and so very different to officers as a rule. I must say I like him very much.”

She showed, too, that she did as soon as the cold formal crust had been melted away, and Marcus was not slow to realise the fact.

He was perfectly honest, for he knew that the Honourable Isabella was the aunt of Clotilde, and being as impressionable as most young men of his age, he had felt to some extent the power of that lady’s eyes. Under the circumstances, as he had been thrown with the relative, he had thought it fair campaigning to make friends with her, and this he had done to such an extent that the attentions she had received, and a glass or two of wine, made the lady very communicative, and far happier than her sister, who found the dinner much less to her taste.

For Major Malpas was not best pleased at having to take her in, and he had confined himself to the most frigid civilities. He was perfectly gentlemanly, but as the dinner wore on he grew more polite, and by consequence the Honourable Philippa became icy in her manner, till at last she seemed to be frozen stiff.

“Humph!” he thought, “better have gone and sat with Renée Morrison. Yes,” he continued, staring hard at Dick, “your sister, my half-fledged cockerel.”

The other guests merely formed chorus to the principal singers in the little social opera, but they were wonderfully led by Lady Littletown, whose tongue formed her conductor’s baton, by which she swayed them with a practised ease.

She had a word in season for everyone where it was needful to keep up the balance of the parts, and wonderfully skilful was her way. She gave a great deal of her time to everybody, but little Richard Millet never missed any of her attentions. In a very short time she had quite won his confidence, and knew that Major Malpas was a regular plunger, that Captain Glen was the dearest and best fellow in the world, that he hadn’t any more vice in him than a child, that they were the dearest of friends, and that Marcus had only about two hundred and fifty a year besides his pay.

“I begin to like Hampton Court, Lady Littletown,” said the boy warmly, for the champagne had been frequent.

“I’m sure you’ll love the place when you begin to know us better. Of course you will come to all my ‘at homes?’”

“That I will,” exclaimed the delighted youth. “By the way, Lady Littletown, what lovely girls those Miss Dymcoxes are!”

“Yes, are they not?” replied Lady Littletown; “but oh, fie, fie, fie! This will not do. I will not listen to a single word. I’m not going to lend myself to any match-making. What would Lady Millet say?”

“But, really, Lady Littletown—”

“Oh dear me, no; I will not listen. I know too well, sir, what you officers are—so wicked and reckless, and given to breaking ladies’ hearts. I think I shall absolutely forbid you even approaching them when you come up to the drawing-room. I would not for the world be the means of causing any heart diseases amongst my guests.”

“But surely, Lady Littletown, a fellow may admire at a distance?”

“Oh dear no,” said her ladyship playfully; “I think not. I’m afraid you are a very bad, dangerous man, and I shall have to withdraw my invitation.”

Dick Millet pleaded; the invitation was not withdrawn; and the little fellow was better satisfied with himself than he had felt for months.

“It’s an uncommonly well got-up affair, after all,” he thought; “but I wish the ladies would go now. I want to get the wine over, and go up to the drawing-room.”

To the little fellow’s satisfaction the long-drawn-out repast did come to an end, that cleverly-managed signal was given which acts electrically at a certain stage of a dinner; the ladies rose, and in place of one of the younger gentlemen opening the door, Lord Henry performed that duty, a genial but half-sad smile playing about his thin, closely-shaven lips, as Marie looked up in his face in passing. Then the last lady went out, and the gentlemen closed up to their coffee and wine.

Somehow or other, Marcus Glen found himself now near Lord Henry, and while a knot of listeners heard Mr Elbraham’s opinion upon the Eastern Question, especially with regard to the new Sultan and the position of Egypt, the young officer entered into a quiet discussion upon the history of the old Palace, and was surprised and pleased to find how much his companion knew of the past days of the old red-brick building, but above all at the genial, winning manner the old gentleman possessed.

Acting the part of host now for the time being, he soon proposed that they should adjourn, for there was a strange longing within him to be within sight and hearing of Marie.

“Ah, to be sure,” said Elbraham; “if I wanted to invest, gentlemen, I should say Egyptian bonds. By all means, let’s join the ladies.”

He, too, had come to the conclusion that he should like “another talk to that girl.” But the drawing-room was filling fast, and there were no more tête-à-têtes. Arthur Litton arrived soon after ten, and his chief approached him to shake hands, as if they had not met for some time.

“Well?” said Litton.

“Stunning, sir, stunning! ’Bove par.”

“Oh!”

“Deuced good dinner, Litton, ’pon my soul. People not half so snobbish as I expected to find them. I say, look here. What do you think of that piece of goods?”

He indicated Clotilde, about whom Dick Millet was now hovering; but who had turned from him to listen to a remark just made by Glen.

“Hum, ha!” said Litton critically. “Oh, that’s one of the Dymcox girls, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t ask you anything about who she is; I said what do you think of her?”

“Not bad-looking, I should say,” replied Litton coolly; “but nothing particular.”

“Oh, you be blowed!” said the great financier, and he screwed his short thick neck down a little lower into his chest, and turned away.

“Well, Lady Littletown, how do matters make themselves?” said Litton quietly, when, after a time, her ladyship passed his way.

“Oh, Arturo, mio caro!” said her ladyship, tickling the centre stud in his shirt-front with the end of her closed fan. “Maravigliosamente. My dear boy, it is wonderful. You shall have a rich wife, Arthur, if you are good, and this affair is un fait accompli.”

“Why didn’t you try a bit of German, too?” muttered Litton, as her ladyship passed on. “Here, I must get on with some of these officers; perhaps they’d take me to their quarters, and give me a smoke and an S. and B. Hang this tea! I forgot, though, I promised Potiphar to go home with him. Hang the beast! but it will save me a fare.”

Everyone was delighted. Lady Littletown was charmed over and over again, but when at last an obsequious footman, who seemed to be shod with velvet, whispered to the Honourable Philippa that her carriage had arrived, that lady, who felt very tired and sleepy, said mentally, “Thank goodness!”

But it was half an hour later before she made a move, and the drawing-rooms were growing unbearably hot with the chattering, buzzing crowd.

Suddenly there was silence, as the Honourable Misses Dymcox rose to go.

Lady Littletown was so sorry the evening had been so short, but she managed to exchange meaning looks.

“I think, yes,” she whispered; and the Honourable Philippa nodded and tightened her lips.

“Good-night, my sweet darling,” said Lady Littletown, kissing Clotilde affectionately. “Mind you come and see me soon. Good-night, dearest Marie. How well you look to-night, child!”

Then her ladyship saw through her square eyeglass, with the broad chased gold rim, Elbraham, podgy, stout and puffy, take Clotilde down to the carriage, followed by Lord Henry with Marie, and Captain Glen with the Honourable Isabella, and little Richard Millet with the Honourable Philippa; everyone but Joseph being perfectly ignorant of the fact that Mr Buddy had been imbibing largely of the stimulants plentifully handed round to the various servants outside.

But the ladies were duly packed inside, the jangling door was banged to, and Joseph, having mounted to the box beside Mr Buddy, perhaps only out of regard for his own safety, assumed the reins of government himself, and steered the fly to the Palace doors.

“Good-night, children,” said the Honourable Misses Dymcox in duet. “Take care of your dresses whatever you do!”

“Oh, Rie!” cried Clotilde, as soon as they were in their bedroom.

“Oh, Clo!” cried Marie. Then, crossing to the farther door to the cupboard in which Ruth’s bed was squeezed—“’Sleep, Ruthy?”

“No, Marie,” was the reply, as a troubled, pale face was lifted from the pillow.

“Why, I declare she has been crying!” said Clotilde. “There, jump up and help us to undress, Cindy, and we’ll tell you all about the prince and the ball. You weren’t there, were you?”

No; Cinderella, otherwise Ruth Allerton, had not been there; but she had been crying bitterly, for she had had a fright.

Volume One—Chapter Eleven.

Family Matters.

Captain Robert Millet’s lunch was carried up to him upon a very stiff, narrow tray, which took dishes and plates one after the other in a long row. It was evidently something or several somethings very savoury and nice from the odours exhaled, but everything was carefully covered over.

It was no easy task, the carriage of that long, narrow tray from the basement to the back drawing-room on the first floor, especially as there were gravies and other liquids on the tray; but Valentine Vidler and his wife had taken up breakfasts, lunches, and dinners too many thousand times to be in any difficulty now.

So, starting from the dark kitchen, where coppers, pewters, and tins shone like so many moons amidst the gloom, the odd couple each took an end of the tray, which was quite six feet long, and Vidler’s own invention. Salome went first, backwards, and Vidler followed over the level, when, as the little woman reached the mat at the foot of the kitchen stairs, there was a pause, while she held the tray with one hand and gave her long garments a hitch, so as to hold one end in her teeth and not tread upon them as she went up backwards. Then, stooping and holding the tray as low as she could, she began to ascend, Vidler following and gradually raising his end to preserve the level of the tray till he held it right above his head.

This raising and lowering in ascent and upon level was all carried out in the most exact and regular way—in fact, so practised had the old couple grown in the course of years, that they could have carried a brimming glass of water up the gloomy stairs without spilling a drop. Hence, then, they reached the drawing-room with the tray preserving its equilibrium from bottom to top.

As soon as they were inside Salome placed her end upon the little bracket while Vidler retained his; then she went out of the room, took up a big, soft drumstick, and gave three gentle taps on a gong that hung in its frame—three taps at long intervals, which sounded like the boomings of a bell at the funeral of a fish and a fowl—and then returned to the drawing-room and stood on the right-hand side of the panel close to the wall with one hand raised.

As she took her place the panel was softly slid back towards her. Then she took off the first cover, Vidler acting in conjunction, made the long tray glide slowly forwards into the opening, its end evidently resting on something within. Then two hands appeared, a knife and fork were used, with a glass at intervals, and the fish was discussed.

As soon as the knife and fork were laid down Salome whipped off two more covers, and the tray glided in a couple of feet further, both the lady and her lord keeping their eyes fixed upon the floor.

The calmness and ease with which all this was carried on indicated long practice, and for precision no amount of drilling could have secured greater regularity. As the knife and fork fell upon the plate again there was a pause, for a pint decanter and glass were pushed opposite the thin white hands that now approached, and, removing the stopper, filled the glass. Then a cover was raised, and the tray glided onward once more, with some steaming asparagus on toast; and after a short pause the cold, colourless voice was heard to repeat a short grace, the tray was slowly withdrawn, the panel glided to, and Vidler and his little wife bore the remains of the luncheon to the lower regions.

Hardly had the tray been set down before there was a double knock, and on going upstairs Vidler found John Huish at the front door.

“Would Captain Millet give me an interview, Vidler?” he asked.

The little man looked at him sidewise, then tried the other eye, and ended by standing out of the way and letting the visitor enter, shutting out the light again as carefully as before.

“I’ll try, sir,” he said; “I don’t think he will. I was just going to take up that,” he continued, pointing to a basket of coloured scraps of print. “He’s about to begin a new counterpane to-day.”

“A new what?” said Huish.

“A new counterpane for the Home Charity. That’ll be six he has made this year. I’ll show you the last.”

He led Huish into the darkened dining-room, and showed him a wonderfully neat piece of needlework, a regular set pattern, composed of hundreds upon hundreds of tiny scraps of cotton print.

“Makes ’em better than many women could, and almost in the dark,” said the little man; “but I’ll go up and see. Miss Millet and her sister have not been gone long.”

“What!” cried Huish, “from here?”

“Gone nearly or quite an hour ago, sir. Been a good deal lately.”

“My usual fortune,” muttered Huish excitedly. “But go up,” he said aloud; “I particularly want to have a few words with him.”

“I don’t think it’s of any use, sir; but I’ll see,” repeated the little man; and he went upstairs, to return at the end of about five minutes to beckon the visitor up, and left him facing the panel.

It was evident that the young man had been there before, as he took a seat, and waited patiently for the panel to unclose, which it did at last, but not until quite a quarter of an hour had passed.

“Well, John Huish,” said the voice, “what do you want?”

It was rather a chilling reception for one who had come upon such a mission; but he was prepared for it, and dashed at once into the object of his visit, in spite of the peculiarity of having to address himself to a square opening in the wall.

“I have come for advice and counsel,” said Huish firmly.

“You, a man of the world, living in the world, come to such an anchorite as I!” said the voice—“as I, who have for pretty well thirty years been dead to society and its ways?”

“Yes,” said Huish. “I come to you because you can help.”

“How much do you want, John Huish?” said the voice. “Give me the pen and ink.”

The thin white hand appeared impatiently at the opening, with the fingers clutching as if to take the pen.

“No, no, no!” said the young man hastily. “It is not that. Let me tell you,” he exclaimed, as the fingers ceased to clutch impatiently at the air and the white hand rested calmly upon the edge of the opening—“let me speak plainly, for I am not ashamed of it—I am in love.”

There was a faint sigh here, hardly audible to the young man, who went on:

“I come to you for help and advice.”

“What can I do to help? As for advice,” said the voice coldly, “I will do what I can. Is she worthy of your love?”

“Worthy?” cried Huish, flushing. “She is an angel.”

“Yes,” said the voice, with a sigh. “They all are. But, tell me, does she refuse you.”

“No, sir.”

“Then what more do you want? Who and what is she?”

These last words were said with more approach to interest, and the fingers began to tap the edge of the opening.

“It is presumption on my part,” said Huish, growing excited, and rising to stride up and down the room, “for I am poor and unworthy of her.”

“No true honourable man is unworthy of the woman he loves,” said the voice calmly, “though he may, perhaps, be unsuited. Go on. Who is the lady?”

“Who is she, sir? I believed that you must know. It is your niece—Gertrude.”

“My God!”

It was almost a whisper, but John Huish heard it, and saw that the thin white hand seemed to be jerked upwards, falling slowly back, though, to remain upon the edge of the opening trembling.

“I shock you, sir, by my announcement,” said Huish bitterly.

“No—yes—no; net shock—surprise me greatly.” There was a pause, and the fingers trembled as they were now and again raised, then grew steady as they were laid down. “But tell me,” it continued, trembling and becoming less cold, “does Gertrude return your love?”

“Oh yes, Heaven bless her, yes!” cried the young man fervently; and there was another silence, such as might have ensued had the owner of the voice been trying to master some emotion.

“What more, then, do you want?” said the voice, now greatly changed. “You, an honourable young man, in love with a girl who is all sweetness and purity. It is strange; but it is the will of God. Marry her, and may He bless the union!”

“Captain Millet, you make me very, very happy,” cried the young man; and before the hand could be removed it was seized and pressed in his strong grasp.

It was withdrawn directly, and a fresh silence ensued, when the voice said softly:

“And my brother, does he approve?”

“Oh yes; I think so,” replied Huish; “but—”

“The mother objects—of course. She has made her choice. Who is it?”

“Lord Henry Moorpark.”

“A man nearly three times her age. It would be a crime. You will not permit such an outrage against her youth. Moorpark must be mad.”

“What can I do, sir?” cried Huish. “That is why I ask your help and counsel.”

“Bah!” said the voice contemptuously. “You are young and strong; you have your wits; Gertrude loves you, and you ask me for help and counsel! John Huish, at your age, under such circumstances, it would have been a bold man who would have robbed me of my prize. There, go—go, young man, and think and act. Poor Gertrude! she has a mother who makes Mammon her God—a woman who has broken one of her children’s hearts; do not let her break that of the other. Go now, I am weary: this has been a tiring day. You can come to me again.”

“Do not let her break that of the other,” said John Huish to himself as the panel slowly closed; and from that moment the dim twilight of the shuttered house became to him glorious with light, and he went away feeling joyous and elastic as he had not felt for days. As he neared his chambers a thin, grey, hard-faced-looking woman, who had stood watching for quite an hour, stepped out of a doorway and touched him on the arm.

He turned sharply, and she said in a low voice:

“I must see you. Come to-morrow night at the old time.”

Before he could speak she had hurried away, turned down the next street, and was gone.

“To-morrow night—the old time?” said Huish, gazing after her, and then raising his hat to place his hand upon his forehead. “Quite cool. Is it fancy? Why should that woman speak to me?”

Then, turning upon his heel, he entered the door of his chambers, and set himself to work to think over his interview, and to devise some plan for defeating Lady Millet in her projected enterprise.

“It would shock her,” he said at last; “but when she knows of her uncle’s views she might be influenced. She must, she shall be. The poor old man’s words have given me strength, and I shall win, after all. But what slaves we are to custom and prejudice! I ought not to be the man to study them in such a case as this.”

Then the words just spoken to him at the door came back to puzzle and set him thinking of several other encounters—or fancied encounters with people whom he felt that he had never seen before.

“I don’t know what to say to it,” he thought; “Stonor ought to know; but somehow I feel as if he had not grasped my case. There, I will not trouble about that now.”

He kept the thoughts which troubled him from his brain for a time, but they soon forced themselves back with others.

“I wonder,” he mused, “what took place in the past? There must have been something. My father and mother must have known Captain Millet very intimately. He received his injury from some fall, and Dr Stonor saved his limb, I believe. But there’s a reticence about all that time which is aggravating. I suppose I must wait, and when I learn everything which puzzles me now, it will be only shadowy and vague. Only my mother always asks about the Captain with so tender a tone of respect. Ah, well! I must wait.”

At about the same time that John Huish was pondering over his state in connection with his love affairs, Renée Morrison called in her carriage for her sister, bore her off to where she thought they could be alone, and sent the carriage back. The place chosen was the Park, which, though pretty well thronged with people, seemed to them solitary, as they strolled across toward the Row.

Gertrude was very silent, for she felt that Renée had something important to say; but the minutes sped on, and their scattered remarks had been of the most commonplace character, and at last, as she glanced sideways, Gertrude saw that if her sister were to confide her troubles and be the recipient of those effervescing in her own breast she herself must speak.

“You do not confide in me, Renée dear,” she said tenderly, as they took a couple of chairs beneath one of the spreading trees. “Why do you not always make me more your confidant? One feels as if one could talk out here in the park, where there are no walls to listen. Come, dear, why do you not tell me all?”

“Because I feel that my husband’s secrets are in my keeping, and that I should be doing wrong to speak of what he does.”

“Not wrong in confiding in me, Renée. You are not happy. Oh, Ren, Ren, why did you consent? Trouble, and so soon!”

“Don’t talk to me like that, now, Gerty,” cried Renée in a low, passionate voice, “because it was mamma’s will that we should marry well and have establishments, and satisfy her pride. Sometimes I think it would have been better if I had never been born.”

“Oh, Ren, Ren,” her sister whispered, pressing her hand. “But Frank—he is kind to you?”

“Yes,” said Renée sadly; “he is never angry with me.”

“But I mean kind and loving and attentive, as your husband should be?” said Gertrude softly.

Renée looked at her with a sad, heavy look, and now that the first confidence had been made, her heart was open to her sister.

“Gertrude,” she whispered to her, “he never loved me!”

“Oh, Ren dear, think what you are saying!”

“I do think, dear, and I say it once more. He never loved me.”

“But, Renée, you have been kind and loving to him.”

“Yes, as tender as a woman could be to the man she had sworn to love; but he does not care for me, and I am haunted.”

“Haunted, Renée?”

“Yes; hush! Here is Major Malpas.”

Gertrude glanced in the direction taken by her sister’s eyes, and her heart seemed to be compressed as by a cold hand, as she turned indignantly to her sister.

“Renée!” she said, in a horrified whisper, “oh, do not say you care for him still!”

“Gertrude!” cried Renée, catching her hand, “how dare you say that! I hate—I detest him! I thought him a gentleman once, and I did love him; but that was over when I married Frank, and since then he has haunted me; he follows me everywhere, and Frank makes him his constant companion, and he leads him away.”

“Oh, this is dreadful!”

“Dreadful!” cried Renée, “I feel at times that I cannot bear it. Come away: he has seen us, and is coming here.”

“Is—is that Mr Huish?” whispered Gertrude, gazing in another direction.

“Yes. Who is the dark lady on his arm?”

“I do not know,” said Gertrude quietly. “Some friend, perhaps; but, look, is not that Frank?”

She drew her sister’s attention towards a phaeton in which Frank Morrison was driving a handsome-looking woman dressed in the height of fashion; and directly Renée saw him plainly the Major came up.

“What a delightful meeting, Miss Millet!” he said. “Mrs Morrison, I hope I shall not be de trop?”

“My husband’s friends have too great a claim on me,” said Renée quietly, as she left her seat and moved in the direction of her own home; but she kept glancing in the direction taken by the phaeton.

It was cleverly-managed, and as if Malpas knew exactly when the carriage would next come by, timing his place so well that the sisters were close to the railings as the dashing pair scattered some of the earth over the young wife’s dress.

“Who is that with Frank Morrison, Major Malpas?” said Gertrude quickly.

“I beg your pardon?” he said.

“That fashionably-dressed lady in my brother-in-law’s phaeton. There they go.”

“Indeed!” said the Major. “I was not looking. Are you sure it was he?”

“Certain,” replied Gertrude.

“My dear Mrs Morrison, is anything the matter?” cried the Major, with a voice full of sympathy.

“No, nothing,” said the young wife, who was now deadly pale. “May I ask you—to leave us?”

“Yes,” he said earnestly; “but I shall not go. Pray take my arm. Miss Millet, your sister is ill. I fear you have been imprudent and have taxed her strength. I must see her safely home, or I could not face Morrison again.”

“He haunts me!” thought Gertrude to herself, as she recalled her sister’s words, and found that the Major persisted in walking by her side till they reached Chesham Place, where, murmuring his satisfaction that Renée seemed better, he left the sisters in the hall.

“All things come to the man who waits,” he muttered to himself, as he went off smiling.

“Renée,” said Gertrude, as soon as they were alone, “have you ever encouraged him in any way since your marriage? How is it he seems to have such a hold upon you?”

“I do not know—I cannot tell,” said Renée wearily, as, with brow contracted, she sat thinking of the scene in the Park. “But do not mention him—do not think of him, Gertrude dear; he is as nothing in face of this new misery.”

“New misery?” said Gertrude innocently.

“Yes,” cried Renée passionately; “do you not see? Oh, Frank, Frank!” she moaned, “why do you treat me so?”

Gertrude, upon whom all this came like a revelation, strove to comfort her, and to point out that her fears might be mere exaggerations, but her sister turned sharply.

“You do not understand these things, Gertrude,” she said. “He does not love me as he should, and, knowing this, Major Malpas has never ceased to try and tempt him away from me—to the clubs—to gambling parties, from which he comes home hot and feverish; and now it seems that worse is to follow. Oh, mother, mother! you have secured me an establishment which I would gladly change for the humblest cottage, if it contained my husband’s faithful love.”

Gertrude’s heart beat fast at these words, and a faltering purpose became strengthened.

“But, Ren darling,” she whispered; “have you spoken to him and tried to win him from such associations? Frank is so good at heart.”

“Yes,” sighed Renée; “but so weak and easily led away. Spoken to him, Gertrude? No, dear. As his wife, I have felt that I must ignore such things. I would not know that he visited such places—that he gambled—that he returned home excited. I have put all such thoughts aside, and met him always with the same smile of welcome, when my heart has been well-nigh broken.”

“My poor sister!” whispered Gertrude, drawing her head to her breast and thinking of the husband and establishment that her mother had arranged for her to possess.

“But this I feel that I cannot bear,” cried Renée impetuously. “It is too great an outrage!”

“Oh, Ren, Ren!” whispered Gertrude, “do not judge him too rashly; wait and see—it may be all a mistake.”

“Mistake!” said Renée bitterly; “did you not see him driving that woman out? Did you not see her occupying the place that should be mine?”

“Yes—yes,” faltered Gertrude; “but still there may be some explanation.”

“Yes,” said Renée at last, as she dried her tears and sat up, looking very cold and stern; “there may be, and we will wait and see. At all events, I will not say one single harsh word.”

Gertrude left her at last quite calm and composed, the brougham being ordered for her use, and she sat back thinking of John Huish with the dark lady; but only to smile, for no jealous fancy troubled her breast.

End of Volume One.

Volume Two—Chapter One. The Story - Years Ago - (Continued).

Mr Montaigne Establishes a Bond of Sympathy.

Mr Paul Montaigne was one of those quiet, bland gentlemen who, apparently without an effort, seemed to know everything that went on in his immediate neighbourhood. He never asked questions, but waited patiently, and the result was that, drawn, perhaps, by his quiet, persuasive way, people told him all he wanted to know.

Somehow, he had the knack of winning the confidence of women, and if he had been a confessor his would have been an easy task.

There were those who said that he was a Jesuit, but when it came to his ears he merely smiled pityingly, and made a point of attending church at all the week-day services, and repeating the responses in a quiet, reverent way that, combined with his closed eyes, gave him the aspect of true devoutness.

How he lived none knew, but it was supposed that he had an income from a vineyard in Central France, one which he had inherited from his father, an English gentleman who had had a taste for wine-growing.

Mr Paul Montaigne never contradicted the rumour, and he never entered into particulars about his past. He had been the friend of the mother of Clotilde and Marie. He had brought the children over to England when quite a young man, with a very French look and a suggestion of his being a student at a French religious seminary. He had brought letters of introduction with him, and he had been in England ever since.

Time seemed to have stood still with Paul Montaigne. Certainly, he was just a shade stouter, and there were a few bright, silvery-looking hairs about his temples; in other respects he looked quite a young man, for his smoothly-shaven face showed scarcely a line, his dark eyes were bright, and his black brows were as smoothly arched as if drawn with a pair of compasses.

Upon that smooth face there was always a pensive, half-sad smile, one which he seemed to be constantly trying to wipe off with his soft, plump, well-shaped, and very white hand, but without success, for the smile was always there—the quiet, beseeching smile, that won so many women’s confidence, but sometimes had the contrary effect upon the sterner sex.

Those who said that he was a student were to some extent right, for his modest lodgings at Teddington were well furnished with books, and he was a familiar object to many, as with his white hands clasped behind him he walked in his semi-clerical habit to and from the Palace at Hampton Court—through Bushey Park, and always on the same side of the road, making a point of pausing at the inlet of the Diana Pool to throw crumbs of bread to the eager fish, before continuing his walk in by the Lion Gate into the Palace gardens to the large fountain basin, where the great gold and silver fish also had their portion.

He never spoke to anyone; apparently nobody ever spoke to him, and he went his way to and fro, generally known as “the priest,” making his journeys two or three times a week to call at the apartments of the Honourable Misses Dymcox to see his young pupils, as he called them, and to converse with them to keep up their French.

Upon these occasions he partook of the weak tea handed round by Joseph, and broke a portion off one of the thin biscuits that accompanied the cups. In fact, he was an institution with the Dymcox family, and had been duly taken into the ladies’ confidence respecting the movement proposed by Lady Littletown.

“My dear ladies,” he had responded, “you know my position here—my trust to the dead; I watch over the welfare of their children, and you tell me this is for their well-being. What else can I say but may your plans prosper?”

“But I would not mention it to the children, Mr Montaigne,” said Miss Philippa.

“I mention it! My dear madam, all these years that you have known me, and is my character a sealed book to you still?”

“For my part, I don’t like him,” said Joseph once to Markes, and he was politely told not to be a fool. Cook, however, who had a yearning after the mysterious, proved to be of a more sympathetic mind, and when Joseph told her his opinion, that this Mr Montaigne was only a Jesuit and a priest in disguise, cook said she shouldn’t a bit wonder, for “them sort often was.”

Now, cook had not seen Mr Montaigne, so her judgment should be taken cum grano, as also in the case where Joseph declared Mr Montaigne to be “a deep ’un,” when she declared that was sure to be the case.

On the night of the dinner-party at Hampton, the carriage—to wit, Mr Buddy’s fly—had no sooner departed than Markes announced her intention of going next door to see Lady Anna Maria Morton’s maid; at which cook grunted, and, being left alone, proceeded to take out a basket from the dresser drawer, and seated herself to have what she called a couple of hours’ good darn.

One of those hours had nearly passed, and several black worsted stockings had been ornamented with patches of rectangular embroidery, when the outer door-bell rang.

“If that’s one of them dratted soldiers calling with his impudence, he’ll get sent off with a flea in his ear,” cried cook.

She bounced up angrily, and made her way to the door. It was no gallant Lancer in undress uniform and a cane under his arm, but Mr Paul Montaigne, whom cook at once knew by his description.

“The ladies in?” he said quietly.

“No, sir; which, please, they’ve gone to dine at Lady Littletown’s.”

“To be sure, yes, I had forgotten,” he said, smiling nicely—so cook put it—at the plump domestic. “But never mind, I will have a few minutes’ chat with Miss Clotilde and Miss Marie.”

“Which they’ve gone as well, sir.”

“To be sure, yes, I ought to have known,” said the visitor absently, “I ought to have remembered; and is Miss Ruth gone as well?”

“Oh no, sir; she’s in the schoolroom all alone!”

“Indeed!” said Mr Montaigne, raising his eyebrows. “Ah, well, I will not disturb—and yet, I don’t know; I am rather tired, and I will have a few minutes’ chat with her before I walk back.”

“Such a nice, mild-spoken kind of gentleman, though he had rather a papish look,” said cook; and she ushered the visitor into the empty drawing-room, going directly after to tell Ruth.

It was growing dark, and Ruth, who was in bad spirits at having been left alone, felt a kind of shrinking, she could not have told why, from meeting Mr Montaigne.

He had always been quiet and paternal in his treatment, and she had, as a rule, shared the lessons of Clotilde and Marie; but, somehow, Ruth was one of the women whose confidence he had never won.

“Ah, Ruth, my child,” he said, advancing with quiet, cat-like step as she entered, and his voice sounded soft and velvety in the silence of the gloomy place, “and so you are all alone?”

“Yes; I will ring for candles,” she said hastily.

“No, my child, it is not necessary,” he replied, taking her hand, and leading her to the stiff, formal old sofa at the side of the room. “I had forgotten that the dinner-party was this evening, or I should not have walked over. As it is, dear child, I will sit down and rest for ten minutes, and then stroll back.”

“Would you like a cup of tea made for you? cook would soon have it ready,” asked Ruth.

“Oh no, no, my child,” he said softly, as he sat there, evidently forgetting that he still retained the little white hand, which, after an effort to withdraw, Ruth felt obliged to let rest where it was, prisoned now between both of Mr Montaigne’s soft sets of well-cared-for fingers, as he spoke.

“What a calm, delicious repose there always seems to be here, Ruth, within these Palace walls! The gay, noisy throng of pleasure-seekers come from the busy hive of industry, and flit and flutter about the park and gardens; their footsteps echo through the state chambers, as they gaze at the relics of a bygone time, and their voices ring with merry, thoughtless jest; but, somehow, their presence never seems to penetrate to these private apartments, where all is calmness, purity, and peace.”

“Yes; I often wonder at the way in which we seem to escape hearing them as we do,” replied Ruth, making an effort to respond; for her heart was beating painfully, and she was afraid that the visitor might note the tremor in her voice.

“Peace and repose,” he said softly, as he played with the hand he held. “The world seems far away from you here, and I often envy you the calm, unruffled existence that you enjoy. But tell me, child, did you feel disappointed at not forming one of the party this evening?”

“I—I must confess that I should have liked to go,” faltered Ruth.

“Well, yes, it was very natural,” he replied; and as Ruth glanced quickly at him, she felt that there was a grave smile upon his face. She could barely see it, for the room was growing darker, and now, for a few moments, her tremor began to increase.

“But Clotilde and Marie are older than I, and it was only natural that they should be preferred. And then, Mr Montaigne, they are so beautiful.”

“Not more beautiful than you are, Ruth.”

“Mr Montaigne!”

She made an effort to withdraw her hand, but it was tightly retained.

“Not more beautiful in person, less beautiful in mind and temperament, my child,” continued Montaigne. “Don’t try to withdraw your hand; I wish to talk seriously to you.”

Ruth felt that to struggle would be unseemly, and though she felt an undefined dread of her position, her reason seemed to combat what she was ready to condemn as fancy, and Mr Montaigne had known her from, and still addressed her as, a “child.”

“I should feel deeply disappointed if it were not so, Ruth; for I look upon you as one whose mind I have helped to train, whose growing intellect I have tried to form, and bias towards a love of the beautiful and pure and good.”

Ruth felt more at her ease, and less troubled that the visitor should retain her hand.

“I have, I think—nay, I boldly say—led your mind in its studies, and guided your reading,” continued Montaigne in the same low, bland voice, every tone of which was musical, deep, and sweet. It had not a harsh, jarring tone, but all was carefully modulated, and lent a charm to what he spoke.

Ruth murmured something about feeling very grateful, and wished that he would go.

“Tell me, child,” he said gently, and now one soft hand glided to Ruth’s wrist, and a finger rested upon her pulse, probably that the mental physician might test the regularity of the beats produced by his long-administered moral medicine, “what are you reading now?”

“‘Froissart’s Chronicle,’” replied Ruth.

“An excellent work—one which leads the mind to an appreciation of chivalry and the noble deeds of the past. Any work of fiction?”

“Ye-es,” faltered Ruth; “I have read part of a novel.”

“That the Misses Dymcox placed in your hands?”

“No,” faltered Ruth, speaking like a found-out child. “Ought I to tell you, Mr Montaigne?”

“Assuredly, my child. What should you keep from me?”

“It was a work by George Eliot that Clotilde had obtained from the library.”

“Unknown to her aunts?”

“Yes, Mr Montaigne; but please don’t be angry with her.”

“No, my child, I will not.”

“Clotilde did not like it, and threw it aside, and I happened to see it; but I have not read much.”

“They get novels, then?” said Mr Montaigne.

“They will be very angry with me for telling you, Mr Montaigne.”

“I shall not tell them, dear child; perhaps it is natural. What is Clotilde reading now?”

“A French story, ‘Annette’.”

“In-deed!” said Montaigne softly; and he drew his breath between his teeth. “And have you read it, child?”

“No, Mr Montaigne. Miss Philippa expressly forbade our ever reading French novels; she said they were bad.”

“Well—yes—perhaps, my child; but your pure, sweet young mind would eliminate the evil, and retain only the true and good. I should not debar you from such works. So you young ladies obtain novels from the library?”

“I do not,” said Ruth simply. “But pray do not ask me such things, Mr Montaigne; it makes me seem to be tale-bearing about my cousins.”

“Don’t be afraid, my child,” continued Montaigne; “let there be more confidence between us. Believe me, Ruth, you may trust me always as your best friend, and one to whom your welfare is very, very dear.”

“Thank you, Mr Montaigne,” faltered Ruth; “I will try to think of you as you wish. Will you let me ring for candles now?”

“Oh no, it is not necessary, my dear; I am going directly. Come, Ruth, my child, why do you shrink away? Am I so very dreadful, my little girl? There, sit still,” he said in a whisper. “I shall have to make you a prisoner, while I read you a lesson on obedience and duty to those who have your welfare at heart.”

Ruth was growing alarmed, for he had softly passed one arm round her little waist, and in spite of her feeble struggles drawn her to his side.

“There, my child, now I feel as if you were my own loving, dutiful little girl whom I had adopted; and I am going to cross-examine you like a father confessor,” he continued playfully. “Ruth dear, I hope this little heart is in safe-keeping.”

“I—I do not understand you, Mr Montaigne,” cried Ruth, whose womanly instincts were now alarmed.

“Will you loose me, please, and let me ring for the candles? It is quite dark.”

“But you are not afraid of being in the dark, my child,” he whispered; “and—hush! not a word.”

He laid his hand upon her lips, for just then Markes’ voice was heard outside.

“Ruth! Miss Ruth!”

“Sit still, foolish child!” he whispered, holding her more tightly; “that woman would perhaps chatter if she knew you were here like this with me.”

A chill of horror came over Ruth, and she sat like one paralysed, as the handle turned, the door opened, and Markes looked into the darkened room.

“Why, where has the girl gone?” she muttered angrily.

She went away directly, and a moment or two later her voice was heard crying:

“She isn’t in the drawing-room, cook.”

“You had better go up to your own room, child,” said Montaigne softly. “I will go now. Do not trouble about this; for I think it weak to trust servants, whose ignorance and prejudice often lead them to wrong ideas. Good-night, my child. You have neither father nor mother, but remember that while Paul Montaigne lives you have one who is striving to fill the place of both, as he tries to watch over you for your good.”

He had allowed her to rise now, but he still retained her hand as he stood beside her, his words for the moment disarming the resentment in her breast.

“Good-night, my dear child. I shall let myself out after you have reached your room. Good-night—good-night. Nay, your lips, Ruth, to me.”

Before she had well realised the fact, he had folded her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers. Then, loosening her from his embrace, he let her go, and, trembling and agitated as she had never been before, she ran quickly to her room.

Innocent at heart, and unskilled in the ways of the world as girl could be, as she seated herself upon the edge of the bed she ran rapidly over what had taken place.

She did not like Mr Montaigne, and his acts towards her that night made her tremble with indignation; but these thoughts were met by another current, which seemed to tell her that she was misjudging him. He had spoken to her as to one who was very dear to him. His words had been those of a father to his child; and why should she resent it? Mr Montaigne was not a young man, and it might seem to him that their positions had in no wise changed since she, a trembling, heart-broken little girl, fresh from a wretched home, had sat and listened to his soft, bland voice, followed his instructions, and had her curls smoothed by his soft white hand.

“But I am a woman grown now, and it is dreadful,” she cried, bursting into a passion of indignant tears. “I don’t like it. I will speak to Miss Philippa. I don’t think it is right.”

“Are you there, Miss Ruth?”

“Yes, Markes.”

“Oh, that’s right. I thought you was lost. Cook told me you were in the drawing-room when I came in. There, child, don’t sit and mope in the dark because you did not get asked to the party. You’ll be a woman soon, my dear, and maybe they’ll find you a husband like the rest.”

“Child!” Yes, it was always “child”; but the girl’s heart rebelled against the appellation. These elderly maidens could not think of her as one whose mind was ripening fast, in spite of the sunless seclusion in which she lived.

“I’ll tell Markes,” she thought, as her heart throbbed with the recollection of that which had passed. But no; she could not. There was something repellent in this woman’s ways, and at last, with her brain in a tumult with conflicting ideas, Ruth sought her pillow, while Paul Montaigne, with a curious smile upon his face, was still pacing his room after his dark walk back to Teddington, one hand clasping the other, as if he still held Ruth’s.

“No,” he said, “she will not say a word. It is not likely. There is a bond of sympathy between us now.”

He walked up and down a little longer, and then stood still, talking softly—half aloud.

“Woman is our master, they say; but let her be led to compromise herself, however slightly, and she becomes the slave. Poor little Ruth, she is very innocent and sweet.”

Volume Two—Chapter Two.

Love Paints and Decorates.

The change at the Honourable Misses Dymcox’s home was something so startling that Ruth was almost bewildered. Even on the following morning at breakfast, after Joseph had brought in the urn, the alteration had begun.

The wine of the last night’s party might have been fancied to be still having its influence, the ladies were so much less austere.

“I’m very, very glad you enjoyed yourselves so much, my dears,” said the Honourable Philippa, smiling.

“You feel none the worse, my loves?” said the Honourable Isabella.

“Oh no, aunt,” said Clotilde; “I feel better. Don’t you, Marie?”

“Oh yes,” said that young lady; “it was a delightful party.”

“It was, my dears,” said the Honourable Philippa, letting the water from the urn run over the top of the teapot. “Bless me, how careless! I am glad I consented to allow you both to go, for you see how necessary to a proper state of existence a due amount of money becomes.”

“How admirably dear Lady Littletown manages her income!” said the Honourable Isabella.

“Yes, and how needful a good income really is! Yes, it was a very distingué dinner. Marie, my child, Lord Henry Moorpark is most gentlemanly, is he not?”

“Oh yes, I like him very much,” replied Marie, with animation, and a slight flush in her cheek, for she had been suddenly appealed to when thinking about Marcus Glen, and the way he had glanced at her more than once. “He seems a very nice old gentleman.”

“Hem!” coughed the Honourable Philippa austerely. “I do not think him old.”

“Certainly not!” exclaimed the Honourable Isabella; “hardly elderly.”

“Decidedly no,” continued the Honourable Philippa. “By the way, Clotilde, my love, you found Mr Elbraham very pleasant?”

“Oh yes, aunt.”

“I am glad of it,” said the Honourable Philippa, smiling graciously, while Ruth, open-eyed and listening, went on with her breakfast, wondering at the change. “He is the great financier—enormously wealthy. I hear that he is to be made a duke by the Austrian emperor. He is already a chevalier.”

“Indeed, aunt?” said Clotilde, who also was thinking of Captain Glen.

“Yes, my dear; his houses are a marvel, I believe, for their wealth and display.”

“Is he a Jew, aunt?” said Marie innocently.

“My dear child, no! How can you ask such a question, Marie? I have heard something about his family being of Hebrew descent—Eastern Hebrew descent—Elbraham, Abraham, very ancient, no doubt; but I don’t know for certain, and really I do not care to know: for what does it matter?”

“Yes, what indeed?” said her sister. “A very gentlemanly, highly-cultured man.”

“With a wonderful knowledge of the world and its ways. He has been a deal in Egypt, did not Lady Littletown say, Isabella?”

“Yes, with the Khedive,” was the reply. “Enormously wealthy.”

The breakfast ended, the young ladies were dismissed.

“I would not go to the schoolroom this morning, my dears,” said the elder sister; “go and lie down for an hour or two and rest. After lunch Lady Littletown is coming with the carriage to take you for a drive, and I should like you to look your best.”

“Rie,” exclaimed Clotilde, as soon as they were in their room with Ruth, who was debating in her own mind whether she ought not to take her cousins into her confidence about Mr Montaigne, but shrinking from relating the communication to such unsympathetic ears.

“Well?”

“You, Ruth, if you dare to say a word about what we talk about, I’ll kill you!” cried Clotilde.

“I think you may trust me,” said Ruth, smiling.

“Then mind you do keep secret,” continued Clotilde. “Rie,” she cried again, “I can see through it all; I know what it means.”

“Do you?” said Marie quietly.

“Yes, they’re going to sell us both—a bargain.”

“Are they?” said Marie, who was thinking she would like to be sold to Marcus Glen.

“Yes, it’s going to be like it was in that novel of Georges Sand. We’re to be married to rich old men because we are young and beautiful; and if they marry me to one, I’m sorry for the old man.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do,” exclaimed Clotilde: “else why were we dressed up, and sent down to dinner with that old Jew, and that old, yellow Lord Henry Moorpark, when there were those young officers there?”

“I don’t know,” said Marie thoughtfully, as once more her mind reverted to Captain Glen.

“Then I do,” cried Clotilde, with flashing eyes. “I should like to be married, and have an establishment, and diamonds, and servants; but if they make me marry that dreadful man—”

“Well, what?” said Marie, with a depth of thought in her handsome eyes.

“You’ll see!” cried Clotilde; and thrusting her hand in between the mattress and the palliasse, she dragged out the highly-moral paper-covered French novel that had lain there perdu.

After the genial thawing of the ice there could be no more such severe and cutting behaviour as that which marked the meeting of Captain Glen and Richard Millet with the Dymcox family; and a day or two later, when the two officers were idling about the broad walks, with the boy’s eyes watching in all directions, but only to be disappointed at every turn, they came suddenly upon the party taking their morning walk.

“No, my dears,” the Honourable Philippa was saying, in reply to a request made by Clotilde; “the park is impassable, for the scenes that take place there are a disgrace to humanity, and the Government ought to be forced to interfere. It is not so very long ago that your aunt and I were thoughtfully walking beneath the trees—that glorious avenue of chestnuts, that we poor occupants of the Palace can only view free from insult at early morn or late in the evening—I say your aunt and I were pensively walking beneath the trees, when we stumbled full upon a coarse-minded crew of people sitting eating and drinking upon the grass, and a dreadful-looking man with a shiny head held up a great stone bottle and wanted us to drink. You remember, Isabella?”

“Yes, sister; and we fled down the avenue, to come upon another party engaged in some orgie. They had joined hands in a circle like savages, and one dreadful man was pursuing a woman, whom he captured, and in spite of her shrieks—”

“I think we had better not pursue the subject further, Isabella,” said the Honourable Philippa; “it is not a seemly one in the presence of young ladies. I need only tell you, my dears, that they were engaged in a rite popular among the lower orders—a sort of sport called ‘kiss-in-the-ring’.”

“Hush, sister!” whispered the Honourable Isabella; “the gentlemen.”

Poor Isabella’s hands began to tremble in a peculiar, nervous way as tall, English-looking Marcus Glen approached, appearing so much the more manly for having dapper Richard Millet by his side. The lady was not foolish enough to imagine that Glen wished to be attentive to her, but there was a sweet, regretful kind of pleasure in his presence, and when he spoke her withered heart seemed to expand, and old affections that had been laid up to dry, like sweet-scented flowers between leaves, began to put forth once again their forgotten odours, as if they were evoked by the presence of the sun.