Front matter (continued 4)

"What's that?" asked Mabel, thinking that some accident had occurred.

"Oh nothing. They call out for each other from their different rooms. I thought it was a parrot house when I came, but I'm getting accustomed to it. They've been so decent, you can't think, Mabel. I never knew girls could be so comforting."

"Poor Jean," said Mabel.

"You'll stay, won't you," said Jean.

"Of course I shall. Just imagine, papa wanted to come and take you home. It would have been so stale for you after you got there, with those little presents people gave you and all that kind of thing, if you had gone right back home again, wouldn't it?"

"Imagine Aunt Katharine alone," said Jean solemnly.

"So, if you possibly can, Jean, get up as soon as you feel able to crawl. So that I can say you are all right. Papa says I may stay for a week or two if you are."

"Oh, Mabs, I wish you would stay right on!"

"Where's my room?" asked Mabel. "What rickety furniture!"

"The room is next door, isn't it nice? And the furniture's bought for girls. They think we like rickets."

"Wickets," corrected Mabel. "You could use that chair at a match."

"Oh, Mabs, how jolly it is to have you here to laugh at it. Mabs, I do feel better."

Mabel saw her up in three-quarters of an hour.

Jean had still to be treated seriously however.

"You know, Mabs, I had the most dreadful feeling. I could quite understand how poor girls without friends go and drown themselves."

"That's more like depression than appendicitis," Mabel ventured.

"I hadn't been sleeping," explained Jean with dignity.

Mabel thought of some sleepless nights.

"The best cure is always to believe that it can't last," said she. "Do you remember papa's telling us how Carlyle comforted Mrs. Carlyle when she had toothache? He said it wouldn't be permanent."

"What a brute," said Jean.

"Well, it sent me to sleep once or twice when I remembered that," said Mabel. "But you never were ill like this before. You couldn't believe in getting well, could you?"

"I was sure I was going to die," said Jean in a hushed voice.

Mabel's heart had ached. Could she tell Jean of that ache and how she had been obliged to cover it up by making herself believe that it could not possibly be permanent.

"Jean, do you know, I think it's so jolly being here, getting to know the best way of doing things, and all that sort of thing, I think I shall ask papa to let me stay longer. Do you think they would let me?"

"Well, they let me--and then I didn't want to," said Jean.

"And I didn't want to and now I do," said Mabel. "Let's try it for a week or two anyhow."

A great depression had been lifted from her shoulders. She found herself in the midst of girls who had all something to do in the world. They got up in the morning and came tearing down to breakfast and made off to various definite occupations, as though they had nineteen parties in one day to attend. Some were studying, others "arrived" and working, only a few playing. Yet even the last had some excuse in the way of a problematical career in front of them. Here one saw where the desire to be something has quite as hygienic an effect on one, as the faculty of attainment. Mabel had not been three days in the house till she was as feverish as any to be getting on. Going with Jean for her first lesson finished her. Jean was still of the opinion that she was an invalid, and she certainly was overwrought and nervous. She would have backed out of her lesson, except that Mabel accompanied her.

They found a magnificent man, well groomed and of fierce but courtly manners. He shook hands with the air of an arch-duke.

"And which is the fortunate mademoiselle?" he asked. "Not that I prefer 'fortunate' because that she happens to be about to be taught by myself, but she has a voice? Hn?" It was a sound that had only the effect of asking a question, but how efficiently!

He glared at Mabel, who produced Jean, as it were, by a motion of the hand.

"It is my sister who wants lessons," she said. This sounded like something out of a grammar book, and both girls saw the humour of it. But timidly, because Herr Slavska then invited them to sit, while he turned to the piano. He threw some music aside from the desk and cleared a place at the side for his elbow, as he sat down for a moment.

"They do not all have voices! No. But som, they have the sōll. You have the sōll? Hn?"

It did not seem necessary to inform Herr Slavska. He was walking up and down now, flinging out more sentences before they had time to answer the last.

"For myself. I had the voice and I had the sōll. That is why I ask 'and who is the mademoiselle who is so fortunate?' I am a voice, and look at me! I am a drudge to the great public. I gif lessons to stupids who do not love music. For what! For money to keep the stomach alive! Yes, that is it. And yet I say--which is the mademoiselle which is fortunate? For vit a voice and vit the sōll, and vit the art which I shall gif her, what does it matter about the stupid public? or the stomach?"

Herr Slavska waited for no answers.

"For years I was wrong. I had no art. None. I sang to the stupids and they applauded. At last I make great discovery, I find the art. Now I sing to the few."

Herr Slavska paused for a moment.

"My sister has had no training at all, except as a pianist," said Mabel.

"Hn? Then I haf her, a flower, a bud unplucked!"

Herr Slavska grew excited.

"No nasty finger mark, no petal fallen. Ah! it is luck, it is luck for mademoiselle. Come, mademoiselle."

He struck a note.

"Will you sing ze!"

Jean sang "ze." She sang "zo." Then he ran her voice into the top and bottom registers.

"You have the comprehension. It is the great matter," said Herr Slavska.

Then he blazed at her.

His "the," quite English when he remained polished and firm, degenerated into a "ze" at times such as these.

"You haf not ze breath, none," said he, as though Jean had committed an outrage.

Jean, however, had begun to glow with the ardour of future accomplishment.

"That's what I came to learn," she said promptly.

"Aha, she has charac*tere*."

Herr Slavska was delighted, but Jean found this constant dissection of herself trying.

Then the real work began. Herr Slavska breathed, made Jean breathe, hammered at her, expostulated, showed his own ribs rising and falling while his voice remained even, tender, beautiful.

Mabel sat clasping her hands over one another.

"Oh, Herr Slavska, what a beautiful voice you have," she burst out at last.

He looked at her with the greatest surprise.

"Ah! You are her sister? Hn? And you sit there listening to us?"

He had forgotten her existence.

"And you are not of the stupids, no! You say I haf a beautiful voice? Hn? It is ze art, mademoiselle, zat you hear now. Sixty-five, I am zat age! And I still fight for ze stomach wit my beautiful voice. But you are of ze few, is it not? I vil sing to you, mademoiselle, just once. Your sister goes. Ten minutes, mademoiselle--only ten minutes. Zen a rest. And every day to me for two weeks! Hn? Is it not so?"

Then he cast up his arms in despair.

"Helas! It is my accompaniste. He is not!"

Jean the direct stepped in.

"Oh, Mabel will play," she said.

Herr Slavska took one of his deepest breaths.

"I say I shall sing to you--I Herr Slavska. Ant you say 'Mabel will play.' Hn? Mabel? Who is dis grand Mademoiselle Mabel?"

The humour of it suddenly appeared to come upper-most, and Herr Slavska became wickedly, cunningly suave.

"Ah yes, then if mademoiselle will," he said blandly.

He produced music.

Mabel was rooted with fear to the couch. Never in her life before had she been nervous.

"Jean, how could you," whispered she.

Oh, fortune and the best of luck! He turned to a song of Brahms'. How often had Mabel tried to drum that song into the willing but uncultured Robin! That Robin in his lame way should help her now seemed the funniest freak of fate. She played the first bars hopefully, joyfully. She knew she couldn't do anything silly there.

"But what!"

Herr Slavska had caught her by the shoulders, and looked in her eyes.

"Mademoiselle Mabel! From ze country! Mademoiselle plays like zat! Hn?"

He bowed grandly.

"My apologies, Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. We vill haf a rehearsal."

He sang through part of his programme for a concert. Mabel energetically remarked afterwards to Jean that she had never really felt heavenly in her life before.

"Oh, Jean," she said, "Jean."

"What would you," said Herr Slavska. "You must also study a little Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. You have great talent. Ah, if you could study in ze Bohemian school, Mees Mademoiselle. Hav I not said for years to these stupids stupids public, there is no school like to that of Prague? Now all ze violinists tumble tumble over ze one another to Sevcik to go. See, it is ze fate. If you could go to Prague, mademoiselle. Prague would make a great artiste of you."

Here was living, wonderful life for Mabel! If Herr Slavska thought so much of her, why should she not have lessons in London?

Mr. Leighton never received such a letter as he had from her next day. If was full of thanks for his having made her play so much and go to concerts when she was young. "Now I really know the literature of music. It's the little slippy bits of technique that I'm not up in. I saw every one of them come out and hit me in the eye when I played for Herr Slavska. Do you think I could really stay and take lessons, dear papa? It would prime me for such a lot. I've often thought about Cuthbert for instance, that it must be so jolly for him to feel primed. And after knowing life here, I'd only be more contented at home. It isn't that one can't be bored in London. I think you can far far more than anywhere. If you saw that girl with the pink bow! She only dresses and dresses, one costume for the morning, another for the afternoon and so on. I suppose she has been taught to be a perfect lady. The girls in our house aren't the crowd that believe in being like men or anything of that sort. They want to get married if they meet a nice enough husband. But nobody wants to get left, and it's so nice to be primed for that. I've sometimes felt I might one day be 'left,' and it's awful. I shouldn't mind so much if I had a profession. Jean is like a new girl. She's full of breathings and 'my method' and all that kind of thing. And she has to have an egg flip every morning at eleven if you please. I'm longing to have a master who orders me egg flip, but they don't do that for piano, do they?

"Oh, please, papa, say you don't care for us for six months, and let us do you some credit at last. We were just little potty players at Ridgetown...."

Mr. Leighton took a mild attack of influenza on the strength of this, but he was infinitely pleased at the enthusiasm of Mabel. Mrs. Leighton got into the Aunt Katharine mood, where such "goings on" seemed iniquitous.

"I don't see why you should pay so much money to keep them out of their own home," said she.

By next post, she sent a hamper of cakes to the girls.

Then came a letter from Mr. Leighton, which Mabel locked in a little morocco case along with some other treasures, "to keep for ever."

"I am to stay, and I'm to have lessons from any Vollendollenvallejowski I like to name," she cried to Jean. The two rocked on a bamboo chair in happy abandonment till some explosive crackling sounds warned them that joy had its limits.

Every girl in the house was invited into the tea "with cakes from home."

"What a love of a father and a duck of a mother we've got," said the convalescent homesick Jean.

CHAPTER XX

The Shilling Seats

Jean owed a great debt to Isobel for having told her of Slavska, and acknowledged it extravagantly in every letter. Now there was the difficulty of finding a piano teacher; but here Mabel explained to Jean as nearly as she could why she could not seek the advice of Isobel. Isobel, if they knew, already lamented that she had given away Slavska, it was such an opening to the girls for being independent of her experience. Herr Slavska would recommend no one in London.

"They all play for the stupids," he declared. At last in a better mood, he remembered a certain "Monsieur, Monsieur--Green."

Mabel laughed at the drop to a plain English name.

"Ah no! Smile not," said Herr Slavska. "His mother, of the Latin race, and his father, mark you, a Kelt! What wonder of a result! I will introduce you to the Sir, Herr, Monsieur Green. He is young, but of Leschetitzky. I recommend him."

There seemed nothing more to be said, except that two girls in the club knew Mr. Green's playing and said that no one else really existed in London. A great deal underlay Herr Slavska's "I recommend him."

Mabel met one of the keenest enthusiasts of her life when she met Mr. Green.

"Isn't it queer," said Jean afterwards, who, in spite of egg flips and methods, was in a dejected mood that day, "isn't it queer that an old boy like Herr Slavska and a young one like Mr. Green should both have the same delusions. About music, I mean, being so keen on it."

"You can't call that voice of Herr Slavska's a delusion."

Mabel had been much impressed by what Mr. Green had said.

"Mark you, at such an age, there is no voice like Slavska's in existence. Your sister is fortunate in learning his method."

"That's what Mr. Slavska said," Jean had answered amiably, and it had started Mr. Green off on his lessons with Mabel in a cheerful mood.

"The Herr is not sparing of his compliments when it is himself that is concerned," he said, laughing loudly. "But he can afford to tell the truth."

It seemed lovely to Mabel, this tribute from one man to another.

"More than your old Slavska said of my man," she told Jean.

Mr. Green was a distracting teacher. He pulled Mabel's playing down to decimals. Where she had formerly found her effects by merely feeling them, he subtracted feeling until she imagined she could not play piano at all. Then he began to build up her technique like a builder adding bricks to a wall.

"You must imagine that you have eaten of the good things of life until you are a little ill, so that good or bad taste very much alike. Then you come to me for the cure. I diet you with uninteresting things, which you do not like, and you imagine I am hard because I do not allow you to eat. Then one day I give you a little tea and toast. Now, Miss Leighton, you have worked to curve the third finger a trifle more than you did. Will you play that study of Chopin which you once performed to me."

Mabel had practised dry technique and had kept cheerfully away from all "pieces" as directed. She played the study.

"Bravo," said Mr. Green. It was his first encouragement.

"Why," said Mabel, "how nice it is to be able to play it like that."

"It is your tea and toast," said Mr. Green.

Into their hard-working life came delightfully Adelaide Maud. Their enthusiasm carried her into scenes she had never visited. She attended concerts in the shilling seats, and took tea once at an A.B.C. The shilling seats fascinated Adelaide Maud. The composite crowd of girls, with excited interest; of budding men musicians, groomed and ungroomed, the latter disporting hair which fell on the forehead in Beethoven negligence, the dark, lowering musician's scowl beneath--what pets they all were! Pets in the zoological sense some of them, but yet what pets! She caught the infection of their ardour when a great or a new performer appeared. Had any crowd ever paid such homage to one of her set, never! Fancy inflaming hearts to that extent. Adelaide Maud could feel her pulses responding.

"Oh," she said after one of these experiences when they were in Fuller's and ate extravagantly of walnut cream cake, "it's as much fun to me to go to these concerts, as it would be for you to--to.----" It dawned on her that any comparison might not be polite.

"To go to court," said Mabel.

"Oh, have you ever been presented?" asked Jean of Adelaide Maud.

Mabel stared at her. All their life they had followed Adelaide Maud's career, and Jean forgot that she had been presented. Adelaide Maud herself might have been a little hurt, but she was only amused.

"I was--in Queen Victoria's time. I'm an old stager, you know," she said.

"Wasn't it lovely," asked Jean, who had once called her past.

"I don't think so," said Adelaide Maud. "At least I happened to enjoy the wrong part, that was all. I loved going out with the sunshine pouring into the carriage and everybody staring at us. It was very hot and the windows had to be down, and I heard things. One girl said 'Oh, lollipops, look at 'er 'air. Dyed that is.' Another quite gratified me by ejaculating in an Irish voice, 'Oh, the darlint.' 'You mustn't,' said her friend, 'she'll 'ear you.' 'I mean the horses, stupid,' said the girl. She had her eye on the Life Guards. Mamma was disgusted. But in the palace it was not nearly so distinguished. Nobody admired one at all, just hustled one by. I think we were cross all the time."

"I think it would be lovely to be cross in Buckingham Palace," sighed Jean.

They all laughed. Adelaide Maud in particular seemed to be thinking about something which interested her.

"Would it be fun for you to see some of the people who are going to the great ball," she asked. "I don't mean to go to the ball, but Lady Emily is to be at home for the early part of that evening and some people are coming in on the way. I asked her if I might have you to dinner--and she's quite pleased about it."

Mabel and Jean sat in a blissful state of rapture. ("Lady Emily! The gorgeous and far-away Lady Emily!")

"Oh," said Jean, "Elma would say, 'I should be terrified.'"

"And I should say we'll be perfectly delighted," said Mabel.

It cost her no tremor at all to think of going. This reminded Adelaide Maud of Miss Grace's prophecy that there was no sphere in life which Mabel could not enter becomingly.

"Put on that pretty pink thing you wore in Ridgetown, lately," she said.

The name of Ridgetown brought them closer to realities. This was Miss Dudgeon of The Oaks with whom they ate cream cake. Jean said, "I'm sure to give the wrong titles. You don't mind I hope."

"No," said Adelaide Maud. At the same time she was dying with the desire that they should do her infinite credit. Carefully she thought over the matter and then spoke. "In any case it's so much a matter of one's manner in doing it. I remember when Lady Emily was ill once, she had a very domineering nurse, who tossed her head one time and said to me, 'I suppose she wants me to be humble and "my lady" her, but not a bit of me.' Then one of the most distinguished surgeons in England was called in, and his first words were, 'And how d'ye do, my lady.' He called her 'my lady' throughout, quite unusual you know, and yet in so dignified and kind a manner, as though he were saying, 'I know, but I prefer my own way in the matter.'"

"What a drop to the nurse," said Mabel.

Jean looked reflective.

"Do you know, you've told me something I didn't know," she said. "I never quite knew how one ought to address Lady Emily. It's so different at Ridgetown," she exclaimed.

Adelaide Maud seemed a little confused, but answered heartily.

"Oh, none of it's a trouble when you really meet people. They are so much simpler than one would think."

Mabel saw that Adelaide Maud had given them her first tip. It was sweetly done, but then----! Anyhow, they had given Adelaide Maud plenty of tips about getting in early to seats in the Queen's Hall and minor affairs of that sort. Why shouldn't the benefits work both ways?

It was about the time of Elma's ball, when they sent the white roses, and Adelaide Maud said she would help them to choose.

"I should like to send little Elma a crown of pearls, but I daren't," said she with a sigh. "She's such a pet, isn't she!"

"Timorous, but a pet," said Jean with a broad smile.

"She is holding the fort just now at any rate," responded Mabel.

They thought it would be all right to tell Adelaide Maud something of what Elma had written.

"I trembled, of course," Elma had said; "but the thing had to be done. I wouldn't for a moment let you think that you couldn't come home and slip in to the places that belong to you. Isobel would have possessed the whole house if I hadn't played up. I don't know why she wants to. It must be so much nicer not to have to bother about servants and table centres. But she has never squeaked since I spoke about it. In fact, she won't even speak to me unless some one is about, passes me without a word."

"Poor darling," said Adelaide Maud; "what a worm your cousin must be."

"No, I don't think she's that," said Mabel; "it's just that she simply must rule, you know. She must have everything good that is going."

"H'm," answered Adelaide Maud. "Why doesn't that brother of yours go slashing about a little, and keep her from bullying Elma."

"Oh, Elma would never tell Cuthbert. Don't you see it mightn't be fair to prejudice him against Isobel. Isobel thinks such a lot of Cuthbert."

"Oh."

A long clinging silence depreciated the conversational prowess of Adelaide Maud.

"Well," she said, in a conventional voice, "We've had a lovely day. Let me know when you are going to another concert. And I shall send you full particulars about Lady Emily."

They were walking along Regent Street to find their shop for the flowers. It seemed that Adelaide Maud was about to desert them. She beckoned for a hansom and got inside. Mabel and Jean felt that they said good-bye to Miss Dudgeon of The Oaks. In another second they had gone on and Adelaide Maud had had her hansom pulled up beside them again.

"Jean, Jean," she called, quite radiant again. "I forgot the most important thing. It's about lessons. Do you think that your Splashkaspitskoff would condescend to give me some?"

It was rather mad of Adelaide Maud, but she got out and paid off the hansom.

"It isn't so late as I thought it was," she said lamely. But Mabel knew that she came to make up.

Jean only thought of the lessons.

"You will find him so splendid," she said, "and such a gentleman."

"I like that," said Mabel. "Why--he talks about the most revolting things."

"It's his manners that are so wonderful," said Jean in a championing manner. They had found their shop by this time and were looking at white roses. When Mabel said, "Do you think these are nice?" Jean might be heard explaining, "It's the method you know that is so wonderful."

And when at last they had decided about roses and arranged about the lessons, Adelaide Maud thought she must immediately buy a hat.

"I quite forgot that I wanted a hat," she said gravely.

They went to one of the best shops, and sat in three chairs, with Adelaide Maud surrounded by mirrors. Tall girls sailed up like swans and laid a hat on her bright hair and walked away again. Adelaide Maud turned and twisted and looked lovely in about a dozen different hats. After looking specially superb in one, she would say. "Take that one away, I don't like it at all."

Occasionally the swans would put on a hat and sail about in order to show the effect. Then Adelaide Maud would look specially languid and appear more dissatisfied than ever. At last she fixed on one which contained what she called "a dead seagull."

"Why you spoil that pretty hat with a dead bird, I can't think," she exclaimed to the attendant. "Look at its little feet turned up."

Then, "You must take this bird out, and give me flowers."

She began pinning on her own hat again. In a second the bird was gone, and the swanlike personages sailing over the grey white carpet, brought charming bunches of which they tried the effect "for modom."

"Oh, do get heliotrope," said Mabel. "It's so gorgeous with your hair."

Adelaide Maud swung round.

"And I've been making up my mind to white for the last half-hour. How can you, Mabel!"

She chose a mass of white roses, "dreaming in velvet."

Adelaide Maud rose, gave directions about sending, and prepared to leave.

"Don't you want to know the price?" asked Mabel in great amazement.

"Oh, of course."

Adelaide Maud asked the price.

The total took Mabel's breath away.

"You must never marry a poor man," said she as they passed out. Adelaide Maud stopped humbly in a passage of grey velvet and silver gilt.

"Well, I never," she said. Then walking on, she asked in a very humble, mocking tone, "Will you teach me, Mabs, how to shop so that I may marry a poor man."

Mabel laughed gaily.

"Thank you," said she. "That sounds as though you think that I ought to know. Am I to marry a poor man?"

Adelaide Maud laughed outright, and took her briskly by the arm.

"I didn't mean that. I believe you will marry a duke. But you see--you think me so extravagant, and I might have to be poor."

"That dead seagull going cost you a guinea alone," said Mabel accusingly.

"And they kept the seagull," said Adelaide Maud. "How wanton of me!"

"I've had a very nice hat for a guinea," said Mabel, with a smirk of suppressed laughter.

"And yet you won't marry a poor man," said Adelaide Maud. "How unjust the world is."

They parted in better form than they had done an hour earlier.

"Wasn't she queer," said Jean, "to go off like that?"

"Queerer that she came back," said Mabel. "Do you know what I think? I believe Adelaide Maud bought that hat simply--simply----"

"To kill time," said Jean.

"No. To stay with us a little longer," said Mabel.

"It's more than any of the Dudgeons ever thought of doing before--if it's true!" said blunt, robust Jean.

"But I don't believe it is," said she. "Let's scoot for that bus or we'll lose it."

So they scooted for the bus.

CHAPTER XXI

At Lady Emily's

Adelaide Maud found herself possessed of quite a fervid longing. She wanted to see Mabel and Jean disport themselves with dignity at Lady Emily's. What had always remained difficult in Ridgetown seemed to become curiously possible at Lady Emily's, where indeed the highest in the land might be met. That she might make real friends of the two girls at last seemed to become a possibility. It was not merely the fact of Lady Emily's being a "complete dear" that constituted the difference. It was more the absence of the Ridgetown standards. There were never upstarts to be found at Lady Emily's. Her own character sifted her circle in an automatic manner. That which was vulgar or self-seeking had no response from her. Racy people found her dull, would-be smart persons quite inanimate. She could no more help being unresponsive to them than she could help being interested in others whom she respected. It was a distinguished circle which surrounded her, and those who never pierced it, never understood how easily it was formed, how inviolately kept. Occasionally Lady Emily's "tact" was upheld as the secret of her power.

"And I have absolutely no tact at all," she would moan. "I simply follow my impulses as a child would."

It was the unerring correctness of her impulses which made Adelaide Maud believe that she would welcome the Leightons.

Lady Emily had married a brother of Mr. Dudgeon's. Adelaide Maud's devotion to her father's memory put her uncle into the position of a kind of patron saint of her own existence. She sometimes thought that his character supplied a number of these impulses which made Lady Emily the dear she was. Lady Emily was the daughter of a Duke, and had none of the aspirations of a climber, her family having climbed so long ago, that any little beatings about a modern ladder seemed ridiculous. Her brother was the present duke of course, and "made laws in London," as Miss Grace used to describe it. This phantom of a duke, intermarried in a way into her family, had prevented Mrs. Dudgeon from knowing any of the Ridgetown people--intimately that is. Yet the duke never called, and Lady Emily wore her dull coat of reserve when in Mrs. Dudgeon's company. Lady Emily's heart went out, however, to the "golden-haired girls" who spent their seasons with her in London.

She was perfectly sweet about the Leightons, and called at the girls' club in state. What an honour!

The girls found their ideas tumbling. Lady Emily was much more "easy" than any one they had met.

They prepared for the dinner quite light-heartedly.

After all, it could only be a dream. London was a dream. London in the early winter with mellow air, only occasionally touched with frost, glittering lights in the evenings, and crowds of animated people. So different from the dew dripping avenues of streets at Ridgetown.

They "skimmed" along in a hansom to Lady Emily's and thought they were the most dashing persons in London.

"But it's only a dream, remember," said Jean.

They went in radiantly through wide portals. Footmen moved out of adjacent corners and bowed them on automatically.

Mabel loved it, but Jean for a few agonizing seconds felt over-weighted.

Then "it's only a dream!"

They dreamed through a mile of corridor and ran into Adelaide Maud.

The dream passed and they were chatting gaily at shilling seat gossip, and that sort of thing.

Adelaide Maud made the maids skim about. They liked her, that was evident. Mabel and Jean were prinked up and complimented.

"You are ducks, you know," said Adelaide Maud.

They proceeded to the drawing-room.

Here the point was marked between the time when the girls had never known Mr. Dudgeon and the time when they did. Mabel never forgot that fine, spare figure, standing in a glitter of gilt panelled walls, of warm light from a fire and glimmering electric brackets, of pale colour from the rugs on the floor. He had the grey ascetic face of the scholarly man brought up in refinement, and his expression contained a great amount of placidity. He had dark, scrutinizing eyes, and a kind mouth, where lines of laughter came and went. Jean approached tremblingly, for now it suddenly dawned on her that she had never been informed why the husband of Lady Emily should only be plain "Mr. Dudgeon." Was this right, or had she not listened properly? Then Adelaide Maud said distinctly, "Mr. Dudgeon." Jean concluded that it was their puzzle, not hers, and shook hands with him radiantly. Mabel only thought that at last she had met one more man who might be compared to her father.

They sat down on couches of curved legs and high backs, "the kind of couches that make one manage to look as magnificent as possible," as Jean described it. Mr. Dudgeon said Lady Emily was being indulged with a few moments' grace.

"It's the one thing we have always to do for Lady Emily," said he, "to give her a few minutes' grace." He began to talk to them in a quick, grave manner.

Jean again informed herself, "It is a dream."

One would have thought that Mr. Dudgeon was really interested in them both. And how could he be--he--the husband of the daughter of a duke! He asked all about how long they had known Adelaide Maud and so on.

Mabel was not dreaming, however. She sat daintily on the high-backed couch and told Mr. Dudgeon about the Story Books.

There they were, only ten minutes in the room, and Mr. Dudgeon, who had never seen Mabel or Jean before, was hearing all about the Story Books.

And Adelaide Maud, who had begun to imagine she knew the Leightons, heard this great fable for the first time in her life.

"Uncle," she said, "uncle, isn't this sweet, isn't this fame?"

"It is," said he.

"Do you wonder that I don't go to the ball?" she asked. "And you've done this ever since you were children?" she asked. "Made fairies of us! And I'm 'Adelaide Maud,' am I? Who once called me Adelaide?" She looked puzzled. "Dear me, if only we had known. And not even Miss Grace to tell me!"

"Oh, we bound them over," said Mabel, "and no one else ever heard of it."

"She doesn't tell you all," said wicked Jean. "She doesn't tell you that we sat behind you once at a concert, and Mabel saw, properly you know, how your blue dress was made."

"Oh, Jean, Jean," said Mabel.

"Yes, and had hers made just like it," said Jean. She spread her hands a little.

"Rucked down the front, you remember."

"Oh, I remember," laughed Adelaide Maud.

"And when you came to call--Mabel couldn't put on her prettiest gown, because it was just like yours."

"Oh, Jean," cried Mabel.

In the midst of some laughter came in Lady Emily.

"Well," she said in a gentle way, "you people are enjoying yourselves, aren't you?"

Adelaide Maud knew then that the day was won for Mabel and Jean. Mr. Dudgeon was always a certain quality, but Lady Emily--well, she had seen Lady Emily when people called her "dull." It was wonderful with what grace Lady Emily adapted herself to the interests of two girls almost unknown to her. The effect might be gleaned from what Jean said afterwards.

"Lady Emily was so sweet, I never bothered about forks or anything. There was such a love of a footman! I believe he shoved things into my hands just when I ought to use them. It always worries me to remember--when I'm talking--just like the figures at lancers, you know, but here they did everything for one except eat."

Lady Emily had on a beautiful diamond ornament at her throat, and another in her hair, and they scintillated in splendour. She wore a dress of white chiffon for the ball.

"You insist on dragging me there?" Mr. Dudgeon asked several times. Whenever a pause occurred in the conversation he said, "You insist on carrying me off to this ball, don't you?"

Lady Emily also pretended that she had to go very much against her will. Mabel and Jean had never seen people set out to balls in this way before. They themselves had always their mad rush of dressing and their wild rush in the cloakroom for programmes, and a most enervating pause for partners and then the thing was done. But Lady Emily and Mr. Dudgeon tried to pan out the quiet part of the evening as far as it would pan out.

Then came a trying time.

In the drawing-room, quite late, very gorgeous people arrived. Jean was endeavouring to remember whether or not she took sugar with tea when the first of them came in. The spectacle made her seize three lumps one after another, to gain time, when as a fact she never took more than one. They fell in a very flat small cup of tea and splashed it slightly in various directions. She was always very pleased to remember that she didn't apologize to the footman.

The gorgeous people seemed only to see Lady Emily and to talk to the electric light brackets. They said the ball was a bore.

A rather magnificent and very stout personage settled himself near Mabel. He wore shining spectacles which magnified his eyes in a curious manner.

"Hey, what, what," he said to Mabel. "And you aren't a Dudgeon! Hey! Thought you were one. Quite a lot of 'em, you know. Always croppin' up. Golden hair, I remember. And yours is brownish. Ah, well. You're a friend, you say. Quite as good, quite as good. Not going to the ball. Consider yourself in luck. Not a manjack but says the same. Why they make it a ball, Heaven knows. Never dance, you know. Hey what! None of us able for it. Not so bad as levees though. There, imagine Slowbeetle in white calves. There he is, that old totterer. Yet he does it. Honour of his country, calls of etiquette and that sort of thing. You're young, missed a lot of this, eh! Well, it's mostly farce, y'know. We prance a lot. Not always amusin'. Relief to know Lady Emily. No prance about her. Hey, what!"

Adelaide Maud approached.

"Ah, here we are. Thought you had dyed it. Golden as ever, my dear. Pleasant to see you again. Why aren't you and this lady goin'? We could stay. Instead of prancin', eh!"

The ill humour of having to go to the ball was on all of them evidently. But this spectacled benignity fascinated Mabel. He again was a "complete dear."

"I'm going to steal her," said Adelaide Maud, indicating Mabel, darkly; "you wait."

"Hey, what! I'll report. Report to Lady Emily, y'know. Ye've taken my first partner. Hey, what! Piano? Ah, well. Not in my line, but I'm with you."

He actually accompanied them to a long alcove where a piano stood half shrouded in flowers. Here Adelaide Maud had withdrawn the little party of Jean, Mabel and herself, that they might look and play a little and enjoy themselves.

"Simpkins, more tea," she whispered. "We didn't have half enough."

It was an admirable picnic. Mabel played "any old thing," as Adelaide Maud called it, ran on from one to another while they joked and talked and watched the "diplomatic circles" gathering force in the drawing-room. The spectacled gentleman sat himself down in complete enjoyment.

"D'ye know," he said to Jean in the same detached manner and without any kind of introduction, "no use at that kind of thing," indicating the piano, "but the girl can play. Fills me with content. Content's the word. Difficult to find nowadays. She doesn't strain. Not a bit. She smooths one down. A real talent. And a child! Hey, what, quite remarkable."

Lady Emily came slowly in. Two people talked to her.

The spectacled gentleman rose, and they listened to him.

"Don't interrupt, Lady Emily. She's got the floor, y'know. I've heard prima donnas. Here too. And they didn't smooth me down. Catch a note or two of this. It gives its effect, hey? Gets your ear. Hey, what--if we had her in the House there might be hope for the country, hey, what!"

Lady Emily was pleased.

She laid her hand on Mabel's shoulder.

"Are you liking this?"

"Oh, it's such a dream, and you are so lovely, Lady Emily, and it doesn't seem real. So it's very easy to play, you know."

"I should make them stop talking, but they came for that, you know. And you are playing so well, it's too pretty an interlude. Helen didn't tell me that you could play like this."

"And my new master makes me believe I can't play a note," said Mabel. "I shall tell him he is quite wrong, because you said so."

Aunt Katharine's words came to her mind--playing at one end of the country no better than the other! Ah, well, it was newer, fresher, or something--taking it either way!

Of course it came to an end. The girls slipped out with Adelaide Maud and found the long corridor with the white room containing their wraps and two attentive maids. They were covered up in their cloaks, and watched one or two leave before them, as they stood looking down on them from the staircase.

"Nobody will miss us," said Adelaide Maud. "They are 'going on,' you know."

There was something rather sad in her voice.

"They all go on to something or somebody, even that dear old Earl Knuptford, he will pick you at the same place next year that he found you at to-night, and say, 'Hey, what,' and never think that both he and you have dropped twelve months out of your lives. It's different at Ridgetown, isn't it?"

"Yes, there's nothing to go on to at Ridgetown, is there?" said Jean grimly. "And nobody to forget or to say, 'Hey, what,' even if they had never met you before."

Her world was full of shining diplomats and she had chatted with an earl.

Adelaide Maud looked softly after them.

"Nothing to go on to at Ridgetown," she murmured. "And no one to forget."

She smiled softly.

"Ah! well, it's nice that there's no one to forget."

CHAPTER XXII

The Engagement

The night at Lady Emily's was by no means a first step into a new and fashionable world. Mabel and Jean never doubted for a moment that they were anything but spectators of that brilliant gathering. Even Adelaide Maud was only a spectator. Lady Emily and her husband were different from the world in which they moved because they had hobbies and minor interests which they occasionally allowed to interfere with the usual routine. Mr. Dudgeon had been known to skip a state banquet for a book which he has just received. And Lady Emily would make such calls and give such invitations as resulted in that wonderful little dinner party. But as for any of her set being interested, why, there was no time for that. Place something in their way, like Mabel sitting on a couch, part of which Earl Knuptford desired to make use and one met a "belted Earl." He became interested and dropped sentences pell-mell on Mabel's astonished head. For days, Jean dreamed of large envelopes arriving--"The Earl and Countess of Knuptford request," etc.

("You donkey, there's no countess," interjected Mabel.) The Earl would as soon have thought of inviting the lamp post which brought his motor to a full stop and his Lordship's gaze on it correspondingly. Bring these people to a pause in front of something, and they might delay themselves to interview it. But while one is not part of the machinery which takes them on, there is no chance of continuing the acquaintance.

Adelaide Maud told them as much. It seemed to Mabel that Adelaide Maud wanted them to know that though she lived in this world, she was by no means of it. She enjoyed herself often quite as much in the shilling seats. Her view of things did not prevent Mabel and Jean from participating in benefits to be derived from the acquaintance of Lady Emily. There ensued a happy time when they had seats at the Opera, of which an autumn season was in full swing, of occasional concerts and drives, and once they went with Lady Emily and Mr. Dudgeon far into the country on a motor. For the rest, friends of their own looked them up, and they had hardly a moment unfilled with practising which was not devoted to going about and seeing the world of London. The Club improved with acquaintance, and it was wonderful how the very girls who annoyed Jean so much on her arrival became part of their very existence. "We are so dull," she would write home, "because Violet has gone off for the week end," or "We didn't go out because Ethel and Gertrude wanted us to have tea with them."

Adelaide Maud left for home. That was the tragic note of their visit. Then Cousin Harry turned up with his sister and her husband and offered to run them over to Paris for Christmas. Here the cup overflowed. Paris!

It was a new wrench for Mr. Leighton, who meant to get them home for Christmas and if possible keep them there. But he knew that a trip with Mrs. Boyne would be of another "seventh heaven" order, and once more he gave way.

"Can you hold the fort a little longer?" wrote Mabel to Elma.

Elma held the fort.

She held it, wondering often what would come of it all. She was in the position of a younger sister to one she did not love. Isobel chaperoned her everywhere. They had reached a calm stage where they took each other in quite a polite manner, but never were confidential at all. Mr. and Mrs. Leighton saw the politeness and were relieved. They saw further, and lamented Isobel's great friendship with the Merediths. It seemed to Mr. Leighton that although he would much rather leave the affair alone, that Isobel was in his care, that she was a handsome, magnificent girl, and that she ought not to be offered calmly as a sort of second sacrifice to the caprices of Robin. He spoke to her one evening very gently about it when they were alone.

"I thought I ought to tell you," said Mr. Leighton, "that in a tacit sort of manner, Mr. Meredith attached himself very closely to Mabel. She was so young that I did not interfere, as now I am very much afraid I ought to have done. It is a little difficult, you see, for your Aunt in particular, who is asked on every side, 'I had understood that Mabel was to marry Mr. Meredith.' I want you to know of course that Mabel never will marry him now. I should see to that myself, if she had not already told me that she had no desire to. He is not tied in any way, except, as I consider, in the matter of honour. I did not interfere before, but at present I am almost compelled to. I'm before everything your guardian, my dear. I should like you to find a man worthy of yourself."

He had done it as kindly as he knew how.

Isobel sat calmly gazing past him into the fire. There was no ruffling of her features. Only a faint suggestion of power against which it seemed luckless to fight.

"I knew a good deal of this, of course," she said.

"Oh." Mr. Leighton started slightly.

"Yes. But of course there is a similar tale of every man, and every girl--wherever they are boxed up in a place of this size. Somebody has to make love to somebody. I don't suppose Mr. Meredith thought of marriage."

It seemed as though Mr. Leighton were the young, inexperienced person, and that Isobel was the one to impart knowledge.

"In justice to Mr. Meredith, I do not know in the slightest what he thought. That is where my case loses its point. I ought to have known. I certainly, of course, think that I ought to know now."

"Oh," said Isobel. She rose very simply and looked as placid as a lake on a calm morning. "That is very simple. Mr. Meredith intends to marry me whenever I give him the opportunity."

Mr. Leighton was thunderstruck. At the bottom of his mind, he was thankful now that "his girls" were away. Memories of the stumbling block which the existence of Robin's sister had before occasioned made him ask first, "Does Miss Meredith know?"

He spoke in quite a calm manner. It frustrated Isobel for the moment, who had expected an outburst. She wavered slightly in her answer.

"I don't know," she said.

Mr. Leighton moved impatiently.

"That is just it," he said. "This young man makes tentative arrangements and leaves out the important parties to it. Miss Meredith is quite capable of upsetting her brother's plans. Do you know it?"

It seemed that Isobel did. It seemed that Miss Meredith was the one person who could ruffle her. From that day of negligently answering and partly snubbing her in the train, Isobel had showed a side of cool indifference to Miss Meredith.

"I want you to know, Uncle, that I shall not consider Miss Meredith in the slightest."

Could this be a young girl?

"Do you know what Mabel, what all of you did? You considered Miss Meredith. What were the consequences? She gave Mabel away with both hands. She wants her brother to marry Miss Dudgeon. He won't marry Miss Dudgeon. He will marry me."

She rose slightly.

"And Miss Meredith won't have the slightest possible say in the matter."

Mr. Leighton looked rather pale. He flicked quietly the ash from his cigar before answering her.

"It's a different way of dealing with people than I am accustomed to. Will you keep your decision open for a little yet?"

"I shall, till summer, when we mean to be married."

There seemed to be no altering the fact that she was to be married.

"I should be so sorry if, while here with me--with all of us, you did not find a man worthy of you."

"I won't change my mind," she said.

"And Robin?"

He had returned to the old term.

"He didn't change his mind before. Miss Meredith did it for him. I am quite alive to the fact that if Miss Meredith hadn't interfered, and I hadn't come, he would now be engaged to Mabel."

Mr. Leighton appeared dumbfoundered.

"Do you care very much for him?" he asked.

"Oh, yes." Isobel looked almost helplessly at him. "He isn't the man I dreamed of, but he is mine, you know. It has come to that."

She sank on her knees beside him, her eyes blazing.

"Isn't it an indignity for me, as much as for Mabel, to take what she didn't want? You say she doesn't want him. At first--oh! I only desired to show my power. I always meant to marry a wealthier man. But it's no use. He is a waverer, don't I know it. I see him calculating whether I'm worth the racket. I see that--I! Isn't it deplorable! But I mean to make a man of him. He never has been one before. And I mean to marry him, Uncle."

Mr. Leighton smoked and smoked at his cigar. He was beginning at last to fathom the nature that took what it wanted--with both hands.

"Isobel," he said gently, "let us drop all this question of Mabel. It isn't that which comes upper-most, now. It's the question of what you lose by marrying in this way. Don't you know that this dropping of Miss Meredith, this way of 'paying her out,' you know, well, it may give you Robin intact; but have you an idea what you may lose in the process? I don't admire the girl, but--she is his sister. I have never known"--he threw away his cigar--"I have never yet known of a happy, a really happy marriage, where the happiness of two was built on the discomfiture of others. Won't you reconsider the whole position of being down on Miss Meredith, and paying everybody out who was concerned in Robin's affairs before you knew him? Won't you try to make your wedding a happiness to every one--even to Miss Meredith?"

"Oh," said Isobel, "I don't know that the average bride thinks much of the happiness of relations. She has her trousseaux and the guests to be invited, and all that sort of thing." She turned over a book which was lying near. "I don't think I should have time for Miss Meredith," she said coldly.

Mr. Leighton sat quite quietly.

"Will you be married here?" he asked.

A gleam came to Isobel's eyes.

"That would be nice," she said. There was the feeling of an answer to an invitation in her voice.

"It's at your disposal," he said, "anything we can do for your happiness."

"Is that to show that I do nothing for anybody else's?" Isobel was really grateful.

"Perhaps." He said it rather sadly.

"I might make an endeavour over Sarah," she said.

"You know, from the first, the day you came in the train, you told us you had ignored her, hadn't you? She nursed Robin through a long illness. Saw him grow up and all that kind of thing. Never spared herself in the matter of looking after him!"

"Well?" asked Isobel.

"Well," said Mr. Leighton, "it's rather pathetic, isn't it?"

The day was won in a partial manner; for Isobel promised she would try to "ingratiate Sarah."

"It's the wrong way of putting it, but it may make a beginning," said Mr. Leighton.

He further insisted on seeing Robin. That was a bad half-hour for every one, but for no one so particularly as for Robin. He had evaded so many things with Mr. Leighton, and for once he found that gentler nature adamant.

Nothing went quite so much against this gentler nature as having to arrange matters for Isobel. So Robin discovered. Yet already it made what Isobel called "a man of him." He was a man to be ruled, and Mabel had placed herself under his ruling. Here was the real mischief. Isobel would take him firmly in hand.

The girls were greatly mystified, Elma horrified. They had orders to take the news of Isobel's engagement as though it might be an expected event, and certainly no sign was given that it was in the nature of a surprise. Jean could not understand Mabel when the news arrived. She laughed and sang and kissed Jean as though the world had suddenly become happy throughout.

"I thought you would have been cut up," said Jean disconsolately.

"Cut up! Why they are made for one another," cried Mabel. "Isobel, calm and firm, Robin, wavering and admiring, nothing could be better. But oh--oh--I want to see how Sarah takes it."

They had a particular grind just then, for now they were getting into spring, and it would soon be time for making that triumphant passage home of which they had so often dreamed. They lived for that now, but none lived for it more devotedly than Elma.

Isobel's engagement cut her further and further away from enjoying anything very much. She had always the feeling of cold critical eyes being on her. She often congratulated herself on having got over the stage where she used long words in quite their wrong sense. Isobel's proximity in these days would have been dreadful.

Miss Grace also seemed downhearted. It had been a trying winter for her, yet no actual evidence of ill-health had asserted itself. She was concerned about Elma too, who seemed to be losing what the others were gaining by being away, that just development which comes from happy experience. Elma plodded and played, but her bright little soul only came out unfledged of fear at Miss Grace's.

At last one day Miss Grace's face lit.

"My dear, your gift is composition."

Nobody ever had thought of it before. Elma's expression lightened to a transforming radiance.

"Oh, I wonder if I ever could get lessons," she cried.

They discovered a chance, through correspondence. So Elma held the fort, and tried to grapple single-handed with musical composition.

"If only I could compose an anthem before Mabel and Jean get home," she said one day.

"Heavens, Elma, you aren't going to die?" asked Betty.

CHAPTER XXIII

Holding the Fort

Miss Meredith took the news of her brother's engagement in a dumb manner. An explosion of wrath would have helped every one. Robin might have appeared aggrieved, and had something of which to complain, and Isobel's immobility beside some one in a rage was always effective. Miss Meredith would not rage however. She had met a match for her own resourceful methods, and at bottom she feared the reserve of power which prompted Isobel. Under cover of a fine frown she accepted the situation as Isobel had said she would. What hopes were overthrown by the engagement, what schemes upturned, no one but Miss Meredith herself would ever have an inkling. She began to regret her manner of ejecting Mabel, especially since the London reports told of a Mabel many cuts above Ridgetown. Miss Dudgeon had opened their eyes. She had come back in armour, the old Ridgetown armour, and talked in the stiffest manner of Mabel and Lady Emily, as though all were of a piece. Miss Meredith ventured to say to her later on that she understood that Mabel was quite a success in "Society."

"She always was, wasn't she?" asked Adelaide Maud very simply, as though she imagined society had really existed in Ridgetown.

Miss Meredith was a trifle overcast.

"Oh yes, yes, of course," she said. "But Mabel, of course, Mabel----"

"Mabel would shine anywhere you mean. That is true. She possesses the gift of being always divinely natural."

Adelaide Maud could play up better than any one. Miss Dudgeon ran on to congratulate Miss Meredith on her brother's engagement.

"Ah yes, such a charming girl," said Miss Meredith. "He is very fortunate. We both are, since it relates us to so delightful a family. We have always been such friends."

There was a stiff pause. Adelaide Maud could never bring herself to fill in the pauses between social untruthfulnesses.

"She is very courageous, we think," ran on Miss Meredith. "Robin will not be able to give her very much of an establishment, you know. But that does not grieve her. She has a very even and contented disposition. I often tell Robin--quite a girl in a hundred! Not many would have consented so sweetly to an immediate marriage under the circumstances."

Ah, then, this might explain to the public the defection of Mabel. Mabel had expected an "establishment." Miss Dudgeon began to see daylight.

"Oh, on the contrary," she said, rising, "we have always looked on Mr. Meredith as being so well off in respect of being able to get married. Didn't you tell me once--but then I have such a stupid memory!"

Miss Meredith recognized where a great slip had taken place. These had been her words before, "Not many young men are in so easy a position for marrying!" And to Miss Dudgeon of all people she had just said the reverse.

There is a pit formed by a bad memory wherein social untruths sometimes tumble in company. There they are inclined to raise a laugh at themselves, and occasionally make more honest people out of their perpetrators.

Miss Meredith knew there was no use in any longer explaining Robin's position, or want of it, to so clear-headed a person as Miss Dudgeon. The best way was to retire as speedily as possible from so difficult a subject.

Mrs. Leighton found the whole affair very trying. She never indulged in any social doctoring where her own opinions were concerned, and it was really painful for her to meet all the innuendoes cast at her by curious people.

"Oh, Mr. Leighton and I always think young people manage these things best themselves. They are so sensitive, you know, and quite apt to make mistakes if dictated to. A critical audience must be very trying. Yes, everybody thought Robin was engaged to Mabel--but he never was."

"Well then," said Aunt Katharine, with her lips pursed up to sticking-point, "if they weren't engaged, they ought to have been. That's all I've got to say."

It was not all she had got to say, as it turned out. She talked for quite a long time about the duties of children to their parents.

Mrs. Leighton at last became really exasperated.

"You know, Katharine," she said, "if you are so down on these young people, I shall one day--I really shall, I shall tell them how you nearly ran away with James Shrimpton."

"My dear," said Aunt Katharine. She was quite shocked. "I was a young unformed thing and father so overbearing----" She was so hurt she could go no further.

"Exactly," said Mrs. Leighton. "And my girls are young unformed things, and their father is not overbearing."

Aunt Katharine grunted.

"Ah well, you keep their confidence. That's true. I don't know a more united family. But this marriage of Isobel's does not say much for your management."

That was it--"management." Mrs. Leighton groaned slightly to herself. She never would be a manager, she felt sure. She offered a passive front to fate, and her influence stopped there. As for manoeuvring fate by holding the reins a trifle and pressing backward or forward, she had not the inclination at any time to interfere in such a way at all. She leaned on what Emerson had said about things "gravitating." She believed that things gravitated in the right direction, so long as one endeavoured to remain pure and noble, in the wrong one so long as one was overbearing and selfish. She had absolutely no fear as to how things would gravitate for Mabel after that night when she talked about Robin and went off to succour Jean.

She placidly returned to her crochet, and to the complainings of Aunt Katharine.

Cuthbert came down that evening, and Isobel, Elma, Betty and he went off to be grown-ups at a children's party at the Turbervilles. The party progressed into rather a "larky" dance, where there were as many grown-ups as children. All the first friends of the Leightons were there, including, of course, the Merediths. Cuthbert took in Isobel in rather a frigid manner. He endeavoured not to consider Meredith a cad, but his feelings in that direction were overweighted for the evening. He danced with the children, and "was no use for anybody else," as May Turberville put it. But then Cuthbert was so "ghastly clever and all that sort of thing," that he could not be put on the level of other people at all.

Cuthbert had got his summer lectureship. He told Elma, and then Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, and then Betty, and Isobel could not imagine what spark of mischief had lit their spirits to the point of revelry as they ambled along in their slow four-wheeler. Elma had only one despair in her mind. Neither Miss Grace nor Miss Annie were well. Miss Annie particularly seemed out of gear, so much so and so definitely, that for the first time for nearly thirty years Miss Grace spoke of having in Dr. Merryweather.

Cuthbert asked lots of questions.

"I don't know," Elma generally answered. "She just lies and sickens. As though she didn't care."

She raised her hand to her head at the time.

"Dr. Smith says it's the spring weather which everybody feels specially trying this year."

Cuthbert grunted.

George Maclean came to Elma for the first dance. He seemed in very good spirits. Elma found herself wondering if it were about Mabel. Well, one would see. Mabel had always been tied in a kind of a way, and now she was free! Mr. Maclean anyhow was the best, above all the best. Even Mr. Symington! When she thought of him, her mind always ran off to wondering what now might happen to Mr. Symington.

She had a long, rollicking waltz with Mr. Maclean. They rollicked, because children were on the floor and steering seemed out of fashion. Yet he carried her round in a gentle way, because Elma, with her desire to be the best of dancers, invariably got knocked out with a robust partner. He carried her round in the most gentle way until the music stopped with the bang, bang of an energetic amateur. Elma found the floor suddenly hit her on the cheek in what seemed to her a most impossible manner.

"Now what could make it do that?" she asked Mr. Maclean. He was bending over her with rather a white face.

Cuthbert came up.

"Why didn't you tell Maclean that you were giddy?" he said. "He would have held you up."

"But I wasn't giddy," said Elma. "I'm not giddy now."

She was standing, but the floor again seemed at a slant.

"Steady," said Cuthbert. "You're as giddy as the giddiest. Don't pretend. Take her off to get cool, Maclean."

"Cool!" Elma's fingers seemed icy. But there was a comforting, light-headed glow in her cheeks which reassured her.

Every one said how well she was looking, and that kept her from wondering whether she was really going to be ill. George Maclean tried to get her to drink tea, but for the first time in her life she found herself possessed of a passion for lemonade.

"You will really think that I am one of the children," she said, "because I am simply devoured with a longing for iced lemonade."

"Well, you shall have iced lemonade, and as much as you want," said George Maclean. "How I could let you fall, I can't think." There was a most ludicrous look of concern on his face.

"I shall grab all my prospective partners for this evening at least," said Elma. "You can't think how treacherous that floor is."

She did not dance nearly so much as she wanted to. George Maclean and Lance and Cuthbert, these three, at least, made her sit out when she wanted to be "skipping."

Isobel looked her up on hearing that she had fallen. Cuthbert said, "She doesn't look well, you know."

"Why, Elma--Elma is never ill," said Isobel. "Look at her colour too!"

Towards the end of the evening, they began to forget about it, and Elma danced almost as usual. Three times she saw the floor rock, but held on. What her partners thought of her when she clung to a strong arm, she did not stop to think. It was "talking to Miss Annie in her stuffy room" that had started it, she remembered.

She was in an exalted frame of mind about other things. The world was turning golden. Cuthbert was coming home, Mabel and Jean would soon be with them, Adelaide Maud was already on the spot. And Isobel would be gone in the summer.

Robin Meredith came to ask her for a dance. He seemed subdued, and had a rather nervous manner of inviting her. So that it seemed easy for her to be sedate and beg him to excuse her because she had turned giddy. Anything! she could stand anything on that evening except dance with Robin Meredith. Her training in many old ways came back to her, however.

"I shall sit out, if you don't mind," she said. "Isn't it silly to have a headache when all this fun is going on?" She found herself being quite friendly and natural with him. The children were having a great romp in front of them.

"Have you a headache?" he asked rather kindly.

Oh yes, she had a headache. Now she knew. It seemed to have been going on for years. She began to talk about May Turberville's embroidery, and how Lance had sewn a pincushion in order to outrival her. When May had run on to sewing daffodils on her gowns, Lance threatened to embroider sunflowers on his waistcoats. Had he seen Lance's pictures? Well, Lance was really awfully clever, particularly in drawing figures. Mr. Leighton wanted him to say he would be an artist, but Lance said he couldn't stand the clothes he would have to wear. Mr. Leighton said that wearing a velveteen coat didn't mean nowadays that one was an artist, and Lance said that it was the only way of drawing the attention of the public. He said that one always required some kind of a showman to call out "Walk up, gentlemen, this way to the priceless treasures," and that a velveteen coat did all that for an artist. Lance said he would rather be on the Stock Exchange, where he could do his own shouting. She said that frankly, with all the knowledge she had of Lance and his manner of giving people away, she should never think of entrusting him with her money to invest. She said it in a very high voice, since she observed just at that minute that Lance stood behind her chair.

"Well, you are a little cat, Elma," he said disdainfully. "Here am I organizing a party in order to let people know that some day I shall be on the Stock Exchange, and here are you influencing the gully public against me."

"I object to the term 'gully,'" said Robin in a laboured but sporting manner.

"Well--gulled if you like it better," said Lance. "Only that effect doesn't come on till I'm done with you. You are to go and dance lancers, Meredith, while I take your place with this slanderer." It was Lance's way of asking for the next dance.

Elma gave a great sigh of relief after Robin had gone.

"He never heard me say so much in his life before," said she. "He must have been awfully surprised."

"How you can say a word to the fellow--but there, nobody understands you Leightons. You ought to have poisoned him. Or perhaps Mabel is only a little flirt."

He wisped a thread of the gauze of her fan.

Elma smiled at him. She was always sure of Lance.

"I say, Elma, what are we to do with Mother Mabel when she comes back? Does she mind this business, or are we allowed to refer to it in a jovial way?"

"Jovial, I think," said Elma. "I believe Mabs is awfully relieved."

She bent over and whispered to Lance.

"I should myself you know if I had just got rid of Robin."

Lance laughed immoderately.

"He's a rum chap," he said, "but he's met a good match in Isobel. Great Scott, look at the stride on her. She could take Robin up and twist him into macaroni if she wanted to. I'm sorry for him."

"What are you going to do for Sarah?" he asked abruptly.

"Sarah?" asked Elma with her eyes wide.

"Yes, you'll have to marry the girl or something. It's hard nuts on her. Why don't you get Symington back and let him make up the quartette?"

"Mr. Symington?"

"Yes. It would be most appropriate, wouldn't it? Robin and Isobel, and Symington and Sarah. It's quite a neat arrangement. You've provided one husband, why not the other." Several demons of mischief danced in Lance's eye.

"Oh, Lance, don't say that," said Elma; "it's so horrid, and--and common."

"Oh, it's common, is it," said Lance, "common. And I'm going to be your stockbroker one day, and you talk to me like this."

"Look here, Lance, I'd trust you with all my worldly wealth on the Stock Exchange, but I won't let you joke about Mr. Symington."

"Whew," said Lance, and he looked gently and amiably into the eyes of Elma.

"When you look good like that, I know you are exceedingly naughty. What is it this time, Lance?"

"Nothing, Elma, except----"

"Except----"

"That I have found out all I wanted to know about Symington, thank you."

"You are just a common, low little gossip, Lance," said Elma with great severity. "Will you please get me a nice cool glass of iced lemonade."

CHAPTER XXIV

The Ham Sandwich

Elma lay on her bed in the pink and white room. The first warm spring sunshine in vain tried to find an opening to filter through partly closed shutter and blinds. A nurse in grey dress and white cap and apron moved silently in the half-light created by drawn blinds and an open door She nodded to Mrs. Leighton who had just come in and who now sat near the darkened window. The nurse pointedly referred her to the bed, as though she had good news for her.

Elma opened her eyes. Their misty violet seemed dazed with long sleep.

"Oh, mummy, you there?" she asked.

"Yes," said Mrs. Leighton quietly.

Elma looked at her inquiringly.

"Is there anything you want?" asked Mrs. Leighton in answer to that expression. How often had they asked the same question uselessly within the past weeks!

Elma looked up at the white walls.

"Yes, mummy, there's one thing. I should like a large ham sandwich."

"There," said Nurse emphatically. "That's it. Now the fight is really going to begin."

"I should like to have plenty of butter on it and quite a lot of mustard," said Elma.

"Mustard?" said Mrs. Leighton helplessly. "Do you know what's been wrong with you all these weeks?"

Elma moved her eyes curiously, there being not much else that she could move. It had never dawned on her till that moment to wonder what had been wrong with her.

"No, mummy," she said, "I haven't a notion."

Mrs. Leighton looked for instructions to the nurse.

"She'd better know now, Mrs. Leighton," she said, "now that she begins to ask for ham sandwiches."

"You've had typhoid fever, Elma," said her mother.

Elma sighed gently.

"Dear me," she said, "how grand. But you don't know how hungry I am or you would give me a ham sandwich. You ought to be rather glad that I'm so much better that I want to eat."

Then an expression of great cunning came into her eyes.

"I ought to be fed up if I've had a fever," she informed them.

"We shall get the doctor to see to that," said the nurse.

She came to her and held her hand firmly.

"Do you know," she said, "you have been very ill and you are ever so much better, but nothing you've gone through will worry you so much as what you've got to do now. You've got to be starved for ten days, when you are longing to eat. You will lie dreaming of food--and----"

"Ham sandwiches?" asked Elma.

"And we shall not be allowed to give them to you," said Nurse.

"Isn't she nice, mummy, she's quite sorry. And people say that nurses are hard-hearted," said Elma.

"I've had typhoid myself," said Nurse briefly.

Elma looked at her, her own eyelids heavy with sleep still to be made up.

"Well, barring the sandwich, what about lemon cheese cakes," she asked.

Mrs. Leighton let her hands fall.

"Oh, Elma," she said, "what a thing to choose at this stage."

"Or sausages," remarked Elma. "I'm simply longing for sausages."

She endeavoured to throw an appealing look towards Nurse.

"This isn't humour on my part, mummy dear," she said. "I just can't help it. I can't get sausages out of my mind," she said.

"If you would think of a little steamed fish or a soaked rusk, you'd be a little nearer it," said Nurse, "you'll have that in ten days."

Elma looked at her in a determined way.

"I've always been told that a simple lunch, a very simple lunch might be made out of a ham sandwich. Why should it be denied to me now?"

"Elma," said Mrs. Leighton, "I never knew you were so obstinate."

"You know, mummy," said Elma, "I'm not dreaming now. I'm wide awake, and I'm awfully hungry. I'm sorry I ever thought of sausages, because ham sandwiches were just about as much as I could bear. Now I've both to think of, and Nurse won't bring me either."

"Don't mind her, Mrs. Leighton," said the nurse. "It's always the same, and, without nurses, generally a relapse to follow. You aren't going to have a relapse," she said to Elma.

She gave her some milk in a methodical manner, and the down-dropping of Elma's eyelids continued till she fell asleep once more.

So she had slept since the fever had begun to go down. Probably she had had the best of the intervening weeks.

There was the slow stupor of a fever gaining ground. It began with the headache of the Turberville's dance, a headache which never lifted until Elma returned to her own again, weak and prostrate in bed. The stupor gradually cut her off from common affairs. It sent her to bed first because she could no longer stand up, and it crowded back her ideas and her memory till at last she was in the full swing of a delirium. What this illness cost Mr. and Mrs. Leighton in anxiety, probably no one knew. Elma had always covered up her claims to sympathy and petting, always been moderately well. Here she was with blazing cheeks and wandering eyes talking largely and at random about anything or every one.

Mr. Leighton used to sit by her and stroke her hair. Long years afterwards, she was to feel the touch of his fingers, hear the tones of his voice as he said, "Poor little Elma."

She faded gradually into the delirium which seemed to have cut her illness in two, the one illness where she lay with dry mouth and an everlasting headache, the other where she was merely hungry.

Mrs. Leighton was appalled by the worrying of Elma's mind. She went through some of her wild dreams with her, calling her back at places by the mere sound of her voice to a kind of sub-consciousness in which Elma grew infinitely relieved.

"Oh, is that you, mummy? Have I really been dreaming?"

She dreamt of Mabel and she dreamt of Adelaide Maud. But more than any one, she dreamt of Mr. Symington. Here is where the deceptiveness of a fever comes in. Elma pleaded so piteously with her mother to bring back Mr. Symington that Mrs. Leighton awoke to an entirely new and wrong idea of the state of Elma's affections.

"It's quite ridiculous, John," said she, "but that child, she was only a child, seems to have filled her head with notions of Mr. Symington."

"What! More of it?" asked poor Mr. Leighton.

"She begs and begs to have him back," said Mrs. Leighton.

"I've never made out why he left as he did," said Mr. Leighton. "There was always the idea with me that he cleared out for a reason. But this small child, why, she hadn't her hair up."

"She will soon be eighteen," said Mrs. Leighton.

He went into her room a little later. Elma lay with unseeing eyes staring at him. He could hardly bear it.

"Elma," he said vaguely, trying to recall her.

"Oh," she answered promptly, but still staring, "is that you, Sym--Sym--Symington!"

Her father choked down what he could of the lump that gathered, and moved quietly away.

These were dark days for every one. Elma had the best of it. She left the Symington groove after a day or so, and worked on to Isobel. Isobel invaded her mind. It was a blessing that Isobel was barred by real distaste to the business from going in to help with the nursing of Elma. What she said of her pointed to more than a mere dislike. It revolved into fear as the delirium progressed. Then a second nurse arrived, and between them the two began really to decrease the temperature. The first good news came, "Asleep for ten minutes," and after that there was no backward turn in the illness for Elma.

Throughout this time there had been the keenest inquiries made as to what had caused the illness. Cuthbert was down and "made things hum" in the matter of wakening up the sanitary authorities and so on. But no flaw in the arrangement of the White House or anything near it could be discovered. Then Dr. Merryweather called one day.

"I have another patient in Miss Annie," he said.

Miss Annie! This gave a clue.

"Typhoid at her age is unusual," he said, "but she has not developed the power of resisting disease like ordinary people. She has been in a good condition for harbouring every germ that happened to be about. I'm afraid we cannot save her." He turned to Mrs. Leighton. His kind old face twitched suddenly.

"Oh, dear, dear," she exclaimed. "What will Miss Grace do? What will little Elma do?"

"Miss Grace is all right," said Dr. Merryweather. "I've seen to that. Elma must not know, of course."

"This looks like contraction from a common cause," said Cuthbert. "I'll be at it whatever it is. We don't want any one else sacrificed."

Dr. Merryweather looked at him gravely.

"I have just been getting at the tactics of the local government," said he. "You couldn't believe they could be so prompt in Ridgetown. Three weeks ago, a gardener living near Miss Annie complained of an atrocious stench coming from over the railway. It was so bad that when the local government body at his demand approached it, they had to turn and run. An open stream had been used as a common sewer and run into the railway cutting, where it had stagnated. Can you imagine the promptness of the local government? Evans, the gardener, threatened to report to you, Mr. Leighton, since your daughter was so ill and had visited so much at Miss Annie's. They managed to keep his mouth shut, and they have removed the sewer. Too late for Miss Annie."

"Too late for my little girl," said Mr. Leighton.

It seemed an extraordinary thing that the two daughters who had gone away, and given them so much anxiety, should be coming home radiantly independent, and Elma, sheltered at home, should be lying just lately rescued from death.

The same thought seemed to strike Dr. Merryweather in another connection.

"Ah, well," he said, "we would save some gentle souls a lot of suffering if we could. It's no use evading life, you see, and its consequences. Death has stolen into Miss Annie's beautiful bedroom, from an ugly sewer across the way. Nothing we could do for her now can save her."

Miss Annie died on a quiet morning when Elma lay dreaming of ham sandwiches. Elma never forgot that, nor how dreadful it seemed that she had never asked for Miss Annie nor Miss Grace, but just dreamed of what she would eat.

"You had had a lot to stand," Nurse told her a week or two afterwards when she heard about Miss Annie for the first time, "and it's a compensation that's often given to us when we are ill, just to be peaceful and not think at all."

Dr. Merryweather had wakened up Miss Grace finally in a sharp manner.

"There's that poor child been ill all this time and you've never even seen her. Take her along some flowers and let her see that you are not grieving too much for Miss Annie. She won't get better if she worries about you."

Then to Elma.

"Cheer up Miss Grace when she comes. You have your life before you, and she has had to put all hers behind her. Don't let her be down if you can help it."

In this wise he pitted the two against one another, so that they met with great fortitude.

"Why, my dear, how pretty your hair is," Miss Grace had burst out.

Elma was lying on a couch near the window by this time. She looked infinitely fragile.

"Oh, Miss Grace, it is a wig," she replied.

Miss Grace laughed in a jerky hysterical sort of manner.

"Then I wish I wore a wig," said she.

Elma smiled.

"Do you know, that's what they all say. They come in and tell me in a most surprised manner, "Why, how well you are looking!" and say they never saw me so pretty and all that kind of thing. And then I look in my mirror, and I see quite plainly that I'm a perfect fright. But I don't care, you know. Mabel and Jean know now how ill I've been. I'm so glad they didn't before, aren't you? It would have spoiled Jean's coming home like a conqueror. They say she sings beautifully. And oh, Miss Grace, I've such a lot to tell you. One thing is about Mr. Symington. You know I never said why he went away. It was because Miss Meredith made him believe that Robin was engaged to Mabel, and she wasn't at all. It made her appear like a flirt, you know. Didn't it?"

Miss Grace nodded.

"Well, I've been thinking and thinking. I can't tell you how I've been dreaming about Mr. Symington. Well, now, I've been thinking, 'Couldn't we invite him to Isobel's wedding?'"

Miss Grace's eyes gleamed.

"Fancy Mr. Symington at breakfast at some outlandish place. A letter arrives. He opens it. 'Ha! The wedding invitation. Robin Meredith, the bounder!' I beg your pardon, Miss Grace. 'Robin Meredith to Isobel--what--niece of--why what's this?' What will he do, Miss Grace?"

"Come to the wedding, sure," said Miss Grace laughingly.

"Well, if I've to send the invitation myself, one is going to Mr. Symington."

Elma had not passed her dreaming hours in vain.

Besides, Miss Grace had got over the difficult part of meeting Elma again, and was right back in her old part of counsellor, evidently without a quiver of the pain that divided them. Yet, they both felt the barrier that was there, the barrier of that presence of Miss Annie which had always entered first into their conversations, and now could not be mentioned.

Elma thought of the visits that Miss Grace would have to make to her. She saw that Miss Grace had been warned not to agitate her. This was enough to enable her to take the matter entirely in her own hands with no agitation at all.

"I think you know, Miss Grace, that when one has been so near dying as I've been, and not minded--I mean I had no knowledge that I was so ill, and even didn't care much--since it was myself, you know, except for the trouble it gave to people----"

Elma was becoming a little long-winded.

"I want to tell you that you must always tell me about Miss Annie, not mind just because they say I'm not to be agitated, or anything of that sort. I won't be a bit agitated if you tell me about Miss Annie."

"My dear love," Miss Grace stopped abruptly.

"Dr. Merryweather said----" and she stopped again.

"Yes, Dr. Merryweather said the same to me, he said that on no account was I to speak to you of Miss Annie. Dr. Merryweather simply knows nothing about you and me."

Miss Grace shook her head drearily.

"You are a bad little invalid," said she.

But it broke the ice a little bit, and one day afterwards Miss Grace told her more than she could bear herself. Dr. Merryweather was right, Miss Grace broke down over the last loving message to Elma. She had a little pearl necklace for Elma to wear, and fastened it on without a word.

Then came Mrs. Leighton looking anxious.

"See, mummy, Miss Grace has given me a beautiful little necklace from Miss Annie."

All trace of Elma's childish nervousness had departed with her fever. She had looked right into other worlds, and it had made an easier thing of this one. Besides, Miss Grace must not be allowed to cry.

Miss Grace did not cry so much as one might have expected. Miss Annie's death was a thing she had feared for twenty-eight years, and Dr. Merryweather had given her no sympathy. He had almost made her think that Annie ought not to consider herself an invalid. How she connected typhoid fever with the neurotic illness which Dr. Merryweather would never acknowledge as an illness, it was difficult to imagine. Certainly, she had the feeling that Annie in a pathetic manner had justified her invalidism at last. It was a sad way in which to recover one's self-respect, but in an unexplained way she felt that with Dr. Merryweather she had recovered her self-respect. She could refer to Miss Annie now, and awaken that twitching of his sympathies which one could see plainly in that rugged often inscrutable face, and feel thereby that she had not misplaced her confidence by giving up all these years to Annie. Indeed, the death of Miss Annie affected Dr. Merryweather far more than one could imagine. As also the sight of Elma, thinned down and fragile, her hair gone and a wig on.

He teased her unmercifully about the wig.

"So long as I look respectable when Mabel and Jean come home! Oh! Dr. Merryweather, please have me looking respectable when Mabel and Jean come home."

Dr. Merryweather promised to have her as fat as a pumpkin.

CHAPTER XXV

The Wild Anemone

Mabel and Jean had been successfully deceived up to a certain point in regard to Elma's illness. They were told the facts when the danger was past. It was made clear to them then that the fewer people at home in an illness of that sort the better, while skilled nurses were so conveniently to be had. Mabel pined a little over not having been there to nurse Elma, as though she had landed her sensitive little sister into an illness by leaving too much on her shoulders. The independent vitality of Jean constantly reassured her however.

"She would just have been worse with that scared face of yours at her bedside," Jean would declare. "Every time you think of Elma you get as white as though you were just about to perform in the Queen's Hall. You'll have angina pectoris if you don't look out."

Jean had made a great friend of a nurse who never talked of common things like heart disease or toothache. "Angina pectoris" and "periostitis" were used instead. When Jean wrote home in an airy manner in the midst of Elma's illness to say that she was suffering from an attack of "periostitis," Mrs. Leighton immediately wired, "Get a nurse for Jean if required."

"What in the wide world have you been telling mother?" asked Mabel with that alarming communication in her hand.

Jean was trying to learn fencing from an enthusiast in the corridor.

"Oh, well." Her face fell a trifle at the consideration of the telegram. "I did have toothache," said Jean.

Mabel stared at the telegram. "Mummy can't be losing her reason over Elma's being ill," she said. "She couldn't possibly suppose you would want a nurse for toothache. That's going a little too far, isn't it?"

Mabel was really quite anxious about her mother.

"Oh, well," said Jean lamely, "Nurse Shaw said it was periostitis."

"And you--"--Mabel's eyes grew round and indignant--"you really wrote and told poor mummy that you had perios--os----"

"Titis," said Jean. "Of course, I did--why not?"

She was a trifle ashamed of herself, but the dancing eyes of the fencing enthusiast held her to the point.

"That's the worst of early Victorian parents," said this girl with a bright cheerful giggle. "One can't even talk the vernacular nowadays."

She made an unexpected lunge at Jean.

"Oh," cried Jean, "I must answer that telegram. Say I'm an idiot, Mabel, and that I've only had toothache."

Mabel for once performed the duties of an elder sister in a grim manner.

"Am an idiot," she wrote, "only had toothache an hour. Fencing match on, forgive hurry. Jean."

She read it out to the fencers.

"Oh, I say," said Jean with visible chagrin, "you are a little beggar, Mabel."

"Send it," cried the fencing girl. "One must be laughed at now and again--it's good for one. Besides, you can't be both a semi-neurotic invalid and a good fencer. Better give up the neurotic habit."

Jean stepped back in derision.

"I'm not neurotic," she affirmed.

"You wouldn't have sent that message about your perio--piérrot--what's the gentleman's name? if you hadn't been neurotic."

Mabel had scribbled off another message.

"Well," said Jean gratefully, "my own family don't talk to me like that."

"Oh, no," said the fencing girl coolly, "they run round you with hot bottles, and mustard blisters. All families do. They make you think about your toothache until you aren't pleased when you haven't got it. That's the benefit of being here. Here it's a bore to be ill."

She went suddenly on guard.

"Oh," said Jean, in willing imitation of that attitude, "if you only teach me to fence, you may say what you like."

It was more the importance of Jean's estimate of herself than any real leanings towards being an invalid which made her look on an hour's depression as a serious thing, and an attack of toothache as an item of news which ought immediately to be communicated to her family. She criticized life entirely through her own feelings and experiences. Mabel and Elma had enough of the sympathetic understanding of the nature of others, to tune their own characters accordingly. But Jean, unless terrified, or hurt, or joyous herself never allowed these feelings to be transmitted from any one, or because of any one, she happened to love. It kept her from maturing as Mabel and even Elma had done. She would always be more or less of the self-centred person. It was a useful trait in connexion with singing for instance, and it seemed also as though it might make her a good fencer. But the flippant merry fencing enthusiast in front of her was right when she saw the pitfall ready for the Jean who should one day dedicate herself to her ailments. In the case of Mabel this very lack of sympathy in Jean helped her in a lonely manner to regain some of her lost confidence in herself. It never dawned once on Jean that Mabel was fighting down a trouble of her own. Mabel had bad nights and ghostly dreams, and a headache occasionally, which seemed as though it would put an end to any enthusiasm she might ever have had for such an occupation as piano playing. But in the morning one got up, and there were always the interests, the joys or troubles, or the quaint little oddities of other girls, to knock this introspection and worry into the background, and make Mabel her companionable self once more. It was better, after all, than the scrutiny of one's own family, even a kind one. Jean was merely conscious of change in any one when they refused a match or a drive or a walk with her. The world was of a piece when that happened--"stodgy"--and the interests of Jean were being neglected--a great crime.

Mabel despatched the telegram, and the fencing was resumed with vigour. The corridor at this end of the house contained a bay window, seated and cushioned, and more comfortable as a tea-room than many of the little bedrooms. They had arranged tea-cups, and were preparing that fascinating and delightful meal when a girl advanced from the far end of the corridor, in a lithe swinging manner. The fencing girl drew back her foil abruptly. "Who is that?" she asked, staring. The girls were conscious of a most refreshing and invigorating surprise. Elsie Clutterbuck stood there, with the wild sweetness of the open air in her bearing, her hair ruffled gently, her eyes shining in a pale setting.