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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 

 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER 
 
 AND OTHER CHARACTER NOTES
 
 THE 
 
 MONEY-SPINNER 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER CHARACTER NOTES 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 
 
 AUTHOR OF " YOUNG MISTLEV," "THE SOWERS," ETC.. ETC. 
 
 AND 
 
 S. G. TALLENTYRE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 A. MACKEL & COMPANY 
 
 1901
 
 COPVUICHT, igoi, BV 
 
 A. MACKEL & CO. 
 
 Prats of T. J. Linle * Co. 
 New York. U. ^. A.
 
 PR 
 
 SZfJ 
 
 3^M7 
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Money-Spinner 7 
 
 The Nurse 25 
 
 The Scholar 37 
 
 The Mother 47 
 
 My Lord 67 
 
 'Melia 83 
 
 The Laborer 99 
 
 Intellecta 113 
 
 The Soldier-Servant . . . .129 
 The Practical Woman . . . .145 
 
 The Squire 161 
 
 The Beauty 177 
 
 The Peasant 191 
 
 The Frenchman . . , . . 205 
 
 The Schoolgirl 217 
 
 The Dog 229 
 
 The Caretaker 243 
 
 1 B1 S'l-i?
 
 Contents 
 
 
 
 TAG* 
 
 The Parson . . . . 
 
 . . 263 
 
 The Child 
 
 • 277 
 
 The Bad Penny . 
 
 • 295 
 
 The Spinster 
 
 . 3^3 
 
 The New Woman 
 
 ■ 329 
 
 The Farmer 
 
 . 34«
 
 The Money-Spinner
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 " Notre humeur met le prix a tout ce qui vient de la 
 
 fortune." 
 
 He lives, of course, in the most correct 
 part of town. His sons see to such things 
 for him. They are young men with a 
 very just sense of the responsibility of his 
 position, and take care that his money 
 shall be spent in the most elegant and 
 fashionable manner possible. Quite re- 
 gardless, therefore, of the trouble thereby 
 entailed upon them — and the expense 
 thereby entailed upon him — they have 
 taken care that his house shall be a de- 
 licious conglomerate of soft carpets, rare 
 flowers, the latest thing in decorations 
 and furniture, the best French cooks, 
 and the most irreproachable butler. The 
 Money-spinner would indeed be an un- 
 grateful fiend if, after expending so much 
 
 9
 
 The Moncy-Spinncr 
 
 trouble upon it, the sons could not use 
 the paternal mansion as headquarters for 
 their friends, and if he made any objec- 
 tion to his married daughter giving dances 
 in his drawing-room, and erecting the 
 sweetest little stage in the library for pri- 
 vate theatricals. 
 
 But there are people who can make 
 money and cannot appreciate it. Just as 
 there are other people who can appreci- 
 ate money but cannot make it. Of the 
 first, the Money-spinner might almost be 
 taken as an example. Of the second, his 
 children arc undoubtedly admirable in- 
 stances. They are able to say, with a 
 very laudable pride, that they keep the 
 house " warm " and give the servants 
 " something to do." They are wont to 
 add that there is nothing like a large 
 house party for keeping up poor old 
 papa's spirits. The married daughter, 
 with a taste for society, lays a very great 
 stress upon this point. As every one says 
 she is a devoted daughter, she certainly 
 ought to know what is good for poor old 
 papa's spirits. 
 
 le
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 And yet, but for her word, one would 
 scarcely think the house-party has an en- 
 livening effect upon him. When he creeps 
 downstairs forlornly he is apt to encoun- 
 ter elegant young ladies in travelling cos- 
 tumes ascending his staircase, followed 
 by immense trunks. Beyond the fact 
 that they are going to be his visitors, a 
 fact which, under the circumstances, any 
 fool could guess, he knows neither who 
 has invited them, nor how long they pro- 
 pose to stay, nor even what are their 
 names. That they are equally ignorant 
 with regard to him is revealed to him by 
 overhearing one of them ask another, 
 "Who ever is that old thing?" Edith 
 (the married daughter) assures him that 
 he is in very good society — better, she 
 insinuates very sweetly and gracefully, 
 than perhaps he has been used to. She 
 cannot forget, being a person of very re- 
 fined and delicate tastes, his Clapham 
 origin. And, knowing always what is 
 best for poor dear papa, will not allow 
 him to forget it either. 
 
 Perhaps the society is good. Perhaps 
 
 II
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 the Money-spinner thinks, as he looks 
 down a tableful of guests who are very 
 much appreciating his delicate wines and 
 the French cooking — that it is too good 
 for him. He sits at the head of the table 
 in a rarely broken silence. The young 
 men talk across him, after dinner, on sub- 
 jects of which he knows nothing. Occa- 
 sionally one or other of them thinks that 
 the old boy seems rather out of things, 
 and attempts to draw him into the con- 
 versation. But they soon find out he has 
 never been at Oxford and is consequently 
 impossible. They are so kind as to say 
 that he is good enough perhaps for dollar- 
 grinding, but a fellow, by Jove, of abso- 
 lutely no cultchah whatever. So he is 
 left to finger his wine-glass with bent 
 hands that shake a little, and says noth- 
 ing. He is left sitting there in the same 
 attitude when the others have gone to 
 the library to rehearse the play Edith is 
 so very kindly getting up for a charity. 
 He would sit there perhaps for another 
 hour, but the butler, quite firm and po- 
 lite, points out to him that if the table is 
 
 12
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 not cleared the servants' supper will be 
 delayed. He moves hastily, apologeti- 
 cally, and creeps up to the drawing-room. 
 But it is bare of furniture, and druggeted 
 for Edith's skirt-dancing party to-mor- 
 row. He had forgotten the party. He 
 is beginning to forget many things. In 
 the library a young lady — the Girl of the 
 Stairs — is in a stage faint in his particu- 
 lar arm-chair. She wakes up when he 
 comes in, and says, with an immensely 
 becoming blush, directed at the eldest 
 son, that if any one else is going to look 
 on she really doesn't think she can go on 
 with this utterly ridiculous scene and 
 make such an awful idiot of herself. 
 " You need not mind me," the Money- 
 spinner murmurs in his old voice, " for I 
 shall not be looking at you." Perhaps it 
 occurs to him afterwards that this is not 
 what he was meant to say, that there is 
 a plainness and directness in his form of 
 speech which savors odiously of Clapham. 
 One of the sons, who is always so thought- 
 ful, accommodates poor old papa with the 
 music-stool, the only seat of which the 
 
 13
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 actors have not taken possession. He 
 sits there looking so ridiculously depressed 
 and old that Edith whispers at last that 
 he is a perfect damper on them all, and if 
 he is going to look like that he had bet- 
 ter go to bed. Perhaps he despairs of 
 looking anything except like that. So 
 he goes, slowly, to bed. 
 
 The theatricals — for the charity — have 
 a way of always taking that arm-chair, he 
 finds. He also discovers that the whole 
 plot of the piece rests upon one of the 
 Oxford men finding, in the fourth act, 
 some one's long lost Will inside the eve- 
 ning newspaper. Further, the Oxford 
 man considers that this incident gives 
 him a right to retain that newspaper and 
 read it intermittently through the first 
 three acts. The stage is very comfort- 
 ably situated near the fire. Some woman, 
 with an odd compassion, very much out 
 of place, for poor old papa looking so ut- 
 terly ridiculous on his music-stool, asks if 
 he cannot sit among the performers dur- 
 ing rehearsals and warm himself there by 
 the fire ? But she is assured that it would
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 be horribly unprofessional, and isn't to be 
 thought of. 
 
 Every one in town says the skirt-danc- 
 ing parties are perfectly charming and 
 brilliantly successful. If the Money-spin- 
 ner is not grateful for all the trouble 
 Edith takes in getting them up, he cer- 
 tainly ought to be. It is not as if they 
 were for her honor and glory. Not at 
 all. They are given in his name, and it 
 is therefore plainly his duty to make him- 
 self agreeable. Perhaps he tries. Per- 
 haps it is Clapham still cleaving to him 
 which makes him so dull, and apathetic, 
 and heavy. Perhaps it is only because 
 he is old and tired. Who knows ? If he 
 rouses himself to think at all, it is per- 
 haps to reflect that his mother — dead, 
 God knows how many years ago — would 
 scarcely have thought, in her bourgeoise 
 way, that some of the fine ladies he is 
 entertaining were altogether respectable. 
 Perhaps he would think — if he were al- 
 lowed to think independently — that the 
 entertainment itself is — well, a trifle vul- 
 gar. But then, as Edith told him this 
 
 15
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 morning, he is so awfully Clapham. It 
 must be because his mind is so permeated 
 with the commonness of his native soil 
 that he sees vulgarity even in a chaste 
 and beautiful entertainment, which is the 
 very height of fashion. 
 
 His wife, for he has a wife, is not a 
 creature of his common and earthy mould. 
 She is far younger, with beauty still, an 
 aristocratic origin, a delicate fragility, and 
 a heart complaint which she dresses to 
 perfection. She only lives in England a 
 few months out of every year. The doc- 
 tors say she is a perfect exotic. A sweet 
 term, which suits her to perfection. She 
 has a villa in Algiers, and bears up won- 
 derfully (her physician says she has a great 
 soul although she is so frail) at the part- 
 ing from her husband which takes place 
 every year. He is more emotional. The 
 bourgeois always are. That is one of the 
 ways by which one can tell the breed. 
 He has not forgotten the old love he had 
 for her years ago. He does not expect — 
 he never expected — that she should re- 
 turn it. Numbers of those obliging peo- 
 
 i6
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 pie who go about the world telling the 
 truth assure him that he was married for 
 his money. He accepts the fact meekly. 
 For what else should she, the second 
 cousin, only a few times removed, of an 
 Earl, have married a creature with a 
 plebeian name, an obscure origin, and 
 the clumsy hands and feet of the People ? 
 The Exotic tells her dearest friends — and 
 being such an eminently charming per- 
 son, her dearest friends are quite unlim- 
 ited in number — that she sacrificed her- 
 self in marriage to retrieve her papa's 
 fortune. Her dearest friends are quite 
 enraptured at so rare and sweet a self- 
 devotion, and say to each other on their 
 way home that the Exotic is perfectly 
 aware of the value of money, and had de- 
 termined to marry the Money-spinner 
 when she was a child in the school-room. 
 Such spiteful persons (ladies, for the most 
 part, who are probably jealous of the Ex- 
 otic's fine drawing-room and her well- 
 preserved beauty) add that it would have 
 been better for the Money-spinner if he 
 had married upon five hundred a year 
 2 17
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 and lived ever after in a suburban villa 
 (once the height of his ambition). Un- 
 der such circumstances, the ladies add, 
 the Exotic would not have had time for 
 her heart complaint, and would have 
 stayed at home like other people and 
 looked after her husband and children. 
 Or would have stayed at home and died. 
 They are unable to determine which al- 
 ternative would have contributed more to 
 the Money-spinner's happiness. 
 
 He himself has an absolute devotion to 
 his wife — and a corresponding belief in 
 that heart complaint. He is too dull, 
 perhaps, to form conceptions of what 
 might have been. Or is too shrewd, de- 
 spite his apathy, to think that his wife's 
 affection for him would have grown bet- 
 ter in a crude villa, perpetually odorifer- 
 ous of cooking, than in her dainty flower- 
 scented rooms in Prince's Gate. He is 
 one of those slow-going people whose 
 feelings do not change. Even now, when 
 her name is mentioned, his dim eyes 
 brighten, and he rouses from the apathy 
 into which he is falling deeper and deeper 
 
 i8
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 r 
 
 every day. She is the only subject upon 
 which he can talk with animation. The 
 son of his old age is vacuous, idle, and 
 dissolute. There is but one interest in 
 the world left clear and fresh and strone 
 to him — and that is the wife who neglects 
 him. 
 
 Every day, from the force of old habit, 
 he drives to the City office in which years 
 before he accumulated his fortune. The 
 sons say it is perfectly ridiculous. Edith 
 is not quite sure that it is not — well, a 
 little common. But sometimes, when 
 they want an extra check, they will con- 
 sent, so beautiful is their humility and 
 condescension, to drive to the office and 
 ask him for it personally. The sons won- 
 der what the deuce he does there all day. 
 They themselves know nothing about 
 making money — only spending it. And 
 that they do to perfection. Edith says 
 he grubs about the old Stocks and Shares, 
 and she verily believes is quite fond of 
 them. Perhaps he is. They have for 
 him the attraction of old association. As 
 he sits in the very elderly leather chair, 
 
 19
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 which neither persuasion nor sarcasm can 
 induce him to exchange for a better, it is 
 possible that he recalls his youth. He 
 recollects the old poverty, the bitter 
 struggle, the keen ambition. He remem- 
 bers the fierce incentive he had to work 
 — the success coming slowly, slowly — 
 and then bursting upon him like a great 
 dawn. But Edith has come up — for a 
 little money, she says. Only people's 
 ideas of what constitutes a little money 
 differ very considerably. " My dear 
 papa," she exclaims, with a tap on his 
 shoulder, " you have been dozing. And 
 if you only knew how you have been 
 snoring I verily believe you would never 
 go to sleep again." 
 
 One morning the valet comes to Edith 
 with a scared face. " My master," says 
 the man, " is ill; and I think a doctor 
 should be sent for at once." 
 
 " Parker always loses his head in ill- 
 ness," says Edith when the man has gone. 
 
 Poor dear papa! I shall go up and see 
 him, and then I can judge for myself. 
 But I must say I hope to goodness he 
 
 20
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 won't want the doctor; for who can be 
 spared to fetch him this morning, with 
 the dancing coming off to-night and every- 
 thing — / don't know." 
 
 The sons do not know either. Nor the 
 guests. No one knows. And so every 
 one continues breakfast with an assump- 
 tion of cheerfulness which is so very ad- 
 mirably done that it might almost be 
 taken for the real thing. Edith sees papa, 
 and does not think he is nearly so bad as 
 Parker makes him out. He seems apa- 
 thetic and heavy, and says very little. 
 But that is all. (Edith has once been 
 engaged to a physician, so she thinks she 
 ought to know something of medicine.) 
 Still, perhaps they will go round by the 
 doctor's, and ask him to call, during their 
 morning drive. It is hundreds and thou- 
 sands of miles out of their way, but it 
 will never do to let poor old papa feel 
 himself neglected. So after a little shop- 
 ping at Shoolbred's, ices at Buzzard's, 
 and a detour by way of Marshall & Snel- 
 grove's, they call on the doctor. He has 
 just gone out, so there is a short unavoid- 
 
 24
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 able delay in his coming. But that does 
 not matter, because the Money-spinner 
 has died some hours before. Parker has 
 been with him, and has bent over him 
 with a polite affection not born entirely, 
 perhaps, of handsome wages and unlim- 
 ited perquisites. His master says very 
 little. He has been in the habit of say- 
 ing very little all his life. He asks that a 
 photograph of his wife — a dressy photo- 
 graph in a theatrical pose — may be turned 
 so that he can see it from where he lies. 
 Once or twice he murmurs her name. 
 His intellect is quite clear. He does not 
 ask to see her, but appears to recollect 
 perfectly that she is far away from him, 
 as she has been for more than half their 
 married life. Once he asks for his young- 
 est son, speaking of him by some baby 
 name which has long since dropped into 
 disuse. Parker explains to his master 
 that Mr. Harold does not know his father 
 is so ill, and has gone out riding. After 
 that the Money-spirtner never speaks 
 again. The monotonous ticking of the 
 clock is the only sound that breaks the 
 
 22
 
 The Money-Spinner 
 
 silence. The old man's withered hands 
 move restlessly on the bedclothes. He 
 turns his head once, slowly, on his pillow, 
 and so dies — the most desolate of God's 
 creatures. 
 
 The evening party has to be put off, 
 and Edith goes into very stylish mourn- 
 ing. The vacuous son consoles himself 
 by marrying a barmaid. It is whispered 
 that the Exotic will not long remain a 
 widow, and Parker has found a situation 
 in a titled familv. 
 
 23
 
 The Nurse
 
 The Nurse 
 
 " II y a de mechantes qualites qui font de grands 
 talents. " 
 
 Peg has an excellent situation. Her 
 mistress has often said so herself. And 
 she ought to know. " Eighteen pounds 
 a year and All Found is a great deal more, 
 George, than most people give their 
 nurses. And there isn't any one else 
 who would put up with what I do from 
 Margaret." 
 
 There is no doubt at all that Peg has a 
 passionate temper, and, at times, it is to 
 be feared, a coarse tongue. She is short, 
 sturdy, and eminently plebeian, with lit- 
 tle, quick, black, flashing eyes. She is 
 ignorant. The culture and polish of the 
 Board School are not upon her. But 
 when Nellie, her eldest charge, dares to 
 doubt the statements Peg has made to 
 
 27
 
 The Nurse 
 
 Jack, a propos of the story of Alfred and 
 the cakes, Peg chases Nellie round the 
 table and boxes her ears. It will thus be 
 seen that Peg is no fool. 
 
 Jacky is her especial care. Jacky is a 
 gay soul of four. To say that Peg is 
 proud of him would be but a miserable 
 half-truth. She flings, as it were, Jacky's 
 charms of mind and person in the face of 
 the Abigails of less favored infants. She 
 steadily exhibits every day, during a con- 
 stitutional walk, Jack's sturdy limbs and 
 premature conversation to nurses whose 
 charges have vastly inferior limbs and no 
 conversation at all. It is unnecessary to 
 add that Peg is exceedingly unpopular. 
 
 Jack is being ruinously spoilt. Mamma 
 says so. Mamma, however, is not a per- 
 son of strong character, and Peg is of very 
 strong character. So Mamma cannot pos- 
 sibly help the spoiling. Peg indeed makes 
 Jack obey her, but does not particularly 
 impress on him to obey any one else. She 
 has been known, on rare occasions, to ad- 
 minister correction to him with a hand 
 which is not of the lightest. But when
 
 The Nurse 
 
 Mamma''punishes him Peg appears in the 
 drawing-room trembling and white with 
 rage to announce that she will not stay to 
 see the child ill-used. " This day month, 
 if you please," and a torrent of abuse. 
 
 Of course it is not this day month. 
 Mamma says, " I told you she would 
 come round, George. Margaret is per- 
 fectly wide-awake, I assure you, and 
 knows a good place when she has it." 
 
 So Peg keeps the good place — and Jack. 
 
 One summer she takes him down to a 
 country manor to stay with his cousins. 
 Before the end of the first week she has 
 quarrelled with all the manor servants — 
 especially the nurses. When Jacky, with 
 a gay smile and guileless mien, puts out 
 the eyes of cousin Mabel's doll, and Mabel 
 weeps thereat. Peg is seen smacking that 
 infant in a corner. This is too much for 
 the manor. And it is certain if Jacky 
 had not most inconveniently fallen ill the 
 manor spare bedroom would have been 
 wanted for other occupants, and Peg and 
 
 29
 
 The Nurse 
 
 Jacky would have returned home three 
 weeks too soon. 
 
 There is not much the matter with 
 Jacky. Only a croupy cold. And Peg 
 knows all about these croupy colds. She 
 tries upon it many terrible and ignorant 
 remedies. Will not hear of the doctor 
 being sent for, and one night suddenly 
 sends for him herself. And the doctor 
 sends for Jacky's parents. Peg is at the 
 doorway to meet Mamma — hysterically 
 reproachful from the cab window. Peg 
 is quite white, with an odd glitter in her 
 little eyes, and does not lose her temper. 
 Before Mamma has been revived by sherry 
 in the dining-room Peg is back again with 
 the boy. She has scarcely left him for 
 a week. He has already lost his pretty 
 plumpness and roundness — a mere shadow 
 of a child even now, with nothing left of 
 his old self except a capacity for laughing 
 — what a weak laugh ! — gmd an odd sense 
 of humor in grim satire to his wasted 
 body and the grave faces round him. 
 Only Peg laughs back at him; Mamma 
 
 30
 
 The Nurse 
 
 wonders how she can have the heart. 
 But then, of course, one cannot expect 
 a servant to feel what one does oneself. 
 It may be because Peg is, after all, merely 
 hired (eighteen pounds a year and All 
 Found), and is no sort of relation to Jack, 
 that she can hold him in her arms, talk to 
 him, sing to him by the hour together; 
 that she can do with little rest and hur- 
 ried meals ; that she is always alert, sturdy, 
 and competent. 
 
 Mamma thinks it is a blessed thing that 
 the lower classes are not sensitive like we 
 are. It is a very blessed thing — for Jack. 
 
 Papa is worn out with grief and anxiety 
 before the color has left Peg's homely 
 face. 
 
 Mamma is incompetent and hysterical 
 from the first, and is soon forbidden the 
 sick-room altogether. 
 
 It is melancholy to record that when 
 this mandate is issued a gleam of satis- 
 faction — not to say triumph — steals over 
 Peg's resolute countenance. 
 
 He's getting on nicely, doctor, now, 
 isn't he?" she inquires of the bigwig 
 
 31
 
 The Nurse 
 
 from Harley Street a day or two later. 
 " He " is Jack, of course. The large and 
 pompous physician looks down at her 
 through his gold-rimmed eye-glasses, and 
 gives her to understand, not ungently — 
 for though she is only the nurse, he thinks 
 she has some real affection for the child 
 — that Jack is dying. 
 
 " Dying!" Peg flashes out full of de- 
 fiance. " Then what's the use of your 
 chattering and worriting and upsetting 
 the place like this, if that's all you can 
 do for him? Dying! We'll see about 
 that." 
 
 From that moment she defies them all. 
 The consulting physicians, the ordinary 
 practitioner, the night-nurse from Guy's, 
 Death itself, perhaps. She never leaves 
 the child. The shadow of the old Jacky 
 lies all day long on a pillow in her lap ; 
 sometimes all night too. When it is past 
 saying anything else it says her name. It 
 has its head so turned that it can see her 
 face. When she smiles down at it, the 
 forlornest ghost of a smile answers her 
 back. She has an influence over it that 
 
 32
 
 The Nurse 
 
 would be magical if it were not most nat- 
 ural that devotion should be repaid by 
 devotion, even from the heart of a child. 
 
 The consulting physician says one day 
 that if there is a hope for the boy that 
 hope lies in Peg's nursing. It is the 
 first time he has admitted that there can 
 be a hope at all. Peg's face shines with 
 an odd light which, if she were not wholly 
 plain and plebeian, would make her beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 One day, when the shadow is lying in 
 her lap as usual, the night-nurse puts a 
 telegram into her hand. When she has 
 read it she lays Jacky on the bed and goes 
 away. For the first time she does not 
 heed his feeble cry of her name. 
 
 She finds the father and mother, and, 
 with the pink paper shaking in her hand, 
 says that her brother is dying; that she 
 must go away. Blood is thicker than 
 water after all. She has but a few pas- 
 sions, but those few are strong; and the 
 dying brother is one of them. 
 
 The father, broken dov/n by the wretch- 
 edness of the past weeks, implores her to 
 3 33
 
 The Nurse 
 
 stay and save Jacky. But she is un- 
 moved. Her brother is dying, and she 
 must go. 
 
 The mother, abjectly miserable, entreats 
 and prays, and offers her money, and Peg 
 turns upon her with a flash of scorn far 
 too grand for her stout and homely per- 
 son. 
 
 And when she goes back to Jacky a 
 wan ghost of a smile breaks through the 
 tears on his face, and he lifts a weazened 
 hand to stroke her cheek, and says that it 
 Avas bad to go away, and she is not to go 
 away any more. 
 
 And she does not. 
 
 Jacky gets better. It is as if Peg has 
 fought with Death — as she would fight 
 for Jacky with anything in this world 
 or in any other world — and conquered. 
 Jacky 's case appears in the " Lancet," 
 and the medical bigwigs shake their heads 
 over it and are fairly puzzled. They have 
 
 34
 
 The Nurse 
 
 not the cue to the whole matter — which 
 is Peg. 
 
 When Jacky is past a woman's care 
 Peg goes away. Papa and mamma don't 
 spare expense, and give her a five-pound 
 note as a parting present. 
 
 But she has another reward, wholly un- 
 substantial and satisfactory. In an under- 
 graduate's rooms at Christ Church — an 
 idle dog of an undergraduate, by the way 
 — amid a galaxy of dramatic beauty, and 
 in a terrible plush frame, presented by 
 herself, there is a photo — of Peg. 
 
 And it is believed that the undergradu- 
 ate, who is not in any other way remark- 
 able for domestic virtue, actually writes 
 to her. 
 
 35
 
 The Scholar
 
 The Scholar 
 
 " Qui vit sans folic n'est pas si sage qu'il croit." 
 
 He is fifty-five years old. He is eru- 
 dite, classic, and scholarly. He knows 
 everything. What can be duller than a 
 man who knows everything ? He is sci- 
 entific and botanical. He wears gray 
 thread gloves — a size too large — goloshes, 
 and a comforter. And yet, when his 
 cousin presents him with a living — a re- 
 mote living in the wilds of a northern 
 county — he purposes to be married. 
 
 This Fossil, with traces of an ice age 
 clearly left on his formal manners and 
 punctilious and guarded speech, engages 
 himself to Leonora. 
 
 Leonora is romantic, as her name de- 
 clares. But Leonora's guardian is emi- 
 nently practical. Thinks the living will 
 do. And so Leonora is betrothed to it. 
 
 39
 
 The Scholar 
 
 Leonora is sweet and twenty. With 
 brown curls tied at the back of her head 
 with a ribbon. With an arch smile. With 
 a charming gift of singing — to the harp. 
 She is not erudite. It is not the fashion 
 for young ladies to be erudite in her time. 
 When her elderly lover shows her speci- 
 mens through a microscope — which is his 
 ridiculous old way of expressing admira- 
 tion for her — she is never able to decide 
 whether she is looking at a flower or a 
 beetle. She is wholly volatile and lovely 
 and inattentive. AH his love-making is 
 full of instruction. It is an absurd, pe- 
 dantic way of showing one's affection. 
 But it is almost the only way he has. 
 And there are worse, perhaps. 
 
 They go for their honeymoon to the 
 Riviera. And the Riviera of forty years 
 ago had much more of heaven and less of 
 earth about it than the Riviera of the 
 present day. 
 
 Beneath the deep eternal blue and the 
 everlasting sunshine of its skies the Fos- 
 sil's punctilious formality melts a little. 
 He still goes about in a comforter and 
 
 40
 
 The Scholar 
 
 searches for specimens through near- 
 sighted spectacles. But under the balmy 
 warmth of an Italian sun — and of Leo- 
 nora — his chilliness of manner experi- 
 ences a slight thaw. It is thought that 
 for those few brief weeks he is, in some 
 very slight degree of course, as another 
 man might be. It is certain that his bo- 
 tanical friends are considerably disap- 
 pointed in the collection of Italian flora 
 he has to show them on his return home. 
 Perhaps the flos he has studied most is 
 the flower- faced Leonora at his side — 
 Leonora with her poke-bonnet hung upon 
 her arm, with her curls shaken back, and 
 her wicked, laughing, roguish face turned 
 up to his — looking for all the world like 
 one of those ridiculous pictures in an old- 
 fashioned Book of Beauty. 
 
 Leonora hates science — and stops the 
 scientist's prosy mouth with a kiss. Leo- 
 nora can't bear botany, and likes the 
 flowers much better without those inter- 
 minable Latin names tacked on to them. 
 
 Is she in love with her Fossil ? Who 
 shall say ? It is preposterous and unnat- 
 
 41
 
 The Scholar 
 
 ural that she should be. But the prepos- 
 terous and unnatural both happen occa- 
 sionally. 
 
 Is her Fossil in love with her ? A hid- 
 eous old fright in goloshes, a tedious, 
 moth-eaten old book-worm has no right 
 to be in love with any one. 
 
 Then they go home to the country' 
 vicarage. The country vicarage is the in- 
 carnation of dulness, dampness, and ugli- 
 ness. And Leonora sings about the house 
 and scandalizes the servants. The furni- 
 ture is immensely solid and frightful. And 
 Leonora's shawl is thrown here, and her 
 work — in dreadful disorder — there, and 
 roses from the garden everywhere. 
 
 The Fossil, before he was married, had 
 drawn up a solemn code of rules for the 
 guidance of the household. A bell to 
 tell them to get up; a bell to tell them 
 to come down; a bell for prayers; a bell 
 to begin breakfast, and a bell to finish it. 
 And Leonora stops her ears when she 
 hears these warnings, and is never less 
 than ten minutes late for meals. 
 
 The Fossil sits in his study, scientific 
 
 42
 
 The Scholar 
 
 and theological, and Leonora breaks in 
 upon this sanctum, without tapping, with 
 her face glowing and laughing, and shuts 
 up the abstruse work with a bang. She 
 drags the Fossil into the garden without 
 his goloshes. When she wants to do 
 something incompatible with his Calvin- 
 istic principles she lays her fresh face 
 against his parchment cheek and says it 
 isn't any good saying " No," because she 
 really Must. And she always does. 
 
 The Fossil had a great scientific work 
 in hand when he was married — an elabo- 
 rate treatise upon the Paleozoic Epoch — 
 but it proceeds lamentably slowly. He 
 attempts to write in the evening after 
 dinner, and Leonora draws out the harp 
 from its corner and sings to it. She sings 
 "Rose Softly Blooming" and " 'Twas 
 One of Those Dreams," and the great 
 work does not proceed at all. 
 
 Then Leonora is ill, and the little 
 daughter is dead before she is born. But 
 Leonora is soon better — well enough to 
 lie on the sofa and be sweet, foolish, and 
 tiresome once more. The Fossil sits by 
 
 43
 
 The Scholar 
 
 her side gravely. Sometimes he brings 
 her flowers without their botanical names. 
 He proses scientifically, as from long 
 habit; but he looks the while at her 
 transparent color and her shining eyes, 
 and the science is at times unscholarly 
 and even incorrect. And Leonora looks 
 back at him with the old arch, laughing 
 glance, and with something more behind 
 it. It is a something they do not say — 
 which can never be said. Perhaps the 
 one thinks that the other does not know 
 it. It may be so. To the last Leonora 
 is very much better — " Nearly quite well," 
 in answer to a daily question. On the 
 last evening the Fossil is proposing a 
 change to the seaside to complete her 
 cure, and she dies with a smile and a jest, 
 infinitely tender and selfless, upon her 
 lips. 
 
 The neighborhood, who could not be 
 expected to like an " eccentric old thing " 
 like the Fossil, decides that he is shock- 
 ingly heartless. He appears at Leonora's 
 funeral actually in a red comforter. There 
 are no signs of emotion upon his face. 
 
 44
 
 The Scholar 
 
 The lines may be a trifle deeper upon it, 
 perhaps ; but then he was always deeply 
 lined, so that does not count. 
 
 He completes the great work ; he draws 
 up a new and more ridiculous code of 
 rules for his household ; and then he mar- 
 ries again. His wife is perfectly virtuous 
 and meaningless. She obeys the bells to 
 a second ; she never interrupts his studies ; 
 she never lets the children disturb him ; 
 his comforter and gloves are never out of 
 their places. She is an excellent wife — 
 a great deal too good for him. 
 
 He grows duller and more erudite yearly. 
 A visitor describes him as a Lump of Sci- 
 ence. He composes immensely learned 
 and dreary sermons. The six yokels who 
 usually form his congregation very sensi- 
 bly go to sleep. The chill formality of 
 his manner repulses the parishioners and 
 frightens his children. He attempts to 
 teach these children out of his fusty stores 
 of scientific lore, but they are too awe- 
 struck to comprehend anything — suppos- 
 ing that they had the ^ility, which they 
 have not. 
 
 45
 
 The Scholar 
 
 Their mother dies; they grow up and 
 go out into the world. As far as the 
 Fossil is concerned, they are virtually 
 dead also; but then, as far as he is con- 
 cerned, they might almost as well never 
 have been alive. 
 
 He is not more lonely than he has been 
 for twenty years. He passes all day in 
 his study among his books. That the 
 room is damp and dreary, matters little 
 to him. The books are behind the time. 
 He is behind the time himself. Between 
 him and the musty work over which his 
 old head bends, comes sometimes a vision 
 of the days that once were and will be no 
 more. The Italian sunshine above, the 
 touch of a hand, the sound of a laughing 
 voice, a girl's face, brilliant and tender, 
 and he sees — Leonora. 
 
 46
 
 The Mother
 
 The Mother 
 
 " L'etre le plus aime est celui par qui on aura le plus 
 souffert." 
 
 Mrs. Tasker lets lodgings. She lives 
 in the most remote and unknown of east 
 coast watering places. Her modest abode 
 is not patronized by the fashionable. She 
 does not even pretend — there is, in fact, 
 no pretence about Mrs. Tasker — that her 
 sitting-room has a sea view. Neither does 
 she deceive the impecunious hospital- 
 nurse, the soft spinster, and the strug- 
 gling lady artist, who form her clientele, 
 with promises of good cooking or any de- 
 scription of attendance. 
 
 Mrs. Tasker, in fact, lets lodgings, as it 
 were, upon sufferance. She receives her 
 guests with a cast of countenance per- 
 fectly lugubrious. She has paid no at- 
 tention to her dress so as to create an 
 
 4 49
 
 The Mother 
 
 agreeable impression upon them. Her 
 normal costume of a dingy skirt, a forlorn 
 top of a different color, and a depressing 
 apron is unchanged. She is on the alert 
 to tell them at the moment of their arrival 
 all the drawbacks they will find to herself, 
 her rooms, her kitchen-range, and the 
 place in general. " Your neighborhood 
 is lovely, I am told," says the lady artist 
 with the sweetest and most propitiating 
 of smiles. 
 
 I've never seed as it was," answers 
 Mrs. Tasker gloomily. She hates the 
 lady artist. She regards all lodgers, in- 
 deed, with a perfectly consistent animos- 
 ity. Her disdain for a class of persons 
 who require frequent incidental cups of 
 tea, hot dinners every day, and dessert 
 on Sundays is quite without bounds. 
 Her sentiments towards her guests are 
 written large upon a perfectly plain and 
 trustworthy countenance. When she sees 
 them sitting with their feet upon her cher- 
 ished Berlin wool-worked arm-chair she 
 bangs their door as she leaves the room 
 with a display of feeling which nearly 
 
 50
 
 The Mother 
 
 brings the house about their ears. When 
 one of them ventures to ask if her land- 
 lady has such a thing as a pair of nut- 
 crackers, the satiric scorn on Mrs. Tasker's 
 countenance for a woman in the prime of 
 life who cannot crack nuts with her teeth 
 causes the guest to blush, and apologize 
 for making so unreasonable a demand. 
 
 Mrs. Tasker has, moreover, a habit of 
 thrusting the dinner things on a tray on 
 to the table in front of the visitor with an 
 expression which says more plainly than 
 words, " If you can't arrange them for 
 yourself you must be a fool." 
 
 She never panders to the Sybarite in- 
 clinations of her lodgers by bringing them 
 hot water in the morning. When they 
 order for dinner a little kickshaw like a 
 mutton-chop she says, with an unmis- 
 takable note of triumph in her voice, 
 " Our butcher's run out of all but pork." 
 
 She always prophesies a continuance of 
 wet weather. 
 
 " When it do begin to rain here," she 
 says, " it takes precious good care not to 
 stop. 
 
 51
 
 The Mother 
 
 But in spite of a disposition so wholly 
 honest and discouraging, Mrs. Tasker's 
 lodgers have a habit of coming back to 
 her. Mrs. Tasker is indefatigably clean. 
 She scrubs and polishes until she is pur- 
 ple in the face. She would scorn the idea 
 of purloining a single tartlet belonging to 
 the parlor. She has that vigorous hon- 
 esty which is often found in company 
 with a bad temper and a good heart. 
 
 In the back kitchen live Mr. Tasker 
 and little Johnnie. Mr. Tasker is thick, 
 agricultural, well-meaning, and beery. 
 Mr. Tasker is not of much account, and 
 Johnnie is the apple of Mrs. Tasker's eye. 
 It is for Johnnie she lets lodgings. She 
 and her husband could live well enough 
 — by cutting Tasker off his beer — upon 
 the wages of a day-laborer. But Johnnie 
 wants warm underclothing and a doctor 
 when he is ill, and presently a first-rate 
 schooling. Johnnie must have nourish- 
 ing food — or what Mrs. Tasker takes to 
 be nourishing food. For his sake, there- 
 fore, the mother lets lodgings. For his 
 sake she bears with persons who are al- 
 
 52
 
 The Mother 
 
 ways wanting meals and ringing the bell. 
 For his sake she controls — in a measure, 
 at least — a temper as rough as her homely- 
 face. For his sake she gets up very early 
 in the morning, and creeps up-stairs to 
 bed, with a sigh she cannot wholly stifle, 
 very late at night. For his sake she gives 
 up what she calls her independence, and 
 which, after Johnnie — a very long way 
 after, indeed — she likes better than any- 
 thing she has. For Johnnie's sake she 
 does not turn the lady artist summarily 
 out of doors when that enthusiast ruins 
 the parlor table-cloth with her oil paints. 
 For the sake of a little snivelling boy, 
 with a perpetual cold in his head and no 
 pocket-handkerchief, she stints herself 
 and Mr. Tasker in food and clothing and 
 comforts. She performs, indeed, for him 
 a thousand sacrifices, of which no one 
 knows, perhaps, the extent or the diffi- 
 culty. She is, a hundred times a day, 
 comparatively polite where her natural 
 disposition inclines her to be superlatively 
 rude. She holds her tongue — at a great 
 cost. She is silently scornful where she 
 
 53
 
 The Mother 
 
 wants to be abusive. And she always 
 manages, for Johnnie's sake, to say on 
 parting with her lodgers that she hopes 
 they will return to her next year. 
 
 In Mrs. Tasker's love towards the child 
 there is none of that weakness and soft- 
 ness which distinguish some maternities. 
 Her love, in fact, rarely rises to her lips. 
 It is hidden away in a heart wholly strong, 
 honest, and faithful. The utmost dem- 
 onstration of affection which she permits 
 herself towards her boy is to occasionally 
 rub his damp little nose vigorously with 
 the corner of her apron, leaving the 
 nose astonishingly red and flat. Mrs. 
 Tasker " don't hold " with spoiling chil- 
 dren. 
 
 " It's a poor way of caring for 'em," 
 she says. And so when little Johnnie is 
 naughty she whips him very severely, and 
 when he is good she cuffs him occasion- 
 ally, just to remind him that the maternal 
 love and wisdom are always watching over 
 him. 
 
 At present, and in default of better, 
 Johnnie goes to the village school. Mrs. 
 
 54
 
 The Mother 
 
 Tasker neatly describes the schoolmaster 
 as a " flat," But would there be any- 
 master good enough to teach Johnnie ? 
 Perhaps not. He is sent off to school 
 while the lodgers are taking their break- 
 fasts. Mrs. Tasker ties him up tightly in 
 a very hygienic and scratchy comforter 
 which she has made with great pains in 
 her rare spare minutes. He is further 
 clad in a thick coat, studded with naval 
 buttons, which Mrs. Tasker bought in 
 place of a jacket for herself. 
 
 Mrs. Tasker accompanies him to the 
 gate. She watches him out of sight, and 
 shakes her fist at him when he looks 
 round, by way, as it were, of keeping him 
 up to his duties. It is only when he is 
 quite out of sight that something like a 
 smile and tenderness come on her harsh 
 face, and she goes slowly back to the 
 house. 
 
 " You think a sight on Johnnie, I sup- 
 pose," says Mr, Tasker gloomily one day, 
 in a thick voice suggestive of agricultural 
 mud. 
 
 " A sight more than I do on you," 
 
 55
 
 The Mother 
 
 answers Mrs. Tasker snappily, washing 
 dishes. 
 
 Mrs. Tasker has a feeling which she 
 does not explain, or try to explain, about 
 her love for the child. It appears to her 
 to be something sacred and secret ; that 
 one does not want to talk about; that 
 one resents being reminded of; of which 
 the roots are too deep down in one's heart 
 to bear being dug up and looked at. 
 
 She is not, indeed, always actually 
 thinking of him. She has a thousand 
 things to occupy her attention — the lod- 
 gers' meals and the parlor tabie-cloth, 
 and Mr. Tasker's tendency to inebriate 
 himself. But the child stands by, as it 
 were — always very close to her heart. 
 
 Everything she does is directly or indi- 
 rectly for Johnnie. She eyes the clothing 
 of other little boys with a view to copy- 
 ing it for Johnnie. She has quite violent 
 dislikes towards children of Johnnie's age 
 who are fatter and healthier than he is. 
 There are, indeed, many such. But per- 
 haps the maternal affection is only the 
 
 56
 
 The Mother 
 
 stronger because Johnnie is puny, weakly, 
 and plain — maternal affection having been 
 so constituted by nature — or God. 
 
 One winter, a winter when Mrs. Tasker's 
 rooms are occupied by a soft-spoken Spin- 
 ster who has generously sacrificed her 
 youth to a slum, Johnnie is very puny 
 and weakly indeed. The Spinster, who 
 takes an uncommon interest in Johnnie, 
 recommends cod-liver oil. Mr. Tasker, 
 the mother having already denied herself 
 everything except the bare necessaries of 
 life, is cut off his beer-money to provide 
 it. And the Spinster thinks this is a very 
 cold place for your dear little boy, and I 
 am just starting a school at Torquay, and 
 won't vou trust him to me ? And the 
 Spinster kisses Johnnie with great self- 
 sacrifice on the tip of his red and humid 
 little nose. Mrs. Tasker, into whose face 
 a deep color has come, says in an unusual 
 voice, " I'll think on it, mum." That 
 evening, when Johnnie has gone to bed, 
 Mr. Tasker spells out the advertisement 
 of the school from a paper the Spinster 
 has lent him. 
 
 57
 
 The Mother 
 
 Mrs. Tasker sits with a hand on each 
 knee, looking very deeply and fixedly 
 into the fire. 
 
 *' 'Ome comfits ? " she says doubtfully. 
 " And what do she mean by 'ome com- 
 fits ? Will they see as 'is shirt is aired 
 and 'e don't sit in wet boots ? " 
 
 " Un-lim-i-ted di-et," continues the fa- 
 ther with difficulty, 
 
 " If that means letting 'im stuff 'isself, 
 it'll kill that child," says Mrs. Tasker, 
 pessimistically. 
 
 " What are you a-cryin* for ? " inquires 
 her husband. Mrs. Tasker replies with 
 considerable snappishness that she is not 
 crying, and men is all fools, drat them, 
 with other remarks so uncomplimentary 
 to the sex that Mr. Tasker prudently lies 
 low behind the newspaper until the storm 
 is over. 
 
 The Spinster's blandishments and her 
 advertisement prevail. Johnnie goes back 
 with her to Torquay. She is paid her fee 
 in advance, from moaey slowly and hardly 
 saved for the purpose, and mysteriously 
 hidden away i*n Mrs. Tasker's bedroom. 
 
 58
 
 The Mother 
 
 The mother is very courageous before this 
 parting, and, it must be confessed, to- 
 wards Mr. Tasker particularly uncertain 
 in temper. She initiates the Spinster into 
 the mysteries of Johnnie's underclothing. 
 She buys him six pocket-handkerchiefs, 
 and instructs him how to use them with- 
 out assistance. She is up very early mak- 
 ing his preparations, and goes to bed later 
 than ever at night. She does not spare 
 herself at all. She is glad, perhaps, that 
 she has no time to think. Her hard life 
 at this period ages her very considerably. 
 Or she is aged, perhaps, through some 
 feelings and forebodings of which she 
 never speaks. She is always very cheer- 
 ful and practical and severe with Johnnie, 
 who is as melancholy at this time as one 
 can be at six years old. " It's for your 
 good," she says, shaking him to empha- 
 size her remarks. " And you ought to 
 know as how it is. ' ' Then the end comes. 
 Johnnie's sad little face is sticky with tears 
 and toffee, which has been administered 
 to him as a consolation, when he puts it 
 up to be kissed. " Mind you're a good 
 
 59
 
 The Mother 
 
 boy," says the mother unsteadily, and 
 with a grip on his httle arm which 
 he understands to mean love, per- 
 haps, better than if it were a delicate 
 caress. 
 
 " He is going to be a dear, happy little 
 fellow," says the Spinster sweetly, and 
 the cab drives away. Two tears — large, 
 heavy, unaccustomed tears — fall down 
 Mrs. Tasker's homely face as she watches 
 it. And then she turns indoors, address- 
 ing herself by opprobrious names for her 
 weakness, and cleans out the late lodger's 
 apartments viciously. 
 
 Six months later Mrs. Tasker receives 
 an anonymous letter. It is very illiterate 
 and misspelt. But it is so far compre- 
 hensible that when the mother has read 
 it her head falls upon her folded arms on 
 the table with a great and exceeding bit- 
 ter cry. " Your son," says the letter — 
 spelling the word as if Johnnie were the 
 chief of heavenly bodies — " is being treated 
 that bad as if you d6n't come and take 
 him away will be the death on him. She 
 is a Beast. She has done the same by 
 
 60
 
 The Mother 
 
 others. Only Johnnie is dehcater, and 
 it's kilHng him," 
 
 It's kilHng him. The fierce maternal 
 heart beating in Mrs. Tasker's gaunt per- 
 son makes her tremble in a great passion 
 of rage, love, and yearning. Come and 
 take him away. It sounds so easy, and 
 is impossible. Tasker is out of work — 
 has been out of work for six weeks. The 
 lodgers represent the only source of in- 
 come. There may be, perhaps, five shill- 
 ings in the house. But there certainly is 
 not enough for a journey across England. 
 If there were how could Mrs. Tasker leave 
 the house ? And what would be the use 
 of sending a lout like Mr. Tasker (men is 
 all fools), who has never been twenty miles 
 from his native village in his life, a com- 
 plicated cross-railway journey ? 
 
 So Mrs. Tasker takes the family pen 
 and adds a little water to the remains of 
 the family ink, and writes to the Spinster 
 demanding Johnnie's return. The mother 
 has never held much with book learning. 
 Does not know very well how to write, or 
 at all how to express herself. " You can 
 
 6i
 
 The Mother 
 
 keep the money," she says. " We don't 
 want that. Send the boy back, or we 
 will have the law of you. Send Johnnie 
 back sharp, and curse you, curse you, 
 curse you ! " 
 
 The curses, which she spells" cus," are 
 in some sort a relief to this poor, ignorant, 
 angry, loving soul. The coarse vigor of 
 her ill-spelt abuse comforts her for the 
 moment a little. It is when the letter is 
 sealed, stamped, and posted that her ma- 
 ternal tragedy begins. It is in those ter- 
 rible days of waiting, when no answer is 
 returned to the letter and Johnnie does 
 not come home, that she lives through 
 the worst hours of her life. 
 
 A most merciful necessity requires that 
 she shall work as usual, that she shall 
 cook the lodgers' food and clean their 
 rooms, that she shall be perpetually busy 
 from morning until evening. But is there 
 any work that can make her forget John- 
 nie ? It seems to her that his poor, 
 pinched, white little face haunts her. 
 That it comes always between her and 
 what she is doing. She does not say 
 
 62
 
 The Mother 
 
 much. What is there to be said ? Mr. 
 Tasker smokes a short clay pipe in front 
 of the fire in stolid gloominess. He does 
 not suggest comfort. Suggestions are 
 not his forte. He is, in a dull manner, 
 shocked when Mrs. Tasker, for the first 
 time in her life that he can remember, 
 refuses to eat. She pushes away the 
 plate of untouched food and sits for 
 a minute or two with her elbows on 
 the table and her head resting on her 
 hands. 
 
 " Don't give in, 'Liza, don't give in," 
 says Mr. Tasker almost piteously. 
 
 " It don't matter," says Mrs. Tasker. 
 
 I can make up at tea." 
 
 But she does not make up at tea. Who 
 shall say, in these interminable days, what 
 terrible, foolish, impossible imaginings 
 creep into her heart ? She fancies a 
 thousand ignorant and unlikely things 
 which may be happening to the child. 
 
 "He was always weakly," she says. 
 " It will kill him." She has, indeed, 
 hitherto angrily repudiated suggestions 
 that Johnnie is less strong than other 
 
 63
 
 The Mother 
 
 children. They recur to her now, and 
 she cannot disbeheve them. 
 
 He were a pore baby, weren't he ?" 
 she says huskily to her husband, and hop- 
 ing for a contradiction. 
 
 He were, 'Liza, he were," answers 
 Mr. Tasker, gloomily. 
 
 She remembers, how well ! that frail 
 little infancy. She used to compare him 
 with other babies, and insult their mam- 
 mas dreadfully by vaunting Johnnie's su- 
 periority in her rudest and bluntest man- 
 ner. 
 
 " But his legs were pore little sticks," 
 she murmurs to herself sorrowfully. " And 
 I knowed they were all along." 
 
 And one night, when she and her hus- 
 band have been sitting silently on either 
 side of the hearth watching the embers 
 blacken and die out, her rough, listless 
 hands fall at her side, and she cries out in 
 despair, and as if she were alone — 
 
 " Oh Lord, don't be for hurting our 
 Johnnie any more ! We'd sooner he died 
 outright." 
 
 And the next day Johnnie comes. The 
 
 64
 
 The Mother 
 
 balmy air of Torquay has not been suffi- 
 cient to counteract the baneful effects 
 of insufficient food and genteel cruelty. 
 Johnnie is very ill indeed. 
 
 " Will he live ? " says the mother, 
 " God help you ! " answers the doctor, 
 looking into her strong, homely, haggard 
 face. " Nothing human can save him," 
 
 But to this faithless and unbelieving 
 generation there remains one great mira- 
 cle-worker, whose name is Love. 
 
 6s
 
 My Lord 
 
 i
 
 My Lord 
 
 " Chacun aime comme il est." 
 
 My Lord is young with George IV. 
 He loses a fortune at play, and another, 
 amassed by a pious aunt in the country, 
 at all sorts of devilries. He has thrashed 
 the watch and staked an estate on the 
 cards in an evening. He records many 
 years after how he enters the ring with 
 the Regent, and how the First Gentleman 
 in Europe, with an exquisite ease and 
 urbanity, confesses himself beaten. 
 
 My Lord is on the turf, where he wins 
 and flings away a fortune with a mad gen- 
 erosity: where he loses, and does not re- 
 trench. He is dressed with the careless- 
 ness that is a part of his nature, and with 
 a richness that becomes the Court of the 
 
 Regent. 
 
 69
 
 My Lord 
 
 My Lord can sing a song with the best 
 over his wine, and take his two bottles — 
 like a gentleman. His speech is gar- 
 nished, even in very old age, with those 
 flowers of expression which were in uni- 
 versal vogue in his youth. He recalls, 
 forty years later, a hundred stories of that 
 mad career of pleasure. He remembers 
 with a curious accuracy a thousand de- 
 tails respecting his companions and the 
 manners and habits of that wild day. He 
 knows, and retails with perfect wit and 
 point, a thousand stories of the Court 
 which have never crept into print. His 
 reminiscences are as interesting as a book 
 of scandalous memoirs. 
 
 My Lord, indeed, has pretty well beg- 
 gared himself before he is thirty. He 
 marries money. And money in the per- 
 son of a shrewish wife is false to his honor 
 and her own. His daughter, who belongs 
 to her mother's faction, marries abroad, 
 and is lost to him for, ever. His son, 
 from whom he has hoped everything, is 
 not only wild — which indeed My Lord 
 should be one to forgive easily — but 
 
 70
 
 My Lord 
 
 brings dishonor on a great name and dies 
 miserably. 
 
 My Lord is not yet sixty years old when 
 he retires to Hamblin, the estate in the 
 country which his extravagances have left 
 heavily mortgaged, and his neglect has 
 left out of repair. A number of evil 
 stories, gathering astonishingly in volume 
 and flavor at every stage of the journey, 
 have followed him from town. Virtue 
 points out with her positive finger that 
 this old age of poverty, solitude, and dis- 
 appointment is but the just and natural 
 harvest of that astonishing crop of wild 
 oats sown in that wild youth. When My 
 Lord, therefore, appears in the village 
 with his lean figure stooping a little, and 
 his narrow eyes extraordinarily bright and 
 keen, he excites that exceeding interest 
 and curiosity which it is believed are 
 never roused by anything less entertain- 
 ing than a reputation for iniquity. Some 
 persons are quite shocked to see him in 
 church on Sunday. There is a terrible 
 story current of him for a little while, to 
 the effect that he does not know the po- 
 
 71
 
 My Lord 
 
 sition of the Psalms in the Liturgy. But 
 he soon mends this error, and lives a life 
 of so much retirement, simplicity, and 
 apparently virtue, as to become wholly 
 uninteresting to everybody. 
 
 After a time My Lord takes unto him- 
 self a domestic Chaplain, who lives with 
 him the greater part of the year. The 
 Chaplain is round-faced, benevolent, and 
 kindly, with a full chin above his white 
 tie, bespeaking a hundred pleasant hu- 
 man virtues. The Chaplain enjoys port 
 wine in the most honest moderation — is 
 in no sense an ascetic — has a heart full of 
 charity and good-will for all men — a kindly 
 sense of humor, and a very true and self- 
 respecting affection for My Lord his pa- 
 tron. 
 
 " I don't come to church to hear your 
 sermons, Ruther, you know," says My 
 Lord, " which are damned long and prosy 
 — you know they are. I come to look at 
 your wife listening to them." 
 
 The Chaplain's wife, whom he calls 
 
 72
 
 Ivly Lord 
 
 Miriam, is very sweet and simple and 
 delicate. Miriam has brown curls shad- 
 ing a clear forehead, a brown silk frock 
 revealing sloping Early Victorian shoul- 
 ders, and the most tender, candid eyes in 
 all the world. Miriam is of gentler birth 
 than her husband, whom she loves and 
 reveres as at once the cleverest, dearest, 
 and best of created beings. 
 
 My Lord has not often met the Miriam 
 type of woman. Perhaps never before. 
 At first he does not understand her. He 
 looks at her across the dinner table with 
 his unsteady hand playing with his glass 
 and a sort of perplexity in his shrewd old 
 eyes. " So damned innocent," he says to 
 himself. " So damned innocent." Per- 
 haps damned innocence has not been the 
 leading characteristic of the lady acquaint- 
 ances of his youth. He wonders at it a 
 little at least — in Miriam — as if it were 
 some new thing. 
 
 His wonder, indeed, gives place very 
 soon to another feeling. He has at last 
 for this woman the purest and tenderest 
 afTection he has ever known. 
 
 71
 
 My Lord 
 
 " I have the devil of a reputation, Ru- 
 ther," says My Lord, grimly. " Don't you 
 do me the honor to be jealous of me ? " 
 
 " No, my Lord," says the Chaplain, 
 looking at his patron. 
 
 And indeed My Lord has for Miriam 
 such a feeling as, in a happier circum- 
 stance, he might have felt for a child of 
 his own. 
 
 There are a thousand ways in which 
 Miriam appeals to My Lord's ancient 
 sense of humor. He likes to hear her 
 say "Hush!" in her shocked, gentle 
 voice, when from immemorial habit he 
 ornaments his speech with an oath. He 
 has not the less a most tender respect for 
 her purity. When she asks questions, in 
 her damned innocence, about his youth, he 
 bowdlerizes his old stories to an extent 
 that the Chaplain does not even recognize 
 them. 
 
 "I lie horribly," says My Lord when 
 Miriam has left the two to their wine. 
 " Past absolution, eh, Ruther ? " 
 
 But the Chaplain, who may very possi- 
 bly be right, thinks not. 
 
 74
 
 My Lord 
 
 Miriam's most staunch and simple be- 
 lief in My Lord's goodness amuses him 
 vastly at first. Another feeling mingles 
 with his amusement after a while as he 
 looks into her clear eyes. 
 
 " We were a cursed bad lot in those 
 days," he says. "If you knew how bad 
 you wouldn't have anything to say to me." 
 
 But Miriam says, " Yes, I should," and 
 nods her head so that the brown Victorian 
 curls shake a little, and puts her gentle 
 hand for a moment into My Lord's wea- 
 zened old fingers. 
 
 For the first time in his life the wild- 
 ness of his youth rests a little uneasily 
 upon that accommodating organ which is 
 called My Lord's conscience. 
 
 " Gad! " he says, with that light cyni- 
 cism of manner which may or may not 
 hide a deeper feeling. " I feel almost 
 like a convert. No thanks to your prosy 
 old preachings, Ruther. Don't flatter 
 yourself." 
 
 And indeed the Chaplain, who is the 
 most humble and simple of men, does 
 not do so at all. 
 
 75
 
 My Lord 
 
 In the summer mornings it is Miriam's 
 habit to play with her children on the 
 great sloping lawns before the house. 
 My Lord watches her more often than he 
 knows perhaps from the open windows of 
 his library. 
 
 She comes in to see him sometimes, 
 and looks up with a soft wistfulness in 
 her pretty eyes at the great books on 
 their shelves. 
 
 " I wish I could read some of these," 
 she says, taking down a French work and 
 holding it up to him. 
 
 God forbid! " says My Lord piously. 
 
 But indeed Miriam's French is neither 
 of a quantity nor quality to do her any 
 harm. 
 
 She goes back to the children presently. 
 My Lord sits long with the book, which 
 he does not read, before him. He has 
 aged rapidly lately. He feels sometimes 
 very old indeed. The hand, with the 
 ruffles of a long-past fashion hanging over 
 it, is very lean and unsteady. He puts 
 down at first to approaching senility a 
 certain odd sensation of something that 
 
 76
 
 My Lord 
 
 might almost be shame for that wild past 
 that comes to him with Miriam. He 
 ascribes to a weakened intelligence a sort 
 of emotion he knows when Miriam plays 
 Handel and Haydn in the half lights at 
 the harpsichord. Sometimes on Sunday 
 evenings, after dinner, and before the 
 darkness has come, she draws out the 
 harp from its corner and sings to it in the 
 sweetest voice in the world. She sings 
 to it the old religious music which is of 
 no fashion, but for all time. Her white 
 frock and the fair piety of her bent face 
 make one of her hearers at least think, as 
 it is probable he has not often thought 
 before, of the angels. 
 
 He sits, as he has told the Chaplain, 
 during the prosy discourses on Sunday, 
 and looks at her tender, rapt face and her 
 quiet folded hands. She brings the chil- 
 dren to him sometimes. One night he 
 catches sight of her in the room set apart 
 as a nursery bending over one of them in 
 its cot, with a face all beautiful, human, 
 and maternal, and her lips moving in a 
 prayer. 
 
 77
 
 My Lord 
 
 His seared old heart is touched at this 
 time by a thousand emotions which it has 
 never known, or to which it has long been 
 dead. He is less cynical — to Miriam. 
 The stories of his wild youth have lost 
 some of their attraction for him, and he 
 relates them, even to the Chaplain, very 
 seldom. 
 
 Is it a conversion, as he has suggested 
 with a sneer ? God knows. Is a conver- 
 sion possible at threescore years and ten, 
 with a character formed by immemorial 
 habit and marked with the impression of 
 a life ? God knows also. 
 
 One day My Lord is taken ill. It is a 
 long illness, to which there can be no end 
 but one. He lies in the great state bed- 
 room, in the great state bed which has 
 sheltered three sovereigns. If he be 
 changed in heart, as is surmised, he is 
 scarcely changed in manner at all. The 
 simplicity of Miriam, his gentle nurse, at 
 once amuses and touches him a thousand 
 times a day. He tells her, in a voice 
 somewhat feebler than usual, the royal 
 anecdotes of that royal bedchamber. He 
 
 78
 
 My Lord 
 
 likes to watch her absorbed, reverent face 
 as she listens, for Miriam is loyalist to the 
 core, as a good woman should be, and has 
 the Divine Right of Kings written indeli- 
 bly on her simple heart. 
 
 " But they were human too — some of 
 them," finishes My Lord with a sort of 
 chuckle, and turning on his pillow to look 
 at his listener. 
 
 She sits by his side the greater part of 
 the day. She brings her prayer-book and 
 a volume of sermons given to her on her 
 marriage. My Lord listens with an exem- 
 plary patience to the long-winded wordi- 
 ness of the Georgian divine. He thinks, 
 by a certain stoplessness in the reader's 
 method, that she does not always grasp 
 the somewhat obscure meaning. He is 
 sure by her sweet voice and tender face 
 that she is wholly edified nevertheless. 
 Sometimes during the readings she puts 
 one of the babies on the foot of the pa- 
 tient's bed, that he may have the inestim- 
 able privilege of looking at it when he 
 feels inclined. 
 
 " See us, Ruther," says My Lord when 
 
 79
 
 My Lord 
 
 the Chaplain finds them thus one day. 
 " After my way of living, doesn't this 
 strike you as a damned odd way of 
 dying ? " 
 
 On Sunday Miriam reads the Order for 
 Morning Prayer with My Lord stumbling 
 through the responses. The situation 
 strikes him as ludicrous at first; but Mir- 
 iam is very sweet and grave and good. 
 He hears the rhythm of her voice in the 
 tender majesty of the old prayers as one 
 hears sweet singing in a dream. Miriam 
 is infinitely conscientious, and reads them 
 every one. And when the Chaplain points 
 out to her that, in consideration of the 
 patient's weakness, she might omit to 
 pray for the Parliament, My Lord from 
 his bed says, " No, no. Dammy, they 
 need it," and begs that Miriam may be 
 left to her own devices. 
 
 My Lord grows gradually weaker as the 
 summer advances. Before the flowers have 
 faded and the leaves fallen he is too weak 
 to talk at all. He sleeps a great deal. 
 When he is awake his eyes follow Miriam, 
 and when she is more divinely simple than 
 
 So
 
 My Lord 
 
 usual his lips wear a smile. It is appar- 
 ent that when she leaves him he is un- 
 easy. Her simplicity is worth at such a 
 time all the wit and sprightliness in the 
 world. 
 
 Before the end com.es, in a sultry night, 
 My Lord talks ramblingly, with a new 
 strength, of his wild youth, of the com- 
 panions long dead, who belonged with 
 himself to a society most brilliant, cor- 
 rupt, and artificial. He starts once from 
 his pillow with an oath. By his bedside 
 Miriam is kneeling bewildered, a white 
 fieure in the half-darkness. 
 
 He repeats the snatch of a wild song in 
 his dying voice, and cries, with an exceed- 
 ing bitter cry, the name of the son who 
 disgraced it. 
 
 But, before he dies, for one quiet mo- 
 ment his reason comes back to him. And 
 the last impression on the mind of My 
 Lord, who has been a sinner, is of Miriam 
 with clear uplifted face and folded hands. 
 
 8i
 
 'Melia
 
 'Meli 
 
 la 
 
 " L'esprit est toujours la dupe du coeur." 
 
 'Melia is of the gentility, genteel. 
 'Melia's Pa — she speaks of him fondly by 
 this abbreviation — is a dreadfully success- 
 ful, fat, pompous, aggressive, well-to-do 
 tradesman. 'Melia's Ma is a stout lady 
 bursting apoplectically out of a satin 
 dress. 'Melia's sisters are crushingly su- 
 perior persons in black silk at Peter Rob- 
 inson's. And 'Melia's brothers are the 
 class of young men who shout witticisms 
 to each other from bicycles on the Brigh- 
 ton road on half-holidays. 
 
 'Melia is perhaps two-and-thirty. She 
 has a face very refined and delicate, a 
 taste which leads her into pronounced 
 fashions and pearls in the morning, and 
 a large and terrible fringe, which she calls 
 her " Princess M'y," and wears with per- 
 
 85
 
 'Melia 
 
 feet modesty, gentleness, and simplicity. 
 'Melia is, it is to be feared, a simple per- 
 son in many ways. At the chic school at 
 which her Pa placed her at great expense 
 (mentioning the exact sum it cost him 
 every day at dinner), 'Melia found herself 
 unable to take in any of the polite, super- 
 ficial, and wholly unsuitable accomplish- 
 ments which the other young ladies may 
 be described as having lapped up thirstily. 
 At the present time, when the literary 
 Julia from Peter Robinson's, reading the 
 last feminine and fictional treatise on the 
 immorality of man, with her feet on the 
 sofa, says, " Lor, 'Melia, you are a cure! 
 and after all Pa spent on your learning, 
 never so much as to take up a book — 
 well, I'm sure," 'Melia shows by the flush 
 in her pale face that she is sensible of the 
 justice of the accusation. 
 
 But if her literature never goes beyond 
 the careful study of a penny fashion 
 paper — and indeed it does not — she has 
 some little commercial shrewdness to 
 take its place. 'Melia is never to be 
 cheated. She is never taken in by the 
 
 86
 
 'Melia 
 
 blandishments of shop-walkers when she 
 goes shopping in the fashionable region 
 which she speaks of as Up West, or 
 crushed by the scorn of the stylish person 
 behind the counter, " Through Pa hav- 
 ing been in the linen drapery himself," 
 says 'Melia with perfect simplicity, and 
 meaning no aspersion upon the parental 
 character, " I know what tricks they're 
 up to." Which tricks she repudiates 
 with a flush of excitement and resolution 
 upon her delicate face. It is fancied, 
 indeed, that 'Melia's own integrity is of 
 that kind which would cheat an enemy to 
 serve a friend with perfect straightfor- 
 wardness and a conscience as untroubled 
 as a baby's sleep. 
 
 At home it is to be feared that she is 
 not nearly so beloved as loving. She 
 can't, in fact, read like Julia, and can 
 only sit with eyes full of a dumb sort of 
 wistfulness and a very tender and longing 
 admiration when Clara dashes out one of 
 her four marches on the cottage piano in 
 the evenings, leaving that polite and 
 elderly instrument (which has been 
 
 S7
 
 'Melia 
 
 bought second-hand from a quietly dec- 
 orous spinster in the country) quite 
 shocked and astonished. Beyond an 
 aptitude for trimming hats, which is a 
 good deal trespassed on by her female 
 relatives, 'Melia has indeed no accom- 
 plishments at all, unless one counts such 
 very old-fashioned ones as kindness and 
 love. 'Melia is devoted to her family. 
 If she is indeed superior to them in re- 
 finement of heart as she is in refinement 
 of feature, her devotion to her Ma, who 
 is a florid and breathless person, is not in 
 the least disturbed by that lady's com- 
 fortable earthiness, or by seeing her drink 
 stout in a shay outside a public-house on 
 Bank Holiday. While, if 'Melia is her- 
 self vulgar, as persons seeing her in a 
 flower of a bonnet always slightly on one 
 side, her somewhat disordered Princess 
 M'y, and a style of clothing which she 
 fondly fancies to be the style Up West, 
 have supposed, she at least escapes the 
 supreme vulgarity of being ashamed of 
 vulgar relations. 
 
 As for her Pa, 'Melia speaks of him 
 
 88
 
 'Melia 
 
 rather regretfully, but with no kind of 
 malice, as rather harsh. The tradesman, 
 whose god is prosperity, can't, indeed, 
 forgive 'Melia her inability to get on in 
 life, and a simplicity and unselfishness 
 which would be enough to ruin any one's 
 worldly progress. " But, lor!" says 'Melia, 
 cominpr in rather flushed and with marks 
 of recent tears on her face to take tea 
 with a friend, after a battle royal with 
 her parent, " all Pas have their little 
 whims, and us gals have to humor them." 
 She forgives Pa, whose little whims are, 
 it is to be feared, only too frequent, with 
 a forgiveness which is as complete as a 
 child's. She forgives, if she perceives 
 (which she probably does not) that there 
 is need for forgiveness, the maternal 
 anxiety to marry her off to any one as 
 soon as possible, and the maternal re- 
 sentment against a nature which is full of 
 those good things that lead to no Avorldly 
 advancement. She is patient — how pa- 
 tient Heaven knows! — with Julia and 
 Clara, who are dreadfully superior and 
 successful. She fits their dresses with 
 
 89
 
 'Melia 
 
 inimitable good-temper and her mouth 
 full of pins. She thinks that their florid 
 complexions and show-room figures are 
 very beautiful indeed. She is proud of 
 their good position, and, in some lonely, 
 far-off, indefinable manner, of their pos- 
 session of the young men who walk out 
 with them on Sundays. She does not 
 indeed wish for a suitor of her own. Has 
 a self-respect which repudiates with a 
 very fine dignity the advances of the 
 young men in Pa's shop — Pa having now 
 gone, in his daughter's phrase, into the 
 crockery. 'Melia, indeed, directly at- 
 tacked on the point, relegates her own 
 marriage to some distant period when 
 she will, she says, with entire good faith 
 and simplicity, look about among the 
 widowers. 
 
 In the meantime the great love of her 
 heart goes out to her brother. Alfred, 
 whom Amelia calls " H'alf" by way of 
 endearing diminutive, is, it must be con- 
 fessed, a depressing young man to look 
 at, with a very mournful complexion. As 
 he divides his time between a stuffy shop 
 
 90
 
 'Melia 
 
 and a recumbent position on a bicycle, 
 this unhealthiness is not surprising. It 
 does not, at least, take from the quantity 
 or the quality of 'Melia's affection. She 
 waits upon H'alf when he comes home in 
 the evening. She talks about him to her 
 friends with a quaint pride which is 
 touching, though it possibly also strikes 
 them in the light of a bore. He is good 
 enough to allow her to mend his socks, 
 and look at him over them in the even- 
 ing in the parlor with eyes very fond and 
 kind. And when H'alf is taken ill — not 
 very ill at first — 'Melia at once constitutes 
 herself his nurse. 
 
 The illness begins about the time of the 
 family's annual trip to Great Yarmouth. 
 'Melia has always been told that she en- 
 joys these holidays, and believes it. Her 
 faith even carries her so far as to make 
 her think that she enjoys the sea journey 
 which begins them. She has been wont 
 on such occasions to sit on deck with 
 her complexion varying from green to 
 gray, her fringe very much out of curl, 
 her stylish bonnet tilted dejectedly over 
 
 91
 
 'Melia 
 
 one ear, and her eyes full of patience and 
 apology, while Pa, who is dreadfully blus- 
 terous and rather qualmish in temper, 
 abuses her as, " You're a nice one, you 
 are, to bring out and give pleasure to. 
 This is a pretty return, this is, for me 
 and Ma having took your ticket, and spent 
 no end to let you travel saloon and gen- 
 teel. This is gratitood after all the 
 money as has been spent on you, this is " 
 — and to apologize very humbly indeed 
 for the base thanklessness of a nature 
 which cannot duly appreciate even the 
 Yarmouth boat. On this present occa- 
 sion indeed 'Melia thinks nothing of her- 
 self and everything of Alfred. When 
 they have arrived at their destination she 
 wheels the sofa of the smart lodging they 
 occupy close to the open window, so that 
 H'alf lying there may be cheered by hav- 
 ing mysterious musicians, performing 
 fleas, and a low grade of nigger minstrel 
 as close to him as possible. 
 
 In the morning, brazen and hot, with 
 the keen Yarmouth wind nipping round 
 the corners, when the rest of the family 
 
 92
 
 'Melia 
 
 have started, violently energetic and 
 early, on some distant excursion, it is left 
 to 'Melia to wheel the invalid about in 
 his chair, and bear with the caprice and 
 fractiousness of a failing health. She 
 takes him sometimes on to the sands, 
 black with excursionists, buys him " Tit- 
 Bits " out of a shabby purse, and sits with 
 her back leaning up against his chair 
 while she calculates in a simply eccentric 
 mind, whose want of mathematical fac- 
 ulty has greatly enraged her Pa in the 
 shop, the precise amount of benefit each 
 breeze from the sea is likely to convey 
 to her invalid. When H'alf is recom- 
 mended to be on the sea, and not merely 
 by it, it is 'Melia who takes him what she 
 fatally miscalls a "Shilling Pleasure" 
 with a sublime self-sacrifice; and when 
 H'alf, whom the air seems to revive a 
 little, observes that 'Melia don't seem par- 
 tial to the motion, 'Melia, fanning herself 
 faintly with a pocket handkerchief, re- 
 plies, " Oh, it don't matter, H'alf. It's 
 good for the system," and even attempts 
 a smile. When the others have returned 
 
 93
 
 'Melia 
 
 from their excursion she sHps out some- 
 times, with the chic bonnet blowing about 
 on her head in a manner which Clara, 
 who is exquisitely neat and selfish, says 
 is scarcely respectable, and buys H'alf a 
 relish to his tea in the shape of a crab or 
 winkles, which seem calculated to put an 
 end to his life immediately. 
 
 He does indeed get worse as the days 
 go on, and as he gets worse clings more 
 and more to 'Melia, who has been so 
 vague and irresponsible all her life that 
 only the greatness of the need and of her 
 devotion could make her different now. 
 The Doctor is himself shocked, first of 
 all, at the appearance of this nurse, with 
 her simple, flighty manner, her untidy 
 hair, and a style of dress which includes 
 aluminium lockets at nine o'clock in the 
 morning; but he finds, pretty soon, that 
 'Melia is worth many Claras and Julias, 
 and has, under that veneer of eccentric 
 gentility, a heart most faithful and tender. 
 
 She nurses her patient at least with a 
 devotion which has no fault but excess. 
 She is with him all day, and almost all 
 
 94
 
 'Melia 
 
 night. When he wakes, as he is accus- 
 tomed to do, in the early dawn, after a 
 brief and troubled sleep, he finds her 
 standing by his bedside removing curling 
 pins from her Princess M'y, and looking 
 down at him with pitiful eyes. When he 
 apologizes for asking her to shake his pil- 
 lows for perhaps the fiftieth time in an 
 hour she answers as usual, " Lor, H'alf ! 
 it don't matter," with her vague and 
 cheerful smile. She tries to obey the 
 Doctor's mandate, and change the cur- 
 rent of the patient's ideas by describing 
 to him the select fashions that Julia and 
 Clara have met on the pier, while she 
 refrains, with a tact which is genius — or 
 love — from conveying to him the least 
 hint that she misses the sight of these 
 Hories herself. She does indeed run out 
 occasionally, once to say to a recreant 
 chemist, with her business instincts roused 
 and her delicate face rather flushed and 
 nervous, " None of your stale drugs for 
 us, young man ;" while, another time, 
 she runs the length of the parade, with 
 her bonnet as usual half off, breathlessly, 
 
 95
 
 'Melia 
 
 to bribe a Mysterious Musician to take 
 up his place for half an hour daily before 
 H'alf's^ windows, and winks so enor- 
 mously at this artist when he arrives on 
 the scene of action, as a signal to him to 
 preserve the dark secret between them, 
 that he not unnaturally supposes her to 
 be mad. She sleeps — and says, eagerly, 
 and nervous lest Ma should take her post 
 from her, that she sleeps soundly — in a 
 chair by the patient's bed. Yet there is 
 never a whisper of her name from the 
 feeble lips that she cannot hear; and she 
 has known, for many weeks at least, no 
 sleep so profound that the touch of a weak 
 hand cannot rouse her. She is, indeed, 
 at every hour, quite willing, loving, pa- 
 tient, and eccentric. She repudiates 
 help as she repudiates the idea that her 
 own health will not stand the strain upon 
 it. And a great color comes into her 
 face when Clara suggests that H'alf must 
 be getting pretty tired of 'Melia, and 
 would like to see more of herself or Julia 
 for a change. 
 
 To her sisters the sick man is a brother 
 
 96
 
 'Melia 
 
 — and one of many brothers. To 'Melia 
 he is the only creature out of all the 
 lonely world to whom she is necessary; 
 the first and only one who has made great 
 claim on her time, her attention, and her 
 affection ; the only one who is in some 
 sense dependent upon her and, as it were, 
 at her mercy. So that it may be imagined 
 how she loves him. 
 
 Towards the end she never leaves him. 
 She is glad — unconsciously, perhaps — 
 that the nursing is painful and repulsive. 
 If it were easy she would have no way of 
 showing her affection. Her simple and 
 devoted mind takes no account, until very 
 nearly the end, of her own pain and weari- 
 ness of body. And then, compelled for 
 H'alf's sake to heed it, she finishes, in a 
 tumbler, the remains of H'alf's discarded 
 medicines, with a simple satisfaction and 
 an unquestioning faith which seems to 
 have its reward. 
 
 For it is not until the hand which she 
 has held all night in her living one is cold 
 and dead that the old Doctor, coming into 
 the room very early in the morning, finds 
 
 7 97
 
 'Melia 
 
 her asleep — in the deep sleep of great 
 exhaustion — at her post. 
 
 Many years later, when H'alf, whose 
 living and dying have been but an episode 
 in their lives, has been more or less for- 
 gotten by his elder sisters, 'Melia, who 
 is still vague and simple, and has not yet 
 found, or perhaps even looked for, the 
 widower of her promise, comes to stay 
 with Clara, and is discovered by that cor- 
 rect lady, one Sunday night, crying softly 
 to herself, with her fhghty head resting, 
 in a very ungenteel manner, upon her 
 arms on the kitchen table. 
 
 " Lor! 'Melia," says Clara, " what a 
 turn you give me ! Is anybody dead ? " 
 
 " No one — newer — than H'alf," says 
 'Melia, rather brokenly, and with a sort 
 of apology in her voice. " But it do 
 seem as he were the only one I ever come 
 by-;;-who couldn't get on without me." 
 
 Which is the single excuse that can be 
 made for such a foolishness and fidelity. 
 
 98
 
 The Laborer
 
 The Laborer 
 
 " Ce qu'on gagne en gloire on le perd en amour." 
 
 John lives all his life in a remote Nor- 
 folk village. He belongs to a generation 
 that has almost passed away. When he 
 is a boy the Battle of Waterloo has still 
 to be fought and the cheap newspaper to 
 be born. 
 
 John is just a little thick and agricul- 
 tural. He has no wit at all, but perhaps 
 a very little latent wisdom. He can, of 
 course, neither read nor write. In his 
 time such accomplishments are regarded 
 as entirely superfluous for the class to 
 which he belongs. His knowledge of 
 politics, therefore, does not go beyond a 
 doggerel and patriotic ballad about Bon- 
 aparty which he has picked up in the vil- 
 lage alehouse. His interest as a young 
 man in the fate of the empire cannot be 
 
 lOI
 
 The Laborer 
 
 said to be particularly keen. He is in- 
 deed at that date entirely engrossed in 
 mangel-wurzels and love, 
 
 John has to get up very early in the 
 morning to go about his business. He 
 earns, by a great deal of hard work, a 
 very modest wage. He puts by some of 
 it — for a purpose. Every now and then 
 he falls into iniquity, and takes a little 
 too much beer. But upon the whole he 
 has a good deal of self-respect, and even 
 a certain sort of independence and dig- 
 nity. When the squire or the parson stops 
 to have a talk with him he pulls at a red- 
 dish forelock at very frequent intervals, 
 to express a most honest respect. John 
 is always in church on Sunday. He sings 
 the familiar hymns which he learned by 
 heart in childhood in a voice wholly fer- 
 vent and unmusical. During the sermon 
 he looks at Sally, whom he is going to 
 marry some day, and who sits very pretty 
 and conscious under her shady hat. 
 
 John has no club to go to in the winter 
 evenings. He dozes comfortably in his 
 own kitchen instead. There is no Coal 
 
 I02
 
 The Laborer 
 
 Fund, or Savings Bank, or Working Men's 
 Institute provided for his benefit. He is 
 not hemmed in by charities like his 
 grandson of to-day. There is no compe- 
 tition to provide for John Hving and to 
 pay his funeral expenses when dead. Per- 
 haps John is not the worse man because 
 he is wholly self-dependent. When in- 
 deed for the first and only time in his 
 stalwart life he falls ill, the parson brings 
 him a couple of bottles of port, and the 
 squire's daughter, who is pretty and 
 pious, produces quivering jellies from a 
 covered basket. The parson looks in 
 upon John pretty often. He tells a good 
 story or two to appeal to the patient's 
 somewhat stolid risible faculties, and 
 says rather clumsily, as he leaves him, 
 " Don't let the dust grow on your Bible, 
 John." And John, gratefully remem- 
 bering the port, says, " Nay, nay, sir." 
 And when the squire's daughter comes 
 next day she reads him the Sermon on 
 the Mount. 
 
 As a lover John is somewhat clumsy 
 and exceedingly faithful. He has lived 
 
 103
 
 The Laborer 
 
 next door to Sally all her life, and re- 
 members her when she was quite a little 
 girl. Sally is very modest and blushing, 
 with a round little waist and bloominrr 
 
 o 
 
 country cheeks. When they are married 
 it pleases John very much, as he smokes 
 his pipe stolidly in front of the fire in 
 the evening, to see Sally sitting on a foot- 
 stool trimming her Sunday hat and re- 
 garding the blue ribbons, with her pretty 
 head first on this side and then on that. 
 
 John does not pay Sally any compli- 
 ments. His speech is quite uncouth and 
 to the point. Many of his expressions 
 are, it is to be feared, what would now 
 be considered coarse. But if he uses 
 words and says openly things which 
 would cause polite persons to blush, 
 John's heart has many of those finer in- 
 stincts which are invidiously called the 
 instincts of a gentleman. 
 
 John has the greatest respect for Sally. 
 During their courtship he satisfies his 
 pugilistic tendencies with much zest upon 
 a rejected suitor of Sally's who ventures 
 to speak of her disrespectfully. He has 
 
 104
 
 The Laborer 
 
 a certain reverence, moreover, in his 
 affection for Sally's babies, and is espe- 
 cially attached to the first, who is a little 
 girl. John counsels, with a certain heavy 
 paternal wisdom, that the baby be soon 
 " took to the parson." 
 
 " It keeps 'em healthy," says John. 
 And Sally being also imbued with this 
 simple superstition, the baby is " took 
 to the parson " and christened by a script- 
 ural name as soon as may be. 
 
 John's life is not troubled with event- 
 fulness. Once, indeed, a bad time comes. 
 John is out of work and Sally and the 
 children fall ill. The children, with 
 John's tender and clumsy help, scramble 
 somehow into convalescence; but Sally 
 is very bad indeed. John sits by her bed- 
 side hour after hour. He is very stupid 
 and loving. He does not know at all 
 what to do except hold her hand, and 
 now and then straighten her pillows. 
 
 " You are not a-dying, Sally, are you ?" 
 he says desperately. And Sally, opening 
 her eyes and seeing his haggard face, 
 says, " No, John — don't worrit for me." 
 
 105
 
 The Laborer 
 
 And John sits very quietly until the 
 night covers them both. 
 
 Once John goes to Norwich, He re- 
 gards this as a very great event indeed. 
 He dates all time from this visit. " Old 
 parson died," he says, " a matter o' six 
 years after I see'd Norwich." The 
 coming of the new parson is a great event 
 also. The marriage of the squire's 
 daughter a momentous occasion, of which 
 not a single detail is ever forgotten. 
 
 " That was the time as you had your 
 new gownd," says John. And Sally 
 smiles a little as she remembers the 
 "gownd" fresh and charming. By this 
 time her youthful prettiness has faded a 
 little. But though her figure is no longer 
 delicate or her complexion blooming, John 
 is still convinced in his faithful conserva- 
 tism that Sally is the most beautiful crea- 
 ture in the world. He loves her just as 
 he loved her when they were first mar- 
 ried. They are not, indeed, sentimental. 
 With ten shillings a week and five chil- 
 dren there is no time for sentimentality. 
 But that there is no time for faithful- 
 
 io6
 
 The Laborer 
 
 ness, goodness, and affection — who shall 
 say ? 
 
 In due time the children grow up and 
 work for themselves. John is still a 
 laborer, having been unable out of ten 
 shillings a week to lay by a competence 
 for his old age. But either he does not 
 think of the future at all or else he has, 
 in his stolid way, a never-spoken trust in 
 a Providence who has been always kind. 
 And one day Sally dies, and the light of 
 his simple life goes out for ever. 
 
 To-day in a quaint little almshouse in 
 that benighted Norfolk village there lives 
 a very old man. He is so old that the 
 present is all dim and obscure to him, and 
 only the past stands out clearly. He 
 sits very contentedly in his garden in the 
 summer sunshine and dozes a great deal. 
 He hears in a pleasant indistinctness the 
 murmuring of the bees and the songs of 
 the birds. The voices of the people who 
 come to see him sound, too, a great way 
 off, and the meaning of what they ask him 
 takes a long time to reach his old brain. 
 
 " He ought to be intensely interesting, 
 
 107
 
 The Laborer 
 
 you know," says Antiquaria, full of intel- 
 ligence. But he is not. 
 
 " What do you remember to have heard 
 of Waterloo ? " asks Antiquaria at the top 
 of her voice. 
 
 Nothing, at first. Then he murmurs 
 very indistinctly a line or two of the 
 old alehouse ballad about Bonaparty. 
 
 Parson said 'twas Waterloo day as I 
 bought the ring for Sally," he adds more 
 clearly. 
 
 " Wasn't there great excitement in the 
 village about the battle ?" persists Anti- 
 quaria. 
 
 And he looks at her with his old eyes 
 and says, " I dunno. 'Twas the day I 
 bought Sally the ring." 
 
 That is all. If he had ever taken any 
 interest in the fate of Europe, which he 
 did not, he would have forgotten it. And 
 now only remembers a crisis in the his- 
 tory of nations as the day he bought Sally 
 the ring. 
 
 As the years pass a "thousand changes 
 take place round him, and he does not 
 perceive them. A modern and spiritual 
 
 io8
 
 The Laborer 
 
 ecclesiastic has long replaced the old par- 
 sons with their muscular Christianity, 
 their good stories, and their port wine. 
 The place in church where Sally sang 
 Tate and Brady devoutly beneath the de- 
 murest coal-scuttle bonnet is occupied by 
 correct little boys with neat surplices and 
 Gregorian chants. 
 
 The village politicians have long come 
 to the comforting and fashionable conclu- 
 sion that whatever is, is wrong, and that, 
 as a preliminary to any sort of true justice 
 and equality, all existing institutions 
 must be razed to the ground. 
 
 And John, who used to be embarrassed 
 to foolishness by the honor of a chat with 
 the squire, and was not even aware that 
 he was miserable, downtrodden, and op- 
 pressed, blinks his old eyes pleasantly in 
 the sunshine and lives in his recollections. 
 He is capable at last of no interest at all 
 except in that fair, far past which he spent 
 with Sally. The present is a vague and 
 pleasantly confusing dream. The people 
 round him are only shadows. He has to 
 be fed and tended like an infant. When 
 
 log
 
 The Laborer 
 
 the vicar reads to him a pious work in a 
 shout he responds " A-mon, A-mon," 
 just as the clerk responded in church in 
 his youth. But of the substance of that 
 pious work he comprehends nothing at 
 all. His simple mind and his tired body- 
 are alike at rest. 
 
 One summer the woman who takes care 
 of him vociferates loudly in his ear that 
 she has had a letter to say his grand- 
 daughter is coming to see him. In spite 
 of Mrs. Jones's shouts, her words convey 
 very little to the poor, simple old mind. 
 She shakes John a little, not unkindly, 
 for in a perfectly practical way she is fond 
 of him, but with the idea, perhaps, of 
 shaking her meaning into his brain. And 
 he comprehends at last that he is to have 
 a visitor. All his visitors like to hear the 
 lines about Bonaparty, and he murmurs 
 them over to himself in his tottering voice 
 so as to be in readiness. On the auspi- 
 cious day he has his chair wheeled as 
 usual into the little garden. He dozes 
 there, also as usual. And wakes up sud- 
 denly, and there before him — with her 
 
 no
 
 The Laborer 
 
 blooming country face and the sunshine 
 on her hair and the bonnet with blue rib- 
 bons hanging from her arm — is Sally at 
 one-and-twenty. 
 
 " Why, it's Sally! " says the old voice 
 with a piping childish cry of joy. " It 
 seems a sight of time you've left me 
 alone. Have you been minding the 
 children, lass ? " 
 
 Perhaps she has — from Heaven. The 
 grand-daughter, who has never seen Sally, 
 but has withal some of Sally's tenderness 
 in her heart, does not undeceive him. She 
 kneels by his side and puts her cheek 
 warm and young against his wrinkled 
 face. And he babbles to her — as Sally — 
 with a complete childish delight. He re- 
 calls a hundred incidents of his simple life. 
 He strokes her hair with his feeble fingers. 
 And when Mrs. Jones comes out to invite 
 the visitor to take " a bite of something " 
 before she leaves, with one old hand over 
 the girl's John is asleep as tranquilly as 
 his child may have slept on Sally's breast 
 sixty years ago. 
 
 Ill
 
 The Laborer 
 
 " His mind must be in a shocking state 
 of muddle, you know," says Antiquaria, 
 with her intellectual nose in the air when 
 she hears of the episode. " A low sort 
 of existence, altogether, isn't it ? The 
 whole life must have been terribly narrow 
 and material." 
 
 Perhaps, Antiquaria. Very narrow, 
 very honest, and very stupid. Very ten- 
 der towards Sally and the children, very 
 God-fearing, very blundering, human, 
 and simple. A life, as seen by Modern 
 Enlightenment, wholly discouraging. 
 
 But as seen by Heaven — who knows ? 
 
 112
 
 Intellecta
 
 Intellecta 
 
 " Les femmes courent risque d'etre extremes en tout." 
 
 The intellect itself is not objectionable. 
 In fact, intellect is an excellent thing. It 
 is a better thing than genius for practical 
 domestic purposes. For genius is apt to 
 be a nuisance. It always gets up late, 
 and is not particular about its bath. It 
 is not at all practical, and the tradesmen 
 fail to understand it. No, the fault 
 seems to lie in the use that Intellecta 
 makes of her mind — not in the mind 
 itself. 
 
 Who has not heard of the Scotchman 
 who introduced his native thistle into 
 some colony where the soil was rich and 
 the rainfall, it is to be presumed, bounti- 
 ful ? Nothing but thistle grows in that 
 land now, and the Scotchman has left. 
 Some imprudent women have been intro- 
 
 115
 
 Intellecta 
 
 ducing intellect and other things into the 
 feminine mind, and, like the thistle, they 
 are beginning to spread. 
 
 Intellecta makes her first appearance at 
 a certain town on the Cam where young 
 women have most distinctly and unblush- 
 ingly followed young men, Intellecta 
 attends lectures which are not intended 
 for her delicate ears, and the men are 
 forced to blush, merely because Intellecta 
 is unmoved. 
 
 She drags her hair back from a brow 
 which would look better beneath a foolish 
 feminine fringe, and while the lecturer 
 lectures she leans that brow upon a large, 
 firm hand. She is preternaturally serious, 
 and there is a certain harassed go-ahead 
 look in her eyes before which even a 
 junior dean may quail. The lecturer is 
 an elderly person of the unabashed type. 
 " And now, gentlemen," he says from 
 time to time, which is rude, because it 
 ignores Intellecta. She, however, does 
 not appear to notice. She leans the 
 rounded pensive brow on her hand and 
 simply laps up knowledge. One can see 
 
 n6
 
 Intellecta 
 
 it bulging the pensive brow. The dragged 
 back hair gives her head a distended, un- 
 comfortable look, as if it is suffering from 
 the effects of mental indigestion. 
 
 Intellecta's father is a well-known dis- 
 senting minister in a large manufacturing 
 town. He knows the value of learning 
 on the principle that the pauper must 
 needs know the value of money, and 
 Intellecta is sent to a high school. She 
 graduates, or whatever they do at high 
 schools, and obtains a scholarship. There 
 is no small rejoicing in a chaste, dissent- 
 ing way; and very few people know that 
 only three girls are entered for the schol- 
 arship. One retires with measles; the 
 second, Intellecta's sole rival, bursts into 
 hysterical tears at the sight of the Alge- 
 bra paper, and Intellecta simply canters 
 
 in. 
 
 What Intellecta does not know in the 
 way of knowledge is not worth knowing 
 after she takes that scholarship. But 
 some say that knowledge may come while 
 wisdom lingers. 
 
 From the very first Intellecta's only 
 
 "7
 
 Intellecta 
 
 joy is an examination paper. She studies 
 these in the privacy of her apartment. 
 She walks down Petty Cury with bun- 
 dles of them under her arm. All her 
 learning is acquired from a competitive 
 point of view. She does not want to be 
 learned ; she desires to pass examinations. 
 Her knowledge is a near approach to cun- 
 ning. Moreover, she passes her examina- 
 tions. She exceeds her father's fondest 
 dreams. She dashes the undergraduates' 
 hopes to the ground. 
 
 She continues to attend lectures, sur- 
 rounded now by a guardian atmosphere 
 of learning. She despises " boys" more 
 than ever. She sees through them, and 
 knows that they are only working because 
 they are afraid of their fathers, or to earn 
 a living in the future. Whereas, she is 
 working for something higher and nobler 
 — to wit, the emancipation of woman — 
 the march of intellect. All the while her 
 hair recedes farther and farther back from 
 her brow, as if the march of intellect en- 
 tails pushing through tight places. 
 
 " We are progressing," she is heard to 
 
 ii8
 
 Intellecta 
 
 say in a deep masculine voice to a lady 
 with short gray hair in King's Cross Sta- 
 tion. Short gray hair is, by the way, 
 sometimes conducive to cold shivers 
 down the Philistine back. " We are pro- 
 gressing. We are getting our feet upon 
 the ladder." 
 
 And good serviceable understandings 
 they are, with square toes. That is the 
 last of her, so far as Cambridge is con- 
 cerned. From this time her walk is upon 
 the broader stage of life. 
 
 She is next seen at an intellectual gath- 
 ering in a picture gallery, where she 
 comes suddenly round a corner upon two 
 young people, who are not ■ intellectual, 
 discussing ices and other pleasant things 
 away from the busy hum of debate. 
 
 Intellecta sniffs. Which is rather to 
 her credit, as a remnant of a vanishing 
 femininity. The question this evening is 
 one of political economy. How, in fact, 
 are a number of ladies and gentlemen as- 
 sembled in a picture-gallery in Piccadilly 
 to reduce the population of China ? In- 
 tellecta is great. She proves mathematic- 
 
 119
 
 Intellecta 
 
 ally that things are really coming to a 
 pretty pass. If China is allowed to go on 
 in this reckless way some apocryphal sup- 
 ply will exceed a fictitious demand. At 
 this point an old gentleman wakes up and 
 says, " Hear, hear!" And immediately 
 afterwards, "Don't, Maria!" which in- 
 duces one to believe that he has been 
 brought to see the error of his ways by 
 the pinch marital. 
 
 Intellecta speaks for twenty-five min- 
 utes in a deep, emotional voice, and when 
 she finishes there is in the atmosphere a 
 singular feeling of being no farther on. 
 She has spoken for twenty-five minutes, 
 and she has said nothing. 
 
 Others speak with a similar result. 
 They are apparently friends of Intellecta's 
 — persons who agree to be tolerant of 
 each other's voices, and on certain even- 
 ings they invite the benighted to come 
 and assimilate knowledge. They soon re- 
 duce the population of China by carrying 
 a few motions in that 'picture-gallery in 
 Piccadilly. And there are people who 
 pretend that it is useless to educate 
 
 I20
 
 Intellecta 
 
 women even in face of such grand results 
 as this ! 
 
 " Of course," Intellecta is heard to say 
 at a dinner-table, " of course Dr. Kudos 
 may be a great man. I do not say that 
 he is not. I went in to dinner with him 
 the other evening; I tried him on several 
 subjects, a-nd I cannot say that he had 
 much that was new to tell me on any of 
 them." 
 
 That is the sort of person she is. She 
 is fearless and open. She would question 
 the accuracy of Gibbon if that reverend 
 historian was not beyond her reach. The 
 grasp of her mind is simply enormous. 
 She will take up, say, political economy, 
 study it for a couple of months, and quite 
 master it. She is then ready, nay, anx- 
 ious, to lay down the law upon matters 
 politico-economical in a mixed assembly. 
 If she is in the room, her deep emotional 
 voice may generally be heard laying 
 down the law upon some point or other. 
 
 Languages she masters eii passant. 
 She learns French thoroughly in five 
 weeks in order to read a good translation 
 
 121
 
 Intellecta 
 
 of one of Tolstoi's novels. She has not 
 time for Russian, she says. She has not 
 the time, that is all. Having acquired 
 the tongue of the lightsome Gaul, she 
 proceeds one evening to discourse in it to 
 a gentleman who has no English ; and the 
 Frenchman is apparently struck dumb — 
 possibly by her learning. 
 
 Intellecta is now getting on towards 
 middle age, as, alas! are those who sat 
 with her in the lecture-rooms by the Cam. 
 She still has the go-ahead look : there are 
 one or two gray hairs among those dragged 
 back from her forehead ; and a keen ob- 
 server — one who has known her all along 
 — may detect in her spectacled eyes a 
 subtle dissatisfaction. Can it be that Intel- 
 lecta is born before her time ? It would 
 almost seem that the world is not quite 
 ripe for her yet. She is full of learning. 
 She has much to say upon all subjects. 
 She is a great teacher. But why that 
 mystic smile behind the spectacles of Dr. 
 Kudos ? 
 
 " She only repeats," he says gently, 
 " She only teaches what she has been 
 
 122
 
 Intellecta 
 
 taught. She is nothing but a talking 
 book." 
 
 The old gentleman may be right. 
 There may be something in him, though 
 Intellecta cannot find it. For he has 
 seen many men and many things in books 
 and elsewhere. It may be that Intellecta 
 can only teach what she has been taught. 
 And what she has learned at Cambridge 
 Whitechapel does not want to know. 
 That which she has seen at Whitechapel 
 is odoriferous in the nostrils of Cambridge. 
 
 That dissatisfied look haunts those who 
 remember laughing at Intellecta when she 
 attended her first lecture. Some of those 
 men are celebrated now; some are leading 
 lights at the Bar; others are pillars of the 
 Church; the rest are merely obscure and 
 happy, and have quite forgotten to be 
 learned. But Intellecta is where she 
 was. She is still a learned woman, and 
 nothing else. She is still looking for an 
 outlet for all the knowledge that is in her 
 brain, which has never germinated — which 
 she has not been able to turn to account. 
 Intellecta despises women who have 
 
 123
 
 Intellecta 
 
 husbands and babies, and no high aspira- 
 tions. She* despises still more, perhaps, 
 those who dream vaguely of the encum* 
 brances mentioned. But even those 
 whose dreams can never be realized have 
 not the look that Intellecta has in her 
 eyes. 
 
 She is very busy. She addresses meet- 
 ings of factor}^ girls in the Mile End Road, 
 and she will tell you in her earnest tones 
 that she is due in Bradford to-morrow 
 evening, where a great work is being car- 
 ried on. She is always improving her 
 mind during the intervals snatched from 
 the work of telling others to go and do 
 likewise. She still finds time to drop in 
 on a science and master it. The old 
 familiar curse of the lecture-room is still 
 upon her; and she laps up eagerly knowl- 
 edge which the limited male intellect is 
 inclined to think she would be better 
 without. But it is not for the sake of the 
 knowledge that she seeks it. It is the 
 old story of the examination paper over 
 again. 
 
 Her chief aim in life is to forward the 
 
 124
 
 Intellecta 
 
 cause of education. She is one of the 
 prime movers in the great schemes for 
 bringing knowledge to the masses — in- 
 stead of letting the masses come and take 
 it when they have need of it. She may 
 be seen at cheap suburban lectures in an 
 ill-fitting cloth dress, leaning that heavy 
 brow on the large firm hand, drinking in 
 the lecturer's periods. 
 
 She does not go much to church. She 
 complains that the clergy are deficient in 
 intellectual power. There is a mystery 
 overhanging her religious tenets. She 
 has learned too much. It is often so 
 with women. One finds that as soon as 
 they know more than the local curate 
 they begin to look down upon St. Paul, 
 good Bishop Butler, and a few others who 
 may not have been intellectual as the 
 word is understood to-day, but who 
 nevertheless wrote some solid stuff in 
 their time. 
 
 Intellecta is not a tragedy. Not by 
 any means. She would be indignant at 
 the thought. She is naturally of a grave 
 temperament — all great thinkers are. 
 
 12^
 
 Intellecta 
 
 She is devoid of any sense of the ridicu- 
 lous, which is a great blessing — for Intel- 
 lecta. She is profoundly convinced that 
 she is an interesting woman. She feels 
 at the cheap lectures that the local young 
 women of mind nudge each other and 
 ask who she is. She trusts they will pro- 
 fit by her example, and in time they may 
 perhaps acquire her power of concentra- 
 tion — they may, with perseverance, learn 
 to bring their whole mind as she brings 
 hers (a much larger affair) to bear upon 
 the question in hand. She does not know 
 that they are, as a matter of fact, wonder- 
 ing where on earth she bought that hat, 
 and longing for the lecture to be over 
 that they may walk home with a person 
 who is waiting for them outside. 
 
 There is no one waiting for Intellecta 
 outside — not even a cabman. 
 
 Being devoid of humor, she is naturally 
 without knowledge of the pathetic, and 
 therefore does not see herself as others 
 see her. She is probably unaware of that 
 dissatisfied look in her eyes. It is a phy- 
 sical matter, like a wrinkle or a droop of 
 
 126
 
 Intellecta 
 
 the lips. It is the small remnant of the 
 woman quailing before the mind. 
 
 " Knowledge is power," she always 
 says when driven into a corner by some 
 argumentative and mistaken man. 
 
 " Yes — but it is not happiness," Dr. 
 Kudos replies. " And we are placed here 
 to try and be happy." 
 
 " We are making progress," says In- 
 tellecta still. " We are getting our feet 
 upon the ladder." 
 
 Yes, Intellecta ; but whither does that 
 ladder lead ? 
 
 127
 
 The Soldier-Servant
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 " La politesse de I'esprit consiste a penser des choses 
 honnetes et delicates." 
 
 James has been through the Crimea. 
 He has a number of medals, of which, 
 very likely, he is vastly proud, but which 
 he never wears. He has very seldom 
 been heard to give an account of his ex- 
 ploits. But then he is very seldom heard 
 to give an account of anything, being a 
 perfect bulwark of silence, and preferring 
 to contribute nothing towards a conversa- 
 tion except a few grunts. 
 
 Manners, indeed, are not James's 
 strong point. The Crimea may have 
 rubbed them off. Or he may always have 
 despised them. He is now employed 
 as a gardener and handy man on week- 
 days, while on Sundays he blows the 
 organ at a neighboring church with in- 
 domitable perseverance and strength. 
 
 131
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that 
 James knows — or wishes to know — any- 
 thing about matters ecclesiastical. He 
 blows the organ with the air of one who 
 would say, " This seems to me con- 
 founded nonsense. Why can't you say 
 your prayers without all this noise ? Still, 
 you must have your whims, I suppose, 
 and I must humor them." He so far 
 humors the whims of the Parson-in-Chief 
 as to take down for his benefit the Easter 
 texts with which the guileless James has 
 ornamented the church at Christmas. It 
 appears, very likely, to James, that one 
 verse of Scripture does quite as well as 
 another, and is equally true at any season 
 of the year. But he undoes his handi- 
 work with a perfectly good-natured scorn- 
 fulness, and with the best-tempered and 
 impolitest of grins upon his countenance. 
 James, both as gardener and church- 
 man, has the old soldierly virtue of im- 
 plicit obedience developed to an extent 
 for which the ordinary civilian is quite 
 unprepared. When his mistress — a lady 
 of vacillating turn of mind — says, " James, 
 
 132
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 you really must kill that cat," on the spur 
 of an impetuous moment, the cat is in 
 dying agonies five minutes later, and 
 while the mistress is lamenting its decease 
 in the drawing-room she can behold 
 James from the windows mowing the lawn 
 in the calm consciousness of virtue and 
 with an unmoved diligence. 
 
 When the master complains that the 
 whole flower garden contains nothing but 
 pinks — which James has been growing, 
 with much trouble, in serried ranks like 
 an army — by the next morning there is 
 not a single pink left in the garden, and 
 James may be seen quietly pitchforking 
 a bonfire behind the shrubbery. 
 
 James's horticultural instincts incline 
 as a rule towards the useful rather than 
 the beautiful, and he cultivates vast quan- 
 tities of cabbages with perfect steadfast- 
 ness and indifference to the fact that no 
 one wants or eats them. But he has so 
 much of the true gardener nature within 
 him — in his case entirely free and un- 
 trammelled — that when Miss Laura trips 
 into the garden with a smile, a rustic 
 
 133
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 basket, and a pair of scissors, he shouts 
 from the cabbage-bed, " Why don't you 
 leave them 'ere roses alone? " And Laura 
 retires quite abashed into the house. 
 " James's rudeness is really dreadful, 
 Charles," says the mistress. When he is 
 shown the new baby, and asked if it is 
 not a remarkably fine child, he is under- 
 stood to say, with his contemptuous 
 smile, and between grunts, " Pretty fair, 
 pretty fair," and when the mistress points 
 out to him some beautiful drawings in a 
 weekly paper illustrative of the Crimea 
 he gives way to a deeply scornful guffaw. 
 
 It is surmised that James has, on the 
 whole, rather a poor opinion of the 
 weaker sex. He listens to the mistress's 
 This will be best, James, or, perhaps, 
 that, or what do you think of a third 
 (and totally opposite) alternative ? with a 
 good-natured tolerance for a race of be- 
 ings who cannot make up their minds, or 
 have no minds to make up. 
 
 He never flirts with the maids, his dis- 
 134
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 position being infinitely removed from any 
 species of gallantry. Besides, he has a 
 wife at home. The wife — familiarly 'Liza 
 — is a voluble and excited female of 
 shrewish tongue and a particularly ener- 
 getic temper. Fifteen years ago, when 
 she beguiled the unwary James into mat- 
 rimony, she may very likely have been an 
 attractive person in her style. That 
 James could at any time have been at- 
 tractive in his style is scarcely conceiv- 
 able. But very likely his stalwart six 
 feet and his red coat did much better than 
 the honeyed words and flattering phrases 
 of which he can never have had to accuse 
 himself. 
 
 James sits at home in the evenings 
 after his work and tranquilly peruses an 
 exciting manual on Bulbs. As a rule 
 James does not hold much with reading, 
 considering it an unpractical and even 
 feminine employment, and having met in 
 the course of his own experience a num- 
 ber of good men who did particularly well 
 without it. 
 
 But Bulbs are a duty. They may also 
 135
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 be a refuge from 'Liza. So strong is the 
 force of habit that her running accompani- 
 ment of volubiHty does not in the least 
 disturb the placid James at his litera- 
 ture. 
 
 When 'Liza is more than usually ob- 
 jectionable — which happens on an average 
 about once a week — James sends her to 
 Coventry. She abuses him with a tongue 
 which it is to be feared is not a little 
 coarse. But it is conceivable that the 
 army has prepared James for some slight 
 lack of refinement, just as it has incul- 
 cated in him a habit of indomitable self- 
 control. James never abuses 'Liza. He 
 is a rock of patience and silence. He 
 immerses himself deeply in the Bulbs and 
 sits calm and unmoved amid the domestic 
 thunders. 
 
 James has children. Boys, for the most 
 part, to whom he has conscientiously done 
 his duty by a periodical thrashing in the 
 back yard. Albeit James has a heart for 
 these children — a heart . which is even 
 very soft and kind. And there is a rough 
 justice in his treatment of them which 
 
 136
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 they very Hkely prefer to the mother's 
 unreasonable kisses and blows. 
 
 There is one little daughter to whom 
 James's affection goes out with a great 
 strength and devotion. The little daugh- 
 ter has inherited to a marked degree his 
 silent ways and faithful heart. Her 
 mother, with the terrible plain speaking 
 of the poor, has condemned her to her 
 face as an unlikely child, and as ugly as 
 they're made. And Nelly has hidden that 
 poor ugly little face on her father's rough 
 shoulder, and has found in his awkward 
 kindness and homely care for her as happy 
 a child-life as can be. 
 
 She sits on James's knee while he reads 
 Bulbs. He takes her to church with him 
 on Sundays, seats her near him, and ad- 
 dresses encouraging and audible remarks 
 to her in the pauses of his organ-blowing. 
 
 On Bank Holidays and other gala occa- 
 sions the two go country walks together. 
 Neither of them say much, both consider- 
 ing very likely that conversation mars 
 enjoyment, and that they get a great deal 
 too much of it at home. But James has 
 
 137
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 Nellie's small hand in his vast horny palm, 
 and it is to be believed that they under- 
 stand each other perfectly. 
 
 On one memorable occasion they spend 
 a happy day at Margate. The beauties 
 of sands black with excursionists and of 
 a jetty packed to suffocation appeal to 
 both very much indeed. Perhaps upon 
 the principle that one is never so much 
 alone as in a crowd. Or with the idea 
 that this is seeing a fashionable watering- 
 place at the height of its glory and to 
 perfection. Or merely because they are 
 together. 
 
 Nellie is very tired after so long a day. 
 Tired, pale, and shivering, and 'Liza 
 says, " You've done for this child, drat 
 you! " with a great deal of force and en- 
 erg)', and carries Nellie up to bed in a 
 temper. 'Liza, like a great many other 
 people, is always cross when she is anx- 
 ious. And that night James tramps a 
 long six miles for the doctor. There is 
 a cold fear creeping about his heart, the 
 presence of which he is, somehov/, afraid of 
 acknowledging, and he says to the doctor, 
 
 138
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 " Not much wrong — nothing but a cold," 
 several times over, and with deep grunts. 
 It is nothinp- but a cold at first. But it 
 is a cold that turns to a high fever, which 
 raees in Nellie's frail body and beats 
 down her feeble strength. James does 
 not leave her room for a week. His master 
 considers so much devotion very unneces- 
 sary, and intimates to James that his 
 place cannot be kept open for him. And 
 James damns the place quietly, and lets 
 it go — as he would let go Heaven for 
 NelHe. He nurses the child as a woman 
 might. Or, perhaps, as no woman could. 
 He is profoundly ignorant of disease. It 
 is to be feared that he is at times pro- 
 foundly foolish. The child loses strength 
 every day before his eyes. The delirium 
 and fever fight fiercely for her weakly life. 
 It is her father's part to watch a struggle 
 in which he can do nothing, and his 
 rugged face gets haggard and ghostly. 
 Nellie lives — so far as she can be said to 
 be living at all — upon milk and brandy; 
 and one day, the first for a fortnight, 
 James leaves her in charge of 'Liza. He 
 
 139
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 walks over to the doctor. A rapid walk, 
 full of purpose, during which he takes no 
 heed of anything by the way. He im- 
 plores the doctor — a request which is, 
 somehow, pathetically ignorant and ridic- 
 ulous — to let Nellie have something solid 
 to eat. 
 
 " 'Liza could do a beefsteak very ten- 
 der," he says. And there is a look so 
 miserable and desperate in the man's face 
 that the doctor does not even feel like 
 smiling. 
 
 It takes more than medical assurance 
 to convince James that Nellie v/ants any- 
 thing but " strengthening up," He ar- 
 rives at the surgery at all sorts of unseemly 
 hours of the night and day to reiterate 
 his request. He has the dogged persist- 
 ence of a great ignorance and a great love. 
 If there can be any pathos in connection 
 with a beefsteak — which is manifestly im- 
 possible — James puts it there. 
 
 The delirium leaves Nellie one twilight, 
 and the father fancies as he watches her 
 that she knows he is near. He sits by 
 her all through the sultry night. The 
 
 140
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 little house is very quiet indeed, the vol- 
 uble 'Liza having gone to sleep down- 
 stairs. Before dawn Nellie stirs a little, 
 and smiles as if her dreams were happy. 
 Her poor little life goes out quietly with 
 the stars, and her father is roused from 
 a broken sleep by the chill of the wasted 
 hand lying in his own. In a few days 
 'Liza has already begun to derive a good 
 deal of consolation from some deeply 
 woeful mourning and the celebrity and 
 glory imparted to her from being a near 
 relation of a corpse. She enjoys a rel- 
 ish in the shape of a bloater, and a few 
 friends to her tea, with a good deal of 
 zest and any number of easy tears, 
 while James sits alone with Bulbs in 
 front of him, reading it with a dogged 
 sense of duty, and comprehending not 
 a word. 
 
 James cannot derive any consolation 
 from his friends — having only a very few, 
 and at no time, even the happiest, treat- 
 ing them to confidence and conversation. 
 Perhaps his grief is of that kind which 
 
 141
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 words would not at all relieve. Perhaps, 
 after all, it is much like the trouble of 
 more highly cultivated persons, and he 
 fears sympathy as one fears a touch upon 
 an open wound. 
 
 He resumes his work, his master having 
 repented of his hardness, or found that 
 James is necessary to the place, or both. 
 And James, having been at all times a very 
 temperate person, puts by from his week's 
 wages a modest allowance usually de- 
 voted to beer. He makes many other, 
 if no greater, sacrifices for the same ob- 
 ject. 'Liza talks of putting by some- 
 thing, too, towards Nellie's memorial 
 stone. 'Liza says they must do some- 
 thing 'andsome by the child. It is char- 
 acteristic of them both that 'Liza only 
 talks and James only does. 
 
 James is deputed to choose the stone. 
 There are tears in his eyes, perhaps, 
 which obscure his sense of the beautiful — 
 or he has no such sense at all. Only 
 wants Nellie — in 'Liza's phrase — to be 
 done by 'andsome. Wants to show her, 
 
 142
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 by spending a great deal of money that 
 he can very ill afford, how dear she is to 
 him, and how faithfully his heart keeps 
 her memory. Perhaps he thinks — the 
 uneducated have such ideas — that she 
 looks down from some baby heaven and 
 approves an erection which it must be 
 confessed is unmitigatedly hideous and 
 pagan. 'Liza takes a great deal of pride 
 in pointing out the stone to her friends, 
 in mentioning its price, and recalling the 
 expenses of the funeral. But James is 
 pleased only because Nellie will be pleased 
 too. He goes often to contemplate the 
 grave in the churchyard, and derives 
 from its gloomy hideousness a comfort 
 and easing of sorrow which he does not 
 find elsewhere. Very plebeian and uned- 
 ucated? Yes; but it maybe that in its 
 vast heart Providence takes account of 
 griefs so simple, and itself provides for 
 them these simple consolations. 
 
 Years after, when James still gardens 
 grumpily, and despises Miss Laura's 
 essays in horticulture with perfect good- 
 humor and impoliteness, a small circum- 
 
 143
 
 The Soldier-Servant 
 
 stance reveals that Nellie is still unfor- 
 gotten. 
 
 " Drat this place ! " says 'Liza, who is 
 still voluble and emphatic, and she votes 
 that they retire upon their savings and 
 end their days fashionably at Ramsgate. 
 
 James does not give any reason why 
 this plan does not please him. Perhaps 
 he thinks that reason is wasted upon wo- 
 men — particularly upon 'Liza. Perhaps 
 his contempt of words and his habits of 
 silence have deepened with time. And 
 they have always been deep. Or perhaps 
 he has no reason to urge — only a feeling. 
 And any one who thinks that James would 
 ever urge his feelings can know nothing 
 at all about him. 
 
 But when 'Liza can swear it's because 
 he won't leave our Nellie, who has been 
 a corpse these ten years, there is no know- 
 ing that she may not be right. 
 
 144
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 lO
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 " II n'ya guere de femme assez habile pour connaitre 
 tout le mal qu'elle fait." 
 
 At an early age Nora fixes her calm 
 and discerning eye on a wholly eligible 
 young man. The fact that he is com- 
 fortably off and has excellent prospects 
 has, of course, nothing to do with her re- 
 gard for him. Love is, we know, supe- 
 rior to these things. 
 
 But, as Nora often remarks. Love is 
 not superior to the tradespeople, who 
 must always be taken into consideration 
 when one is deciding where to place one's 
 young affections. 
 
 There is no silly sentimentality about 
 Nora. She is preeminently a girl who 
 will make an excellent wife. On the very 
 first evening she is engaged she produces 
 a large note-book and a foot-rule. In 
 
 147
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 the note-book she makes a Hst of the 
 utensils which will be required for her 
 new kitchen, and asks Arthur if he really 
 thinks a cook can possibly require more 
 than six saucepans. 
 
 Arthur says, " Don't bother about 
 saucepans yet a while," and begins to be 
 immensely sentimental. Arthur is sen- 
 timental. There is no doubt about it. 
 Nora raises a face wholly pretty and good- 
 tempered, and gives Arthur a little peck 
 on the cheek, shakes her head at his fool- 
 ishness, with an engaging smile, and re- 
 turns to the saucepans. Afterwards she 
 measures carpets with the foot-rule, and 
 is just a trifle vexed with Arthur that he 
 cannot remember if his drawing-room is 
 12 feet by 8 or 12 feet by 10. 
 
 It is delightful to see a girl so thor- 
 oughly practical and sensible, especially 
 when one remembers what fools most 
 people make of themselves when they are 
 engaged to be married. Nor can it pos- 
 sibly be supposed that Nora is not rather 
 fond of Arthur. It is one's duty to care 
 for the man one is going to marry, and 
 
 14S
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 Nora's sense of duty is immense. Her 
 feelings are always regulated by prin- 
 ciple ; and they never run away with her 
 as Arthur's do, for instance. 
 
 " I cannot say," says Nora to a girl 
 friend, with that delightful candor which 
 is part of her attraction, " that I am de- 
 votedly in love with Arthur. In fact, I 
 should say that if Mr. Morton had pro- 
 posed to me, as I expected he would have 
 done, I should have married him in pref- 
 erence. But Arthur is very good and 
 right-minded, and is always at church on 
 Sunday, which is more than one can say 
 of Mr. Morton. Therefore I am sure 
 everything is ordered for the best." 
 
 The engagement is not a long one, but 
 long enough for Nora, in company with 
 the note-book and Arthur, to choose the 
 furniture in a particularly competent, 
 shrewd, and business-like manner. They 
 meet other couples doing the same thing. 
 These, perhaps, blinded with love, may 
 take painted deal for oak, and the latest 
 imitation for the genuine antique. But 
 not so Nora. 
 
 149
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 Arthur trots behind her, and when he 
 has a chance — and he very seldom has — 
 murmurs soft nothings in her ear. Nora 
 receives them with admirable good 
 temper. 
 
 " But because we are in love," she 
 says, with a very pretty smile, " there is 
 no reason why we should be cheated." 
 
 Which, indeed, is perfectly true. 
 
 Nora is a very pretty bride. Other 
 girls have been seen on the auspicious 
 day flushed with excitement or pale with 
 nervousness, or even with noses reddened 
 from weeping. But Nora is charmingly 
 calm and collected. 
 
 They have a delightful wedding trip, of 
 course. Where is the person who has 
 not had a delightful wedding trip ? Then 
 they settle down, and the cook is comfort- 
 ably established with her six saucepans. 
 Nora is a wife for whom any man ought 
 to be thankful. She feeds Arthur with 
 great judiciousness. She institutes a 
 daily reading of the Scriptures aloud for 
 his benefit. 
 
 " By Jove," says Arthur weakly — he 
 
 150
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 is a weak person — " can't I be trusted to 
 read them to myself ?" 
 
 Nora replies, with her usual clear good 
 sense and a highly principled face, that it 
 is a great deal better he should read them 
 with her, because then she has certainty 
 to go upon, and not trust. Which is 
 eminently more satisfactory. 
 
 She manages him very well. She is 
 fond of him, of course, but does not allow 
 him to be maudlinly sentimental. 
 
 ''Dear Arthur," she says, with her 
 prettiest smile, " of course I like you. It 
 is my duty. But I don't mean to say 
 that if you were to die I should not most 
 likely marry again — that is, of course, 
 after a decent interval." 
 
 " Thank you for the interval," says 
 Arthur. Perhaps he thinks he is sarcas- 
 tic. But Nora very properly takes him 
 quite seriously, and says that if there 
 were no interval people would talk. 
 
 She is full of kindness and deeds of 
 mercy. She discovers a little Mrs. 
 Jones, with an income of one hundred 
 pounds per annum and a great number of 
 
 151
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 children. Nora decides, in her compe- 
 tent and business-Hke way, that the colo- 
 nies are the place for Mrs. Jones. There- 
 fore she proceeds to arrange for the 
 emigration, and makes outfits for the emi- 
 grants. During this time Arthur hardly 
 ever sees her. He would be a selfish 
 beast if he complained. But he is a self- 
 ish beast, and he does complain. 
 
 On which Nora says, " Now, dear, how 
 would you like to have one hundred a 
 year, ten children, and no prospects ? 
 You should consider other people a 
 little." 
 
 And Arthur is duly crushed. 
 
 Mrs. Jones is so overcome with all the 
 kindnesses she receives from Nora that, 
 one day, being an overwrought and emo- 
 tional person, she throws her arms round 
 her benefactress's neck and kisses her, 
 with deplorably weak tears. 
 
 Nora dries the tears carefully from her 
 dress, which is a new one — and Nora is 
 always economical — and looks at Mrs. 
 Jones with an amused little smile — the 
 best thing for Mrs. Jones, undoubtedly, 
 
 152
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 for it has the effect of chilling her emo- 
 tions a little and making her recover her- 
 self quickly. 
 
 " John," says Mrs. Jones to a worn 
 and harassed husband that evening-, " if 
 Nora were not without a heart at all she 
 would be the kindest-hearted person in 
 the world." 
 
 A ridiculous remark. But Mrs. Jones 
 is a ridiculous little person. 
 
 Nora, it is very true, has a better 
 foundation for her good deeds than mere 
 feeling and impulse. She is a mass of 
 Principle. Some weak persons are loving 
 and sympathetic because they feel so. A 
 poor reason, indeed. They remove suf- 
 fering because it hurts them to see it; 
 which is plainly pure selfishness. But 
 Nora has never done a good deed — and 
 her good deeds are many — which was not 
 prompted solely by duty. 
 
 " Dash your duty ! " Arthur has once 
 said. " Dash your duty ! If that's the 
 only reason you care about me I'd rather 
 you didn't do it at all." 
 
 Nora very properly first reprimands 
 153
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 Arthur for his strong language — it is such 
 bad taste — and then says she is sure he 
 would not be so cross and discontented 
 without some reason, and is afraid it must 
 be his liver. She doctors him, therefore, 
 indefatigably for that organ — Eno's fruit 
 salt and Beecham's pills. 
 
 But his liver never seems to be com- 
 pletely cured. 
 
 One day an infant appears upon the 
 scene. It is an interruption. Any one who 
 has work — charitable work, too — upon 
 their hands, as Nora has, would feel the 
 same thing. The secretaryship of the 
 Amalgamated Shop Girls, a district of 
 costermongers, a cutting-out class, and 
 a golf club — all have to go to the wall for it. 
 
 It is not even a pretty infant. It is 
 purple in color ; and its nose turns up in 
 the air and is red at the tip. It is a chilly 
 and disconsolate-looking baby, in fact. 
 And yet, though Nora cannot pretend to 
 find it interesting, as some weak-minded 
 mammas have been known to find equally 
 dull specimens, it is beautifully brought 
 up — on Principle, and on a System. 
 
 154
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 The System involves bracing and much 
 open air; fogs and east winds useful for 
 their hardening properties. Crying not 
 allowed by the Principle. The house not 
 turned topsy-turvy because of the infant's 
 presence therein. From the first moment 
 of its existence it is brought up on a pre- 
 arranged plan — a plan absolutely infallible, 
 and not admitting of modification. 
 
 Nora may not — indeed, does not — crow 
 and make a fool of herself over the baby, 
 as many mothers do. But it has the best 
 of everything — hygienic clothing, and a 
 nurse who does not dare to rebel (openly 
 at least) against the System. 
 
 When Nora returns to her good works 
 she by no means, as so many might, neg- 
 lects the baby for them. The baby has 
 been Sent. It is her duty. She visits 
 the nursery, therefore, several times a day 
 between other engagements, and sees 
 that the System is carried out. She 
 moves the cradle with the toe of her boot, 
 and looks at the infant proudly, of course, 
 but perhaps a trifle critically. She feels 
 a slight and very natural annoyance that 
 
 155
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 it is plainer than other person's babies, 
 and then hastens off, full of duty, to the 
 cutting-out class. 
 
 Arthur is weak over that infant; for a 
 man, deplorably weak. Once, indeed, 
 Nora finds him kneeling by the cradle 
 with one of the baby's ridiculous hands 
 grasping his finger. He really looks most 
 idiotic. When Nora sees him she looks 
 in his face and laughs; not maliciously, 
 or as if she were displeased — only a laugh 
 of amusement. But it causes him to drop 
 the ridiculous hand and feel as if he had 
 made a fool of himself; which shows how 
 a little good-humored ridicule may cure a 
 man of his worst failings. 
 
 One night the infant is taken suddenly 
 ill. It has, indeed, been systematized the 
 day before in a northeast gale, and, being 
 a misconstructed infant, instead of bene- 
 fiting by a regime, is dyii^g of it. 
 
 Nora is admirably calm and collected. 
 While another mother — Mrs, Jones, for 
 
 156
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 instance — would be agitated into putting 
 the baby into an ipecacuanha bath and 
 pouring hot water down its throat, with 
 a delightful composure and common sense 
 Nora is reading a medical book to see 
 what ought to be done under the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 " Confound that book!" says Arthur, 
 who has come very interferingly into the 
 nursery in an exceedingly impromptu 
 costume. " It is too late to begin learn- 
 ing now what you ought to do. I should 
 have thought instinct would have taught 
 you something of the way to manage it." 
 
 " I have never heard," says Nora, with 
 a perfectly good-tempered smile, " that 
 instinct instructs any one in the science of 
 medicine; but it is certainly to be wished 
 that it did." 
 
 The baby lies on her lap, and they wait 
 thus for the doctor. The nurse stands 
 by sobbing. Sobs are so useful. But 
 the nurse is plebeian and emotional. 
 Arthur watches the child with a face sud- 
 denly grown haggard. He is not ple- 
 beian ; but he is emotional, it seems. 
 
 157
 
 The Practical Woman 
 
 Before morning the frail life goes out 
 with a sigh, and the plebeian nurse is car- 
 ried away in hysterics. 
 
 The parents leave the nursery with the 
 doctor. 
 
 " What was the cause of death ? " asks 
 Arthur in an odd voice. 
 
 " The System," answers the doctor. 
 He looks at Nora. He does not spare 
 her. He need not. If there is a shadow 
 on her pretty face it is a very faint one. 
 
 " It answers with most babies," she 
 replies. 
 
 And the doctor says, " If you have an- 
 other child, madam, try a little more love 
 and a little less System. Believe me, that 
 will answer better." 
 
 Then he leaves them alone. 
 
 For a while they stand in silence. 
 
 " We must try," says Nora, laying a 
 hand on Arthur's shoulder, "to be re- 
 signed. Of course, it is very sad, but it 
 is Sent." 
 
 Arthur is usually a weak man, Heaven 
 knows. But he turns upon her now, his 
 eyes burning with some strong passion. 
 
 15S
 
 The Practical WomaH 
 
 " Confound you ! " he says; " confound 
 your systems, and your resignation, and 
 your rehgion — confound them all." 
 
 The quarrel, if quarrel it can be called, 
 is made up, of course. Quarrels are so 
 wrong. And Arthur apologizes for swear- 
 ing. Swearing is so dreadful. And soon 
 there is another baby, who really does just 
 as well as the first. And Nora is as 
 bright and good-tempered and sensible 
 as ever; and Arthur is perfectly satisfied, 
 of course, except when his liver is wrong; 
 and that, as every one knows, makes any 
 one take a discontented view of life and 
 think things are not as satisfactory as 
 they might be. 
 
 159
 
 The Squire 
 
 II
 
 The Squire 
 
 " II n'y a pour rhomme qu'un vrai malheur, c'est 
 d'avoir quelque chose a se reprocher." 
 
 He is fine, fresh-colored, upright, and 
 over seventy years old. The old gaffers 
 in the village remember him in his youth 
 as the straightest rider in the county. 
 " Our squire was a game 'un," says one 
 of them, with a twinkle in his ancient eye. 
 He is, for that matter, game still. He 
 drives even now twenty miles to the 
 Derby, in a sporting coat with a rose in 
 his button-hole and a fine expectation of 
 enjoyment on his brave old face. There 
 is still about him a certain freshness, keen- 
 ness, and vigor very pleasant to see. He 
 is yet as good a judge of a horse as any 
 man in the neighborhood. He has or- 
 ganized and presides over the village 
 cricket team, and is proud that his eleven 
 
 163
 
 The Squire 
 
 should be the terror of other persons' 
 elevens for miles round. 
 
 The squire lives in a great stone house, 
 which has been in his family for many 
 generations. His estate and his tenants 
 are admirably looked after. He walks 
 over his property, with a fine elastic 
 tread that is almost youthful, every day 
 except Sundays. His people are a little 
 afraid and infinitely fond of him. To his 
 servants he is perfectly just, strict, and 
 kind. There is not one of them Avho 
 would dare to neglect his duty, nor one 
 who is not certain of finding in his master 
 a great justice and liberality. 
 
 His charity is as little abused, perhaps, 
 as any man's. Even the people to whom 
 he gives speak well of him. The little 
 village girls, after a fine simple old cus- 
 tom, drop him the profoundest of cour- 
 tesies. He knows nearly every one of 
 them by name — has known by name their 
 parents and grandparents before them. 
 He walks regularly with his family, rather 
 slowly and with a good deal of dignity, 
 to church every Sunday morning. The 
 
 164
 
 The Squire 
 
 gaffers, remembering his wild youth, wink 
 at each other sometimes as he passes 
 thus. But, indeed, even his wildness has 
 been characterized by a blameless honor 
 and generosity, and there is no man to- 
 day who can remember against him any- 
 thing unworthy of an upright and honest 
 gentleman. 
 
 The Squire is sprucely dressed upon all 
 occasions. On Sundays particularly he 
 recalls to one's mind the dandyism of his 
 youth. He always has a flower in his 
 coat, and his gray felt hat is perfectly 
 trim and well brushed. Upon Sunday, 
 too, he wears gloves, and has a fine solemn 
 air with him, which of itself almost makes 
 one feel Sabbatical. 
 
 He reads the lessons in church with 
 perfect conviction and simplicity. " He 
 do do it beautiful ! " says Granny, Vv^ho is 
 deaf, and has not heard a word. But his 
 reverend old face and fine devout air im- 
 press her, perhaps, as they impress many 
 other simple people. The Squire says his 
 prayers in a sitting posture, with one hand 
 hiding his face. One can distinguish his 
 
 165
 
 The Squire 
 
 deep "Amen" among the rustic responses. 
 He does not turn to the east at the creed 
 to gratify the prejudices of an enlightened 
 youthful vicar. He is quite conservative 
 and narrow-minded. His feelings are a 
 great deal hurt and wounded when sing- 
 ing is introduced where saying has been 
 the fashion ever since he can remember. 
 His religion, indeed, is so perfectly simple 
 and faithful and behind the times that it 
 seems very little different from the child- 
 ish religion he learned — Heaven knows 
 how many long years ago — at his mother's 
 knee. Perhaps it is not different at all, 
 and in this brave old heart the simple, 
 tender little ideas of a simple little mother 
 still live and bear fruit a hundredfold. 
 
 The Squire is, as he should be, the hot- 
 test of Tories. The little village consti- 
 tutes an absurd little branch of the Prim- 
 rose League. The Squire gives the 
 Primrose League two suppers and a series 
 of village entertainments every year to 
 keep up its political' energy. He ad- 
 dresses it with a great deal of vigorous 
 simplicity, which suits it admirably. Per- 
 iod
 
 The Squire 
 
 haps his arguments are not very good. 
 It is not an argument at all, very likely, 
 to say that Mr. Gladstone is a double- 
 dyed villain. But in this case the state- 
 ment does as well or a great deal better 
 than an argument. The first article in 
 the village political creed is to believe 
 what the Squire says. And indeed, in 
 many things, the village might do worse. 
 After the politics the Squire's daugh- 
 ters, who are plain, kindly, and middle- 
 aged, play duets, the Vicar's wife sings 
 one of her three little songs, and the 
 Squire reads an extract out of Dickens. 
 The Squire is not a literary man in a gen- 
 eral way. He believes in the Bible and 
 Sir Walter Scott, and sometimes in the 
 mellow, lamp-lit evenings he takes his 
 Byron and re-reads some of those wild 
 love lyrics which in his youth, at a cer- 
 tain romantic time, he very likely knew 
 by heart. He looks up from the book 
 sometimes, with very kindly old eyes, at 
 Madame sitting opposite to him. Mad- 
 ame is still upright, and handsome in 
 spite of gray hairs and wrinkles. The 
 
 167
 
 The Squire 
 
 world finds her, indeed, a httle too quiet 
 and dignified for its liking. 
 
 And the Squire says, with a smile half 
 tender, half humorous, " Do you remem- 
 ber this, Mary ? " and reads her a line or 
 two in some such voice as he reads the 
 Song of Solomon in church. 
 
 And the faintest delicate color starts in 
 Madame's old cheeks, and there is a little 
 soft droop about her lips, and she remem- 
 bers it — very well indeed. 
 
 The Squire is quite devoted to Mad- 
 ame. Perhaps to him she is still bright- 
 eyed and one-and-twenty. Or perhaps 
 he thinks that seventy-two is the most 
 charming and becoming age in the world. 
 The old couple are still quite enterprising. 
 Now the children are well advanced in 
 middle life Madame feels she may safely 
 leave them — for a few weeks, that is — to 
 themselves. So every autumn the old 
 pair take a trip abroad. The Squire's at- 
 titude towards Madame is quite chivalrous 
 and protecting and considerate. He stud- 
 ies Murray and Baedecker through his 
 gold-rimmed spectacles, and tells Madame, 
 
 i68
 
 The Squire 
 
 who is horribly submissive and old-fash- 
 ioned, where it will be best for them to 
 go next. The Squire speaks languages 
 in the perfectly precise and grammatical 
 manner in which he learned them in his 
 youth, and which considerably astonishes 
 the natives. Madame does a great deal 
 of standing-by and following her husband. 
 She was young when such an attitude 
 was common to all women. She is not 
 learned. She is not at all ambitious. She 
 is quite loving and simple. She knows 
 very well how to manage a house. She 
 is very proud of her table linen and her 
 china. She used to be fearfully and won- 
 derfully learned with her babies. She is 
 ever so little shy and chilling in her inter- 
 course with strangers, and is devoted to 
 her husband with all the depth and 
 strength of her faithful heart. 
 
 The Squire is preeminently the master 
 in his own house. To Madame he is 
 master also, but a master how infinitely 
 kind, loving, just, and tender only Mad- 
 ame knows. He reads Prayers — a solemn 
 chapter out of the Bible and a long sup- 
 
 169
 
 The Squire 
 
 plication compiled by a prosy old bishop 
 — at eight o'clock every morning. Mad- 
 ame kneels by his side, with gray bent 
 head and devout, folded hands. After 
 breakfast the Squire leaves her to her 
 household duties and takes a ride. His 
 costume is admirably correct and youth- 
 ful. His fine fresh-colored old face glows 
 with the exercise. He is still " game" 
 enough to occasionally drive four-in-hand. 
 To be complimented as the best whip in 
 the county causes his honest, dignified 
 old face to redden pleasantly with pride. 
 In the afternoons he watches the cricket 
 or his daughters playing tennis. " A fine 
 game," he says. " A very fine game." He 
 thinks all games fine, almost, and those 
 in which horseflesh can be introduced the 
 finest of all. He would play tennis him- 
 self only Madame is anxious about his 
 heart, and when he handles a racquet 
 comes into the garden with a face so ap- 
 pealing and distressed as to cause him to 
 desist immediately. • 
 
 But after all it is Madame herself who 
 first goes the way of all flesh. She dies 
 
 170
 
 The Squire 
 
 very quietly indeed. The Squire is by 
 her bedside, and holds her feeble fingers 
 to the last in his strong old hand. 
 
 " We have been very happy, my dear," 
 says the wife. 
 
 " Ay, ay, Mary. God has been very 
 good," answers the Squire in his simple 
 fashion. The daughters, who have known 
 the devotion which the old couple have 
 borne to each other, are surprised at their 
 father's steady courage and composure 
 when the end comes. 
 
 " You must take comfort," says the 
 Vicar. 
 
 " I have taken it," says the Squire. 
 " I am not far from eighty years old. I 
 shall not be long without her." 
 
 At the funeral in the little churchyard, 
 surrounded by his children and by the 
 poor people who have received a thou- 
 sand tender charities from the dead wo- 
 man, the Squire's fine old face stands out 
 with a great courage and serenity against 
 the wintry sky. 
 
 Afterwards, when he has reached home, 
 he goes to the stable and gives some 
 
 171
 
 The Squire 
 
 orders about Madame's pony. " Don't 
 work her any more," he says to the 
 groom. " Let Nellie enjoy herself. Her 
 mistress would have wished it." And 
 Nellie answers him with a neigh, and 
 rubs her old nose against his black coat. 
 When he gets back to his library he writes 
 in a firm old hand to beg that the village 
 football match may not be postponed on 
 account of " my great loss." 
 
 And for the first time the full extent 
 of that loss comes upon him. 
 
 In the short winter twilight his eldest 
 daughter, who is a plain, homely little 
 woman, with a great loving heart, finds 
 him sitting, with bent head and dreary 
 eyes, looking into a lifeless fire. 
 
 " Will 3'^ou come to tea, father ?" she 
 says softly. ** We are waiting for you." 
 
 " Presently, presently," he answers in 
 an old voice. 
 
 Above him is a picture of Madame at 
 three-and-twenty years old, sweet, bright, 
 and blushing. He remembers her to- 
 night just as she was then. He recalls 
 the beautiful, rapt maternity upon her 
 
 172
 
 The Squire 
 
 face as she bent over the first of their 
 children. The child died a baby. It 
 comforts the Squire's brave, simple old 
 heart to think that the two are together 
 to-night. He goes back in fancy, no 
 doubt, as he sits in the darkening room 
 beneath her picture, to a thousand trivial 
 incidents of their quiet married life. 
 They have been very happy. There have 
 been troubles, indeed, but they have 
 shared them. There has been the poor 
 old human need for forbearance. He 
 thinks to-night that such a need made 
 them care for each other not less, but 
 more. If his memories are sad, as at 
 such a time they must needs be, they are 
 not bitter at all. He has been blessed, 
 is still blessed, above other men. When 
 he joins his daughters, a sad little party 
 in the lamp-lit drawing-room, there is a 
 courage and even a certain hope and 
 cheerfulness upon his rugged face. 
 
 Such a courage and cheerfuless mark 
 all his life afterward. He shoots pheas- 
 ants in the autumn in the home coverts 
 as he used to do, and appears to enjoy 
 
 173
 
 / 
 
 The Squire 
 
 the sport as he has always enjoyed it. He 
 takes the same interest in the horses and 
 dogs and the farming. The estate is as 
 carefully looked after as ever. " But he 
 thinks on her," says Granny. " Rethinks 
 on her all the time." Granny is right, 
 perhaps, though she has only the wisdom 
 of the simple. The Squire is very partic- 
 ular that none of Madame's charities 
 should be neglected. He himself audits 
 the modest accounts of her Clothing Club. 
 He desires that one of his daughters shall 
 distribute, in her place, simple remedies 
 for the old people's aches and pains. He 
 likes still that the house shall be cheerful, 
 and to see happy faces about him. He 
 does not very often talk of the dead wife. 
 It is his habit, instead, to do as she would 
 wish. His children are startled sometimes 
 to see how faithfully her smallest desires 
 are remembered and obeyed. By a tacit 
 consent her place by the Squire's side in 
 church is always left vacant. But, except 
 this, his fashion of mourning her is almost 
 wholly practical. He calls in sometimes 
 in the afternoon to chat with a certain 
 
 174
 
 The Squire 
 
 small farmer whom Madame, in her fine 
 goodness and innocence, thought she was 
 going to reclaim from habits of inebria- 
 tion. He takes out her great retriever 
 every day for a long walk, Madame hav- 
 ing a theory that Don's internal arrange- 
 ments required an abnormal amount of 
 exercise. 
 
 One of his daughters tells the story 
 long after, smiling, and with tender tears 
 in her eyes, how he even wears the warm- 
 est and scrubbiest of underclothing dur- 
 ing the winter, in accordance with one of 
 the dead Madame's fond and anxious 
 wishes. 
 
 There are a thousand ways in which 
 the brave old man is faithful to her mem- 
 ory. With his simple faith in the Unseen, 
 he fancies that she looks down from some 
 happy Heaven, and is glad, as she would 
 have been on earth, to see him well, 
 active, and, so far as may be, contented. 
 
 He is so to the end. To the end the 
 brave old face has a cheery look for every 
 man. To the end he is a fine, honest, 
 sportsmanlike, God-fearing country gen- 
 us
 
 The Squire 
 
 tleman. To the end he has a mind fresh, 
 keen, active, a great love for his dogs 
 and his horses, a great generosity, a great 
 manHness. To the end he has a heart 
 full of kindly and noble thoughts — with 
 one most faithful and abiding memory. 
 
 And in that Place whither his works 
 shall follow him he joins Madame at last. 
 
 176
 
 The Beauty 
 
 12
 
 The Beauty 
 
 " La beaute trompe encore plus la personne qui la 
 possede que ceux qui en sont eblouis." 
 
 Lena is seven-and-thirty years old. 
 She is the best-dressed woman in Lon- 
 don. " And the best-looking," she adds 
 judicially and with the candor for which 
 she is distinguished. She has a house in 
 Park Lane. She has a villa at Florence 
 of which she is immensely fond — when 
 she is in England ; and a great estate in 
 the Midlands which she always hates. 
 She is of the world, worldly. She is so 
 shallow and brilliant that one feels she 
 ought to make a great name. She knows 
 something about everything. She reads 
 before she comes down in the morning 
 during the prolonged rest she always 
 takes for the benefit of her perfect com- 
 plexion. She reads theology when theol- 
 
 179
 
 The Beauty 
 
 ogy is the fashion. She is a Buddhist 
 one week and a Mahatma the next. An 
 Agnostic pretty frequently. Agnosticism 
 is so convenient. She talks over her be- 
 liefs with her admirers. There is a point 
 and audacity about her statements which 
 make them infinitely more telling than if 
 they were the soundest of arguments. 
 No one argues with her, however. Her 
 beauty, her perfect poses, her wit, her 
 brilliancy, her fine sense of humor, her 
 complete vanity and self-satisfaction make 
 argument in some sense impossible. The 
 laugh is always with her. To put her in 
 the wrong is quite out of the question. 
 " She is so confoundedly clever, you 
 know," some one says of her. That is it. 
 She is so confoundedly clever. 
 
 Her beauty is perfectly preserved. An 
 excellent digestion and a heart and con- 
 science which have given her no sort of 
 trouble have contributed to this desirable 
 result. " I shall be thirty-eight next 
 birthday," she is in the habit of saying 
 with the most delightful candor. " And 
 I should be constantly mistaken for my 
 
 1 80
 
 The Beauty 
 
 own daughter if I were not so very much 
 better looking." Her vanity is as trans- 
 parent as that of a child admiring itself in 
 a new frock in a looking-glass. It is, as it 
 were, the weak point in a character that is 
 otherwise strong. Lena will lap up greed- 
 ily the most fulsome of compliments. 
 There is no flattery too blunt for her ear. 
 Her pride and her cleverness cringe to it. 
 Her worship of her own beauty would be 
 ridiculous if it did not strike a note that 
 reverberates in tragedy. To be lovely 
 and admired has been the whole aim of 
 her life. She has sacrificed her soul to it 
 and achieved it. 
 
 Lena was married at nineteen. " I 
 was the handsomest girl in London," she 
 , says to her husband, looking at him with 
 perfect scorn and good-humor down a 
 table glittering with glass and silver. " I 
 might have married anybody. And I 
 married you." 
 
 Her husband does not answer. He 
 seldom replies to Lena's innuendoes. He 
 has a habit of sitting with his hands 
 crossed behind his chair and his grey head 
 
 iSi
 
 The Beauty 
 
 a little bent. He is a fool, of course. 
 What could he have been but a fool to 
 think that Lena, brilliant and nineteen, 
 could be marrying him for anything ex- 
 cept his money ? What can he be now 
 but a fool to go on worshipping this wo- 
 man who insults him a dozen times a day 
 with her scornful good humor and her 
 cruel wit ? The world — the world always 
 knows — says he only has himself to blame 
 for her treatment of him. The world 
 scorns scarcely less than she does herself 
 his slow patience and long-suffering, his 
 persistent kindness and forbearance. " My 
 husband has no brains to speak of, you 
 know," says Lena conversationally. Her 
 husband can hear the remark from the 
 other end of the table. " He wrote a 
 prize essay at Oxford," she continues, 
 enjoying herself very much. " That 
 speaks for itself." Lena is wearing dia- 
 monds which this fool gave her a week 
 ago. Her bad taste is sometimes so ex- 
 ecrable that one wonders even society 
 applauds her. " It's a dreadful shame," 
 people say, and accept her invitations to 
 
 182
 
 The Beauty 
 
 dinner next month with perfect pleasure. 
 But there is indeed something about Lena 
 which leads the world, as well as her hus- 
 band, to forgive her. It may be her wit, 
 or her beauty, or her manner which makes 
 some women and all men lose sight of, 
 or care nothing for, the nature which 
 they cover. Or it may be that even Lena 
 is not so bad as she represents herself. 
 
 There is good in her. There is a cer- 
 tain impulse and a generosity which 
 would be very good if they were not so 
 exceedingly brief. There are days and 
 moments when Lena is quite pleasant and 
 civil to the man who has married her, and 
 given her great wealth, great faithfulness, 
 great affection. The day he brings her 
 home the diamonds she is surprised into 
 pleasure and gratitude. " You can kiss 
 me if you like," she says. And he is 
 fool enough to touch her cheek reverently 
 with his lips. She wears the diamonds 
 all day for nearly a week. Her pleasure 
 over them is like the pleasure of a child. 
 She tries them first in this position and 
 then in that. She looks at herself in all 
 
 183
 
 The Beauty 
 
 the mirrors in the drawing-room. They 
 dine alone in the evening, and she is 
 wholly gracious, and brilliant, and good- 
 humored. She has put on her very finest 
 dress. She has made the maid do her 
 hair a hundred times. " Diamonds suit 
 me exactly," she says; " and there isn't 
 one woman in ten thousand who ought 
 ever to put them on." Her beauty is so 
 rich and perfect one cannot believe she is 
 nearly forty years old. When she is 
 good-humored, as she is to-night, she 
 looks younger than ever. Her dress is 
 inimitably chosen and suitable. She 
 affects none of the airs of a very young 
 woman. She is too confoundedly clever, 
 you know, for that. 
 
 But the next day she is less gracious; 
 and in a week is herself again. 
 
 Lena has a few occasional plain lady 
 friends whom she loves passionately for a 
 month and loathes for the rest of her life. 
 She has admirers. Every one admires her. 
 She has so little heart that her only dan- 
 ger from their society lies in her most 
 gullible vanity, 
 
 184
 
 The Beauty 
 
 It is in society that she shines most. 
 She is incomparably brilliant and amus- 
 ing. She will question the theology of an 
 archbishop with the easiest wit and au- 
 dacity across a great dinner-table of per- 
 sons who pause in their talk to listen to 
 and look at her. She is the central figure 
 everywhere she goes. Her candor and 
 frankness are inimitable. Her vanity is 
 of its kind perfect, and she is always com- 
 fortably assured that every man in the 
 room is in love with her. 
 
 Then Sir George falls ill. The illness 
 is alarming; it even alarms Lena. In the 
 very middle of the season she goes down 
 to the Midlands to nurse her husband. 
 She puts on a very becoming cap and a 
 delightful apron. She is for a time quite 
 attentive and good-natured. She cheers 
 the patient with the most deliciously scan- 
 dalous and piquant stories which she has 
 heard in town. The sick man always lies 
 so that he can see her. She has done her 
 best to break his heart, and he loves her 
 still. The touch of her hand raises in him 
 now a thousand tender emotions. She is 
 
 185
 
 The Beauty 
 
 still the one woman in the v/orld for him. 
 And she leaves him. The deadly dulness 
 of the place and the monotony and de- 
 pression of a sick-room soon get intoler- 
 able. She has always been quite selfish. 
 Admiration is the breath of her life. And 
 who is there to admire one here ? She 
 goes back to town, and a telegram in- 
 forms her of his death. 
 
 She laments him and curses herself pas- 
 sionately for a few days. But there is the 
 estate to see about, and one's black, and 
 all sorts of things. It is a relief to her — 
 it would be to any woman so placed — that 
 a modern widow is not required to make 
 herself wholly frightful. " I am not sure 
 that black is not more becoming to me 
 than anything else," she says. The fact 
 affords her a great deal of consolation. 
 
 She soon resumes her usual mode of 
 life. She is more admired than ever. 
 She is a very rich widow indeed. Her 
 style deteriorates, perhaps. But that 
 does not matter. Her admirers are not 
 too particular. 
 
 And then she falls ill herself. It is not 
 
 1 86
 
 The Beauty 
 
 a common illness; it does not affect her 
 brain or incapacitate her body; it only 
 destroys her beauty. She goes to the 
 best physicians in London and abroad. 
 She tries quackery. She spares herself 
 no trouble or money. While she is going 
 through treatment she shuts herself up 
 in the great house in the Midlands. For 
 a while she almost despairs. She reads a 
 great many French novels, and tries des- 
 ultorily, and with little of her former 
 splendid vigor and brilliancy, a new relig- 
 ion. And she hears of a doctor, a great 
 specialist for diseases of the skin, whom 
 she has not yet seen. She flings aside the 
 new religion and puts herself under his 
 treatment. It is irksome always and 
 sometimes painful; but she carries it out 
 with a courage and resolution not ignoble. 
 She suffers, and not a complaint passes 
 her lips. She has never been a weak 
 woman. She is not weak now. And her 
 whole happiness and success in life are at 
 stake. 
 
 One afternoon, Avhen she has been sit- 
 ting, bored to death, looking above her 
 
 187
 
 The Beauty 
 
 novel through the window at the drip- 
 ping autumn garden, the great doctor is 
 announced unexpectedly. 
 
 " Doctor ! " she exclaims. " How good 
 of you to look me up ! I should have 
 gone melancholy mad if you hadn't come ! 
 This is the most hateful place in all Eng- 
 land. How much will you give me for 
 it?" 
 
 She has still her old vivacity and the 
 manner of a beautiful woman. She is 
 perfectly dressed, and in the creeping 
 shadows of the November afternoon, 
 with her face half hidden by her white 
 hand, one might fancy her lovely still. 
 
 " I have been studying your case, mad- 
 am," says the doctor. He is compara- 
 tively young and eager in his profession. 
 He looks straight at Lena as he speaks. 
 
 " Well ? " she says. She sits down at 
 the tea-table, which is placed near the 
 fire, and alters the position of some cups. 
 The china clatters a little in her hands. 
 
 " It is not well, I fear," he answers not 
 easily and after a while. " I have come 
 here for a purpose, madam. I have made 
 
 i8S
 
 The Beauty 
 
 up my mind — I think it right to tell you 
 — that I can do nothing more for you. 
 Your case is incurable." 
 
 " It's a lie ! " she cries suddenly. " It's 
 a lie ! " And she turns upon him in a 
 rage. 
 
 After a while he leaves her. She be- 
 lieves him. Perhaps she believed at first. 
 The short twilight fades very quickly — 
 the fire almost goes out. One last flame 
 shows, haggard and terrible, the face 
 which she used to say with some sort of 
 justice was the most beautiful in London. 
 A horror of great darkness covers her at 
 last. 
 
 " If I were a woman in a book," she 
 whispers, " I should kill myself; but in 
 real life I shall go on living, and living — 
 for ever." 
 
 And her head falls upon her hands. 
 
 1S9
 
 The Peasant
 
 The Peasant 
 
 " De tous les appuis le plus sur est encore la force 
 d'ame." 
 
 Anna may be seventy years old. She 
 has a face hard and strong and so wrinkled 
 and furrowed that one cannot tell at all 
 what a girlish Anna may have been like. 
 She has a great, gaunt, bent, old figure 
 like a man's, hands that have done the 
 work of a man for years, and a nature 
 which is celebrated rather for its stern 
 enduring masculine properties than for 
 any feminine softness at all. • 
 
 Anna is not, it must be confessed, 
 lovely to look at or meek to deal with. 
 She is of Norfolk, and has the cool steady 
 independence which is essentially of east- 
 ern England. Anna will look her visitor, 
 be he king or beggar, full in the face, and 
 with an unruffled composure which, if one 
 met it in a duchess instead of an ugly old 
 13 193
 
 The Peasant 
 
 woman who works coarsely for her bread, 
 one would say was the perfection of good- 
 breeding. Anna is never surprised, or, 
 as she would say herself, took aback, 
 under any circumstances. She will turn 
 round from swearing in a gruff voice and 
 deeply at her farm boy, who is also her 
 grandson, to bid the parson " Good morn- 
 ing " with an ease that has a kind of 
 dignity in it, and with the finest uncon- 
 sciousness of wrong-doing. No one in- 
 deed has ever attempted to teach Anna 
 her duty — or, at least, has never made 
 such an attempt twice. Once, it is true, 
 the parson's gentle sister essays to point 
 out to Anna that to treat Sunday with 
 a sublime indifference and to work through 
 it as if it were a weekday is morally 
 wrong. 
 
 " Ay," says Anna, quite unmoved, and 
 looking her visitor very full and directly 
 in the face, with a lean horny old hand 
 resting on the table. " That may be. 
 Like enough. But if I don't do wrong 
 Polly 'd starve. And I'll be damned 
 first." 
 
 194
 
 The Peasant 
 
 If Anna had any time for reh'gion, 
 which she has not, she would be a Dis- 
 senter. She has no better reason to give 
 for her predilections for schism than to 
 say, with her usual calm directness, " That 
 may be all very true. But it's my way 
 of thinking — same as yours is yours." 
 Which seems in a manner to clinch the 
 argument. 
 
 Anna's husband, whom she regarded, 
 and now makes no disguise of having re- 
 garded, as a fool, has been dead many 
 years. Anna's children, with one excep- 
 tion, have left that bleak Norfolk village 
 and gone out into the world. For the 
 exception Anna toils and will toil till the 
 day of her death. 
 
 Polly is supposed by the neighbors, 
 whispering among themselves, to be a 
 little daft. They take very good care 
 indeed that their whisper does not reach 
 Anna, of whose steady, keen eyes, gruff 
 old voice, and great, slow anger they are 
 not a little in awe. Polly marries miser- 
 ably, but on the wedding-day there is a 
 certain dumb sort of triumph in Anna's 
 
 195
 
 The Peasant 
 
 manner. Men don't marry daft ones. It 
 seems that the wedding should be a sort 
 of proof, not to Anna, who has no self- 
 deceptions, but to Anna's neighbors, that 
 Polly is as sensible as any of them. 
 
 Eight years afterwards Anna, who has 
 watched over the fortunes of her child 
 like some grim and loving Providence, 
 falls ill, during which illness Polly's hus- 
 band takes the opportunity of deserting 
 her, and leaves her, half-witted and wholly 
 incompetent to meet the world, to fight 
 it alone. Anna gets up from that bed of 
 sickness cursing herself quite freely for 
 having given way to an indisposition for 
 the first time in her hard life. The neigh- 
 bors notice a new sternness and resolution 
 about her gray old lips, which have been 
 firm always, and there is a singular keen- 
 ness and steadiness in her eyes. 
 
 From that time forth she devotes her 
 old life and her fierce old energies to Polly 
 and the hapless half-dozen babies with 
 whom Polly has been left. Out of a mea- 
 gre saving Anna buys a little farm, which 
 she works at seventy years old unaided, 
 
 196
 
 The Peasant 
 
 unless her grandson of six can be looked 
 on in the light of a help. She takes 
 Polly and the babies to her own cottage, 
 and toils for them fiercely, and yet con- 
 tentedly, late and early, Sunday and 
 weekday, always. She takes no holidays. 
 She is ignorant of farm work, and learns 
 it at threescore years and ten with aston- 
 ishing patience, thoroughness, and sagac- 
 ity. She goes out in all weathers. She 
 wears always the same dun-colored gar- 
 ments, half-feminine and half-masculine. 
 Her furrowed and shrewd old face is 
 always partially hidden in a great bonnet 
 which may have been white once and is 
 certainly white no longer. She has not a 
 single affectation of manliness — having 
 indeed neither the leisure nor disposition 
 for affectations of any kind — -and is yet 
 more than half a man and doing a man's 
 work with perfect simplicity and thor- 
 oughness. In quite a little while after 
 she has purchased her farm the live-stock 
 dealers become aware that they have to 
 deal with an old woman who can drive a 
 bargain better than any of her sons, and 
 
 197
 
 The Peasant 
 
 who can tell the points of a horse with 
 exceeding shrewdness and accuracy. 
 Anna may be heard swearing at her pigs 
 and chickens in a great, gruff, friendly 
 fashion in the early mornings and at night, 
 or met trudging the eight miles to mar- 
 ket, with her old eyes, under the dis- 
 reputable bonnet, getting even a little 
 brighter and keener than usual over the 
 prospect of sharp business in the future. 
 
 She is everywhere spoken of as honest. 
 She has certainly not derived a code of 
 morals from the Church, which she 
 doesn't believe in, or from the chapel, 
 which she doesn't attend, but has, per- 
 haps, drawn up one unconsciously for 
 herself, and made it uncommonly short, 
 simple, and sincere. 
 
 The gentry to whom she regularly sells 
 the farm produce are a little afraid of a 
 person so direct and uncompromising. 
 Anna, indeed, is the woman of one idea 
 — which is Polly — and has no time or 
 inclination for social amenities at all. 
 The neighbor who joins her when she is 
 driving her pigs in to market is not a little 
 
 193
 
 The Peasant 
 
 rebuffed in her gossip by a person who is 
 entirely intent on the business in hand, 
 and whose answers and dictums are per- 
 fectly gruff, shrewd, and to the point. It 
 is thought, and said, by the Squire's 
 lady, who attempts to interest Anna in 
 the outside world, that the old woman is 
 invincibly ignorant and narrow. When 
 she is told, with some effusion and a de- 
 sire to make her realize the importance 
 of the event, of the birth of a prince, her 
 old eyes rest wistfully for a moment on 
 the smallest and forlornest of Polly's 
 babies, and she can't be brought to say 
 anything more enthusiastic than that it's 
 to be hoped he'll be brought up godly. 
 
 She is, in fact, as is said, narrow. Her 
 staunch old life has but one interest, and 
 anything which does not touch that does 
 not touch her. For a feeble Polly at 
 home she works ceaselessly her rheumatic 
 old limbs and her weary old brain. Be- 
 cause of Polly she has no time for the 
 talkings and the tea-drinkings which alle- 
 viate other old lives, perhaps. For Polly 
 her business instincts must be ever shrewd 
 
 199
 
 The Peasant 
 
 and on the alert. Because of Polly she 
 must toil always and rest never — must be, 
 if you will, narrow, concentrated, money- 
 grubbing, and, as it is often said, wholly 
 unfeminine ; though that she is unfemi- 
 nine in the sense in which an idle woman 
 shrieking for her rights on a platform, or 
 an hysterical one blaspheming for them 
 in a novel, is unfeminine, will scarcely be 
 thought. The only right Anna wants is, 
 in fact, to keep Polly. She does the 
 work of a man, because if she did not 
 Polly would starve. She has lived among 
 men, and become in some sort of them, 
 because she must. Even if it had been in 
 her nature to be tender, clinging, and 
 simple, her circumstances would have de- 
 nied her the indulgence of those old-fash- 
 ioned qualities. She has the coarseness 
 of a man because she has done the work 
 of a man, and is infected with his rough- 
 ness as well as with his strength and pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Yet even Anna — towards Polly and 
 Polly's babies only — has some of the 
 dearer and softer virtues which make a 
 
 200
 
 The Peasant 
 
 woman. When she goes home in the 
 dusk she will tend Polly's babies, espe- 
 cially the smallest of all, whom she thinks 
 lovely, with her hard old face tender and 
 her rough hands gentle. 
 
 She encourages this infant — a sad in- 
 fant, with some of Polly's daftness on its 
 poor little vacant face — to Avalk, or lift 
 itself up with the assistance of a great 
 finger, and calling it all the time by a 
 number of names and in terms which 
 shock delicate persons, but mean love not 
 the less. Towards Polly herself Anna is 
 always in a coarse fashion gentle, and 
 strongly patient. Though she will allow 
 no one else to suggest to her that Polly's 
 brain power is not so great as it should be, 
 that she accepts the fact is evident, if 
 only by the way in which, worn out with 
 hard work herself at night, she will do 
 Polly's work for her without a word of 
 rebuke. Sometimes in the dusk, when 
 Polly falls stupidly asleep, with her 
 pretty, foolish head on her folded arms on 
 the table, the old woman, rocking Polly's 
 baby to sleep on her shrivelled breast, 
 
 20 1
 
 The Peasant 
 
 looks at Polly with eyes full of 3^earning 
 and pity; wakes her up at last with a great 
 gentleness; helps to put her to bed, 
 smoothing the pretty hair with a sad pride 
 and old rough fingers; and stands for a 
 moment looking at this girl, who has been 
 a burden and sorrow all her life, asleep 
 in the poor bed, a child on either side 
 of her, with shrewd old eyes that are dim 
 with something that is not wholly tender- 
 ness or pain or affection, and yet partakes 
 of them all. Anna is up the next morn- 
 ing long before Polly is stirring, and may 
 be heard swearing at the animals and the 
 grandson farm boy, of whom she is in- 
 finitely fond, in the first dawn. 
 
 One day Anna is taken ill. She says 
 nothing about it. There is no one to say 
 anything to. Polly has herself weakly 
 health as well as a weakly intellect, and 
 has the children to see to as best she 
 can. A doctor is out of the question 
 when one lives as hard as Anna has lived 
 all her life. So she goes to work as usual, 
 and as she must. There comes a day 
 when her gruff old voice, shouting, and, it 
 
 202
 
 The Peasant 
 
 is to be feared, cursing about the farm, 
 is weaker than usual. There is a sort of 
 mist before her keen eyes, and she has a 
 feeling creeping into her heart as if noth- 
 ing mattered very much, and would soon 
 cease to matter at all. She gets a little 
 brandy from the inn. Having been 
 sternly abstemious all her life, it revives 
 her for a while. She puts the farm in 
 careful order. She gives a few instruc- 
 tions to her little grandson, who looks up 
 bewildered into her gray old face. She 
 sits down in the stable at last, with her 
 trembling lips moving in a vague prayer. 
 She has not prayed much hitherto, un- 
 less to work is to pray, as some think. 
 " Polly won't be able to keep up the 
 farm," she says faintly; " Polly's too 
 daft." She prays God to see to that 
 helpless creature and those helpless chil- 
 dren when this thing which she feels 
 coming upon her has come. 
 
 "It'll be the Union," she says; "I 
 could only keep them out of it a little 
 while." She murmurs over the verse of 
 a hymn — a hymn ending " Glory, glory," 
 
 203
 
 The Peasant 
 
 and entirely inappropriate and unsuitable 
 — which they used to sing at chapel in 
 the far-off days when she had time to go 
 there. After that she knows nothing. 
 The little grandson, finding her presently, 
 runs crying for help, and two laborers lift 
 this poor old dying creature on a board 
 and carry her towards home. She does 
 not know who they are. She has for- 
 gotten most things. She has ceased to 
 care for almost everything but one thing, 
 and only gasps to them before she dies 
 not to take her home — dead — to Polly — 
 lest Polly should " take on." 
 
 A heroine ? A martyr to a cause ? 
 Why, no. Only a coarse, ugly old crea- 
 ture, who expiates the crime of bringing 
 a daft Polly into the world by working 
 and dying for her. Only that, after all. 
 
 204
 
 The Frenchman
 
 •■;i
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 " La gaite est pres de la bonte." 
 
 Jean is perhaps five-and-thirty years 
 old. Jean has a little moustache waxed 
 carefully at the ends, a little intellect un- 
 commonly quick and bright, and a manner 
 into which are condensed the most per- 
 fect good-humor, cheeriness, politeness, 
 obligeance and savoir-faire in the world. 
 Jean owns, in fact, a number of charming 
 characteristics for which synonyms are 
 not to be found either in the English lan- 
 guage or nation. He has a verve and 
 aplomb quite unlimited. He dramatizes 
 his words by an action of the hands, face, 
 and shoulders entirely expressive. He is 
 as free from self-consciousness as an in- 
 fant. He wears, with a delight that is 
 perfectly fresh and youthful, collars and 
 cuffs which have Frenchman stamped all 
 
 207
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 over them, and ties his ties in a little bow 
 the jauntiness of which no EngHshman 
 has ever accomplished or, perhaps, es- 
 sayed. 
 
 Jean is from Paris. He is not, as he 
 would say himself with a perfect freedom 
 from embarrassment, of the high world. 
 Jean's papa, whom he speaks of even now 
 with tears in his quick and emotional 
 eyes, was in fact an obscure clerk in an 
 obscure ofifice on the Boulevards. Jean 
 himself lives in London, and having a 
 very little voice, a great sense of music, 
 and an infinite amount of what his earliest 
 patroness calls chic, as if it were a sub- 
 stantive, sings comic songs in his own 
 language at the "At Homes" of great 
 persons in London, 
 
 Jean is by way of being a success. He 
 sings, and, if it may be so said, makes a 
 fool of himself with an abandon which 
 pleases greatly a solid British audience, 
 that has never and cou]d never so abandon 
 itself for a second. Jean uses a thousand 
 gestures — from Paris. He gives one the 
 impression of being entirely carried away 
 
 20S
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 on the swing and rhythm of his song and 
 music. He is undaunted always by the 
 adversities of any circumstances in which 
 he may find himself. And that he often 
 finds himself at the fashionable party in 
 circumstances uncommonly trying to his 
 art and to his temper will not be doubted. 
 
 Jean makes a little way for himself to 
 the piano through the rudest crowd in 
 the world, a crowd of well-dressed Eng- 
 lish women, with an infinite patience, 
 politeness, and sweet temper. Jean re- 
 ceives the elbows of the modern Amazo- 
 nian daughter in his eye, with a murmur 
 of apology in his own courteous language 
 on his lips. Jean, who has the misfor- 
 tune to understand English perfectly, 
 though he can only speak it a little, lis- 
 tens to a thousand perfectly candid ex- 
 pressions of opinion on himself. It dawns 
 upon him, quite early in his modest ca- 
 reer, that his audience do not for the most 
 part understand a word of Avhat he sings. 
 
 " When I come to 'Yde Park in my 
 song," he says in confidence and the very 
 worst English to an elderly and cynical 
 14 209
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 guest who is leaning against a mantel- 
 piece, yawning, " they laugh — 'ow they 
 laugh ! And there is no joke there — 
 none." 
 
 " It's the first word they've understood, 
 you know," says the cynic. And Jean 
 lifts his shoulders with a resigned smile 
 and a sigh. 
 
 He perceives, with his gay little sense 
 of humor pleasantly tickled, that many 
 persons are shocked at his innocent airs, 
 on the principle that whatever is French 
 is also necessarily improper, while others, 
 the " new English mees," for instance, 
 are pleased in the delusion that they are 
 listening to something risque and music- 
 hall. Jean bears, with his gay equanimity 
 quite undisturbed, the stony, unsmiling 
 stare of the despondent British milor who 
 has been towed to the party by a fashion- 
 able wife, and is full of pessimism and 
 longings for his study and a newspaper. 
 
 " But yes," says Jean, with a shrug. 
 "It is easier when }-ou smile. You do 
 not smile much, you English. I do not 
 do it for pleasure, you understand. I am 
 
 2IO
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 — how do you call it ? — mercenary. It is 
 for Marie, and little Jules and Bebe." 
 
 Marie is Jean's wife, a young wife still, 
 who takes her part in the performance by 
 playing Jean's accompaniments and smil- 
 ing a little at the jokes which she has 
 heard a thousand times, and at Jean. 
 Jean, whose good temper has never been 
 shaken by the rudeness of servants, the 
 meanness of employers, the candor of 
 audiences, and the sips of sweet lemonade 
 which are spoken of by the hostess as 
 
 refreshment," has a quick rage storming 
 in his breast when an English madam 
 suggests as delicately as she can to Marie 
 that Marie should dress, for professional 
 purposes, in a style more gay and French. 
 Jean thinks Marie quite lovely always. 
 Loveliest of all, perhaps, in that very old 
 black frock which he bought with her in 
 Paris in a brief honeymoon time of pros- 
 perity. He thinks Marie looks her best 
 with her dark hair disordered by the 
 clutches of Bebe, with the little flush that 
 comes into her cheeks after a vivacious 
 game on the floor with Jules. It is Marie 
 
 211
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 herself who perceives that madam is right, 
 who soothes Jean's indignation with a 
 small> brown hand laid appealingly on his 
 gay waistcoat, who reminds him that little 
 indignities mustn't matter when one has 
 to think of the children, and who makes 
 herself, out of the cheapest materials, a 
 fine little gown and bonnet, bright with 
 the contrast of colors such as only a 
 Frenchwoman dares to attempt. 
 
 The little couple are poor indeed, even 
 when Jean becomes among a select coterie 
 in some degree fashionable, but they are 
 as happy, perhaps, as any two people in 
 the world. They trudge cheerfully from 
 Pimlico, where they lodge obscurely, to 
 some fine house in the West End. Jean 
 tucks Marie's slight hand under his arm. 
 He treats her with a politeness which is 
 not only of the manner, but of the heart. 
 He is attached to her with that generous, 
 impulsive, demonstrative affection which 
 is just a little ridiculous, and most true. 
 Marie, indeed, is not amused, but touched, 
 when Jean, with a spontaneous action 
 which is wholly natural, lays his hand on 
 
 212
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 his heart, and bursts out into a quick 
 French torrent of warm words. They 
 have been married six years, and have 
 still for each other, in some sort, the 
 feeling of lovers. Madam, in fact, their 
 early patroness, who has herself been a 
 long while prosily married to a great deal 
 of money, suspects them for some time 
 of being bride and bridegroom, and, when 
 she learns of her mistake by accident, 
 says, " Aren't these French people extra- 
 ordinary ? '' and gives them up, as it 
 were, in despair. 
 
 Jean adds to domestic affection an in- 
 finite and blithe contentment. He has 
 an air of enjoying himself at the parties 
 he attends professionally which is quite 
 inspiriting. He takes a cup of tepid tea 
 beforehand with quite a blithe smile, and 
 by way of raising his spirits to the requi- 
 site pitch of hilarity necessary to his en- 
 tertainments. When the party is over 
 he buttons himself cheerfully into a tight 
 overcoat, wraps up Marie in her shawls, 
 and the pair go out into the winter night, 
 talking and gay. They slip through the 
 
 213
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 carriages waiting for the guests and take 
 the last omnibus to Pimlico. Jean's 
 good-humor does not desert him even in 
 this abominable vehicle when he is sat on 
 by the two stout women who apparently 
 live in omnibuses, or when his boots, 
 which are small and patent leather, and 
 of which he is a little bit proud, are crushed 
 by the heavy feet of the vulgar. 
 
 For Marie's sake, indeed, he would 
 like to ride in a carriage. Towards her 
 his feelings are infinitely chivalrous, 
 tender, and protecting. For himself, he 
 is not particular. Perhaps because he 
 has not been brought up with the more 
 fastidious tastes of a higher class. Or, 
 perhaps, because he is by nature gay, 
 unselfish, and well contented to take 
 things as they are. 
 
 Jean is glad when his performances 
 take place in the afternoon. Then, when 
 he and Marie come home, they can have 
 a game with the children. Jean lacks, it 
 may be, many of those stout, solid, dura- 
 ble virtues of which Englishmen are 
 proud, but he is at least domestic to a 
 
 214
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 fault. After the game Jean smokes med- 
 itatively. The room is only the usual 
 room of a second-rate English lodging- 
 house, abominable with antimacassars, 
 artificial flowers, and oleographs, but it 
 makes a pretty picture with Jules of four, 
 in a frock, playing on the floor, and 
 Marie, in her old gown and the pretty dis- 
 order in her hair, walking up and down 
 and singing, in a little voice that would 
 be of no use at all professionally, to the 
 baby on her shoulder. When she has put 
 the children to bed, and she and Jean 
 have had coffee such as the British ser- 
 vant never made, Jean comes to the little 
 fire where Marie is standing and puts his 
 impulsive arm round her waist. He says 
 a number of things to her which do not 
 bear translation ; which are ridiculous 
 even in French, perhaps; or in any lan- 
 guage; though Marie does not think so. 
 
 They practise Jean's new songs after- 
 wards, to Marie's accompaniment on a 
 lamentable hired piano. Jean makes his 
 grimaces and expressive actions of hand 
 and shoulders quite faithfully. He over- 
 
 215
 
 The Frenchman 
 
 hears once some one say at one of his 
 parties that to make a buffoon of yourself 
 is, from a cultured point of view, possibly 
 one of the lowest means of making a live- 
 lihood extant. Is it ? Well, perhaps. 
 The remark strikes a little chill at the 
 time even into Jean's brave and cheery 
 soul. But, after all, what would you ? 
 To earn a livelihood commonly is better, 
 when one has Marie and the children to 
 think of, than not to earn it at all. The 
 end justifies the means, perhaps. And if 
 one can be a clown and buffoon, and yet 
 gay, honest, sober, and self-respecting, 
 Jean is no doubt the person who accom- 
 plishes that difficult feat. 
 
 The last news of the little party is, 
 however, that Marie's uncle has left them 
 some money, enough and not too much 
 for wants so quiet and domestic; that 
 Jean thinks of giving up his occupation, 
 and returning with Marie, Jules, and 
 Bebe to that heaven which is called Paris. 
 
 216
 
 The Schoolgirl
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 " Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame ; 
 Las ! le temps non : mais nous nous en allons." 
 
 Joyce has brown curls tied with a rib- 
 bon. She has a face all laughter and 
 dimples. She is fifteen years old, and 
 the happiest creature in creation. 
 
 Joyce does not learn very much. She 
 has, indeed, come to school with the ex- 
 press purpose of learning as little as she 
 can. She comes down to practise Bee- 
 thoven perfectly blithe and contented at 
 seven o'clock on a winter's morninsf. 
 She murders that master with a gayety 
 of soul quite unconquerable. She glides 
 from the sonata in G to the irresistible 
 air of the last coster song. She commits 
 this and all her other misdemeanors in 
 such a manner that they are invariably 
 found out. 
 
 219
 
 The Schoolmrl 
 
 o 
 
 Before an examination she may be seen 
 endeavoring with astonishing hopefulness 
 and a gay smile to learn propositions of 
 Euclid by heart. Her fingers are always 
 covered with ink, and the ridiculous 
 curls fall over her French exercises and 
 blot them. 
 
 She is lectured to by a University Ex- 
 tended gentleman, and draws little carica- 
 tures of him upon her blotting-paper all 
 the time. She astonishes the examiners 
 at the Viva Voce at the end of the term 
 with the singular ignorance and vivacity 
 of her replies. When she is reproached 
 by Intellecta of Girton for her terrible fri- 
 volity at the mathematical class, Joyce 
 puts her impulsive arms round that learned 
 lady's neck, and says with a hug that she 
 is frightfully sorry, only she doesn't really 
 think she can help it. 
 
 Perhaps she cannot. Perhaps it is not 
 her fault that she is so absurdly careless 
 and light-hearted. But' if it is, they are 
 both iniquities, Girton thinks with a sigh, 
 which time is sure to cure. 
 
 220
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to say 
 that Joyce finds herself quite unable to 
 keep the rules. There is an irresistible 
 force in her nature which compels her 
 to jump downstairs two or more steps 
 at a time, to talk in the passage^ and 
 scream in the awful solemnity of the Ger- 
 man class when a mouse runs across the 
 floor. 
 
 When Madame, who is ugly, and old, 
 and kindly, and of whom Joyce is fond, 
 takes her pupil to task for her naughti- 
 ness, Joyce's storm of crying and repent- 
 ance is, for two minutes, quite over- 
 whelming. And then she looks up with 
 an April face of smiles shining through 
 her tears, and in an incredibly short 
 space of time may be heard enjoying her- 
 self without a care in the world in the 
 playground. 
 
 Is she insincere ? She has rather a 
 heart full of impulse, and honesty, and 
 good intentions. She is only young. 
 With her companions she is quite pop- 
 ular and well beloved. She quarrels with 
 them sometimes, and is perfectly out- 
 
 221
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 spoken. She kisses them fiv^e minutes 
 afterwards — on both cheeks — and is 
 wholly reconciled and devoted to them 
 until the next dispute. 
 
 Madame's husband, who is seventy 
 years old, is one of Joyce's particular ad- 
 mirations. She is first attracted to him 
 because he does not teach, or try to 
 teach, her anything. Joyce opens a con- 
 versation one day with him when she 
 finds him working in his flower garden, 
 and from henceforth constitutes herself 
 his especial friend. The old man, who 
 has a shrunken, stooping figure, and wears 
 a very ancient shiny black coat, is himself 
 no doubt attached to this blithe, unthink- 
 ing creature with her dancing eyes, her 
 whimsical short petticoats, and her brown 
 curls. 
 
 " He is the sweetest old love I ever 
 saw," says Joyce to Madame. And 
 Madame has not somehow the heart to 
 say that this tender and effusive mode of 
 speech is scarcely respectful. 
 
 Don't you get tired, now you are so 
 old, doing all that stupid gardening?" 
 
 222
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 Joyce asks with her gay candor as she 
 s-tands looking at him one day. 
 
 Monsieur, whose English accent is 
 quite perfect, replies, " Yes, Mademoi- 
 selle, a little." And Joyce thinks how 
 awfully funny it must feel to be hundreds 
 of years older than any one else. 
 
 " Doesn't it ? " she asks. 
 
 And Monsieur, leaning on his spade, 
 and looking into her bright face with his 
 kindly old eyes, says, " Yes, Mademoi- 
 selle — perhaps." 
 
 Yet he is glad almost to think, as Joyce 
 dances away to join her companions, 
 that he will not live to see this blithe, 
 quicksilver creature in that " awfully 
 funny " stage of age and experience. 
 
 Joyce is now more than sixteen years 
 old, and there begins to be some talk of 
 her leaving school for good. Monsieur, 
 as they walk about the garden sometimes 
 in play-hours, feels it his duty to try and 
 prepare her a little for the world, of which 
 she knows nothing and hopes everything. 
 It is always borne in upon him, indeed, 
 
 223
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 after such conversations, that his efforts 
 are quite useless. To this girl, who has 
 known neither, sorrow and disappoint- 
 ments are words without meaning. 
 
 " Of course, I shan't be perfectly 
 happy," she says gayly. " Why, I'm 
 not perfectly happy here, though this is 
 a love of a school, if they weren't so hor- 
 ribly mean about holidays, and the butter 
 at the fifth form table wasn't too horrid 
 for anything. I get into rows, you know. 
 And the last time Madame was angry with 
 me I cried so awfully I had to borrow all 
 the pocket-handkerchiefs in the dormi- 
 tory. 
 
 Monsieur says no more at the time. 
 He arrives gradually at the conclusion 
 that to prepare Joyce for the world is im- 
 possible, and perhaps undesirable. As 
 he watches her unconquerable joyousness 
 he has, with Madame — though life has 
 spared neither of them — a vague and ri- 
 diculous idea that it pay possibly spare 
 Joyce. 
 
 At the end of the term which is to be 
 her last, the girls act Julius Caesar, with 
 
 224
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 Joyce herself in the title role. Julius 
 Csesar bundles up his brown curls under 
 a head-dress which he fondly imagines to 
 be Roman, He betrays an innocent girl- 
 ish angle in every fold of his toga. He 
 has not particularly bothered himself to 
 learn his part. He displays a joyous and 
 total ignorance of the Shakespearian 
 meaning in every line. He makes signs 
 to the prompter in the wings. When the 
 situation grows particularly tragic he 
 laughs. He has such an innocent, bright 
 face, such dancing eyes, and such a gay 
 and palpable enjoyment in his own ridic- 
 ulous performance that the audience 
 would forgive him a thousand worse 
 blunders. Whe» he is murdered he can't 
 for the life of him help lifting up the cor- 
 ner of the garment which covers his face 
 and exchanging a wink with a friend in 
 the front row. He is seen jumping up 
 after his murder, some time before the 
 curtain has quite descended. He re- 
 moves his toga and the head-dress in three 
 minutes, and is Joyce again — Joyce in a 
 girlish party-frock, her curls tied up with 
 15 225
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 a gala white ribbon, and her cheeks the 
 soft carmine of happiness and excite- 
 ment. 
 
 She eats a very healthy schoolgirl sup- 
 per. When, indeed, she thinks of the 
 next day, when she is to leave school for 
 ever, she is quite overcome with emotion. 
 But then she never thinks of unhappy 
 things very often or very long together. 
 
 As Monsieur plays for the girls danc- 
 ing in the long schoolroom afterwards, on 
 the jingling school piano, he looks up 
 often from the music, which, indeed, he 
 knows by heart, at Joyce. She is gayer 
 almost than any one. 
 
 "It is perfectly dreadful to be going 
 away to-morrow,^' she says to Monsieur, 
 as she stands by his side for a minute, 
 and her eyes grow suddenly a little dim. 
 She dances away again in a moment, and 
 he looks after her. 
 
 The next day Joyce leaves the '* love 
 of a school " for ever, in floods of tears 
 and a four-wheeler. An old figure, very 
 
 226
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 bent, and wearing an old coat, looks after 
 the cab a long time. He is glad to think 
 that Joyce, whom he has loved more than 
 he knew, will be smiling again very soon, 
 and yet he turns into the dull house with 
 a sigh which is not all for his own lone- 
 liness. 
 
 Monsieur and Madame do not see their 
 old pupil for five years. Joyce has been 
 abroad. She has been very gay, she 
 writes. 
 
 " Does very gay mean very happy ?" 
 says Madame, and Monsieur answers, 
 ** Not always, I think," in his old voice. 
 And then she comes back. She has put 
 up the brown curls and let down her whim- 
 sical frock, as was to be expected. She 
 looks a good deal older and, in some sub- 
 tle sense only, different. Which might 
 also have been expected. 
 
 She kisses Madame impulsively on 
 both cheeks as she used to do. She in- 
 sists, with a great deal of her old wilful- 
 ness and gaycty, thar Monsieur shall take 
 
 O O "^
 
 The Schoolgirl 
 
 her round the garden. She puts her girl- 
 ish arm — it is still a girlish arm, and very- 
 round and slender — through his, and 
 chatters to him in her bright voice about 
 a thousand of her gay doings. Once she 
 stops and looks all round the old garden 
 carefully. 
 
 " I used to be so — extraordinarily — 
 happy here," she says. 
 
 My dear Mademoiselle," answers 
 the old man almost impulsively, " have 
 you not been happy away from here ? Is 
 there anything — the matter ? " 
 
 " Nothing," she answers very lightly. 
 " Nothing in the world. I am only grown 
 up. 
 
 223
 
 The Dog
 
 i
 
 The Dog 
 
 " Le devouement qui ne s'exprime que par des 
 preuves — " 
 
 Don is a Dandy Dinmont; is sober, 
 middle-aged, and respectable. 
 
 He never gambols with the light- 
 minded of his species, but he will fight 
 with any of them, planning his attack 
 with infinite discretion, and taking the 
 deadly undergrip of the throat which 
 makes him equal to any dog twice his 
 weight. Don goes to bed regularly at a 
 certain hour every night. He rises regu- 
 larly each morning. He takes his meals 
 in a decent, serious manner, like an elderly 
 gentleman at his club, without haste or 
 vulgar enjoyment. He has a cloth laid 
 for him beneath his plate. If the cloth 
 is not there he will not eat. If the cloth 
 is laid for him in the kitchen he will not 
 
 231
 
 The Dog 
 
 eat likewise. Don has all the instincts of 
 a gentleman. He is not, indeed, proud. 
 For that he is too well bred. But to a 
 person with a pedigree and of his known 
 rank and sobriety he feels that some con- 
 sideration is due. Such consideration he 
 exacts. 
 
 He will not sleep in his bed, for in- 
 stance, unless his straw is fresh and per- 
 fect. If it is defective he looks down at 
 it reproachfully, and then looks up still 
 more reproachfully at his master, who is 
 a silent, lonely man. 
 
 These two old bachelors are not de- 
 monstrative, but they seem to understand 
 each other. One knowledge they appear 
 to have in common, namely, that of the 
 limitations of life. They both have a 
 few small enjoyments, to be duly taken 
 with gravity, but they know that there is 
 nothing in existence worth making much 
 stir about. They take walks together. 
 Don's ebullitions of joy at the prospect 
 of exercise are no doubt as irrepressible 
 as they are short-lived. He soon settles 
 down into a trot full of grave enjoyment
 
 The Dog 
 
 and decorum. He resists temptation to 
 hunt in the brushwood with a careful self- 
 denial. These walks of master and dog 
 in the lanes are rather like their walk 
 through life — pessimistic and varied by a 
 very limited interest in passing events. 
 It would almost seem that they have 
 an object at the end of their walk, but 
 the end is home again, and there is no 
 visible object beyond the taking of exer- 
 cise. 
 
 To his master, who is preoccupied and 
 spends many hours at his desk in the 
 compilation of grave law-books, which 
 no one ever seems to read, Don is indeed 
 most honestly devoted. Nevertheless, 
 he errs sometimes. Thrice he stays out 
 all night in a manner disreputable and 
 unworthy of his serious character. Once 
 the savage instincts of his nature overcome 
 his gentlemanly civilization, and he de- 
 stroys a couple of spring chickens. An- 
 other time he stands by, applauding, while 
 a visitor commits a similar indiscretion, 
 and exhibits a most reprehensible self- 
 righteousness during the period of his 
 
 233
 
 The Dog 
 
 friend's castigation. Once he escapes 
 from supervision to wreak a long-harbored 
 vengeance upon a fox-terrier in the neigh- 
 borhood. It is grievous to relate that the 
 murderer is not penitent, but elated, 
 when he sees his enemy lying torn and 
 dead in the dust, and is only brought to 
 a fitting grief and contrition when his 
 master stands over him with a riding- 
 whip. It is thought by his master, who 
 is not sentimental, that the blows hurt 
 less than the grave words with which he 
 represents the enormity of such conduct. 
 It is at least sure that, while Don takes 
 the punishment with a certain subdued 
 philosophy, when it is over he retires to 
 his sanctum at the back of the rockery 
 and howls. 
 
 Philosophy is one of Don's strong 
 points. Though he hates being washed, 
 he submits to the weekly bath by a vul- 
 gar and heavy-handed coachman and a 
 most insulting disinfectant soap with a 
 pessimistic submission ■ and the air of 
 having made up his mind to face the 
 worst. As to the rest of the quiet house- 
 
 234
 
 The Dog 
 
 hold, he is in a gentlemanly and conde- 
 scending manner sufficiently attached to 
 the parlor-maid to trot round the table 
 with her at meals, but he never loses 
 sight of the fact that he and his master 
 are of a different world from that beyond 
 the green-baize door. 
 
 To his master Don gives, indeed, an 
 affection such as he gives to no one else. 
 It is like a human affection, only better, 
 perhaps. For his master never actually 
 feeds him with his own hands, and rarely 
 punishes him, so it has its root neither in 
 self-interest nor fear. Don feels perhaps 
 that they two have much in common. 
 They have their sex, first of all. They 
 are grave and judicial, as no woman could 
 be, when they linger over their wine in 
 the twilight dining-room after dinner. 
 They are well content to lie meditative 
 and quiescent in the field on Sunday 
 afternoons. They have developed in 
 them that talent for rest and thought which 
 is not developed in either the cook or the 
 parlor-maid. They have, above all, a cer- 
 tain philosophic pessimism of life. They 
 
 235
 
 The Dog 
 
 are too wise to think that existence is 
 really worth having, but they endure it 
 with an uncomplaining high-bred patience 
 that gives them the air of awaiting a con- 
 summation which they never really expect. 
 Don stretches himself before the fire on a 
 winter evening with a grunt which says as 
 plainly as words, " There are allevia- 
 tions," and his master lights a pipe, with 
 a half-suppressed sigh, and turns reso- 
 lutely to a book. 
 
 The Old Bachelor looks over the page 
 at his companion once or twice. He has 
 lived so long and so entirely with Don 
 that it is possible that he endows the 
 dog in his own mind with the power of 
 thought. At all events, he tells a num- 
 ber of stories about Don which his hear- 
 ers entirely refuse to believe. During the 
 long winter evenings they sit thus, their 
 comfort emphasized by the howling of the 
 wind in the chimney, the master with his 
 book, the dog with his long, long thoughts 
 — for Don is no great sleeper, but appears 
 to reflect much. They sit and await the 
 consummation. 
 
 236
 
 The Dog 
 
 Don is not an old dog, though grave of 
 habit and without the graces of youth. 
 His head is indeed too large for his queer 
 round body. His legs are too short and 
 his person so long that in the middle he 
 almost touches the ground. 
 
 " That's a centreboard dog of yours," 
 says a yachting friend one day, but the 
 remark falls flat. For, like many of his 
 betters, Don has overcome physical defi- 
 ciency by mental excellence. He perse- 
 veres in the chase v/ith a fine sporting 
 spirit, although he knows full well that 
 the smallest rabbit can get away from him 
 in a canter. He probably has a tolerant 
 contem.pt for leggy dogs, and if any, 
 leggy or stumpy, cast the eye of dispar- 
 agement upon him, they have to deal with 
 the abnormal jaw and the deadly under- 
 grip. 
 
 With women Don is patient, but con- 
 temptuous. His master has an only 
 sister who comes to stay once a year, 
 during which visit Don's regular habits 
 are sadly put out. He walks out in the 
 
 237
 
 The Dog 
 
 garden by himself, and obviously prefers 
 solitude and a word with the gardener to 
 the society of a person who is more than 
 half afraid of him, and calls him " Doggy " 
 and " Pretty." 
 
 Children he fails entirely to understand. 
 He evidently considers them to be some 
 debased form of human creature, and en- 
 dures their caresses with a doubting eye 
 fixed on his master, awaiting the word 
 to up and slay. 
 
 Don is wholly content with his life in 
 a philosophic way, though at times there 
 is a look in his melancholy eyes which 
 seems to explain the desire to get beyond 
 the limitations of his intelligence. He 
 would like to understand a little more and 
 a little better, which desire assuredly 
 brings him within touch, as it were, of 
 the human intellect. 
 
 "Get out, Don!" ejaculates the Old 
 Bachelor sometimes, when the dog's 
 clumsy body takes up the best part of the 
 hearthrug; and Don gets out with a grunt. 
 They understand each other, quarrel in a 
 
 238
 
 The Dog 
 
 half-hearted, manlike manner, and never 
 formally make it up. The Old Bachelor 
 is quite alive to Don's faults, and the dog, 
 who has never had another master, pos- 
 sibly dreams of one who might be less 
 absorbed in dull books, who might take 
 more notice of a faithful friend, and ac- 
 knowledge loving eyes and a wagging 
 tail awaiting him at the foot of the stairs 
 every morning at breakfast-time with the 
 regularity of a clock. For the Old Bach- 
 elor hurries into the breakfast-room and 
 takes up his letters with an eagerness 
 which is re-awakened every morning, and 
 dies a sudden death before the coffee is 
 poured into the solitary cup. The let- 
 ters are from printers or publishers, and 
 are dull, like the books they print and 
 publish for the Old Bachelor. 
 
 Thus, year in, year out, these two phi- 
 losophers live together. A little gray 
 appears at the Old Bachelor's temples, 
 and on Don's heavy jaw. Don begins to 
 grow rather stout and comfortable; his 
 special quarries in the rabbit-warren at 
 the back of the field hardly honor him by 
 
 239
 
 The Dog 
 
 running away from him — a leisurely trot 
 will secure a safe retreat from the pursuit 
 of a person so long and round in the 
 body, so short in the leg. 
 
 Then suddenly the consummation 
 seems to loom upon that mental horizon 
 which has absorbed the Old Bachelor's 
 attention so long. Some one has died 
 somewhere and . . . well . . . there are 
 letters which are not from printers and 
 publishers. One day the Old Bachelor 
 packs his portmanteau and goes away 
 in a cab, leaving Don disconsolate by the 
 dining-room fire. 
 
 Don will not be comforted, and acts at 
 this time with a gentlemanly reserve 
 which is worthy of the pedigree on the 
 fast yellowing sheet of paper upstairs in 
 the master's writing-table. He acknowl- 
 edges the efforts of the parlor-maid to 
 console him ; but he cannot, with the best 
 will in the world, be comforted. He 
 knows that before wornen and menials it 
 would be bad form to break down, so he 
 preserves his dignified demeanor and leads 
 his quiet dignified life alone in the dining- 
 
 240
 
 The Dos 
 
 o 
 
 room, where he takes his meals in soli- 
 tude. There seems to be in his mind 
 some dim knowledge that he is master 
 now, and he walks up the garden every 
 morning to see what the men are doing. 
 He sits in the sunlight on the lawn with 
 a certain air of possession. And when a 
 great cleaning of floors and washing of 
 spring curtains takes place he gravely 
 notes the bustle, and steps outside until 
 the rooms are fit for his reception. 
 
 The household excitement seems to 
 increase, and one day Don is forced by 
 sudden circumstances to forget himself. 
 He sees the cab approaching, and, recog- 
 nizing the portmanteau, so far loses sight 
 of his position as to rush wildly into the 
 kitchen to tell the cook, who, as it happens, 
 is in her best black dress and a fluster. 
 
 Don gets a little flurried, and does not 
 exactly know how he comes to find him- 
 self in the arms of a total stranger, v/ho 
 hurries into the dining-room and, kneel- 
 ing impetuously on the hearthrug, presses 
 a cheek which is young and fresh still 
 against his grizzled face. 
 i6 241
 
 The Dog 
 
 " This is Don — this is Don, I know," 
 she says. 
 
 And the Old Bachelor answers in a 
 queer voice : 
 
 "Yes— that is Don." 
 
 " Poor old dear — he doesn't under- 
 stand," cries the Consummation, Avith 
 another hug and a laugh, which is only- 
 half gay. 
 
 Don looks from one to the other with 
 a doubtful wag of the tail. Perhaps he 
 does understand — a little. 
 
 242
 
 The Caretak 
 
 er
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 " Quand c'est le cceur qui conduit, il entraine." 
 
 Martha caretakes a decrepit City ware- 
 house. She cleans, or imagines that she 
 cleans, the offices of a depressed company 
 of tea merchants and of a necessitous 
 land surveyor. They confound her hope- 
 lessly when they arrive every morning 
 and behold the thickness of the dust on 
 their ledgers and the black and smoky 
 nature of their fires. And Martha speaks 
 of them tenderly as " my gentlemen," 
 and inquires fondly after their wives and 
 families. 
 
 Martha's appearance has, it must be 
 confessed, a worn and dingy air, not un- 
 like the house she lives in. She is inva- 
 riably attired in an ancient shawl and a 
 frowsy black bonnet. People are apt to 
 forget that the wrinkled old face beneath 
 
 245
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 it is very kind and tender. The black- 
 ness of Martha's aprons and the streaky 
 nature of her house-cleaning cause them 
 to lose sight of the fact that London 
 grimness has never reached Martha's soul. 
 
 Martha is boundlessly simple and con- 
 tented. It is fortunate that an external 
 cleanliness is not necessary to her happi- 
 ness, since it has been her fate to look at 
 Thames Street, breathe Thames Street, 
 and live in Thames Street since she was 
 five-and-twenty. Once she has been into 
 the country. But that was a long time 
 ago; though on the window-sill of her 
 attic there still live miserably some of the 
 cuttings she took from the plants she 
 brought back with her. 
 
 Martha waters those forlorn and stunted 
 geraniums with the greatest pride and 
 indiscretion. She imagines that the 
 smutty and despairing musk still smells 
 deliciously, and puts her old nose into it 
 and sniffs with the greatest enjoyment in 
 the world. On sultry days she opens her 
 window and sits at work by her ' ' garden. ' ' 
 Her old face is quite placid and contented. 
 
 246
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 The expressive language of the coster- 
 monger below rises to her ear. The 
 refreshing scent of decaying vegetables 
 must quite overpower that of the elderly 
 musk. But either Martha has long 
 ceased to expect unalloyed pleasure, or is 
 of such a very simple nature that she can 
 enjoy imperfect happiness perfectly. 
 
 Martha is very proud of her attic. It 
 may not, in fact does not, contain much 
 oxygen. But there is a beautiful picture 
 of the Queen smiling blandly out of a 
 tradesman's almanac of the year fifty. 
 Martha's circumstances render it neces- 
 sary that there should constantly be wash- 
 ing drying in lines across the ceiling. But 
 she takes her meals quite blithely beneath 
 this canopy, and has no feelings at all 
 about cutting her cheese — she never 
 seems to eat anything except cheese, or 
 drink anything except tea — on the patch- 
 work quilt which covers the n^gligd man- 
 ner in which she has made her bed. 
 
 Martha has a table indeed, but it is 
 quite covered with the accumulated 
 treasures of a lifetime. There is a reli- 
 
 247
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 gious work presented to her by a Bible 
 Minister anghng for a congregation, which 
 Martha no doubt values the more because 
 she cannot read it. There is a creature 
 which may or may not represent a parrot, 
 with boot buttons for eyes and a body of 
 many-colored wools. Martha blows the 
 dust from the glass case which encloses it 
 with an infinite affection and reverence. 
 She made the parrot herself a long, long 
 time ago, and is tenderly proud of it still. 
 By its side is a Testament scored by a 
 hand long dead, and with Martha's 
 homely name written on the fly-leaf. 
 There are two china shepherdesses, with 
 pink sashes and squints, on the mantel- 
 piece, and an In Memoriam card of 
 Martha's dead nephew. 
 
 By the window there is a bird in a cage, 
 to whom Martha chirrups cheerfully, and 
 whom she addresses as 'Enery. The 
 bird never chirrups to Martha, old age 
 and the stifling air of Thames Street hav- 
 ing long silenced him ■ for ever. But 
 Martha's placid optimism has caused her 
 to believe persistently for many years 
 
 24S
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 that if she only chirrups long and cheer- 
 fully enough 'Enery will reply to her at 
 last. 
 
 " He's wonderful for company," she 
 says, " and eats next to nothing." Which 
 to Martha's mind is the greatest recom- 
 mendation a friend can have. 
 
 Martha is indeed well paid for her care- 
 taking. When one considers the sketchy 
 nature of her cleaning she appears to be 
 ridiculously overpaid. Martha's money 
 is not spent on herself. She eats very 
 little — and cheese and tea may be bought 
 incredibly cheap and nasty in Thames 
 Street. She indulges in no vanities of 
 dress. The frowsy shawl and bonnet are 
 of immemorial antiquity. Her employers 
 surmise uncharitably that she does not 
 waste her substance on soap. Martha, 
 in fact, wastes nothing. She has a 
 money-box secreted in a drawer amid an 
 awful confusion of other treasures. She 
 is a miser. She has saved and stinted 
 herself for years and years. She has de- 
 nied herself not luxuries, for luxuries 
 have never even suggested themselves to 
 
 249
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 her, but what other people would call 
 necessaries. 
 
 On that far-off visit to the country 
 Martha found and loved a great-niece. 
 Tilly was, it must be confessed, a dreadful, 
 stout, stolid, apple-cheeked plebeian 
 baby. But she took possession of Mar- 
 tha's lonely old heart. Martha carried 
 back to London a cheap photograph of 
 Tilly in her best frock, and a deep-seated 
 resolution concerning Tilly in her foolish 
 old soul. When Tilly is old enough she 
 is to come up to London to live, at 
 Martha's expense, with Martha, and be 
 'prenticed to what Martha speaks of rev- 
 erentially in the abstract as " the dress- 
 making." Martha, like a true Cockney, 
 loves and despises the country, and is 
 convinced that London is the only place 
 in which to get on. And the dressmaking 
 is such a genteel employment. 
 
 To 'prentice Tilly to a very good house, 
 to be able to clothe Tilly as her high posi- 
 tion will require, to be able to support 
 Tilly elegant, as Martha says, Martha in- 
 stituted the money-box, and puts into it 
 
 250
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 weekly much more than she can afford. 
 She works for Tilly with the dogged per- 
 sistence of the woman of one idea. The 
 stout earthy child whom she has not seen 
 for a dozen years or more has been beau- 
 tified, perhaps beyond recognition, in her 
 fond and foolish imagination. Or she 
 thinks that large red cheeks and a stolid 
 gaze — admirably caught by the cheap 
 photograph — are incapable of improve- 
 ment. Tilly's picture is assigned an 
 honorable place by the side of a terrible 
 but beloved portrait of the Prince of 
 Wales. Though Martha is devotedly 
 attached to the Royal Family, there have 
 been days on which the Prince's counte- 
 nance has been left thick in dust. But 
 Martha always makes a point of cleaning 
 Tilly reverentially with a corner of her 
 shawl. She gazes at the picture when 
 she has performed this operation with an 
 admiration and tenderness in her dim old 
 eyes which are quite ridiculous and pa- 
 thetic. Two or three times a week she 
 breathes on the glass which protects 
 Tilly, and rubs it vigorously with a piece 
 
 251
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 of a cloth used indiscriminately as a 
 duster or a handkerchief. 
 
 For Tilly's sake she refuses to join a 
 party of lady friends who are going by 
 water to Greenwich. One has to live in 
 Thames Street, perhaps, to know what 
 a temptation such an expedition repre- 
 sents. The land surveyor's wife sends 
 Martha a cheap petticoat for a Christmas 
 present. It is beautifully striped in many 
 colors, and Martha says, " It's too good 
 for my likes," and puts it tenderly away 
 in a drawer for Tilly. For Tilly's sake 
 she denies herself sugar in her tea. For 
 Tilly's sake she creeps about the old 
 house in boots so aged that the tea mer- 
 chant is constrained to speak to her 
 severely on her disreputable appearance. 
 For Tilly's sake she goes to bed early to 
 save candles, and lies awake hour after 
 hour with her old thoughts to keep her 
 company. For Tilly's sake she daily 
 makes, in fact, the thousand little sacri- 
 fices of which only a great love is capable. 
 
 The tea merchant, exasperated beyond 
 bearing at last at her incompetence, tells 
 
 252
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 her her services will be no longer required. 
 On consideration perhaps of her having 
 inquired tenderly after his relations every 
 morning for an indefinite number of 
 years, he consents to her still occupying 
 the attic on the payment of a modest 
 rent. 
 
 Then Martha seeks some new employ- 
 ment. Her old heart sinks when a week 
 has passed and she has failed to find it. 
 For herself she can live on almost noth- 
 ing. But Tilly is seventeen now, and is 
 coming up to London next year. Martha 
 would rather starve than take a penny 
 from her money-box. She has called it 
 Tilly's money so long that she really be- 
 lieves now to spend it would be robbing 
 Tilly of her own. She is reduced to sell- 
 ing 'Enery — with tears. He fetches a 
 very, very small sum, and Martha has 
 loved him as if he were a human creature. 
 The theological work presented by the 
 Bible Christian minister goes also, and 
 Martha, who has never read it, cannot see 
 the vacant place on the table because of 
 the mist in her old eyes. 
 
 253
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 At last she is engaged by the parish 
 clergyman to clean the church. Up to 
 this period Martha has been a Baptist — 
 not so much because she has a leaning to- 
 wards that particular sect, or any particu- 
 lar sect, as because the Baptist chapel is 
 very handy, the minister affable, and the 
 footstools large, fat, comfortable ones of 
 a showy red baize. 
 
 " But it'd be sooperstition to let them 
 'assicks stand in the way of my niece," 
 Martha says thoughtfully to herself. The 
 'assicks do not stand in Tilly's way. In 
 a day or two Martha, with an optimistic 
 smile on her wrinkled old face, may be 
 seen providing Ritualistic books of de- 
 votion to devout young gentlemen who 
 have come to church to attend Prime. 
 
 Then Tilly comes. Martha has house- 
 cleaned her room for Tilly's reception. 
 She has not, indeed, house-cleaned it very 
 thoroughly, partly because she has not 
 had time and is seventy years old and a 
 little feeble, and paftly because Martha 
 has never cleaned anything thoroughly, 
 including herself. But she has blown the 
 
 254
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 dust off most things, and put up a piece 
 of new window curtain. She has bought a 
 shining looking-glass for Tilly's benefit, 
 Martha never seeing her own kind, tender, 
 wrinkled, grubby old countenance from 
 year's end to year's end. She has pro- 
 vided quite a sumptuous tea — with sugar. 
 She has made the bed almost neatly. She 
 has, in fact, done everything that love can 
 suggest to her. 
 
 Before she goes out in the frowsy bon- 
 net and ancient shawl to meet Tilly at the 
 station she takes a last look, through eyes 
 proudly and tenderly dim, at Tilly's pict- 
 ure. The day has come for which she has 
 been working for years, for which she has 
 denied herself gladly, for which she has 
 yearned and prayed. She can feel her 
 heart beating quicker under the thread- 
 bare shawl, and her hands tremble a 
 little. 
 
 She is much too early for the train, and 
 has to wait so long in the waiting-room 
 where she has arranged to meet Tilly that 
 she falls into a doze. A robust female 
 with a developed figure, a tight waist, 
 
 255
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 and a flowery hat nudges her at last im- 
 patiently with a tin hat-box. 
 
 " Lor, aunt! " says Tilly, " what with 
 you so shabby, and snoring so ungenteel 
 in a public place, I 'ardly liked to own 
 yer. 
 
 My dear ! " cries Martha in a trem- 
 bling voice. " My dear! My dear! " and 
 she puts her withered old arms round the 
 girl's neck, and kisses her and cries over 
 her for happiness. 
 
 " What a take on, to be sure ! " says 
 Tilly, who is perfectly practical. " Let's 
 go 'ome. " 
 
 And they go home and begin life to- 
 gether. 
 
 For a month Martha is happy. She is 
 happy at least so far that she can watch 
 the accomplished Tilda reading a novel- 
 ette and profoundly admire so much edu- 
 cation. She puts her ridiculous old head 
 on one side to look proudly and fondly at 
 the stylish black curls shading Tilly's 
 rubicund countenance. She ventures to 
 kiss Tilly's cheek veiy gently when that 
 young lady is snoring profoundly after a 
 
 256
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 day's pleasure, for Tilly has not yet 
 started " the dressmaking." And the 
 premium is still wrapped up safely in 
 dingy newspaper in the money-box. 
 
 Martha is creeping upstairs one night, 
 weary but optimistic, after a hard day's 
 cleaning at the church, when a slipshod 
 infant next door thrusts a note into her 
 hand. The slipshod infant, who has re- 
 ceived an education, reads it to Martha at 
 Martha's desire. It contains only a few 
 lines. 
 
 Tilly has gone away. Tilly has eloped 
 with a costermonger. Married respect- 
 able at a registry, she phrases it. " That's 
 all," says the infant of education. 
 
 That is all. But that is why Martha 
 falls back with her face drawn and ashen 
 and her lips trembling. That is all. It 
 is the end of those years of work and de- 
 nial and hoping. Yet what is more nat- 
 ural than that Tilly should desire matri- 
 mony, and try her blandishments upon a 
 costermonger who plied his trade most 
 conveniently beneath Martha's window ? 
 What is more natural in this cruel world 
 17 257
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 than love repaid by ingratitude, and trust- 
 fulness by deceit? 
 
 Martha gropes her way blindly to the 
 attic. It is not yet so dark there but she 
 can see distinctly the poor little improve- 
 ments she made for Tilly's coming. She 
 turns the cheap looking-glass with its face 
 to the wall. It was meant to reproduce 
 Tilly, buxom and twenty, and not Mar- 
 tha, poor, old, ugly, and disappointed. 
 She catches sight of Tilly's picture at 
 four years old — Tilly, stolid enough in- 
 deed, but little, loving, and good. And 
 Martha cries, and buries her head in her 
 arms, and the tears mark grimy courses 
 down her furrowed cheeks. 
 
 " If you could 'a' trusted me, Tilly," 
 she says. " If you would but 'a' trusted 
 me." 
 
 Until this bitter hour she has not known 
 how Tilly has filled her life. How she 
 has only lived for Tilly, and thought and 
 hoped only for her. And Tilly has gone 
 away, and Martha's house is left unto her 
 desolate. 
 
 A footstep outside startles her. For 
 
 258
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 one wild foolish moment she thinks that 
 Tilly has come back — that she has but 
 dreamt a bad dream and is awake again. 
 And she recognizes the voluble tones of 
 the mamma of the educated infant, and 
 dries her tears, not from pride — Martha 
 has so little — but from loyalty to Tilda. 
 
 Mrs. Jones always have said that Tilda 
 was a bad lot. " A impudent, brazen- 
 faced thing," says Mrs. Jones, warming 
 to the description. 
 
 And Martha, with a little color coming 
 into her poor white cheeks, knows as Tilly 
 meant no harm. And marriages are made 
 in 'eaven. 
 
 She may have to acknowledge Tilda 
 erring to her own heart, but how can she 
 give her up to the merciless judgment of 
 a merciless world ? 
 
 " You're a poor-sperited one, that you 
 are," says Mrs. Jones, " and as likely as 
 not you've never looked to see if she 'ave 
 made off with the premium." 
 
 Martha has not looked. Is startled 
 into confessing it. She has not thought 
 of the premium, so hardly earned. She 
 
 259
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 has only thought that she has loved Tilda, 
 and Tilda has not loved her. And a swift 
 burning color comes into Martha's cheeks, 
 and some sudden deadly premonition 
 creeps to her heart and closes coldly upon 
 it. And she answers steadily, " My Tilda's 
 as honest as you are." 
 
 " Don't you be so sure," says Mrs. 
 Jones vindictively. " You look and see." 
 
 Perhaps Martha takes some sort of res- 
 olution as she goes heavily to the drawer 
 where the money-box is kept. Or per- 
 haps no resolution is necessary, because 
 her ignorant, loving old soul is of its 
 nature infinitely faithful. Her hands and 
 lips are quite steady now, and she is not 
 afraid of Mrs. Jones's " sperited " gaze. 
 The monej^'-box is quite light, and the 
 money collected was chiefly in pence and 
 half-pence. It is also unlocked. And 
 Martha turns with her back to the drawer 
 and faces Tilda's enemies. 
 
 " You can tell all as asks," she says 
 in an old voice that is very clear and 
 
 260
 
 The Caretaker 
 
 firm, " as my Tilda is quite straight and 
 honest. And them as says she isn't — 
 
 19 f 
 les. 
 
 " I'll believe as you speak true," says 
 Mrs. Jones. " If you don't, well, the 
 Lord forgive you ! " 
 
 And who shall say that He will not ? 
 
 261
 
 The Parson
 
 The Parson 
 
 " Le monde est une foule d'isoles." 
 
 He lives in the days of farmer George. 
 He is perhaps fifty years old. He has a 
 jolly, round, red, tanned, weather-beaten 
 face with shrewd gray eyes under shaggy 
 eyebrows. ' He wears a dress which is as 
 careless, as comfortable, and as uncler- 
 ical as may well be. He has spurs clink- 
 ing under his surplice, and a dozen easy 
 tumbled pink coats in his untidy bache- 
 lor quarters at the Rectory. 
 
 The Rectory, an abominable, dull, 
 damp, moth-eaten hole, is the reward of 
 vigorous Hebrew at Cambridge. It is 
 whispered, indeed, that Parson Jack was 
 not only vigorous at Hebrew and at 
 compelling the errant undergraduate at- 
 tention with his great burly voice and fine 
 broad English personality, but also, says 
 
 265
 
 The Parson 
 
 report, at athletics of every kind. At 
 games and on the river. At a rollicking 
 song, at a rollicking story, the life of a 
 college breakfast in his gravest days, and 
 the wildest of the wild in his wild youth. 
 
 It is certain that Parson Jack knows 
 very well how to take odds or lay them 
 on any race or racer the sporting Squire 
 of his parish can name to him. It is whis- 
 pered, indeed, that he knows the points 
 of a horse a good deal better than the 
 subtleties of theology. He thinks per- 
 haps — God bless him, says the Squire — 
 that a good seat, a brave zest for a fine 
 old English sport, and the keen, healthy 
 excitement that comes with a fair crisp 
 morning and the bay of the hounds are in 
 themselves part of an honest virtue and 
 conducive to it. 
 
 He is not, it will be seen, strictly cler- 
 ical. He has his notions of duty indeed, 
 which are, like himself, broad and honest. 
 He will go round the parish after his late, 
 untidy bachelor breakfast at the Rectory, 
 and ask Hodge, in uncommonly forcible 
 language, which has never even occurred 
 
 266
 
 The Parson 
 
 to him as being unorthodox, why he was 
 not in church last Sunday. He has a 
 joke for the women, and the jokes sound 
 better in his great jolly tones than the best 
 in another man's, and a shining sixpence 
 out of his own poorly-equipped pockets 
 for the children. He is not, perhaps, very 
 dignified. The only advice he offers is 
 quite worldly and material — how to buy a 
 horse, and how — God bless you. Sir, says 
 Jeannie, with tears in her country eyes 
 — to pay the rent. He will send down 
 the people, when they are ill, one of the 
 prime puddings made by his housekeeper, 
 or a bottle of his old port, which he takes 
 to be a cure, or at least a panacea, for 
 every ailment under Heaven. He gives 
 them no spiritual directions. A sense of 
 his own unworthiness oppresses the most 
 humble heart in the world. When 
 Hodge, dying, confesses to him some sin 
 of a wicked youth, the Parson says, 
 "God forgive us!" including himself in 
 that need for especial mercy. He has 
 the widest charity and pity for the faults 
 of his people, feeling himself to be more 
 
 267
 
 Tlie Parson 
 
 faulty than all. When he reads, in his 
 great tones, the Confession in Church, one 
 guesses whom he takes to be the worst of 
 lost sheep and miserable offenders. 
 
 He is unorthodox enough at the ser- 
 vice. Heaven knows. His Georgian con- 
 gregation are not indeed particular, and 
 accept complacently irregularities which 
 would cause the hair of the faithful of the 
 present enlightened generation to stand 
 on end. The Parson's great dog follows 
 him always into church. If Rough lin- 
 gers, as he will sometimes, in the aisle, 
 taking a simple canine interest in the con- 
 gregation, the Parson whistles to him 
 with perfect simplicity and no idea of ir- 
 reverence to come into the Vestry, where 
 Rough scrabbles at the door feelingly 
 during the service. Neither does the 
 Parson perceive any moral wrong in cur- 
 tailing the Liturgy when the day is fine, 
 and his human nature, as well as every 
 one else's, is longing to be out in the sun- 
 shine. He preaches the long formal 
 sermon in fashion in his time, in loud, 
 honest tones, and getting over it as fast 
 
 268
 
 The Parson 
 
 as he can. He is not particularly grieved 
 at heart to hear Hodge snoring in the free 
 seats during the discourse, which the 
 Parson knows to be trite and dull as well 
 as anybody. The hideousness of a church 
 built in the reign of Queen Anne does not 
 pain his artistic sense in the least, nor 
 does the excruciating band in the gallery 
 jar on his fine outdoor nerves. When 
 My Lady from the Manor, who is town- 
 bred and delicate, complains to him that 
 there are black-beetles in her pew, he re- 
 plies, " Crush 'em. Madam, crush 'em !" 
 in his great voice, and considers the mat- 
 ter settled. He gives out notices in 
 Church which are in no way connected 
 with religion. " The hounds meet on 
 Blakely Green on Thursday," he says in 
 a friendly fashion, " and mind you're all 
 in time." His eccentricities, if indeed 
 they can be called by such a name in his 
 day, are so far from being disliked by the 
 people that they even seem to put the 
 Parson on a friendly human footing with 
 themselves. The fact that he finds the 
 Litany, as they do, conducive to slumber, 
 
 2C9
 
 The Parson 
 
 makes as it were a bond of union between 
 them. They are even pleased when they 
 discover, as they very soon do from his 
 man, that the Parson finds it impossible 
 to rise early, except for hunting, that he 
 is honestly fond of his port wine, and 
 takes a nap after dinner in the pleasantest 
 human fashion. 
 
 With his equals the Parson is popular 
 too. The Squire forgives him his He- 
 brew when he finds that the books are 
 moulding away unread in the Rectory 
 library. And the Parson is famous for 
 his good stories and his loud honest sense 
 of humor. His very laugh even — a great, 
 huge, burly, vigorous laugh — amuses his 
 friends. He is held, no doubt rightly, to 
 be as good a judge of port as any man in 
 the county, and takes his bottle after a 
 hard day's hunting without, it must be 
 said, any evil result. The Parson tells his 
 best stories indeed after his wine. If his 
 influence on the party is certainly not 
 spiritual, or even clerical, it has, in a 
 coarse age, a robust cleanliness. For the 
 Parson, for the sake of one woman in a 
 
 270
 
 The Parson 
 
 past of which he never speaks, respects 
 all, and when he is at table the conversa- 
 tion is at least decent. 
 
 After dinner the Parson — and it is to 
 be feared that the fact that many of his 
 friends are not in a position to accom- 
 pany him does not shock him at all — goes 
 upstairs to take tea with Madam in her 
 drawing-room. He sings some of his 
 rollicking college songs to her accompani- 
 ment. He misses out such verses as he 
 thinks unsuitable for her hearing. He is 
 fond of this woman, who is gentle and 
 good, though neither beautiful nor young, 
 with a quite simple affection. He likes 
 to sit in her drawing-room, with the 
 flowers in bowls on the table, with the 
 pretty old tea things and silver by the fire, 
 with the harpsichord open and lighted by 
 candles in massive candlesticks, with her 
 woman's work here and the delicate touch 
 of a woman everywhere. He is fifty years 
 old, a robust out-door person, who has no 
 business to be moved by such things as 
 these — no business to miss them when he 
 goes back to the Rectory with its dull
 
 The Parson 
 
 furniture and its masculine hardness and 
 untidiness. And yet — and yet the parson 
 has the habit, which grows upon him year- 
 ly, of lingering a long while in Madam's 
 drawing-room, of sitting there and lean- 
 ing forward in his great chair and looking 
 deep into the fire when she has gone up- 
 stairs to see her children, and of walking 
 home alone presently to the gloomy old 
 Rectory with his hands thrust deep into 
 his pockets and his honest eyes full of an 
 unwonted thought. 
 
 He has there many lonely and unoccu- 
 pied hours. In his day it is not expected 
 of him to form guilds, clothing clubs, and 
 temperance societies. He would laugh 
 his jolly laugh at the idea of a sporting 
 bachelor, such as he is, lecturing on the 
 rearing of infants at a mothers' meeting. 
 Neither has he any need to write sermons, 
 having a fusty batch of the very dullest 
 discourses (from which he draws a couple 
 haphazard every Sunday) lying ready to 
 hand in a cupboard' mixed up with hunt- 
 ing-boots and riding-whips. He has long 
 given up his Hebraic studies. What is 
 
 272
 
 The Parson 
 
 the use of Hebrew, after all, when one's 
 companions are agricultural laborers, or 
 sporting squires scarcely more enlight- 
 ened ? He is indolent, too, perhaps. 
 Has been an indolent man all his life, he 
 thinks humbly. He draws out his great 
 tobacco-pouch from his pocket with a 
 sort of sigh when he has dined solitarily 
 of an evening and come into his study to 
 drink his bottle there alone. He has been 
 used to be much alone always. He has 
 never known the care or plague of a wo- 
 man. And has nothing now to keep him 
 company but a memory. 
 
 For sometimes, even to him, as he sits 
 there with the shadows creeping coldly 
 into the unclosed room, and the wine 
 pushed forward untasted on the table be- 
 fore him, a figure comes back from Hades 
 and stands for a moment beside him. 
 Angela! They call her Angela though 
 not yet at all an angel, but that dearer 
 thing — a woman. The faint perfume of 
 her hair reaches him as he sits with his 
 old head fallen upon his hands. He has 
 strongly upon him the feeling that if he 
 is 273
 
 The Parson 
 
 could look up — and as strongly that he 
 cannot — he would see her in her white 
 frock, with her curls falling on her neck 
 and the faint color in her sweet saint's 
 face. She died. He is glad that she died 
 before the world touched her. And won- 
 ders only vaguely if, had she lived, he 
 would have been something better than 
 the idle, easy, material, self-indulgent, 
 weather-beaten old fellow he finds him- 
 self to-night. His simple and faithful 
 heart is filled for the moment with God 
 knows what prayers, penitence, tender- 
 ness, remorse, and longing. But before 
 the night has crept in upon him and shut 
 out from sight the untidy room with its 
 sporting pictures on the wall and books 
 rotten from long disuse, like a dead ambi- 
 tion, he is asleep with his gray head fallen 
 forward on the arms of his stained pink 
 coat, and some shadow of the dream in his 
 heart upon his rough old face. 
 
 The Parson lives to a great age. Not 
 so great indeed that the honest tenor of 
 his way is disturbed by awakened bishops 
 and an enlightened laity. He is to the 
 
 274
 
 The Parson 
 
 end what he was in the beginning. To 
 the last he shortens his services at his own 
 honest discretion, and plays the cornet in 
 Churoh with perfect simplicity and no 
 previous acquaintance with that instru- 
 ment when the band takes a holiday. 
 To the last he will laugh his jolly laugh 
 over a bottle with the Squire, rap out 
 an oath from long habit, and tell a good 
 story as no one but the Parson can. To 
 the last he has the most honest compas- 
 sion for brute and human suffering, and 
 the finest reverence and affection for a 
 good woman or a little child. To the 
 last he confesses himself, from a heart 
 which is surely the humblest and tender- 
 est in the world, to be the greatest of 
 sinners. Has to the last, if one will, the 
 error, ignorance, and neglect of his time. 
 Is to the last the straightest rider, the 
 keenest sportsman, the kindliest, sim- 
 plest, and most unorthodox of his cloth. 
 Is to the last brave, cheery, manly. And 
 to the last alone — with one faithful and 
 abiding memory. 
 
 To whose ashes be peace. 
 
 275
 
 The Child
 
 The Child 
 
 " Plus on aime, plus on souffre." 
 
 Barbara is six years old. She has 
 stout cheeks, stout legs, and a temper. 
 She has a sister called Pollie, who is sweet 
 and seven, and a brother in button-up 
 shoes and a frock. Pollie and Bab and 
 Tom spend nearly all their days in the 
 nursery. Mamma has a taste for society, 
 and has not much time to play maternity. 
 
 " Children are a great deal happier left 
 to themselves," she says comfortably. 
 Mamma is constantly announcing such 
 convenient axioms, and believing them. 
 
 The children are indeed very happy by 
 themselves. Bab particularly, perhaps, 
 because Bab has thoughts, and lives, 
 with the dolls, in a far world of her own. 
 She has, perhaps, five-and-twenty chil- 
 dren, who are dressed, taught, and amused, 
 
 279
 
 The Child 
 
 put to bed, and nursed through dire dis- 
 ease. Matilda is the eldest of them. 
 Matilda has black hair, large, beautiful, 
 staring eyes, and the loveliest vern:iilion 
 complexion. She accompanies Bab every- 
 where. When Papa takes the children a 
 trip in his yacht Bab refuses, with much 
 temper and firmness, to go without her 
 child. Bab, lying prone upon the deck, 
 when the chops of the Channel have be- 
 come too much for her inner woman, 
 holds Matilda's kid paw tightly in her 
 own moist hand. She feels as if she were 
 dying, but even in death she will not 
 desert Matilda. Matilda's perambulator 
 has always to accompany the party. It 
 is considered by Bab too precious to be 
 packed up, and if she loses sight of it she 
 roars. 
 
 Bab has indeed a fine pair of lungs, to 
 which it must be confessed she gives 
 plenty of exercise. The potency of her 
 emotions will not allow her to weep gentle 
 tears like Pollie. A rising color in Bab's 
 fat face and the slow opening of Bab's 
 particularly competent mouth are per- 
 
 280
 
 The Child 
 
 fectly reliable signals to Mamma to ring 
 the bell and have Bab forcibly ejected from 
 the room by a muscular nursery maid. 
 
 In the nursery the children play at 
 House. The enterprising Pollie is gener- 
 ally abroad catering for the family. Tom 
 goes out hunting on the rocking-horse. 
 But Bab sits at home surrounded by her 
 children. Sometimes they have to be 
 corrected, but more often to be hushed 
 and loved on Bab's maternal breast. 
 Anyhow, they always need her. Her 
 sense of responsibility is perhaps, in its 
 childish way, as great as that of many 
 real mothers. She has at least so far the 
 true maternal feeling that, though she has 
 so many children, she loves each as singly 
 and devotedly as if she had but that one 
 alone. 
 
 On Sundays the children play Church. 
 Pollie, correct and officious in a night- 
 gown, is the clergyman. Tom plays the 
 organ on a penny whistle in a handy cup- 
 board. Bab and the dolls form the con- 
 gregation. At a certain signal Bab causes 
 Matilda to faint with a scream. And 
 
 281
 
 The Child 
 
 Tom removes the prostrate body with 
 great zest and enjoyment. Tom and PolHe 
 indeed sometimes forget the solemnity of 
 the occasion and laugh. But Bab is always 
 serious and tranquil. She is a mother. 
 She has to set an example to the chil- 
 dren. 
 
 " Bab thinks dolls is real," lisps Tom. 
 
 " No, I don't," says Bab, her face get- 
 ting very red, and holding Matilda very 
 tight indeed. But it is a story. They 
 are real — to her. 
 
 Bab reads. She reads all the books 
 she can find, whether she understands 
 them or not. She reproduces the long 
 words she encounters in her conversation 
 afterwards with a perfectly original pro- 
 nunciation and adapted to a meaning of 
 her own. 
 
 Mamma says, " What a queer child ! " 
 — a trifle scornfully. And Bab goes back 
 to her book-world — so much simpler and 
 easier than the real one — with that dispar- 
 aging accent lingering somehow about 
 her small heart. 
 
 Pollie is a much more successful child 
 282
 
 The Child 
 
 than Bab. Bab knows that Mamma thinks 
 so. Bab thinks so herself, Pollie is 
 very courageous, for instance. Pollie 
 climbs trees in the garden — quite high 
 trees. She puts her heroic counte- 
 nance through the branches and calls to 
 Bab, fat and timid, beneath: "You're 
 afraid." 
 
 Bab says, " No, I'm not. I don't want 
 to climb trees. It's stupid," with quite 
 unnecessary vehemence. But in Bab's 
 heart her greatest ambition is to be like 
 Pollie in everything. Bab has indeed for 
 PoUieone of those blind, faithful devotions 
 which seldom survive childhood. Bab is 
 not angry with Pollie for being so much 
 prettier than she is herself. Bab thinks 
 that Pollie, dressed in white muslin and 
 a pink sash to go out to a party, is just 
 like an angel. She smoothes Pollie's 
 white silk legs with a small, reverent paw. 
 She loves Pollie, and loves to see her 
 beautiful. 
 
 Mamma likes Pollie best. Who could 
 help it ? It is at least a preference against 
 which Bab herself makes no appeal. And 
 
 283
 
 The Child 
 
 if there is a little wistfulness in her fat 
 face when Mamma kisses Pollie and looks 
 at her with admiring eyes before she starts 
 for the party, it is a wistfulness in which 
 there is no shadow of bitterness or disloy- 
 alty to Pollie. 
 
 Bab sometimes goes to parties, too. 
 Not very often, because Bab is not a 
 party child, nor likely to do Mamma any 
 particular credit. Bab outsits all the 
 other guests at tea. She is calmly con- 
 suming her tenth piece of bread and but- 
 ter in the dining-room long after the other 
 children have retired to play games in the 
 hall. When the lady of the house, affa- 
 ble and gracious, inquires if Bab has en- 
 joyed herself, Bab replies with grave 
 simplicity, " A little, thank you, but not 
 very much." 
 
 Bab is, indeed, fatally honest. When 
 she is sent down to the drawing-room to 
 be looked at by the afternoon visitors 
 Bab surveys those visitors with so calm 
 and direct a gaze as to sometimes quite 
 embarrass them. No wonder Pollie is the 
 show child. Bab is quite plain and fat 
 
 284
 
 The Child 
 
 and simple. She hugs Matilda, and 
 speaks the truth. 
 
 Mamma is never unkind to Bab. Bab 
 has every opportunity of indulging a fine 
 appetite for bread and butter. She is suit- 
 ably clothed. When Mamma says Bab 
 has a passionate temper and an ob- 
 stinate will, Mamma is perfectly right. 
 And Mamma is so constituted that she 
 cannot love — particularly — a child who 
 gives her trouble, and upon whose appear- 
 ance and manners she is never compli- 
 mented. 
 
 It happens, therefore, that Bab's small 
 life has many dark moments. She does 
 not understand exactly why Mamma is 
 not fond of her. For herself, it is to the 
 ugliest and forlornest of her children that 
 her deepest tenderness goes out. A faded 
 infant with a squint, and pale hair mostly 
 pulled out by Tom, appeals by its very 
 misfortunes to Bab's sweetest love and 
 compassion. 
 
 When Mamma invites Pollie to go with 
 her to evening church, Bab, standing un- 
 noticed in the backgroud, bursts into a 
 
 285
 
 The Child 
 
 terrible howl. It is not that Bab particu- 
 larly wants to go to church, which has 
 always seemed to her a dull function of 
 unnecessary length. But she wants to be 
 asked to go. The background is such a 
 cold place in which to spend one's poor 
 little life. 
 
 Bab strokes Mamma's delicate hand, 
 not the less lovingly because her own 
 little paw is grubby with recent excava- 
 tions in the garden. And Mamma says 
 sharply : 
 
 " Really, Bab, what have I told you 
 about your hands ? Go away directly, 
 child !" 
 
 Bab forgives — is there any forgiveness 
 like a child's ? — a thousand sharp speeches 
 and hasty words. But she does not for- 
 get, or repeat her small overtures of love 
 and devotion. 
 
 Mamma teaches Bab music — for a week. 
 She smacks Bab's fat stupid fingers when 
 Bab, whose genius does not lie in the 
 direction of music, is more exasperating 
 than usual. She says hard things, too, 
 and Bab carries them away to a dull lum- 
 
 286
 
 The Child 
 
 ber-room where she is used to fight out 
 her small tragedies alone. The lumber- 
 room has a very narrow window, affording 
 just a glimpse of the sky. It has a very 
 old carpet, whose faded pattern Bab has 
 often studied dully through hot tears. 
 Bab sits on a trunk, and rocks the forlorn 
 doll to her heart. She does not know 
 what is the matter with her life. Her 
 griefs do not, indeed, last long. But 
 while they last they are very bitter. And 
 Tom's littl-e button-up shoes patter up 
 the staircase, and Tom, standing at the 
 door in his insufficient frock, says — 
 
 " Don't cry, Bab. There's jam for tea, 
 and Nurse is going to take us to see the 
 postman's funeral." 
 
 The prospect of jam or a funeral cheers 
 Bab considerably. But she is too little 
 to remember, when troubles come again 
 the next day, or the day after that, how 
 soon and how simply they are consoled. 
 
 It happens that Pollie and Bab go to 
 stay one summer with Mamma's sister-in- 
 law. In-Law is not quite so young or 
 so pretty as Mamma herself. Moreover, 
 
 287
 
 The Child 
 
 Mamma has married In-Law's favorite 
 brother. It will therefore be readily 
 understood that there is no love lost be- 
 tween the ladies. 
 
 In-Law takes to Bab very kindly. Bab, 
 indeed, though not pretty like Pollie, has 
 a red, healthful countenance and a com- 
 fortable person not unprepossessing. 
 And In-Law has discovered that Bab is 
 not Mamma's favorite. Bab, lying awake 
 in her cot the first night and contemplat- 
 ing life through its green bars, overhears 
 In-Law, who has come to kiss Bab in bed, 
 say to a lady friend who is with her — 
 
 " Dreadful injustice, you know. Lena's 
 favoritism makes one quite dislike her. 
 This child — nothing, I assure you, and 
 the other brought forward and indulged in 
 every way." 
 
 Bab does not know what this speech 
 means at the time; later she finds out. 
 In-Law is always giving Bab kisses and 
 presents. Bab transfers the giant's share 
 of each to Pollie. 
 
 " Auntie likes you best, Bab," says 
 Pollie, a little cloud on her pretty face. 
 
 288
 
 The Child 
 
 " Does she ? " says Bab wistfully, with 
 a kind of apology to Pollie in her small 
 voice. 
 
 No one, it seems, has ever liked Bab 
 best before. Bab feels a little disturbed 
 that it should be so now. But In-Law's 
 preference remains manifest. In-Law 
 asks Bub all about her home. They are 
 taking a walk together, and Bab has been 
 very conversational indeed. 
 
 *' Is Pollie kind ? " Pollie is very kind 
 indeed. Pollie is clever too. She climbs 
 trees and goes to a dancing class. 
 
 " Whom does Mamma like best — you 
 or Pollie?" Bab's fat face grows a little 
 serious. Mamma likes Pollie best. So 
 does everybody. Pollie is pretty, and 
 her hair curls. " Mine is rats' tails," 
 adds Bab regretfully. 
 
 " Do you like Mamma, Bab?" Bab's 
 red cheeks grow redder. 
 
 " I like Mamma," she answers stur- 
 dily. But after that, for no reason that 
 she knows, she likes In-Law less. 
 
 One day, in the garden, In-Law calls 
 Bab to her. Pollie has gone out for a 
 19 2S9
 
 The Child 
 
 walk with Nurse, and Bab has been amus- 
 ing herself with Matilda. 
 
 I've had a letter from Mamma," says 
 In-Law; " she wants Pollie home. She 
 does not want you. What do you say to 
 that, Bab ?" 
 
 Bab does not say anything, because she 
 cannot. There is a large lump in her 
 throat, and a great slow tear falls on 
 Matilda's staring face. 
 
 " Mamma is cross to you, isn't she, 
 Bab ?" says In-Law insinuatingly. 
 
 A second tear falls on Matilda, but Bab 
 says, " No, she isn't," with a red, pas- 
 sionate face, and pushes away In-Law's 
 arm which is round her. 
 
 " But you would rather stay here, Bab ? 
 Mamma only loves Pollie, and is cross to 
 you, you know she is, and " 
 
 And Bab, with a substantial boot, de- 
 signed expressly for muddy country 
 lanes, inflicts a fierce kick upon In-Law's 
 ankle, and bursts into a roar. 
 
 In-Law is laid up for three weeks. Bab 
 has disgraced herself for ever. She is 
 whipped, removed to the nursery, and 
 
 290
 
 The Child 
 
 allowed no jam. She is severely repri- 
 manded several times a day by Nurse for 
 her wicked conduct to her kind aunt. 
 Perhaps Bab has a private consolation in 
 the depths of her own loyal soul. She 
 thrives, anyhow, amazingly on jamless 
 bread and butter. She croons Matilda 
 contentedly to sleep. She is a little 
 quieter than usual, but not unhappy. 
 Then she is taken home, with Pollie. 
 Mamma is in the hall, and Bab runs up 
 to her. Bab's stout face is quite red 
 with pleasure. She is less afraid of 
 Mamma than she has been for a long 
 time. Perhaps there is a sense of faith 
 and loyalty in her heart which makes 
 her bold. She knows In-Law has told 
 Mamma the story. But then In-Law's 
 version has been carefully revised. 
 
 " Bab, what a naughty girl you have 
 been ! " says Mamma. " I'm ashamed of 
 you." 
 
 Mamma is kissing Pollie as Bab falls 
 back blind with a sudden rush of tears. 
 Pollie and the fuss of the arrival of lug- 
 gage and nurses keep Mamma's attention. 
 
 2gi
 
 The Child 
 
 And Bab stumbles up unnoticed with 
 heavy steps to the old lumber-room. She 
 has not even the forlorn doll to clasp to 
 her heart. But she has come perhaps to 
 a grief in which even the dearest of her 
 make-believe children could not console 
 her. She has been true, has lied to keep 
 faith, and her reward has missed her. 
 She has hurt In-Law — who has, after all, 
 been kind, and given her many sweets 
 and kisses — for Mamma, who is only 
 angry with her after all. Bab wipes away 
 heavy tears with her black paw until her 
 round face has dismal streaks on it, and 
 is swollen and red. She traces blindly 
 the worn pattern on the carpet with a wet 
 forefinger. Her small figure is shaken 
 by long-drawn sobs. Perhaps her grief is 
 very much like a grown-up grief, after all, 
 only she has not the reason and experi- 
 ence of age to help her in it. She has 
 found out — too early — that the world is 
 hard, and that love given does not mean 
 love returned. And she sobs hot miser- 
 able sobs until she is tired out. Though 
 every one else has forgotten her, some 
 
 292
 
 The Child 
 
 tender Providence remembers her still, 
 for when Nurse comes to fetch her to 
 bed she is already asleep in the darkness, 
 with stained cheeks, tumbled hair, and 
 heavy breathing. 
 
 Who shall wonder that faith and love 
 such as Bab's so seldom survive child- 
 hood ? And yet there are some small 
 loyal hearts in whom grown-up wisdom 
 and prudence cannot destroy those better 
 things which are revealed unto babes. 
 
 Perhaps Bab has such a heart as this. 
 And she is no longer a child. 
 
 293
 
 The Bad Penny
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 ' ' On pardonne tant que Ton aime. " 
 
 His parents, denizens of pompous and 
 prosperous Bloomsbury, decree him for 
 Eton from his cradle. Merchant Tay- 
 lors' was good enough for his father, who 
 has been a business man all his life, is 
 still redolent of the City, from which he 
 has retired, honest, sober, and in middle 
 life. But Dick must go to Eton. Of 
 course, says the mother. What is the use 
 of having money if one doesn't spend it 
 on Dick ? So he goes through a course 
 of governesses, tutors, and preparatory 
 schools — a varied course, because none of 
 them will keep him more than three 
 months at the most. It is not so much 
 that he is idle, though he is very idle; it 
 is not so much that he is stupid, for he 
 has some cunning amid his dulness; but 
 
 297
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 he is bad — that is what one of his masters 
 says of him. Bloomsbury Square has 
 never hked that master — always knew 
 there was something fishy about that 
 man. Wlien Mrs. Bloomsbury hears that 
 he has eloped with a housemaid, that is 
 just exactly what she would have expected 
 of him — so unjust, and so prejudiced 
 against Dick. The Penny is one of those 
 infinitely-to-be-pitied people who are 
 always exciting prejudice in others. 
 There is a prejudice against him at Eton 
 — a dreadful prejudice, which finally grows 
 so strong that the authorities decide that 
 the only way to remove it is to remove 
 him. He is therefore removed. 
 
 He comes back to Bloomsbury Square 
 with a bluster. Eton, he says, is a 
 beastly hole — not fit for a gentleman. 
 His mother tries to be fair, to hear 
 both sides of the case, to believe that 
 Dick has — in some very minor degree, 
 of course — erred as well as his masters; 
 but she cannot. It is to be thought 
 that she is as just as most women, but 
 to believe anything against her boy is 
 
 29S
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 not to be expected of her — it is impos- 
 sible. 
 
 Dick is removed to a private tutor's. 
 His father says that private coaching is 
 the very thing for a young man — beats 
 Eton hollow. When Dick's letters arrive 
 — they are letters which, in point of spell- 
 ing and composition, would disgrace a 
 kitchen-maid — his face reddens with pride. 
 He puts them all away together in a desk 
 where he keeps other sacred possessions. 
 
 One fine morning Dick turns up unex- 
 pectedly in Bloomsbury Square. The 
 tutor, he finds, is such a beastly cad ; he 
 has therefore renounced him. From a 
 letter which arrives next morning from the 
 tutor it appears that the renunciation is 
 mutual. There is a garbled story of a 
 flirtation with a shopgirl ; but it is very 
 garbled, and, of course, entirely incor- 
 rect. Dick says that he never saw such a 
 liar as that coach — enough to corrupt any 
 fellow's morals. Therefore, of course, it 
 is only right and proper that Dick should 
 leave him. Some young men do not 
 mind to what influences they subject 
 
 299
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 themselves — not so the Penny. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Bloomsbury are quite hurt and an- 
 noyed when their son-in-law, an outspoken 
 person, condoles with them, and is sorry 
 to hear that the young cub has been up 
 to his tricks again. 
 
 The Penny manages to scrape through 
 an Entrance Examination, and goes to 
 Cambridge. 
 
 " Not every young man, mind you, 
 can pass those Entrance Exams, nowa- 
 days," says Papa, sipping his glass of 
 port with honest pride in the Penny's ex- 
 traordinary prowess. " They tell me," 
 Dick says himself, " that it's a very differ- 
 ent thing to what it was twenty years 
 ago. The competition is enormous — by 
 Gad, sir, enormous ! " 
 
 Mr. Jones, also of Bloomsbury Square, 
 quite believes you. Neither he nor the 
 proud father has ever been to the Univer- 
 sity himself; but they send their sons, 
 and know as much about it, mind you, as 
 any one. The mother colors with pleas- 
 ure at the other end of the table. It is 
 indeed a privilege, knowing how dread- 
 
 300
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 fully idle some young men are, to have a 
 son like Dick. Bloomsbury Square dis- 
 covers, by degrees, that the privilege is a 
 very expensive one. It is so expensive, 
 in fact, that they find out it is very much 
 more healthy, as well as a great deal 
 more enjoyable, to walk instead of drive 
 everywhere ; so they put down the car- 
 riage. " Only don't tell Dick," says the 
 mother. " It would hurt his feelings so 
 dreadfully to think we were going with- 
 out any little comfort on his account." 
 
 So Dick's feelings are not harrowed, 
 and when he comes down for the first 
 vacation a carriage is jobbed. A young 
 man finds a carriage so useful, and Dick 
 would naturally not like to be without 
 one. Very likely he will not notice the 
 difference between this one and our own. 
 Perhaps he does not notice the difference, 
 or perhaps his tact is so divine and beau- 
 tiful that he does notice the difference 
 and says nothing. In appearance he has 
 grown larger, stouter, and redder — in 
 fact, has become so fine-looking. " I 
 dare say you remember, cook," says the 
 
 301
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 mother to that elderly domestic, " what 
 a beautiful baby he was ! — such a dear 
 sturdy little fellow! I must confess I 
 should have been a little disappointed if 
 he had grown up pale and puny and 
 weakly-looking, as one sees so many 
 young men nowadays." 
 
 In this contingency cook would have 
 been disappointed also. Now Jane says 
 Mr. Dick is too red-like for her, but cook 
 always did hold with a good fresh color. 
 Cook has a good fresh color herself — not 
 unlike Mr. Dick's, in fact, only plebeian, 
 of course, very plebeian. 
 
 Mr. Bloomsbury is anxious to know 
 what books Dick has been studying; but, 
 naturally, after a hard term's work, the 
 Penny does not wish to be very commu- 
 nicative on the subject. 
 
 "Oh! Herodotus, and Livy, and all 
 those chaps," he says, in a voice which 
 might sound to persons who do not know 
 his idiosyncrasies a trifle surly. 
 
 Papa stretches up, with great inconven- 
 ience to himself, for the Livy. He cuts 
 the leaves with a sort of reverence. He 
 
 302
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 cannot read a word of it himself. Educa- 
 tion was not so much thought of in his 
 day. But it's a fine thing, my boy, a fine 
 thing, and I wish I had had your advan- 
 tages. The Penny expresses a wish that 
 the advantages may be blowed — only he 
 uses a word much more emphatic than 
 " blowed." Papa replaces the Livy, with 
 the same inconvenience to himself with 
 which he got it down, and with something 
 which, if he had not everything to be 
 thankful for, might almost be taken for a 
 sigh. 
 
 In due time Dick returns to Cambridge. 
 His bills are heavier than ever the next 
 term ; they are so heavy that the mother 
 begins to be afraid that the butler must 
 be dull without any companion of his own 
 sex, now that the coachman has gone. 
 Mr. Bloomsbury therefore tells the butler 
 that he cannot justify himself in keeping 
 him — the situation must be such a terri- 
 bly lonely one. 
 
 " Lor! sir," says Thomson, with a tear 
 and a twinkle in his old eye at the same 
 time, " don't you be atroublin' yourself 
 
 303
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 to find no reasons for givin' me notice. 
 Thim colleges has ruined many of us 
 afore now" — with which remark Thom- 
 son retires to the pantry and wipes his 
 eyes on the plate-leather. 
 
 Six months later the Penny turns up 
 at Bloomsbury Square unexpectedly, in 
 the middle of a term and a hansom. The 
 very small amount of gilding with which 
 he was gilt when he left the family mint 
 is nearly all worn off. He looks as if he 
 drank — only looks, of course. Many 
 other perfectly innocent people do the 
 same, and very awkward it is for them. 
 He has, he says, " come down " ; this is, 
 indeed, perfectly obvious. It presently 
 becomes obvious that he has been com- 
 pelled to " come down." To the old man 
 there is a horror in the very idea of such 
 a thing. It takes a great deal of explain- 
 ing — and explaining things is Dick's /orU 
 — to make him feel easy again. Lots of 
 fellows do it — it's nothing. There's Lord 
 Noodle and the Marquis of Foolington 
 who have — well, left with me. They 
 were up to larks, if you like; but in my 
 
 304
 
 The Bad Fenny 
 
 case it's been a most beastly swindle — 
 that's what it is, a beastly swindle. (The 
 Penny's language has long been noted for 
 its richness and elegance.) Why, any 
 of the chaps'U tell you it's a swindle. 
 None of the "chaps" step forward to do 
 this, however. Fortunately, Bloomsbury 
 Square does not need them. Dick is 
 believed on his own assertion — by two 
 people only. 
 
 The Penny now thinks he would like to 
 farm in Canada. He says very frequently 
 that he is blowed if he can't make some- 
 thing out of that. So he has a fine outfit 
 — flannel underclothing sewed with tears, 
 love, and devotion — and a fine sum of 
 money to put into the business he has 
 heard of out there. 
 
 After he has gone — only just after — 
 Cambridge bills and, alas! promissory 
 notes of very extensive promise indeed 
 begin to come in to Bloomsbury Square; 
 and when they once begin it is a long 
 time before they stop. It is about this 
 period that the mother discovers that the 
 air of Bloomsbury is very relaxing — is not 
 
 J^D
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 sure, indeed, that it is a wholesome place 
 to hve in ; hears that many doctors con- 
 sider the neighborhood of Peckham excel- 
 lent for the rheumatism from which she 
 suffers — when convenient. And then this 
 house is too large. Two old people like 
 you and me feel quite lost in a wilderness 
 of a place like this. Now, in a dear com- 
 fortable little box So they go to a 
 
 dear comfortable little box in the refresh- 
 ing neighborhood of Albert Road, Peck- 
 ham — just cook and themselves — so nice 
 and homely. But the old man can look 
 the world in the face. Dick's Cambridge 
 expenses — he speaks of them thus — have 
 been quite comfortably settled. 
 
 Dick does not write very often — in- 
 deed, has not written at all. He is busy 
 with his farm. Farming is a very fine 
 thing for young men; an active, open- 
 air life makes something better of a young 
 fellow than your stuffy offices and your 
 ledgers and your account books. " Make 
 your boy a farmer, sir, as I have made 
 mine." 
 
 And the farmer turns up in a year at 
 
 506
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 Albert Road, Peckham, in a condition 
 which the brother-in-law, full of unchari- 
 tableness, characterizes as disgraceful. 
 The Penny looks more as if he drank than 
 ever — which is unfortunate, but of course 
 unavoidable. He is ill-dressed; he is 
 more surly in manner. If he were not 
 her son — her only son — the mother, who 
 has gentle blood in her perhaps, and that 
 refinement which comes of a pure mind 
 and a tender heart, might shudder to 
 touch anything so coarse and unclean. 
 But she kisses and cries over him like a 
 fool, before she has heard his story, which 
 may be forgiven her, and afterwards, which 
 cannot. The farm was a beastly swindle, 
 of course; the money which was sunk in 
 it was lost, equally of course; but if his 
 father can get him — say some post of re- 
 sponsibility in a bank, or something like 
 that — he is blowed (again) if he doesn't 
 make a success. He is also blowed when 
 his father tells him something — not all, 
 not half, for fear of hurting his feelings — - 
 of his Cambridge debts. He is of opinion 
 his father has been swindled ; a beastly 
 
 307
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 swindle, indeed, as usual. His father 
 looks in the fire meditatively. He says 
 nothing; there is, in fact, nothing to be 
 said. The Penny thinks that, upon his 
 soul, you've got wretched diggings here. 
 The father says quietly they are the best 
 he can now afford. It is his only re- 
 proach, and that does not penetrate the 
 target, the target being remarkably thick, 
 tough, and invulnerable. 
 
 The position of trust is, through influ- 
 ence, procured. For three weeks Albert 
 Road, Peckham, is supremely happy. 
 Everything is going on so well. And 
 then a story is whispered in the father's 
 ear which, if it gets abroad, means Dick's 
 ruin. It is not a pretty stoiy. The 
 mother does not know it. It is not kept 
 from her so much because it would wound 
 her, for she would not believe it, but be- 
 cause it is not fit, as a story, for her 
 hearing. The old man denies it furi- 
 ously. His son! Pick! It is proved to 
 him beyond reasonable doubt; and he 
 denies it again, like Peter, with an oath. 
 The evidence is damning; and he turns 
 
 3o3
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 and damns his informant. The scandal 
 is, however, hushed up. Dick mentions 
 it in a note to his father. It was another 
 fellow with an unfortunate resemblance 
 to himself. An old story; but not so old 
 that the father will not believe it from the 
 lips of the son. After this Dick's letters 
 come fairly regularly; such nice letters — 
 not, perhaps, very educated in style or 
 very correct in spelling, nor even very 
 filial in expression ; but all saying the same 
 thing, that he is getting on famously, and 
 asking for the loan of five or ten pounds 
 in the postscript. The mother thinks 
 that Dick has really found his vocation. 
 As the weeks go by she becomes sure of 
 it ; gets more sure, and feels sometimes a 
 little angry that her husband is so quiet, 
 moody, and unresponsive. He does not 
 believe that ugly story. God help him ! 
 no, but it haunts him ; or perhaps the 
 shadow of an evil to come hang^s over 
 him. He looks back on this time, long 
 after, wondering which it was, and cannot 
 determine. 
 
 Then Dick turns up again — at night 
 309
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 this time, and without a bluster. He 
 looks sober; and looks, too, as if he were 
 haunted by a ghost. It is the old story, 
 but with a new and engaging sequel. 
 Everything a beastly swindle, as usual. 
 The manager a cad, and Dick accused of 
 forgery. The mother goes white to her 
 lips, then a flaming scarlet. Her boy ac- 
 cused of that ! Her boy — the soul of 
 honor ! The soul of honor has some- 
 thing in his appearance to-night sugges- 
 tive of a cur expecting a whipping. This 
 appearance is not lessened when he says 
 that he must get out of this damned 
 country before to-morow. 
 
 " Get out of the country ! " shouts the 
 old man, with a heavy fist on the table 
 which makes the glasses ring. " My 
 God ! if you're an honest man you shall 
 face the world and give it the lie." 
 
 The son falls back a little, scared at his 
 father's gleaming eyes and ashen face ; 
 and the mother, in that old, fond, foolish 
 way, puts her arms round her boy and 
 says he must fight it out because it will 
 all come right. God takes care of such 
 
 310
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 things ; and the guilty are found out and 
 punished. 
 
 ''That's it,'" says her boy, thrusting 
 her away ; ' ' that is why Fin going ! ' ' 
 
 The Penny does not turn up any more 
 — at least, not in England. It is to be 
 presumed that abroad he turns up pretty 
 constantly anywhere where there is fool- 
 ishness and money. 
 
 Albert Road, Peckham, has its tragedy, 
 though it will be allowed that the locality 
 is sordid rather than tragic. His son-in- 
 law thinks that his misfortunes have made 
 the old man very much more of a gentle- 
 man than he used to be. Very likely it 
 is true. Misfortunes often have a refin- 
 ing effect. The self-satisfaction of re- 
 spectability must be considerably damped 
 when one reflects that one is the father 
 of a forger. The pride and pomposity 
 of Bloomsbury must be extinguished for 
 ever when one knows of one's son that 
 forgery is not the most dishonorable of 
 his failings. As for the mother, when 
 her belief in her boy went, so went hope 
 also. Father and mother have both been
 
 The Bad Penny 
 
 fools, but she has been the greater fool of 
 the two. Both, every one says so, have 
 done their best to ruin the boy — have 
 ruined him. They might have seen what 
 he was years before, but they shut their 
 eyes. They might have learned from their 
 friends, long ago, that he was a scamp, 
 but they would not hear. It is very sad 
 for them, of course, and every one has the 
 greatest sympathy with them ; but it is 
 their own fault — entirely their own fault. 
 It may be; but if it is, then surely the 
 tragedies we make for ourselves are grim- 
 mer than any which fate makes for us. 
 
 312
 
 The Sp 
 
 inster
 
 The Spinster 
 
 " II arrive quelquefois des accidents dans la vie d'oii 
 il faut etre un peu fou pour se bien tirer." 
 
 She enjoys a limited income, invested 
 for her by an officious relative in a Dock 
 Company, The income is very limited, 
 and the Spinster spends quite half of it 
 in journeys to and from town to look and 
 see how the bonds are getting on in a 
 Safe Deposit. 
 
 She lives with her cousins. Their gen- 
 erosity is most beautiful. Quite an ex- 
 ample to mankind. She pays them 
 Nothing, absolutely Nothing. Gener- 
 osity, in the feminine, always mentions 
 this, quite casually, when she pays calls. 
 
 " John and I are delighted to be able 
 to give her a home," she says. 
 
 The stress upon the *' give " is so slight 
 that it might almost be absent altogether. 
 
 315
 
 The Spinster 
 
 Tabitha does nothing in return for this 
 
 superhuman kindness — that is, almost 
 
 nothing. Full of tact and thoughtfulness, 
 
 indeed, Generosity allows her to do a 
 
 few little things about the house, that 
 
 she may not feel so much under an 
 
 obligation to dear John. Tabitha is 
 
 not at all accomplished. She belongs 
 
 to a period when a smattering of Italian, 
 
 a knowledge of the use of the globes, and 
 
 a running spidery handwriting declared a 
 
 young lady educated. But Generosity 
 
 overlooks her deficiencies and kindly 
 
 allows her to help the children with their 
 
 lessons and superintend their practising. 
 
 The eldest Generosity girl bounces about 
 
 a good deal on the music-stool and plays 
 
 wrons notes maliciously. She doesn't 
 
 really think, she says, that it's the least 
 
 use Tab hearing her practise. Tab has 
 
 not an atom of style. Which is very 
 
 true ; Tab's only recommendation being 
 
 an infinite store of patience and sweet 
 
 temper. The Eldest further complains of 
 
 Tab that she is so awfully prim. The 
 
 Eldest suffers a good deal from this prim- 
 
 316
 
 The Spinster 
 
 ness, and is infinitely to be pitied. How 
 annoying it is to know, for instance, that 
 Tab takes two hours getting up every 
 morning, and adheres to an hour's hair- 
 brushing every night as if it were a reli- 
 gion ! Generosity herself never heard 
 anything so ludicrous as the way in which 
 Tab clings to the traditions of her youth. 
 Because at Cheltenham — Tab's papa was 
 an effete old General — breakfast was at 
 half-past eight and the family put on 
 their clean clothing on Sunday, Tab can 
 scarcely believe in the morality of per- 
 sons breakfasting at nine and donning 
 clean garments on Saturday. She does 
 not indeed express these outrageous opin- 
 ions, Generosity having given her to un- 
 derstand that she cannot air her ridiculous 
 notions there. 
 
 Her bedroom is a perfect portrait gal- 
 lery of ancestors. She keeps an especial 
 silk pocket-handkerchief to dust them 
 with, which is used for no other purpose. 
 The Eldest says she never saw anything 
 so hideous as the old things, and would 
 like to know v»-hy people's ancestors
 
 The Spinster 
 
 always have great beaks of noses hke 
 that; the Eldest's own nose being an en- 
 gaging Httle snub. Tab's family are hke 
 the nightly hair-brushing to her — a reli- 
 gion. No matter how disagreeable or how 
 impecunious, alive or dead, provided they 
 are relatives Tab is ready to take them to 
 her heart. When the ne'er-do-weels are 
 shipped off in despair by their friends to 
 Buenos Ayres or California, she writes 
 them long letters full of affection — and 
 enclosing a Post-ofifice Order. It is 
 thought that the relatives do not always 
 read the letters. But there is no occasion 
 on record on which they have not taken 
 kindly to the Order. 
 
 Generosity, with the highest of motives, 
 of course, does her best to shake Tab's 
 belief in her family. 
 
 Generosity says, " Isn't it absurd to 
 see how proud the Joneses are of their 
 uncle because he is a General ? Any one 
 can be a General. Isn't it ridiculous. 
 Tab?" 
 
 A little color rises in Tab's w^orn face. 
 It is to be feared that she is afraid of 
 
 31S
 
 The Spinster 
 
 Generosity's back-handed httle stabs, 
 and has not the courage to make a spirited 
 reply. She says feebly, " Oh, very ! " 
 
 But her heart is as true as steel to that 
 effete old papa. 
 
 Generosity is extremely kind to Tab, 
 of course. Tab has all her meals with the 
 family. And it is by the merest chance 
 that the legs of chickens and the jamless 
 tarts always fall to her share. Tab her- 
 self always prefers the unpopular pud- 
 ding. Tab is lamentably weak. 
 
 She goes errands for Generosity twenty 
 times perhaps in an afternoon. Gener- 
 osity's maligners say she invents the er- 
 rands to annoy Tab. But even if that 
 were true — which of course it is not — 
 Generosity's aim is not attained. At the 
 twentieth errand there is a little more 
 color than usual in Tab's face. But that 
 is all. And that may easily come from 
 the exercise she has taken. Generosity 
 always prefaces her requests with " As 
 you have nothing to do. Tab." 
 
 And Tab, of course, really has nothing 
 to do. Only the little things about the 
 
 319
 
 The Spinster 
 
 house to which other people are superior, 
 or can't waste their time over, or find, by 
 reason of their higher intelh'gence and 
 education, too much bother. 
 
 Some one once said Tab was a maid-of- 
 all-work without wages. But that must 
 have been some one who knew nothing of 
 the immense kindnesses she receives from 
 Generosity and John. Generosity, cer- 
 tainly, often reminds Tab, in a perfectly 
 indirect and ladylike manner, how fortu- 
 nate she is. 
 
 I hear," she says, " the Mortons are 
 going to have a cousin to live with them. 
 Of course she is to pay — two pounds a 
 week, I believe. Very kind of them to 
 have her even on those terms, don't you 
 think? I believe some one suggested not 
 letting her pay anything. But, as Mr. 
 Morton says, that would be Quixotic 
 generosity indeed." 
 
 Tab says, " Yes, indeed," meekly. 
 
 Her intelligence is not of a high order. 
 Perhaps she does not apply these stories 
 as she ought. But Generosity, thought- 
 ful as ever, takes Tab's want of sharpness 
 
 320
 
 The Spinster 
 
 into consideration, and generally makos 
 her meaning perfectly clear. 
 
 If Tab had any proper pride she would 
 go. But she does not go. Perhaps she 
 can't afford the luxury of proper pride. 
 Her dividends from the Dock Company 
 are ridiculously small. Perhaps, also, 
 with a divine charity and an exquisite 
 foolishness, she believes that Generosity 
 does not mean to be unkind. She bears, 
 therefore, with an utter tameness and 
 want of spirit, the thousand little daily 
 insults which her benefactress heaps on her. 
 It is possible that if she rose and fought 
 Generosity that lady might like her and 
 treat her better. But Tab's is the creed 
 of meekness, forbearance, and gentleness. 
 And she goes on toiling for the children, 
 nursing them when they are ill, and doing 
 odd jobs for Generosity with a patience 
 and good temper wholly reprehensible. 
 One day comes the news that the Dock 
 Company has stopped payment. 
 
 " All the sensible shareholders," says 
 Generosity, a trifle pointedly, perhaps, 
 " will, of course, get some of their money 
 
 21 -',21
 
 The Spinster 
 
 back. But people who are so wealthy 
 that they can sit at home and do noth- 
 ing to recover it will, I suppose, be 
 swindled." 
 
 Tab is understood to say that the Com- 
 pany must already be in great trouble, 
 and she could not bear to give them 
 extra worry on her account. 
 
 " My dear Tab," says Generosity, with 
 considerable sharpness, " how can you be 
 so excessively idiotic ?" 
 
 There is, alas ! much truth in Gener- 
 osity's unvarnished words. Tab is a per- 
 fect godsend to all the swindling persons 
 and companies she encounters. She be- 
 lieves what they say, and follows their 
 advice with a certain obstinacy which is 
 vastly irritating. She is, therefore, re- 
 duced through the Dock Company to an 
 annual income of twelve pounds. And 
 when she receives that it is with fear and 
 trembling, lest she has taken from the 
 poor creatures what they can ill afTord to 
 pay her. 
 
 About this time the Eldest comes out. 
 She is not especially pretty. But she is 
 
 322
 
 The Spinster 
 
 audacious, which perhaps does just as 
 well. Generosity is very fond of her, of 
 course. Cannot bear the idea of ever beine 
 separated from her — equally of course. 
 But, knowing that a girl is happier mar- 
 ried, with beautiful self-sacrifice Generosity 
 sets about accomplishing this desirable 
 end. Papa brings people home to dinner. 
 Papa always enjoyed the society of young 
 men. Once he brings home a veteran 
 from the War Office. The veteran is not 
 less than fifty. Still, he is a wonderfully 
 young-looking man; and, quite casually 
 of course, at an afternoon call Generosity 
 finds out from a friend that he is really 
 very comfortably off. By the merest 
 chance, when he dines with them, the 
 Eldest has on her prettiest dress and her 
 most astonishing manners. 
 
 The War Office looks at her attentively 
 through his eyeglass. He has not seen 
 much of feminine society lately. In his 
 young days — though he is, of course, by 
 no means o/d — feminine society was per- 
 haps less obtrusive. There can be no 
 doubt, from the way he studies the 
 
 323
 
 The Spinster 
 
 Eldest, that he is immensely captivated 
 by her frankness, dash, and originality. 
 
 Tab is even quieter than usual during 
 his visits. When he addresses her she is 
 fluttered and agitated, and answers him 
 with much perturbation, and, it is to be 
 feared, not much sense. 
 
 He addresses her. Generosity thinks, 
 unnecessarily often. Perhaps he thinks 
 she is a visitor ; or perhaps that she pays. 
 So Generosity mentions with the greatest 
 delicacy of expression, and, as usual, 
 quite casually, that dear Tab is perfectly 
 dependent upon us. The War Oflfice 
 puts up his eyeglass and looks at Gener- 
 osity a little fixedly. 
 
 Poor thing," he says, " poor thing." 
 
 Generosity can't quite understand his 
 tone. But after all, it is not worth 
 troubling about. 
 
 One evening Generosity comes to Tab's 
 bedroom to have a chat with her. She is 
 quite condescending and good-tempered 
 and pleasant. 
 
 " We shall have to part with dear 
 Bertha soon, I fear," she says. 
 
 324
 
 The Spinster 
 
 Tab says " Why ? " in an odd voice. 
 
 "Why!" echoes Generosity, impa- 
 tiently; ** I should have thought even you 
 would have seen how devoted he is to 
 her." 
 
 Tab says " Yes," feebly, and does not 
 raise her foolish old face. 
 
 " I am perfectly certain of it," con- 
 tinues Generosity. 
 
 Tab bends a little lower over her fine 
 darning, and says nothing. 
 
 And Generosity, aggravated at her 
 unresponsiveness, observes, " And very 
 glad I am of it. I always consider to be 
 unmarried is in some degree a slur upon a 
 woman's character." 
 
 With this Parthian shot she retires. 
 
 While Tab is singing that night in a 
 ridiculous old voice, which always breaks 
 on the top notes, the War Office bends to 
 turn a page and says something to her 
 through the song. After that Tab's qua- 
 vers and trills are more ridiculous than 
 .ever; and when she takes down her music 
 her primly mittened hand shakes like a 
 leaf. Generosity is particularly caustic 
 
 325
 
 The Spinster 
 
 that evening, and Tab's answers are wider 
 of the mark than usual; so much so that 
 the Eldest says to the War Office that 
 she really believes Tab is in love with 
 some one. She has been so truly idiotic 
 lately; so frightfully sentimental, you 
 know. 
 
 The War Ofifice says " Indeed ! " and 
 looks at the Eldest through his eyeglass, 
 as usual, in a sort of mild surprise. 
 
 That evening he has an interview with 
 Generosity and John. Generosity's sur- 
 prise is not so mild, nor her indignation ; 
 and she is constrained to tell Tab that 
 she has behaved like a viper. 
 
 The War Office and Tab are believed 
 to be supremely happy; so frightfully 
 sentimental, you know. Generosity 
 after a time consents to visit them. As 
 they have a delightful house for the girls 
 to stay in, and see a great deal of nice 
 society (masculine), she makes herself 
 very affable and affectionate. The War 
 Office is occasionally a little rude to her, 
 and continues to stare at her through his 
 eyeglass in an extraordinary manner; but 
 
 326
 
 The Spinster 
 
 Tab, full of gratitude for all the kindness 
 she has received, is boundlessly tender, 
 loving, and kind. 
 
 But then Tab was always a fool. 
 
 327
 
 The New Woman
 
 The New Woman 
 
 " L'esprit de la plupart des femmes sort plus a for- 
 tifier leur folic que leur raison." 
 
 She is young, of course. She looks 
 older than she really is. And she calls 
 herself a woman. Her mother is con- 
 tent to be called a lady, and is naturally 
 of small account. Novissima's chief 
 characteristic is her unbounded self-satis- 
 faction. 
 
 She dresses simply in close-fitting gar- 
 ments, technically known as tailor-made. 
 She wears her elbows well away from her 
 side. It has been hinted that this habit 
 serves to diminish the apparent size of the 
 waist. This may be so. Men do not 
 always understand such things. It cer- 
 tainly adds to a somewhat aggressive air 
 of independence which finds its birth in 
 
 331
 
 The New Woman 
 
 the length of her stride. Novissima 
 strides in (from the hip) where men and 
 angels fear to tread. 
 
 In the evening simplicity again marks 
 her dress. Always close-fitting — always 
 manly and wholly simple. Very little 
 jewelry, and close-fitting hair. Which 
 description is perhaps not technical. Her 
 hands are steady and somewhat en dvidejice. 
 Her attitudes are strong and independent, 
 indicative of a self-reliant spirit. 
 
 With mild young men she is apt to be 
 crushing. She directs her conversation 
 and her glance above their heads. She 
 has a way of throwing scraps of talk to 
 them — crumbs from a well-stored intel- 
 lectual table — in return for their mild 
 platitudes. 
 
 " Pictures — no, I do not care about 
 pictures," she says. " They are all so 
 pretty nowadays." 
 
 . She has a way of talking of noted men 
 by their surnames tout court, indicative of 
 a familiarity with them not enjoyed by 
 her hearer. She has a certain number of 
 celebrities whom she marks out for spe- 
 
 332
 
 The New Woman 
 
 cial distinction — obscurity being usually- 
 one of their merits. ' 
 
 Prettiness is one of her pet aversions. 
 Novissima is, by the way, not pretty her- 
 self. She is white. Pink girls call her 
 sallow. She has a long face, with a dis- 
 contented mouth, and a nose indicative of 
 intelligence, and too large for feminine 
 beauty as understood by men. Her 
 equanimity, like her complexion, is unas- 
 sailable. One cannot make her blush. 
 It is the other way round. 
 
 In conversation she criticises men and 
 books freely. The military man is the 
 object of her deepest scorn. His intellect, 
 she tells one, is terribly restricted. He 
 never reads — Reads, that is, with a cap- 
 ital. For curates she has a sneaking 
 fondness — a feminine weakness too deeply 
 ingrained to be stamped out in one gen- 
 eration of advancement. 
 
 Literary men she tolerates. They have 
 probably read some of the books selected 
 out of the ruck for her approval. But 
 even to these she talks with an air sug- 
 gestive of the fact that she could tell them 
 
 333
 
 The New Woman 
 
 a thing or two if she took the trouble. 
 Which no doubt she could. 
 
 Novissima's mother is wholly and 
 meekly under Novissima's steady thumb. 
 That respectable lady's attitude is best 
 described as speechless. If she opens 
 her mouth, Novissima closes it for her 
 with a tolerant laugh or a reference to 
 some fictional character with whom the 
 elder lady is fortunately unacquainted. 
 
 " Oh, Mother !" she will say, if that 
 relative is mentioned. " Yes; but she is 
 hopelessly behind the times, you know." 
 
 That settles Novissima's mother. As 
 for her father — a pleasant, square-built 
 man, who is a little deaf — he is not either 
 of much account. Novissima is kind to 
 him as an animal ignorant of its own 
 strength, requiring management. She 
 describes him as prim, and takes good 
 care, in her jaunty way, that no delete- 
 rious fiction comes beneath his gaze. 
 
 He would not understand it, poor old 
 thing ! " she explains. 
 
 And she is quite right. 
 
 Young Calamus, the critic, has had a 
 
 534
 
 The New Woman 
 
 better education than Novissima's father. 
 He knows half a dozen countries, their 
 language and their literature. And he 
 does not understand Novissima's fiction. 
 
 The world is apt to take Novissima at 
 her own valuation. When she makes a 
 statement — and statements are her strong 
 point — half the people in the room know 
 better, but make the mistake of believing 
 that they must be wrong because she is so 
 positive. The other half know better 
 also, but are too wise or too lazy to argue. 
 
 While on a visit at a great country house 
 Novissima meets young Calamus, of 
 whom she has spoken with an off-hand 
 familiarity for years. The genial hostess, 
 who knows Novissima's standpoint, sends 
 young Calamus down to dinner with her. 
 He is clever enough for anybody, reflects 
 my lady. And Novissima, who is de- 
 lighted, is more than usually off-hand for 
 the sake of his vanity. Calamus, as it 
 happens, is perfectly indifferent as to 
 what she may be thinking of him. 
 
 He is good-natured, and entirely free 
 from self-consciousness. He is the real 
 
 335
 
 The New Woman 
 
 thing, and not the young man who is 
 going to do something some day. He 
 has begun doing it already. And there 
 is a look in his keen, fair face which sug- 
 gests that he intends going on. 
 
 Novissima's alertness of mind attracts 
 him. Being a man, he is not above the 
 influence of a trim figure and a pair of 
 dark eyes. This is a study, and an en- 
 tirely pleasant one, for Calamus is about 
 to begin a new novel. He thinks that 
 Novissima will do well for a side char- 
 acter, which is precisely that for which 
 she serves in daily life. She is not like 
 the rest. But it is the rest that men fall 
 in love with and marry. 
 
 Novissima has for the moment forced 
 herself to the front of the stage; but in a 
 few years she will only be a side char- 
 acter. Calamus knows this. He remem- 
 bers the grim verdict of Dr. Kudos, his 
 junior dean at Cambridge. 
 
 " Modern young woman ! Yes; inter- 
 esting development of cheap education ; 
 but she proves nothing." 
 
 Which is the worst of science. It looks 
 
 336
 
 The New Woman 
 
 upon us all as specimens, and expects us 
 to prove something. 
 
 Novissima is pleased to approve of my 
 lady's judgment in sending her down to 
 dinner with Calamus. She feels that the 
 other girls are a long way below his men- 
 tal level — that they are wholly unfitted to 
 manufacture conversation of a quality cal- 
 culated to suit his literary taste. 
 
 Calamus happens to be rather a simple- 
 minded young man. He has been every- 
 where. He has seen most things, and 
 nothing,seems to have touched a certain 
 strong purity of thought which he probably 
 acquired in the nursery. Men are thus. 
 They carry heavier moral armor. Out- 
 ward things affect them little. Novis- 
 sima, on the other hand, is a little the 
 worse for her reading. 
 
 She thinks she knows the style of talk 
 that will suit him, and she is apparently 
 wronsf. For Calamus stares about him 
 with speculative gray eyes. His replies 
 are wholly commonplace and som.ewhat 
 frivolous. Novissima is intensely earnest, 
 and, in her desire to show him t^lie depth 
 22 337
 
 The New Woman 
 
 of her knowledge, is not always dis- 
 creet. 
 
 She talks of the future of women, of 
 coming generations and woman's influ- 
 ence thereon. 
 
 " They had better busy themselves with 
 the beginning of the future generation," 
 says Calamus, in his half-listening way. 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 " Children," explains Calamus in a 
 single word. 
 
 Novissima mentions the names of one 
 or two foreign authors not usually dis- 
 cussed in polite society in their own 
 country, and Calamus frowns. She ap- 
 proaches one or two topics which he re- 
 fuses to talk about with a simple bluntness. 
 
 He is hungry, having been among the 
 turnips all day. He has no intention of 
 treating Novissima to any of those de- 
 lightfully original ideas which he sells to 
 a foolish public at so much a line. 
 
 During the whole visit Novissima and 
 Calamus are considerably thrown together. 
 Gossips say that she runs after him. He 
 is superficially shallow, and refuses to be 
 
 333
 
 The New Woman 
 
 deep. She is superficially deep, and be- 
 trays her shallowness at every turn. He 
 remembers Dr. Kudos, and makes him- 
 self very agreeable. She is only a side 
 character. She proves nothing. 
 
 Then Calamus packs up his bag and 
 goes back to town. There he presently 
 marries Edith, according to a long-stand- 
 ing arrangement kept strictly to them- 
 selves. 
 
 Novissima is rather shocked. She 
 feels, and says, that it is a pity. Edith is 
 a tall girl with motherly eyes and a clear 
 laugh. She has no notion how clever 
 Calamus is, and would probably care as 
 much for him if he were a fool. 
 
 Novissima says that Mr. Calamus has 
 simply thrown away his chance of becom- 
 ing a great man. She says it, moreover, 
 with all her customary assurance, from the 
 high standpoint of critical disapproval 
 that is hers. And Calamus proceeds to 
 turn out the best work of his lifetime, 
 while Edith busies herself with mere 
 household matters, and a clear laugh over 
 a cradle. 
 
 339
 
 The New Woman 
 
 There is something wrong somewhere. 
 It cannot, of course, be Novissima, for 
 she is so perfectly sure of herself. Pos- 
 sibly it is Calamus who is wrong. But 
 he is quite happy, and Edith is the same. 
 
 It is only Novissima who is not con- 
 tent. Dr. Kudos was right. She proves 
 nothing. She has tried to prove that 
 woman's mission is something higher 
 than the bearing of children and bringing 
 them up. And she has failed. 
 
 340
 
 The Farmer
 
 The Farmer 
 
 "Quand rhomme commence a raisonner il cesse de 
 sentir." 
 
 He lives and has lived all his life, as 
 his fathers before him, in an old farm- 
 house beautiful with rare carvings, sub- 
 stantial, comfortable, and honest. 
 
 The Farmer is himself substantial, 
 honest, and hot-tempered. " A peppery- 
 old chap, you know," says his son, with 
 a filial candor quite modern and disre- 
 spectful. 
 
 The Farmer indeed justifies such a de- 
 scription to perfection. 
 
 There is perhaps no more soft-hearted, 
 impetuous, obstinate, wrong-headed old 
 fellow in the county. 
 
 He has been in the habit of swearing 
 all his life quite freely at everybody. At 
 his son, for his fine gentlemanly airs and 
 
 343
 
 The Farmer 
 
 his fine gentlemanly appearance. At 
 his wife, who is blue-eyed and somewhat 
 overpowered by a perfectly good-tem- 
 pered stoutness. At his servants. At 
 his farm-laborers. 
 
 Lor ! he do cuss, bless 'im !" says 
 one of them. Perhaps the other people 
 who have to deal with him regard him in 
 a like tolerant spirit. His wife, for in- 
 stance, who has been brought up piously 
 in a Dissenting book shop in the county 
 town, accepts his failings with a fat, 
 simple kindness. " They speak harsh to 
 you," she says, embracing the whole sex 
 in the description. " And they like their 
 glass, and there's no pleasing 'em with 
 their meals, but I dunno that we'd have 
 'em different if we could." 
 
 The two are married as very young 
 people in that unpractical age when it 
 seems better to be poor together than to 
 be rich apart. Mary is ill soon afterwards 
 — an illness which she bears with the 
 simple patience and sweetness which are 
 indeed still characteristic of her when she 
 has long ceased to be slim and girlish. 
 
 344
 
 The Farmer 
 
 The fidelity and devotion with which her 
 husband, who is a fine, vigorous young 
 fellow in those days, nurses her is still on 
 record. It is remembered how, when their 
 little daughter is born to them — dead — he 
 puts down his honest impetuous head on 
 the pillow by Mary and cries like a child. 
 Though a son comes to them a few years 
 later, the little girl who never saw the 
 light is still beloved and unforgotten ; and 
 when the chapter wherein David loses his 
 child is read in church, the Farmer's eyes 
 are so dim that he cannot see. 
 
 He is believed to be all his life under 
 the illusion that Mary still wears her girl- 
 ish charms. Though he speaks to her 
 often roughly himself, he is ready to de- 
 fend her a great deal more roughly, if 
 need be, against all the world. When 
 the well-bred son suggests, without in- 
 deed intending to offend the " peppery 
 old chap " the least in the world, that it 
 would be more convenient if my mother 
 were slim and active enough to look after 
 the pigs and chickens herself, the " pep- 
 pery old chap " turns on his son with his 
 
 345
 
 The Farmer 
 
 honest old face quite savage and apo- 
 plectic. " Darn you," he says, " and darn 
 the pigs and chickens too, afore I'd have 
 a whipping-post of a wife like yours." 
 And the gentlemanly Jack turns his back 
 upon his father's ill-bred wrath and re- 
 tires, humming an air with a great deal of 
 nonchalance and a smile. 
 
 With his farm people old John is par- 
 ticularly hasty and kind. They under- 
 stand his ways perfectly perhaps. " He 
 do cuss, bless 'im," when the cottages 
 want repairing, but he repairs them not 
 the less. He loses his hot old temper to 
 a degree quite alarming when they neglect 
 their duty. But he never turns them off 
 with a sarcastic urbanity, as does his 
 brother farmer in the next parish. 
 
 He is perhaps worse served and more 
 beloved than any agriculturist in the dis- 
 trict. When times are bad the people 
 come to him readily for relief, and, though 
 he gives them plenty of grumbling and 
 strong language, these are never the only 
 memories of him they carry away. 
 
 John is people's churchwarden. He is 
 
 346
 
 The Farmer 
 
 not perhaps entirely successful in this 
 capacity. A person whose mildest con- 
 versation is interlarded, quite uncon- 
 sciously and from long habit, with un- 
 commonly expressive flowers of speech, 
 must be allowed to have his drawbacks as 
 an officer of religion. Upon matters of 
 Church doctrine, moreover, the farmer is 
 as ignorant, as obstinate, as conservative, 
 and as pig-headed as any man in the 
 kingdom. A place of worship mouldy, 
 moth-eaten, and principally ornamented 
 with a huge three-decker pulpit, was good 
 enough for his fathers, and he would like 
 to know, with an ominous red coming 
 into his honest old face, why it shouldn't 
 be good enough for him ? When the 
 parson, who indeed is not injudicious, 
 and has a very kindly liking and respect 
 for this hot-headed parishioner, first 
 preaches in a surplice, John disseminates 
 awful reports in the parish in which the 
 Scarlet Lady and the Pope of Rome fig- 
 ure largely. He absents himself from 
 church for a Sunday or two. But he 
 finds that he gets on very badly without 
 
 347
 
 The Farmer 
 
 what he calls his " religion," and comes 
 back pretty soon to the seat which he 
 has occupied every Sunday since he was a 
 child. He continues, it is true, to sniff 
 at [^ the parson's Romish abominations, 
 but he says his prayers in a fine, fervent 
 old voice, and with his rough face very 
 pious and absorbed. 
 
 The great love of the old man's life is 
 the gentlemanly Jack. At a time when 
 money was a great deal scarcer with him 
 than it is now he gave Jack an excellent 
 education. The result of that education 
 is not perhaps unprecedented. The slow, 
 old-fashioned ways of his father are not 
 quite good enough for \.h.e fin-de-siecle son. 
 Jack is indeed fond of the " old chap" 
 in a slightly condescending manner, and 
 the father is devoted with all the passion 
 of his hot, faithful heart to the boy to 
 whom he can scarcely talk for an hour 
 without quarrelling. There are a thou- 
 sand subjects of dispute between the 
 two. There is Jack's wife, the genteel 
 whipping-post brought up in black silk in 
 a fashionable milliner's in London. There 
 
 348
 
 The Farmer 
 
 is a certain easy, bored, indolent air the 
 son has with him, vastly irritating. There 
 is his confounded fiddle-daddle taste for 
 literature, which has been known to lead 
 him to lie full length on the parlor-sofa 
 on a Sunday morning, smoking perpetual 
 pipes and reading " East Lynne. " 
 
 There is his desire — curse him — to in- 
 troduce the steam plough and other new- 
 fangled arrangements into the sleepy, 
 tranquil, behind-the-times old farm, and 
 his appearance on high days and holidays 
 in a suit of clothes fit for a gentleman, 
 and a pair of the finest, dandy, most ex- 
 asperating patent leather boots. 
 
 Mary, the fat, tranquil Mary, tries her 
 best to keep the peace between the two. 
 
 " I'm sorry to annoy my father," says 
 Jack; " but he's so deuced peppery, you 
 know." 
 
 Is he ? Perhaps. Mary at least ac- 
 quiesces, or seems to acquiesce, in the 
 dictum with a stout sigh. Yet he has 
 been good to her — very good — very faith- 
 ful, devoted, and honest. He has the 
 tenderest heart and bravest spirit, she 
 
 349
 
 The Farmer 
 
 thinks, of any man in the world. Perhaps, 
 like a true woman, she loves him none the 
 less because he often gives her pain. 
 
 The cause of the quarrel which parts 
 the father and son for ever is not pre- 
 cisely known. 
 
 Perhaps it rises in Jack's patent leather 
 boots, in the steam plough, or his dese- 
 cration of the Sabbath. It is at least 
 certain that the old man is the more in 
 the wrong. lie loses his hot old temper 
 from the first. He turns and curses the 
 boy whom he loves from the depth of his 
 honest heart, and reproaches him in bitter 
 words which can never be forgotten. 
 
 Jack is seT- possessed enough. The 
 superior education he has received ena- 
 bles him to control his feelings pretty 
 easily while the infuriated old man, with 
 his face aflame, is shouting at him across 
 the table. 
 
 Curse you ! " says the Farmer breath- 
 lessly. " And curse me if I ever see 
 your face again I " 
 
 " As you like, sir," replies the gentle- 
 manly Jack, cool, urbane, and courteous 
 
 350
 
 The Farmer 
 
 to the last. And he turns on his heel and 
 leaves his father alone. 
 
 The two do not meet for many years. 
 Until Jack goes away the Farmer has 
 never known, perhaps, how dear the boy 
 has been to him. 
 
 Yet when Mary mentions his name, and 
 lays her plump hand with the worn wed- 
 ding ring on it pleadingly on her hus- 
 band's arm, he turns upon her furiously, 
 and bids her to be quiet with an oath. 
 
 He has loved the boy too well to for- 
 give him easily. 
 
 One day the news comes that Jack has 
 a little son of his own. 
 
 " You'll let bygones be bygones now, 
 won't you, my dear ? " says Mary. She 
 has a great want to take that baby in her 
 warm, motherly arms, to renew the feel- 
 ings with which she bent over her own 
 son, little, innocent, and good. And the 
 Farmer says "No" in a great voice. 
 And Mary dares ask no more. 
 
 The trouble preys on her health at last. 
 
 She dies very quietly one night in her 
 sleep. The old man's agony of grief at 
 
 351
 
 The Farmer 
 
 her going is terrible to see. Now she 
 has left him he is quite alone. 
 
 He is so far softened by her death that 
 in the early days of his grief he makes a 
 resolution concerning the boy. He puts 
 off its fulfilment indeed for many weeks. 
 And at last, before he has carried it into 
 action, is taken ill himself. 
 
 He has kindly people about him. The 
 parson and the parson's gentle wife come 
 every day to see him. A portly milkmaid, 
 of indefinite age, who has been in his 
 service since she was sixteen, and hopes 
 to die in his service, a milkmaid still, 
 nurses him faithfully. 
 
 " He's got summut on his mind," she 
 says to the Doctor. " He's that restless 
 as he's been hay-making with the bed- 
 clothes all night. Maybe when he can 
 speak he'll tell us what it is." 
 
 He recovers his speech in a day or two, 
 but he makes no further use of it than 
 to say, in a wearisome repetition, one 
 word — the name of his son. They are 
 not sure if he is wholly sensible. He 
 takes the food and the medicine they
 
 The Farmer 
 
 give him with a meekness foreign to his 
 character. But he says nothing except 
 Jack, Jack, Jack, over and over again, 
 and in a heart-rending voice. 
 
 Through a moaning and troublesome 
 night he asks for the boy repeatedly. 
 Through the hot August day — in the 
 sultry afternoon. He wakes at last from 
 an uneasy sleep to see his son sitting 
 quietly by his side. "Why, Jacky ! " 
 says the Farmer, with a sudden cry of 
 joy, " I'm darned if I haven't been dream- 
 ing that we had a quarrel, and I sent 
 you away. That was a rare mistake to 
 make, Jacky, wasn't it ?" 
 
 ** A rare mistake," says gentleman Jack 
 in a deep voice. 
 
 John lies quietly after this for many 
 hours. His brave old face, tanned with 
 the broad winds of heaven, is scarcely, 
 even now, like the face of a dying man. 
 He fancies that Mary is downstairs mind- 
 ing the grandson he has never seen. 
 " She's so fond of the childer, is the old 
 woman," he says. 
 
 Towards night, while Jack is still sit- 
 23 353
 
 The Farmer 
 
 ting by his side in the darkening room, a 
 drowsiness falls on him. But there is, or 
 seems to be, some uneasiness in his mind 
 which will not let him sleep. 
 
 It's the dream, Jacky, " he says in a 
 troubled voice. " Some one — the old fool, 
 God bless her, who waits on me — said 
 that it was true. 
 
 " There is nothing true," answers gen- 
 tleman Jack huskily, " except that we've 
 been — deuced fond of each other all the 
 time." 
 
 And the Farmer passed from a sleep in 
 which all the dreams are tranquil to that 
 sleep in which there are none. 
 
 THE END.
 
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