I W?-H$?}< The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN y <* & t> LOVE'S LABOUR WON. the new e*oy:ei • CHAPTER I. A LAWN TENNIS PARTY. " Is your friend Captain Lonsdale, with whom you -4 danced so often this season — " "Who danced so often with me! There is a difference, Miss Tremayne." "Well is he hereto-day?" " I think not. Do you know him ? " " Oh, so well ; I met Montague so often in Calcutta, at the Government house, the race course, on the Esplanade, and everywhere else." "Montague!" thought Miss Talbot, over whose soft face a shade of annoyance passed. Considering that since the commencement of the London season in question, Melanie Talbot had been engaged to Montague Lonsdale, she had some cause to . resent the free appropriation of his VOL. I. B 2 love's labour won. Christian name by the brilliant and flighty Hilda Tremayne, the enterprising daughter — the only and spoiled one — of an Indian general, then on leave in England. Hilda, a garrison belle, but of a very superior fashion, was well up in all military society, and was decidedly popular at Aldershot, Folkestone, and other red-coat circles within easy distance of London. She and her friend, or acquaintance rather, were two more than handsome girls, and were guests at Chillington Park, a stately place on the Thames, an hour or so distant by rail from town ; and both were enjoying to the fullest extent a brilliant lawn tennis party, given by the aunt of the latter, Mrs. Chillington, a wealthy and fashionable widow, of whom more anon, and whose social gatherings, especially of this kind, were extremely popular. Lawn tennis is essentially a jovial, a graceful, and a friendly game, that brings into contact many who otherwise might never meet or learn to know each other, making (like the Scottish golf, for older folks) all its votaries kin, at least for the time ; and it is the one great game in which the youth of both A LAWN TENNIS PARTY. 3 sexes can meet on almost equal terms, and in which female play is almost equal to male in dexterity. Few sights can surpass, in attraction, a tennis lawn in the well-kept grounds attached to a stately English house, such as Chillington — the courts duly chalked on the smooth green sward, the nettings tightly " belayed," and the players of both sexes in their piquante and bright-coloured costumes, arrayed for the merry struggle, with a goodly number of gossiping friends and chaperones, now too old to handle a racquet or display their figures, seated on benches and sofas under the broad and rustling leafage of summer. The dulcet sound of the English girls' voices, their pure, happy laughter, is then mingled with the music of the band, that adds zest to their enjoyment without disturbing them, whilst the sunny air is laden with the fragrance of the season from parterre and border, where dark and yellow wall-flowers, clumps of lavender-coloured aubretia, patches of white candytuft, clusters of polyanthus, sheets of pansies and tulips of every shade and hue are seen. b2 4 LOVE S LABOUR WON. At Chillington, to the bank of the river far stretched the velvety lawn of emerald green, shaded by tall and ancient trees ; where — till August— the nightingale proved himself sleepless by day as well as night, while the cows swung their long tails in the soft breeze, till they could be driven quietly home to be milked. Liveried servants and other " helps " went round with iced champagne cups, strawberries and cream, or the inevitable five o'clock tea, all the more enjoyable amid such a scene, and amid so many sweet sounds in the warm open air and on the fresh and fragrant grass. On the latter, young fellows were lounging at the feet of girls on rustic chairs, fanning themselves with their racquets, and talking the usual common-places ; and there, too, was more than one stately dowager promenading slowly or seated amid the rose bushes, talking scandal, perhaps, over dainty cups of tea and dishes of bright-hued fruit. " To the dweller in town," says an essayist, " lawn tennis as a rule means lawn tennis, and nothing more ; the game, the whole game, and nothing but the game ; and A LAWN TENNIS PARTY. 5 lawn tennis has, perforce, to dispense with butter- cups and daisies, nut hatches, singing-birds, and parterres of shimmering flowers. A good ground, good balls, and good players suffice, for the object is muscular, not aesthetic. Possibly some earnest urban devotees of the game would regard the proximity of tulips and wall-flowers as ' Punch's * Nimrod regarded those ' stinking violets ' ; for Englishmen soon learn to manage without the elegances and luxuries of life, and to be satisfied with a due supply of its necessities. In the front rank of the latter, for the dwellers in our northern climes, is exercise. Next to that is the need of contending with someone about something." But amid the delightful surroundings afforded by Chillington Park, the joyous activity and grace of the young girls put to shame the blase Englishman- about-town, and compelled more than one to forget his inane drawl and that adopted manner which is so suggestive of perpetual boredom and effeminate weakness ; while even amid the crowd, many couples could have their special tete-a-tete unknown to chaperone — that tete-a-tete, when lips can form 6 love's labour won. tender words unheard by others, and " eyes look love to eyes that speak again " ; for such gatherings are excellent for the purpose, as two may isolate themselves while the world surges closely round them. They may be close together, and yet seem practically far apart ; and on these occasions, topic and tone, glance and manner, may wax perilously confidential indeed. Tired of playing, Melanie Talbot had taken a seat on a rustic sofa, at a little distance from the numerous party, and there she had been joined by Miss Tremayne, who asked, in the most casual way apparently, the question with which this chapter opens. The claim to a prior intimacy on the part of Miss Tremayne, and so far away as India too, was in itself displeasing to Melanie Talbot, who, however, could not deny that Hilda was a striking figure in her well-plumed hat and very piquante lawn tennis costume. She was tall, large, fair-skinned, and languishing, with soft brown hair, and bright hazel eyes of nearly the same tint as her hair, heavily lidded, A LAWN TENNIS PARTY. I darkly-lashed, and ever varying in expression as the spirit moved her. Perhaps a residence in India affected her manner, for, like Byron's Dudu, she certainly was Languishing and lazy, Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy ; and in company was most attractive and chic — to use that new French word for which there is no equivalent in English. But in the grace of her form, and the rare beauty of her small patrician face, Melanie Talbot was in no way her inferior, and fully surpassed her in that most attractive beauty which lies less in feature and complexion — expression, changing with every emotion. Her figure was slender, lithe, and perfect ; her face had a pure profile, and her eyes were of that grey-blue which runs black at times ; and her hair, of darkest brown, formed glorious coils around a most shapely head — yet so coiled by the deft fingers of her aunt's maid, Mademoiselle Clochette, as not to conceal its form. Melanie' s complexion was brilliantly fair, colourless, in fact ; and her 8 love's labour won. curved lips were so scarlet that one might have thought she touched them with crewe vermilla, yet it" was the pure vermilion of nature. In the land of lovely women, both girls were beautiful. " And Captain Lonsdale never once spoke of me to you?" said Miss Tremayne, after a pause, during which she had been slowly fanning herself. "No." " Strange ! " said the other, with a curl of her handsome lip. "Why strange?" But for reasons of her own, this indolent beauty only replied by a soft dreamy smile of wonderful depth. Her remarks, and others made before, though too probably prompted by mere vanity, not un- naturally rankled in the mind of Melanie, whom Miss Tremayne sought to inspire with rivalry and jealousy. A rather awkward silence ensued, till it was broken by a gentleman, who claimed the latter for a new set. She rose and swept away with A LAWN TENNIS PARTY. \) smiling alacrity, and Melanie Talbot was left alone ; but for a minute only, and a sigh of annoyance escaped her when she saw her bete noir, Sir Brisco Braybrooke, approaching. Melanie Talbot (so named by her godmother, a French lady, of Pondicherry), the penniless orphan of a distinguished officer of H.M. Indian army, had been for a season chaperoned by her widowed aunt, Mrs. Chillington, of Chillington Park, the wealthy, proud, and somewhat selfish bugbear of the girl — a bugbear, because of her assumption and high-handed interference. And now, the tennis party we have described was, to Melanie, the closing scene of her season and her " oppor- tunities," of which, she had been candidly in- formed, " it was her bounden duty to make the most " ; and if Aunt Chillington knew aught about Montague Lonsdale, and how dear he was to Melanie, his existence was carefully ignored by that worthy lady, whose hopes for her niece were based on a wealthy marriage, her fortune being her face, which had procured for her all that remained of the elderly admirer who now advanced" 10 love's laboue won. with mincing step to take the seat on the rustic sofa just vacated by Miss Tremayne. Erect, above the middle height, and inclined to be stout, Sir Brisco, past his sixtieth year, was certainly a suavely-mannered and pleasant-looking man, somewhat regardless of appearance as to costume, with a face expressive of strong will. His grey eyebrows were bushy, while his hair and moustache were white, coarse, stubbly, and altogether disinclined to be smoothed or brushed. Eegarding Melanie admiringly, with a gleam in his old crow's-footed eyes, he said : " A brilliant gathering, and most charming day ! " "About a hundred persons have made the same original remark to me," replied Melanie, almost pettishly. " Then I make the hundred-and-first ? " "Yes," said she, colouring with annoyance at her own ill-concealed discourtesy. " So brilliant indeed," continued the baronet, ignoring it, " that we might fancy the times had come again referred to by Sir Thomas Malory in A LAWN TENNIS PARTY. 11 his black-letter book, which gives us an account of King Arthur with his knights and ladies, all in green, riding near London by the margin of the Thames in search of bunches of white thorn blossom. An American writer," he continued, bending his old head nearer hers, " says we English have no climate — only samples ; and Talleyrand also asserted that we have no climate — only weather ; and yet, is not to-day lovely ? " Melanie bowed, but it was evident that her mature admirer did not intend to descant longer on that safe topic, the weather, as he said, in his most suave tone, whilst stooping still nearer her : " Chillington, I believe, is famous for its arum lilies. Shall we go into the conservatory close by?" "But then we should not hear the band in that receptacle for ear-wigs." "It is only playing one of those foreign noises which we English, for lack of something of our own, call music," said he, with a little air of annoyance. " I knew you would be here, and 12 love's labour won. though I detest gatherings of this kind, I came in consequence, Miss Talbot." lie saw a little colour sweep over her face, leaving it paler than before ; but resumed, in a very low voice — "You know, so I need not repeat, the regard, the love I have for you, Melanie. I must call you Melanie," he added, as a gesture of impatience escaped her. She raised her eyes and looked at him ; but for several secret reasons and terrors of her own yet to be related, she gave no reply. "Do you doubt my love for you?" he asked, with his white moustache within an inch of her lovely little ear. "No, SirBrisco." "How then?" " I doubt having any to give you in return for it." " This is hard to bear. It will come in time. I have been abrupt perhaps ; but to see you so sweeps all prudence away." " Surely this is a strange place for such speeches — or such a conversation ! " A LAWN TENNIS PARTY. 13 " You declined the orthodox conservatory." " Orthodox — in novels." " And often in real life too, Melanie." " You have no right to call me by my Christian name ! " said she, colouring now. To him, when her aunt was not present, she was usually defiant, quizzical, or cold. He thought then that he would like to play Pygmalion to her Galatea, only he was too old and too obese for the part of the sculptor of Cyprus. " And you leave this to-morrow, Miss Talbot ? " said he. "Yes, Sir Erisco." He paused, and then said, " I have so much to say again that I have said before, I know ; but tell me, have you quite reconsidered the offer I made you, with the full consent of your aunt, Mrs. Chillington ? " " Yes, Sir Brisco." " And — and you may in time accept it ? Have I any chance of success — any hope of winning you to be my wife ? " he persisted. " Do not recur to that subject, Sir Brisco," said 14 love's labour won. the girl, bitterly, painfully, as she thought of how she^was circumstanced ; you do not know all ; I cannot tell you all." Her tone impressed him, for he was a proud man. He drew hack a little, and his heart throbbed with vague distrust. He had now pro- posed twice to the girl, though his knowledge of her family and her past was scanty. He only knew that she was beautiful, perfectly ladylike, and that the position of her aunt in society was irre- proachable. She was young, and he loved her with all the curiously mingled emotions of a man of his years, when much of the fatherly is apt to blend with the lover — his hopes encouraged by a knowledge of his great wealth, his superior position, and that worship of the golden which he saw daily prac- tised in the circle amid which he moved. " I shall be content to wait — not a year," he added, colouring as he thought of the years he had attained to ; " but till I can win your love at last." " It may not be — it cannot be ! " said Melanie, A LAWN TENNIS PARTY. 15 in a tremulous voice, as she cast down her eyes and felt her engagement ring tinder her glove — not that she needed to gather coin-age or a power of resistance therefrom. " And see, Sir Brisco, people are approaching. Here comes Miss Tremayne already." " Allow me," said Sir Brisco, offering his arm. But Melanie ignored it. He bowed low and turned almost sadly away, but not before he could overhear Hilda say laughingly to a smart young fellow in a gay tennis suit, who escorted her — " Of course, Miss Smith — or Smythe, as she calls herself — is a goose ! If I have a supreme horror in this world, it is to see a girl marrying a man old enough to be her father. And for what ? The sake of money ! " CHAPTEB II. AUNT CHILLINGTON. The last carriages had rolled away through the lodge gates, the guests were gone, the brilliant fete was over, and visions of her Aunt Chillington's animadversions and censures, uttered in clear and shrill staccato English, and those of her guardian, Uncle Grimshaw, in the background, rose up to torture Melanie. Better, she thought, 'any humiliating occupation, if honest — teaching, telegraphy, companionship — than undergoing the lectures of either ; but for what was she fitted ? She had been openly and selfishly warned by i both to " make good use of the opportunities " her aunt's invitation afforded her, and one of the ways in which she had done so was to decline the proposal of the wealthy old baronet. AUNT CHILLINGTON. l7 Thoroughly would Melanie have enjoyed her season in London with Aunt Chillington but for one feature in the picture — the baronet ; and even the society of Montague Lonsdale was almost unable to compensate her for the annoyance it entailed. She had revelled in the gay, wonderful streets ; the sunny park ; the Eow, with its brilliant show of fine equipages and beautiful women ; the four- in-hand meet by the Serpentine, the trooping of the colours at the Horse Guards ; the grand old Abbey and ponderous St. Paul's ; the ladies' gallery in the House, with its grotesque screen of brass wire ; the opera and balls without number ; and now all was over for her, and, like Cinderella, she was going to a somewhat sordid home — sordid, at least, as compared with Chillington Park — where she knew she would be unwelcome ; where Montague Lonsdale's advent would be unwelcome too ; but where she hoped, at least, to be beyond the ken of Sir Brisco Braybrooke for a time — if only for a time. " Love is no love if it comes not at once," says ii VOL. I. C 18 love's labour won. a poet, and in her first meeting with Montague Lonsdale the whole tenor of her young life was changed at once — and his too, for that matter, for though he had seen and known many beautiful and attractive women, the meeting with Melanie was the first in which he had looked into a girl's eyes and felt that magnetic influence which rendered him almost unable to take his own gaze away. Even for the rich dresses, for street and Eow and ball-room, she was indebted to her aunt, but for her magnificent fans and bouquets to Captain Lonsdale, Sir Brisco, and other admirers, some of whom had even lost little bets to her at Ascot and Goodwood, in the most graceful way imaginable — bets which she blushed to win, though she saw Hilda Tremayne and others do so without com- punction. The most rural of lanes— those lovely lanes which are so peculiarly English — led from every side to the fair white manor-house of Chillington, on the summit of a grassy slope, where a few ornamental deer might be seen grazing with the AUNT CHILLINGTON. 19 sunlight falling on their sleek and dappled coats. Over a stately terrace, as a plateau, with carved stone vases full of brilliant flowers, was the house, with its peristyle of four Corinthian columns, nearly forty feet in height, with a rich entablature and pediment, in the tympanum of which were the griffins' heads and three oysters, scalloped, quarterly, being the arms of Alderman Chillington, a city magnate of the early days of George III., the first founder of the family. Evidences of wealth and luxury were apparent on every hand. The house is famous for a saloon, on the ceiling of which is an immense painting of Aurora, copied from that of Guido in the Eespiglori Palace ; a stuccoed dining-room, wherein Admirals Pocock and Keppel had been feasted after the bombardment of Havannah ; and for all manner of handsome things in the guest-room, corridors, and staircase ; and a worfderful blue drawing- room, with curios, the collection of the Alderman's descendants, who, in taste and education, sur- passed himself, of course. c2 20 love's laboub won. To the blue drawing-room, then, Melanie was solemnly summoned by her Aunt Chillington, after the guests had departed, and with a beating heart the girl entered what was a species of torture chamber to her. There Aunt Chillington had seated herself, as if in judgment on a throne, on a blue satin ottoman in the very centre of the room, and was slowly fanning herself and looking as grim as Medusa, as she prepared to expound the law to the shrinking Melanie. * One of Mrs. Chillington's chief aims in life was to be deemed the best dressed woman of her set. She was tall, slender, and aristocratic in bearing, and actually handsome, though past her sixtieth year ; but the world had gone very easily and luxuriously with her in her wifehood and widow- hood. She was inordinately proud of her birth as a Talbot, and, as a supposed descendant of that Richard de Talbot whom the Domesday Book records as holding nine pieces of land from Walter of Buckingham, was somewhat inclined to under- value the family into which she had married, AUNT CHILLINGTON. 21 though for money. She was also proud of her small hands and feet. Her eyes were keen and dark. She had a well-bred face and a great quantity of magnificently soft and silky white hair. With all her pride, she was cold, calculating, and selfish. The baronet, before leaving, had evidently re- ported to her the bad success of his suit. " And so — so you have actually refused Sir Brisco," said the old lady, eyeing her with a steel-like glance, while her nether lip quivered with indignation ; " refused him a second time — after all my trouble, care, expense, and anxiety? " Melanie was silent. " Answer me, dear ! " We fear she pronounced the term of affection, " dear," sharply, after the usual manner of an ill-tempered Englishwoman, when she means to be remarkably incisive. " Yes, aunt." " If it is not too late, or too much beneath your 22 love's labour won. ambition — £20,000 a -year — I wish you would -reconsider this act of insane and most outrageous folly." Melanie shook her head. " His settlements will be all that we can desire." "But — he is so old, aunt." " Old ! " " Too much so for my taste and years ; and if good-natured, stupid, not chic enough — " " Not what enough ? Don't use that horrid word, dear ! " " Surely I deserve something better at the hands of Fate, and something tells me I shall get it too," said the girl, nervously, and a trifle defiantly. " Surely a girl, if marriageable at eighteen, is able to please and judge for her- self." "But not if poor, miserably poor, as ( you are," was the stinging retort. " And, anyway, her father and mother, or guardians, may not think she is able to judge for herself." "Why, aunt?" AUNT CHILLINGTON. 23 "Because they have lived longer, got over all the nonsense of life — " " And forgot that they married about the same years themselves." "Exactly; it is the way of the world; and if you will have romance, be assured that Sir Brisco loves you." "Perhaps so — as much as such a ' Grandfather Whitehead ' can ; but certainly I cannot be the first love of his life," said Melanie, with irritation quivering on her lip. "The second, perhaps, and consequently the best." Melanie laughed almost scornfully at this remark. " Remember what someone says — and what, perhaps, he thinks," she said; and then, hoping, but in vain, to make her aunt smile, she sang — First love is a pretty romance, But not half so sweet as 'tis reckoned ; And when one awakes from the trance, There's a vast deal of love in the second. 24 love's labour won. And e'en should a second subside, A lover should never despair ; The world is uncommonly wide, And the women uncommonly fair. The poets their raptures may tell, . Who have never been put to the test ; A first love is al] very well, But, believe me, the last one's the best. "This spirit of banter is most unbecoming, Melanie ! " said Mrs. Chillington, starting up from the ottoman and fanning herself with angry- vigour. " You are a most ungrateful girl ! " Then poor Melanie, finding that her desperate attempt at playfulness failed, felt her eyes suffuse with tears. "I am most grateful to you for all your great kindness to me, aunt; for all your good wishes and intentions regarding me, and those of my Uncle Grimshaw too ; but — but," she added, as the image of Montague Lonsdale rose before her, " I cannot destroy my whole life, and that of another too." "Another! To whom do you refer?" asked her aunt, sharply. AUNT CHILLINGTON. 25 Blushing deeply for the word that had un- wittingly escaped, fear made the girl take refuge in a little duplicity. "My brother, poor Reggie, would think that I sacrificed myself for his interests, and the conviction would break his heart." " Fiddlesticks ! You are aware that since you came here to Chillington your Uncle Grim- shaw — burdened as the poor man is with you and that helpless creature Reggie — has been compelled to take a smaller house and at a greater distance from town, for economy. As for Reggie, it would be well indeed if he were out of the world." " Oh, aunt, aunt!" exclaimed Melanie, her hot tears falling now. " Poor Reggie— so helpless, so gentle, so gentlemanly, ever full of apologies for the trouble he gives. How can you speak of him thus?" Mrs. Chillington coloured a little at the effect of her remark, but said : " Why, girl, with Sir Brisco, apart from the settlements, you might have a marriage that 2D LOVE S LABOUE WON. would surpass any St. George's has ever seen — twelve bridesmaids, perhaps — the richest lace, the richest satin, the Braybrooke diamonds, the greatest wedding-cake — " " And the most indigestible ! " " Mockery again ! This affair is more serious than you imagine, and that you will find it to be when you go home to-morrow. What is to become of you? You are as much unfitted to be a governess as to submit to the humiliation of being a companion ; and if you scout at such an unexceptional offer as that of Sir Brisco, I repeat, what — as a penniless and dependent girl — is to become of you ? " " God alone knows ! " sighed Melanie wearily. And with all the softness of her beauty, she looked too statuesque, too calm and grand and beautifully fair of complexion for either line of life ; and, sooth to say, no lady with growing up sons or younger brothers would have had her. The girl bowed her head under her pitiless aunt's bitter home truths, a prey to love, to grief, perplexity, and sorest anxiety. AUNT CHILLINGTON. 27 " She shall marry him yet, or I shall have clone with her for ever ! " thought Mrs. Chillington, as she swept away to her room, in such a frame of mind and undignified rage that she furiously summoned her maid, Clochette, to apply a hand- kerchief dipped in the inevitable compound of Johann Maria Farina to her temples. And mademoiselle hid one of M. Alphonse Daudet's very naughty novels, in which she had been deep, in her pocket, and hastened to attend her mistress. Aunt Chillington had, of course, heard of the Montague Lonsdale episode ; but, as yet, dis- dained to make any reference thereto, though she had evidently failed to cure her niece of "that folly." So, on the morrow, Melanie Talbot was to go home betimes — home, where she knew, and too well, that a second edition of all she had undergone in the blue drawing-room — and perhaps in even more bitter terms — awaited her at the hands of Uncle Grimshaw. CHAPTEK III. THE TROUBLES OF MELANIE. With the memory of a most frigid kiss and many words of warning and reprehension from Aunt Chillington, Melanie Talbot found herself alone in a second-class carriage — for already the declension of her beauty had begun — and travelling homeward, on the Oxford line, between those fertile meadows and pastures which, says Gibson, in his continuation of Camden, are "the greatest glory " of the county, and are watered by almost innumerable crystal streamlets, the tribu- taries of the Isis or Thames. A soft smile overspread the girl's sweet face as she read and re-read, in the luxury of being alone and unnoticed, a letter received from her lover just before leaving Chillington Park. Among many other things that chiefly concerned THE TROUBLES OF MELANIE. 29 themselves, nearly and dearly, he mentioned : — "I was told this evening by Hilda Treniayne " (" he calls her 'Hilda!'" thought Melanie), "the most atrocious flirt that exists " (" Oh, that accounts for it. Won't I punish him ! ") " that she met you at your aunt's ; but said you scarcely knew me, darling. Good that — but wisely cautious of you with her. A storm is brewing in Burmah, and I hear that ' ours ' will be about the first corps detailed for service there ; but it will only be 1 a flash in the pan,' as our fathers used to say. In a day or two I am going with Mus grave, of the Hussars, to visit an old relation of his, somewhere in the country. I understand your Uncle Grimshaw has shifted his camp to a new quarter. Let me know where, when you write me to the 'Roy,' and your letter will be forwarded." Melanie kissed his letter ere she finally con- signed it to the bosom of her dress ; but she could not then foresee how much trouble this shifting of her uncle's "camp," as Montague phrased it, would bring about. Aunt Chillington, her warnings and threats — 30 love's labour won. even her callous remark about the helpless Eeggie, — were forgotten for a time, as the train sped on and on, and the girl sat fondly dreaming of her lover, with her eyes of dark grey-blue half closed ; of the time when her cheek last rested on his breast, and his protecting arm was round her — happy, content with knowing that she belonged to him, and that he belonged, to her — that in the future they must be always together; glad to be assured that his handsome dark eyes would never smile on another as they smiled on her — glad to think that no other woman would ever caress his hair, or her lips be touched by those that belonged to her, Melanie Talbot. Poor as the home was to which she was going, she felt that, in some respects, it might be a kind of relief after all she had undergone in London and at Chillington Park. All the pleasure and luxury with which she had been purposely surrounded had' a reverse side to the picture they presented. All day long she had been compelled to study Aunt Chillington, who never thought of anyone but herself; to THE TROUBLES OF MELANIE. 31 attend to her whims and caprices, her wishes and wants, which often drove poor little Clochette wild. She was ever ordering things, not "because she required, hut fancied, them ; spending money in profusion, without considering for what ; sending from her tahle the most recherche dishes, the most expensive fruits, and even wines, on pretexts the most silly ; and heedless of the thought that even the crumbs from her table would have supplied the desperate wants of many. She was a Sybarite, who knew nothing of the times of the poor and needy, and evidently thought that all the world should drink from rare Bohemian crystal, eat off plate or Dresden china, wear priceless jewels, the softest of linen, the richest of lace, of satin, of silk, and velvet. Verily the lines of her life had fallen in soft places ! " What a strange world it is ! " thought Melanie, as she contrasted her aunt's fortune and heart with her own, and those of others who were dear to her. " What a mystery and worry ! Does everything go by the rule of contrary ? " 32 love's laboue won. Melanie thought how much her Aunt Chilling- ton, with all her wealth, could do and might have done, to relieve Uncle Grimshaw of his grudgingly- borne burden, and to further the prospects of their orphan niece and nephews ; and yet she did nothing beyond bringing her, Melanie, forward once, in the hope that her undoubted beauty might raise her a rich, perhaps titled, marriage, and take her off their hands for life. "I ought to be grateful, I suppose," thought Melanie ; " but I am not." The income of her Uncle Grimshaw was barely sufficient for all — nothing more ; and left no margin, beyond yearly expenses, for indulging in visits to London, Brighton, or Scarborough, where " eligibles " were supposed to be found ; and thus, till the invitation referred to, in which Melanie met her " fate," she had only shone in the limited circle of a village, not far from the " Three Shires Stone." If he — naturally a cold and selfish man — thought about her real interests at all, it was only when he dreamed of the time when her THE TROUBLES OF MELANIE. 33 beauty should procure her a rich marriage of any kind, and bring to her (and to himself too, if possible) the only thing he really cared for in this world — money ! Thus, on going to Chillington Park, Melanie had vowed that, if opportunity were given, no . childish visions of love, no dreams of romance, should come between her and riches, could she win them. She had known so much of comparative poverty, with its deprivations, humiliations, and attendant curses. And yet, in that vow, she had belied her genuine and her generous nature ; for in the society to which her aunt introduced her, she had met one whom — as we have shown — she preferred to all the wealth and position Sir Brisco Braybrooke was ready to lay at her feet. The past family history of Melanie was rather a sad one. Her father, a brave officer of the Bengal Infantry, had fallen in a wretched and disastrous conflict of the Bhotan War, at the storming of a hill-fort, on the snowy slopes of the Himalayas. And VOL. I. D 34 love's labour won. her. mother, young and delicate, did not survive his death many months, and left Melanie with two brothers to the care of their bachelor uncle, Mr. Gideon Grimshaw, who had been "some- thing" in the city, but was now retired from business; so 'Change and Birchin Lane knew him no more, and he vegetated on slender means in a village of Oxfordshire, after many and serious losses. Money that had accrued to the orphans — not much certainly — had been unwisely invested by Mr. Grimshaw in a gold mine that, as is too often the case, had no gold in it ; thus the money slipped through his fingers, and he kept his thumb upon that part of the family history. To more unwilling hands they could scarcely have been trusted by their widowed mother, and he had received them then, if not ungraciously, at least without warmth and without affection. He was a confirmed and " grumpy" old bachelor, and abhorred all change or invasion in the routine of his life ; yet, for his own credit, THE TROUBLES OF MELANIE. 35 he had given Melanie as excellent an education as masters and governesses could bestow, and after schooling her elder brother, Eeginald, till he was old enough, he had sent him away to sea in a ship of war, in his thirteenth year, as a Naval Cadet. So the bonnie brown-eyed boy bade a tender and loving adieu to the baby brother, Dick, who was asleep in his cradle, and to the sweet little orphan sister, who clung so lovingly to his neck when he departed — a boy's ardour mingling with a sense of desolation, of loneliness, the memory of home and familiar faces — departed, we say, on his first voyage, towards the eastern land, where the graves of his parents lay ; and Uncle Grimshaw hoped he was rid of him for ever at last ! But it was not so — though Eeggie rose to be a sub-lieutenant — for a heavy fate was before the poor lad. He served with distinction, and was twice wounded, with the Naval Brigade in the Egyptian War, particularly at its conclusion, in the burning Soudan, where exposure in the tentless zerebas d2 36 love's labour won. to the cold and baneful night dews gave him an incurable disease in the thigh joint, and he was invalided. He was "surveyed," as it is technically called, at Malta, and transmitted to Haslar, where he was — to use another naval technicality — "discharged to shore," with orders to seek German baths, pay doctors' bills, and keep himself as best he might, without a farthing of half-pay, as there is no such thing for a naval sub-lieutenant, though Reggie had been acting-lieutenant of his ship through death vacancies in action. And so he was "discharged to shore" — sent back on Uncle Grimshaw's hands, a helpless, hopeless creature, condemned to spend his time between bed and a bath-chair, to ruminate on his blighted life and the glories of that profession of which John Bull is so proud, but like the shabby dog he is, likes to get cheap ! So Eeggie's helplessness and his sister's devotion to him proved eventually a terrible lever in all the operations of Uncle Grimshaw and Aunt Chillington against " the contumacy " of poor Melanie. THE TROUBLES OF MELANIE. 37 If, to a young man of spirit, the bread of utter dependence is bitter enough, however kind the hand that gives it, how bitter was it to the now helpless naval officer ! CHAPTEE IV. THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. On the first acceptance of his love and ring by Melanie, Montague Lonsdale had at once, like a man of honour, paid a visit to Mr. Gideon Grimshaw, and stated his hopes and intentions, and what the wishes of himself and Melanie were. In the interview that took place, the handsome young soldier required all his honest and frank confidence and all his bravery to aid his object, for Mr. Grimshaw knew the wishes of Mrs. Chillington, and that she had far other and more ambitious views for Melanie than an alliance with a mere captain of the line, who had only his pay and " Indian allowances," whatever they might mean. Mrs. Chillington had written to him glowing accounts of Melanie' s conquests, of the sensation THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. 39 she had made and the evident triumphs that were in store for her, as she seemed to inherit the marvellous face and all the rare beauty and grace of her mother. Thus, after letters to this purport, the visit of Captain Lonsdale was a terrible dis- appointment and source of disgust to the ex-city man ; for a marriage like this meant the leaving of her two brothers in perpetuity upon his, Uncle Grimshaw's, hands. The latter, a short, podgy, and thickset man, had a high, bald, shining pate, with two tufts of grizzled hair, rather like horns, which stood stiffly above each ear, and these, when irritated, which was not unfrequent, he was in the habit of nervously twisting or rasping up with his hands. He had bushy white eyebrows, and his pale or colourless eyes were keen and sharp and cold ; his manner was blunt and unsympathetic, born of a long life spent in narrow Bir chin Lane (of old called Birch-over-Lane), and Montague Lonsdale's cool information that he loved, and had won the love of, his beautiful niece, together with the asked for 40 love's labouk won. consent to their betrothal, put a climax to his disgust and annoyance. "What are your means — your expectations; everyone has something of that kind?" he asked bluntly, peering at his visitor through his gold-rimmed spectacles. "What do you live upon?" " There is my pay," began Lonsdale, colouring. " Umph ! And your debts, I suppose ; but how do you propose to keep a wife ? " " With my allowances, which will be ample, when 1 get a staff appointment in India — " " When you get it ! " snapped Uncle Grimshaw. "I think the proposed engagement little better than utter lunacy ! " he added, rasping up his side tufts, and rising from his chair to intimate that the interview was over. Thus, for a time, he declined to entertain the idea of an engagement, and supposed that when Montague Lonsdale was compelled to return to India the affair "would blow over and be forgotten." Meanwhile he wrote to Melanie a scolding letter for entangling herself with "this penniless fellow," THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. 41 and another to Mrs. Chillington, urging her to prolong their niece's visit to the Park ; but, eventually finding that Captain Lonsdale was quietly and steadily determined as ever, and that at another interview he went over all the old arguments again, he gave a grudging and unwilling half-promise to tolerate the idea, nothing more, still hoping that separation would effect a cure of this folly. He had never been in love himself at any time, and " couldn't understand what it meant." As a sealed book to him had been the sentiments of the author of " Venice Preserved " : O, woman ! lovely woman ! Native made thee To temper man ; we had been brutes without you. Angels are painted fair to look like you : There's in you all that we believe of heaven ; Amazing brightness, purity and truth, Eternal joy and everlasting love. Uncle Grimshaw's new residence — Eose Cottage, with its garden enclosed by a stone fence and shaded by old beach trees — was in a part of Oxford- shire comparatively strange to Melanie, and a few miles further from London than his former one. It was much smaller too, as he had urged pointedly in 42 love's laboue won. his letters to her that retrenchment had become now more than ever necessary. Melanie's eye, womanlike, was speedily attracted, on her return home, by the well-worn and carefully- darned carpets, the faded curtains and cretonne chair-covers, and by the general, but long familiar, shabbiness of everything, especially after her recent experiences at Chillington Park ; and the sense of all this affected her keenly, like a species of heart- ache. Her uncle was from home just then. " Absent ; thank heaven ! " thought she, as she tossed aside her hat and travelling bag. " Then I shall have no need to plead that glorious institution of the British female — a headache." But she was warmly welcomed by her brothers ; by the poor cripple Eeggie, who occupied a sofa in a corner, by blue-eyed and golden-haired Dick, a sturdy and ruddy-cheeked boy in his twelfth year, who had just returned from fishing in the Cherwell, and by her friend and gossip, Amy Brendon, a bright Hebe in her eighteenth year, who had come from her father's vicarage at Stokencross — so-called THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. 43 from a great wooden Calvary which stood there of old — a young lady of whom we shall have something to relate in the future. Amy was petite in figure, but very perfect in the beauty of her form and face. Her eyes were dark, thoughtful, and soft, and her hair, thick and wavy, was of a deep dark brown ; and clusters of freshly- gathered red roses filled her childlike hands — for childlike they were in their smallness and texture. "Oh ! welcome, Melanie darling ! " she cried, as the latter stooped to kiss the coral lips that were sweet and red as the roses referred to. " You are so tali, Melanie, that it were useless attempt- ing to reach your cheek, unless I stood on a stool. But you have just come in time to help me to arrange these roses for Keggie." And she flitted about like a bird, with her deft little fingers arranging the roses and maidenhair ferns, while from her fresh young lips there came a ringing silvery laugh, which evinced how heart- whole the girl was yet, and how contented and happy. "Ah, Melanie," exclaimed Dick, as boy-like he 44 love's labour won. clung on to her hands, and tried to swing her round, " I saw your Montague Lonsdale when he came here and put Uncle Grimshaw in a wax! Don't I wish I was like him — a full-gr,pwn captain. What luck he has." "I am glad you like him, Dick," said Melanie, colouring with pleasure. " He has promised me a gun, and gave me a cigar — oh, such a cigar — " " That made you sick as a dog," said Keggie, parenthetically, in his corner, where he occupied a couch. " And his visits put Uncle Grimshaw ' in a wax,' as you elegantly phrase it, Dick?" said Melanie. " Eather ! He was awfully put out — I don't know about what — and vented some of his anger on me and poor Keggie." " You left the Park rather abruptly, Melanie," i said the latter. " Did you quarrel with Aunt Chillington before the season was ended ? " " No — but she interfered with me very much, and urged upon me the attentions of — of men I did THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. 45 not care about," said Melanie, and then she paused, loth that any mortifying rumour should, by any means or inadvertence, reach her fiance. She had resolved to mention to no one the offer of Sir Brisco, and her refusal thereof. " Well, I am glad you are back again, Melanie," said Dick, who was thoughtful beyond his boyish years. " There is no one here whose attentions can be forced upon you, even by Uncle Grimshaw." " And you were so admired, we hear?" said Amy Brendon. "I don't wonder at it — isn't she pretty?" said Dick, nearly pulling down her back hair. " Reggie predicted, and Uncle Grimshaw too, that you would marry a duke, at least — if you chose." " The poor old furniture," murmured Melanie, looking about her ; " how worn — how painfully shabby it looks ! " " But I hope you are glad to be with us again ? " said Dick. " Oh, yes — yes," exclaimed Melanie, kissing the trio again in quick succession. 46 love's labour won. "Well, don't let Uncle Grimshaw hear your criticisms," continued Dick, producing from his pocket some peaches, which he had found in a neighbour's garden. " He is always worrying about something, and reminds me of the cruel one in the ' Babes in the Wood,' who was told — You must be father and mother both, And uncle all in one ; God knows what will become of them When we are dead and gone. And if you keep them carefully, Then God will you reward ; But if you otherwise should deal, God will your deeds regard. He is careful enough, but not of me, for of all the stingy old — " "Oh! hush, Dick," exclaimed Melanie, in a tone of mingled amazement and alarm; "think, if he should hear you ! And you, Amy, have been acting as a sister to my two boys ? " she added, again embracing her friend, and even Dick's bob-tailed terrier, Bingo, came in for a share of her caresses, as he hopped and yelped frantically about her. THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. 47 The expression of Amy's face often alternated between dimpled mischief and mild seriousness. " Yes, Melanie," said the invalid from his couch, while his eyes glistened. " Good Amy — kind little soul — has acted as usual the part of — of sister to me and to Dick. I know not what we should do without her." And as he spoke he turned restlessly on the couch where he lay nearly all day, with his pain and repining, his past brilliant memories and thoughts of what might have been. The waters of a great bitterness often overflowed his heart ; but complaints were rare with him, while his expressions of gratitude for kindness, and apologies for trouble given, were touching, frequent, and earnest. Open-air sports, like balls and dancing, were out the scheme of his life now ; yet he was sometimes taken in his wheel-chair to tennis and garden parties at Stokencross and elsewhere. And how, at times, he loathed them ! To see little Amy Brendon in her tennis costume, looking so pretty and piquante, so lissom and active in figure, with 48 love's labour won. " Tom, Dick, and Harry " hovering in admiration about her, while he sat in his invalid chair, "a d — ned perambulator" he thought it, and looked enviously, hopelessly, and helplessly on ! k silent love for Amy was his sheet-anchor in life now ; of that nothing could rob him, so long as it was silent and concealed in his own troubled breast. To speak of it might scare the girl with terror, perhaps with dislike rather than pity for him, and so end an intimacy that was full of vague delight to him. Yet what a contrast they were, in some respects ! Amy, the type of youth, and Hebe-like in her health, bloom, and roundness of limb; her eyes clear, bright, and sparkling ; her little figure superb and elastic, her mere life a joy to her. He, with fingers long, and lean, and blanched now ; his fair dark aquiline features pinched, pale, and worn with the frequent pain that rendered his splendid hazel eyes unnaturally large and keenly bright, creating for him, in all who knew his sad story, a piteous attraction, to woman especially. His dark, silky moustache, that curled THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. 49 well upwards, gave an. additional expression to his uncommonly fine face. Thus Melanie's heart often grew sad and sore as she watched the two, for she dearly loved her lame but helpless sailor brother. And yet amid the dreamy sense of happiness Amy's society gave him, he built no castles in the air — he could not! "What earthly castles ever tower up in form so majestic, in curve and spire, dome and battlements so grand and glorious, as those ethereal ones of our own architecture ? Earth, sky, and sea furnish no colours so bright as those of which our castles shine in Hope's sunlight." But in Eeginald Talbot's dreams of love, no such castles rose, for he loved in silence, without hope, without a future. He could only anticipate the agony of seeing her the bride of another, for bride of his she could never, never be ! He had learned to love her when he first came back from the Indian seas, and renewed the friend- ship that began, as he was wont to say, "when she wore her back hair in two tails, a white VOL. I. E 50 love's labour won. pinafore and strap shoes, and sat in a high chair, and love and marriage were myths compared to a new doll and more pudding." And now, since he had returned from the fatal Soudan, he struggled with the newer-horn joy — the wild and thrilling delight that had taken possession of his heart — thrilling every nerve of his body when his eyes met hers, when hand touched hand, even when her' dress touched him in passing ; or when she sang to him, and listened with interest and sweet- ness to the little stories of his brief but ill-requited sailor career ; and many a word and many a glance of hers he treasured in his heart ; and, indeed, lived on for days afterwards. When they were together and she talked to him alone, he was conscious of nothing but genuine felicity, of a soft charm that enthralled and seemed to wrap him round ; but how long would this sweet intercourse last, he had often asked himself with vague dismay? When a lover should come, and with him the end. Both girls, Melanie and Amy, had ever done their best to cheer him in his great trouble, and THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. 51 he felt gratitude and love for their goodness ; but for which, and occasionally coaching the somewhat erratic Dick in his unwelcome tasks, he more than once thought he " might go melancholy mad." So gentle Amy Brendon sang her sweetest songs to him ; walked by his wheel-chair (while Dick pulled or pushed it), by sunset and star- light, through woodland paths, through lanes and shrubberies, holding his soul, as it were, in thrall. He yielded to the sunshine, to the glamour of the present ; at times — but at times only — thinking of the future, and how little all this could lead to, and of his own despair — he, an object of pity — of charity, a helpless cripple, on the grudgingly given bounty of Uncle Grimshaw. In that vague future could he expect that she would sacrifice the world and all a fair young girl's life to him ? And now in the evening, after Melanie's return, he and Amy sat amid the gloaming (as the Scots call the after-glow of eve) playing chess in the recess of a window — he rather affecting to do so, being wholly intent on the sweet, soft face and • e 2 UNlVEH, 52 love's labour won. downcast looks of his companion, and the lingering motions of her slim little hands, for already the twilight had so deepened that they, in their white- ness, were more visible than were the ivory pieces, the position of which it was almost difficult to discern. Through the open window came the odour of stephanotis, mignonette, and roses from the cottage garden, under the dewy elm branches. And ere long Eeginald Talbot crept off to bed, happy and radiant, with a rose-bud Amy had given him from the bouquet at her bosom, to treasure carefully in a glass near his pillow, as a relic her hand had touched ; and with her soft good-night to mingle with his dreams, if he had any, which was pretty often the case with this helpless lover now. Then, in secrecy and haste, ere Amy went home to the Yicarage, escorted by Dick and his dog Bingo, Melanie told her all about her love for, and engagement to, Montague Lonsdale, but not a word about the Baronet's offer; and her little story— so full of deep and tender interest to herself — was barely concluded when she was summoned THE SUB-LIEUTENANT. 53 to the presence of Uncle Grimshaw, who had just returned ; and she knew that she had before her a second edition of the last interview with her Aunt Chillington. CHAPTEK V. UNCLE GRIMSHAW'S THREAT. Melanie heard the summons as if it were a kind of knell, and all the situation flashed upon her. She was home again — she had no other home — to the new, the smaller and more economical house ; and her heart smote her as she remembered the temporarily forgotten angry and selfish vow she had made when her Aunt Chillington's invitation came, to accept any wealthy or advantageous offer that came in her way ; and as she thought of her uncle's innate selfishness, of his somewhat hampered resources — of the " handful " she and her brothers — especially the helpless Eeginald — were to him, and all Sir Brisco Braybrooke's £20,000 could do for them. But then there was poor Montague — and she loved him so ! UNCLE GRIMSHAW's THREAT. 55 "It seems but yesterday since I left you. for London, and after all I have seen there," said she, " how still the world seems to stand with you here." " It always does in our house unless when uncle's temper is up," grumbled Dick. Melanie recalled an episode that occurred a day or two before her aunt's welcome invitation came. If her uncle had "not much," as he was fond of asserting, he spent it largely on himself — on the richest wines, a handsome saddle-horse, some rare dogs, and, when in town, largely at his club. Thus she had resented such remarks as the following — " What are you complaining of now ? Why so silent and moody, girl — eh?" he snorted. "Oh — I need not ask, it is that eternal dance at the Vicarage." "Yes, uncle," said Melanie, softly; "why cannot I go?" " Why cannot you go ? " he growled. "Yes, dear uncle — I ask you so seldom for money." 56 love's labour won. " The seldomer the better — money is out of the question — it cost me hard to make the little I have in Birchin Lane ; so put this entertainment out of your head ; I can't afford expensive dresses. You have all the necessaries of life, girl." " And you deem me silly, grasping, if, like other girls, I look for a very little more ? " "I certainly do." And he cut the matter short by draining his glass of Pomery-Greno and quitting the dinner- table for his sanctum, .where he smoked the most expensive cigars and, from old form of habit, conned the "money article "; while Melanie forced back her tears and gave up all idea of Mrs. Brendon's dance at the Vicarage. Reginald writhed on his couch when he heard her speak of the wished-for dress, and thought, as he had hopelessly done many a time before, what he might raise on the secret idols of his heart, his Egyptian medals and epaulettes, the poor remains of his loved naval uniform ; but these would go but a small way to provide a suitable dress for a young beauty like his sister. UNCLE GRIMSHAW's THREAT. 57 Matters were thus when her aunt's invitation came, and when Melanie, in the bitterness of her heart, registered the vow in question — the vow that the influence of Montague Lonsdale dissipated to the winds. Mrs. Chillington had written to her brother- in-law such glowing accounts of the impression Melanie had made in " society," of the conquests that were certain to fall to her share, and finally of the proposal of Sir Brisco, that already visions of the time to come filled his mind — glowing and comfortable visions when one, if not all three, of the children committed to his care by his dead sister would be off his hands, when his purse might be occasionally replenished by his affectionate niece, the nightmare " debt " scared away, "the cripple Reggie " relegated to the baronet's abode, and all things made pleasant — hopes and visions that had been clouded by the visit of Captain Lonsdale, whom he never doubted that she would now " throw over," if she had a grain of sense remaining. He had an open letter in his hand, as Melanie 58 love's labour won. entered and gave him a kiss which he frigidly endured, and then his eye glanced at her over it, while his bald head seemed more shiny, and his two grey side-tufts more stuck-up than ever. His fingers fumbled nervously about the buttons of his vest till he found his gold-rimmed eye- glasses, which he settled on his long thin nose, and after affecting once more to glance at the letter, he said : " Sir Brisco Braybrooke has proposed to you a second time, as your Aunt Chillington informs me?" "Yes, uncle," replied the girl, with a sinking heart. " And you — you — " " Declined his offer." " Declined ! Are you quite mad ? " "No." " Perhaps not quite, but nearly so. What the — why the — " He paused, having no words wherewith to express the rage that choked him. UNCLE GRIMSHAW's THREAT. 59 " Simply, dearest uncle — I do not love him." " Who wants you to love him ? We wish you to marry him — that is all ! " " Without regard, uncle ? " " That will come in time, of course, I suppose." " I do not think so," said Melanie, in a low voice, as she shrank back a little. " But you shall marry him ! " thundered her uncle, striking the table with his clenched hand. " Or what, uncle?" "I shall know the reason why!" he hissed menacingly through his clenched teeth. Melanie coloured with annoyance, but made no reply. " He is wealthy, my girl," said her uncle in a more moderate tone. " But he is deemed an old bore, uncle." " A bore — with £20,000 per annum? Ah — you consider that detrimental Lonsdale more at- tractive, I have no doubt?" said he, with what he meant to be grim contempt. "Well, uncle," replied Melanie, a little de- fiantly, "between rich bores and pleasing 'detri- 60 love's labour won. mentals,' a poor girl, such as I, has a hard game to play." "Then play it well. He is a match, Sir Brisco— " " Vulgarly, a catch, were nearer the truth, uncle," interrupted Melanie, irritated at the manner in which Lonsdale's name was introduced. "And this so-called engagement of yours — " began her uncle, with a withering glance. "So-called," interrupted Melanie again. "Don't speak of it so, uncle. I will not have it made public property. I do not want people interfering, advising, and meddling — " " Or congratulating you," said he, with a bitter laugh. " Few who know our circumstances would be mean enough to do that." Uncle Grimshaw had not, even at first, been disposed to do more than simply tolerate the idea of Montague Lonsdale's intentions ; but now the letter of Mrs. Chillington, telling him of Melanie' s "disgraceful contumacy," and the necessity for putting some pressure upon her in the matter of Sir Brisco Braybrooke, made him almost savage. UNCLE GRIMSHAW's THREAT. 61 " The attentions of Sir Brisco are an honour to our family," said he, loftily. " Then I wish he would turn them to Aunt Chillington, and propose to her." "Do not dare to trifle with me," said Mr. Grimshaw, rasping up his side tufts and polishing his bald head, as he walked up and down the room. " This fancy of yours for an all but penniless man must be conquered." " It cannot be," said Melanie softly, as her eyes filled with tears. " Why— why?" " It is part of my existence." "Stuff!" Then, after an angry pause, he added, "Well — if — through your contumacy, as your Aunt Chillington very properly terms it, we are to have this fellow Lonsdale on the tapis, and the baronet hears of the matter, your chances will be lost. In that event, I shall have nothing more to say on the matter," he continued, in a tone which implied he could say a great deal more if he chose. " You are rash, foolish, headstrong, and utterly selfish." 62 love's labour won. Melanie felt all the humiliation of her position, and sighed in silence. " I have been kind to you, I suppose .? " said he, thinking that she was softening. " Oh, yes, Uncle Grimshaw," replied Melanie, with a bitter smile, which he was not slow to detect. " Have treated you quite like a daughter indeed ; but this kind of thing cannot go on for ever — cannot go on for ever," he repeated, vehemently, thinking only of "the handful" his sister's orphans were, and not of their trust- money, which had slipped through his fingers in Birchin Lane. Cold and selfish to the heart's core, he felt no soft or real regard for the beautiful girl cast by hard fate on his hands ; and as for her brothers, Dick was ever a worry, and the helpless " cripple " a source of loathing rather than pity. To refuse such an offer as that of Sir Brisco seemed, in his estimation, conduct without parallel in all the legends of children, especially nephews and nieces, who have been poor, undutiful, and ungrateful. UNCLE GRIMSHAW's THREAT. 63 Love was very poor stuff indeed ! It never occurred to him that anything so intensely absurd, so utterly secondary, should come into competition with £20,000 a year ! " Beggars who owe their food and shelter to others should not be so difficult to please," said he, with intense bitterness and concentrated fury, while his pale grey eyes — if grey they were — glit- tered like icicles in the lamplight ; " and I shall lessen the burden put upon me in one way," he added, with reference to the pressure to be put upon Melanie. " If, within a given time, you do not marry Sir Brisco, and thus take off my hands your brother Reginald, he shall go straight from here to the ward of a common hospital ! " And with this stinging threat, which filled her affectionate heart with new terror and dismay, he quitted the room, and furiously banged the door behind him. CHAPTEE VI. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. The strange and bitter threat of her uncle and guardian, for Mr. Grimshaw was both, concerning her brother Eeggie made Melanie grave and un- happy. It filled her with anxious thoughts. With all his business training in Birchin Lane, she knew him to be a curious mixture of vanity, selfishness, and meanness, and hoped the first- named element might prevail. Would he dare — would he be cruel enough to put such a threat in execution ? Surely not ! Dick, observant and watchful, saw her pre- occupation, and mistaking the cause, said : " You must miss so much pleasure here — sightseeing, balls, water and dinner parties — flirtations, and — " " These are not in my way, Dick." AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 65 " Not now, perhaps," said Dick, thinking of Montague Lonsdale. " Uncle Grhnshaw has just said something very cruel to me." " I don't think it is in his nature to say much that is kind," replied the boy; "but I saw that he did look wicked — just like a — like a trapped weasel," he added, at a loss for a simile. Over the latter Montague had gained an advantage. He had openly and honourably announced his engagement with Melanie, while the baronet had made no movement as yet to ingratiate himself in his favour, and had contented himself by reporting his want of success to Mrs. Chillington — which somewhat piqued Uncle Grimshaw's vanity. Dick, though as yet educated chiefly by Melanie, for the sake of economy, was a genuine country boy, as stated, in his twelfth year, and by nature was a genuine lover of it. He knew the name, the haunt, and habits of every bird, and where their nests and where their eggs were to be found ; he knew the trees, the wild flowers, VOL. I. F 66 love's labour won. the grasses, and where the best fruit was to be found in the season ; he knew the cresses in cool deep brooks and the reeds that overhung them ; and every secret of the sweet true life in the country was known to the happy and heedless boy, who, though his pockets were often minus of coppers, yet had no care ; and who would lie for hours on his back, with Bingo for a companion, gazing at the flying clouds, in the shapes of which he fashioned all sorts of things, at the rustling leaves overhead, and listening to the wind that sang, as music, through them. He would linger thus in the woods and by brook sides for hours, and yet know no vacant time, though surly Uncle Grimshaw, who at the same age had been an office boy in the city, asserted that he had only the making of a gipsy — of a scamp — in him. Two days had passed at Kose Cottage, and Melanie had not received a letter from Montague Lonsdale, who, she feared, must have written to her old address, when she and her friend Amy, and her two brothers, set off for a kind of quiet AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 67 little pic-nic in the woods — a favourite resort of theirs — Dick, who was strong and sturdy for his years, alternately pushing and dragging the wheel- chair occupied by Keggie, and the basket contain- ing the sandwiches, cakes, sherry, tea-set, and other requisites for. their simple entertainment. The July afternoon — which was to bring forth far more than the now merry quartette could have anticipated — was hot ; so hot indeed that the wayside flowers lowered their thirsty petals beneath the rays of the unclouded sun as they streamed on the parched grass from a sky blue and serene, while the dusty roads, the hedgerows, and copses seemed to quiver and vibrate in heat and light. Guided by Dick, who had already made himself master of all the new locality, they reached a cool, shaded, and seemingly, by the crop of grass that grew upon its pathway, a perfectly unfrequented lane, where the rays of the sun failed to penetrate, so thick were the interwoven branches of the oaks and elms overhead. On both sides of the narrow way rose abrupt and grassy banks, studded with f 2 68 love's labour won. bright-hued wild flowers, huge yellow-eyed and white - fringed marguerites, the pink geranium and convolvulus, mingling with meadow - sweet, and overhung by great and bushy hedges that seemed never to have known the woodman's shears. T A mossy and decayed gate barred further progress into a deep and silent thicket that lay beyond. A little runnel of clear water bubbled under the long-leaved weeds that grew thereby. It seemed just the spot whereon to pitch their little camp, and light a fire to boil their little tea-kettle ; though a large white board, newly painted, standing vividly out amid the general greenery, and nailed to a beech, bore, in black letters, the ominous warning : — " Private Path. Trespassers in these woods will be prosecuted. All dogs found within this enclosure will be shot." " What are trespassers in this wild place ? " asked Amy Brendon, gazing upwards at the board. " People such as us, of course," said Dick. "An unpleasant notice," remarked Melanie, AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 69 pausing in the act of drawing the gloves off her white and slender hands. "Oh, don't mind it, we are on the right side of that old gate yet," said Reginald Talbot. " The keeper and the proprietor are a couple of surly old beasts — Argus and Cerebus combined — regular cads ! " said Dick, viciously, as he had already " come to grief " with them in his rambles. " The cad is a man of title," said his brother. " What of that ? Even a king may be a cad," said Dick. " And what is his name ? " asked Melanie. " Sir Brisco Braybrooke." Melanie felt herself grow pale, while her heart palpitated, but not with pleasure, certainly. " And are these Ravensbourne woods ? " she asked, after a pause. "Yes." " Heavens ! Is our — is Rose Cottage so close to them?" "Yes — a hedge only divides our lands from those of the aggressive baronet," said Dick, 70 love's labouk won. grandiosely, as he deposited an armful of dry sticks, and proceeded to light a fire, deftly arranging a couple of stones whereon to poise the kettle, with a skill that Eeginald said re- minded him of his shipmates up the Nile ; hut ere Melanie could speak again, and while Amy, with busy little hands, was unpacking the luncheon basket and arranging the teacups — " Oh, the devil ! " exclaimed Dick, as a sharp, vigorous, and joyous barking announced an accession to this party, and, as if defying the warning on the board, his terrier Bingo came dashing obstreperously down the lane towards them, and, having secretly followed their footsteps through the woods, was driving before him in mad career to the holes in a bank, a couple of white- tailed rabbits. Now, Bingo was a faithful, bob-tailed, and sagacious, but eccentric, specimen of his breed, who accompanied Dick in all his botanical, ornithological, and piscatorial rambles ; and his presence on the confines of Bavensbourne woods was not desirable now, being dangerous, per- AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 71 sonally, to himself, as any moment might find him " covered " by the gun of that " old beast," the keeper, as Dick called him. Not many days before this poor Bingo had come limping home with part of a charge of No. 5 shot in his off hind leg, given him by the keeper in question, who resented his coming in quest of the rabbits and hares ; hence, Dick's heart was full of vengeance against this long - gaitered official. So busy were the two girls with their culinary operations, and so busy, too, was Dick in making his dog fast with a piece of cord to a wheel of Eeggie's bath-chair, that none of the party per- ceived two gentlemen who had approached them unseen. Both were clad in light tweed suits, with caps to correspond. Each had a cigar in his mouth, and with their arms resting on the top of the low gate referred to, they were watching the group, one with the deepest interest and the other with something of amusement. An exclamation escaped Amy, and then Melanie looked up. 72 love's laboue won. "Montague — Captain Lonsdale — you here!" said she, in a low and startled voice. " Lonsdale, hy jingo ! " cried Dick, with un- mixed satisfaction. "Mel— Miss Talbot— I did not know that Sir Brisco's residence was so near yours when I came here a couple of days ago, with my friend Musgrave — allow me to introduce him," said Lonsdale, unlatching the gate, and lifting his cap as he advanced. Melanie's too evident confusion was now covered by Dick, whose terrier had got loose in a thicket, whence a shrill squeak was instantly heard. " Oh, Melanie ! " he exclaimed in consternation, "Bingo has pinned a rabbit, or something, d — n it!" "Dick! " she said, reprovingly. " Well — what's the row ? " asked Dick, tartly. " The devil will get you if you use such words." " Then he had better begin with Captain Lonsdale." "Why?" " I heard him say the same thing." AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 73 I "When?" " The last time he left Uncle Grhnshaw," replied Dick, as, in terror of the keeper, he plunged into the thicket, and quickly emerged therefrom, carrying a dead hare by an ear, while Bingo trotted in triumph behind him. " I must hide this somewhere or that beast of a baronet will be down on Bingo for poach- ing," said Dick, as he produced another piece of cord from that emporium, his trousers' pocket, wherewith Reggie "hitched" the terrier, as he nautically termed it, securely to a wheel of his bath-chair. And now to describe Montague Lonsdale, who courteously and warmly greeted the little party. With close-shorn hair of the darkest brown, and eyes that were splendid, of a hazel so deep that they looked quite black at times, a fine, clearly cut, and slightly aquiline profile, a figure above the ordinary height and well set up, he looked the stereotyped style of a genuine English gentleman, "with his white hands and well-bred tranquillity, hard, but polished as fine steel," 74 love's labour won. to use the words of a recent writer; and with the expression in his features of one who had faced and overcome much in his time, though few would have thought so, from the serenity of his manner and the composure of his bearing, the result of habit, training, and society ; and singling him out from among the many who admired and hovered round her, during her brief glimpse of life in London, Melanie had soon learned to love him; he was so gentle, and withal seemed to possess "that mingling of force and tenderness, with a reserve of both," which, we are told, "is most enthralling to womenkind." While introductions and commonplaces were being exchanged between his friend, Horace Musgrave, of the Hussars, Miss Brendon, and Eeginald, the unfortunate tenant of the wheel- chair, he continued in a low voice : i " I am on a visit to Horace's uncle, Sir Brisco Braybrooke, who took quite a fancy to me at his club. When I left town with them so abruptly, I little thought that I was to have the joy of AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 75 being so near you and your new home, darling ; but I fear that I shall not be very welcome there." "To Uncle Grimshaw — I fear not," murmured Melanie, as her dark eyes of grey-blue clouded for a moment, as she felt herself on the eve of troublesome and vexatious complications. Under approaching footsteps, dry branches and fir cones were heard to crackle, and down the wooded path to the gate came a tall, stout figure in a rough grey Norfolk shooting-jacket, long brown leather gaiters, a briar-root between his white-moustached lips, a wide-a-wake, garnished with hooks, flies, and lines, and an expression of surprise twinkling in his eyes, under their shaggy grey brows. "Oh, the devil — the baronet ! " exclaimed Dick, scurrying about to conceal the hare under some long grass. "My friend, Sir Brisco Braybrooke," said Montague Lonsdale ; " Miss Talbot — " "And I are old friends," said Sir Brisco, putting his pipe in his pocket, and ceremoniously lifting 76 love's labour won. his old wide-a-wake, as he took her hand and retained it in his a trifle longer than courtesy required ; and Melanie now found herself face to face with her accepted lover and the man she had refused. "What is this," asked the latter; "afternoon tea — at fresco? We are in luck, Lonsdale. Do you live in this neighbour- hood, Miss Talbot." "At Eose Cottage — yes." "I heard that it had been lately let, but knew not to whom. This is a most unexpected pleasure ! " To Melanie it certainly was not. " I fear we are trespassing," said she, at a loss for a remark. " Trespassing — how can you say so ? " " This is jolly ! " thought Dick ; "I shall have the run of the woods and moor. He is not half a bad sort, this old baronet," he added aside to Lonsdale, who said : 1 ' I have not forgotten my promise — you shall have that gun." " And may I shoot here ? " exclaimed Dick. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 77 " When I give you permission — but not to have dogs in the covers," said Sir Brisco. What else could he say, with Melanie's soft eyes upon him ? The baronet was a strict preserver of his game, and had been for years the terror of any poacher in Oxfordshire ; he had succeeded in impressing on all — his neighbours particularly — that he held his shootings for his own delectation, and had ordered his keepers to be merciless to all wandering dogs — hence the charge of shot that had sent Bingo limping home. "Meantime, will you give us some tea?" said Sir Brisco, laughing, as he saw that the kettle was boiling vigorously now, under the superin- tendence of Amy Brendon and the Hussar, who was professing to assist her, while Dick acted efficiently as " stoker," in procuring dry branches for the fire. The addition of these to the party, when cups and saucers had been provided for only four, caused much merriment, and took the " edge " off any awkwardness that might have been felt 78 love's labour won. by Melanie and Sir Brisco, of whose secret — if secret it could be called — Lonsdale was, as yet, ignorant. Melanie remembered the half-uttered hints of Miss Tremayne, and when Sir Brisco was lingering * near her elder brother's chair, and talking to him in a kindly and sympathetic manner, she could not help asking her fiance if he knew that young lady. " Know Hilda Tremayne ? Of course I do," said he, laughing. " Half the fellows in the service know Hilda. I knew her in India." " I met her at Chillington, and she spoke much of you." " Flattering. She used my Christian name, I have no doubt." " Quite appropriated you, in fact." " Girls of Hilda Tremayne's kind adopt that style. She is now on a visit not far from here." "Indeed!" "Yes, she is at Oxford, with her uncle there, a professor at Trinity." He knew of this. How and when did he come AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 79 to know it ? was Melanie's suspicious thought. She disdained to inquire; yet the circumstance, or fact, though openly acknowledged, annoyed and piqued her, for Miss Trernayne enjoyed the reputation of being dangerous. Though apparently occupied with Beginald Talbot, when Sir Brisco saw Melanie with the young officer, though he knew nothing of their engagement, nor had the faintest suspicion that they were more than ordinary acquaintances, he felt a little, but irrepressible emotion of envy and chagrin, as he thought of the gulf his own sixty years and more opened between himself and her. It is Emerson who says that if we did not find the reflection of ourselves in the eyes of young people, we could not know, perhaps, that the century clock had struck seventy instead of twenty. Thus, though Sir Brisco felt himself old, especially by comparison, he was by no means disposed to flinch from the task — if task it was — of winning Melanie, who just then looked so charming in a well-fitted light summer dress, 80 love's labour won. which, being without shawl or jacket, displayed the outline of her shapely bust and shoulders ; her hair, of the richest brown, shaded by a most piquante hat, while her long gloves being off, revealed the whiteness of her slender hands and tapering arms. Considering what had passed between them before at the lawn-tennis party and elsewhere, there was something decidedly awkward in their meeting again, under any circumstances. Both felt this, but Melanie had all a woman's delicacy and tact, and the baronet's mature years enabled him to control his features and emotions better than a younger man might have done, and this imparted a certain coolness and confidence to the bearing of Melanie. " So you have quite forgiven us for trespassing, notwithstanding that terrible board, with its threats about prosecution and being shot?" she i said, with a playful laugh. "You have the right to roam over and use at your pleasure every acre of Eavensbourne Hall," said he, gallantly. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 81 "Thanks." " Yes," he continued, in a low voice, " as Janins says — after all, the right divine of beauty is the only one a Briton ought to acknowledge, and a pretty woman the only tyrant he is not authorised to resist." Melanie laughed again — as she sipped her tea — but less easily ; his compliments and love-making were always old-fashioned, too direct, and some- what on stilts. And now, the Hussar having contrived to appropriate Amy Brendon, the poor occupant of the bath-chair was left for a little time to himself. • Horace Musgrave was slender, straight, and certainly rather distinguished-looking, with a decided light cavalry air about him. In face he was regular-featured, deeply bronzed by the Egyptian sun, close-shaven, with a heavy dark moustache shading a well-cut mouth. Moreover, he had earnest, honest, and handsome eyes, with not an atom of the fashionable and cultivated air of boredom, so often affected by the blase VOL. I. G 82 love's laboue won. English " softy." Horace was too genuine a soldier for that, and contrived within a short space to say some very pleasing things to little Amy, occasioning a momentary lifting of her soft eyes of hazel-grey, which filled him with a natural desire to see them again; but now she dropped them, busy, apparently, with a bouquet at her breast. " I do so love flowers ! " said she. " What, or which, particularly? " he asked. " Eosebuds and lilies of the valley." Amy Brendon was seldom called beautiful, but there was a calm sweetness in her expressive face ; and all who knew her loved her* for the gentleness of her disposition, the goodness of her heart, and the charm of her manner. Eeginald Talbot doted on her, and more than doted, as we have indicated ; he was so lonely and helpless, she so kind, gentle, and sisterly, and, like Melanie, sympathised with all his serious thoughts and disappointed aspirations, and this helped him to endure an existence of the hopeless monotony of which he was often well nigh weary. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 83 Musgrave regarded her admiringly. She was graceful with a natural grace — having in every action of her petite figure the bearing and movement which are inborn and cannot be acquired, and which are really a combination of freedom and propriety — innocence and softness of disposition. " Poor Keggie ! " thought she suddenly, while, attracted by an almost reproachful expression in his eyes, she again drew near him, followed by Musgrave, who held out a hand, and said abruptly, with a light smile : " Don't you remember me?" "Musgrave of the Hussars — of course I do now," said Keggie. " And you — you are the Lieutenant of the Ibis gunboat." "Whose life you saved at MacNeill's Zereba." "Yes — a devil of a bit of mismanagement that; I wonder that one of us left the place alive. Well — the world is a small place after all ! " added Mus- grave, as they shook hands, and a bright expression spread over the usually grave face of the invalid. g2 84 love's labour won. "Have a cigar, ' r continued the Hussar, proffer- ing a handsome silver case; "we are alfresco — the ladies cannot object. You'll know the brand — I get them straight from Havannah." " Thanks — I was in the zereba with the Naval Brigade," said young Talbot sadly. " And what occurred ? " asked Sir Brisco. "When the square was forced, and the few mounted vedettes burst through it for shelter, there rolled behind them a human tide of yelling, howling, and ferocious Arabs — a black mass, picked out here and there by their flashing weapons, accompanied by a strange sound, the crackling of the branches and brushwood through which they rushed upon us. Then came the wild stampede of baggage animals— horses, camels, and mules. I was at the edge of the square, and many others were borne to the ground, while over us swept the Arabs, hewing like fiends or madmen, i right and left ; with their long cross-hilted swords, slashing at camels and men alike in that gory shamble, from which there went up a shout of agony and despair that might make a man wake in AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 85 his sleep for years to come, and which I hope may haunt the useless bodies to whom we owed it all," continued Eeginald, his eyes sparkling as he recalled that terrible scene. " The Arabs were among us and over us like wild-fire, hamstringing the baggage animals right and left — it was a mighty wave of kicking, biting, and j)lunging brutes, amid the dying and the dead, struggling to escape. A camel was killed over me, and lying there helpless, without a wound, I must have been butchered by the Arabs, had not Musgrave, whose horse was killed under him, rushed up, cut a passage through the press with his sword, and borne me into the Berkshire zereba, where the soldiers, taken by surprise, were fighting back to back in their shirtsleeves ; and but for Musgrave I must have perished, for I was doubly helpless, my sword blade having been broken in my hand in the first of the Arab rush." " What a scene it must have been ! " exclaimed Sir Brisco. " Pandemonium broken loose would be a joke compared to it," said Musgrave, laughing. 86 love's laboue won. "How shall I — how shall we ever be able to thank you ? " asked Melanie, as she laid her hands on Musgrave's arm, while looking at him with inexpressible sweetness in her eyes. " Reggie never told us of this terrible episode till now." " He is a modest man, you see," replied Mus- grave, smiling down at the speaker. " I was very different then, Musgrave, from what I am now," said Talbot, somewhat mourn- fully. " I heard of your case, and your being invalided home ; but you will get over all this, old fellow, I hope." " Never — never ! " replied Reggie, and he shook his head sadly — so sadly that Melanie felt her heart wrung for him, and announced that now they must return home. "Have I your permission to call at Rose Cottage?" asked Sir Brisco, in a low voice, and with diffidence and hesitation. " I am at home in the afternoon generally," replied Melanie, growing somewhat pale with an- noyance, as she foresaw all that permission might AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 87 include ; " but," she added, " my uncle is in town just now." " When he returns then, I shall leave a card — we are neighbours, you know — though you deem me but a mere acquaintance — after all," he added, in a lower tone, which made her grow paler still, while her eyes drooped. "Come with Captain Lonsdale, he knows Uncle Grimshaw," said Melanie, feeling a little des- perate. " And Eeggie will, I am sure, always be glad to see you," she added to Musgrave ; " you will have so much in common to talk about." A covert glance, full of sweetest meaning, was exchanged (unseen by others) between Melanie and Montague Lonsdale, and the parties separated, where the narrow wooded pathway joined the high road, the Hussar dragging the wheel-chair of Eeggie, Dick shoving behind, and Bingo in an ecstasy of barking by his side. To the Eoyal Hussar there was certainly a novelty in this new work ; but it had in it that which someone de- scribes as "the delightful sense of doing or playing at something, which survives with most 88 love's labour won. people from their childhood, and the indulgence whereof seems, for a time, to hring that childhood back, with its inconsequence, enjoyment, and free happiness." And when Uncle Grimshaw did return, he heard of the rencontre with pleasure, and rubbed his hands in the exuberance of his satisfac- tion. But to Melanie, the joy that Lonsdale was so near her was overclouded by the knowledge of whose guest he was there. CHAPTER VII. HORACE MUSGEAVE. Before breakfast time next day, two bouquets, beautifully selected and made up, arrived at Eose Cottage, where Amy was staying for a few days in the absence of Mr. Grimshaw. One was from Montague Lonsdale, with a lover- like note for Melanie, and the other, which was chiefly rosebuds and lily of the valley, was for her friend, with the card of " Captain Horace L. L. Musgrave, Royal Hussars " ; and Amy coloured with pleasure, and not a little vanity, to the roots of her thick dark hair, on finding that the donor had remembered, that which had almost been forgotten, that she had named particularly these as her favourite flowers. So trifles make the sum of human things. " L. L. — what do these letters stand for ? " 90 love's labour won. asked Amy ; but Melanie was too intent on Lonsdale's note to hear her question. But Amy could little foresee what pain and trouble in the future these fatal initials were to cost her ! The satisfaction of Uncle Grimshaw at the expected visit of his neighbour, the baronet, was somewhat clouded when he heard from Dick of who was one of the guests at Eavensbourne. " The deuce ! " thought he. " Is that fellow there ? Is not the world wide enough to keep these two fools apart a little more ? Compli- cations are sure to come about, and if Sir Brisco learns the footing on which this holiday captain is with Melanie, all chance of him will be lost for ever." , And he darted an angry look at his niece, who now, with many a sigh — but not of repining — had to consider again all the small economies, the petty contrivances, and small shifts incident to " genteel poverty," for such life was at *Bose Cottage after all the expensive wants and tastes of Uncle Grimshaw had been considered. HORACE MUSGRAVE. 91 With regard to the affair of Melanie and Captain Montague Lonsdale, the guardian uncle was tolerably quiescent just now. He knew the full extent which remained of that officer's leave of absence— little more than a month now; he had reckoned every day thereof, and hoped that when Lonsdale departed for India, or Burmah or wherever he was bound, they would see the last of him ; and then must come the time to put the due pressure on Melanie, should she still prove refractory. And in these views Mrs. Chillington somewhat impatiently coincided. Indeed, the note which came with the bouquet contained a sentence which seemed somewhat of a death-knell to poor Melanie. No quiet staff appointments were to be had just then, and if there were, he could not apply for one, as his regiment was now under orders for foreign service in Burmah. And even were it otherwise, and he could marry her and take her out to share his bungalow in some remote Indian cantonment, to what might not the helpless Pieggie, and the 92 love's labour won. almost equally helpless Dick, who could not work and must not want, be subjected by an uncle so selfish, and annoyed that by such a marriage she had lost Sir Brisco's wealth, and left the two upon his hands. The girl felt herself in a coil, another twist of which seemed to close round her when, the day after her uncle's return, Eose Cottage was visited by Sir Brisco Braybrooke, though accom- panied by his two guests. Had he known all, doubtless, he would have come alone. Certainly Mr. Gideon Grimshaw, late of Birchin Lane, though affecting oddly, unsuitably, and at second-hand, certain airs from those men he now met at his club, was not precisely the kind of friend or companion Sir Brisco would have chosen ; but the end the latter had in view made him warm, kind, and hospitable in his manner, as to a neighbour whose society he was resolved — and would be delighted — to cultivate. On the other hand, Mr. Grimshaw was well aware of the old baronet's £20,000 per annum, which, with all the concomitants thereof, proved HORACE MUSGRAVE. 93 quite enough to ensure almost servile favour and fervour from him ; and now some of the baronet's sunshine seemed to fall even on the unfortunate Reginald, then — as usual when indoors — stretched upon a couch. " If you are a reader, my young friend — " began Sir Brisco, rising after the visit had become too protracted for Melanie's patience. " I am — a great reader," replied the invalid ; " I have little else to occupy my time." "Then the library at Eavensbourne — rather a choice one — is heartily at your disposal." " Oh, thanks — so much." •' And then, whenever she chooses, your sister, Miss Talbot, can select for you when you cannot come personally." Melanie bowed coldly, and with a distinct shade of annoyance, unseen by Sir Brisco, who departed homewards with his morning-coat adorned by a pretty button-hole — stephanotis and maidenhair fern — given by Melanie, at his request ; and his thoughts were so absurdly full of the fair donor thereof that he could not help displaying it with 94 love's labour won. peculiar satisfaction to Montague Lonsdale, on whom she had deemed it unwise to bestow another, under her uncle's cold and glittering eyes. Poor Sir Brisco had not the most remote suspicion that there was more than the merest acquaintanceship between Melanie and his guest Lonsdale ; nor did he detect it in the future. The couple kept it a profound secret so far as their bearing in public was concerned, of course ; and certainly for obvious reasons neither Aunt Chillington nor Mr. Grimshaw were likely to enlighten him in the matter ; and the latter, until Lonsdale's departure from Eavensbourne, at least, was not anxious that there should be much visiting between that place and humble Eose Cottage. Eeginald Talbot remarked that Amy's deep interest in Melanie' s lover was considerably blended with another interest in his friend the Hussar, many of whose simple remarks, little compliments, and even mere commonplaces, she repeated more than once, as if they seemed to have impressed her. HORACE MUSGRAVE. 95 With the sharpened intelligence peculiar to the ailing, or the silent watcher, he was not slow to observe too how Amy tenderly and lovingly, with her quick little hands, disposed of Musgrave's bouquet in a vase of water, as if wishing carefully to preserve every leaf and flower thereof to the last. When Horace Musgrave came again, after an interval, with Lonsdale, on pretence of bringing some book for him, he saw how Amy's colour heightened and her manner changed, and felt subtlely how he himself became a second figure in the canvas of her picture; and how, though she was never less kind, her friendly petting of him ceased. He felt it all instinctively, and with growing pain ; yet, what was he, to have the place a lover would occupy in a young girl's heart ? She became very silent after Musgrave's de- parture, and seemed solely intent on fashioning a mysterious affair in coloured silks for a charity bazaar. Reginald's eyes had a sad, yearning, and wistful expression in them whenever they fell on the downcast face of the girl, who seemed to have 96 love's labour won. enjoyed herself with an effort under his glance, who he actually felt glad was going home to Stokencross, though the distance was trifling, and whom he startled by tossing impatiently aside the hooks Musgrave had brought him. " You look tired, Reggie," said she, " and yet—" " I have not been walking, you would say," he interrupted, glancing at his half-useless limbs. ''Well, I am tired — tired in heart, in mind and body ; even death would be a relief, I think, from such a life as mine ! " " What has come to you, Reggie ? " whispered Melanie, putting one arm round him caressingly. " Well," said he, with a forced smile, " I was only thinking that you women are like mackerel, as we used to say in the Ibis — fond of scarlet bait — yet they like blue sometimes." " The Hussars wear blue," said Dick, mis- chievously ; " don't I just wish I were an Hussar ! " Amy now grew pale as the boy spoke. On the other hand, the bearing of Reginald HORACE MUSGEAVE. 97 Talbot and Amy sorely exercised the mind of Musgrave, who speedily detected something of petulance in the former. " Can she — a creature so full of vitality, of energy, and girlish beauty — think of binding herself to an invalid — to the future and hopeless life of a sick nurse ? It i| impossible ! " he muttered, as he sucked viciously at his briar-root ; " in a year she would be eating her heart out." Occupied by their own thoughts — Montague Lonsdale of his impending departure, and his hampered engagement with Melanie, with whom he continued to have many a meeting now ; the baronet of his — as yet baffled wishes in the same quarter ; and Horace Musgrave in the ardour of a grand passion, his first, let us hope, of that kind, for Amy Brendon, they were not very lively society for each other in such a huge barracks as Eavensbourne Hall, till other friends came, and the movements of the two military friends could be less remarked. Lonsdale was soon able to perceive that, although Beginald Talbot and Musgrave must have had many VOL. I. H 98 love's labour won. sympathies and topics in common concerning their recent service in Egypt, the former did not affect the society of the latterj^nuch ; but seemed rather to avoid it. And Keginald discovered incidentally, with many a pang, that on several occasions when Amy did not, as was her wont, appear at Kose Cottage, the Hussar had ridden over to the Vicarage, and had spent there many an hour or so with Dr. Brendon, a bookish old gentleman, whose society could scarcely be deemed the sole attraction of such visits to a young cavalry officer ! What did it all mean ? Only this, that a new and subtle sense of delight had come over the hearts of Amy and of Musgrave, who seemed a thoughtful, earnest, and good style of young fellow ; and who, apart from the usual bearing, polish, and air of the cavalry man, had many good and sterling qualities of hedxi and heart. Thus the simplicity, freshness, and innocence of Amy, with her brightness and childlike espieglerie, charmed him beyond any girl in the world he moved in. HORACE MUSGRAVE. 99 He seemed to feel his soul swell suddenly within him when some chance word fell from her lips, or when her bright dancing eyes, the colour of which he could scarcely determine — unless they were like dark purple pansies — met his, but coyly now, for she knew he 'loved her, and their expression became more yearning, childlike, and soft ; while he was never weary of holding her little white hands in his, caressingly, and telling her how dear to him she had suddenly become. All she had read of in novels and tales — all the bright daydreams of a young girl's heart — seemed achieved and summed up now ; all the more so, that "Horace — dearest Horace," was every way acceptable to her parents, and she had not to play the double game allotted to poor Melanie ; and though some brief separation from Horace might come, she had none to fear then, and all went merry with them. To Amy it seemed, as Wordsworth says : — He spoke of love, such love as spirits feel, In words whose course is equable and pure ; No fears to beat away, — no strife to heal, — The past unsigned for, and the future sure. h2 100 love's labour won. Yet there was nothing of the spiritual in Horace Musgrave — a manly young fellow who rode straight to hounds; was a prime bowler and oarsman; a matchless round dancer, and was great at tent- pegging, polo, lemon- slicing, tilting at the ring, and many other things, which Amy was to see in the time to come. And yet, though to the world about him Horace Musgrave seemed but a heedless young officer, he brought her books to read that showed his taste in literature, and opened up even to her a new realm of romance and poetry. He could also speak well ; of the wonders he had seen in the land of the Sphynx ; and with more than a tourist's eye of pictures and sculpture in Eome and elsewhere ; and of chivalry and heroism in the olden time — though, sooth to say, that heroism did not surpass much that he had witnessed and undergone in the burning deserts of the Soudan. But he found a new experience in Amy Brendon. She was such a sweet little Desdemona, into whose ears to pour the tales of much that he had seen, and though, like most Englishmen, he disliked HORACE MUSGRAVE. 101 talking about himself, and felt it safer to extol the valour and adventures of his comrades, and how many a Victoria cross they won, yet Amy, for him, indulged in a species of hero-worship that was very attractive indeed. CHAPTEE VIII. OF ALL THE FLOWEBS OF FAIR ENGLAND. Though well-used to the life of visiting in ordinary English country houses — so delightful when the party gathered is well-assorted — that at Bavens- bourne would have bored — nay, perhaps did bore — Montague Lonsdale, whose only solace was his suddenly discovered vicinity to' Eose Cottage, and his meetings with Melanie, meetings preferred to the visits grudgingly permitted by Mr. Grimshaw, and which had to be indulged in with the caution of two conspirators, for the eyes and suspicions of bumpkins are keen, and go a long way indeed. The circle at Eavensbourne was rather a heavy one, as Sir Brisco Braybrooke, though popular with a set of old " fogies," was much less so with young men, for, though a confirmed bachelor OF ALL THE FLOWERS OF FAIR ENGLAND. 103 apparently, he had not an element of "fastness" about him. Writing of visits to country houses, Lord Beaconsfield, .in one of his novels, asserts that Sundays there are apt to degenerate into dull walks and heavy meals, and that in some houses there is a week of Sundays ; and so, unless you can divide your whole time between eating and walking, your occupation is gone. " The host, with praiseworthy compassion, comes to your assistance, constitutes himself a local guidance, marches you through the gallery, into the library, up and down the hall, up the staircase, and into all sorts of odd corners, telling you of the subjects of his old masters, nine out of ten of which are preposterous copies, and narrating to you the story of each of his obscure and ignoble ancestors." Family vanity not being a weakness of Sir Brisco, he did not fall back upon that line ; but he was somewhat vain of the Hall, and proud of asserting that the little tributary of the Thames, that ran thereby, was the true Eavensbourne 104 love's labour won. (and not the other in Eenston Common), which was discovered in the time of Caesar, when he encamped his troops there, then in great need of water. Observing that a raven frequently alighted near the camp, and conjecturing that it was for the purpose of quenching its thirst, he desired the bird to be watched and the spot noted. This was done and the result was as Caesar anticipated. The object of the raven's resort was the little runnel that trickled through the dense underwood, where a supply was found for the Eoman legions, and from that circumstance the runnel was named, in after years, the-Eaven's Bourne, or brook ; and to this legend Montague Lonsdale had to listen more than once. Another way of getting through the time, on a country visit, is letter-writing, and the number of letters guests write, or say they have to write, when in other people's houses, is somewhat remarkable ; but go into their rooms, and they will probably be found immersed in Mudie's last, or asleep in an easy chair. Luncheon would come, and in anticipation of OF ALL THE FLOWERS OF FAIR ENGLAND. 105 meeting with Melanie, Lonsdale's whole object was how to steal away alone, for he was loth — oh, sadly loth — to lose one of the few oppor- tunities that now remained to him ; for she, too, like Uncle Grimshaw (but from a very different point of view) was reckoning every day of his leave of absence. There were no lady visitors just then at Eavens- bourne, it being a bachelor's house; so, though there were picture corridors, a billiard room, and conservatories, there was no one to flirt with, even for those who were that way disposed. There was plenty of riding, of course ; but the cub- hunting and shooting days had yet to come ; and it seems a kind of habit in country houses, that if you play at anything — cards, chess, or billiards, those who neither ride, shoot, ramble, nor flirt hang about one's game, look over one's shoulder, taking a wonderful interest in every stroke or move, till the boredom is over and the " pleasant visit " is ended. So, at Eavensbourne, but for the vicinity of Melanie, Lonsdale would have agreed with what 106 love's labour won. Madame de Stael said, that travelling is — " le plus triste plaisir de la vie." " My poor darling, it is both heartless and cruel of your uncle to threaten you with the expulsion — for it is no less— of Eeginald from his house, because you have engaged yourself to me, Melanie," said Lonsdale, at one of the stolen meetings referred to. It was a lovely July evening — a sweet and calm one ; they were under the beech trees in Kavens- boume Wood, and she was seated on a fallen, or hewn down log, one end of which was half-hidden by a luxuriant wild rose-bush that grew around it. • Lonsdale looked intensely annoyed, and Melanie looked sorrowful, ashamed perhaps of her unwise admission, and sorely perplexed, as it was calcu- lated to fire his pride and sense of justice. As he gazed on her now, in his loving eyes she seemed like a bright-coloured vision to him — her dark eyes sparkling, her cheek slightly flushed, the pale yellow plaitings of thick lace that trimmed her light summer costume — one that made her seem taller than she really was— OF ALL THE FLOWERS OF FAIR ENGLAND. 107 showing deep against the pure whiteness of her slender throat and ungloved hands. "Cruel indeed," assented Melanie, after a pause, "when we consider how poor Reggie is the victim of circumstances, of unrequited service, and how his terrible helplessness came upon him. Yet times there are when uncle has threatened to send him awa} T to some institution ; and then I know not what I should do — what I should do," she repeated, clasping her hands ; " the shame and humiliation of such a measure would break the poor boy's heart, and how should I be without poor helpless Eeggie, and he without me?" Now it was that Lonsdale felt envious of Sir Brisco's wealth, and thought sadly, that even if Melanie became his wife, she could not take Reggie about the world with her ; but he remained silent for a time, and full of tender est sympathy for the affectionate girl. "Mr. Grimshaw — pardon me, Melanie — is a hard-hearted old wretch ! " he exclaimed. "Do not speak quite so disparagingly of him," urged the gentle Melanie; "consider, Montague, 108 love's labour won. there are three of us thrown on his hands, that he is not rich now, and the little that he has — " "He would rather spend upon himself." " Perhaps. It is natural, I suppose." After another pause, Lonsdale said : "I shall be a year away, Melanie; and by that time my promotion in the regiment is certain." "A year — a whole year — oh, what may not happen in that time ! " said the girl, with a broken voice. " Let us not think of it yet awhile, but be happy, oh, my darling, while we may." A silence ensued between them now. Nothing was heard but the rustle of the leaves overhead and faint sounds from the distant village, and from rowers on the river ; and through a break in the trees they could see the silver current of the latter as it wound away between fields of golden grain. i " You have not been at Kose Cottage for three whole days," said Melanie. " Mr. Grimshaw is so uncordial — by Jove ! he is barely civil to me. Why is he so ? " OF ALL THE FLOWERS OF FAIR ENGLAND. 109 Melanie knew too well why. " I would not, and should not endure him," said Lonsdale, almost bitterly, " but that you, Melanie, are rny hope, my life, my all ! Oh, how I love you, my own ! " He drew her to him, and kissed her tenderly, softly, and then passionately ; but as he did so, a little gasping cry of alarm escaped her, and she let fall some wild roses she had gathered. " See ! " she exclaimed. Crossing a meadow, leisurely, at some distance from them, were Sir Brisco Braybrooke and her Uncle Grimshaw, who had been ceremoniously returning the visit of the former, by whom he was being accompanied through the grounds towards the private gate in the lane already referred to. "It would have been well for you, Melanie, if we had never, never met ! " said Lonsdale, in a tone of sorrow, love and irritation curiously mingled. "Why?" " Your beauty must have won you a more wealthy, if not a more worthy, love than such an unlucky 110 love's labour won. devil as I. You might have become independent of Mr. Grimshaw, able to further the interests of your brothers, and never have known — " "What it was to have your love, Monti — oh, dearest, do not speak of me in that mercenary way," pleaded the girl, with quivering lips and tears in her eyes. " I have never yet thought of myself." "Did he but know — did he but know all ! " she thought, recalling the offers of Sir Brisco, and the words he had uttered at Chillington Park. But that was a mortifying secret, which she was resolved her lover should never know. " They are coming this way — dear Monti, leave me," said Melanie, imploringly and in haste. "Why so?" he asked. " Oh, can you ask me?" " But your uncle knows of our engagement." "And the other tiresome old man does not." " Sir Brisco — what does it matter ? " "He will think it odd, our meeting thus and in his woods — and Uncle Grimshaw I know would be furious." OF ALL THE FLOWERS OF FAIR ENGLAND. Ill "Perhaps you are right, so good-bye till to-morrow, my darling." And, greatly to the relief of Melanie, he rose, left her, and dived into the coppice, while Melanie fled like a startled fawn towards a path that led to the cottage, while from a vista between the trees, Montague Lonsdale watched her light floating dress as long as he could see it, and he sang softly to himself : Of all the flowers of fair England, The. fairest flower is she ! Then he leisurely scraped a match on the stem of a bush, lit a cigar, and slowly joined the two loiterers. Had they seen the speedy parting ? Surely not ; yet to Lonsdale it seemed that Mr. Grimshaw, at least, was curiously piqued and reserved in his manner towards him. CHAPTEE IX. ' But what to me, my love — but what to me ?" Love's Labour Lost. Reginald Talbot felt just now that a kind of change had come over the tenour of his life, and that he was now more left to himself than was wont to be the case. Melanie was often with Lonsdale, or occupied in writing to him, and Amy Brendon's visits to Eose Cottage were now paid at longer intervals, and were more brief in their duration, and his sad heart foreboded the reason why. In his solitude, his thoughts ever ran jOn sunny days long gone — of his boyish career — of his ship and his messmates; of hopes that were brilliant, of passionate and heartfelt longings, of memories that were regretful and sweet, of all that was now "but what to me, my love?" 113 and all that might have been but for the present death in life that had come upon him ! In her he had always had a good and patient listener to his yarns, and more especially in his young brother Dick, who listened open-mouthed, and was never weary of hearing how, when becalmed in the tropics for days, the sea and sky were like molten brass, with a cloudless burning sun blazing overhead, in the light of which every rope and spar seemed to twist like serpents, and if a deck seam were touched, the pitch bubbled out of it ; the crew naked to the waist, worn with the hauling round of yards, and sick of box-hauling to catch a breath of air, while with moistened finger, the lieutenant of the watch tried to detect if there was a current abroad ; or what was better suited to Dick's taste, Eeginald's fight with a brown bear on the coast of Japan, when he choked him by thrusting a brandy bottle down his throat; or better still, how the Ibis, with the Condor, and other gunboats, lay off Fort Marabout at the bombardment of Alexandria, throwing in shot and shell after Seymour's signal flew from the VOL. I. 114 love's labour won. Alexandra, and then, as at that other cannonade of which Campbell sang — Each gun, From its adamantine lips, Cast a death shade round the ships, Like a hurricane eclipse Of the sun ! Now this life was all over and done with ! and now even Dick was generally absent, after rooks and sparrows, with the little fowling piece which Lonsdale had, as Melanie thought, unwisely given him ; and he was always attended by bob-tailed Bingo, for whom Sir Brisco's keepers were quietly on the look-out. Pieginald found that he failed to interest Amy in any way, as of old ; and so occupied was she with the new thoughts that filled her heart with the sunshine of love, that she failed, for a time at least, to notice the change that had come over her invalid friend. Times there were, before that other came, when she had seen his grave and handsome face light up at her approach, or when it turned to hers, when beneath the hopeless and imploring passion of his "but what to me, my love?" 115 handsome eyes, her own had more than once drooped shyly and coyly, and while her heart vibrated to his soft and alluring voice, it trembled with a fear of the hopeless emotions she might be exciting ; but even the fear of that was forgotten now apparently. " You are very silent, Eeggie," said she one day, as she brought him some choice flowers from the Vicarage, "Am I ? " he asked, curtly and strangely. " And not lively company to-day," said Amy, with one of her sweetest smiles. " Perhaps." " No, indeed. Why so sad — why so silent ? " " Because I have been thinking — thinking too much, it may be." "Of what?" "Of you, Amy," he replied, as an uncontrollable emotion came over him. " Something pleasant, I hope," said she, play- fully, and yet with some dread in her mind. " It is, at all events, something. I — I know not how to tell you," said he turning uneasily on his i2 116 love's labour won. couch. " Something I never said to a woman before, and am not likely ever to say to another,'* he added, slowly, tremulously, and then paused. " And this — ? " she murmured, tremulously too, and feeling confusion in her heart. " Cannot be said now," exclaimed Keginald, sinking back, and thinking. "I am mad to yield to such ideas, and here he comes, as usual!" he muttered bitterly, as Horace Musgrave came in, with his bright smiling face, his well bred bearing and his cavalry stride. Unwelcome though the visitor was to him, Eeginald was almost thankful for the interruption. He dared not speak of love to her, he thought, yet his eyes and heart were ever full of it. What was he that he should venture to do so ? What had he to offer or hope for but death, as a release from everything ? And yet he loved her — Oh, God, how he loved her ! To look upon her, to hear her voice, to feel the touch of her gentle hands, to meet her eyes, and to be sensible of her presence, the perfume of her laces and of the flowers at her breast and neck. "but what to me, my love?" 117 The hopeless love of the half-dead, he felt it to be. Soon after the arrival of Horace Musgrave, whose health and strength, muscle and activity, with his generally joyous though quiet bonhomie, proved almost oppressive to the invalid sailor now, Amy rose to return home, and the Hussar offered to escort her. As they passed through the garden, lingering for a moment or two to pluck a flower, Eeginald, whose couch was near an open window, heard Musgrave say, while bending over his companion tenderiy : " You are looking pale, Amy." "Ami?" " Yes — it is the heat, perhaps." " Oh no, dear." Amy and dear ! The words seemed to pierce Eeginald Talbot's ear. No stranger had ever called her by her Christian name before — and there was her response. He almost ground his teeth. This was but the beginning of the end, and he felt that now each thought of her must be crushed down as it arose. 118 love's labour won. Was this suddenly developed new state of affairs reality or fancy ? Till now, Amy Brendon had always seemed somehow to be his, in thought, and without her the world would appear without form — a void ! Touching of hands and meeting of eyes — and Amy's were always so starry and softly caressing in expression — were forbidden now — the sweet madness and the day-dreams that were born of it were over, and for ever. Yet the temptation remained or abode with him, and when he whispered her name — Amy ! Amy ! — it seemed to thrill through him with mingled sweetness and pain. She was gone — gone with the lover whom she had accepted, and who was able to take his place in the world and in the battle of life ; but a sense of her presence still hovered about the poor fellow — a clear memory of her — the turn of her adorable neck, the lovely outline of her cheek and tiny ear ; the droop of her white lids and the tout ensemble of her perfect, but petite figure, seemed to meet him again and again as he turned listlessly and " BUT WHAT TO ME, MY LOVE ? " 119 restlessly on his couch by the open window, from which he had last seen her, and with Horace Musgrave ! Was he the same creature — he to whom in his naval career the enjoyment of health and of youthful strength had seemed the sum of life — whose heart had bounded in wild and heedless triumph, when at the bombardment of Alexandria, the first salvoes of the opening cannonade shook the hot air, when those monster guns, such as the world had never seen before, belched forth fire, smoke, and a tempest of iron, and a dense sulphurous cloud shrouded fleet and fort, while the din of battle deepened from Marabout to Eas-el-Tin, and roaring rockets and pestilent Nordenfeldts added to the stupendous din. Why did he not fall then ? Why had Musgrave saved his life and dragged him from amid the bloody press of dead and dying on that night of horrors in McNeill's zereba, when the broad band of electric light from the distant gunboat, swept so weirdly across the desert where the gashed and the weary lay side by 120 love's labour won. side, and an odour of blood filled all the dusty air? Better a thousand times had it been to have met his fate there, than live to be the wretched creature he was to-day — a dependant on old Grimshaw's grudingly accorded bounty. Melanie would have wept for him, but Time, the consoler, would have dried her tears, and he would have been but a sad and loving memory to her now. Yet it was his doom to live and linger, for — as Matthew Henry tells us — "Duties are ours — events are God's." "Beggie is sorely changed!" thought Amy, a little time after this. It was no idle fancy of hers, conceived one moment to fade out the next ; fqr the alteration of his manner, and the increased gravity of his handsome aquiline face, were re- markable and unmistakable ; and yet, as it there was magic in it, he felt a difficulty in guarding his secret — in avoiding the hopeless and now perilous subject that filled his whole heart, and made up the sum of his narrow existence ; and thus, on another occasion, when Amy found him alone, he nearly revealed all. "but what to me, my love?" 121 " Tell me, Reggie," said Amy, softly and rather rashly, " what is the matter with you ? " " With me ? What do you mean ? " he asked in turn, but without looking at her. " I mean that something seems to have come between us — a cloud ; you are not as you used to be, and will not even play chess with me. Are you ill?" "Am I ever likely to be otherwise — till death comes ? " he asked, with petulant bitterness ; " otherwise, I am not aware of any cloud." "You have some fancy — what is it?" said Amy, colouring with consciousness; but he did not reply, and seemed intent on watching the sky. " We used to be good friends — the best of friends — why are we otherwise now?" asked the girl sweetly and sorrowfully, but still young Talbot remained silent. " She treats me like a child — rather than a man ! " thought he bitterly, pursuing his own repining ideas. • The light began to break more fully upon her now, and she shrunk from it nervously. This 122 love's labour won. poor fellow — the playmate of her childhood — the brother of her dearest friend on earth — loved her, hopelessly loved her ! A sob rose to her slender throat. "Amy," he exclaimed, turning his large, sad, and now weird-looking dark eyes upon her, " you are weeping ? " " I am not." "There are tears in your eyes and in your voice, dear Amy." " Are there ? " she faltered ; " surely not— well, if so — it is because — because you are so cross with me, and I grieve that it should be so." " Why ? " "Because I love you so much." " Love me?" said he in a hollow voice. "Yes — as the dearest of friends," she replied, hastily; "as the kindest of brothers — yet you have begun to avoid me." " Can a creature so helpless as I either seek or avoid ? " he asked, tugging at his ,dark moustache. A silence that was full of a great awkwardness and a great pain fell upon them. The summer " BUT WHAT TO ME, MY LOVE?" 123 gloaming was deepening in its golden light and purple shadows; the roses in the garden loaded the air with perfume; the elms and beeches that grew thereby tossed their branches in the soft breeze of the mist, and long ferns waved their fronds to and fro, and the hour seemed full of whispers, as Amy rose, and in some haste, to take her departure for home — knowing who would meet her on the way. " Oh, it cannot be, it must not be, that you love me more than a friend — more than a brother ! " wailed the girl, in her kind heart, as she with- drew; "poor fellow — poor darling Reggie — that would be too terrible ! " To Reginald it soon became apparent that Musgrave's visits to the Vicarage became more frequent and protracted, and that there was no necessity for visiting Rose Cottage if he sought to see Amy. It was evident too that his visits were not distasteful to the vicar, and still less so to little Amy, who, ere long — though she did her best to conceal it — appeared with a rose-diamond ring on 124 love's labour won. her tiny engagement finger, a jewel that told oi " the old, old story, which seemeth ever new." " It is wicked to repine, I suppose," sighed poor Eeginald Talbot ; " it is the duty of all to bear the hand of Providence patiently — yet it has been laid heavily on me," he added aloud. " I am shattered — wrecked— borne down for life ! " " And knowing such to be the case," snorted Uncle Grimshaw, who could not repress a stinging remark, " what has brought that girl Amy Bren- don here — what can her object have been ? " " Object — in what, uncle ? " " Hanging about you — a wretched cripple." ^Reginald's fine face grew ghastly pale, and his nether lip twitched convulsively. He almost started up from his couch, and then sank back upon it, helpless and trembling in every limb. "How can you speak thus cruelly, uncle," exclaimed Melanie, " when you know that our poor Keggie is beyond all medical skill ? " "if so," he responded bitterly, but in a low voice she could alone hear, "then the best place for him " BUT WHAT TO ME, MY LOVE ? " 125 is Stokencross Churchyard, since you won't help him in the only way you can ! " His speech filled Melanie with anguish and horror ; and just then, with his side tufts rasped upwards like two horns, and the pale, angry glance that shone in his colourless eyes, he looked, to the girl's idea, something actually diabolical ! CHAPTEE X. AT RAVEN SBOURNE HALL. Almost daily beautiful bouquets of rare flowers and baskets of the richest fruit the conservatories and forcing-houses of Eavensbourne Hall could furnish, under the care of an experienced Scottish gardener, came from there to Eose Cottage for Miss Talbot. Of the fruit, Eeginald resolutely refused to partake (though Dick had no scruples on the subject), believing their acceptance a species of treason to Montague Lonsdale, whose devoted ally he was. But under her present circumstances what could poor Melanie do ? To have declined the gifts would have seemed churlish and un- gracious, and would have moreover exasperated her Uncle Grimshaw. The latter, in his intercourse with the baronet, AT RAVEXSBOURNE HALL. 127 ignored her engagement to Lonsdale ; thus Sir Brisco never suspected such a thing ; and mean- while, Melanie and her fiance had, outwardly, to act the part of the merest acquaintances — a state of matters that was certain to lead to complications. A formal invitation to dinner at the Hall soon came now, and Melanie was forced by her uncle to accept it. Indeed, she had no real reason, outwardly, for refusing, but to her it was intensely obnoxious, all the more so perhaps because Montague Lonsdale was there, and that there had been some close correspondence lately between Eose Cottage and Chillington Park ; and this, she knew, could only refer to designs against the peace of herself and her fiance. The invitation included Reginald and even Dick; but both declined ; the former, because he could not bring himself to see Amy (who was to be present with her parents) and Musgrave together ; and the latter because he and Bingo had lately " come to grief," and been in dire disgrace with the Bavensbourne keepers, especially since he had 128 love's labour won. received that unlucky gift from Montague Lonsdale, a fowling-piece, which Dick carried about loaded, in a way that had nearly been the death of more than one of Her Majesty's lieges. Sir Brisco sent the carriage for Melanie and her uncle, who appreciated this act of attention greatly, while old Dr. and Mrs. Brendon, with their daughter, were left to make their way as they might to Bavensbourne Hall, which was un- doubtedly a place of beauty. The trim shrubberies, the brilliant flower-beds, the rosaries, the emerald lawn, the old fish-pond, guarded by a stone balustrade, with graceful swans and white water- lilies floating on its dark bosom, the stately peacocks, with their resplendent tails spread out in the sunshine on the paved terrace, the stone vases, full of lovely flowers, and over all on its knoll the stately facade of the Hall itself, all seemed to speak of wealth, rank, and luxury, which left far, far in the distance, the straw-roofed bungalow of poor Montague Lonsdale, in a remote Indian cantonment. " Ah ! " snorted Uncle Grimshaw, to whom AT RAVENSBOURNE HALL. 129 some such thoughts naturally occurred, while he glared at Melanie and then surveyed again the mansion, " this is indeed one of ' the ancestral homes of England.' Here you may learn what ancestral means. I feel, as an Englishman, that for such a home as this one might struggle, fight, and die — " "But not sell one's self, uncle," interrupted Melanie, quietly, and receiving, behind her fan, a very dark look indeed. From mending gloves, re-fashioning dresses, plotting and planning to make a sovereign go the length of two, the aspect of all around her at Ravensbourne, where the carriage drew up at the stately perron, and a powdered valet put down the steps, certainly was a relief in one sense, but no temptation, to Melanie Talbot. With the assistance of a maid — she had not been so attended since Chillington Park had seen her under the hands of Mademoiselle Clochette — she and Amy were laughingly putting some finishing touches to their costumes in a dressing- room, and the former had prettily adjusted in her VOL. I. K 130 love's laboue won. dark braids and collarette of lace some simple almond- scented blossoms and maiden-hair ferns, to her own extreme satisfaction, when there came a knock at the door, and another maid appeared with a pretty little basket of pale cream roses, with " Sir Brisco's compliments to Miss Talbot." " Pretty pointed that — none for me ! " said Amy, laughing ; " but these will suit your dress admirably. Shall I take out the sprays ? " " By no means," said Melanie, with unconcealed annoyance ; "I prefer the flowers I have." She had received them that morning from Lonsdale. " Poor Sir Brisco ; he will expect you to wear his roses." " For that reason, as you very well know, I won't," replied the wilful beauty ; and when they entered the drawing-room, a cloud came over the baronet's smiling face on seeing that his floral gift had been rejected or neglected. The party was small, but silent; the dull interval filled up by commonplaces, which precedes a dinner, passed quickly, to the relief of Melanie, AT RAVENSBOURNE HALL. 131 and in due time the gong was sounded — its notes low, dismal, and rumbling, swelled upon the air, making the spacious rooms re-echo with a swell that became almost melodious ; then it died away, and as the butler dropped the beater, Sir Brisco gave his arm to Mrs. Brendon (all moire antique with white lace), while Melanie and Amy were paired off with strangers, who bear no place in our story, and two and two, like the animals entering the ark, the guests filed into the dining-room. The dinner was like any other in such an establishment, and, thanks to the skill of the chef, and the care of Mrs. Mopps, the housekeeper, wa s all that could be desired ; but while it proceeded, through all its routine of entrees and courses, Melanie was unpleasantly aware of how her uncle watched her and Lonsdale, though they were seated apart ; and she could see his bald head shining, with his side tufts stiffer than ever, with the gleam of his spectacles and the Mephistophelian smile behind them — a smile that boded only greed and mischief. Sir Brisco did the honours of his table well, k2 132 love's laboue won. and looked even younger than his years in evening costume, the waiter-like garb of civilisation ; and though his moustache was white as snow, his eyes were clear as steel, bright and penetrating, and his teeth (if natural) white and well-formed as those of a man of five-and-twenty. Though quiet, and too gentlemanly in manner to excite remark by his attentions, there was a subtle something in the bearing of his host towards Melanie which, but for the man's years, might have excited more alarm in the mind of Montague Lonsdale ; yet there was sufficient to pique and annoy him, knowing as he did the accessories of wealth and position possessed by the baronet, though he could little suspect that the latter had — in the proposal he had made the girl, though that proposal had been rejected — a point d'officier — a basis for future operations. In fact, the old baronet continued to absorb her time and attention whenever he could do so ; and his impatience to join the ladies in the drawing-room, when they all sailed thither, was all but obvious, when the gentlemen were left AT RAVENSBOURNE HALL. 133 " over their wine and walnuts " ; and secretly, he was excessively bored by the vicar, who loved to linger over his glass of port and talk politics, being as keen on the subjects of Church and State as if he had lived in the days of Squire Western ; and like a bluff Tory of the old school, more than once asserted that he could never sympathise with " a working man's candidate, who had to take his clothes out of his uncle's care before he could address the unwashed electors." Sir Brisco would rather have heard his military guests even talking " shop " — Musgrave of horses, and Lonsdale of military life in Bengal. " How proud you must be of such a beautiful old residence as this, Sir Brisco," said Mr. Grimshaw, occupied still by one idea, as he looked up at the parquetted designs of the dome- shaped ceiling ; "it must make you disdain most other places." "That would be an ignoble pride," replied Sir Brisco, smiling and toying with his wine glass, while thinking, too probably, of Rose Cottage. 134 love's labour won. "But there is a certain proper pride, born of and with a good name," continued Mr. Grimshaw, bent on flattery. " Yes — the pride that honestly rejoices in an honourable race and lineage ; and that, if properly and modestly maintained, is very different from the absurd pride of the parvenu." And Sir Brisco was right. He could, though he never did so before, afford to talk thus. His title was a creation by King James, eight years after the latter succeeded to the throne of England, and the first of the family ranked after Bacon of Bedgrave, Primus Baronettorum Anglim ; but held his lands under a charter of Henry VIII., by the not unusual tenor then of finding clean straw for his majesty's bed when he, the English Blue-beard, sojourned in that quarter. With all this, Sir Brisco was a much more humble and meek man than an obnpxious and intrusive neighbour, who was the terror of evil doers as a magistrate and landholder, a retired soap-boiler, of Bow, who — whatever his past name may have been — now came forth as Plantagenet- AT RAVENSBOURNE HALL. 135 Rugworth (as snobs affect hyphens greatly) — bought old portraits as family ones, stuck someone's crest on his carriage, and boasted of his " h'ancestors who fought at 'Astings with William of H'orange." When the gentlemen rejoined the ladies, Melanie, on whom were now the eyes of her lover as well as her uncle, found it more difficult to avoid the baronet, and, in attempting to do so, could get no aid from either Amy or Mrs. Brendon, who were somewhat occupied with the intended of the former — the handsome Hussar — who was soon about to leave them for his regiment, and, to her motherly heart, was, of course, an object of deepest interest, to the despair of more than one " mild curate," for whom she would work no more slippers or smoking caps in the future. And Horace Musgrave was somewhat the pattern man even of his "crack" regiment. All women, the mess averred, fell in love with him : the matrons for their daughters' sakes — the daughters because they could not help it ; and he was fixed at last by little Amy Brendon, the belle of Stokencross Vicarage. 136 LOVE S LABOUR WON. " What a joke it is ! " thought Lonsdale, as he saw now that Amy, absorbed in his friend, no longer amused her companions by her witty sallies and wild speeches, or attended to the compliments and pretty nothings of her many admirers ; yet she made a charming picture just then, with her soft, dreamy eyes fixed on Musgrave's sunburnt face; hers so brilliant in its colouring, her thick, bronze hair shot with gold in the sunlight ; her lips sweet and sensitive, softening the clear outline of perfect and minute features. CHAPTER XI. PIQUE AND SUSPICION. On this July afternoon, the tall French windows of the drawing-room were open, and the curtains of fine lace were gently stirred by the warm evening wind ; the plash of the fountains in the rose-gardens below the terrace was heard, and the last song of a few birds made music in the still sunny air. Ere long the last of the sunlight died away ; the moonlight spread like a silvery veil over the landscape, and the jets shot up by the fountains showed crystal, while the stately trees beyond the shrubberies threw weird but graceful shadows on the sward. Melanie, who had been almost compelled to play, now drew on her gloves in haste and left the piano, where both Lonsdale and Sir Brisco had hung over her. 138 love's labour won. Till then she had rigidly kept her hands gloved, but when she played, the latter had detected Lonsdale's engagement ring on " the mystic finger," and almost changed colour, though of course he said nothing ; while surmising had Mrs. Chillington and Mr. Grimshaw deceived him, or was Melanie deceiving them all ? She had seen the direction of his gaze, and nervously advanced to a window, whither he naturally followed her. "What a lovely moonlight scene!" she ex- claimed, on looking out ; " is it not so ? But then those who see the beautiful always cease to appreciate it." " I am not one of those," said he, softly, yet with a glance so full of point, that Melanie paled a little. With the tiny white flowers among her rich dark hair, a brown and feathery fringe of which curled in soft rings over her brow, her lovely arms and neck gleaming white from amid some delicate old lace, Melanie seemed sweeter and fairer than ever woman looked before in the eyea PIQUE VXD SUSPICION. 139 of her young lover and his elderly rival, who was then thinking, in fancy, how she would look with the Braybrooke diamonds sparkling on her breast, her throat, and brow — the same magni- ficent diamonds his great grandmother had worn at Court, when, in the days of " Farmer George, 1 ' she had been a maid of honour to Queen Charlotte, who, as usual with her, coveted the said gems sorely. As he whispered to her there in the twilight, apart from the rest in that vast apartment, Sir Brisco hoped to win her — almost passionately, for his years — hoped, but not with the eagerness of youth or with the dawn of love revealing that life had something in store for him hitherto unknown. She was beautiful, poor, and, so far as her uncle was concerned, helpless, he knew ; and he never doubted that with time, patience, and perseverance, his wealth and position would win her for him in the end — a bride more beautiful by far than Ravensbourne had ever seen before. Had Melanie Talbot been an heiress, his hopes 140 love's labour won. had been less confident, certainly; but there were depths in her nature to which Sir Brisco had no clue. More than once, taking advantage of the situa- tion, and while a young lady was afflicting all present with one of those rapid songs in which all words are undetectable, and which are cer- tainly a peculiarity of " the British drawing- room," he endeavoured to recur to what had passed at Mrs. Chillington's lawn-tennis party; but of that Melanie was nervously conscious, and tried with all her skill, but often vainly, to change the subject, for, with the coolness born of years and experience, the baronet was pretty pointed. " Still you avoid me, or would seek to, Miss Talbot ? " he continued. "In what way, Sir Brisco?" she asked, using her fan quickly, but unconsciously. " Fate, with you, is strangely against me." " Please don't be melodramatic — how ? " " Every hour — every moment — I spend in your society, perhaps unwisely for my own peace, sees PIQUE AND SUSPICION. 141 me falling deeper into the gulf from which no hand but yours can save me." How white, alas ! in the moonlight, his mous- tache looked as he said this into the girl's unwilling ear. He did not speak in a heart- broken accent, certainly ; he was too old, too " case-hardened " for that, but, to Melanie, it was terrible to listen to all this sort of thing. She, the promised wife of another, w T hose eyes were actually then upon her, but who — unfortunate fellow ! — was then button-holed by the vicar on our Indian policy, and the treason that sur- rendered Cawnpore after w^e had captured it. Melanie had in her heart an emotion of dire provocation. k ' I have tried to forget you," Sir Brisco con- tinued, " but I might as well try to live without brains or without a heart." Melanie, in her worry and annoyance, used her fan till it ruffled the curls of her fringe. Oh ! how easy it seemed to make love in this fashion, and fluently, at sixty years and more ! Not thus boldly had Montague Lonsdale let 142 love's labour won. the story of his love for her escape him, on an evening never to be forgotten, in a time of supreme joy and triumph, when they had, half-mutely or brokenly, exchanged the secrets of their hearts, and each felt a thrill — a passion — that had been without parallel for them before or since. Melanie now felt that by her uncle, who had dragged her to Eavensbourne Hall, she was placed in a ' false and humiliating position, which com- pelled her to listen to the baronet's addresses' when her distinct refusal of his offers elsewhere should have raised a barrier between them and placed their intercourse in society on a different basis. She did not raise her face to that of Sir Brisco, as she felt conscious that it wore an expression of trouble and anger ; and thus he mistook the cause that made her long, dark lashes droop — almost rest on her pale cheeks. | "Will you think of what I have said before? Will you think of what I have said now ? " continued Sir Brisco, as if he had been offering her some lucrative or eligible situation. "Probably PIQUE AND SUSPICION. 143 t not," he added, detecting the expression of her face. " You are wrong, Sir Brisco — I shall think of you, and think kindly, as long as I live." " Kindly — and nothing more ? " " Nothing more," replied Melanie, curtly now. "Why— oh, why?" " Do, Sir Brisco, let this subject cease." " I will not take this as a final answer." Nor did he. When Melanie left • the Hall to return home, Montague Lonsdale felt piqued and angry — vaguely annoyed. Under the eyes of her uncle and those of their host, he found that Melanie was not more than calmly and studiously polite, declining to be cloaked or assisted by him. She thought that he would know the reason why ; but he did not, and began to fear, or attribute her apparent coldness of manner to some change, some new influence, and he recalled unpleasantly the " subtle something " he had detected in the bearing of the baronet at dinner. To make matters worse, the latter presented 144 love's labour won. her with a bouquet of grand Gloire de Dijon roses, just as he handed her into the carriage, and she was constrained to accept them. " How you must laugh at our poor specimens of these at the cottage," said she. " Do not say so. At the cottage there is one rose I covet more than all the rest," replied Sir Brisco, in a low voice ; but still Lonsdale heard him. Musgrave drove the Vicarage party home in a trap, and Lonsdale was left for an hour or two in the smoking room, over brandy and soda and cigars, with their host, who, under the influence of what he had imbibed at dinner and after it, waxed unwisely communicative, and rather gave the young officer a glimpse of the carte du pays. Speaking of Melanie with a knowing air, he quoted Cymbeline, as to her manner : " Oh, dissembling courtesy ! How £ne this tyrant can tickle where she wounds ! " Then he actually expatiated on her beauty and goodness, her devotion to her helpless brother and so forth, to Lonsdale, who sucked his Havannah PIQUE AND SUSPICION. 145 and listened in half amused and half sulky silence. " I never, till I met her," said Sir Brisco, " had much inclination for ' the holy state,' as it is called, but better late than never, if 'Barkis is willin' ' ; don't you think so ? Besides, I have read that it is a fact that a married man has a better prospect of a long career than a- bachelor, and that one of the latter, when near his end, had this fact so impressed upon him, that he had a clause inserted in his marital settlement, adding to his wife's allowance for every year he survived — good idea that — eh ! And I shall certainly do the same with Melanie Talbot." " Pleasant to hear all this ! " thought Montague Lonsdale. "Yes," continued the baronet, lying back in a lounging-chair, and pursuing his own bright thoughts, as he watched the concentric rings from his cigar curling upward, " our greatest happiness consists in the love we give to others, rather, perhaps, than in the love that is given to us. We are told by someone that it is a pleasant VOL. I. L 146 love's labour won. and gracious thing to be loved, even if we cannot love in return, and that, I believe, is her case as yet." " "What is the old fool thinking of now ? " almost escaped Lonsdale, as he gave his mous- tachios a vicious twist. " I wonder that you have not been smitten in that quarter ! " said Sir Brisco, with a hearty laugh. " But of course, with India before you, and all that sort of thing, you can't settle* down yet." Eventually, the confidences of the baronet rather enraged him ; but as he had not Melanie's permission to avow his engagement beyond her own family circle, he was compelled to remain silent ; but he writhed under the prospect of leaving behind him, when he went to India, such a wealthy and probable suitor, to be favoured by the mal-innuence of Uncle Grimshaw. He had observed the protracted conversation in the recess of the moonlit, window ; a conver- sation from which he thought Melanie might have broken away. And how confidentially they PIQUE AND SUSPICION. 147 seemed to be talking there. He knew but too well her guardian's opposition to his suit, and could well suspect his too probable view of favour for another ; and if that other meant — as he doubted not — was the wealthy master of Ravens- bourne, the nervous brevity of Melanie's farewell (though in reality born of caution and fear) seemed in some way accounted for ; and so — and so — by degrees, and assisted by pique and anger, he formed quite an indictment against poor Melanie, and found innumerable flaws in her conduct, for which he would duly punish her on the morrow ! The lingering in the moonlit window seemed to assume exaggerated proportions, and then he knew that " in courtship, one thing has such a knack of leading to another," while, as if to spur his chagrin, Sir Brisco began again : " Of one thing, as regards means, I know that I am assured of the entire favour of her guardian and Uncle Grimshaw — good style of fellow, old Grimshaw, is not he ? An old city man, as he is, is sure to value good settlements — a glittering l2 148 love's labour won. future, and all that sort of thing," added Sir Brisco, giving a leisurely glance of satisfaction, even at the luxurious appurtenances of his smoking-room. "D — n ! " muttered Lonsdale, under his mous- tache; "I should declare myself, and give him a crusher — a curdler — but for Melanie's wishes ! " He was not silly enough to feel actual personal jealousy of Sir Brisco as yet, but he was keenly piqued and alarmed. Knowing how Melanie was circumstanced at home — if a home Bose Cottage could be called for her — aware of the secret, open, and cruel pressure that Mr. Gideon Grimshaw was quite capable of putting upon her, Montague Lonsdale was now filled with genuine anxiety at the prospect of the future — of leaving her behind him for a year, perhaps, in England. CHAPTEE XII. JEALOUSY. Next day, as Sir Brisco had to go to town, Lonsdale had promised to take Melanie for a row on the river. A night did not soothe away the annoyance — it amounted to jealousy now — of Montague Lonsdale: the " trifles light as air" had assumed absurdly colossal proportions ; and, thinking chiefly of how he could contrive to shorten his visit to Ravens- bourne Hall, he set out to keep his appointment with Melanie, at their usual place and hour, but with very mingled emotions in his heart indeed. How often we exhaust ourselves arming for battles we are never called upon to fight ! So the worrying thoughts of Lonsdale coursed through his mind again and again, with provoking 150 love's labour won. iteration ; but either he came too early or Melanie was detained (his watch, he was certain, was correct, which it was not), anyway, she was not there, and, in a gust of ill-usage and ill-temper, mortified and heart- sore, dreading he scarcely knew what — all the more so, as but a few days of his leave remained ere he would have to report himself at his depot — to pique and disappoint Melanie, if she should come after all, he took a boat from Sir Brisco's private boat-house, shipped the sculls, and shot away up the river. He had now, he thought, a new and distinct clue to the reason why his engagement with Melanie had become so eminently distasteful to her uncle. Infirm of purpose, even in his anger, he paused with his sculls suspended in the air twenty times, as his heart relented towards her and then grew hard again when he thought of Sir Brisco's bouquet of Gloire de Dijon roses and his over- night confidences, and in a really senseless fit of anger he pulled away, and left the vicinity of the Ravensbourne grounds far astern. JEALOUSY. 151 Could he only have known that, apart from having no control over the gift of the bouquet or the revelations of the wine-loosened tongue of the old baronet, the nervous abruptness of the adieu at the Hall had dwelt painfully in the mind of Melanie, as in his own, that it had cost her tears behind her veil as the carriage bore her home, and that she longed now, with all her soul, to "talk it all over ' ' with him ! The scenery of the river, beautiful everywhere above the ugly locale of London, is varied at that season by many features not generally seen at others. Between Oxford and the village of Ted- dington, every pretty cottage and mansion is fully tenanted, and strawberry feasts and flowers at these and the quaint, old inns, where sign- boards still swing above the mossy horse-troughs, meet the eyes of those who row up stream or down ; and every nook seems to swarm with pilgrims of pleasure thrown forth by the mighty city. The picturesque old lock-houses, festooned with roses, Virginia creeper, sweetly-scented syringo, 152 love's labour won. and other flowers, are there ; the abodes of smart young fellows who long to be able only to sleep in the summer air, and take their morning "tub" in the white, foaming weir below. So, with muscular arms stripped to the elbow, his sunburned neck divested of collar and tie, his broad straw hat girt by a floating white puggree that he had worn many a time round his helmet in Chowringer, and many a march up country, Montague Lonsdale sullenly and nervously pulled up the stream, revenging himself the while by supposing what Melanie might be thinking when he failed to keep his tryst (if she kept hers), and finding a species of grim but transient pleasure in the soft breeze that waved the tall grass and the sedgy flags by the river-side, and rustled overhead the crisp foliage that was so clearly mirrored down in the glassy surface below. Here and there were merry little parties, with children camped out and enjoying all the glory, abandon, and independence of a long day's pic-nic ; but, after a time, in a silent part of the river, where the banks were starred with golden butter- JEALOUSY. 153 cups, and where the voices of the haymakers in the fields, the sound of the sharpened scythe, the clank of the scull in the iron row-lock, or the strokes of the hour tolled from the ivied tower of some old Norman church alone broke the stillness ; and then for rest and change he pulled the boat into a deep and shadowy place, where the leaves of the old oaks rustled overhead, and he took a pull at his flask of brandy-and-water, preparatory to going ashore to have a sprawl on the long, scented grass — there to lie, cigar in mouth, and gaze into the blue sky above, and — if possible — let bitter thoughts and all "the world go slide." Meanwhile Melanie had been a little late in arriving at their appointed place, for she had been unavoidably detained in the performance of an act of kindness to Reginald. Remembering all that had passed on the pre- ceding night, with all a girl's natural desire to please, she had left nothing undone to render herself attractive in her simple toilette — a white dress that clung about her (but all her dresses 154 love's labour won. had a way of clinging), and sleeves that fell back from her snowy and taper arms, and, as she went along, she gathered a few of the flowers which she knew Lonsdale admired, and smiled as she thought how pleased he would be with even such a trifling gift from her hand, and of the loving words with which .he would meet and greet her. How well she loved him, and how her heart yearned for him ; and, like every other girl under the same pleasant circumstances, she felt certain that Heaven had designed and specially made them for each other. But when she reached the place of meeting he was not there. It was a beautiful spot, with the river flowing on one side, and shady vistas through the coppice of grand old trees on the other. She waited and watched with growing anxiety and surprise, yet l he came not. Could either of them have mistaken the time, the place, or the way thereto ? Could she have passed him ? Impossible ! JEALOUSY. 155 Loth to return, to leave the loved spot without a meeting and explanation, she waited and watched, her fond heart heating anxiously, for a longer period than she knew, till she looked at her watch, and was astonished to find that more than an hour and a half had fled, and she was turning slowly, sadly, and linger- ingly away, when she heard sounds — voices — sounds that seemed to turn her to stone. The hlush of health and anticipation left her face ; her lips grew white and a kind of moan escaped them. Why ? She saw Montague Lonsdale in hoating costume, with neck and arms hare, his face hent over that of a tall and handsome girl. Could she douht for a moment who that girl was ? Hilda Tremayne — that notorious flirt * and coquette, who had spoken of him hy his Christian name, and hoasted to her of their intimacy in India — Hilda, with her bright golden-brown hair, her long lashes and sleepy yet alluring hazel eyes, her full red lips, her rounded cheeks, graceful and voluptuous form. 156 love's labour won. He was bending over her, his hands, to all appearances, caressingly among her hair, while the boat in which they were seated drifted swiftly with the downward tide and current, till it was borne out of sight by a bend or reach of the river. This was a dreadful, a crushing revelation to Melanie. "Does he profess to love me, and yet meet her ? He has duped me — betrayed me ! " muttered Melanie. "Oh, can it be, as Aunt Chillington says, that all men — soldiers especially — are alike ? " All the terrible reputation of Hilda Tremayne for coquetry rushed upon her memory. So great was the shock that, for a time, all power of thought, of sensation and volition, seemed to leave her, and she stood as if frozen to stone, and angry convictions rushed upon her, with pain that amounted to agony and mortifica- tion. Her slender hands were clasped in front of her, the fingers interlaced, the white palms JEALOUSY. 157 turned outwards in that manner which certainly tells of the overtension of the mind within, while her very features became hard and distorted by the weight of her thoughts, as she bent her steps slowly homeward. There, ere long, her dejection, even her tears and abstraction, were detected, and fiercely derided by Uncle Grimshaw, who shrewdly suspected the cause — that Lonsdale had resented the atten- tions of the baronet, even as host. Confound his military impudence to do so ! When taxed as to all this, Melanie could only weep in silence, which her uncle took for assent. "Well," said he, with a malevolent and trium- phant grin, " when you now see what a horrid temper and jealous spirit this military spark of yours has, and the foul duplicity of which he is capable, perhaps you will come to your senses, be inclined to ponder over my good advice, and think better of the splendid future now opening for you at Eavensbourne Hall — eh ? " " Sir Brisco might be my grandfather. I am a girl," said Melanie, with a shiver of annoyance. 158 love's labour won. "And like too many girls, don't know your own mind, or what is for your good. Twenty thousand per annum, ye gods ! does not often get a refusal — rather more than your beggarly Anglo -Indian fellow can offer ! " he continued, bitterly and coarsely. " You have been mad, I think, for your own interests, and most cruel to your brothers. Anyway, just now, be as suave as you can to Sir Brisco — keep him in good temper." " Till Montague is gone, he means ! " thought Melanie, with an emotion of scorn. " If I fail to do so ? " she asked aloud. " Fail ! Then you may find, as he will do, that there are plenty of girls far prettier than you, who will gladly give themselves in marriage for £20,000 a year. I am sure he will make a very indulgent and good-natured husband — more- over, he mayn't live very long — not more than ten years now, probably. Think of Eavensbourne Hall, a house in Mayfair, a box at the opera, carriages, horses, diamonds, and pin-money to any amount, and compare all these with the old story JEALOUSY. 159 of love in a cottage, or worse still, a wretched bungalow in a scorching Indian cantonment ! It need not come to an engagement yet, only don't snub Sir Brisco, I say." " Still the selfish line of ideas ! " thought poor Melanie. "But I must decline," she began. " If you do, we may then see what we shall see — Dick beginning life as a shop-boy, and Reginald ending it in a hospital ! " interrupted Mr. Grimshaw, and darting a furious glance at the latter, he turned on his heel and withdrew, leaving the girl a prey to utter misery. Dick misconstrued the cause of her grief; though the latter got him off some of his tasks, German especially, which he detested. "Uncle .Grimshaw," said he, resenting her tears, " so you have been at some of your old games?" "What old games?" " Nagging Melanie — what a fellow you are ! " " You are disrespectful, fellow ! " "Yes," said Dick, stoutly. 160 love's labour won. "Sirrah?" " You remind me of the story of a highwayman," said Dick, coolly. " A highwayman ? " gasped Uncle Grimshaw, thinking uneasily of the misplaced trust money. " Oh, Dick ! " exclaimed Melanie, in the greatest alarm at this scene. "Yes," continued Dick; "when requested hy a poor girl, whom he was robbing, to desist, because she was alone and helpless. ' That is the reason I do it,' said the thief." " You young whelp ! " thundered Mr. Grimshaw. " I have a good mind to turn you out on the high road ! " " That would be indicative of a bad mind, surely," retorted Dick, as he vaulted out of the window, followed by Bingo. " And this military friend of yours," said Mr. Grimshaw, referring, in an irrepressible gust of ill-humour, to Montague Lonsdale. " "Why is he loafing about England at all just now ? " " Spending his hardly won year's leave," replied Melanie, indignation mingling with her dejection. JEALOUSY. 161 " You forget, or perhaps know not, that he was at the battles of Hanied Khel and Candahar, and that he won his Y.C. under Boberts in the fight with the Ghazis at Gundimoolah." " Indeed ! " said Uncle Grimshaw, mockingly ; " how well you seem up in his biography." Melanie blushed at her own energy, but her eyes were suffused with angry tears. " A year's leave from India ! " snorted Uncle Grimshaw — " a year's leave at the ratepayers' expense. When I was at his age, in Birchin Lane, a week or a fortnight in the year, for a run to Brighton or Eastbourne, was all the leave ever accorded to me ! " When left alone Melanie looked wistfully at her engagement ring. What a bitter farce it seemed just then, in her time of bitter depression, woe, and mortification. Should she take it off ? — no — not yet ; some affectionate superstition of the heart withheld her from doing so. The new situation seemed incredible. The light seemed to have gone out of her life. VOL. I. M 162 love's labour won. See Montague and speedily she must ; but where ? Surely he would write or come to Eose Cottage without delay, unless — but when she attempted to speculate further, her heart died within her. CHAPTER XIII. "a long road full of pain." A blight that seemed to have fallen upon the hitherto calm and almost contented existence of her helpless brother, now added greatly to the- misery endured by Melanie, as she knew too well the secret source thereof, and yet felt unwilling to approach the subject, as it was one she was unable to relieve or remove. But it was impossible for her not to perceive that now the dark eyes of Reggie wore at times a strange and shadowy expression, as if his thoughts she could not fathom, or dreamed of things she knew not of and yet saw too plainly for her own peace. The heart is said to have a sun of its own, that can shed light and beauty around it ; but his seemed set for ever now. m2 164 love's labour won. His old brotherly regard for Amy had become a passion now ; but a passion of which he dared not speak, from a bitter sense of its utter madness and inutility. Till Horace Musgrave came he had loved her secretly, fondly, and fearlessly. It scarcely occurred to him with much force that aught would come to disunite them, to break the spell, or mar the sweet- ness of their placid intercourse ; or that a time would be when her songs were no longer to fall on his ear, or the melody of her voice when she read to or chatted with him. Often when she and Musgrave were present, he would start up as if he would leave them and shun their society, but only started to sink back, help- less, on the couch he occupied by day. He wished to avoid her presence, and yet welcomed her when she came, for his whole existence seemed a paradox now. Amy came, as was her wont, to sit and talk with him when Melanie was absent or busy, but more seldom now, and at longer intervals, and though his usually grave countenance lighted up when he 165 saw her, his manner frequently lost its old sweet- ness and became sad, fractious, even morose, even when she hung over him as her playfellow of the past, and stroked his dark hair as of old with her soft, pretty, and childlike hand. Then her breath would be on his cheek ; her lips so near his own, and yet he dared not kiss them — now especially. Surely never since Tantalus in his agony of thirst saw the impossible draught of water so near him, and the cluster of luscious fruit that the wind took beyond his reach, was there such a pang as the helpless fellow felt then. There was a pitiful ache in his heart, with a sense of desolation now — utter desolation — unsatis- fied longing, yearning, and regret for the happiness that others had, and that fate had denied to him ; and he writhed in his wheel-chair, amid the sun- shine and flowers of the garden, when Amy came to him in the evening after Melanie's bitter mortifi- cation, and in his gloomy spirit he resented the exuberance of her girlish happiness. " What would you have me say, Reggie ? " asked 166 love's labour won. Amy, who began to have, as we have said, a nervous dread or sense of the emotions she was exciting in the poor fellow's breast ; yet, with all her pity, she was a little piqued by his churlish responses. "Say? I do not know. Of course you cannot care for what I may think or feel, why should you ? " " How can you speak to me thus ? " asked the girl, softly, but reproachfully. " If you have made up your mind — " " To what ? " interrupted Amy, while the other's gaze seemed fixed on distance. "It would be wrong and worse than useless in me to seek to alter your determination, or to make you dissatisfied with what is, perhaps, for your advantage." " Would you not advise me?" said Amy, blushing painfully, as she knew to what he referred so abruptly and mysteriously. "I am neither father nor brother, nor relation of any kind," said Eeginald, captiously; "so why should I advise ? " 167 " Nor even wish me well, dear Reggie ?" " You know, Amy, I would lay down my miserable life for you ! " " Poor Reggie, I think you do care a little what becomes of me." " More, perhaps, than you and many more care what becomes of me — ' such a fine young fellow, too ! ' as people say pityingly," he added, with a bitter, bitter smile. " I know you don't mean the half of what you say when you are in one of your captious moods, my poor naughty boy," replied the girl, sweetly, yet with a break in her voice. " I mean that I can be very little to you, where love for another is concerned," said he, coldly and half aside. Amy changed colour, and feeling that they were on perilous ground, became silent, and began to think she must cease to visit the cottage at all ; but then her very absence would excite remark. Young Talbot became silent, too, amid his sad convictions. This man, Horace Musgrave, loved her. Then 168 love's labour won. home to the poor fellow's heart came, more keenly than ever, the knowledge that he was about to lose her through that love ; to lose her sweet society, the joy of gazing on her soft face, of listening to her voice ; that she would pass out of his life, that " this sort of thing " could not go on for ever, and that another was seeking and winning — nay, had sought and won — the place in her heart that he could never hope to hold or attempt — poor wretch that he was — to rival. His existence was overshadowed ; the sun of his little world was fading out. " I would not, even if I could, play the dog in the manger," thought he. " What ! am I to play Komeo to her Juliet — fool that I am ? What use am I in life in any way ? — an encumbrance and bore to all about me, save for Melanie. I cannot even play a waiting game — waiting, for what ? Everyone, it is said, makes or mars his own life ; but how was mine marred ? By evil destiny ! " Then would he dream and ponder, wildly, but prayerfully. Could he but get well — if God in His great goodness only granted him again health and " A LONG ROAD FULL OF PAIN." 169 strength — he would go away to sea again, even as a foremast-man, and look on home and her no more. But fate was adverse to him, and the crushing fiat of the medical faculty was that never could he escape from his helplessness — from the second childhood that had come upon him. " Life is not for ever, that is one comfort ! " he would often mutter. He remained much at home now on his couch, listlessly reading, or affecting to read, the hooks that were sent to him from Kavensbourne Hall, and declined to have his wheel-chair brought to him, as usual, on the sunny days. Once Amy observed that a pretty button-hole she had prepared and given him had a bit of fern substituted for it ! and that he was afterwards so moody and absent that she had to repeat her remarks, when he would start, and say : "I beg your pardon — but what did you say to me just now ? " It used not to be thus with him or her ; but she was not slow to guess the painful reason. 170 love's laboue won. ' ' Why did you throw away my poor little flower — the very flower you asked me for — and put a bit of fern in its place ? " she asked. " I did not throw it away," said he, curtly. "What then, Eeggie?" " If you must know, it lay next my heart till it withered, then I locked its dead petals away in the place where my commission lies, my mother's lock of hair, my Egyptian medals, and the few such treasures I possess." " To place a mere pretty bouquet in such a repository was surely foolish, Eeggie ? " said she, affecting to ignore all that his words so distinctly implied ; but now that she was engaged, the worst he could know was known — the death of all his fond fancies ; and death he thought was better than daily dying as he had been, so he straightforwardly questioned her on the subject. "Yes — Horace has asked me to marry him," said Amy, looking down. " And — and you? " " Consented, dear Eeggie, of course. I love him " A LONG ROAD FULL OF PAIN." 171 so," she replied, with a fond bright smile, and yet nervously withal. "Don't you congratulate me ? " she asked, after a pause. He was silent and pale — frozen as it were, for a moment or two. "So it is a settled thing?" he asked, calmly, but through his set teeth. "Yes." "And when is the— the happy day?" he asked again, with the same strangely calm manner, as he produced his tobacco pouch. " Your hands tremble, Keggie — allow me to make up your cigarette, as I so often do." "Thanks." He put it between his lips and tried to smoke, forgetting to light it, after she had made it up for him, deftly and prettily, as her slender fingers had often done playfully in the past. "You asked me something," said she, with growing confusion. " Yes — when is the happy day to be ? " "It is too soon to talk of that; I must have time to think it over — plenty of time — before we 172 love's labour won. fix on anything. Oh ! how strange — how new it all seems." "Of course," said he, with a curious smile, " such events don't happen every day." " You must not ask me more just now, I have so much to do — so much to think about " ; and then she tripped away, relieved that the ice was broken, that Beggie knew at last — knew the worst now. While he thought : " Oh, why am I spared to live ? Why did I not perish at Suakim ? Why spared, as Carlyle has it, to travel A long, long road of pain, my dear, A long road full of pain ! " After this he courted solitude more than ever, and would pass hours in silence, often with a book to cloak it — a book that Melanie detected he held sometimes upside down ; and her affectionate heart was wrung with sorrow as she watched him. " Unless we can rouse him, Dick," said she to her boy-brother, " he will get further than ever from the chance, if any, of recovery. He seems " A LONG ROAD FULL OF PAIN." 173 to become more melancholy and more gloomy every day ! " But in this reference to Reginald Talbot we are anticipating another portion of our story — the misunderstanding between Melanie and Lonsdale. CHAPTEK XIV. HOW IT CAME ABOUT. We left Montague Lonsdale a mile or more above the place where he was to have met Melanie, stretched among the scented grass, with a cigar between his teeth, his hands under his head, his straw hat tilted well over his eyes, which were fixed on the branches and blue sky above, and his heart full of angry thoughts about the state of his love affair. The place was solitary, as it was above Abingdon, with its old bridge and red-tiled houses, and where the river becomes navigable by barges, and he was in a silent nook of the stream, that could at the worst only be identified with house- boats, old lock-houses, and greenish water tumbling over the mossy piles and sluices of an ancient weir, HOW IT CAME ABOUT. 175 or a humble thatcher's cottage, surrounded by tall blue flowers and smothered under roses and creepers. Suddenly there was a sound close by him — an exclamation — and the tall figure of a young lady appeared by his side, Hilda Tremayne, in a most becoming country costume of bright-coloured wool crepe, a Zouave-shaped jacket, or bodice, a piquante hat, and a large sunshade, which she twirled with her well-gloved little hand as it rested on her shoulder, and a smile full of coquettish surprise and mischief in her clear bright hazel eyes, as she recognised the lounger, who started at once to his feet. " Lonsdale — you here and alone ! " she exclaimed, with one of her flashing glances, from eyes that were long lashed and heavily lidded. " As you see — and you ? " he inquired. " Oh — I am living at Oxford, with my uncle the professor of Old Trinity. Is this boat yours ? " " Pro tern, it is." " My cousins were to have rowed me to Stoken- cross, but the stupid boys have either mistaken the 176 love's labour won. time or the place, and I am left lamenting. Will you-? " " Eow you down stream— with pleasure," he replied, yet with a sigh of annoyance, as he thought of the other whom he had meant to row, and for whose use he had arranged the dainty velvet cushions in the stern. Hilda Tremayne seated herself there at once ; he shipped the sculls, and, sitting opposite to her, pulled away from the shady creek. " You like Oxford, I doubt not ? " said he. " Oh, yes, the undergrads are great fun ; at times I enjoy life there quite as much as I do in garrison. I was so sorry that you were not at the Chillington Park tennis party." " Why?" " Can you ask me why?" she queried, with a glance that spoke a volume of witchery and pre- tended pique. I " Well, it was a success, I suppose ? " " It was too utterly enjoyable ! Charming from beginning to end. By the way, I met a friend of yours there." HOW IT CAME ABOUT. 177 "A friend of mine ?" " Yes — cannot you guess who ?" " I know so many," replied Lonsdale, affecting an air of indifference. " But whom do you mean ? " " Miss Talbot — she certainly is a strange girl ! " "How?" asked Lonsdale, on whose ear the laugh which accompanied Hilda's remark, though clear and silvery, jarred a little. " Went the pace you know, with that old baronet — a man who might be her father twice over. But then, he is so rich ! " " You met other friends at Chillington, I presume ?" said Lonsdale, to change the subject. Oh, several ; but I dislike — or don't care about new friends and always turn lovingly to the old ones. Do you ever think of what pleasant times we have had together in India ? " This was said softly, and with one of her most effective glances ; but without effect, as Lonsdale, while sculling vigorously, was just then looking ahead over his shoulder. So, after a pause, Hilda spoke again. " So your friend, Musgrave, is engaged to that VOL. I. N 178 love's labour won. little chit, Amy Brendon. How strange of him ! " " You know him ? " " Oh, yes. Horace is a lovely dancer; but as a husband, must be most unsuited to her. It is all very well just now for the little Brendon girl, but a time will arrive when Horace may become like other married men — cross and fidgetty, will keep her waiting for her ride or drive, vote waltzing a bore, that t a ball gives a headache, call her mil- liner's bill an outrage, and quote how economically other men's wives dress." "You are surely sarcastic, Miss Tremayne. Horace could never turn out a man of that kind." " Won't he ? Then he is different from most of the married men I know." "Don't you marry, Hilda," said Lonsdale, laughing. " I shall not be in a hurry, believe me." And Lonsdale, who knew how much that assertion was worth, nearly laughed again. " Is Horace " — she was fond of calling men by HOW IT CAME ABOUT. 179 their Christian names — " going to bid good-bye to the dear old Hussars ? " ''Certainly not. He has no intention of selling or resigning. Miss Brendon dotes on the service as much as he does, and quite looks forward to all the gaiety military society will procure for her after her rather dull girlhood at Stokencross Vicarage." " Then she will lead him a dance, I expect." •'How?" " Oh, a girl bred as she has been is sure to become intoxicated with the new life, the new scenes, and the so many unexceptionable men. You know well enough what I mean." "Not precisely," said Lonsdale, a little curtly; the style of Hilda's prattle rather bored him just then. She had now drawn off a glove, to show, perhaps, the whiteness of her hand, and a very beautiful hand it certainly was ; and a soft, coy smile spread over her handsome face as she trailed her fingers through the water. Then she adroitly caught an oak leaf that was drifting near, and, fashioning it into the shape of a tiny boat, let it float away with the current, while n2 180 love's labour won. Lonsdale paused in his rowing to draw breath for a moment. "How delightful it would be," said she, with half-drooped eyelids, while a coquettish smile spread over her face, "if one — if we — could thus commit our fate to the flow of time ! " All this had but one meaning — coquetry; but Montague Lonsdale was slow to accept her challenge now ; while Hilda believed that she was about to have that which to her mind was the greatest of all pleasures, the beginning of a flirtation. " Is there any other time like that beginning," says someone, " when the knowledge creeps in that you are singled out, that you are admired most, that one other person is happy only when near you ; that eyes are watching for your glance, that a hand is waiting to touch your hand, when every word has a sweet new meaning, every word a bewildering significance ! " But Hilda knew all this sort of thing well, and had known it in more than one of the places where the Queen's morning-drum beats. HOW IT CAME ABOUT. 181 White swans were sailing past ; the stream looked beautiful with all its sylvan adjuncts, and it charmed Lonsdale's artistic eye, for he said, laughingly : "This seems a place to make one forget the world, and everything but the present hour." " Yes," added Hilda, dreamily, " time— place — friends, trouble and all." " Suppose we were to wake from the dream to find that hundreds of years had passed by enchantment ! " " Would that matter so long as we were together ? " said Hilda, with more than coquetry. " Oh, by Jove ! she is on dangerous topics again ! " thought Lonsdale, and was about to resume his sculls and shoot round a wooded bend of the river, where a white skirt was seen amid the foliage, when a cry from Hilda alarmed him. " What is the matter ? " he asked. " Oh," she exclaimed, but in a low and breath- less voice ; "a wasp — a wasp among my hair — take it out, please — take it out ! " 182 love's labour won. " Allow me," said he, stooping over her. His fingers had to search among her rich bright hair, and the obnoxious insect was — after a little time and trouble — extracted. This was the episode so inopportunely witnessed by Melanie ; and thus it was that all the misconception came about ! CHAPTEE XV. IT CAN NEVER BE. More of sorrow and disappointment, than of anger, were in the tender heart of Melanie Talbot, with a shrinking from a contemplation of the dull, hopeless, and empty life that would be before her now if Montague Lonsdale proved, indeed, untrue. Yet, through the evening and long hours of the night that followed the episode on the river, no tears came to her relief, even amid the crushing fears that the Circean wiles of Hilda Tremayne might have parted them for ever ; for, of Hilda, she had always had a half- contemptuous dread, with much of entire doubt. If it were so, death could not more effectually separate her and Montague. And her future now — what would it — what could it be? Cold 184 love's labour won. drops stood on the girl's white forehead at the thought. Yet a wild longing possessed her to see him once again ; to tell him, even upbraidingly, what she had seen and overheard ; perhaps to throw her arms about him, and to kiss him once again ; but, then came the horror — the bitter conviction — that unless the episode could bear explanation, he would value or require her love no longer, and that another would stand between them then. The dawn came in slowly, finely, and the warm July morning crept on apace. The sunshine lay over everything ; on the garden without, on the equipage of the breakfast-table within, even on the grim, set face of her uncle as he pored over his correspondence ; and, by one quick glance at the place where her cup and plate stood, Melanie perceived that there was no letter lying there for her — neither by post nor messenger had one come from Montague Lonsdale — and again her heart died within her breast. No letter — and she could reckon now the hours within which he would have to depart and report "it can never be.' 185 himself at the Brigade Office of the district to which his regiment belonged, ere he started for Bengal. Uncle Grimshaw, meanwhile, was gloomily and irritably opening several ominous-looking blue envelopes, addressed in the typical scrawling hand of trade, muttering as he did so, with furtive and resentful glances at Melanie, whose hands trembled among the cups and saucers : " Bills— bills— of course." "What — uncle?" she asked, wearily, and scarcely taking in his remark. "Bills! Surely I spoke plainly enough!" he snapped. " The expense even of this small house is fast getting beyond me." Melanie only sighed, as she turned to supply the wants of her invalid brother, and felt and knew all that the words and manner of her guardian implied, and what was passing in his mind, and almost injuring the relish with which he despatched his kidneys and mush- rooms. But fresh annoyances from other quarters came, 186 love's labour won. and the successive visits of Sir Brisco Braybrooke and her Aunt Chillington utterly precluded her from attempting to seek the usual meeting-place, and so the eventful day, to her, passed wearily and anxiously on. When Sir Brisco came with an unwished-for tribute of rare flowers, Uncle Grimshaw discreetly withdrew, on some feigned pretence, and Melanie asked herself, as she had often done before : " When will he understand that, after having rejected him, we cannot and ought not to meet again ? " But this troublesome and unsnubable old suitor seemed to deem her a soft-headed girl, who, with all her beauty, had neither mind nor will of her own, and would, in the end, bend to circumstances. However, Sir Brisco had now made up his mind to get married. He had already "broken the ice" by asking Melanie to share his title and wealth, and at his years did not care, perhaps, to risk the trouble of cultivating another young lady. Betaining the girl's hand in his — the very hand IT CAN NEVER BE. 187 that bore Montague's engagement ring, and bending over her in a courteous and somewhat fatherly way, he said : "I do love you with a wild, crazy passion that gives me no rest — no peace," said Sir Brisco, in a low voice, talking from some book rather than his calm old heart ; " and I would give my life to have you — to win you — rather than see you another's." This sounded very like ''high falutin'," but the last word alarmed Melanie, and her eyes fell on her ring, yet she ventured to ask : "But if one could be happier with that other, do you call your persistence love ? " "What is it, then?" " Selfishness." " Come ! " he exclaimed, dropping her hand for a moment ; " but is there another ? " " I have not said so," replied Melanie, as she bit her nether lip in annoyance at her unwilling question. She had not yet had — and actually might never have — any explanation from, or reconciliation with, 188 love's labouk won. Montague Lonsdale ; and with this alarming dread before her and the baronet's words in her ears, the whole room seemed to dance round them, while with aching eyes she saw, as through a mist, the faded curtains, the patched carpet, the shabby cretonne-covered chairs, and the general air of genteel poverty that lay painfully over everything, and which even all her art and taste failed to hide. Natheless the bad progress of his suit as yet, grey-haired Sir Brisco hoped that a time would come when Melanie would be his ; but meanwhile every effort towards more than the merest friend- ship was baffled by her, and he seemed to be perpetually undergoing the mortification of lost opportunities. On her part, she would have taken a higher and more resolute stand, and resented his persistence, but for the force of those fatal circumstances which cast her and her two brothers so completely into the power of her uncle and guardian ; thus, as yet, she could do no more than miserably temporise. " Melanie," said Sir Brisco, who knew the " IT CAN NEVER BE." 189 situation well, as he rose to withdraw, " I have plenty for us both, and for your brothers too. Let my home be theirs as well as yours. I have thought it all over many times ; all my hope of happiness is in your hands. Say only the word — one little word, yes." But she shook her head despondently, and replied : " I thank you — but it can never be ! " And she had been compelled to listen to all this and much more of the same kind, while her eye wandered to the clock on the mantel- board, and while Lonsdale was perhaps awaiting her at their trysting-place, if he was not — oh, no — surely not ! — with that other girl, who enjoyed the odious reputation of ''leading men on," or it should be " off," rather. Barely had Sir Brisco gone, and Melanie began to meditate a flight to the bank of the river, when there alighted from her carriage, at the pretty but humble entrance of Piose Cottage, Mrs. Chillington, erect and stately, bearing her sixty years as if they were but 190 love's labour won. forty, smooth- skinned and bright-complexioned, though her soft hair was white as new-falleil snow, and having about her all " that Christian charity which enables one to bear the sorrows of others so well." To Mrs. Chillington's critical eye, very common- place her somewhat coarse brother-in-law, Gideon Grimshaw, looked, with his grizzled mutton-chop whiskers, stick-up collar, stiff side-tufts of hair, and his coat of the fashion of twenty years ago (but he was always twenty years behind the time) ; while, on the other hand, he thought her a very selfish and vain old woman of the world, which she really was. She almost ignored both Eeginald and Dick ; indeed she cordially detested the latter ever since he had suggested she should "Bant"; and he, fully reciprocating the sentiment, secretly en- couraged his ally, Bingo, to make free in more ways than one with her trailing skirts of the richest moire antique, though he was wont to aver that her bearing to him always "made him feel about two inches high only." " IT CAN NEVER BE." 191 Aunt Chillington had evidently met the baronet, for she had barely seated herself when she said to Melanie : " So Sir Brisco has asked you again, child ? " " Yes, aunt." " Are you not glad — proud of his constancy, courtesy, and persistence ? " " No ; it neither flatters nor gladdens me, under all the circumstances." "Why?" asked Mrs. Chillington, with a flash of her keen, dark eyes. " Because I cannot marry him." "Your uncle is very poor; he has nothing to leave you. Have you ever thought of that, dear ? " she asked, with asperity. Melanie only sighed wearily, and said, " Could you realise how all this worries me, you would have some idea of how I must detest his name, poor man ! " " Think of being Lady Braybrooke of Bavens- bourne Hall — of the jewels — the dresses." " Douglas Jerrold says that Eve ate the apple in order that she might dress," said Beginald, with a 192 love's laboue won. quiet smile, and was on]y honoured by his aunt with a brief stare. "Dress! — by Jove! She didn't do so extrava- gantly," said Dick, with a grin. " Hear me, Melanie Talbot," resumed Mrs. Chillington; " I am not to be fooled, nor is your good and kind Uncle Grimshaw. I thought a season in town, and at Chillington Park, with me, would have opened your eyes to the ways of the world, and made another girl of you, but I am disappointed — grievously disappointed." " I am so sorry, dear aunt." " Sorry ! — stuff ! When does your old admirer — the military interloper— take his departure ? " " Very — very soon, now," replied poor, hunted Melanie, with a break in her voice, too crushed to feel anger. " So much the better for everyone. What a fool Sir Brisco is to have him at the. Hall, so near this ; but, of course, good, easy man, he knows nothing of your wicked folly — for wicked I deem it ; and he acts in ignorance and in kind- ness to his nephew's friend. But, Melanie, you "it can nevbb be." 193 certainly do look much better than when you left London." "Of course, aunt, one does become rather done- up after a hot season there, and the country agrees so well with me." Aunt Chillington smiled sourly, and tapped the carpet with her little feet, of which she was very vain, but did not know that for Melanie to see Montague Lonsdale daily was better than all the country air in the world. "When left to your own reflections, and unin- fluenced," said Mrs. Chillington, as some suspicion of this perhaps did flash upon her at last, "you will see what is for your own good. Think of the endless gaieties of London to which you would have access ; apart from the opera and theatre, the state balls at Buckingham Palace, the new club dances, the Hurlingham teas, the cavalry polo matches, botanic fetes, garden parties, and so forth, to all of which a man of Sir Brisco's years might not care to accompany you, and that, to a young married woman, is a great consideration now-a-days. Think, also, that should he pre- vol. i. o 194 loye' s labour won. decease you, which, of course, is only in the order of Nature, of the settlements and of that too lovely Dower House overlooking the river. But all this I have urged before, till weary." "Aunt, it can never be." How little Melanie could foresee the future ! Mrs. Chillington remained silent for half a minute ; then she said with asperity — perhaps disgust : " How fond you seem of being a beggar and looking to a half -ruined uncle to provide for you." The prosperous widow's scornful words drew tears to the eyes of Melanie, who answered gently : " I have been used to poverty, to limited means, aunt." " Used to it ! Wait till the worst presses on you and your two useless brothers, and the struggle for food comes vulgarly before you," continued this pitiless woman. "Send me from here; let me go away, let me live my own life, let me have some right to choose it. Why," asked Melanie, turning like the trodden worm at last, " why should I be dependent on the " IT CAN NEVER BE." 195 stern will of others ? I am a woman with the right to work, and with a will of my own." Mrs. Chillington held up her little white hands in dismay. " She talks quite like those dreadful people, the Socialists and Liberals who use dynamite, at the Eeformers' tree in Hyde Park ! " she exclaimed, a little obtusely. ' ' Yes — she had better rant about all this on a barrel at the street corner — harangue upon the wrongs of her sex. I wash my hands of you all ! " thundered Uncle Grimshaw, as he quitted the room, choking with fury, and forgetting the resolu- tion to await in patience the result of Lonsdale's absence. " Pang for my carriage, please," said Aunt Chillington, rising coldly and frigidly, a request to which Dick Talbot acceded with the greatest alacrity, followed by Bingo. Now Dick — curly-haired and blue-eyed Dick — who always resented seeing his sister moved to tears, set off with the faithful Bingo to inspect the adjacent hedgerows, and the result of his o2 196 love's labour won. inspection was, that for the second time Uncle Grimshaw, after extinguishing his candle that night and tucking himself cosily in bed, found between the sheets thereof, mysteriously, and greatly to his tribulation, rolled up like a spiny and bristly ball, a very fair specimen of the Echinus Terrestris, otherwise known as hedgehog. CHAPTEE XVI. RECONCILED. In justice to Montague Lonsdale, we must state that his temporary irritation gave place to anxiety, and next forenoon he hastened by the private path through the woods, to call at the cottage ; but, on finding from Dick who were visiting there in succession, he retired, to avoid any unpleasant complications. The knowledge gained did not add to his good humour. The baronet at the cottage already, he thought — already, after his revelations and suggestions the other night — and his own avowed enemy, Mrs. Chillington, too. It looked like a preconcerted affair, and Lonsdale's heart, for a time, grew hard again. For the first time in his life, perhaps, his 198 love's labour won. favourite briar-root failed to soothe or comfort his dejected spirits, and with a gesture of worry he knocked out its contents on the stem of a tree, and turned from his loved " Birds' eye " ; for there are times when even good tobacco will fail to soothe the smoker's tribulation, and with Montague Lonsdale this was one of them. But under all the circumstances, he deemed it better to see Melanie than write to her, and hence it was that, to her growing mistrust and grief, no letter came, and with much of humiliation in her heart, on the second day she sought their usual meeting- place. Then, with fresh annoyance that she had come first, and with a violent inclination to steal away, hide herself and watch his approach, she sat, angrily slipping her engagement ring up and down, but never off, her slender finger, whilst over her soft, sweet face there was an expression never seen there before ; hot, crushed tears suffused her eyes, and a little diamond brooch that Lonsdale had given her in London sparkled in her bosom with every long-drawn sigh. RECONCILED. 199 " Love," thought the girl, bitterly ; "I have read of one who boasted of doing very well with- out it for nineteen years, and I certainly do not see why I, like that person, should not do without it for ninety, if it comes to that ; for it seems to me a gigantic heartache for nothing — a great deal of trouble, and very small profit." She heard steps, and in another moment Lons- dale was by her side, looking provokingly hand- some; his deep hazel eyes full of soft light, and clad in a tweed suit of the lightest grey, that well became his dark complexion. He put an arm round her, but she turned half aside, and averted her quivering face, while her full white eyelids drooped and lowered, till the shade of their long dark fringes rested on her cheek ; but her broad hat concealed much of all this, and all Lonsdale's heart went out to her. " Melanie ? " said he, questioningly ; but she averted her face yet more, and remained obstinately silent, while seeming to writhe under his touch. " Melanie," said he again, "I go to-morrow — are we to part in anger? Have you not one 200 love's labour won. word for rne to remember, till we meet again on earth, or in heaven ? What does this mean ? " " Silence, sir, I know all," she replied. " All what, my dearest girl ? " "Don't call me so," said she, with pretty asperity, beating the turf with a shapely little foot. "Why?" "Because I won't be called girl," she continued, with petulant lips and still averted face ; " and now I know too much." "Of what?" "Your meeting with Hilda Tremayne when you should have met me. Did I not see you caressing her hair, and hear her say how you might float on the river there for hundreds of years in happi- ness, provided you two were together ? Oh, it was dreadful to hear her say that," added Melanie, with a break in her voice. i " Will you listen to me ? " said Lonsdale, in dire perplexity now, yet with a curious smile on his face. "No, I will not. What can you tell me more RECONCILED. 201 than I heard — of what more than I saw ? No, I will not listen." "Yet you come here, my darling — " " To say all is over between us. I could have forgiven anything but this — anything," she said, weeping in abject misery now, and turning her engagement ring round and round on her finger nervously. " Dearest Melanie," began Lonsdale, who now understood the scope of the scrape into which he had fallen. " Nothing in this world is worth caring for or grieving about," said she, with a heavy sob, belying her own assertion. "Why?" " Because nothing lasts long." "It may last our time, and that, by Jove, is quite enough for us." "Nothing can sever two hearts, however loving, like mistrust." "What am I to say to you, Melanie?" asked Lonsdale, conning over mentally the terms of his necessary explanation. 202 love's labour won. " Nothing but good-bye, I think." "Is that all?" said he reproachfully, while bending over her. " It contains the sorrow of a lifetime to me," replied the broken voice. " My darling do not say so ; your tears wring my heart. You will think more gently of the mistake into which 1 1 was befooled — for a mistake it was — to-morrow, when — when I am gone." " There is no to-morrow for you and me ; and this is a just punishment on me for idolising you so much, Montague." In spite of all this he drew her to him, caressingly, and, after a little time, succeeded in explaining the whole affair — his own annoyance and suspicions, the doubly-missed meeting, how he fell in with Miss Tremayne ; and he eventually succeeded in pacifying Melanie — but, for a time, she ' was very resentful. She would not permit him to adjust her bouquet of wild flowers, gathered as she came along, take a thorn out of her finger, or relieve her beautiful back hair of some bramble RECONCILED. . 203 leaves that had got among it. At last she looked up at him, and, smiling coyly through her tears, said : " And so it was all a horrid mistake, and you really care only for me, and love me ? " "As I never did before, or ever can love any girl again ! " He pressed her closer to him, and kissed her brow, her hair, her eyes, and cheeks, again and again. At that moment there was a sound close by, a sound as of dry twigs cracking, and then the odour of a cigar was wafted through the dense and leafy screen of shrubbery and underwood that grew round the stems of the trees that overhung their meeting-place beside the river. " Who the deuce ? " muttered Lonsdale, angrily ; but the sound ceased, and both thought it must be fancy. But fancy it was not ; someone had been there — an eavesdropper — for, soon after, Lonsdale's quick eye detected a half-smoked cigar, as if tossed away in haste, still smoulder- ing among the long grass, and he thought 204 love's labour won. that he recognised the aroma and the brand thereof. The circumstance, however, was soon dismissed from their minds, full as the latter were of a subject nearer and dearer. ig- "And you go so soon now," said Melanie, nestling her face in his neck. "Ah! my own Melanie," he replied; "it is at a time like this that I almost repent of being a soldier, and wish that I had been trained to some quiet, and even humdrum, business." " Like Uncle Grimshaw ? " "Yes, even like Uncle Grimshaw — anything, if honest, that would keep me at home and not separate me from you; and yet I dearly love my regiment and its past history. I love my brother officers and comrades ; and dearly every way do I love my profession, with all its high and glorious concomitants ; yet it parts me fromi you, my darling." | He looked just then so sad, yet earnest, so handsome, proud, and soldierly, that the girl's heart glowed alike with love and admiration. He RECONCILED. 205 loved, she knew, to grapple with difficulties, to face perils, to play with death, as it were — his Indian service had fully proved that ; and thus, to her, he was worth ten thousand of the useless fops, the lisping fools, "the white-handed glittering youth" she had met in that artificial and vapid circle called " society." When Lonsdale, after a time, spoke a little resentfully of the baronet's too evident admiration of her, poor Melanie blushed painfully in her consciousness that more than admiration was in the mind of the former ; but she hesitated to tell her lover of how matters really stood, and of the offers that had been made her; loth to send him away to the distant land he had to serve in with the least cause for alarm or anxiety in his heart. Yet the secret was very nearly elicited from her — she was so candid and open — when he said : "During the whole of that visit — the little dinner affair — you were quite monopolised by Braybrooke. Musgrave's uncle," he added, a little viciously, " and how could I, in my pique, 206 love's labour won. think aught else than that you were willing it should be so." " Oh, Monti, this is ungenerous, unkind," said Melanie, her eyes suffusing again. "If it should be so," said Lonsdale, seeming, to follow his own thoughts, while his gaze was bent on the grass. "What?" " That I may actually stand between you and all the wealth — the position, too, that old Sir Brisco can give you," he continued, still hovering on dangerous ground. " Do not say such things, Montague," urged Melanie, piteously, and trembling at her own reticence. " I must—" "Would you resign me?" she asked, with soft reproach. " No — no, a thousand times no; But when I consider the whole situation, my going so far away for probably a year, and leaving you in the care of a man so cold and repellant as your uncle, and a woman so ambitious as your RECONCILED. 207 aunt — so scheming too, ray heart sinks within me." So did that of Melanie, whose thoughts and fears, in some measure, echoed his own. " Sir Brisco is disposed to he kind to us," said Melanie, a little evasively. " Sooth to say, I am tired of the game we have ad to play here under his eyes, Melanie — hut my part is nearly over now." " Yes ; I always feel that when he is present you must not seem so fond of me as you are." " For dread of him ? " asked Lonsdale. " No— of Uncle Grimshaw." "Fond of you, darling— how can I help it whoever may he present ? " exclaimed Montague, giving his moustache an angry twist upward. " I hope you remembered all that when you had your hands among Hilda's shining hair ? " said Melanie, with a pretty little moue. " Don't refer to that again ; could I leave the wasp there to sting her ? " " The action stung my heart, I know." " Surely," said he, as he toyed caressingly 208 love's labour won. with the rings of her curling fringe, " you should know the difference between a flirtation pour passer le temps, even if we had engaged in it — which we did not — and real love-making ? " "Which Hilda would prefer, I doubt not." " Neither do . I," said Lonsdale, laughing. " I don't know how many men she has had the reputation of being engaged to — Verinder, of the King's Dragoon Guards ; Massey, of the Bengal Lancers ; Tom Tytler, of the Kifles — she certainly wears two engagement rings, anyhow, and is as well-known in the service as the clock at the Horse Guards. Besides, the last rumour is that she is engaged, or as good as such, to a fellow called Musgrave." " Any relation of Amy's friend, the Hussar ? " " I think not ; but perhaps he may be." More was to be heard, and unpleasantly so, of this rumour anon. " My time is so short now that we must not quarrel again, my own pet, Melanie," said Lonsdale, after a silent pause that had its own eloquence. RECONCILED. 209 The girl could not answer; a great lump rose in her slender throat. Their next meeting was to be a final, a last one ;. and the hearts of both felt exceedingly heavy. VOL. I. CHAPTEE XVII. GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART. Uncle Grimshaw was just then disposed to be severe upon H.M. Service. " What that empty-headed Hussar fellow can see in your friend Amy Brendon, to look upon her in the light of a wife, surpasses my com- prehension," said he to Melanie. " She is very charming and pretty, uncle," urged the latter. , " Pretty, perhaps ; penniless, certainly." " But he has enough, and to spare ; and also has expectations." " I never knew a fellow without them," snorted Mr. Grimshaw, thinking no doubt of Lonsdale. "If he wanted a plaything he could buy a doll: or a picture, if he merely wanted a pretty face " GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART." 211 to look at. And what can she see in him ? " added the old bachelor with a growl. " The one idea of her heart, no doubt ; and people marry, uncle, to please themselves — not to please others." "Komantic stuff!" he responded, with an angry glance that conveyed more than his words. So Amy had now a splendid half-hoop of diamonds on the tiniest third finger such a grown girl could show, and she was always re- garding it, smilingly and lovingly. "How soon may I put the plain one on?" whispered Musgrave, as he bent over her. " Oh, Horace, I hope your people will like me." " Can you doubt it? Trie mater is the kindest woman in the world ; and as for the governor, he is a dear old fellow, and you are quite a girl after his own heart." So everything seemed couleur de rose, just then, at Stokencross Vicarage. " Before you met Captain Lonsdale," said Amy, as she showed her ring to her friend, " did you p2 212 love's labour won. ever draw in your mind a fanciful picture of what you would wish your lover — your husband — to be ? " ''Yes — often; most girls do, I suppose ; and with you, no doubt, Horace Musgrave — " " Oh, far surpasses all that fancy painted of my ideal," interrupted Amy, in her happiness and enthusiasm, with a bright and loving smile in her pure baby-like eyes. " How handsome he must look on horseback in all his Hussar bravery," was her next girlish thought. But Horace was on the wing now. His leave was up as inexorably as that of Lonsdale, and he had to rejoin his regiment in Dublin, and after paying his adieus at the Vicarage he had a last * parting with Amy at the rose-embowered and sequestered garden-gate, in the most orthodox manner, while the half-hours chimed enviously from the old church tower, till the hells sang sweetly for evensong, as if warning them to make haste, as time fled. "Oh, Horace, how can you ? You know you should not kiss me here, where people may see " GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART." 213 you," exclaimed Amy, half ashamed of his caress, and yet entirely happy withal ; " do let me go." " Not yet, if I know it. Why should I, little * one, when this is my last evening with you for ever so long ? " But the clock struck again in the ancient tower, and when the time came that he must inevitably go, or miss his train, though she knew that she would probably get a letter from him on the morrow, reiterating all that he was saying then and had said a hundred times before, little impulsive Amy shed a torrent of tears. "Why, Amy," expostulated Musgrave, "to see you one might suppose that I was going to Egypt again, or, like poor Lonsdale, had service before me on the Eangoon Eiver." "It is so hard to part from those we love," said she ; " but we cannot expect life to be full of roses always." "But still, you are happy, darling, even amid your tears?" said Horace, looking tenderly down into the mignonne face he held caressingly between his hands. 214 love's labour won. " Happy indeed, Horace." "And glad?" " Happy and glad, too, that we love each other and are engaged. How strange, how empty life^ must have been before I knew you." At last they parted, but Amy was fated to shed many a bitter tear and endure a long, long sorrow ere she saw the dark and handsome face of Horace Musgrave again. And in fond anticipation of a letter some time on the morrow, Amy fell asleep that night in the delusive hope that she would dream of her Hussar lover, his tender dark eyes, his soft earnest voice, and the half-gallant, half-playful, and wholly loving things he was wont to say to her ; while he strove to kill the early hours anyhow, apparently engrossed in the Graphic, the World, or Punch, &c, cigar in mouth, as he lounged in the cabin of the Dublin steamer while she ploughed Ijhe restless Irish Sea and the lights of Castletown were fading out ahead. With Amy Brendon a new existence had begun — a romance, a life of self devotion to another ; the "good-bye, sweetheaet." 215 turning point of her girlhood had been passed with the acceptance of Horace Musgrave's love, and even the consciousness of Eeginald Talbot's hopeless and \ helpless passion for her could not quench, though it certainly somewhat marred, the new-born joy. Ere he left Kavensbourne, had Musgrave been less occupied with her and his own affairs, he must have perceived that which he did not, how anxious Sir Brisco was to supply him with an aunt, in the person of Amy's friend and gossip, Melanie Talbot. Letters that duly came (for a time) announced that the Hussar had rejoined his regiment, had been at some vice-regal balls, varied by quelling Irish street " shindies," and so forth ; but Reggie never heard of him from Amy, and certainly made no enquiries, though aware that, no doubt, they corresponded daily. He now saw more of her again ; she came about Melanie almost daily, as of old, and though the charm of her sister-like intercourse with the poor invalid was broken or clouded, and never could be what it was before, it had nearly all its old perils for him. 216 love's labour won. " How cross you look," she said to him one day. " Well — one can't be very facetious when left alone, and I have often been left so of late," he replied. " By Melanie ? " " Yes — and you too, Amy." She coloured, and as if to change the subject, somewhat unwisely showed him some faded rose- leaves that had come to her in a letter, she said, but did not add from Dublin. Young Talbot suspected as much, and, crumpling them up contemptuously between his hot, thin fingers, permitted them to float away on the wind. This drew a rather petulant remark from Amy, the first she had ever made to him, and it stung him deeply ; all the more so that she did not come near the cottage for some days. At last she thought to make amends to him, for his fault was small and excusable. Thus she began softly : " I am so sorry for what I said to you, Eeggie." " When ? " he asked, with averted eyes. " GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART." 217 " About the rose leaves ; it was so childish — you remember ? " " Yes. I never forget what you say to me," he replied, with a tremor in his voice. " Oh, pray forget that, at all events." "If I can, and you are actually sorry ? " he asked, with a soft smile. "I was in a temper, you know; and you pardon me ? " " Oh, yes — yes." " Dear old Reggie ! " she exclaimed, patting his hand. His heart trembled with secret, but delusive, happiness again. " You are looking so pretty just now," he observed. " Don't natter me, Reggie." " I don't. It is a bad plan to flatter a girl, I know ; but another will be trying the same thing with you again." "And when?" " When he comes back ; so I may as well have my innings, as we say at cricket — or as I used to 218 love's labour won. say when I did play cricket," he added, as his smile faded away. " Back ! — when will Horace come back ? " thought Amy, for several days had now passed without a letter from him. But here we have anticipated another portion of our story. CHAPTEE XVIII. FOR LIFE, FOR DEATH. Though the last man in England who would be guilty of such an act intentionally, the eaves- dropper referred to had been the Baronet of Eavensbourne, and he would have blushed — blushed with pain, shame, and indignation, could he have conceived the suspicions that hovered in the mind. of Montague Lonsdale. He had been passing in the direction of the place — a very secluded one — where the lovers were so fully engaged with each other ; but ere he could withdraw, which he did softly, and in haste, with -a malediction on his lips, and great anger and annoyance in his heart, he had seen and heard enough to convince him that all was over with him just then ; that he had been 220 love's labour won. seriously befooled, as he thought, by all parties ; and in great disgust he tossed away his cigar. " This is how the fox jumps, is it ? " he muttered, when the new light to the opposition or indifference of Melanie Talbot broke upon him ; " and I actually brought that fellow, Lonsdale, down here with my nephew, into her immediate vicinity ! Well, Burmah will be further off than Eavensbourne ! " he added, bitterly. The cigar formed a species of clue to Montague Lonsdale, while the changed bearing of his host that evening at dinner, cloak it as the latter might attempt to do, enraged him, convinced him who the eavesdropper had been, and added to his anxiety for the future of Melanie. Sir Brisco's wonted suavity had gone ; he was silent and abstracted over his wine and dessert; the departure of his nephew, the gay Hussar, would scarcely account for that ; but fiis manner, in spite of himself, was cold, curt, and dry ; and the moment he left the table he betook himself to writing angry letters to Mr. Grimshaw, and his other ally, Mrs. Chillington, while, irritated "for life, for death." 221 by the vague memory of bis recent boastful state- ments (or were they revelations ? be pondered) made to Lonsdale, be felt himself small — ex- ceedingly small, and, thank heaven ! he had not been tempted to say more. But neither of the new rivals ever mentioned the affair to Melanie. The breakfast next morning proved rather a bore to both men — to the baronet especially. " So Horace has gone and left the Vicar's little daughter lamenting," he remarked, incidentally. " Foolish fellow ! I wonder what the old folks will think. Eomantic little puss ! Who would have thought of him — a Hussar — being bitten by her, though the English nineteenth century hero in his stand-up ' masher ' is rather deplorable. They carried on their love-making very quietly — openly, I think. Deuced bad form." Lonsdale coloured and remembered the half- smoked cigar. " But the girls of the present day do half the proposing," added the baronet, a little viciously, as he tugged his white moustache. " By the 222 love's labour won. way, you have to catch an early train, I be- lieve ? " " Mid-day must be the train for me," replied Lonsdale, who knew that he had to take a painful leave of Melanie. "Ah." In his present mood the geniality — even the hospitality of Sir Brisco had evaporated ; his manner was, as we have said, cold, but calm, and disapproving of "treachery," as he absurdly deemed it. " Thanks for all your kindness to me," said Lonsdale, after a time ; " ere we meet again I shall hope to have won my spurs in Burmah, and return major." "If you ever return at all, poor devil! " was the angry thought of Sir Brisco. So the end had come. Lonsdale was to go to the burning East and leave Melanie behind him. In the first few weeks that intervened between their final separation they had not, perhaps, thought much of it apparently ; the dark cloud had its silver lining, when he returned home " FOR LIFE, FOR DEATH." • 223 again, and if he could not- return she would join him in India. They could but love and trust through a vague term of pain and anxiety. What might not happen ere all that came to pass ? How tenderly and deeply the poor girl loved him ! They then saw only and felt only the charm of their present joy ; each, to the other, was the idol round which that joy centred. They were never tired of looking into each other's eyes— of listening to each other's voices ; feeling a strong pity for all who did not love, and all unthinking of when love may perhaps be "re- garded in the light of a curse rather than a benefit to humanity, whose very weakness renders it unfit to cope wisely with a passion that is so absorbing, and at times so fatal ! " Uncle Grimshaw thought them a pair of fools — would it all last ? Aunt Chillington laughed cynically and said "No," flattering herself that she knew more of that phase of life than her brother-in-law. " I know you would not mind narrow means — 224 love's labour won. almost poverty, on your own account, dearest," Montagtie Lonsdale had said, more than once ; "but I know how unjust and hard a long engage- ment is on a girl — especially a girl so lovely as you, and with all the temptations that beauty brings about her. But you will remember my words and me — " " Eemember — oh, Montague ! " " Will love me, and so, darling, as I cannot give you up, I will strive to win and deserve you ; and if my expectations are speedily realised, I shall be back all the sooner." "If I went with you to India," Melanie had said, " instead of complying with the wish of Uncle Grimshaw, he would, in revenge, send Keggie to break his heart in some hospital and drive poor Dick into the streets — so you see how painfully — how horribly, I am situated." So the morning of the day had come, on which Lonsdale had, inexorably, to depart for the head- quarters of the district command to which his regiment — Prince Albert's Light Infantry — be- longed, far away in the south-west of England, "for life, for death." 225 but considerably nearer to the land where the scene of its new operations would lie. Looking around him, on the pretty garden with its old, overshadowing trees, on the distant spires of Stokencross, and other now familiar features of the landscape, with that lingering and caress- ing gaze we give to well-loved places we are about to quit, perhaps for ever, and on which he knew the gaze of Melanie would rest often when he was gone, he paid his last visit to Kose Cottage. Fortunately, he thought, Uncle Grimshaw was "not at home," but he paid his adieus to helpless Reggie and curly-pated Dick, into whose hands he slipped a sovereign or two ; after which he hastened away to join Melanie. He had won Dick's heart even more by cleverly bandaging up Bingo's forepaw, which had been badly crushed in a treacherous rabbit-trap that lay concealed in the woods of the retired soap boiler, against whom Dick vowed an aristocratic vendetta ; and, as Lonsdale withdrew, the elder brother's regret was mingled with something of vol. i. Q 226 love's laboub won. envy as he thought of the active career that lay before the soldier, while glancing at his own Naval sword and gold-laced belt that hung upon the wall — the sword he never more would wield. It was one of the first days of August now — a day that Lonsdale and Melanie would never forget. The apples were ripening and reddening in many a bee-haunted orchard in Essex ; and also the hops — which there grew to the height of six feet at times — were turning black and clustering round the slender poles ; and the wheat was yellowing up for the harvest. "When it was gathered in barn and granary, Montague would be far away from England and her. It was with a heavy heart indeed that Melanie Talbot made her way to their accustomed place of meeting, where, during the few | days of his unexpected visit to Eavensbourne Hall, she had so often sat with Lonsdale, and talked over their present difficulties and dreamed over the future. This would be the last — alas ! — the last of " FOR LIFE, FOR DEATH." 227 these meetings. When and where would the next be ? thought the affectionate girl, as she' contemplated the empty desolation that was to come. Early though she was, Lonsdale was there before her, and in silence clasped her to his breast ; their emotion was too great for words just then ; and the eavesdropper of yesterday was utterly forgotten by him. " Melanie, love," said he, after a time, in a low, caressing voice, " I feel now, indeed, how hard it is to depart, knowing to what I leave you." And Melanie clung to him in silence, faith growing in her heart, sorrow and joy for a space most strongly mingling there. " And, oh, my darling, how shall I live without you ? " said the girl, in a voice like a whisper. " Our engagement will be concealed from all by your uncle, I know ; thus when I am gone any fool will be at liberty to address you." " Other than fools may do so, and who may cause me great trouble," replied Melanie, thinking of her chief bete no'xr — Sir Brisco. Q2 228 love's laboue won. " Your aunt and uncle may worry you cruelly, dear Melanie." " Let them do their worst," said she, with a sickly smile through her tears, drawing con- fidence from his caress, and casting up her pretty head and slender white neck ; " and their worst shall not separate us." She did not then see all their worst could be. At last they had to part. Eagerly and reve- rently he covered her face with caresses — and then came on — A long, long kiss — a kiss of youth and love And beauty, all concentrating like rays Into one focus, kindled from above, Such kisses as belong to early days. All this is but the old, old story, and we must hasten over it. He held Melanie in his arms for the last time — the last time. Never till his final hour would he forget — he thought — how they stood thus for a painfully brief space, her soft arms clinging to his neck, and her quivering girlish lips pressed to his, as wildly and as passionately as his own. "for life, for death." 229 And then they parted, and went their way without a word more. So the supposed year of separation was begun ! With Melanie, all the pent-up misery of the last few hours gave way on her return, the flood- gates of sorrow burst open ; she lost all self- control for a time, and in the excess of her grief cared nothing for what Uncle Grimshaw might think or write to Mrs. Chillington. Meanwhile, being made of sterner stuff, and amid changing scenes and faces, Lonsdale, after quitting the Hall and its master in a species of dream, as he travelled townward, cigar in mouth, in a corner of a smoking carriage, looked like an everyday man of the world, untouched by thought or care ; yet a vanished form was ever before him. Betimes he was in London. Midsummer was past, when, in such streets as Oxford Street, and others like it, the roar of vehicles, the touting of 'bus conductors, the voices of newsboys, the solicitations of ugly flower-girls, and all the savagely unintelligible and unmelodious street 230 love's labour won. cries deaden the sense of hearing, while the late sun, hidden by clouds and haze, renders the air oppressive, and makes one think of brain- strokes, more even than when it beats pitilessly down on the white pavement, the glittering shops, or the dust-powdered and dried foliage of the parks and squares. In the shadowless heat, amid which the mighty concourse of human life rolls endlessly to and fro, the result of over- done civilisation, and the greed and struggle for existence it produces — amid all this roaring vortex, could it be that but an hour or so ago he had been with Melanie amid the sweet sylvan solitude of Eavensbourne, where there were no sounds but the hum of the bee in the wild honeysuckle, the rustle of the old oak leaves, and the lop -lop of the softly flowing river amid its tall, wavy ridges ? The first further steps of his long,' long journey were before him still, and evening saw his clanking train steaming out of the confusing and astounding station at Waterloo, faster at every moment over the ugly sea of roofs that 231 characterise the modern Babylon, away from its broiling streets and polluted river, away into the green country, where the grass rippled pleasantly in the wind, and the sun shone ■unshorn of its rays, pouring its golden light on wide fields and green hedgerows, on farmyards full of hay, on dark coppices, on sheets of water, on cottages smothered in flowers and creepers, and all the charming colour that goes to make up the sleepy and placid beauty of an English landscape. On swept the train, through Farnborough, when his soldier's eye quickly detected the Aldershot tents and the slopes that overlook the Long Valley ; by Basingstoke, nestled in its fertile open country ; Salisbury, with its slender spire amid the plain ; Yeovil, and so forth. Night came down, the light darkened from amber to crimson, from crimson to gloom, and under the rays of the silvery moon the features of the fast-flying landscape looked ghostly at times, and sweetly pretty at others, when the trees cast their shadows on the white gleaming 232 love's laboub won. surface of star-lit waters ; and Montague Lonsdale thought of all he must inexorably look upon ere again he saw the vanished face of Melanie — the Indian seas to be traversed, the banks of the Kangoon Eiver, and the land of gilded pagodas and pestilential marshes; but the knowledge of her faith made his heart feel strong, if tender ; and he thought softly of the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that unless we vow — " For life, for death, oh, fear to call it loving." CHAPTEE XIX. THE P. AND O. LINER, PAGODA. A few days afterwards saw Montague Lonsdale, again weary with his own anxious thoughts, and his journey by rail from the district headquarters to Southampton, on board the great P. and 0. liner, Pagoda, of above three thousand tons burden. With a brother officer, a favourite old chum and Afghan comrade, Digby Montressor (of whom more anon), he got to the ship about midnight, posted a letter to Melanie, and after a cigar and " nightcap " in his little cabin, turned in at once ; but to court sleep was difficult, as the adjacent saloon was full of military passengers, all jolly fellows, going to the front and Burmah, and all resolved to make a "wet" night, or rather morning, of their last in old England. 234 love's labour won. Perhaps the chief topic of conversation was the coming war in the Land of Kubies, and as usual in such vessels, from the hour of deck- swabbing in the early morn till the bugles sound "lights out," when troops are on board, little is heard on all sides but the strangely sounding names of places in Hindustani, Afghani, or Pathan, and of others in the Indies, where ere long the Russians, leaving Herat, Candahar, and Cabul in their rear, will be seeking to cross swords with us. Happy, and mostly heedless young fellows, whose partings with those they might never see again were past and over, a revulsion of feeling had set in, and over their liquor they found that The chief end of hie is to live and be jolly. " Where are they going ? " asked a special correspondent. " To the front ! " i was the in- variable reply ; but how, when, or where, these young warriors neither know nor care. All they are certain of is, that they are going to get as near the enemy as possible, and that when THE P. AND O. LINER, PAGODA. 235 there they mean to fight. Meanwhile they discuss, with a refreshing disregard of exact history, politics, and even ethics, both the re- trospect and the prospect ; but turn the compass as they will, the needle always points the same way — they are going to the front. All our soldiers on board are not griffs. There are helmets which have seen service, and in certain workmanlike baggage lie weapons that have already flashed on Indian battlefields. Not a few are, perhaps, old frontier men, and some — they are the oracles amongst us — know the Khyber and Quetta more than by name only. Their regiments have seen service along the Afridi troubled borders, or garrisoned that advance-post at Shere Ali's end of the Bolan, which his Highness of Cabul would give much to hold to-day. So amid much laughter and a babel of voices, in which the talk was much of the Russian seizure of Pul-i-Khotun and Penjdeh, and now of Khojah-Saleh ; of Mongals, Shanwarris, and Towokis ; of Umbeylo, the Kolem Valley, and 236 love's labour won. of the Kangoon Biver, with Minhlo, Manclalay, Bhomos, and so forth, Montague Lonsdale. strove to court sleep, as he did not feel, just then, in the mood for such heedless and hilarious society. Bound to reach Calcutta in thirty-eight days, the great ship Pagoda was above three thousand tons burden, as stated ; but with all her splendour of fitting-up — and the boasted luxuries of such vessels — she was not without some of the dis- comforts that attend these liners; thus, almost everything being sacrificed to the saloon, which few enter but at meal-time, the tiny cabins, with sometimes four occupants in each, were little to anyone's taste. The passenger lay on a narrow shelf for a sleeping place — its roof so low that it was almost impossible to turn without knocking the head against the planks above, while the, shelf itself was so high up perhaps that a ladder was necessary to reach it. There were pegs all round hung with garments, and every chance of one's basin and tumbler being used by others, while THE P. AND O. LINER, PAGODA. 237 nearly all toilettes were performed in public, and delicate and refined ladies, to reach the bath-room, had — in deshabille — to run the gauntlet of the quizzing and critical male passengers, stewards, and ship's officers. In the haze of an early August morning, and while the rays of the sun were still lingering beyond the higher ground of the Isle of Wight, the Pagoda, under half steam, dropped down the great estuary named Southampton Water, and Lonsdale, Montressor, and a few other young officers — some of them looking seedy enough after last night's work in the saloon, and nearly all wearing the lightest of tweed suits, while some had already — in anticipation of the terrible heat of the Eed Sea — adopted white helmets with puggarees — were smoking on the poop together ; and now the exposure of edifices that form the borough, with the spires of St. Michael and of All Saints' were fading out on the port quarter, with the raised causeway or promenade and all its stately trees. And around the P. and 0. liner was the opening fairway, studded with sails, and 238 love's labour won. streaked with foam and the stir of innumerable steamers. On the starboard side, after East Cowes was past, rose the soft beauties of the Isle of Wight, where the harvest fields were ready for the sickle ; and already the first glimpse of the coming autumn could be seen by the glass amid the openings where the leaves had already fallen, and where the breezes were not a-Maying now. The woodlands were all flushed with the last touches of summer, toned clown in places by those of the coming autumn, Half- franked with spring, with summer half- embrowned. The great white cliffs, gashed by their chines, stood up, shaded with grey and blue above the sunny sea, and as the ship glided on, in quick succession she passed Eyde — who knows not Eyde ? — Nettleston Point, and over the wide height of Sandown Bay, overshadowed by high dark hills, and sweeping in a beautiful curve from Shanklin to the Culver Eocks ; then came Ventnor on its commanding height, and even the Pagoda felt THE P. AND O. LINER, PAGODA. 239 the waters of the Channel curling under her fore -foot. Lonsdale and Montressor, more reflective than most of their companions, were thinking when should they look on these most English scenes again, and the former was feeling that ages had apparently elapsed since he had parted from Melanie in their lone and lovely trysting-place, when a lady came on deck, with a soft white knitted hood tied coquettishry over her bright sunny hair ; and she advanced smilingly towards the group of officers, one faultless white hand ungloved, twirling the large sunshade that rested on her shoulder, a bright smile in her beautiful, but sleepily-lidded hazel eyes, and Lonsdale's heart gave a leap of dismay on recognising Hilda Tremayne. Hilda going out in the Pagoda too! Who can control circumstances— who among us can be stronger than fate ? "Evil will come of this!" thought Lonsdale. "If Melanie hears that this girl is in the same ship with me her old pique will be renewed ; 240 love's labouk won. what will she think and what may not jealousy prompt?" And she did hear of it, as time will show. Lonsdale had no leisure to reflect further. Hilda swooped down upon him, and took his half-proffered arm, as the ship just then gave a lurch, and then she glanced at his companion inquiringly. " Captain Montressor of Ours," said he, intro- ducing his brother officer, to whom Hilda gave her hand ; and he knew her at once — who in the service did not ? Lonsdale led her to a seat, got a hassock for her feet, and Hilda began her ceillades without delay. . " Captain Lonsdale, I heard you were going out in the Pagoda. Where have you been lately?" " I might have been at Khartoum, but I haven't," replied Lonsdale, scarcely able to conceal his chagrin ; " and you — are you going out again to the land of the Eeeper tree ? " " Oh, no ; only so far as Port Said — where I THE P. AND O. LINER, PAGODA. 241 shall take a return steamer — with papa, as I shall not see him again for fully five years. Poor papa, his command is far up country." Lonsdale was rather relieved on discovering that this irrepressible young lady was not going so far as the mouth of the Hooghly, and thought he would ignore the episode of her presence in his letters — if it would be safe to do so. "From Port Said I go back to England," said Miss Tremayne, looking dreamily over the rolling waters of the Channel. "Would that I were going back with you," said Lonsdale, thinking of Melanie. " The wish comes too late," replied Miss Tremayne, with a flash through her half-closed eyelids, affecting perhaps to misunderstand him. "Why?" " I am going back to be married." " At last ! " said Lonsdale, ignoring the inference ; " but pardon me — what the deuce have I said?" " One of those things people had better leave unsaid," replied the other, with a merry laugh ; " but I forgive you." VOL. I. R 242 love's labour won. " And I congratulate you. Who is the too happy man, Hilda." " One who would resent your addressing me by my Christian name." " Even as an old friend ? " "Yes; so all you shall learn is that he is now in Dublin." In her extreme vanity, Hilda Tremayne was scarcely aware that men too often addressed her in a flippant kind of way, which she deemed rather complimentary than otherwise. " When back in London," said she, after a smiling pause, " I shall, of course, have no end of shopping to do." " How I should like to be there and accompany you ! " " Why? " she asked, with drooping eyelashes. "Because I am anxious to know how expensive a luxury a wife is." " You must look on the land of the white elephant ere you can think of that now," she replied, with something of pique. " True," said Lonsdale, as his transient smile THE P. AND O. LINER, PAGODA. 243 died away. "Object to my cigar?" he asked after a pause. " Oh, not at all ; I rather like it. Oh, Captain Lonsdale, I shall never forget our too delightful row on the river that day above Stokencross." Lonsdale did not respond ; he could not agree with her, as it led to the only cloud that ever came between himself and Melanie ; and he said : " Permit me to introduce to you young Danvers, of the 8th." " That big boy, without a moustache ? " " He'll talk to you about India." " India — why, he can't know the difference between a howdah and Hyderabad," said Hilda, with a moue. "No, please; I would rather talk to you, old friend ; and now take me to the saloon, the breakfast bell has rung." So Lonsdale began to, find, that despite all the attractive young fellows who were on board, Miss Tremayne was determined to adopt him as her special cavalier ; and the circumstance that she suspected him of being engaged to another lent piquancy to this proceeding on her part, especially r2 244 LOVE S LABOUR WON. as he was a handsome fellow, a V.C. man, and there were many ladies of various ages on board. He was ungallant enough to hope that when the Pagoda was fairly out into mid- channel the mat de mer might relieve him of this duty ; but Hilda had been too often at sea, had yachted too much at Cowes and elsewhere to suffer from that ; and for a time — so far as her own sex was concerned — she had the poop and saloon nearly to herself, and thus the attendance which he could not avoid became more requisite than ever, amidst the enforced idleness of boardship — the idleness that, at times, promotes the keeping of diaries by those who never kept them before, and in which they had nothing now to insert ; and idleness, the vapidity of which may be guessed at through the reflection of the daily and hourly talk. And when Lonsdale, after Malta was far astern, ended a long, long letter to Melanie, inspired with eloquence by his love of her, and all the tender phraseology that passion could prompt, to be finally dated and posted at the entrance to the canal, he felt there was a kind of treason in his THE P. AND O. LINER, PAGODA. 245 nervous reticence in not trusting her with the fact that the coquettish Hilda Tremayne was, at that moment, seated opposite to him, writing, he supposed, to her intended, poor devil ! While the coquettish and flirting Hilda could very little have conceived that Lonsdale was then inspired only by an intense longing to reach the shores of Egypt, when he hoped to see the last of her, she availed herself of his services as cavalier on every available occasion ; but with all her undoubted attractions and brilliance, he felt himself far from gratified thereby, and re- marked that though she was a sort of queen among the young subs and griffs who were going out, Digby Montressor treated her with extreme coldness ; and to Lonsdale's eye he appeared a changed and soured man from the once bright and happy fellow he had been. A secret seemed to be weighing upon his mind, and to that his friend hoped to find the key in time. With all her coquettish appropriation of Lons- dale, Hilda Tremayne was not so untrue to her usual instincts as to omit attracting every other 246 love's labour won. man in the saloon, if possible, whether old or young, married or otherwise. Thus a group was generally about her — a group of whom she seemed the sun and centre. And her letter to hex Jiance was no sooner closed, than she betook herself to a game in which she was fond of indulging just then — palmistry — the last fad society had taken up ; and with the young subs, and their seniors too, she was ever and anon examining their digits, and professing to be great in the Lines of Life, the Hepetica or Plain of Mars, the Mounts of Venus, the fingers under special planetary influence, and in all the jargon of this new study — if a study it is — amid much banter and more incredulity. The gentlemen, however, had not the slightest objection to submit their hands to the manipu- lations of so fair-fingered an amateur sibyl ; it was rather a pleasant sensation to most of them, if not to all, though some there were who resented the harmless nonsense she uttered so glibly and so archly. Thus a morose old staff surgeon was actually provoked, when in the hearing of his plain-looking THE P. AND O. LINER, PAGODA. 247 and rather jealous better half, whom he was known to have married for her money, Hilda, with a waggish expression in her languishing hazel eyes, informed him that by his Mounts of Venus he had betrayed more than one trusting heart — the last through avarice. She informed Danvers of the 8th, from other mystic signs, that he would "marry an inex- perienced girl." "Inexperienced in what?" he asked, caressing an incipient fair moustache. " The ways of the world ; hence she will never be so attractive to such as you as a woman thereof." " But in matters of love, Miss Tremayne," began Danvers — " Marriage is too important to be confused with such," replied Hilda ; " and now, Captain Montressor — oh ! — your hand does tell a strange story." " Lonsdale remarked that his friend winced, even amid the banter around him. " What does it tell ? " asked Montressor, coldly. 248 love's labour won. " That a woman has dominated your career for a time — " "A safe assertion to most men of a certain age, Miss Tremayne." " But— another— " "Pardon me," said Montressor, as he withdrew his hand in a manner that excited a laugh against him, as if he thereby admitted there was some- thing in what she said. " You have certainly probed some secret, Miss Tremayne," said Danvers. " To pooh-pooh this admits a home truth," said Hilda, " and that the hand may express much, Mr. Danvers." " A great deal by pressure — by a genuine squeeze," replied the subaltern, flippantly. " By a glance I can tell you more." "How?" " That your moral line is not a straight one." "Please how am I to straighten it?" he asked, simply, amid the laughter of the group. "Why don't you take all this as a jest for as much as it is worth ? " asked Lonsdale of his THE P. AND 0. LINER, PAGODA. 249 friend, Montressor, whose face, he thought, was still absurdly cloudy. " Many a gipsy has told me more in the Long Valley, with my fortune to boot." " There is no such theory as fortune," said Mon- tressor; " I agree with Cervantes, 'that nothing happens here below of good or evil by chance, but by the particular providence of heaven ' ; and this makes good the proverb, ' that every man may thank himself for his own fortune.' For my part, I have been the maker of mine." Then Lonsdale, who saw that his friend was in one of his wayward moods, did not pursue the subject. CHAPTEE XX. IN THE SUEZ CANAL. In due time the Pagoda reached Port Said, now a flourishing town, but where, when in the April of 1859 M. de Lesseps landed with his band of navigators to inaugurate his great maritime canal, there was nothing but a desolate bank of sand between the Mediterranean Sea and the swampy shallows of Lake Menzaleh ; and then the illustrious engineer selected the site of a city and port, intended ultimately to rival those of Alexandria. It is renowned for its Cafes-chantants and its swindling roulette tables, and has all the aspects of a French, rather than an Egyptian, town, with its regularly laid-out streets and squares, quays, hotels, and other adjuncts that are European ; and though it lacked wholly the picturesqueness of the towns and cities of the Delta and Nile Valley to IN THE SUEZ CANAL. 251 the eye of Lonsdale, he could not but remember that to starboard of the steamer lay the land of the Caliphs and the Arabian Nights, where once were magic palaces, whose least decorations were alabaster sofas overlaid with golden embroideries, and floors of which the mosaics were diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones. And there, at Port Said, as he stood on the poop, looking at the bustle and the wondrous scene around him, all quivering and vibrating under a scorching Egyptian sun, Lonsdale and his com- panions could see, before a native cafe, three Ghawazi girls, clad in scarlet spangled jackets, with loose thin trowsers of purple and gold, their head-dresses of coins, their girdles of jingling beads and amulets, languidly performing the Balance Dance — every step and gesture of which was no doubt as old as the days of the Pharaohs, and traditionally handed down — their slender, girlish forms palpitating, from their glossy tresses to their pretty bare feet, always in dreamy and passionate attitudes ; yet performed in this prosaic age for a couple of francs and a bottle of Allsopp's pale ale. 252 LOVE S LABOUR WON. But now Lonsdale, on going below for his binoculars, found himself suddenly face to face with a fair performer of another kind. A flirt to the last moment, when the time came for Hilda Tremayne going ashore in her father's temporary care, on encountering Lonsdale in the after part of the empty saloon, as all else were on deck, she approached him with something like tears in her coquettish eyes, and certainly a break in her musical voice, as she said — " Good bye, Captain Lonsdale — good bye, Montague." He took her proferred hand, but saw in a moment that with a tender and sentimental gaze in her eyes, she sought to lead him on — to lure him — to a somewhat formal adieu ; and for the moment a comical desire to take a little fun out of the artful girl possessed him — but without a thought of treason to Melanie Talbot. | He put his head on one side sentimentally — sighed a little, and kissed her hand ; and then with a swift glance round to see that no other eyes were upon her, she reclined her cheek upon his shoulder, IN THE SUEZ CANAL. 253 gave him a tender upward glance, and drooped her full white eyelids. Most young fellows in Lonsdale's place would have kissed the sorrowful and departing Hilda ; but he thought of Melanie, and omitted to do so even in a spirit of fun. The situation, if it had its charm was not accepted, though when a fair one so reclines her head in expectancy, there is a charm in its remaining thus until a salute is given or an interruption takes place ; and whatever Hilda thought of Lonsdale's proceedings, or rather non-proceedings, he held her there in some perplexity, till there was a rattle at the saloon door, in the break of the poop, and a hoarse voice, sounding above the medley of noises on deck, cried — " Now then— any one here for shore ! " And then with a pressure of the hand — a pressure only — they parted. But Lonsdale and Melanie had not quite heard the last of Hilda Tremayne. Thirty miles tether eastward saw the great liner passing El Kantara and entering the Bitter Lakes, 254 love's labour won. and ere long her course was overlooked by the land of the Koc, the fabulous monster bird of oriental tales, and where, in the distance, could be seen the caravans of camels laden with the riches of Araby the Blest ! for Suez had been left astern — Suez amid its desert, with all its huts and houses of sun-dried bricks, its mosques and Greek Church — and now .the Pagoda was ploughing the waves of the Eed Sea, and Lonsdale had dispatched for Europe the last letters he could send till he reached the shores of India. How long would it be now ere he could hear in reply from Melanie ? As the Pagoda steamed on amid the waters of that remarkable sea, which is said to take its name from the petroleum of a minute bright red plant? according to Ehrenberg, who tells us that he saw from Tor, near mount Sinai, the whole bay of which that village is the port, scarlet as blood, the open sea keeping its ordinary colour, while the wavelets carried in shore at noon a purple matter and left it on the sand, so that the whole bay was fringed by red, which, on examination, proved to consist of IN THE SUEZ CANAL. 255 myriads of tiny fibres — the red trichodesmian — though the water in which they floated was pure — so, as the ship sped on her way, the porpoises tumbling ahead, and occasionally the locusts blown on board — Lonsdale and Montressor often trod the deck together, especially by night, sometimes in silence and sometimes communing together, for the place was suggestive of reflection to every thoughtful mind. Wondrous, ever and anon, was the lurid, yet ghastly, effect of the electric light as it was shot from the ship's lofty foretop for three miles ahead searching the Egyptian Sea as a warning to craft that might be steaming westward ; while on the port side towered Mount Sinai, where man was brought face to face with his Maker, where a voice came on the wings of the wind, and the inscribed tablets of stone were seen in that time of wonder and awe. Bare and majestically towers Sinai above its comrades of the mountain range, and when the rays of the morning sun tip its summit with red light, the sandy gorges beneath remain in purple 256 love's laboub won. shadow, silent, calm, and still, untrodden even by the wild goat ; and then — but it may be fancy — a strange radiance seems to bathe the bare scalp that has been revered for ages by Christian and Jew — the peak of the mountain of God. Sinai, once estimated as fifteen days' camel journey from Suez, is brought much nearer now, in these our prosaic days of steam. That Digby Montressor was a changed man from what Lonsdale had known him to be — changed in mind, manner, and bearing, even in the expression of his face — was very apparent, and a source of mystery to him ; for Digby had once been the active spirit of the mess-table, the prime mover and leader in all regimental sports — cricket and polo matches, balls and pic-nics, and so forth — a general favourite, who had friends without number, whose table was always littered with cards of invitation, and who could command any amount of shooting, fishing, and hunting at the houses of his friends. He was regular featured, with keen dark eyes, a heavy brown moustache already tinged with grey, IN THE SUEZ CANAL. 257 and a well-formed head that was already becoming bald ; yet Digby Montressor was not yet more than thirty, and the general character of his face was now alternately grave and set, or hunted and irritated. " What has come to you, Digby, old fellow — excuse my asking you ? " said Lonsdale to him more than once ; " but somehow you seem sorely changed since you and I parted a year ago at Southampton on our return on leave together from India." " I am changed — soured— crushed, I admit, and I may well be so." " And the cause ? " " A woman ! " " The old, old story." " But mine is somewhat new. I was all right enough, perhaps, till I met my actual fate — as the novels have it — in the form of a very beautiful and attractive girl, to whom I was introduced at a house to which Horace Musgrave, of the Hussars, took me incidentally one day." "Whose house ? " asked Lonsdale, casually. " That of a Mrs Chillington." VOL. I. S 258 love's labour won. " Of Chillington Park— up the river ? " " Yes. Do you know her ? " , "A little — whew! What a small place this world is, after all," replied Lonsdale, over whom — notwithstanding the awful heat of the Ee.d Sea, through which the Pagoda was then steaming with the light wind dead astern — there came a kind of chill, a fear, he knew not of what, unless it was that he intensely disliked the name of Melanie's matchmaking aunt. " Tell me all about this — if you care to do so." " I shall — but, old friend,' when we came back together from Bengal, a year ago, there was a secret in my life of which you knew nothing. We are told by Cowper, The darkest day Lived till to-morrow will have passed away. But it is not so with me, for other darks follow each other; in grim succession — 'and will do so, till the bitter end comes.' " Then, after a pause, he carefully selected and lighted the inevitable cigar, as if to gather comfort or inspiration therefrom, and after a few whiffs said — IN THE SUEZ CANAL. 259 " I was not always in my present regiment, as you know; I belonged to a Lancer corps at first, and when with it I was — married." " Married — what — you, Digby ! " exclaimed Lqnsdale ; "we always thought you were a bachelor. Well?" " I was married — better that I had been shot in the Afghan passes — married before you knew me, and that is the first portion of my secret." END OF VOL. I. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOI9-URBANA