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 AUD ATHERTON, 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED LEIGH. 
 
 I N T W VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 London : 
 
 JAMES BLACKWOOD & Co., Lovell's Court, 
 
 Paternoster Row. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 
 v./ 
 
 TO 
 
 JOHN D . ROSS, Esy., 
 (Of Singapore.) 
 
 FN REMEMBRANCE OF A LONG AND VALUED FRIENDSHIP, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, 
 
 AS A SLIGHT EXPRESSION 
 OF 
 
 , The Author's Affectionate Esteem.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Clear and cool — clear and cool, 
 
 By laughing shallow and dreaming pool ; 
 
 Cool and clear — cool and clear, 
 
 By shining shingle and foaming weir ; 
 
 Under the crag where the ousel sings, 
 
 And the ivied wall, where the church bell rings, 
 
 Undefiled for the undefiled, 
 
 Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. 
 
 Charles Kingsley. " The Water Babies." 
 
 HTHE little river Elva seemed to sing the words 
 as it sparkled in the sunlight one bright 
 June morning. 
 
 Onward it flowed, wending its way through 
 grassy vallies and along the outskirts of rural 
 villages, until, as other rivulets flowed into its 
 bosom, its fairy laughter ceased, and it became a
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 broad and rushing stream, carrying all with it to 
 the sea beyond. 
 
 But, in the quiet little village of Elverley, its 
 song knew no sadness, and it hid no dread secret 
 beneath its translucent waters. The sunlight 
 was bright on everything — on the picturesque 
 cottages of the villagers— on the fields of ripening 
 corn — on the gently undulating hills — and on the 
 old church, whose grey stones were lovingly em- 
 braced by their luxuriant growth of ivy. It was 
 not a grand scene ; there were no towering moun- 
 tains, no rushing waterfalls, but there was health- 
 ful beauty of no small degree. ISuch scenery 
 might never create a poet, but any one who 
 had learned something of Nature's many-coloured 
 meanings, could have worshipped her there, and 
 asked no nobler shrine. 
 
 But the spot an artist's eye would have linger- 
 ed most lovingly upon, was an old tree, whose 
 lowest boughs, bending over the stream, formed 
 a rustic chair, seated in which, in an attitude of
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 unstudied grace, was a girl of eighteen, who had 
 dropped the book she had been reading, and was 
 watching the river before her, as though it hid 
 some happy secret, which eluded her discovery. 
 Maud Atherton's lady acquaintances generally 
 denied that she was beautiful ; and, perhaps, if her 
 features in repose had been delineated in marble, 
 their slight irregularity might have disqualified 
 them for such praise. But beauty, whether of face 
 or of thought, must be viewed in its completeness, 
 and not be subjected to a rigid analysis, as though 
 it were a glass of suspicious water, or a loaf of 
 questionable bread, Moreover, the sculptor's 
 power is not quite infinite, and marble could have 
 given but a faint idea of Maud's wonderful dark 
 eyes, while it would merely have parodied the 
 clustering tresses of her rich brown hair. And 
 the chief charm of her face would have baffled all 
 imitation, for that lay in her ever-changing expres- 
 sion — it was a face to watch, to study, to find 
 
 perennial freshness in and new meaning every day. 
 
 B 2
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 The bright June morning is Maud's eighteenth 
 birthday, and she is listening to the song of the 
 river, partly with the glad consciousness of a life 
 that has known little sorrow, and partly with a 
 wistful longing to read the meaning of the 
 coming years. 
 
 She had scarcely ever been out of Elverley 
 since they first came there, and as that was fourteen 
 years ago, she had no more distinct memory of 
 London, where she was born, than vague remem- 
 brances of large houses, and crowds of strange 
 and unsympathetic faces. 
 
 The sweetest figure in the early scenes of a 
 woman's life drama — a mother with her loving 
 protection, and rapid osul-sympathy, was quite 
 unknown to her, and though she fancied her father 
 fulfilled all the requirements of her womanly 
 instinct to worship some one, there were depths 
 in her glad, bright nature, that could never be 
 sounded by a prematurely saddened man. 
 
 And though Ralph Atherton had as brave a
 
 MAUD AT HE ETON. 
 
 heart as ever bore the agony of weary hours with 
 silent heroism, his life was but the struggle of a 
 wounded warrior, whose strength is ebbing fast, 
 but whose valour can only be quelled by death. 
 And yet twenty years before the time of which I 
 write, Ralph Atherton's future seemed as bright as 
 life looked to his fair daughter now. The younger 
 son of a baronet well known in political circles, 
 as a man of rather more than ordinary talent and 
 very much more than ordinary ambition, his 
 father determined that, although by the unaccount- 
 able mistake of nature in sending his brother 
 Harold into the world before him, Ralph could 
 neither succeed to the family estates, nor to the 
 baronetcy, he should enter into the political 
 struggle which his father loved so well, and gain 
 the laurels the old baronet had worn only in 
 imagination. Harold, the elder brother, showed 
 early a preference for stable boys to statesmen, 
 and sporting newspapers to the speeches of Burke, 
 
 and there had sprung up between him and his 
 
 b3
 
 6 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 father that mutual dislike, which is almost in- 
 evitable between natures diametrically opposite, 
 that have no rallying point of common sympathy. 
 
 "Yes," (the old baronet would say to himself 
 when a good dinner and a few glasses of old 
 Madeira had put him in that comfortable frame 
 of self-complacency and contentment, which is 
 commonly attributed to the influence of a good 
 conscience), a Yes, Ralph shall have the forty 
 thousand pounds which it is in my power to leave 
 him, and then if he marries an heiress, and enters 
 parliament there will be a brilliant career before 
 him, and as for Harold, he may go to the Devil." 
 
 Sir James Atherton, having thus sketched out 
 a creditable and probable career for each of his 
 sons, would subside into slumber, with the 
 tranquillity of a good man who has disposed of 
 his earthly affairs conscientiously and well. 
 
 Whether Harold ever went where his father 
 suggested, is a matter of uncertainty. He cer- 
 tainly made strenuous efforts to do so, and travelled
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 a long distance in that direction. But be this as 
 it may, it is certain that Ralph failed utterly to 
 meet his father's views. 
 
 What a pity it is men will not recognise that 
 we are far more capable of judging of their private 
 affairs than they. When our own orthodox 
 opinions become the universal creed of humanity, 
 the salvation of society will ensue, as inevitably 
 as a crop of potatoes. But until that golden time, 
 we must expect some rather fantastic actions in 
 our dealings with men. Sir James's pet idea, the 
 one thought that ran through all his meditations, 
 was literally a golden thread binding them all 
 together. Ralph must marry an heiress. Ralph 
 however had his own views on the subject, and 
 altogether declined to do so, not, he said, that he 
 had any sentimental objection to money, but 
 because he had found something infinitely more 
 precious — an Italian girl, with no dowry but a 
 woman's heart and an angel's face. 
 
 Sir James did not behave at all like a father
 
 8 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 in melodrama, invoking curses upon the head of 
 his undutiful child. He simply took a pinch of 
 snuff, told Ralph not to be a fool, and said he 
 would speak with him on the subject again to- 
 morrow. Angry as he was about the whole affair, 
 he never thought for a moment of any serious 
 difference arising between them. " The boy is 
 not the first who has gone mad about a lovely 
 face," he said, " he will think better of it in a day 
 or two." But the old man had altogether mistaken 
 the inherent strength of Ralph's character. On 
 the subject being renewed, he only reiterated his 
 former remarks, that he loved the beautiful 
 Italian girl, (she was a governess in the house of 
 a wealthy politician, an old friend of the Athertons) 
 and would marry her in defiance of the whole 
 world, The dispute grew passionate, Sir James 
 was unreasonable and Ralph hasty : the natural 
 result was a quarrel between the two, and 
 they parted, never to clasp each other's hand 
 again,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 But Kalph Atherton cared little for poverty, 
 since lie had won Beatrice Genari, his queen, 
 whom he loved with a passionate idolatry for his 
 wife. He took literature for his profession, for 
 which his wide and varied culture, and his bril- 
 liant talents eminently fitted him, and they were 
 quietly married in a dusty old city church, in an 
 out of the wav locality, as difficult to find out as 
 the meaning of a modern Epic. 
 
 For one year Ralph led a life which seemed to 
 him enchantment. He had a few hundred pounds 
 of his own, so they were saved from anything like 
 actual want, and though he had to work hard, 
 there was always one beautiful face near him to 
 be the starlight of his labour, always one voice to 
 stimulate him to a higher achievement, and nobler 
 fulfilment of duty, always one smile to be his 
 bright reward. 
 
 But the domain of sorrow is only narrower 
 than that of death : and just as brilliant prospects 
 of achieved purpose and well won fame rose for
 
 10 MAUD AT HE ETON. 
 
 Ralph Atherton, his fair young wife, in giving 
 birth to a daughter, died. 
 
 It is the fashion in these strangely contradictory 
 times of ours, to question the reality alike of love 
 and grief. And yet, strange as it may seem, 
 there are a few men and women who yield their 
 whole wealth of passionate devotion once, and 
 if their idol be broken, feel that life for them has 
 lost all beauty, and the world all charms. 
 
 Ralph Atherton was one of those men, and for 
 months after his beautiful wife died, those around 
 him dreaded that his reason would be impaired. 
 At last, however, the true soul came out victor 
 from the struggle — he awoke to the consciousness 
 that, though elected to suffering, there yet re- 
 mained work for him to do, and, with a heart sad 
 and weary, but brave and true, he entered on the 
 battle of life afresh. 
 
 But the sorrow he had passed through had 
 strangely altered him. Yielding up the prizes 
 that were almost within his grasp, he determined
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 11 
 
 to enter the church, and dedicate his life to the 
 needs of some obscure country parish. 
 
 Of course his friends endeavoured to dissuade 
 him from what they considered to be so mad a 
 course. If Atherton must be a clergyman, they 
 argued, let him have a West End Church, with 
 a fashionable congregation where his talents 
 would be appreciated ; and he must inevitably 
 attain the rather questionable distinction (they 
 did not call it so) of a popular preacher. But this 
 was precisely the last thing Ealph desired, and 
 the parish of Elverley offering itself at this time, 
 he had accepted it, and had come to live there with 
 his little daughter Maud, who was now a bright- 
 eyed child of four years old, who showed already 
 rather too evident indications of a Southern tem- 
 perament, with generous impulses, passionate 
 attachments and profound dislikes. 
 
 And in Elverley, Maud had grown from child- 
 hood into beautiful girlhood, with strange and 
 unconventional views of life, its responsibilities,
 
 12 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 its possibilities, and its worth, founded partly on 
 her father's teachings, partly on the works of old 
 poets and dramatists, but chiefly on the true 
 instincts of her woman's heart. 
 
 It is a confession that will place Maud beyond 
 the pale of many a reader's sympathy, but truth 
 sternly demands it should be made ; so I must 
 admit at once that of the ladylike science of flirting 
 she knew absolutely nothing, and when a languish- 
 ing curate from a neighbouring parish had shown 
 alarming symptoms of becoming maudlin in his 
 admiration, she had met his wooing with such 
 exquisite badinage and rippling laughter, that the 
 ecclesiastical hero had retired discomfited from 
 the field, to vent his displeasure by attacks upon 
 the orthodoxy of his parishioners, and to read to 
 the feminine portion of them sundry homilies 
 upon the frivolities of their sex. This shows the 
 deplorable influence of a secluded life. Of course, 
 if Maud had been a young lady of correct ideas, 
 she whoulcl have treated his heart like a fan, that
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 13 
 
 is to say, she would have played with it, for a few 
 evenings and then broken it. 
 
 And yet, strange as it may seen, the little 
 village worshipped her. The dullest rustic 
 there — who viewed life as a sphere for the consump- 
 tion of fat bacon and ale, and the fundamental 
 fault of society's organisation, that these delicacies 
 were so hard to get — even he had some misty 
 consciousness that Miss Maud belonged to a 
 higher order of beings, and would have yielded, 
 (hear this, oh ye who mourn over chivalry as a 
 dead creed !) a mug of his beloved " yale " to win 
 one of her sunny smiles. 
 
 Not that Kalph Atherton had always been 
 popular with them. The well-to-do-farmers, 
 when he first came there had shaken their heads 
 gravely over his theology, as heterodox, and as 
 being connected in some way not clearly defined 
 with Atheism, Popery, and the Devil. 
 
 Elverley had always plumed itself on its 
 orthodoxy, and a man with new views was a
 
 14 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 notoriously unpleasant fact. For instance, lie 
 talked much of the mystery of life, and they had 
 never regarded it in that light at all. If there were 
 any little difficulties in the scheme of the Divine 
 economy, what was fi parson " paid for but to 
 explain them ? 
 
 But these complaints of Mr. Atherton's 
 heterodoxy belonged to the past, so I need not 
 dwell upon them. Gradually they came to 
 recognise the beauty of his self-abnegating life, 
 slowly they began to learn the power of his kindly 
 heart and practical sympathy, while even the 
 teaching which had given sundry of the " dearly 
 beloved brethren" such grave offence at first, by 
 slow and painful degrees began to assert itself. 
 I am not writing of an ideal state of society : I 
 do not say Ealph Atherton succeeded in trans- 
 muting men leading lives almost vegetable in 
 their stupidity, into a band of Christian heroes, 
 with all-embracing sympathies and apostolic 
 faith ; but I do say that he stirred some nobler
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 15 
 
 longings in the hearts of most of them, and sug- 
 gested to them the possibility of the Divine love 
 being a deeper and grander thing than ever they 
 had dreamed before. 
 
 Stupidity and dogmatism were not rooted out, 
 but their power was curbed and narrowed, and even 
 that proved Kalph's labours not all in vain : 
 perhaps the angels smile when we talk about the 
 fruitlessness of noble lives. 
 
 But Maud — sunny, happy, beautiful Maud — 
 had been the idol of the village from the first. 
 In her finely strung nature there were such rapid 
 sympathies, that whoever wanted sympathy (and 
 who does not ?) would go instinctively to her for 
 help and comfort. If a sweetheart was false, (as 
 sweethearts have had a knack of being, even be- 
 fore the time of Proteus,) Jane and Bessie would 
 seek Miss Maud's counsel ; if an only son was 
 undutiful, who so fit as she to suggest a wise and 
 prudent course of action ? And to descend from 
 such tragical suffering, it is the historian's duty
 
 16 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 to record, that the most refractory child in Elver- 
 ley would cease roaring at her approach, her sweet 
 face being pleasantly suggestive of sweetmeats 
 and caresses. 
 
 It was not by words that all this was done : on 
 religious subjects Maud rarely spoke to them. 
 Miss McNutt, the former vicar's daughter, had 
 plied them with tracts, with a regularity as rigid 
 as the views they enforced, without ever winning 
 their homage and touching their hearts as Maud 
 did. I think it was mainly because they felt her 
 to be pure-hearted and true, that their faith in 
 purity and truth grew and strengthened ; but 
 however this may be, it is certain she filled their 
 cottages and their rather dull lives with gladness. 
 How she did them good, they never asked them- 
 selves : she came like sunshine, and by some 
 occult process made life brighter, and sorrow 
 easier to be borne. 
 
 Explanations are generally tedious, but like 
 officious relatives, the income-tax, and other
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 17 
 
 necessary evils, they must be endured with pa- 
 tience, for without some idea of a life's past, we 
 lose the key to its present actions. There is 
 sublime comfort, no doubt, in letting " the dead 
 past bury its dead," but like many other well- 
 sounding phrases, it is not always easy to carry 
 its precepts into practical effect. The past does 
 not die : it lives on in us and in our lives, a power 
 not to be banished by philosophical axioms — a 
 writing on the heart's tablets not to be effaced by 
 penitential tears. 
 
 What influence this quiet village had upon 
 Maud Atherton, what power for good or evil it 
 exerted upon her character, the course of this 
 story must unfold. 
 
 Maud indulged her reverie rather longer than 
 was her wont, but at last she sprang lightly down 
 from her rustic seat, and gaily humming an 
 operatic air, walked slowly to the vicarage. 
 
 How beautiful the world seems when we have 
 
 only known it for eighteen years, and every pulse 
 
 c
 
 18 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 of our being throbs with the glad consciousness 
 of healthful energy. 
 
 Ralph Atherton spoke so much of the agony 
 and weariness of life, that Maud had become 
 familiarised with the words, and she had caught 
 something of their meaning from the poets she 
 loved so well ; but sorrow to her was essentially 
 a thing belonging to the outer world, for the petty 
 annoyances which she had known had passed over 
 her like a shadow over a field of waving corn, 
 only to heighten the effect of the golden sunlight 
 which followed it. 
 
 Ralph Atherton was unusually silent and 
 thoughtful that day, but in the evening when 
 Maud was sitting at the piano, letting her fingers 
 wander over the keys, with a dreamy forgetful- 
 ness of everything, he came into the room and sat 
 down near her. 
 
 It was one of the many contradictions of 
 Maud's nature to love minor music and sad ca- 
 dences far better than livelier strains ; but I
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 19 
 
 suppose every life has its under-tone of sadness, 
 though it may need something as exquisite as 
 music to give it a responsive echo. When and 
 how Maud acquired her wonderful mastery over 
 the instrument is a mystery. She had no higher 
 culture than the village organist could give, 
 which was of an extremely common-place nature. 
 
 But there was something about her playing 
 which all the musical professors in Christendom, 
 could never have taught her— that subtle, indefi- 
 nable power of giving melody a soul, speaking 
 with strangely mingled meaning to human souls, 
 and touching the life-roots of a listener's heart. 
 That evening she was playing a low sweet air of 
 her own composition, with varied movements and 
 in different keys ; but through all the changes of 
 harmony, this one strange melody uttered itself 
 almost like the suppliant wailing of a spirit's 
 anguish. 
 
 It seemed so, at all events, to Ealph Atherton, 
 
 for there passed a look of pain across his face, 
 
 c2
 
 20 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 which made Maud break the strain abruptly off, 
 and begin the first brilliant movement of a Ger- 
 man waltz. 
 
 " Stop, dear," he said, as though the light 
 sounds jarred roughly on his feelings, " I wish to 
 speak to you Maud upon a subject that has been 
 very long in my thoughts." 
 
 Maud softly closed the piano. " Shall I ring 
 for candles," she said, " or can we talk together 
 in this delicious twilight ? " 
 
 "No, don't ring," said her father, drawing her 
 
 gently to the window, " there is light enough for 
 
 me to see your face, darling, and I need no more." 
 
 Maud brought a hassock to the window, and 
 
 sat down in her favourite position at his feet. 
 
 " Maud," he said, alter a few moments' silence, 
 "you have never asked me about your mother, 
 have you never longed to know about our love for 
 each other ? " 
 
 " I have often longed to question you concern- 
 ing her," Maud answered softly > "but I have felt
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 21 
 
 a dread of paining you by heedless words." 
 
 " You are wonderfully like her," he said mus- 
 ingly, " so like, that if my heart did not tell me 
 my life's spring-time was over long ago, I could 
 almost fancy that you are she, and that your 
 beauty [has never faded, because it is of heaven, 
 not earth." 
 
 And then, while the twilight shadows slowly 
 deepened, Ralph Atherton, holding Maud's hand 
 in his, told her the story of his life, not in bare 
 outline as I have done, but lingering lovingly 
 on every thought and remembrance of his fair 
 young wife. 
 
 " That is my story, darling," he said, when he 
 had finished ; " you will not wonder now that I 
 am graver — sadder perhaps, than most men ; but 
 you have gladdened my life more than I can 
 ever tell you. I have something of a lover's feel- 
 ing for you, as well as a father's." 
 
 Maud listened eagerly, but spoke no word. 
 
 i( I have told you this, darling," continued her 
 
 c3
 
 22 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 father, " that you may know the secret of my 
 life — your mother's story I will read you some day 
 in her own words — but not to-night. This neck- 
 lace is connected with it, and once was hers. It 
 shall be yours now." 
 
 He held in his hand a gold necklace, with a 
 small locket attached. Maud could see in the 
 faint light that the strong hand, (which held it 
 lovingly as though it were a wounded bird,) trem- 
 bled. 
 
 Her father clasped it gently round her neck : 
 " Let it be a talisman," he said, " to guard you 
 from anything that could dim the brightness of 
 true womanhood." 
 
 Maud rose from her low seat, and putting her 
 arms round his neck, comforted him, as only 
 women can. Broken words of sympathy were all 
 she said — I need not write them here, they would 
 not convey much calmly read, without her low, 
 sweet voice, and her soft caresses, to give each 
 syllable a meaning. But the deepest things of
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 23 
 
 life after all, are those concerning which all 
 history is silent. If the secrets of every heart 
 were laid bare, (to indulge an impossible fancy), 
 I think we should learn that the sentences which 
 have moved men most deeply, and nerved them for 
 the highest victory, making life possible, and 
 heaven near — have been not the battle-cries of 
 freedom, nor the formulas of creed, but some 
 tangled phrases from a woman's lips — so simple 
 that a child might utter them, yet so inspiring that 
 they seemed like the voice of God. 
 
 How long they sat together, in the dreamy 
 twilight, silent, yet with hearts very near, Maud 
 never knew. The shadows grew denser, and a lazy- 
 voiced clock ticked drowsily from the mantel- 
 piece with no power to break the spell. 
 
 At last a figure that might have served an 
 artist as a study for Juliet's nurse appeared at the 
 door with candles which, with much panting, she 
 laid upon the table. 
 
 " And, how you can sit in the dark, Miss Maud,
 
 24 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 she said," when candles can be had for the asking, 
 I don't know, but young ladies is so strange." 
 
 " Profoundly true, Sarah," said Maud laughing 
 "but you must exercise more charity. Every 
 one's complexion will not stand a strong light so 
 well as yours." 
 
 Sarah had been Maud's nurse from babyhood, 
 and did not scruple to avail herself of the privi- 
 lege of fault-finding. (A luxury by the way to 
 which old friends and old servants are rather un- 
 pleasantly addicted.) 
 
 Whether Sarah's feelings were too deep for 
 utterance, or whether she thought her dignity 
 would be compromised by further speech, is a 
 point on which posterity will never be enlightened. 
 For once she submitted to be silenced, merely 
 indulging in a parting slam of the door, which 
 was positively epigrammatic in its defiance. 
 
 Mr. Atherton smiled. "After all," he 
 said, " you have not heard the secret I came to 
 tell you. Do you know that you are what is
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 25 
 
 commonly called i a young lady of fortune.' " 
 " I have always regarded myself in that light," 
 said Maud gaily. " My wealth is boundless. I 
 will give you a list of a few of my possessions in 
 Shakesperian style, in the manner of Olivia, whom 
 you ought in politeness to tell me I resemble. 
 Thus, item — a father who can do anything which 
 is grand, and lets me do anything, which is 
 better still. That comes first, of course, let me 
 see what's next ? Oh ! item, sundry dresses more 
 or less in need of mending. (I'm afraid the age 
 has outgrown its admiration for my favorite blue 
 one, as much as that dissenting minister, Mr. 
 Jones, said it had the necessity for a state church ; 
 still we'll count it. Then there's item — " 
 
 " Suppose you place the sum of one hundred 
 thousand pounds as the next item in your calcula- 
 tion," said Mr. Atherton, catching the infection 
 of his pretty daughter's high spirits, " if you 
 recognise so insignificant a sum as a possession 
 worth mentioning."
 
 26. MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " I am obtuse," said Maud, with no change in 
 her tone, " if there is one accomplishment in the 
 world I pride myself upon, it is the perception 
 and appreciation of a joke ; but I am wholly in 
 the dark as to the meaning of this one." 
 
 " You are certainly the most extraordinary 
 young lady to make a business announcement 
 to, I ever knew. I tell you that you are the 
 heiress to a fortune, and you call it a joke. 
 Don't you know, you ridiculous child, that even 
 eyes like yours have no such power over the mass 
 of men, as this ' joke ' which appears to you so 
 grievously deficient in point ?" 
 
 " But I have no such fortune," said Maud, 
 with a look of utter astonishment, expressed in 
 the eyes in question. 
 
 " But you will have on your twenty-first birth- 
 day," said her father, " quietly sit down again, 
 and I will tell you how." 
 
 Maud sat down in utter bewilderment : if her 
 father had incidentally mentioned that she was
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 27 
 
 a princess by birth he could scarcely have 
 astonished her more. 
 
 " When I declared to my father my intention 
 of marrying," he resumed, " we quarrelled, as 
 you know, and, naturally enough, I forfeited 
 thereby the fortune I should otherwise have in- 
 herited ; but I learned for the first time, when he 
 died, that my father relented at the time of your 
 birth, and bequeathed the sum of forty thousand 
 pounds to you." 
 
 " Then do you mean to tell me," said Maud, 
 beginning to realise the situation, " that that 
 sum, which seems to me like the treasure of a 
 fairy's tale, is actually mine ? " 
 
 " Yes," was the reply, " and a great deal more 
 too. The terms of the will were very simple. 
 Forty thousand pounds, half in government 
 funds, were left to you ; the conditions being 
 that the money should accumulate at compound 
 interest until you were one and twenty. This 
 has been strictly observed, and the sum already
 
 28 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 amounts to eighty-four thousand pounds, (it has 
 been accumulating for fifteen years remember,) 
 so by the time it becomes yours the value of the 
 estate will exceed a hundred thousand pounds." 
 
 " And supposing I die, before I come of age," 
 said Maud, " what becomes of the money then ? " 
 
 " In that case," replied Ralph, " it would go 
 to a remote branch of the family, under con- 
 ditions expressed in my father's will." 
 
 " To console them under the agony of bereave- 
 ment," said Maud, lightly, adding in a graver 
 tone, " but, father, why was I never told about 
 this before ? " 
 
 " It was my fathers's special desire that you 
 should be kept in ignorance of the state of affairs 
 until your eighteenth birthday," said Mr. Ather- 
 ton, " it is easy to understand his motives." 
 
 u Well," said Maud, " I suppose I ought to be 
 very glad and grateful, but with that perversity 
 which characterises my sex in general and my- 
 self in particular, I feel nothing of the kind.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 29 
 
 What am I to do with a hundred thousand 
 pounds ? I have no expensive tastes except an 
 extravagant fondness for new gloves, and a passion 
 for chocolate creams." 
 
 " Maud, you are incorrigible," said her father, 
 rising, u I think you would sacrifice life itself 
 sooner than lose the chance of an epigram. But 
 see," he added, pointing to the drowsy clock 
 before mentioned, the hands of which, as it grew 
 later seemed absolutely to yawn, " past twelve 
 o'clock. Go to bed now, darling, and defer all 
 schemes pecuniary or otherwise till to-morrow." 
 
 Maud kissed her father even more lovingly than 
 usual, with a look in her bright eyes which told 
 him better than speech could do, that with all her 
 light moods, she treasured up his words about 
 her mother, and that the necklace she wore should 
 be tarnished by no unworthy thought in the bosom 
 on which it lightly rose and fell. 
 
 But she felt in no humour for sleep ; so opening 
 her little bedroom window, she sat down to watch
 
 30 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 the village bathed in moonlight, and listen to the 
 ripple of the river, which could faintly be heard 
 in the distance. 
 
 And it was characteristic of Maud, that the 
 chief theme of her reverie was not the unexpected 
 fortune she was to inherit, nor the new interests 
 and plans it suggested, but the scene as her fancy 
 pictured it, of her father young and enthusiastic, 
 toiling with a light heart for the sake of his 
 beautiful Italian bride.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 31 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " My father aye tauld me, my mither and a' 
 Ye'd mak' a gude husband and keep me aye braw ; 
 It's true I love Johnnie, he's young and he's bonnie, 
 But wae's me I ken he has nothing ava ! 
 I ha'e little tocher, ye've made a gude offer, 
 I'm now mair than twenty, my time is but sma', 
 Sae give me your plaidie, I'll creep in beside ye, 
 I thought ye'd been aulder than threescore and twa'." 
 
 Old Scotch Song. 
 
 A HERO — whether of a nation's history or a 
 woman's life, belongs to a class whose title is 
 vaguely but weightily suggestive. According to the 
 old epical conception of his character, he was an 
 embodied principle rather than an individual, 
 playing a tragical part in human destiny, which 
 was gloomy, mysterious, and excessively dreary. 
 It would have been an act of less foul sacrilege
 
 32 MAUD ATHERTOX. 
 
 to propose a comic song at a quakers' meeting, 
 than to associate him with common necessities or 
 vulgar wants. 
 
 That he occasionally ate and drank, shaved, or 
 sneezed, was a circumstance if not absolutely 
 denied, at all events systematically disregarded, 
 and some relic of this view may be found in the 
 hackneyed proverb concerning his valet-de-cham- 
 bre, which suggests with proverbial infallibility 
 that cutting Homer's hair would be fatal to an 
 admiration of the Odyssey, and that the worthy 
 who brushed Shakespeare's doublet probably re- 
 garded Hamlet as a very common-place produc- 
 duction indeed. 
 
 We find very little of this majestic being in 
 modern literature, and seeing how few such gen- 
 tlemen are to be met with in daily life, we will 
 not indulge in any very sentimental requiem over 
 him, but consign him to the grave as young 
 wives inter their old husbands, with pious resig- 
 nation.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 33 
 
 Whether our modern hero, with his pleasant 
 idiosyncrasy of breaking mens' heads and 
 womens' hearts upon the slightest suggestion, 
 is altogether an improvement, may be regarded 
 as open to question, but as Arthur Calverley, the 
 hero of my story, belongs to neither class, I will 
 not stay to discuss the matter. 
 
 One June evening Arthur was seated in his 
 pleasant little rooms at Norwood, dining with his 
 old friend and schoolfellow, Walter Medhurst. 
 
 Nor will I apologise for introducing him en- 
 gaged in so unheroic an occupation. I am aware 
 that first impressions are generally lasting, and 
 that it is trying, to eat and look sublime at the 
 same moment — but as I have already warned 
 those in quest of unflagging tragedy off these 
 pages, I am content to recognise the dull realities 
 of vulgar life. 
 
 Yet the most fastidious critic must have ad- 
 mired Arthur's face. It possessed the primal 
 charm of clearly cut features and large expres-
 
 34 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 sive eyes, but beyond that there was striking 
 beauty in its perfectly rounded curves, and in the 
 red lips, sensitive, yet capable (as an occasional 
 expression evinced) of displaying a profound 
 depth of passionate determination. 
 
 His friend formed a striking contrast to him ; 
 tall, finely proportioned and athletic, his face was 
 only remarkable for its keen intelligent eyes, and 
 a general expression of frankness, which is Na- 
 ture's stamp royal of a brave heart, and invaria- 
 bly commands instinctive respect and trust. 
 
 " And so Walter," said Arthur, " no prayers 
 that I have wit to utter will prevail upon you to 
 stay another day with me." 
 
 " If it were possible for me to stay, I should 
 need no persuasion to do so : you must recognize 
 my dignity : I am a country doctor, almost as 
 indispensable an official as a parish beadle. So 
 I must go back to-night by the last train." 
 
 At this moment a mysterious looking woman 
 appeared in the room, removed the dishes noise-
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 35 
 
 lessly, laid others on the table, (with an ex- 
 pression of agony, such as an eastern mother 
 might have displayed while immolating a child 
 upon the altar of Moloch,) and retired. 
 
 " That woman," said Arthur, as she closed the 
 door after her, " is as profound a mystery as life 
 itself." 
 
 " She cooks uncommonly well," said the young 
 doctor, glancing in a quick professional way at 
 the dinner before him. 
 
 " Oh yes, she cooks well enough, and I don't 
 suppose there is another house in Norwood man- 
 aged so well, but the mystery is who and what 
 she is. I have had these rooms five years, and I 
 know no more about her now than I did at first. 
 I have amazed myself by the ingenuity of my 
 conjectures concerning her. Sometimes I fancy 
 she is a disguised Duchess, at other times I decide 
 that she is a highly cultured charwoman ; the 
 only thing she told me about herself was that her 
 
 name is Blinkum, but I don't for a moment 
 
 d 2
 
 36 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 believe it. Take another glass of Madeira, Walter, 
 and let me have the benefit of your theory on the 
 subject." 
 
 But Walter Medhurst seemed disinclined to 
 follow up the light turn the conversation had 
 taken ; he filled his glass, but he did not immedi- 
 ately reply. 
 
 w Arthur " he said at last, " when I saw you 
 for the first time after our five years separation, 
 you promised to tell me something of what you 
 have been doing while we were apart. That is 
 three days ago, and you have told me nothing." 
 
 " Well " said Arthur, " it is like you to take an 
 interest in it, but my story is very far from being 
 a sublime one. I think you know it was im- 
 pressed upon me ever since I wore pinafores, that 
 I was to be my father's sole heir." 
 
 " Yes, I know that," said Walter, " but such 
 prophecies are always subject to a little uncer- 
 tainty." 
 
 " Mine were at all events," replied Arthur,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 37 
 
 taking up the thread of his story, " for, four years 
 ago, my father informed me of his intention to 
 marry again, Now that's not an agreeable com- 
 munication for a son, under any circumstances, 
 but when I tell you it was to the one woman, 
 whom of all others I dislike, you will fancy with 
 what kind of delight I received the announce- 
 ment." 
 
 " Did you and your father quarrel about it?" 
 asked his friend. 
 
 a No " returned Arthur, " there was no end to 
 be gained by that, but we agreed to part, my fa- 
 ther married a few weeks after, and three years 
 ago I received a letter informing me of the birth 
 of a son to them, to which epistle a pathetic post- 
 script was added to calm the anxiety of my soul, 
 by the announcement that Mrs. Calverley was 
 doing well." 
 
 " And did the matter end there ? " enquired 
 
 Walter Medhurst. 
 
 " No " replied Arthur, " not quite, my father 
 
 D 3
 
 38 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 then drew up a deed of gift, bestowing an income 
 of two hundred a year upon me, and gave me very 
 plainly to understand that I had nothing further 
 to expect from him, either before or after his 
 death, and so the matter has stood ever since." 
 
 "Arthur," said his friend, laying one hand 
 lightly upon his shoulder, " you are withholding 
 something from me. When we were at school 
 together, you were always the leader in any freak 
 of mischief, and yet slight as was the effort you 
 put forth, you distanced all competitors ; when 
 we were at college you were generally in the 
 cricket field or on the river, while other men 
 were reading with damp towels round their 
 heads ; yet, here again you gained brilliant 
 honours, and whenever you really strove for an 
 object, it was hopeless to contend against you. 
 And when you went out into the world, you had 
 endless dreams of what you would achieve and 
 conquer, and no man's success seemed so inevita- 
 ble. But when I meet you again after five years'
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 39 
 
 interval, I find you with no profession, no plans, 
 and nothing accomplished. Surely the mere loss 
 of fortune could not have changed you so." 
 
 " I don't know that I am so greatly changed," 
 said Arthur, slowly, "or if I am, it is hardly to 
 be wondered at that I should be a little less en- 
 thusiastic and hopeful after the lapse of five 
 years." 
 
 " Not changed," returned the other, u why five 
 years ago life seemed to have no prize too high 
 for you. You might have taken a prominent 
 part in the political struggle, and you have not 
 attempted to do so ; you might have been a great 
 artist, and you have nothing to show but a hand- 
 ful of sketches, not one of which rises above mere 
 prettiness. Chief of all, you might have gained 
 distinction as an author, and you have written 
 nothing but a few more or less graceful songs, 
 and a cynical comedy." 
 
 " You are hard upon my poor comedy," inter- 
 rupted Arthur, good-naturedly.
 
 40 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " No, I am not," said Walter. " I freely admit 
 the dialogue is brilliant, the interest well sus- 
 tained, and one or two — though by no means all 
 of the characters are ably drawn ; it would 
 probably succeed if it were published, but the 
 whole tone of it is unworthy of you." 
 
 " What tone ? " 
 
 " The general insinuation that all men are 
 either knaves or fools — a creed which is old, 
 dreary, and utterly false." 
 
 " I am not so sure of its falsity," said Arthur, 
 somewhat taken aback by this concise summing 
 up of his views, " knaves are far from being rari- 
 ties, and fools are as common as bad wine." 
 
 " Granted ; but what then ? If the satirist is 
 to have an honoured place among writers he must 
 be a teacher and believe in something. What is 
 the use of telling a man he is, on the whole, 
 rather a fool, if you have no better course of life 
 to suggest to him ? You merely disturb his diges- 
 tion, and a hot supper of pork and onions would 
 do that quite as well."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 41 
 
 Arthur made no reply, but there was a look of 
 irresolution on his handsome face, which Walter 
 rightly read to be a struggle between his friend's 
 pride, and a desire to confide in him. 
 
 " Moreover " he continued, " I especially dis- 
 like the way you write of women. Five years ago, 
 Arthur, you were as chivalrous as any knight of 
 old who ever splintered lance, now you delineate 
 with evident pleasure a heartless creature like 
 Alice Elphenden, the heroine of your comedy, and 
 gravely inform us she is a fair type of her sex. 
 See here," he added taking a manuscript from 
 a side table and turning the leaves hurriedly over, 
 " here is an agreeable theory for example to come, 
 from a woman's lips. It is in the third scene, 
 and she is speaking to her rival — Ethel, (by 
 the way the lover wasn't worth quarrelling about). 
 ' We women differ only in our faces, our voices 
 and our capacity to lie. Souls, my dear Ethel, 
 are as antiquated as knightly armour. Eemove 
 lying in all its manifold forms from society, and
 
 42 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 the sooner the poor old creature could be decent- 
 ly buried the better. If truth were anything but 
 a polite fiction, life would not be endurable for 
 fifteen minutes.' What possible excuse can 
 there be for writing such nonsense as that? " 
 
 " You are right," said Arthur sadly, a and yet 
 that is only a forcible statement of what in some 
 moods, I am tempted to believe. Do you remem- 
 ber Kate Rushton ? You met her once or twice at 
 my father's house, I think." 
 
 " Yes," said Walter, " I remember her very 
 well. So lovely a face is not easily forgotten." 
 
 u I wish to heaven it were," was the bitter re- 
 joinder. " There was once a time when I wor- 
 shipped her beauty, and was fool enough to fancy 
 her soul was like it." 
 
 " Did you ever tell her so ? " 
 
 " Tell her so," echoed Arthur angrily, the silent 
 bitternes of years finding rapid utterance, " I not 
 only told her so, but she vowed that she loved me 
 in return— and then — and then — like many a 
 boy's tragedy, it ended in a farce."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 43 
 
 " How did it end ? " 
 
 " When my father married again, I wrote and 
 told her of my altered fortunes, and she replied 
 by breaking on our engagement, and sending back 
 every present I had given her — but one." 
 " And what was that," asked Walter quickly. 
 " The ring I had given her as a troth pledge. 
 I suppose she kept it for the trophy of the con- 
 quest, as an Indian warrior treasures a scalp." 
 
 " That is not likely," said the young doctor 
 gravely, "perhaps she really loved you, and it 
 * stood upon the choice of friends :' in that case I 
 can easily understand the impossibility of parting 
 with it." 
 
 " Its no use you trying to justify her, Medhurst,' 
 replied Arthur, " God knows I would have given 
 my right hand for power to believe in her still. 
 But I told you the affair ended in a farce. A year 
 ago, I read the announcement of her marriage to 
 Sir Thomas Glenclale, a man thirty years her 
 senior, with no idea in the world but money, and
 
 44 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 not even good family to recommend him." 
 " Yea I have heard Sir Thomas discrihed in 
 pretty much the same way before to-night. He 
 must be immensely wealthy though." 
 
 " Of course he is, or Kate Kushton would never 
 have been his wife. She literally sold herself for 
 the two hundred thousand pounds, or whatever it 
 was made over to her by the marriage settlements. 
 And a very resigned widow she'll make. Her 
 golden hair will show to advantage on crape. 
 There, you know my story now, and do you still 
 wonder that I have grown aimless, and rather 
 suspicious of womanly constancy ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the other firmly, " such a result 
 is altogether unworthy of yon, and to speak plain- 
 ly, does not say much for your common sense. 
 Take your story in its worst light, and what does 
 it mean ? Simply this, that one girl has proved 
 mercenary, and false to you, and so you educe 
 from your experience of life the proposition, that 
 constancy is a fiction, and pure-hearted woman-
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 45 
 
 hood a lie. That's rubbish, Arthur, and very- 
 ridiculous rubbish too." 
 
 Arthur was silent ; it would have been easy to 
 dispute this : he was a far better master of verbal 
 fencing, than his practical clear-headed compan- 
 ion, but he felt in no mood for sophistry, and 
 something in his inner consciousness told him, no 
 reply he could make would be much else. 
 
 " Walter," he said at last, " you are a good 
 fellow, and perhaps if I had confided in you before, 
 I might have been spared much weariness and 
 sorrow, but what makes you so doughty a cham- 
 pion of ' ladyes fayre ?' Surely you have not so 
 far belied your practical character as to catch 
 that most contagious of diseases, love. I beg your 
 pardon," he added quickly, seeing a look of pain 
 pass across his companion's face, " I beg your par- 
 don a thousand times, I had no idea I was jangling 
 a tender string." 
 
 " Arthur," said the other quietly, " I suppose 
 every life holds some secret of which no one
 
 46 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 dreams. ' She was young, she was beautiful, she was 
 loving, and she died? Such a memory lies at the 
 root of many a life ; it is the key to the whole 
 meaning of mine." 
 
 Almost instinctively the two men clasped hands, 
 but neither spoke. It costs a man an intense 
 mental struggle to speak on those subjects which 
 move him most deeply. Of pictures and politics, 
 of horses and wine, of the large topics of national 
 import, and the petty themes of passsing interest, 
 he will talk fluently enough, but speak to him of 
 his spirit's inner convictions, or the one woman he 
 truly loves, and his lightest word of reply will be 
 uttered with actual pain. 
 
 With women on the other hand, confidence is 
 a kind of masonic rite, without the seal of which 
 a friendship is incomplete, if not positively 
 spurious. 
 
 Arthur was the first to break silence, and it 
 was with something of his old light-hearted tone 
 that he said —
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 47 
 
 " Come Walter, you must be consistent to your 
 own views, you have denounced negative philoso- 
 phy, as though it were closely allied to the art of 
 picking pockets, let me have the benefit of some 
 practical advice." 
 
 11 Well," replied his friend, " my first advice is 
 strictly professional. You are looking rather 
 poorly, the first thing you have to do is to get well. 
 Where are you going this summer ? London is 
 becoming unbearable." 
 
 " I am a poor man now," said Arthur, " so my 
 possibilities are limited. Continental trips and 
 lunar excursions, being equally out of the ques- 
 tion. I suppose I shall go to Scarboro' or Ilfra- 
 combe." 
 
 " What possible use will that be," replied the 
 Doctor, " you will spend more money than you 
 can afford, to enable you to see people who will 
 bore you, and to go through an amount of pro- 
 menading, which is more fatiguing to contem- 
 plate even, than six months' exercise on the
 
 48 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 treadmill. No, go to some great place, where a 
 tourist is as rare a creature as a crocodile." 
 
 " If such a terrestrial paradise is to be found," 
 said Arthur laughing, " I will certainly go there." 
 
 Walter Medhurst considered for a few moments, 
 and then exclaimed, " I have it, go away for a 
 month's fishing to Elverley. The scenery is beau- 
 tiful, the air all that can be desired, the — " 
 
 fi That sounds extremely like an advertisement," 
 interrupted Arthur. 
 
 " But unlike all advertisements, it has the ex- 
 traordinary merit of being true. I stayed there 
 a few weeks last summer, and have been quite 
 enthusiastic about it ever since." 
 
 " But what can an ordinary human being find 
 to do there?" 
 
 " You will find excellent fishing if you care for 
 that sort of thing, and you will see some effects 
 of light and shade that will tax your artistic 
 powers to portray, but why I chiefly want you to 
 go there is, that you will have ample opportunities
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 49 
 
 for maturing your plans of future action. You 
 ask for advice, mine is work — write — paint — do 
 anything, but have some object in life. I would 
 sooner sell braces than do nothing." 
 
 " I will go, Walter, to-morrow morning," said 
 Arthur, catching something of his friend's energy. 
 " Is there anything else about the place you can 
 tell me?" 
 
 " Yes, you will find the ' Elm tree,' the most 
 comfortable and sleepy inn, mortal ever stopped 
 at ; and by the way, I should like you to know 
 Atherton, the vicar." 
 
 u Is he any relation to Sir Harold Atherton, 
 whose horses carried away so many racing cups 
 last year ? " asked Arthur. 
 
 " His brother I believe, but altogether a differ- 
 ent kind of fellow. There is some romance about 
 his history I have heard. I don't know exactly 
 what it is, but I think he married an Italian girl 
 in opposition to his father's wishes, and that she 
 died within a year of the wedding. I should very
 
 50 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 much like you to know him, he is a highly cul- 
 tured scholar, and a perfect gentleman. Would 
 you like a line or two of introduction to 
 him?" 
 
 " If it is not troubling you too much." 
 " No trouble in the world : if you'll hand me 
 that inkstand and a sheet of note paper, I'll write 
 it now." 
 
 "Walter Medhurst wrote rapidly for two or three 
 minutes, and then threw the letter across the 
 table to Arthur, who read aloud — 
 'My Dear Atherton, 
 
 Upon my glowing description 
 of your village, my old friend, Arthur Calverley, 
 has decided to stay there a few weeks. As a vis- 
 itor, I know he is certain of your courtesy, but I 
 ask you to give him a place in your regard for 
 two or three days, for my sake. I ask it for no 
 longer time, for then you will have learnt to 
 esteem him for his own. I hope you have been 
 feeling stronger lately, and are not working too
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 51 
 
 hard. I fancy you sometimes forget that even 
 clerical nerves are not made of steel. 
 
 With very kind regards to Miss Atherton, and 
 yourself, 
 
 I am always, 
 
 Yery faithfully yours, 
 
 Walter Medhurst.' 
 
 " Thank you Walter, that is very kindly worded. 
 But who is this Miss Atherton you speak of — his 
 daughter ?" 
 
 " Yes," replied the other with a mischievous 
 twinkle in his eyes, which escaped Arthur's 
 notice. " Let me sketch her for you — tall, angu- 
 lar, spectacled and scholastic. Can you fill in the 
 details ?" 
 
 " Only too well," exclaimed Arthur, with a 
 groan of comical horror. u I hope she's not sen- 
 timental too." 
 
 " Oh dear no," returned Walter " talk about 
 
 the pauper question, and the latest scheme of 
 
 scientific drainage, and you'll get on famously 
 
 E 2
 
 52 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 together. But follow the precept of Mrs. Wini- 
 fred Pryce, and ' look at the clock.' If I am to 
 catch that train to-night, I must be off." 
 
 tl I'll walk to the station with you," said 
 Arthur rising, u we have plenty of time." 
 
 The bright June day had died away into a clear 
 starry evening, when Arthur and his friend lit 
 their cigars, and strolled towards the station. 
 
 " Good bye Walter," said Arthur as the train 
 was on the point of starting, " but not for years 
 I hope." 
 
 " I hope so too," said the other, " but before we 
 do meet again, you will have done something 
 great. Good bye." 
 
 And so they parted, Walter to his simple man- 
 ly life of work and duty, and Arthur to make the 
 necessary arrangements for his journey to Elverley. 
 
 As he walked home, it was natural looking up 
 at the pure beauty of the summer starlight, to 
 wonder idly, if the village he had heard of that 
 evening for the first time, was destined to play
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 53 
 
 more than a passing part in his life drama. 
 
 It crossed his mind merely as an idle fancy, and 
 no quick instinct revealed to him, that he stood 
 at the turning point of his life, and that a few 
 short weeks would decide irrevocably in what 
 channel its streams should flow. 
 
 It is so with all of us — girt round with mystery, 
 we stand on the brink of unknown seas. Every 
 day may carry in its bosom a blessing that shall 
 ring through the endless ages, or a curse that 
 shall shatter the dream, fantasies of years. Every 
 stranger we pass heedlessly by, may be destined 
 to play the largest part in the farce-tragedy of our 
 lives. But this is mystery which only time can 
 solve. Thrice happy he who has found the golden 
 thread of Divine love running through the tan- 
 gled web of human existence. He can bear the 
 darkness, knowing that morning must bring light, 
 and can sail calmly over stormy seas in the tran- 
 quil faith that a haven of rest and beauty lies 
 beyond.
 
 54 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 " Poor, wandering, wayward man ! Art thon not 
 tried, and beaten with stripes even as I am ? Ever, 
 whether thou bear the royal mantle or the beggar's 
 gaberdine, art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden, and 
 thy Bed of Rest is but a grave. my brother, my 
 brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and 
 wipe away all tears from thy eyes ! " 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. " Sartor Pvesartm." 
 
 T T was late the next evening when Arthur reached 
 Elverley, after a tedious journey, followed 
 by a drive of twelve miles from the railway 
 station. But when the hired conveyance, which 
 was a heavy lumbering antiquity, a kind of un- 
 satisfactory compromise between a stage coach 
 and a hay-waggon, stopped at its destination, he 
 forgot half the tedium of the day.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 55 
 
 Nor was this owing to any inherent cheerful- 
 ness on his part, for the ' Elm Tree ' Inn was as 
 suggestive of comfort, as slippers, receipted bills, 
 and the announcement that one's mother-in-law 
 has been removed to a better world. 
 
 I have called it an Inn, in deference to a legend 
 to that effect, which adorned its exterior, but it 
 bore so secluded and unbusinesslike an appear- 
 ance, that even a teetotaller must have loved it. 
 Just as the staunchest protestant of our own day, 
 who has reported his vicar to the ' Rock ' for rit- 
 ualistic practices, and denounced popery at Exeter 
 Hall, wandering through the dim aisles of an 
 Italian Cathedral, is moved to something faintly 
 akin to tolerance, so a teetotaller in sight of the 
 6 Elm Tree ' might not only have forgotten to 
 anathematise it, but actually have entered the 
 unholy portals to drink a glass of " liquid death," 
 under the impression that he was imbibing 
 ginger beer. 
 
 For the building was so quaint and old — the
 
 56 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 heavy oaken doors so suggestive cf quiet and old- 
 fashioned comfort, the roses growing over the 
 front of the house so exquisitely fragrant, and 
 the face of the landlady so beamingly contented, 
 that seeing all this a cynic might have smiled 
 and renounced misanthropy for ever. 
 
 Arthur took these details in at one comprehen- 
 sive glance, and having paid the driver liberally, 
 and dismissed him with undisguised relief, turned 
 with one of his pleasant smiles to the ruling 
 spirit of the ' Elm Tree/ Mrs. Ephraim Tonkin. 
 
 " Ha— plump eight-and-thirty, good-looking 
 and good-tempered— she'll do," was his mental 
 decision. 
 
 " Ha — tall — handsome — and a perfect gentle- 
 man." This was hers. 
 
 " Mrs. Tonkin," said Arthur pleasantly, " my 
 friend Dr. Medhurst tells me that the ' Elm Tree ' 
 is an earthly paradise, and after two minutes ex- 
 perience of it, I am half inclined to think the 
 same."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 57 
 
 Mrs. Tonkin dropped a gratified curtsey. " I 
 shall be prond to accommodate any friend of Dr. 
 Medhurst's, sir," she said, " it isn't often such 
 gentlemen comes this way." 
 
 Arthur was quite right in deeming the plump 
 widow good-looking, nineteen years had worn her 
 wedding ring, but had failed ignominiously in 
 their attempt to wrinkle her forehead, or change 
 the colour of her wavy brown hair. 
 
 A ponderous family Bible notified that Ephraim 
 Tonkin had married her nineteen years before, so 
 I state the time without hesitation, but concern- 
 ing Ephraim himself, history is silent. Some 
 vague rumours were afloat in Elverley to the 
 effect, that he had regarded a chair more in the 
 light of an offensive weapon, than a support for 
 a weary frame, that he had spoilt the beauty of 
 matrimonial discussions, by the introduction of a 
 poker into the argument ; in short, that if he had 
 not had the good sense to break his neck three 
 months after the wedding-day, he must inevitably
 
 58 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 have broken his wife's heart instead, but be this 
 as it may, his widow had " laid him i'the earth," 
 and come to live at Elverley with cheerful resigna- 
 tion, and two hundred a year. 
 
 " Would you like any supper, sir ? " said the 
 relict of the defunct Tonkin. 
 
 " No, thank you," said Arthur, " I had some at 
 Entwich. I will just take a stroll while you see 
 my bedroom prepared." 
 
 And having enjoyed a saunter in the soft even- 
 ing air, the first appearance of Elverley in th e 
 moonlight, and the flavour of a transcendently 
 excellent cigar, he went to bed. 
 
 Next morning was Sunday, and after he had 
 enjoyed the fruit of Mrs. Tonkin's culinary genius, 
 in the shape of a substantial breakfast, he went 
 out for a short walk before church, to which he 
 had not yet quite decided whether he should go 
 or not. 
 
 " I am not particularly fond of country 
 churches," he said to himself, as he wandered by
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 59 
 
 the little river Elva's fairy course, and enjoyed 
 the fragrant breath of the sweet wild flowers 
 growing upon its banks. " The organ is gene- 
 rally a note and a half too flat, and the choir 
 several notes too sharp. The sermons too are 
 respectable narcotics, but that is not very high 
 praise. I wonder what Atherton will have to say 
 for himself. Probably to tell us to refrain from 
 murder, lying and criticism, and to come regular- 
 ly to church. Medhurst said he was a very 
 superior fellow, but that goes for nothing. The 
 cleverest man I ever knew became an absolute 
 dolt, the moment he put on a surplice. No, the 
 birds have a better theology, and a more hopeful 
 creed. I think I won't go this morning." 
 
 But the faint chime of the chuch bell sounded 
 at this moment, and instead of trembling into 
 silence as it had done before, began to summons 
 the villagers to enter the old grey walls, and echo 
 nature's hymn of praise. Arthur could see them 
 coming from all directions at the ringing of the
 
 60 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 bells. By the way, there are few more refreshing 
 rarities than a really musical bell. It is part of 
 our national character to worship ugliness, and 
 many an excellent churchwarden is firmly per- 
 suaded, that there is a positive orthodoxy in 
 every utterance of a cracked bell. 
 
 u After all " said Arthur, (t I may as well go 
 down and join them. I shall be able to see this 
 awful Miss Atherton, Medhurst spoke of, and 
 decide upon a line of tactics with regard to 
 her — yes, I will go." 
 
 So saying, he walked quickly towards the 
 church, that he might have the opportunity of a 
 little quiet observation before service commenced. 
 
 He saw at a glance that the church was a very 
 old one ; indeed he hastily decided it must have 
 been regarded in that light four hundred years 
 ago. The old pillars were grey and discoloured, 
 and the font — a rough stone rudely shaped, with 
 only a rugged cross carved upon its side to reveal 
 its sacred office, was chipped and tottering, but
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 61 
 
 this was all. Time had dealt gently with it, only 
 touching it softly with his resistless hand ; but 
 the men and women of the past, who met to- 
 gether within these walls, who prayed and loved, 
 or cursed and hated in their time, where are they ? 
 Gone from sight and from remembrance, even the 
 inscription on their graves an illegible hierogly- 
 phic ! 
 
 Who can enter an old church without these 
 thoughts ? As they crossed Arthur's mind, the 
 old weary questions, ' Is anything worth the effort 
 it costs ? Is life itself worth having ? Of what 
 use is it to struggle and battle, why not drift idly 
 with the stream ? ' uttered themselves again. The 
 dreariest of creeds, that all is vanity, is not 
 natural to an enthusiastic and highly endowed 
 nature ; it only comes when faith has been 
 wounded and trust misplaced. Every one knows 
 Iago's remarks about the theft of reputation, but 
 it is inexpressibly sadder to find our trust betrayed, 
 and our worship a senseless idolatry. The man
 
 62 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 who robs us of belief in friendship, and the 
 woman who bids us hold love to be a lie, filch 
 heart-wealth from us, and i leave us poor 
 indeed.' 
 
 It is very hard for an enthusiastic nature fully 
 to realise that life must be regarded as something 
 independant of our own small experience. All 
 men are more or less influenced by circumstances, 
 and though in the infinite possibilities of genius, 
 there may have been hermits who have written 
 burlesques, and mutes who have composed comic 
 operettas, these gentlemen are not so common as 
 to invalidate the general rule. 
 
 Arthur looked round the church while the 
 organist was playing (rather tamely) the last few 
 bars of the voluntary. The congregation was 
 mainly composed of farmers and farm labourers, 
 the exceptions being, the squire, Sir Herbert 
 Stansfeld, and his sister Agnes, (a rather colour- 
 less looking girl of twenty,) the doctor and his 
 wife, and a few other " gentle folks," whose
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 63 
 
 houses were scattered at distances from two to 
 fifteen miles from Elverley. 
 
 Of these I need only mention Miss GlofFoggen, 
 who was a lady of too remarkable characteristics 
 to be parenthetically discussed. Arthur's heart 
 sank within him when he saw her, for she 
 answered with fatal exactness to Walter Med- 
 hurst's description of Maud Atherton. She was 
 dressed in scarlet with a green bonnet adorned 
 by large yellow flowers, and a shawl of no de- 
 scribable tint, which didn't fit, and was fastened 
 by a brooch, irresistibly suggestive of a charity- 
 boy's official badge. Her crowning attraction 
 was a pair of blue spectables, with heavy metal 
 rims and cracked glasses. 
 
 But her face! Arthur felt half-inclined to 
 retreat at once, at the first sight of it : such a 
 grim contempt for man it expressed, and such 
 awful suggestiveness of latent scholarship, that 
 he half expected to see her mount the pulpit 
 stairs with masculine strides, and denounce him
 
 64 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 personally with malignant gesticulations and her 
 uplifted umbrella. 
 
 But at this moment, Ralph Atherton entered, 
 and Arthur forgot even Miss Gloffoggen in study- 
 ing the vicar's face. 
 
 <( Strikingly handsome," he said to himself, 
 " but with a strangely sad expression. Though 
 that's hardly to be wondered at, seeing what an 
 ugly congregation he has to preach to." 
 
 Nor was Ralph Atherton' s voice less striking 
 than his face. He read the prayers very quietly 
 and with no regard to elocutionary effect, but 
 with an exquisite power of inflection, and an 
 utter absence of affectation, which sent the grand 
 old words of the English liturgy home to Arthur's 
 heart as they had not sounded for a long, long 
 time. " At all events, this man knows how to 
 read," thought he. " I don't think that awful 
 looking woman can be his daughter, or he would 
 have acquired the habit of shouting." 
 
 But when they stood up to sing, Arthur's
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 65 
 
 quick musical ear caught the sound of one sweet 
 voice of such exquisite beauty, that he could not 
 believe it belonged to any of the people he had 
 already noticed. 
 
 It was not a voice of remarkable power, and 
 it was only occasionally he heard it, but when- 
 ever a note reached him, it came like a breath of 
 fragrant air in Midsummer. 
 
 But still the old struggle was going on in his 
 mind. Why not give up the battle of life 
 altogether, and cease to vex one's-self with all 
 these tangled questions of duty and destiny ? 
 
 He almost started to hear his thoughts pro- 
 nounced audibly. 
 
 " And I said, oh that I had wings like a dove, for 
 then ivould I fly away, and he at rest" 
 
 It was the vicar's text, and Arthur roused him- 
 self to hear how this man with the marks of 
 suffering upon his face, would handle it. 
 
 He began by talking of the mysterious thought- 
 baffling agony of life, throbbing through every
 
 66 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 fibre of the created world. He spoke of those 
 who weep over graves, where slumber the hearts 
 they would have gladly died to save, of broken 
 faith, of cold estrangement, of baffled ambition 
 and shattered hopes, of the disenchanting touch 
 of Time, at which the fabrics of our early dreams 
 crumble into ruin and decay. 
 
 And he spoke of doubt, intellectual and spi- 
 ritual — of the hours when the soul gropes blindly 
 for God, and finds him not — of the scarcely less 
 bitter moments when the wronged spirit is 
 tempted to atheism in humanity, and to question 
 if truth be anything deeper than a fantastic dream. 
 
 And he spoke of voiceless suffering — of silent 
 agony — of the hearts that break, and ' make no 
 sign,' and from all these, he said, in all ages, the 
 passionate cry had wailed to heaven — " this life is 
 not a blessing but a curse, release us from it, set 
 us free. Our brains are giddy, our hearts throb 
 with agony, our feet are bleeding, give us rest ? 
 even if it be the slumber of eternal death."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 67 
 
 Arthur was glad of a momentary pause, for 
 these words had moved him strangely. Reality 
 is always a power, and Ealph Atherton spoke of 
 pain, not as a surgeon might speak of disease, or 
 a seraph of sin, but in the unmistakeable accents 
 of one who has fallen, sinned, suffered, fought and 
 conquered himself. There was an unconventional 
 honesty about him too : he did not evade the 
 difficulties in his path, but met them fairly 
 and tested them carefully, lest haply they might 
 be at lowest, distorted truth. Moreover, his 
 delivery was very effective. He rarely raised his 
 voice above its usual quiet tone, and there was 
 no dramatic gesture to make his periods striking : 
 no one would have classed him among popular 
 preachers, but there was a strength of hardly-won 
 conviction and a wealth of passionate earnestness 
 in his lightest tone, which would have redeemed 
 his simplest saying from insignificance. 
 
 He went on to point out how earth's heroes 
 
 had always been her sufferers, how learning was 
 
 F 2
 
 68 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 gained by toil and experience, and by defeat, 
 bow the bigbest blessing conferred upon tbe 
 world was bougbt by agony at wbicb tbe silent 
 eartb sbuddered. And be spoke of tbe Redeemer's 
 agony in tbe busbed and reverend tones of one 
 to wbom Calvary was a reality and a power. 
 
 " And tbis brings me/' be said, " to tbe one 
 Divine gift wbicb saves us from being crusbed 
 by tbis weight of agony and pain. Upon tbe 
 breast of tbe sad weary eartb, our Saviour wrote 
 tbe only possible solution of tbe mystery of life — 
 He wrote it witb His sacred blood — tbe one word 
 — Love. 
 
 And Ralph went on to point out bow wberever 
 tbis love bad come, it made life possible. 
 
 In tbe pains of motherhood — in tbe drawing of 
 bearts together among young men and maidens — 
 in tbe fatherly tenderness of later years, always 
 sorrow became lighter if love bade us bear tbe 
 burden, nay more, it became a purifying fur- 
 nace through which the true-hearted passed
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 69 
 
 unharmed, and emerged with a rarer lustre and 
 a deeper strengh. 
 
 And thus he evolved the truth that beneath all 
 the confusion and bitterness of existence, a Divine 
 purpose was being worked out, and that it was 
 ours by work and by endurance to assist its pro- 
 gress. He quoted the grand old saying ' he who 
 maketh a little child happy for an hour is a fellow 
 worker with God,' and he asked them to believe 
 that their lowest work was sacred, their pettiest 
 annoyance if patiently and bravely born- 
 sublime. 
 
 " Eest will be given us " he concluded, u in 
 
 God's own time, but there is a grander thing to 
 
 yearn for than rest — that is victory." Not to 
 
 escape from pain, but to bear it bravely, 
 
 not to avoid the soldier's life, the long march 
 
 over rough roads, leading to battle-fields, but to 
 
 win the soldier's glory, even though it be a death. 
 
 Victory over self— over low ideals — over false 
 
 creeds — and false ambitions — victory which shall 
 
 f 3
 
 70 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 make death itself an angel's wing to bear the 
 weary spirit home to God." 
 
 I write down briefly some of the points on 
 which he touched, but I cannot give his tones or 
 the surroundings under which he spoke. To 
 Arthur, years after, the scene would come vividly 
 back, like strains of remembered music. 
 
 The quiet old church, with the June sunlight 
 streaming in through the open windows, and the 
 soft air bearing on its wings fragrant messages 
 from wild flowers and dewy grass, the attentive 
 faces of the villagers, who had come to feel Ralph's 
 teaching a real and hopeful thiDg, and the speak- 
 er's face with its striking beauty, and strange 
 expression of conquered sadness, stamped them- 
 selves indelibly upon his memory. 
 
 Not that there was anything new in what 
 Ealph had said. All men who have thought 
 deeply about life have felt some of these truths,, 
 many men have uttered them all. But to Arthur 
 they came with more force than a new philosophy
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 71 
 
 could have done, for they echoed his old convic- 
 tions, the faith of the chivalrous, enthusiastic 
 hopeful Arthur of five years ago. 
 
 He had found at last a man, who had suffered 
 deeply, yet had not despaired, who believed even 
 while his own heart bled with pain, that life was 
 worth having, who held, that viewed , in its com- 
 pleteness, it was a great and holy thing. 
 
 After the benediction was pronounced, Arthur 
 looked round for the beautiful singer. 
 
 And then for the first time he saw Maud 
 Atherton. 
 
 He went for a long walk that afternoon, and 
 fought the old question out again. 
 
 There was something about the light con- 
 ventional society with which he had lately mingled 
 and the brilliant superficial literature he had 
 been lately reading, that had always half wearied 
 and disgusted him, but to-day, with his old pas- 
 sionate convictions and dreams reawakened, he 
 turned from them to these higher views, as men
 
 72 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 emerge from the close atmosphere of a midnight 
 revel, to the star-lit air of heaven. 
 
 To work manfully — to be of some use in the 
 world — to make some life gladder — to attach 
 some hearts in grateful affection to his own — to 
 quit himself manfully, losing self in thought 
 for others in the great battle of life — these were 
 the aims dictated by his reawakened self. 
 
 And through all these indistinct dreams of possi- 
 ble achievements, all these resolved renunciations, 
 one other thought would find a place. He smiled 
 at it as irrelevant and absurd, but often as he 
 banished it, it returned again with new sweetness 
 and fresh power. 
 
 It was the remembrance of a voice heard that 
 day for the first time, which had touched the life- 
 roots of his being — the memory of a face one 
 glimpse of which had reawakened something of 
 his old passionate belief in womanhood.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 73 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Edgar. — In his eyes 
 
 There is the light of genius. E'er the world 
 Can dim the golden brightness of his hair 
 He will have sounded mystic depths of thought, 
 And caught sweet echoes from the Infinite, 
 As only poets can. 
 
 Alice. — ! Ah me ! I fear 
 
 He will but breath the prelude of a strain, 
 The full toned harmony of which will swell 
 Upon the air of heaven. 
 
 HP HE next morning was cloudy and dull, the 
 heavy air fraught with the prophecy of a storm. 
 Arthur was a passionate enthusiast in art, though 
 his studies therein, like most of his pursuits 
 lately, had been extremely desultory. It occurred 
 to him that some fine cloud studies and effects of
 
 H MAUD ATHEUTON 
 
 light and shade, might be obtained by the river 
 side. 
 
 So having, by Mrs. Tonkin's agency, captured 
 a small boy to carry his easel, he determined to 
 work vigorously by way of a change. The small 
 boy rendered his services under tacit protest, 
 evidently regarding the easel as a piece of dia- 
 bolical artillery, or unholy instrument of torture, 
 but shillings presenting themselves in his way 
 only on rare occasions, it seemed to him desirable 
 to earn one even at the risk of slightly endanger- 
 ing his soul. 
 
 Arthur stopped on an elevated piece of ground 
 where tall trees growing on each side of the 
 river spread their waving boughs above it like a 
 leafy shield. 
 
 When the sun was shining, the chief thought 
 it suggested was peaceful restful quiet, but with 
 the dark thunderclouds overhead the stillness was 
 almost unbearable, the river's voice seemed 
 changed and frightened, and all nature to be
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 75 
 
 waiting in hushed expectation for the coming 
 storm. 
 
 Arthur painted for some time wholly absorbed 
 in his surroundings, but presently his mind began 
 to wander to that sweet voice he had heard yes- 
 terday for the first time, and Maud's wonderful 
 dark eyes haunted him strangely. Not that he 
 was the least in love with this beautiful girl, but 
 there are some faces of such spiritual power, that 
 a mometary glimpse of them forms an epoch in 
 life. Kate Rushton's face was more faultlessly 
 beautiful than Maud's, yet it awakened passion 
 rather than worship, the one face depended sole- 
 ly on its perfection of tint and outline, the other 
 suggested thoughts above and beyond it. 
 
 Arthur had found out at last the actual person- 
 ality, both of Maud Atherton and Miss Sarah 
 GloiFoggen, and appreciated Walter Medhurst's 
 deception, into which he had been so readily 
 beguiled. 
 
 " I will call on Mr. Atherton to night," he said
 
 76 MAUD ATHEUTON. 
 
 to himself, " a clergyman whose views are not 
 stereotyped is a refreshing novelty, and then I 
 shall be able to see this village goddess a 
 little closer. By Jove, that mnst surely be 
 thunder." 
 
 The low mutter of distant thunder sounded as 
 he spoke, and a few large drops of rain began to 
 fall. Arthur looked round for some place of 
 shelter, and was relieved to see a small cottage 
 he had not observed before, at no great distance. 
 A sorrowful looking woman, very plainly and 
 respectably dressed curtsied as he entered, and 
 proceeded according to the time honoured custom 
 of cottagers, to dust a chair that was spotlessly 
 clean with her apron, which she proffered, asking 
 him to sit down as mournfully as if she intended 
 to draw two of his front teeth. 
 
 A true gentleman is never more unmistakably 
 known than by his bearing to people socially his 
 inferiors. Arthur spoke to the disconsolate 
 widow, as courteously as if she had been a
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 77 
 
 countess, though not exactly in the same way. 
 He told her he had been sketching, and asked 
 shelter until the storm had abated. 
 
 " Eh, sir," said the woman, " I shall be honour- 
 ed if you'll sit down for a while in the cottage. 
 It ain't much of a place, sir, for I'm a poor 
 widow-woman, as has to work for her livin', but 
 no one can say it isn't clean." And having 
 thrown out this challenge to the universe in 
 general, with some vivacity, Mrs. Thorby (for 
 that was her name) subsided into despondency 
 and gloom. 
 
 Arthur was debating within himself whether 
 he should encourage her to be loquacious on the 
 subject of her sorrows, (evidently a pet theme of 
 hers) when he saw she was not the only inmate 
 of the cottage. 
 
 Upon a couch at the other end of the room lay 
 a boy about fourteen years old, but looking much 
 younger. His blue eyes were large and dreamy, 
 his features small and perfect, his mouth refined
 
 78 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 and sensitive, and his hair hanging in long 
 golden curls like a woman's. 
 
 But the colourless face, and the air of utter 
 weariness told their tale all too plainly. The boy 
 was consumptive, and already the shadow of the 
 Death-angel's wing seemed to have fallen upon 
 him. 
 
 But Arthur thought he could read in that girl- 
 ish face, a deeper meaning than this. Child as he 
 seemed, there was genius expressed in those deep 
 blue eyes. 
 
 si Is that your son ? " he said with a look of 
 quick surprise at Mrs. Thorby. 
 
 "Yes sir, my boy Alfred, my only child." 
 Arthur crossed the room to his side and said 
 kindly to him. 
 
 " It must be dull for you lying here." 
 
 " It is sometimes," said the boy wearily " but I 
 have books." He pointed as he spoke to a small 
 table by his side, upon which were white roses, and 
 a little pile of books. They were poems mostly,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 79 
 
 and Arthur saw the ' Fairy Queen,' ' Paradise 
 Lost,' and \ Shakespeare ' among the number. 
 
 " Do you read these, Alfred ? " he asked in some 
 surprise. 
 
 " Yes," replied the boy, " I should often 
 be weary without them — they are my best 
 friends." 
 
 Arthur took up the copy of Shakespeare; it 
 opened at * Romeo and Juliet,' and he saw that 
 many of the passionate words of that wonderful 
 poem were underlined in pencil. 
 
 " Are these your marks ? " he asked. 
 
 A faint flush tinged the boy's cheek as he 
 answered " Yes." 
 
 " How old are you ? " said Arthur, more sur- 
 prised than ever. 
 
 "I am fourteen," was the reply, u but poets 
 crowd long lives into a few days." 
 
 " And are you a poet ? " 
 
 " I try to be, and I have such strange fancies 
 lying here."
 
 80 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " What kind of fancies ? " said Arthur, interes- 
 ted in this strange conversation. 
 
 "About all the mystery of everything, and 
 the beauty, and what it all means. Sometimes I 
 have dreadful fancies too — about spirits — and 
 what it would be to be alone in the dark for cen- 
 turies." 
 
 " Are you afraid of the dark ? " asked Arthur, 
 catching at the last remark as a half childish one. 
 
 " Only because it is like the grave," said the 
 child. " I am dying, and shall soon have lost 
 the light for ever. But I have learnt what life 
 means, young as I am." 
 
 " What does it mean ? " Arthur's voice sounded 
 almost harsh and bitter, after the child's clear 
 treble tones. 
 
 " It means Love," said the golden-haired little 
 dogmatist. 
 
 " It means anything but love in the great 
 world," said Arthur. "It means hatred 
 and treachery, it means disappointment and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 81 
 
 failure, often it means weariness and disgust." 
 
 The child passed his hand wearily over his 
 forehead. u I know nothing about your great 
 world," he said, " but I know that is not life — 
 not what God intended it should be— not what 
 Shakespeare and Milton thought it was — not what 
 I know it is when — " 
 
 He checked himself. Arthur looked wonder- 
 ingly at him, and said — 
 
 " And you underlined these words of Romeo's. 
 How can you possibly understand them ? " 
 
 The boy was silent; but just then Arthur, who 
 was turning the leaves of the book carelessly over, 
 happened to glance at the fly leaf. 
 
 Written in a clear bold hand were the words, 
 
 ' Alfred Thorby, from Maud Atherton,' and when 
 
 he glanced from the book to the child, he almost 
 
 started at the transformation. Instead of the 
 
 pale listless boy of a few minutes before, his little 
 
 friend lay flushed and excited, with a new light 
 
 in his large blue eyes. 
 
 a
 
 82 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 They were alone together, Mrs. Thorby having 
 
 gone out of the room. Arthur read the boy's 
 
 whole history in his face, and child as he felt him 
 
 to be in years, saw that a man's worship absorbed 
 
 > his soul. 
 
 " Is it Miss Atherton who has taught you the 
 meaning of life ? " he asked. 
 
 The boy struggled with his desire to confide in 
 Arthur. 
 
 " You will laugh at me if I tell you," he said. 
 
 " No, indeed," returned Arthur quickly," I will 
 
 do nothing so false. Tell me, do you love her ? " 
 
 Again the boy was silent for a few moments, 
 
 but when he spoke it was with the rapid utterance 
 
 of long-cherished thoughts. 
 
 " Love her ! " he said passionately, " I worship 
 her. I only live because she does. She is light, 
 music, heaven itself. When I am in pain she 
 comes beside me, and the lightest touch of her 
 little white hand can make me forget everything 
 but love. Have you ever seen her ? "
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 83 
 
 u Once — at church." 
 
 " Then you know how beautiful she is. Don't 
 you think Juliet's eyes were like that? " 
 
 He went on rapidly without waiting for a reply, 
 " But it is not only her beautiful face. She sings 
 to me sometimes, and then I think she is a syren. 
 It is not like ordinary music at all. And she 
 reads to me and tells me old legends and ballads, 
 and when she talks I think she is an angel — but 
 she is too bright for that. Angels are always 
 sad." 
 
 " Always sad," repeated Arthur, fascinated by 
 this fair-headed child's conversation, so unlike 
 anything he had ever heard before. 
 
 " How can they be anything but sad, when 
 
 they see so much sorrow ? But one cannot be 
 
 unhappy when Miss Maud is here. Her laughter 
 
 is like bells at a fairy bridal— and she so often 
 
 laughs. Yet once when she thought I was asleep, 
 
 I saw her eyes were full of tears, and I know they 
 
 were for me. Once when I had been very weak, 
 
 G 2
 
 84 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 she kissed me, and I have often prayed since for 
 any pain that should "bring me the touch of her 
 lips again." 
 
 Arthur was silent. Such words seemed strange 
 and unnatural coming from a child, yet he had 
 ceased to be incredulous as to their truth. As he 
 looked at the little flushed face, he thought it was 
 love like this that had brought forth chivalry, 
 and cradled the poets of humanity in her arms. 
 
 The child was silent too, exhausted by the 
 effort he had made, and lay watching the storm 
 that had now nearly exhausted its fury. 
 
 The rain still fell in torrents, but the lightening 
 flashed at longer intervals. The mountainous 
 clouds were scattering, and a faint streak of gol- 
 den light, proclaimed that the sunshine had won 
 the victory. 
 
 And by way of contrast Mrs. Thorby again 
 made her appearance, having in reality been cook- 
 ing the dinner, but looking as though she had 
 been making arrangements lor her funeral, and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 85 
 
 was appalled at the magnitude of the charges. 
 
 But her face brightened a little when Arthur 
 said — 
 
 " Alfred and I are good friends already, Mrs. 
 Thorby, we have been talking together and quite 
 forgetting the flight of time." 
 
 " Eh sir, he's a wonderful boy is my Alfred," 
 (the widow and Arthur were at the end of the 
 room farthest from the child, who could not dis- 
 tinguish their softly spoken words.) 
 
 " Where did he learn to talk like that ? asked 
 Arthur. 
 
 "Like what, sir?" 
 
 " About poetical fancies, and books, and — and " 
 (Arthur was going to say, ' and love,' but checked 
 himself,) " and life." 
 
 " Well sir, to be sure I don't know who teaches 
 
 the child such things, unless it's Miss Maud. I 
 
 never have nothing to do with such outlandish 
 
 notions myself, for I'm a poor widder woman as 
 
 has to work hard for her livin'." 
 
 g3
 
 86 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " Yes," said Arthur suppressing a tendency to 
 yawn. " You mentioned the circumstance before. 
 Is Miss Atherton liked in the village ? " 
 
 a Liked sir, there's not a man, woman, or child 
 in the village as wouldn't walk barefoot to Ent- 
 wich, to do her a service. Only she's a deal to 
 happy for this sinful world. ' Tain't for them as 
 has learned their catechism reg'lar to be always 
 laughin'. If it 'ad been meant for us to be happy, 
 the world would have been made more comfort- 
 able like — and there wouldn't have been no such 
 thing as rheumatics. Do you think there would 
 sir?" 
 
 Arthur evaded this question, seeing, that it 
 opened up rather a large field for discussion, but 
 incautiously expressed a hope that Mrs. Thorby's 
 views on the subject of " rheumatics," were not 
 based upon any personal experience of them." 
 
 Luckless words — they were the i open sesame ' 
 to Mrs. Thorby's soul. She proceeded to pour 
 out a list of her infirmities, physical, social, and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 87 
 
 spritual, with long parenthetical digressions on 
 topics of various kinds, such as her regret that 
 so good a man as Mr. Atherton should permit 
 " them Popish surplices," and the agony of soul 
 through which she passed when she nursed her 
 sister's child through the measels, (" which her 
 name was Jemima, named after my own grand- 
 mother as was a beautiful woman if she hadn't 
 squinted ") concluded the widow with emotion. 
 
 Arthur had become excessively bored, and 
 had been looking for a pause, as ship-wrecked 
 mariners watch for the first indication of coming 
 sails. 
 
 One thing seemed very strange to him, she 
 was evidently very fond of her boy, and talked 
 with pride about him, but no word did she utter 
 about his sufferings, not a phrase fell from her 
 lips betraying any fear that she might lose him. 
 
 The rain had ceased falling, and Mrs. Thorby 
 being out of breath, stopped too. Arthur took 
 advantage of this and said —
 
 88 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " Well Mrs. Thorby, I hope next winter won't 
 be so severe, and then perhaps you'll suffer less. 
 But I must be off — it has left off raining. Good 
 bye Alfred." He went round to shake hands with 
 the child before going. The little fellow held out 
 a hand so thin and wasted, that Arthur almost 
 feared to grasp it firmly. But the small white 
 hand gave his a lingering pressure, as the child 
 looked with a kind of wistful admiration at his 
 face. 
 
 " How kind you are " he said softly, adding 
 childishly enough " you are so tall and strong, 
 you can row, and swim, and ride, and play cricket 
 I suppose ! " 
 
 Arthur nodded assent. 
 
 " It must be beautiful to be so strong. Are 
 you always happy ? " 
 
 u I never met anyone who was," said Arthur, 
 " there is so much disappointment in everything." 
 
 " If I were strong I would never talk of dis- 
 appointment," said the child dreamily.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 89 
 
 " What would you do ? " 
 
 " I would go out into the great world, and fight 
 with wrong, and oppression, and tyranny. Where- 
 ever I found anyone sad I would comfort them, 
 and if anyone was poor I would make him rich. 
 Like Spenser's knights, you know, and it should 
 all be as their work was, for the sake of my 
 ' Faerie Queene.' " 
 
 " Suppose you failed ? " 
 
 " I should not fail, if I worked for her, but 
 even if I did, she would know that I had struggled 
 bravely, and be glad for it. So you see it would 
 not be failure after all. And then I would write 
 a poem, and she should be the heroine of it. 
 All the world would love her then, for I would 
 tell all about her beautiful eyes, and her sweet 
 voice, and I would write about her bright smile, 
 and the music of her laughter, and then I would 
 speak of the things that are like her." 
 
 " What things are like her ? " 
 
 u Flowers are like her lips, and eyes, and her
 
 90 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 voice and tread are music, and her smile is star- 
 light, but I cannot find a simile for her heart. It 
 is most like a river I think, because that carries 
 health and beauty everywhere, and flowers grow 
 round it, and it sings so sweetly, and brings every 
 sunbeam down from heaven to earth, and then 
 beneath its gay and laughing surface, there are 
 depths one cannot sound — but she is more beauti- 
 ful than that. Good bye sir, what is your 
 name ? " 
 
 " Arthur Calverley : you must call me Arthur. 
 I must go now, but I will come and see you again 
 if you like," 
 
 u Yes do come again " said the child eagerly, 
 " no one listens so kindly to me as you have done 
 except Miss Maud. You will come again soon ? " 
 
 " Very soon. Good bye Alfred." 
 
 " Good bye Arthur," and so they parted. 
 
 Arthur went away thoughtfully. Careless and 
 indifferent as he had grown lately, his was one of 
 those characters, which only need a high aim in
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 91 
 
 life to achieve great things. One of the most 
 hopeful points in his mind, was its utter absence 
 of self-conceit. His views of greatness at his 
 idlest moment were so far above common ideals, 
 that he was in no danger of self-complacently 
 imagining he had attained it. Therefore he was 
 not ashamed to learn wisdom from a child." 
 
 And this blue-eyed boy, with his passionate 
 belief in these things, Arthur had begun to doubt 
 had touched all that was noblest in his heart. 
 
 " His enthusiasm is the belief of an inexperienced 
 child ; a year in London would end all that, " he 
 thought to himself," and yet — no — it would only 
 give place to something better, the strong con- 
 victions, and steadfast faith of manhood. Yes — 
 yes — this golden haired baby has unconsciously 
 preached me the second sermon I have heard since 
 I have been here, both unconventional, both in- 
 spiring, and both umcomplimentary. Perhaps 
 it's one of the village accomplishments. I wonder 
 if Miss Atherton will preach me a third, she has
 
 92 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 very small feet, it would be rather delightful to 
 sit at them." 
 
 Perhaps Maud had something better than a 
 sermon for him. Bright eyes are poems, only we 
 men are frequently too dull to read their meaning. 
 
 Arthur called that evening at the vicarage, and 
 was received very cordially. 
 
 Ralph Atherton was one of the few men who 
 are masters of the lost art of conversation. He 
 talked of art, and science, literature, and politics, 
 without becoming superficial on the one hand, or 
 pedantic on the other. Maud took little share in 
 the discussion at first, but presently she became 
 interested, and freely joined in the cenversation. 
 It was interesting to note the difference between 
 father and daughter. Both were earnest in their 
 views, but in Maud this was half hidden by play- 
 fulness. 
 
 She was rather fond of talking heresy, it was 
 plain, and her sense of humour was keener than 
 her father's, as a certain vein of light-hearted
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 93 
 
 mockery running through some of her words 
 plainly showed. There was the great gulf too 
 between them of separate life experience. One 
 had suffered deeply, the other had not. 
 
 Arthur contrived to turn the conversation to 
 music, and so get an opportunity of hearing 
 Maud sing ; and when she did so, he began to 
 understand for the first time Alfred Thorby's 
 reverential homage. Maud was no angel, there 
 was too much mischief in her for that, but her 
 singing afforded new suggestions as to her cha- 
 racter. As the low sweet tones of her voice 
 sounded in the dreamy twilight, Arthur thought 
 perhaps her woman's soul was shadowed forth in 
 them, and suspected instinctively that this village 
 girl hid beneath her light words a depth of pas- 
 sionate feeling, of love or hatred, of sacrifice, 
 endurance, and renunciation, such as common- 
 place maidens, gay and frivolous, or sad-eyed and 
 sentimental, never dreamed of. 
 
 And so the first evening at the vicarage passed
 
 94 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 quickly away, and Arthur went home to the ' Elm 
 Tree ' humming the ballads she had sung, and 
 wondering whether all the poets, artists, sculptors, 
 and musicians in the world could explain the 
 meaning lying hidden in a woman's eyes.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 95 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " Then we talked — oh, how we talked ! her voice so 
 
 cadenced in the talking 
 Made another singing — of the soul, a music without 
 
 bars, 
 While the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming round 
 
 where we were walking, 
 
 Made interposition worthy — sweet, as skies above the 
 
 stars." 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 A week afterwards Arthur despatched the 
 following note — 
 
 u My dear Medhurst, 
 
 You will be wondering what effect 
 Elverley has had upon me, physically, morally, 
 and intellectually — whether I have conceived a 
 Platonic attachment for Mrs. Tonkin, or bought
 
 96 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 a farm, or eloped with Miss Sarah Gloftoggen. I 
 have dwelt among these guileless natives for nine 
 days, and have i read, marked, learned, and inward- 
 ly ' marvelled at everything. 
 
 ' The Elm Tree ' is a phenomenon to begin with. 
 I have had an extensive knowledge of hotels, as 
 you know, in England, on the Continent, and in 
 America, but I never met with anything of the 
 kind before. I dare not expatiate on Mrs Ton- 
 kin's cookery, lest crowds of famished tourists 
 should i come down like a wolf on the fold,' and 
 make her . soups and entrees a memory of the 
 golden past. But I forgot — you too have tasted 
 them. Then when I ordered a bottle of wine on the 
 occassion of my first dinner, I of course antici- 
 pated port of British manufacture, but the inscru- 
 table Mrs. Tonkin produced a wine that might 
 have had an honoured place in my father's cellars. 
 These items of diet I mention to set your profes- 
 sional mind at rest. 
 
 But when I go outside the * Elm Tree's '
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 97 
 
 charmed portals, comical wonder gives way to 
 tragical surprise. Miss Sarah Gloffoggen spoke of 
 you in a way that made me tremble for my friend 
 Beware, oh, unsuspecting Walter, there is such 
 latent power in that woman's right arm, and an 
 umbrella is so useful an instrument of warfare, 
 that even so brave a heart as yours might be 
 married by force, and awake to a ghastly con- 
 sciousness of the awful fact too late. 
 
 Then I have already grown to share your admi- 
 ration for Ralph Atherton. I could understand 
 the whole story of his beautiful young Italian 
 wife, when I had seen his face ; I got the tale in 
 full from a breathless retainer of the family 
 (Name — Sarah. Girth round the waist — several 
 yards.) 
 
 I have made another friend here too — a blue- 
 eyed golden-haired boy of fourteen, who I think 
 has genius, and might have been a great poet. 
 But he will carry his weird fancies into the land 
 of shadows, unspoken I fear ? for he is in an
 
 98 MAUD AT BERT ON. 
 
 advanced stage of consumption. The Doctor 
 here (James Corrie, Esq., M.D., as the Entwich 
 Times always calls him,) spoke qnite hopelessly 
 of him the other day. 
 
 I do not believe in boring friends with descrip- 
 tions of people they have never seen, but this 
 child has interested me so deeply, that I am trans- 
 gressing my ordinary rule. The most singular 
 thing about him is that he worships one woman 
 with a wealth of passionate idealistic love, such 
 as I should never have fancied could exist apart 
 from matured manhood. But there are more 
 things in the hearts of children i than are dreamt 
 of in our (grown-up) philosophy ' — and then to 
 poets all things are possible. 
 
 Moreover, his divinity is worthy of adoration. 
 It may be unphilosophic to express surprise, but 
 I must confess Miss Atherton, the ogre you des- 
 cribed with such wonderful fidelity, has astonished 
 me. 
 
 I have had some opportunity of studying her
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 99 
 
 character, but the subject is a baffling one. Even 
 her beauty is puzzling. It changes so with every 
 wave of feeling, with every pulse of thought. 
 She is no angel, that is clear, but quite faulty 
 enough to entitle her to human interest. 
 
 I call her 6 faulty ' for lack of a better word, 
 yet it would be hard to name a characteristic she 
 could lose, without detriment to her character as 
 a whole. I could not spare the lighter elements 
 in her disposition, though Miss Gloffoggen calls 
 them frivolous ; they are like ' sunshine on the 
 deep sea,' to borrow an illustration from Carlyle. 
 
 Of her temper I am not certain. It is essen- 
 tially southern, and if roused could I doubt not, 
 be passionate either in love or hate. But like 
 Launce, I am tempted to ' take that out of her 
 faults and put it down as the chief of her virtues,' 
 a slight suggestion of wickedness being positively 
 attractive to my carnal mind. 
 
 Do not mistake my meaning, I am not in love 
 
 with this beautiful sylvan divinity, I have seen 
 
 H 2
 
 100 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 so little of her — and moreover 'one need be on 
 better terms with oneself than I, to imagine one's 
 heart an offering worthy of such a shrine. 
 
 But I confess she has moved me strangely ; she 
 has reawakened the old chivalous views of wo- 
 manhood and life I used to hold, and which I 
 fancied I had lost for ever. With such a woman, 
 beautiful, young, and ardent, to inspire his life, a 
 man might attain to high ends such as under 
 ordinary circumstances would be impossible. 
 
 There my dear Walter, you have the symptoms 
 in fall. I am afraid to read this letter through 
 lest I should be overwhelmed by a sense of its 
 inconsistency, and (to borrow an expressive 
 Hibernian phrase, I am in a humour for quota- 
 tion to-night) ' burn it before I send it off.' 
 
 Commend me to Brown, Smith and Jones of 
 the great world, and tell them if you like (for they 
 are a numerous and inquisitive race,) that I find 
 neither my digestion nor my spirits materially 
 impaired by their absence —
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 101 
 
 From this pastoral retreat I subscribe myself, 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 Arthur Calverley." 
 
 Rather more than a week had elapsed since 
 Arthur came to the village, and already he had 
 ceased to be a stranger there. Alfred Thorby had 
 come to regard him in the light of a strong, ac- 
 complished, elder brother, whose words were 
 always kind and encouraging, and whose touch 
 was as light as a woman's. 
 
 Sometimes Arthur would carry him down to 
 the river side, and tell him stories of his own 
 travels, or thoughts of the great philosophers and 
 poets, while to the boy, sunshine came like life, 
 and he would sit by Arthur's side listening ea- 
 gerly, or pouring out the weird fancies, and 
 fantastic dreams of his childish imagination. The 
 last two or three days Arthur had especially 
 encouraged him to speak about Maud, and the 
 child would sit watching the river, and uttering 
 
 his wild enthusiasm till it seemed to Arthur, as 
 
 h 3
 
 102 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 though his life were ebbing away like the sunny 
 rivulet, ever murmuring the name of a woman as 
 it flowed. 
 
 Even Mrs. Thorby's face would brighten at 
 Arthur's appearance, and though she still held 
 that 6 in this sinful world, folks 'ud a deal better 
 be a cry in' than a laughin',' she had sufficient 
 tolerance of heterodoxy, or womanly appreciation 
 of a handsome face, to derive a gratification, 
 carnally genuine, from his society. 
 
 Miss Gloffoggen was less favourably impressed 
 with him. He had expressed a dislike to the idea 
 of women entering parliament, or amputating 
 legs, nay more, this unprincipled young man had 
 joined with Maud in treating the matter as a fan- 
 tastic joke. This was unpardonable ; if Arthur 
 had inserted a carving-knife between two of his 
 father's ribs, or confessed a sympathy with garot- 
 ters, there might (this discreet lady considered) 
 have been some faint hope for him, but as it was 
 he had fallen ' like Lucifer, never to rise again.'
 
 MAUD ATHERTON, 103 
 
 The villagers all liked Arthur, he went into 
 their cottages, and chatted with them on all the 
 subjects they cared for, with an engaging frank- 
 ness that had won all their hearts, and I am 
 afraid he must have ruined the digestion of half 
 the juvenile population, by his extensive importa- 
 tion and lavish distribution of hardbake and 
 toffee. 
 
 Dr. Corrie, whom Arthur mentioned in his 
 letter to his friend, was a kind-hearted, good- 
 natured, middle-aged man, with no remarkable 
 endowment of mind, or quickness of perception, 
 but atoning for that deficiency by his jovial dispo- 
 sition, and the possession of a young wife — a 
 plump mischievous little gipsy of three-and- 
 twenty. 
 
 By them both, Arthur had been most cordially 
 received, but the house where he had spent almost 
 every evening, was the vicarage. Twice he had 
 played chess with Ealph Atherton, the other 
 evenings had been like the first, except that
 
 104 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 generally some visitors were there as well as he. 
 
 He never saw Maud alone, and had had no 
 opportunity for speaking with her on any but 
 general subjects ; the morning after he posted his 
 letter to Walter Medhurst, he sauntered down to 
 the river, thinking how strange it was he never 
 met her out of doors, when he fancied he could 
 see by the river side, a long way lower down the 
 flutter of a white dress. 
 
 That was enough — ' Westward Ho ! ' laughed 
 Arthur to himself, and walked rapidly in that 
 direction, like a mariner steering by the stars. 
 
 Arthur was not mistaken. Maud was reclining 
 in her favourite attitude, in her usual studio — 
 the old tree, reading. He could not see the book 
 from where he stood watching the play of expres- 
 sion in her face, but evidently it was something 
 that amused her greatly, for her eyes danced with 
 merriment, her sweet red lips constantly broke 
 into smiles, and every now and then he could 
 hear the low ripple of her musical laughter. At
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 105 
 
 last she sprang lightly from her seat, and flung 
 the book into the river, sending it spinning 
 through the air with considerable dexterity. 
 
 u Is that the way you usually treat authors 
 who have the misfortune to displease you, Miss 
 Atherton ?" said Arthur, coming forward greatly 
 amused. " Surely moral censure is sufficient 
 without, so to speak, drowning them in effigy." 
 
 For once in her life Maud was fairly caught at 
 a disadvantage, but her confusion was only mo- 
 mentary, and she watched the book being carried 
 away by the swiftly flowing tide with genuine 
 amusement. 
 
 " I don't feel very guilty," she said laughing, 
 "the offender's crimes were so enormous." 
 
 " What were they ? " 
 
 " You are determined to put me in the confes- 
 sional. I may as well admit the truth at once I 
 suppose," said Maud gaily. "It was a novel 
 culminating in a love scene. As long as the story 
 confined itself to crime, it was only absurd in the
 
 106 MAUD ATHERTON 
 
 usual style, but when the hero left off cutting 
 throats, and the heroine abandoned poisoning her 
 relations, they both became maudlin and unbear- 
 able, and patience not being my strong point I 
 — but you know the the rest." 
 
 " You are a merciless critic," said Arthur, "and 
 yet men and women have not always thought love 
 an absurdity." 
 
 Maud looked at Arthur quickly, as though she 
 could say a good deal upon the point, which was 
 precisely the thing he wanted her to do, but she 
 checked herself and answered simply — 
 
 u I wasn't talking of love at all, but hysterical 
 sentiment." 
 
 " Then you believe in love," he said half play- 
 fully, but with an earnest desire too, to know 
 what this dark-eyed girl would say in reply. 
 
 Maud met the question lightly, and made a 
 laughing answer, but after he had pressed his 
 point two or three times, that quick look of 
 resolute conviction he had already noticed passed 
 over her face, and she said —
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 107 
 
 " Yes — profoundly — but as strength, not weak- 
 ness." 
 
 The morning was so bright, and the shade of 
 the trees so delicious from the hot July sun, that 
 Maud and Arthur walked by the river-side a much 
 longer time than either had intended. 
 
 And Arthur learnt — for the first time in his life, 
 it almost seemed to him — what the power of a 
 woman's conversation could be. He had known 
 lovely girls before of course, though not quite of 
 Maud's style of beauty, but they had mostly 
 talked about the opera, the parties of the season, 
 and the faults of their friends — varying this style 
 of discussion by flirtations, in which their indif- 
 ference to other hearts, was only equal to their 
 control over their own. 
 
 He had known the sentimental class too — the 
 sweet young things, who wrote odes to the moon, 
 cried at the sight of a violet, and generally 
 wound up by marrying a wealthy soap-boiler. 
 
 And he knew very well that interesting race of
 
 108 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 maidens, called c clever young ladies,' quick- 
 witted girls for the most part, who might under 
 proper training have been charming, but who by 
 systematic { cramming ' had been reduced to a 
 mechanical existence, comprising a smattering of 
 arts, sciences, and general information, paraded 
 on every occasion, causing envy among rivals, 
 and ineffable boredom among friends. 
 
 And he knew literary women of the Miss 
 Gloffoggen type, great in statistics, profound in 
 science, gigantic in mathematics, and untidy in 
 dress, but a girl like Maud Atherton had never 
 crossed his life before. 
 
 In a desultory and errata fashion, she had 
 studied much ; many an old poet and forgotten 
 dramatist had played a part in the formation of her 
 views, yet even when talking of such things, her 
 words knew no touch of pedantry, her perceptions 
 were so quick, her discrimination so delicate, her 
 views frequently so original and striking, that 
 Arthur listened as though her words were a posi-
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 109 
 
 tive revelation to him, and so in truth they were 
 — a revelation of the fathomless depth of pure- 
 hearted womanhood. 
 
 I shall not write here all they said to one ano- 
 thor that sweet July morning. Words attain 
 deeper and holier meaning when they fall from a 
 fair woman's lips, and are made musical by the 
 girlish eloquence of a sweet voice. 
 
 But they talked.) together, sometimes lightly, 
 sometimes almost sadly, on varied themes of more 
 or less depth of interest, while the little river 
 flowed musically at their feet, like the murmuring 
 accompaniment to a song. 
 
 To Arthur all this was quite a new sensation, 
 for he was conscious (quite independantly of his 
 admiration) of a strange and subtle sympathy 
 between his nature and hers. The wise ones of 
 our time tell us, that all this admits of material 
 explanation, and may possibly go on to prove 
 that human agony is merely owing to a disorder- 
 ed liver, and that heroism is the logical sequence to
 
 110 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 a healed brain. But call it what you will — the 
 quivering of a nerve, or the consciousness of a 
 soul, there is something instinctive in our natures, 
 that tells with unerring truth when hearts are in 
 harmony with our own. 
 
 It is so even in friendship. I have known 
 Smith longer than I have known Brown. He is 
 quite as good a man, as kind-hearted, as well in- 
 formed, and much better looking. His views are 
 more like mine than Brown's, whose political ideas 
 are frantic and hysterical, yet I have never ex- 
 ceeded courtesy with Smith, while Brown knows 
 where I keep those faded rose-leaves, and why the 
 secret drawer in my desk contains a long tress 
 of nut-brown hair — and in love, these inarticulate 
 sympathies are far more keenly felt. Perhaps the 
 great scientific teachers may come some day to 
 admit, that the human heart is rather a singular 
 and erratic contrivance after all. 
 
 But time is too old a fellow to care for these 
 things, and while he lingers gloatingly over the
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. Ill 
 
 hours of sorrow and despair, his flight is rapid 
 enough, when we poor mortals snatch a sun- 
 beam or two from Eden. 
 
 This is trite, for every one has felt it. Pro- 
 bably you, reader, could name a few hours in this 
 sorry tragedy of life, when you half renounced 
 your old thoughts of it, and were nearly convinced 
 that the world was a very bright and delightful 
 place after all. But time fled on enchanted pin- 
 ions and soon — ah, much too soon, June sunshine 
 became November fog. 
 
 Maud blushed, (a rare thing for her) when the 
 church clock struck one. 
 
 " How late it is," she said, " I must go home 
 Mr. Calverley, or I shall be too late for lunch." 
 
 They walked together to the vicarage, and 
 Arthur was saying ' good bye ' at the gate, when 
 Sarah came out, and breathlessly remarked that 
 Mr. Atherton wanted to speak to him. So they 
 went into the house together. 
 
 " What a colour Miss Maud have got," said the
 
 112 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 old nurse to herself with a satisfied chuckle, 
 " well, he's a likely young fellow, and a real gen- 
 tleman. I could be very well content if they was 
 to marry, there's nobody else I ever see good 
 enough for her." 
 
 When Arthur entered the drawing-room, he 
 found Balph Atherton was not alone. Sir Her- 
 bert Stansfeld and his sister Agnes being engaged 
 in playing the game with him of conversational 
 commonplace, so dear to Mrs. Grundy's soul. 
 
 Sir Herbert was a young man of eight and 
 twenty, with broad estates, ample revenues, and 
 a recently gained seat in parliament. 
 
 Match-making mothers had showered smiles 
 and compliments upon him, innocent daughters 
 utterly unconscious of any ulterior object, had 
 simpered, strummed, and sighed for his special 
 behoof, but he was still a bachelor, and who 
 should become Lady Stansfeld was yet unknown. 
 
 I can only describe Sir Herbert by negatives, 
 it being much easier to say what he was not than
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 113 
 
 what he was. He was not bad-looking, ungen- 
 tlemanly, or ignorant. There was no stain upon 
 his character, no reproach upon his name. He had 
 never done anything worth mentioning, and there- 
 fore as a necesssary corollary, he had never done 
 anything particularly wrong. He had no partic- 
 ular views, no intense sympathies, no passionate 
 beliefs ; and when I proceed to speak of his mind 
 I am compelled at the risk of tautology to employ 
 another negative, and say that he was not a fool. 
 
 Two pronounced characteristics he indeed pos- 
 sessed — amiability and self-conceit ; but even 
 these were fixed ideas rather than active ones. 
 He was amiable because having no intense feelings 
 it was not easy to ruffle him ; he was conceited 
 because it was his most cherished conviction, that 
 he was a very superior specimen of humanity. 
 
 Yet his conceit was never positively offensive, 
 for he rarely asserted himself unduly, holding 
 that his importance was too obvious a fact to 
 need enunciation, just as it would be superfluous
 
 114 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 to proclaim that the angles at the base of an isos- 
 celes triangle are equal, or to beseech men to 
 believe that the whole is greater than a part. 
 
 His sister Agnes was a pale slight girl of twenty, 
 with small eyes and an irresolute nose, that might 
 be called Grecian or ' snub ' according to the 
 strength of light upon the feature in question, 
 and the breadth of the spectator's charity. 
 
 I should like to say something of her character, 
 for I am taking the reader behind the scenes of 
 my life-theatre, showing him where the actors are 
 weak, pointing out the raggedness of the scenery > 
 and frankly admitting the hole in the green-baize 
 curtain. But in this case he must form his own con- 
 clusions, for beyond boarding-school accomplish- 
 ments and ideas, I could never detect more than 
 one trait in what for politeness sake I will call 
 her character. 
 
 She was ' engaged ! ' 
 
 And this fact was painfully evident to every 
 one. Girls, she bored with endless discussions
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 115 
 
 about the devotion of her future husband, Leon- 
 ard West, who I believe had red hair and an 
 eternal smile. Men she regarded as beings of a 
 different order to herself, to be treated with icy 
 courtesy — to be tried by Leonard's standard — 
 found wanting — and disregarded. 
 
 After a few common -place remarks, Sir Herbert 
 said — 
 
 " Agnes and I want to prevail on you, Mr. 
 Atherton, to come over to Alnaith Castle to-mor- 
 row or the next day for a pic-nic — and Miss 
 
 Atherton of course — perhaps Mr. Calverley would 
 
 honour us too." 
 
 Arthur bowed, he had rapidly decided that the 
 
 Baronet was a bore, but the idea of a day with 
 
 Maud was too fascinating to be lost. 
 
 " You are very kind to think of us," said Ralph, 
 
 " well I have not been feeling well lately, a little 
 
 quiet would do me good, and I can see by your 
 
 eyes you would like it, Maud," he said watching 
 
 her heightened colour, and wondering what had 
 
 I 2
 
 116 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 made her look so beautiful that morning. 
 
 u I think it would be delightful," she replied, 
 " the ruins are very beautiful, and ' I know a bank 
 whereon' a cloth might be laid without vulgarising 
 the scenery, or getting burnt by the sun — and oh, 
 by the way, that reminds me — " 
 
 w What does," said Miss Stansfeld, who disliked 
 enthusiasm as unlady-like. 
 
 " Quoting Shakespeare," said Maud, " don't 
 you remember papa, how we all read Twelfth 
 Night last summer, why not do something like it 
 this time ? " 
 
 " If I may venture to second that proposal," 
 said Arthur, " I do so. The idea seems a great 
 one." 
 
 He was thinking how Maud would read, and 
 how those wonderful eyes of hers would give a 
 new meaning even to the greatest of English 
 poets. 
 
 Sir Herbert also approved, he prided himself 
 upon his reading, and thought it would make a
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 117 
 
 favorable impression upon Maud. Miss Stansfeld 
 agreed because she had no individual feeling 
 whatever on the subject. 
 
 So Maud's proposal was carried unanimously, 
 the only question being what play they should 
 select. 
 
 After naming two or three and rejecting them, 
 they appealed to Arthur for a suggestion. 
 
 " July is too hot, and the country too peaceful 
 for tragedy," he said, " ruins are suggestive of 
 the fanciful and ideal. Why not read the Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream " ? 
 
 " Excellent," said Maud gaily, ei and for you, 
 Mr. Calverley, there shall be the part of Nick 
 Bottom, the weaver." 
 
 " Miss Atherton," he said laughing, " that is 
 really too bad. The shock to my vanity is 
 terrific." 
 
 " Not at all," said Maud mischievously, " 'you 
 
 can play no part but Pyramus : for Pyramus is 
 
 sweet-faced man — a proper man as one shall see 
 
 13
 
 118 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 in a summer's day— a most lovely gentleman-like 
 man ; therefore you must needs play Py ramus.' " 
 
 So after a little more discussion, the day after 
 the morrow was fixed for the pic-nic, and the 
 usual necessary arrangements made, after which 
 they all separated, the Stansfelds driving home 
 to Elverley Hall, and Arthur walking to the 
 6 Elm Tree.' 
 
 Miss Stansfeld was thinking of Leonard's 
 superiority to Arthur, and mentally deciding that 
 red hair was preferable to black. 
 
 Sir Herbert was thinking Maud had grown 
 much more beautiful since he saw her last, and 
 asking himself if he would not be acting pru- 
 dently if he made her Lady Stansfeld. 
 
 Arthur was recalling all the words she had 
 spoken, and deciding that Elverley, was the most 
 fascinating spot upon the habitable globe. 
 
 Maud was thinking 
 
 Patience ; her thoughts shall be revealed in 
 time.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 119 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " What was I that I should love her, save for 
 competence to pain." 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 A LNAITH was a village lower down the river, 
 
 about fifteen miles from Elverley, and the 
 
 Castle was a fine ruin, made interesting by a 
 
 thousand stories, historical and legendary, of 
 
 the days of old. 
 
 Pic-nics are not sublime occasions, yet the 
 tourists who came to Alnaith, found substantial 
 pleasure in roaming about the ivied ruins, and 
 hearing the old traditions over again. It gave 
 an added flavour to champagne, it imparted a
 
 120 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 deeper meaning- to pigeon-pie, it even added a 
 romantic charm to a flirtation, if the hearers 
 happened to be still in their teens, and susceptible 
 to the influence of sentiment. 
 
 Now and then a visitor would come, who not 
 being an excursionist, really cared for those 
 crumbling pillars and decaying turrets, for the 
 sake of the mighty past, and would linger among 
 them lovingly, as though fancy, like a herald's 
 trumpet, could summon again brave knights 
 with streaming banners and glittering lances, 
 ready for the touch of death, if it won a smile 
 from the bright eyes that watched them. But 
 visitors with such vagrant fancies, were rarities,, 
 and were usually succeeded by enterprising 
 cockneys, who made rapid mental calculations as 
 to the probable financial success of razing the 
 ruins, and building a sausage-factory in their 
 stead. 
 
 It was a favourite place for pic-nics, as it 
 abounded in shady- walks, and grassy knolls,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 121 
 
 where Edwin could press Angelina's hand, with- 
 out being observed by Angelina's excellent but 
 irritable parents, who were generally divided 
 between a profound enjoyment of cold fowl and 
 iced wines, and a misgiving that their noses were 
 peeling under the influence of the sun. 
 
 It may seem strange however, that Sir Herbert 
 Stansfeld who knew the ruins well, should have 
 proposed to spend the day there, in company with 
 his own sister, a clergyman and that gentleman's 
 daughter. His motives however are easily explain- 
 ed. He had grown rather tired of a bachelor's 
 life, he was rich, he expected to be made a great 
 deal of by his political party, he was much 
 respected in the county— only one thing remain- 
 ed to make him the ideal of a country gentleman, 
 and that something was a wife. 
 
 Already, as I have said, mothers with marriage- 
 able daughters, had kindly endeavoured to meet 
 this difficulty. But Sir Herbert had resisted all 
 enticement, and was still undecided upon whom
 
 122 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 the unspeakable honour should be conferred. 
 
 A year before, he had began to think of marry- 
 ing Maud, and he had found the idea an extremely 
 pleasant one ; when he returned from London, 
 after his election, he found her still more beauti- 
 ful, and had suggested this pic-nic, as affording 
 opportunity for further observation and final 
 decision. 
 
 He was not the least in love with Maud Ather- 
 ton. He chose her as he chose his hounds and 
 horses ; on the ground of suitability. She was 
 beautiful, young, of good family, and being clever 
 would be able, he thought, to talk to cabinet 
 ministers and talented guests, thereby proclaim- 
 ing to the world, that he was as good a judge of a 
 woman, as he was admitted to be of farming land. 
 i She has rather too much spirit,' he thought in 
 regretful parenthesis, but marriage would soon 
 ' cure all that.' The possibility of a refusal never 
 crossed his mind. 
 
 He knew nothing about Maud's fortune, and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 123 
 
 would not perhaps have been greatly influenced 
 by the fact, even if he had known it. He was 
 not mean or covetous, and was quite rich enough 
 already. What he wanted was a wife, and Maud 
 appeared the most attractive article the matri- 
 monial market could afford. 
 
 The day for the pic-nic was brilliantly fine, as 
 though it had been intended for Italy, or a sunny 
 isle of the far East, and had come to England by 
 mistake, just as a sonnet for Mabel who is seven- 
 teen, may be carried by a stupid messenger to her 
 aunt Jemima, who is sixty-seven. 
 
 The Stansfelds brought a young lady who was 
 staying with them, a rather pretty girl of nine- 
 teen, whose most prominent characteristics were 
 sentiment, and pink ribbons, both of which she 
 displayed somewhat excessively. Pic-nics have 
 one feature in common with babies, to those 
 personally concerned in them, they are of deep 
 and varied interest, but to the great mass of men 
 one pic-nic (and one baby) bears a striking 
 resemblance to all others.
 
 124 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 So I shall not describe minutely, the early part 
 of the day — the long dusty journey, sweetened 
 by the fragrant summer breeze, or the meadows 
 in which wild flowers nestled, and birds made the 
 air ring with music, nor shall I adopt the Ameri- 
 can style, and transcribe a confectioners' menu 
 at fall length, dwelling lovingly on fruits and 
 jellies, and becoming pathetic on the subject of 
 pies. The conversation was desultory — sometimes 
 general upon village matters, but oftener upon 
 themes of private interest. The sweet young 
 thing in the pink ribbons spoke about first love, 
 Sir Herbert became eloquent on the subject of 
 politics and the coming harvest, Miss Agnes was 
 only deterred by consummate diplomacy from 
 reading aloud a long letter she had received that 
 morning from Leonard West. 
 
 Ralph Atherton talked with each on his or her 
 pet subject, and led the general conversation with a 
 vivacity very unlike his usual quiet and subdued 
 manner. But Maud's spirits were at their wildest
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 125 
 
 height ; she persuaded the young lady in pink 
 ribbons (whose name was Arabella Clare) to 
 recite an original poem, entitled ' The hero of my 
 girlish dreams,' she wickedly lured Agnes on to 
 read extracts from her love-letter as a compromise, 
 and received Sir Herbert's formal compliments, 
 with a mock humility, faintly tinged with good 
 humoured sarcasm. This he failed, however, to 
 see, and greatly approved of her good taste and 
 common sense. 
 
 Arthur watched her as narrowly as he could with- 
 out observation ; there was something very fasci- 
 nating he thought in her words, even when she 
 talked nonsense. 
 
 The delicious nonsense of a beautiful girl defies 
 reproduction. To write it down in cold blood 
 would give about as fair a conception of it, as a 
 Hebrew translation of one of Tom Hood's punning 
 ballads would convey of the original to the 
 average Jewish mind. 
 
 After lunch they strolled about the ruins, pair-
 
 126 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 ing off— Sir Herbert with Maud, Ealph Atherton 
 with Miss Stansfeld, and Arthur with the emo- 
 tional Miss Clare. 
 
 The last mentioned young lady gave such 
 alarming symptoms of becoming tearfully maud- 
 lin, and was in a state so positively effervescent 
 with sentiment, that Arthur manoeuvred to bring 
 the whole party together again, which he succeeded 
 in doing, to Sir Herbert's annoyance and Maud's 
 relief. 
 
 His pretext was the Shakesperian reading from 
 which he laughingly quoted — 
 
 " i Here's a marvellous convenient place for our 
 rehearsal : this green plot shall be our stage, 
 this hawthorn brake our trysting house.' Are 
 you all ready ? " 
 
 He had selected the shadiest and grassiest spot 
 beside the Castle's western wall, a few yards from 
 the outskirts of a forest, and commanding a 
 view of the swiftly gliding Elva. 
 
 f Oberon and Titania might dance upon so green
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 127 
 
 a sward," said Maud, sitting on the grass beside 
 her father. 
 
 And then Arthur could almost have fancied 
 himself in fairy-land as they began to read that 
 sweetest utterance of a great soul. 
 
 Ralph Atherton took the part of Lysander, Sir 
 Herbert that of Demetrius, Miss Stansfeld read 
 (rather coldly) the words of poor Helena, and 
 Miss Clare was as sentimental as usual in her 
 rendering of Hippolyta. 
 
 Maud took the double part of Titaniae and 
 Hermige, and Arthur sat down resignedly, to 
 become as much as possible like Nick Bolton, the 
 enchanted weaver. The remaining characters 
 were divided among them according to the exi- 
 gences of the scene. 
 
 Who has not revelled in that wonderful play, 
 whereby Shakespeare's kingly genius conferred 
 immortality on the beings of fairy-land, and in 
 which with royal disregard of artistic effect and 
 actual probabilities, he forsakes every guide but
 
 128 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 fancy, and renounces all philosophy but love. 
 
 Of course the dramatic interests lay mainly 
 between Ralph, Maud and Arthur. I have already 
 spoken of Mr. Atherton's reading. He sustained 
 Lysander's part with great expression and beauty, 
 uttering his exquisite love-words with an appre- 
 ciation of their meaning which made Arthur's 
 face flush as he looked at Maud. Sir Herbert and 
 his sister were tame, and Miss Clara too gushing, 
 but Arthur brought out the dry humour of his 
 part, with great success. 
 
 And Maud ? 
 
 I am not sure that her reading of the charac- 
 ters she sustained would have been considered by 
 dramatic critics a correct one, but I fancy she 
 might have stirred some doubt in their minds 
 whether orthodoxy commonly so called is quite 
 infallible, even in dramatic art. 
 
 Hermige and the Queen of the Fairies. 
 
 The two characters so unlike, seemed in her 
 reading to combine and display the beautiful
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 129 
 
 inconsistency of a woman's nature, the mind way- 
 ward, fanciful and erratic, but pure, beautiful and 
 true, of Maud Atherton. 
 
 She did not believe in TitaniaB's love at all ; 
 that was clear. The potent juice of that enchanted 
 flower might delude her into fancying she loved, 
 but the depths of her nature were unmoved. 
 When she praised the weaver's wisdom, when she 
 bade her fairies minister to him, when she twined 
 flowers around the ass's head, there was a comical 
 consciousness pervading it all, that she was un- 
 der a spell which an hour could chase away. But 
 when she became Hermise, her whole bearing and 
 manner changed. She had a woman's love to 
 portray now, and she acted with a resolution and 
 passion, that almost rose into tragedy from the 
 suppressed intensity of feeling every word 
 conveyed. 
 
 I say acted, for though she scarcely moved, 
 indulged in no dramatic gesture whatever, and 
 rarely raised her voice above its usual low soft
 
 130 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 tones, her vocal inflections were so musical, her 
 earnestness so intense, that Arthur listened as 
 though he had never heard one of those words 
 before. 
 
 It was well for him that like Maud, he almost 
 knew his part, without referring to the book, or 
 his furtive scrutiny of Maud's face must have 
 been observed. It was such a fascinating face to 
 watch, there was nothing statuesque in its beauty, 
 for it changed with every alternation of feeling, 
 now sparkling with merriment, now shaded with 
 sadness, now passionate with determination. 
 
 Arthur thought of Spenser's beautiful words — 
 
 " A sweet attractive kind of grace, 
 A full assurance given by looks, 
 
 Continual comfort in a face, 
 
 The lineaments of Gospel books. 
 
 I trow that countenance cannot be 
 
 Whose thoughts are legible in the eye." 
 
 And he wondered if Sir Philip Sydney's face 
 explained their meaning half so well as Maud's 
 did.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 131 
 
 At last the play was finished, and ' Moonshine 
 and Lion were left to bnry the dead.' 
 
 They returned home as they had come, Mr. 
 Atherton and the girls in the carriage, Arthur 
 and Sir Herbert following on horseback. 
 
 The baronet and Arthur scarcely exchanged a 
 word, each being fully occupied by his own 
 thoughts — but rode side by side as if unconscious 
 of each other's existence. 
 
 In their different ways each was thinking about 
 
 Maud, but here the similarity ceased. Sir Herbert 
 
 had decided that she should be his wife, and was 
 
 drawing ideal pictures of their future life. He, 
 
 richer and more respected than ever, a member 
 
 of the Cabinet, perhaps, admired and envied by 
 
 his friends, she — submissive and admiring in the 
 
 background, doing the honours of his house as 
 
 hostess, never advancing any unpleasant views of 
 
 her own, but devoted to her husband, and caring 
 
 for no society but his. 
 
 Arthur was thinking of Alfred Thorby's pas- 
 
 k 2
 
 132 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 sionate worship of Maud, which had new meaning 
 for him now. To love her, to treasure her every 
 word and look, to offer one's homage as sacrifice, 
 without thought of any return, this seemed the 
 wisest course. To marry her seemed an ambition 
 too high to dare to hope for, and yet the Gods 
 were generous sometimes : what if this woman's 
 heart, with its many contradictions, and its un- 
 sounded depths, its true instincts and womanly 
 strength could be won for his own ? The thought 
 made his heart beat faster, as something whisper- 
 ed it was not impossible ; and then fancies rose 
 before him too, of a great and noble future. 
 What could he not do, with her love to sustain 
 and inspire him, work accomplished, sorrow 
 endured, victories gained, his sterile past becom- 
 ing a fruitful future ; the vision seemed a mirage, 
 too beautiful for truth ; he dared not cheat his 
 heart with such sweet hope as that. 
 
 And so the summer days flowed on till he had 
 been in Elverley a month, then he no longer
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 133 
 
 denied the truth to himself, he loved this girl, 
 passionately, earnestly, devotedly, with the wor- 
 ship few hearts can offer, and no heart can give 
 more than once. 
 
 Three years before, he had fancied he loved Kate 
 Rushton, but it had never been so ; he had loved 
 her beauty with all the passion of an artist's 
 nature, but the soul he fancied hers, had no exis- 
 tence save in his boyish imagination. It was 
 not that she had changed from the woman he had 
 loved to one with trivial thoughts, low aims, and 
 selfish aspirations, it was sadder than that, for 
 he knew she had never been anything else. But 
 Maud stirred far deeper feelings and awoke a 
 truer love. 
 
 And while he was thinking thus, the love he 
 yearned for was already his. 
 
 Maud was naturally affectionate, and gave kind- 
 ly regard with no sparing hand. 
 
 But the depths of her nature were not easily 
 
 stirred. Arthur was young, handsome, accom- 
 
 K 3
 
 134 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 plished, and clever, but this alone would never 
 have gained for him an entrance to the sanctuary 
 of her heart. 
 
 But she saw below all this, and recognised with 
 true womanly instinct, the latent power of hero- 
 ism that slumbered within him. His passionate 
 enthusiasm — so rarely evoked, yet so strong when 
 it manifested itself, his fearless contempt for 
 commonly tolerated wrong, his chivalry towards 
 weakness, all these characteristics had been 
 nullified by his aimlessness, and indecision. 
 
 It seemed a high ambition to Maud to take up 
 these tangled threads of life, and unravel them 
 by her touch. He would be earnest enough if he 
 loved anything intensely, she thought ; and she 
 longed as only a woman can, to be the one thing 
 his nature needed. 
 
 One evening when Arthur was at Dr. Corrie's 
 house, that gentleman's plump little wife at- 
 tempted to elicit something like confidence from 
 him.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON: 135 
 
 ft Don't you think Miss Atherton very beautiful 
 Mr. Calverley ? " she enquired demurely. 
 
 Arthur quietly assented, but without emphasis, 
 not being in a communicative mood. 
 
 " I think she's wonderful," Mrs. Corrie contin- 
 ued, not at all discouraged, "when I look at 
 her eyes and hair, I become positively frantic 
 with envy, its a wonder I've not smashed every 
 looking-glass in the house." 
 
 " Possibly your self-denial may not have been 
 equal to the demand upon it," said Arthur, "what 
 do you say, Dr. Corrie ? " 
 
 " I say that she is a conceited little puss, to 
 think of comparing herself to Miss Atherton," 
 said the doctor, looking lovingly at his wife. 
 " Miss Maud is very beautiful, but I fear there's 
 trouble in store for her." 
 
 " Trouble," said Arthur, quickly, a in what 
 way ? " " Mr. Atherton will not live long," 
 said Dr. Corrie gravely, " probably not many 
 months, and it would almost break the poor 
 child's heart to lose him."
 
 136 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 The doctor (who had been smoking with 
 Arthur) took his cigar from his mouth to say 
 these words, and at their conclusion, smoked for 
 some seconds in silence. 
 
 Arthur waited impatiently for him to go on, 
 the watchful little woman noticed that though 
 he affected to he unconcernedly blowing the 
 feathery ash from his cigar, he did it nervously 
 and his hand trembled. 
 
 " Yes," resumed the doctor reflectively, " it 
 would be a sad thing if she were left an orphan > 
 that codicil to old Sir James Atherton's will pro- 
 vides for her, however." 
 
 " What codicil ? " said Arthur carelessly, the 
 mere fact of Maud possessing a few hundred 
 pounds being nothing to him. 
 
 €t Don't you know it? " said the other, u well 
 it has been kept very quiet, but it can't be a 
 secret much longer. Old Sir James quarrelled 
 with his favourite son, Ralph, at the time of his 
 marriage, you know, but he relented when his
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 137 
 
 wife died, and left a large sum of money to his 
 infant daughter, Maud. The sum was to accu- 
 mulate at compound interest, I forget how much 
 it originally was, but I know it will be over a 
 hundred thousand pounds, by the time she's one- 
 and-twenty. And then — but what's the matter 
 Calverley, are you ill ?" 
 
 Arthur had risen suddenly, and was looking at 
 James Corrie with a face so white that he thought 
 Arthur would faint away, but he recovered him- 
 self by a strong effort, and said — 
 
 " It — it is nothing — I shall be better presently 
 — I — I think it must be the heat of the room." 
 
 And after a few minutes more constrained con- 
 versation, during which he made replies at 
 random, to all that was said, Arthur said ' good 
 night,' and walked rapidly home, 
 
 16 You stupidest of darlings," said Mrs. Corrie 
 to her husband as the door closed after him, " do 
 you see what you've done ? " 
 
 " No," he replied in an astonished tone, u I see
 
 138 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 nothing but very extraordinary behaviour on 
 young Calverley's part." 
 
 "You delightful old duffer," said his wife 
 irreverently, " you might have guessed he was in 
 love with Maud, when he thought she was as poor 
 as he, but now you've blurted it out about her 
 fortune, I suspect his pride will ride rampant 
 over everything." 
 
 u How do you know all this," said her husband, 
 "did he tell you?" 
 
 "Do you imagine we women are all as stupid 
 as you men? " enquired the little woman with an 
 emphatic toss of her head. " I only hope Maud 
 is not in love with him too, as I should have been 
 in her place — women's hearts are easier to break 
 and harder to repair than men's." 
 
 With which sententious aphorism, this subject 
 ceased. 
 
 Arthur walked rapidly till he was out of sight 
 of the house, he wanted to be alone and think, to 
 recover his lost self-possesion, and to decide upon 
 a course of action.
 
 MA UD A THERTON. 139 
 
 The doctor's words had stabbed him like a sword 
 thrust, only now when renunciation seemed 
 imperative, did he fully recognise how fondly he 
 had cherished this broken dream. 
 
 The moon shone brightly on the village church, 
 where he had seen her first. In Arthur's excited 
 mood there seemed companionship in that grey 
 old building — he walked into the churchyard to 
 think out the questions that were baffling him. 
 
 u A mere love story," cries my critic Jones, 
 scornfully elevating a nose already gifted by 
 beneficient nature, with heavenward aspiration. 
 " A mere love story, who cares for such rubbish 
 as that ? " 
 
 The history of the world began with a love 
 scene, surely my poor story may do the same. 
 
 Moreover Jones, there was once a time when 
 these things were not quite meaningless even to 
 you ; your divinity was not a peerless one, malici- 
 ous rumour speaks of her in connexion with red 
 hair and a squint, but be that as it may, the
 
 140 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 feeling rpu are ashamed of now, was a true one 
 Jones, and when you buried it (more sorrowfully 
 than you will admit) you buried with it a thou- 
 sand possibilities for the loss of which aldermanic 
 banquets cannot quite atone. 
 
 So I am not deterred by the prospect of Jones's 
 criticism, but write down Arthur's thoughts as 
 they struggled though his mind that night, 
 the moonlight, the old church and the white 
 graves, so still and peaceful, his own heart so full 
 of passionate unrest. 
 
 He thought about her as he had seen her, 
 always beautiful and true-hearted, he thought of 
 all the longings for higher achievement she had 
 awakened, the new faith in womanhood she had 
 aroused, the inspiration to effort her love could 
 be, and his whole soul cried out 6 I cannot relin- 
 quish the hope of winning her.' 
 
 But then his new knowledge arose to crush out 
 hope. She had seemed far enough away from 
 him when he fancied her poor, but now it seemed
 
 MAUD ATHERTON, 141 
 
 treacherous to think of striving for her love. 
 
 For peoples opinion he cared nothing, his own 
 pride was harder to vanquish, still he might have 
 conquered that, but his stern sense of honour was 
 invincible. 
 
 He had no right, he argued to himself, to ask 
 for this girl's hand in marriage, seeing she was 
 endowed not only with all that can make woman- 
 hood beautiful, but with wealth as well, while he 
 had nothing to give in return but love. 
 
 Arthur walked rapidly through and through 
 the churchyard until the night was late, and good 
 Mrs. Tonkin began to wonder nervously what 
 had become of him. 
 
 He came home at last, determined to relinquish 
 all thought of winning Maud Atherton for his 
 wife. 
 
 But with all his resolution he could not decide 
 on leaving Elverley.
 
 142 MAUD ATHERTON 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " I fain would write it down here like the rest ; 
 To keep it in my eyes, as in my ears, 
 The heart's sweet scripture to be read at night 
 When weary, or at morning when afraid, 
 And lean my heaviest oath on when I swear — 
 That when all's done, all's tried, all's counted here, 
 All great arts and all good philosophies. 
 This lore just puts its hand out in a dream, 
 And straight outstretches all things." 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
 a Maud, are you willing to become a receiver of 
 stolen goods ? " 
 
 The speaker was pretty little Mrs. Corrie, about 
 a week after her husband's communication to 
 Arthur, mentioned in the last chapter.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 143 
 
 " It is too bad to impale me on the horns of a 
 dilemma in that fashion " said Maud, laughing, 
 " I must either confess to a crime, or suffer the 
 pangs of unsatisfied curiosity. What's the 
 matter ? Have you been stealing,' and do you 
 want to make me an accessory after the fact ? " 
 
 " That's about the truth of the matter," said 
 Mrs. Corrie, composedly sitting as comfortably 
 as possible on the sofa, (they were talking together 
 in the vicarage dining-room.) " That's exactly 
 the state of affairs; only don't pretend to be 
 innocent, those little hands of yours have been 
 stealing, before I entered the profession." 
 
 " I have no thefts on my mind," said Maud 
 laughing, " except some remembered plunderings 
 of jam, and that was fourteen years ago, so I 
 consider myself absolved on that score : what else 
 have I been stealing ? " 
 
 " Hearts — men's hearts, but don't blush, Maud, 
 that kind of filching only comes under the head 
 of petty larceny."
 
 144 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 a A paltry riddle," said Maud, " I hope your 
 thefts are more interesting." 
 
 " I have only one to confess," said the little 
 woman with an important air, " but wait till you 
 hear what it is, and then we'll see if your tell- 
 tale face does not betray confidence. It is about 
 Mr. Arthur Calverley." 
 
 Maud tried to look indifferent with rather poor 
 success. 
 
 "Well you must know that he and I have 
 become great friends, and the other day, I per- 
 suaded him to show me his portfolio of sketches, 
 and I tried desperately hard to talk 'art,' as though 
 I knew anything about it." 
 
 " What is that paper in your hand ? " asked 
 Maud. 
 
 " Don't interrupt, you shall see directly. Well 
 we looked over the sketches together, and great 
 fun it was. A most miscellaneous collection he 
 had, landscapes, heads, copies of statuary, pen 
 and ink caricatures, all sorts of things, but sud-
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 145 
 
 denly I noticed him change colour, and put one 
 sketch at the bottom of them all, so that I 
 couldn't see it. Of course I asked what it was, 
 and equally of course he said it was nothing. 
 Well I'm rather ashamed of the rest of the 
 story, but my womanly curiosity was piqued, and 
 I contrived to upset the port-folio." 
 
 " You don't seem at all penitent " said Maud, 
 not finding it easy to refrain from laughing. 
 
 a Penitence is no word for my feelings," said 
 Clara Corrie gravely, " I suffer the pangs of re- 
 morse, but I must finish my story — I helped him 
 to pick up the drawings, of course I managed to 
 get hold of the mysterious sketch, intending to 
 glance at it, and put it back. But he was too 
 quick for me, and I did not even know what it 
 was till after he had gone." 
 
 " What was it ? " said Maud. 
 
 " Ah, ha," laughed Clara, " conniving at crime, 
 I find I'm not so much worse than other people 
 after all, here it is, look for yourself."
 
 146 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 It was a water colour sketch of Maud, as the 
 queen of the Fairies. Arthur had taxed his 
 artistic powers to the utmost to do justice to his 
 subject, and probably he had never succeeded so 
 well in his life. Not only was it faithful in de- 
 tail, and felicitous in shade and colouring, but 
 there was a vividness of power in the drawing 
 that showed how lovingly the artist had lingered 
 upon his theme. 
 
 Maud observed it closely, and then looked won- 
 deringly at Clara Corrie, who by this time was 
 reclining at full length upon the sofa, looking the 
 incarnation of mischief. 
 
 " When you have done admiring your own face," 
 said that lady demurely, " (and by the way the 
 likeness is much too flattering) I advise you to 
 look at the other side." 
 
 On the other side, in Arthur's handwriting, 
 Maud read the following words : — 
 
 " The castle walls were grey and old, 
 And scarred with many an ancient fight,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 147 
 
 Beside them in the morning light, 
 The blue waves of the river rolled. 
 
 The sunlight through the casement streamed, 
 
 Upon a fairer sweeter face, 
 
 Of girlish truth and queenly grace, 
 
 Than loftiest poet ever dreamed. 
 
 Queen of a fair and loyal land, 
 Her name was honoured far and wide, 
 And kingly suitors lost their pride, 
 In humble pleading for her hand. 
 
 " Tell me brave knights," she gaily said, 
 " What is the noblest thing on earth, 
 Of truest wealth and highest worth, 
 On which the moon her light has shed ? 
 
 I long for something fairer far, 
 Than morning blush of rosy light, 
 Than white winged rose, or jewel bright, 
 And changeless as a shining star ! " 
 
 From out that gay and knightly throng, 
 There stepped a warrior brave and old, 
 Whose lofty prowess still is told, 
 In poet's page and minstrel's song. 
 
 " Though earth is rich in gems," he said, 
 " The silent stars look coldly down 
 On faded rose and tarnished crown, 
 On broken faith and fancies dead. 
 
 l2
 
 148 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 If there be aught that can endure 
 The disenchanting touch of Time, 
 It is a spirit-gift sublime, 
 And with diviner beauty pure. 
 
 Once o'er a civil battle field, 
 Earth's guardian-angel sadly gazed 
 On dying hands to heaven upraised, 
 On shattered lance and broken shield. 
 
 Few sadder sights hath this sad life 
 Than brother by a brother slain : 
 Hands parted ne'er to clasp again, 
 Or meeting but in deadly strife. 
 
 The pitying angel held her crown 
 
 Of mystic beauty high in air, 
 
 With tender thought, and murmured prayer,. 
 
 She flung its starry jewels down. 
 
 To earth the diamonds were given, 
 That in this wild and weary strife 
 Of pride and passion — men call life — 
 They yet might hold one touch of heaven. 
 
 Upon the battle field they fell, 
 And now they bear a crimson stain, 
 Which brings a sudden touch of pain, 
 Or so the old traditions tell. 
 
 Yet all the treasure of the earth, 
 Though heaped in gaudy lustre high,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 149 
 
 From valley's breast, to touch the sky, 
 Beside such gems were nothing worth. 
 
 For each has power from heaven to still 
 The restless cravings of the soul, 
 The dreams too eager for control, 
 The yearnings of a fettered wilL 
 
 And though it cannot cause to cease, 
 The bitter flow of sorrow's tears, 
 Yet, through the agony of years 
 It brings life's fairest blessing — peace." 
 
 Then smiled the queen, " I vow," said she, 
 u A king's dominion o'er my land, 
 My maiden heart and queenly hand, 
 Are his who brings that gem to me." 
 
 A rose-bud, as a snowflake white, 
 From out her hair's abundant wave 
 She took to seal her troth, and gave 
 A petal fair to every knight. 
 
 They sought through many lands in vain, 
 In castle grey, in lordly hall, 
 In mountains where the torrents fall, 
 With voice like wailing cry of pain, 
 
 'Till some grew weary, and resigned 
 The search, since all their hopes were dead — 
 The gems were but a dream, they said — 
 The visions of a fevered mind. 
 
 L'3
 
 150 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 But one there was of lowly name, 
 Who would not coldly yield his trust, 
 Of faith too true to turn to dust, 
 Of soul too pure to harbour shame. 
 
 He turned from civic wealth and pride, 
 And folded in a valley's mist, 
 Where simple flowers, by dewdrops kissed, 
 Blushed at the love the soft wind sighed, 
 
 He found a rustic cottage wound 
 
 In close embrace by ivy green, 
 
 And smiling through the leafy screen 
 
 Upon the hills that stood around. 
 
 He raised the latch ; nor song, nor word, 
 
 Nor sound of life the silence broke, 
 
 The thrushes from the trees of oak, 
 
 Alone the voiceless sorrow stirred. 
 
 Upon a couch in fitful sleep, 
 
 He saw a girl of beauty rare, 
 
 But pale the cheek oft called so fair, 
 
 And all unbound the golden hair — 
 
 Her mother knelt beside her there 
 
 With eyes too sorrowful to weep. 
 
 She told the knight, with trembling voice, 
 How once her Alice was the pride 
 Of all the vale. At eventide 
 Her beauty made the stars rejoice.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 151 
 
 But came a rider, one dark hour 
 From cities where the stream of life 
 Flows with the brawling voice of strife — 
 He came to steal the valley flower. 
 
 With tender word and knightly oath 
 He wooed fair Alice for his bride, 
 And there upon the mountain side, 
 The two clasped hands and plighted troth. 
 
 Time passed — he left her. From afar, 
 Come tidings that the royal hand 
 In anger banished him the land, 
 Yet still her faith shone like a star. 
 
 A darker rumour came one night, 
 Of broken lance and sullied fame, 
 That men shrank from him in his shame, 
 But never faltered love's pure light. 
 
 And then came silence for a while, 
 "Worse than the stillness of the dead ; 
 The moon a chilly lustre shed, 
 On trembling lips that tried to smile. 
 
 And lastly came a cold farewell, 
 That jarred each nerve with thrill of pain, 
 Her brave heart broke beneath the strain, 
 Pierced by the hand she loved so well. 
 And now although her laboured breath 
 Showed that she neared the golden gate :
 
 152 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 The love that conquered shame and hate 
 Rose proudly victor over death. 
 And with his name upon her tongue, 
 Her soul on angel-wings rose free 
 Above the waves of life's wild sea, 
 And heard love's anthems fitly sung. 
 While lying on the placid breast 
 That never more should throb with pain, 
 A diamond with blood-red stain 
 Shone like the quiet soul at rest. 
 The knight beheld the starry gem, 
 And kissing once the cold lips dead — 
 " Not one, but many gems " he said 
 In heaven light her diadem. 
 This jewel, with the crimson stain, 
 Must shine upon a living breast, 
 That glories in its peace and rest, 
 And does not tremble at its pain. 
 
 He bore it to his queen, to shine 
 "With spirit-lustre never pale, 
 With light of hope too pure to fail, 
 To flood her soul with strength divine. 
 
 And in the after years, no more 
 Could aught their wedded spirits part,. 
 She held the jewel to her heart, 
 While he the white rose petal wore*
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 153 
 
 That diamond's bright name is Love, 
 Not that which flickers like a spark, 
 Then quivers into utter dark, 
 But steadfast as the stars above. 
 
 Through time and sorrow, doubt and care, 
 Unquenched it burns with gleaming light, 
 And ever in the darkest night, 
 It sheds its holy radiance fair. 
 
 So rarely earth has seen it shine, 
 Yet sometimes by the fitful gleam 
 Of dying day, I dare to dream 
 The wondrous talisman is mine. 
 
 Is mine, although my soul is tossed 
 Upon the waves of passion's sea 
 And often life seems vain to me, 
 While Faith gropes blindly and is lost. 
 
 Time cannot dim it or destroy, 
 I wear its spirit-light concealed, 
 But wear it ever, nor would yield 
 Its sorrow for the proudest joy. 
 
 And when is calmed this wayward will, 
 This proud heart hushed to beat no more, 
 Life's haven gained, and sorrow o'er, 
 "When every quivering nerve is still, 
 
 In the celestial city, trod 
 By angels, I shall wear again
 
 154 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 That jewel with no thought of pain, 
 
 And purified from crimson stain, 
 
 For Love is Life — and Heaven — and God." 
 
 Maud read the poem with some difficulty, as 
 the paper was not only rilled but crossed with 
 writing. Evidently Arthur had commenced with 
 the intention of writing only a few verses, but 
 the legendary fancy had taken strong possession 
 of his mind, and he had found it impossible to 
 compress the idea into smaller space. The verses 
 were faulty enough, and gave surface indication 
 of haste, but a girl does not usually subject an 
 avowal of love to the test of critical analysis. 
 It was sweet to think she had inspired such pas- 
 sionate words, that a man whom she already loved, 
 held her in reverential worship. 
 
 It was with a very beautiful flush on her cheek, 
 that she raised her eyes at last, and looked, with 
 an expression in which many feelings were very 
 strangely blended into her companion's face. 
 
 Arthur's manner had been cold and constrained
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 155 
 
 the last week, and she had wondered at the reason, 
 though once she had been on the verge of dis- 
 covering his secret. They had been talking of 
 Miss Gloffoggen, and Maud had said laughingly, 
 " I have a most unchristian horror of that 
 woman, if Prospero was right when he said l we 
 are such stuff as dreams are made of I think 
 she must be the incarnation of a nightmare." 
 
 The idea had amused Arthur greatly, and he 
 had sketched a likeness of her from memory in 
 the act of proposing from a public rostrum the 
 banishment from Europe of all eligible bachelors. 
 Maud had asked for the sketch, and he had given 
 it her, neither of them noticing that the paper 
 had writing on the back. When she came to 
 look at it afterwards, she found it was a love 
 song, though her entire absence of girlish vanity 
 had prevented her from making any personal 
 application of it, she saw new meaniug in it now. 
 " Maud," said the doctor's little wife, jumping 
 off the sofa, and sitting down by Maud, both of
 
 156 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 whose hands she made capture of, in her own, 
 (i do you love him ? " 
 
 Maud whispered " yes," a needless reply, for the 
 light in her eyes, and the rosy flush on her face, 
 had spoken the word already. 
 
 At last she said aloud — 
 
 " I don't understand the last few verses, Clara, 
 why does he write in that hopeless fashion, as . 
 though there were nothing for either of us but 
 renunciation ? " 
 
 " Somebody forgets she is an heiress," was the 
 reply. 
 
 '•'You don't mean to say that's the reason," 
 said Maud, in uttsr surprise. " It says in the 
 Sunday School books that money brings nothing 
 but weariness and vexation of spirit, I used to 
 laugh at it once, but I'm half inclined to believe 
 it now." 
 
 After a little conversation between the two girls, 
 Mrs. Corrie rose to go. 
 
 " One word more Clara," said Maud hastily,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 157 
 
 u you are a little witch to have found out all this. 
 Of course you will keep your knowledge a secret 
 from everyone without any exception, or " — she 
 added laughing, " I may treat you in orthodox 
 witches' fashion, throw you into the Elva, to see 
 if you will float." 
 
 The kind-hearted little woman looked discom- 
 fitted. " I'm not going to gossip about it," she 
 said evasively. 
 
 " That won't do," said Maud firmly, " I must 
 have a distinct promise from you that you will 
 tell no one. That is my right — and I demand 
 it." 
 
 "No one at all Maud?" 
 
 " No one whatever." 
 
 " It really is too bad," said Clara reproachfully, 
 a if I were only as tall as you are, you shouldn't 
 bully me into acquiescence. But I'm always afraid 
 of you, when your eyes flash like that. I think 
 I'll practise the accomplishment, with a view to 
 husband taming. How is it done ? "
 
 158 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 u Do you promise? " repeated Maud, disregard- 
 ing the last enquiry. 
 
 " Oh yes, I promise of course, since you make 
 me, but its tragically disappointing." 
 
 " Whom did you want to tell ? " 
 
 " Arthur Calverley of course," said Clara in 
 rather a crest-fallen tone. " I had sketched a 
 small tragedy in imagination. Arthur at the 
 'Elin Tree,' sharpening his razor with a view to 
 suicidal operations, the gleaming blade is lifted 
 high in air, he murmers the name of Maud 
 
 Atherton, and then ! ! ! I rush in pale and 
 
 beautiful." 
 
 " Tale and beautiful,' " repeated Maud, doubt- 
 fully, " what a faithful description of yourself." 
 
 u Yes," returned Clara, laughing, " I insist 
 upon the words ' pale and beautiful,' but you are 
 spoiling the dramatic effect. I rush in, and in 
 sublime words tell him the whole truth. He re- 
 covers — falls at my feet with gratitude, then 
 rushes off to repeat the performance at yours.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 159 
 
 You are both devotedly attached to me and to 
 each other, and he only uses razors henceforth for 
 shaving." 
 
 In the hurried conflict of feeling these new 
 thoughts had awakened, Maud felt less in a hum our 
 for nonsense than usual, but she smiled as she 
 replied — 
 
 " I am sorry to disappoint your histrionic ideas, 
 but melo-drama, is not exactly like real life. ' All 
 the world ' isn't l a stage ' conducted on those 
 principles, so I must beg — nay, I must command 
 you to keep my secret." 
 
 Clara promised, and having kissed Maud affec- 
 tionately, went home, rather disappointed that 
 the luxury of match-making was forbidden her. 
 
 The words ' he loves me,' form a sweet refrain 
 to a woman's life. As the sunshine poured 
 through the open window on Maud's rich brown 
 hair, the thought that sorrow was inevitable, 
 appeared more distant from her than ever. The 
 world had always seemed beautiful to her, and
 
 160 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 now she was awakening to new sensations of 
 happiness, sweeter than she had ever known 
 before. 
 
 She felt so glad of life, so grateful for it that 
 summer morning. She hardly thought of the 
 future, this joy was too new and subtle a thing to 
 analyse. She knew now that he loved her, and 
 that was enough. 
 
 a I shall see him to-night," she thought as she 
 remembered gladly that he and Sir Herbert Stans- 
 feld had appointed to meet at the vicarage that 
 evening for a game at chess. 
 
 Was it foolish to hold this love as so high and 
 holy a gift? We of this age, so fond of styling 
 itself enlightened, have almost come to think so — 
 a large portion of our Victorian literature, either 
 cants about love, or cynically denies its existence 
 in real life altogether. But individual experience 
 and history, which is the world's experience, seem 
 to teach otherwise, for they prove that the men 
 who have led the grandest lives, in the battle field
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 161 
 
 or at the royal court, in the Senate, in the author's 
 chamber, in the artists' studio, in the city's streets, 
 and the peasant's cottage, in all the different spheres 
 life affords for activity and endurance, have been 
 the men who believed in woman- worship as a vital 
 power, and to whom chivalry was not a dead 
 creed, finding fictitious existence in a poet's song, 
 but an eternal truth, destined in spirit, though 
 not in form, to outlive " the wreck of matter and 
 the crash of worlds." 
 
 To Maud at all events love seemed beautiful 
 and holy, as her young heart so newly initiated 
 in its mysteries, repeated Arthur's words. 
 
 " For Love is Life — and Heaven — and God."
 
 162 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " Yon cannot think that the buckling on of the 
 knight's armour by his lady's hand, was a mere caprice 
 of romantic fashion. It is the type of an eternal 
 truth — that the soul's armour is never well set to the 
 heart, unless a woman's hand has braced it, and it is 
 only when she braces it loosely that the honour of 
 manhood fails." 
 
 RusTcin. 
 
 \ RTHUR had almost decided within his own 
 
 mind to leave Elverley, and had really in 
 
 tended his last visit to the vicarage to be a farewell 
 
 one, but in the course of the evening Ealph Ather- 
 
 ton had said — 
 
 " You must have a game at chess with Sir
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 163 
 
 Herbert one day this week Arthur. You are too 
 strong for me, but he has studied it more than I, 
 and may perhaps be able to save the prestige of 
 Elverley." 
 
 Sir Herbert had accompanied the customary 
 denial of proficiency with a polite expression of 
 the hope that Arthur would afford him an oppor- 
 tunity of putting it to the test. 
 
 Arthur had wavered, his intention had been to 
 resist all temptations however seductive, but 
 negatives are always difficult when the witchery 
 of bright eyes, suggests a fascinating course, so 
 glancing at Maud, his resolution failed him utterly, 
 and he had accepted Sir Herbert's challenge, 
 silencing conscience when it reminded him disa- 
 greeably of his broken resolutions by the reflec- 
 tion that like a provincial actor's appearance on 
 the stage, it was c positively for the last time.' 
 
 Very weak such sophistry on Arthur's part 
 
 absolutedly was, but it is hard to be always at 
 
 the highest pitch of heroism. If you consider 
 
 m 2
 
 164 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 tliis yielding very inconsistant with a naturally 
 strong disposition, then reader I must ask you if 
 the finest character you ever knew, (which can- 
 didly you must admit to be yourself) never yielded 
 against his better judgment, to the tyranny of a 
 lovely face. But whether such conduct can plead 
 precedent or not, one thing is certain, Arthur and 
 Sir Herbert met one evening at the vicarage by 
 appointment, their surface motives being a game 
 at chess. 
 
 Sir Herbert also however had designs extend- 
 ing beyond the sixty-four squares of the chess 
 board. He had decided to marry Maud, and 
 thought this evening would afford a good oppor- 
 tunity to appoint a time when he could tell her 
 of the glorious destiny which awaited her. 
 
 I have said that the possibility of a refusal had 
 never crossed his mind. If any one had dared to 
 suggest such a thing, he would have regarded 
 that individual with thoughtful pity, as a heretic,, 
 and treated his views with contemptuous tolerance,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 165 
 
 just as he would have received the statement that 
 the Duke of Wellington was nephew to the 
 prophet Ezekiel, or the assertion that the moon 
 was a highly burnished frying-pan. 
 
 So he had never had any distrust or jealousy of 
 Arthur, but had conceived a diluted liking for 
 him, as a gentlemanly fellow, who talked well 
 without being dogmatic, or satirical. Satire 
 was Sir Herbert's pet aversion, as he rarely 
 understood it, and found it in consequence, not 
 easy to successfully encounter. So he greeted 
 Arthur with slightly emphatic politeness, which 
 was his nearest approach to cordiality, and after 
 a little general conversation they sat down to the 
 game. 
 
 u May I ask one great favour, Miss Atherton?" 
 said Arthur. 
 
 " What is it?" asked Maud. 
 
 M That you will favour me — us I mean, with 
 some of those ' songs without words,' of Mendel- 
 ssohn's I heard you playing the other night." 
 
 M 3
 
 166 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " I am afraid I shall interrupt you," sue replied, 
 but Arthur declaring that he played much better 
 when he was listening to music, and Sir Herbert 
 remarking with rather less politeness than usual, 
 that when his attention was absorbed in chess, he 
 never noticed surroundings, Maud went quietly 
 to the piano without further word. 
 
 Arthur won the draw for choice of men and 
 first move, and playing out first his king's pawn, 
 and then his king's bishop's pawn, the game 
 became the Muzio gambit, that most brilliant of 
 attacks being his favourite opening. 
 
 Sir Herbert's style of playing was charac- 
 teristic ; he played very cautiously, taking a long 
 time to consider every move, and rejecting any 
 tactics that involved uncertainty or danger. 
 
 Arthur on the other hand played very rapidly, 
 and with considerable brilliancy, but not always 
 a really sound game. His thoughts were far less 
 with knights and pawns, than with the sweet 
 notes from the piano, now low and dreamy, and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 167 
 
 now inspiring and joyous, seeming in their power 
 of changing from one form of beauty to another, 
 a fitting emblem of Maud herself. 
 
 Surely if ever poetry found utterance in music, 
 it is in the writings of Mendelssohn. Grander 
 music there is, undoubtedly; but though these 
 greater strains may be rich in more wondrous 
 harmonies, attaining higher intellectual perfection, 
 what music can echo the inarticulate yearnings of 
 the heart like his ? Now, some sweet remembrance 
 finds utterance in a succession of minor chords, 
 now, there is a crashing discord as of a spirit's 
 agony, and then, the music flows like a happy, rivu- 
 let, as though the heart, whose voice it is, had 
 fought through doubt and sadness, to a course of 
 truth and light beyond. 
 
 And Maud played, with so true because so 
 loving an understanding of the composer's mean- 
 ing, one after another of these musical poems 
 found deeper meaning for Arthur from her exqui- 
 site rendering, and he became less absorbed in
 
 168 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 the game, and Sir Herbert more so, every minute. 
 
 At last one of the airs seeming to accord 
 specially with Maud's mood, she began to play a 
 fantasia upon it. Arthur could see that she had 
 entirely forgotten everything but the music, and 
 was as unconscious of her surroundings as if she 
 had been quite alone. 
 
 Presently she began to play a sweet air, he felt 
 certain was her own composition, commencing 
 sadly in the minor, but changing its key in the 
 second movement, and becoming a strain as glad 
 as the voice of a skylark. It sounded like a song, 
 and he thought, if she would wed that wonderful 
 music to words, how beautiful the poorest thoughts 
 would seem — charmed into sweetness by her voice. 
 
 And his wish was granted in a most unexpected 
 manner, for Maud began to sing his own words. 
 
 It was the song he had unconsciously given her, 
 on the back of his sketch of Miss Gloffoggen, 
 and she began it entirely forgetting he was pre- 
 sent ; she recollected herself at the fourth line
 
 MA UD A THERTON. 169 
 
 however, faltered, and almost broke down, bnt 
 thinking it would be less likely to attract notice 
 if she finished the song now she had begun it, she 
 recovered her voice and sang it right through. 
 
 And Arthur forgot both Sir Herbert and chess 
 utterly, as he listened to his own thoughts finding 
 deeper meaning uttered by that sweet contralto 
 voice. 
 
 " The night is bleak and chill, 
 
 The wild flowers shrink in the blast, 
 
 The mad winds moan like a spirit's cry, 
 
 The pitiless rain falls fast, 
 
 But my heart is strong to bear 
 
 Life's keenest pain to night, 
 
 As I dream of a face that is fair and young, 
 
 With eyes of tender light. 
 
 The lightest touch of her hand 
 
 Could hush my soul to calm, 
 
 The lightest word of her laughing speech 
 
 Was holy as a psalm, 
 
 The lightest tone of her voice 
 
 Could bind me with a spell, 
 
 Though soft as the leaves of a moss-wreathed rose, 
 
 Or the chime of a fairy bell.
 
 170 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 Her eyes are far away, 
 
 Her soul can ne'er be mine, 
 
 And she knoweth not my spirit kneels, 
 
 In worship at her shrine, 
 
 I* the tangled forest of life, 
 
 Our paths lie wide apart, 
 
 But wherever her fairy footsteps fall, 
 
 She beareth away my heart." 
 
 " It is your move, Mr. Calverley," said Sir 
 Herbert as the music ceased. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Arthur, " I — I had 
 forgotten," and so saying, annoyed at having lost 
 control over himself, he moved one of his pieces 
 at random. 
 
 " What in the world are you thinking about 
 Arthur ? " exclaimed Ralph Atherton, u you have 
 actually put your queen en prise." 
 
 Sir Herbert swept the piece in question off the 
 board with alacrity. 
 
 " You resign the game I suppose," he 
 said. 
 
 Arthur had risen to do so, but Maud who had
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 171 
 
 left the piano, and was standing beside the chess 
 table, said to him in a low voice. 
 
 u Don't give the game up, I am sure you can 
 win it if you choose." 
 
 u You have not seen the board," said Arthur in 
 the same tone. 
 
 c < I need not do so," she replied, " to be certain 
 of the result. Will you win the game — for me?" 
 
 Arthur looked into the depths of her beautiful 
 eyes, he thought he had never seen them or any 
 other eyes look so bright, and answered, "yes." 
 
 " You resign the game, I suppose." repeated 
 the Baronet complacently. 
 
 " No," said Arthur quietly, " I will fight it out 
 to the death." 
 
 Ralph Atherton and Maud sat beside the chess 
 table to watch the game ; all felt that the real 
 interest of the struggle had only just com- 
 menced. 
 
 It was Arthur's move, and he calculated the 
 possibilities of every policy minutely, he was
 
 172 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 determined if any effort could make it possible to 
 win the game, that he would do so. 
 
 It was the first favour Maud had ever asked 
 him, and small as the request was, he felt as 
 though no sacrifice would be too great to enable 
 him to fulfil it. 
 
 So he abandoned all schemes of brilliant un- 
 sound play, all tempting forlorn hopes, and threw 
 every energy he posseseed into the game, as though 
 life itself depended on the issue. 
 
 The four faces round the chess-board would 
 have made a fine study for an artist at that mo- 
 ment. Ralph watched the game with calm 
 interest as a fine specimen of critical play. Sir 
 Herbert's face suggested a more complicated 
 state of mind. There was the evidence of a keen 
 desire to win the game, blended with a slight 
 annoyance at the difficulty of doing so, (to which 
 was added a look of astonishment at the meta- 
 morphosis in his opponent's style of play. 
 Arthur's handsome face was slightly flushed, and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 173 
 
 its usual careless expression had become one of 
 passionate determination. 
 
 Maud was as excited as he, and watched the 
 unequal struggle, as though she had been the 
 prize for which they were contending. 
 
 How splendidly Arthur played that game. If 
 the finest chess-player in the country had been 
 opposed to him, he would have made a long and 
 brilliant struggle of it, though of course the 
 immense superiority of forces, must at length, 
 have won the victory. But with such an oppo- 
 nent as Sir Herbert, his attack was simply 
 irresistible. He made no glaring error, but his 
 defence was frequently tame, and unequal to the 
 occasion. At last Arthur looked quietly at 
 Maud, and she saw in his eyes the confirmation 
 of her own belief that the game was virtually 
 over. 
 
 And so indeed it was. Sir Herbert's forte was 
 defence, and he played that evening unusually 
 well, but Arthur's attack was conducted with
 
 174 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 such consummate skill, as to be almost resistless. 
 At last Arthur said quietly. 
 
 u Checkmate is inevitable Sir Herbert in three 
 moves." 
 
 " I always like to be actually checkmated before 
 resigning," replied the young Baronet rather less 
 amiably than usual. 
 
 So they played the three moves out, which 
 afforded Sir Herbert the opportunity to recover his 
 temper and say with his usual politeness. 
 
 " It is no dishonour to be beaten by such a 
 player. I congratulate you on your proficiency — 
 it is really remarkable." 
 
 " It is very remarkable," said Ralph Atherton. 
 " I have always considered you a bold and bril- 
 liant player, Arthur, but I never saw you play as 
 you have done to-night, I don't think a single 
 move since the loss of your queen, could have 
 possibly been improved on. What supernatural 
 power inspired you ? " 
 
 Perhaps Maud might have been able to throw
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 175 
 
 some light on the subject if she had chosen ; it is 
 certain her colour was unusually high, and she 
 seemed rather nervous, a most unusual thing for 
 her, which symptoms are not commonly connected 
 with the critical observation of chess. 
 
 She soon recovered her self-possession and 
 seeing Sir Herbert was rather discomfitted at his 
 recent defeat, asked him to sing. 
 
 Now it was one of his pet delusions that he had 
 a good baritone voice, therefore he replied almost 
 eagerly for him. 
 
 " I will try, Miss Atherton, if you will play 
 my accompaniment." 
 
 So Maud sat down resignedly to the piano, 
 while Sir Herbert cleared his throat and tried to 
 look unconscious. 
 
 It was a love song, the general tenor of which 
 was that he slept nightly, (in company with an 
 owl and a moon-beam) on his dead love's grave, 
 and the second verse informed humanity at large 
 that the lady in question had eyes like something
 
 176 MAUD ATEERTON. 
 
 that wasn't audible, and a nose like something- 
 else which no one could hear. 
 
 The effect of the ballad was materially height- 
 ened by the singer's occasional flatness, and a 
 disregard of time, which from a philosophic point 
 of view was enviable. 
 
 Maud secretly writhed at the infliction, but Sir 
 Herbert at the conclusion of the song, turned to 
 Arthur with a calm consciousness of having dis- 
 tinguished himself, and asked bis late opponent 
 if he were musical. 
 
 Arthur would probably have denied it, as he 
 wanted to hear Maud sing again, but Ralph 
 answering for him, he yielded to the general 
 request, and took the seat at the piano which 
 Maud had just vacated. 
 
 He struck a few fine chords, with a clear ring- 
 ing touch, and was about to choose a lively ballad 
 very much in vogue that summer, but suddenly 
 changing his mind, he sang to a dreamy minor 
 air the following words, his rich tenor voice, and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 177 
 
 perfect enunciation forming a striking contrast 
 to Sir Herbert's wandering and indistinct 
 baritone. 
 
 " In life's enchanted spring time, when all was fair 
 and young, 
 
 And the leafy boughs of forest trees, i' the happy 
 sunlight swung, 
 
 High-hearted with the jewelled hopes the light- wing- 
 ed moments brought, 
 
 I built a lordly palace in the fair domain of thought. 
 
 No jarring note of cadence sad was heard within its 
 walls, 
 
 But gaily rang the laugh and song thoughout the 
 stately halls ; 
 
 And the harshest sound that woke the dreamy echoes 
 from their rest 
 
 Was the plash of falling water on the fountain's mar- 
 ble breast. 
 
 At the first cold breath of winter my fairy palace fell, 
 
 And a thousand happy fancies lay buried there as well, 
 
 But life spoke to my wounded heart, in sorrow's wintry 
 
 blast, 
 
 And bade me build a temple from the ruins of the 
 
 past. 
 
 N
 
 178 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 I built it, not of fancies, but of passionate belief, 
 Of highest aspirations, and of wisdom taught by grief, 
 Of lowly faith and homage, furnace-tried like bur- 
 nished gold, 
 Andwhate'er was best and noblest in the ruined 
 dream of old. 
 
 While ever on the altar, where the placid moonbeams 
 steal, 
 
 I sacrifice each worthless aim, false faith or low ideal, 
 
 And as its pure light burnetii bright, the sacrificial 
 flame 
 
 Reveals the sweet inscription — graven deep — a wo- 
 man's name. 
 
 Only the name of a woman, and yet of one more fair. 
 
 Than the smile of the brightest star-beam that quivers 
 in midnight air, 
 
 Only the name of a woman, and yet of one so sweet, 
 
 The trampled flower esteems it joy to die beneath 
 her feet. 
 
 That is my heart's sweet secret. When life's long 
 
 strain is o'er, 
 When love finds full fruition and is fraught with pain 
 
 no more, 
 Our souls may meet together, and she then perchance 
 
 may know, 
 Of the temple which I builded for her worship long ago.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 179 
 
 After a little more music, Sir Herbert and 
 Arthur went home. The former had so far gained 
 his object, that he had persuaded Maud to pro- 
 mise to call on his sister Agnes next morning, 
 nominally to see some embroidery, in reality he 
 thought, to consent to be his wife. 
 
 " I'll get this business over at once," he said 
 to himself, " I couldn't have believed it possible 
 ever to get to like a girl so much. She's really very 
 charming. I wonder if Calverley was thinking 
 about her when he sung that bosh about temples 
 and worship. However, even if he did mean her, 
 she has too much common sense to think of com- 
 paring him with me." 
 
 Arthur walked rapidly to the ' Elm Tree ' to 
 fight the old battle all over again. 
 
 But the question bore a new aspect now, 
 
 the thought, " I must renounce all hope of 
 
 winning her," had been hard enough, when he 
 
 had fancied her quite indifferent to him, but now 
 
 he could not silence a hope that it was otherwise, 
 
 n2
 
 180 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 and the old longings were more passionate than 
 before, like the renewed progress of a dammed 
 up stream. 
 
 He had never played chess in his life, as he 
 had done that evening after she had asked him to 
 win the game, for her. If he could win her for 
 his wife, to what high ends might he not attain, 
 with her beauty and her love to inspire him ? No, 
 he could not keep the secret any longer, he had 
 half confessed it already — he must tell her all, 
 and if this new hope proved false, and it seemed 
 too beautiful for reality, he would still always love 
 and believe in womanhood for her sake. 
 
 He unlocked his desk, and took out the manu- 
 script of the comedy Walter Medhurst had so 
 much disliked. He read a few scenes, but Alice 
 Elphenden's heartless cynicism had ceased to 
 represent womanly faith to his mind. 
 
 He smiled at two or three of the epigrams, and 
 then tore the paper into shreds. 
 
 And with it he destroyed the vacillation, the
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 181 
 
 weakness, and the atheism in life, that had lately 
 marred his fine character. Henceforth he had a 
 distinct life-purpose, from which nothing could 
 make him swerve. It was to strive with passion- 
 ate earnestness, patient endurance, and unflinching 
 steadfastness to become worthy of the girl he 
 loved. 
 
 N 3
 
 182 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 " "Wilt thou reach stars, because they shine on thee ? " 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 (Two Gentlemen of Verona.) 
 
 A TAUD felt it rather a bore to have to go to 
 Elverley Hall next morning. She was not 
 so passionately fond of embroidery, as to care to 
 sacrifice much for its sake, and Agnes Stansfeld 
 could only talk about one subject. 
 
 " She will probably produce a lock of red hair, 
 and expect me to go into hysterics with admira- 
 tion of it," said Maud to her father, as she 
 started.
 
 MA UD A THERTON. 183 
 
 However, she went, and was rather surprised to 
 find Sir Herbert at home. Agnes Stansfeld 
 always greeted her cordially but this morning 
 there was an unusual affection in her manners, 
 which was rather perplexing. 
 
 However, they examined the embroidery to- 
 gether, and talked in technical terms about 
 fancy work, but as that language is decidedly 
 more obscure than Chinese, and I have not the 
 faintest conception what it means, I will not 
 bring shame and derision on my head by attempt- 
 ing to repeat it. 
 
 Then Sir Herbert chimiog in, the conversation 
 became general — and insipid. It is astonishing 
 how long people can talk without expressing any- 
 thing that bears the faintest resemblance to an 
 actual thought. Maud became almost monosyl- 
 labic in her replies, as brother and sister talked of 
 the weather, of croquet parties, of the neighbouring 
 families, and the last Entwich ball. At last, 
 however, Miss Stansfeld said there was a new
 
 184 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 Parisian style of bonnet she must show Maud, 
 and in supposed quest of it she left the room. 
 
 Even now Maud had no suspicion of Sir Her- 
 bert's intention, but was just wondering what his 
 next remark would be, when he said — 
 
 " Miss Atherton, I have been thinking lately 
 of being married." 
 
 In his mental rehearsals of the scene he had 
 decided that at this stage of proceedings, Maud 
 would either blush or turn pale, and evince some 
 lady-like sign of agitation, so he was a little dis- 
 concerted when she replied without the faintest 
 loss of self possession — 
 
 " Indeed ! I am glad to hear it, is the lady's 
 name a secret ? " 
 
 "I have not asked her yet," he said, feeling 
 rather nervous, and with very much less than his 
 usual self-confidence. 
 
 Maud's low, musical laugh, was not en- 
 couraging, she saw now the goal for which he 
 was aiming, and felt very little sentimental pity 
 for his impending disappointment.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 185 
 
 " Isn't it barely possible," she said, with a 
 rather wicked light in her large eyes, " in the 
 extraordinary caprice of her sex, that the lady 
 may decline the honour you think of bestowing?" 
 
 " I hope not," he said, u I think not — Miss 
 Atherton, you will make me very happy if you 
 tell me positively that she will not." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered quickly, " I can give you 
 a position in the county worthy of your beauty, 
 and as my wife you will shine brightest of all in 
 the most brilliant circles of London." This was 
 a speech carefully prepared before-hand, and de- 
 livered more fluently than his preceding remarks. 
 
 The laughter had gone from Maud's eyes, as 
 she said quietly — 
 
 " Sir Herbert, you have made a great mistake ; 
 there is nothing in life more impossible than that 
 I should ever be your wife." 
 
 " Not possible," echoed Sir Herbert, utterly 
 bewildered.
 
 186 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 a Certainly not," Maud replied, with most un- 
 compromising emphasis. " Let us talk of other 
 things." 
 
 But the Baronet would not submit to defeat so 
 easily. 
 
 " What is your objection ? " he said. 
 
 " Why will you compel me to be uncompli- 
 mentary?" returned Maud. "I have no doubt 
 many girls would consider you had conferred a 
 great honour upon them, if you had spoken to 
 them as you have done to me, but for my own 
 part, I should decidedly prefer to love the man 
 whom I promise to marry." 
 
 " Don't you think you might grow to love me 
 in time?" enquired Sir Herbert, very much crest- 
 fallen. 
 
 " No," replied Maud, with something of her 
 old mischief sparkling in her face, u my feel- 
 ings are too erratic to be trained like a grape- 
 vine." 
 
 " I cannot understand such a motive," he
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 187 
 
 answered, becoming really angry. " You have 
 no positive dislike for me ? " 
 
 " No," said Maud, frankly, " I don't believe 
 anyone has — you are far too agreeable and good 
 natured." 
 
 " Then why do you speak of it being hopeless ? " 
 he asked. " Do you like anyone better? " 
 
 " I like a good many people better," she an- 
 swered, not wishing to give the conversation too 
 grave a tone. 
 
 " You know what I mean," he retorted, " do 
 you love anyone ? Arthur Calverley for instance." 
 
 Maud's face flushed as though the rosy light of 
 sunset were shining upon it. 
 
 For the first time during the interview she 
 rose from her chair, and said with quiet dignity — 
 
 " You have no right to ask me a question of 
 that nature. I must beg — I must command you 
 not to repeat it." 
 
 Sir Herbert bowed and was silent. His self- 
 conceit had made him behave like a fool, but he
 
 188 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 was not usually one, so refrained from making 
 matters worse. Moreover, he was rather afraid 
 of Maud now that he had seen her angry, so he 
 submitted to being put down for once. 
 
 Maud was the first to break the silence, she held 
 out her hand and said in her old frank engaging 
 manner — 
 
 u Don't let us leave the subject like this. Let 
 us part friends — there really is nothing for either 
 of us to be tragical about. You have spoken 
 foolishly, and I angrily, so we are quiet, let us 
 leave the matter so." 
 
 Sir Herbert took the little hand she held out 
 to him, and put it to his lips. 
 
 "I do not take the matter so lightly," he 
 said. 
 
 " You will by to-morrow," she replied. " If 
 your vanity is wounded, so ought mine to be. I 
 have told you in reply to a direct question, that I 
 am not in love with you, but then it is equally 
 true that you are not in love with me."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 189 
 
 " Have I not just asked you to be my wife ? 
 he interrupted her by saying. 
 
 " Yes," returned Maud, " you have, and I sup- 
 pose you asked your wine merchant to send you 
 in so many dozen of port when your cellars were 
 empty. You don't want a wife, you want a 
 housekeeper, and there are many girls who will 
 grace this beautiful mansion far better than I." 
 
 Then with one of her quick transitions of feel- 
 ing, she added — 
 
 " I have spoken too plainly, perhaps, but you 
 know I am half an Italian, and you must forgive 
 my impulsiveness. I suppose you like me a 
 little, or you would not have offered me the title 
 of wife. If you will offer me another one, that of 
 friend, I will accept it and will forget, or try to 
 forget, that you have said anything else this 
 morning. " 
 
 She looked so beautiful as she spoke, and there 
 was something so fascinating in her relenting 
 mood after her words of pretty scorn, that a
 
 190 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 feeling nearer love than anything he had known in 
 his life before was called into life by her words, 
 like a responsive echo. After all he was a gen- 
 tleman, and it was with all the dignity of one he 
 replied — 
 
 il It is I who must ask forgiveness. I have 
 been presumptuous and foolish, I see it now ; but 
 if this interview is closed by the promise of your 
 friendship, I cannot regret that it has been." 
 
 He put her hand once more to his lips respect- 
 fully. The man's heart was right enough, and if 
 he had been born a poor man, for whom society 
 did not care what is conventionally termed " tup- 
 pence," (in which sum there would seem to be 
 some inherent cause for contempt,) he might 
 have gone through life very decently indeed. But 
 nature is a strange stage-manager, she often 
 makes her heroes mere scene-shifters, or gives 
 them a very lowly part in the drama of life, while 
 she dresses her clowns in silk and feathers and 
 bids them strut before the footlights as the
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 191 
 
 incarnation of the highest possibilities of man 
 hood. 
 
 Radicalism has proclaimed, rather hoarsely as 
 is its wont, that this is always so, a creed which 
 involves, prior to its acceptance, the entire obliter- 
 ation both of history and common sense, but that 
 it is sometimes so, titled orthodoxy can only dis- 
 prove by hiding its head, ostrich-fashion, in 
 polemical sand. 
 
 If Sir Herbert had been a draper's assistant, 
 he would have measured out tape and ribbon in 
 most desirable manner, as a baronet and a man 
 of fortune he did not succeed so well. 
 
 But Maud had touched the truth and honour 
 that lay beneath his conceit and self-complacency ; 
 the heart must be hollow and false indeed that 
 gives no response to the touch of a true woman's 
 hand. 
 
 He would have spoken further, but at that 
 moment, his sister entered the room with the 
 Parisian bonnet, it had taken so long to find.
 
 192 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 She seemed rather disappointed at not finding 
 Maud in her brother's arms, but when after ad- 
 miring; the bonnet, which I am afraid she bestowed 
 no more attention upon than if it had been a 
 coal-scuttle, Maud rose to go, Miss Agnes 
 became almost speechless with indignation and 
 astonishment. 
 
 When their visitor however had left the house, 
 the spell was broken. 
 
 " Herbert," she exclaimed, (i have you spoken 
 to her?" 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " I have." 
 
 " And do you mean to tell me that she has 
 refused you? " 
 
 sl I mean to tell you nothing." 
 
 " Then I know that she has done so, and I say 
 of all the ungrateful worthless girls " 
 
 But Sir Herbert interrupted her. 
 
 u Agnes," he said, " I will speak plainly to you, 
 I have asked her to be my wife, and she has 
 refused, I hold her in the highest respect and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 193 
 
 honour, and will never hear her spoken of in any- 
 other tone. Beyond that I have nothing to say, 
 except to bid farewell to the subject for ever." 
 
 And so ended — abruptly enough — Sir Herbert 
 Stansfeld's wooing.
 
 194 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " Whom the Gods love die young." 
 
 CO said the Greeks of old, touching thereby the 
 saddest note perhaps in the whole minor 
 music of life. 
 
 We mourn when the hero falls lifeless on the 
 battle-field, when the artist's pencil drops from 
 his dying hand, when the poet's song is hushed 
 for ever, but it is incomparably sadder to think 
 of the untried hero who died before his life could 
 be wreathed with laurels, of the young artist who 
 only lived to shadow forth the genius that must 
 one day be, of the poet whose song was silent
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 195 
 
 before the world had time to know and love its 
 meaning. 
 
 In the cottage, where Arthur had seen him first, 
 Maud's little favourite, Alfred Thorby, lay dying. 
 His blue eyes were bright as ever, his long golden 
 hair fell upon the cushion where his head rested, 
 in rich luxuriance, but the pulsations of life were 
 faint and tremulous, and the throbbing of the 
 brave young heart would soon have ceased for 
 evermore. 
 
 His strength had been failing rapidly, and for 
 a week he had not left his bed, but to-day he was 
 better, he said, and would get up. 
 
 So he lay on the couch (it was Ralph Atherton's 
 gift) watching the setting sun, and wondering if 
 he should ever see it rise again. 
 
 The villagers had been in to see him with kindly 
 
 words, and rough but heartfelt sympathy; he would 
 
 be better soon, they told him, but he would shake 
 
 his head with a strange sweet smile, and a light in 
 
 his blue eyes, like a river's reflection of the stars. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 MAUD ATHERTOK. 
 
 Ralph Atherton had been there often too, with 
 earnest words, and helpful deeds of comfort, and 
 Arthur had been much beside the child's bed, so 
 strong and yet so gentle, that poor Mrs. Thorby 
 (who had left off whining over fancied grief in 
 the presence of the reality of sorrow) loved his 
 very footstep, and would, if he had asked it, have 
 laid her head beneath his feet. 
 
 But the visitor, whose touch was gentlest, 
 whose voice was softest, whose heart yearned 
 most tenderly over the young spirit fast fluttering 
 into the mysterious silence of Death, was Maud. 
 
 And when the child was weakest, when he was 
 most prostrated by weariness, a new light would 
 flash in his eyes at the sound of her footstep and 
 a flush, faint and transient, would for a moment 
 tinge the pallor of his cheek. 
 
 She was always bright even now, sometimes 
 reading to him, sometimes talking about the 
 fancies he loved so tenderly, sometimes singing 
 to him in a voice so low and sweet that he used
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 197 
 
 to fancy it was spirit music, and that no one could 
 hear and love it but he. She was always cheer- 
 ful, sometimes almost gay, but once as she bent 
 over him to smooth his pillow, with her light 
 womanly touch, a tear had fallen on his face, and 
 he had known with passionate gladness that it 
 had been shed for him. 
 
 " Miss Maud," he said to her this last day, 
 as she stood beside the couch where he lay, " do 
 you know that I am dying ? " 
 
 Maud tried to speak and could not. 
 
 " I wonder " he said, dreamily, u if the angels 
 will have eyes like yours. May I tell you some- 
 thing ? You will not be angry if I do ? " 
 
 " I angry, Alfred — with you ? " 
 
 " I knew you would not be," he said, " but I 
 
 do not know how to say what I mean. I am only 
 
 a, child — but I think a man — could not love you 
 
 more than I — you have made me so strong — to 
 
 bear pain — and you are so beautiful — that even 
 
 now while I am so weak — there is some hidden 
 
 03
 
 198 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 strength within me — at the thought of you I 
 cannot understand it — but it is there — " 
 
 It was with difficulty he said all this, for his 
 breathing was laboured and "painful, and his 
 words were frequently interrupted by coughing, 
 but his passionate desire to speak those long- 
 hidden thoughts conquered everything. 
 
 He went on, presently, to say faintly — 
 
 6i If I were not dying — I would never have told 
 this. If I had been strong — I would have worked 
 my whole life long, for your sake, and no one 
 should ever have known it, — but now I want you 
 to understand — that your voice is as sweet to me 
 — as the harps of heaven — that your touch on my 
 forehead — falls like balm — that when I watch 
 your face — I know as if I had seen Him — that 
 there is a God." 
 
 Maud's self-control failed utterly, she knew the 
 child's nature" so well — the poet's heart, prema- 
 turely wise in thought and passion, the young 
 life taught unchild-like lessons by pain, the
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 199 
 
 genius that had produced fair buds and rich 
 blossoms, but would never live to bring forth 
 fruit ; that she understood what many would 
 think unnatural, and felt honoured by this childish 
 worship, though a week before she had treated a 
 rich man's wooing with disdain. 
 
 And the little life ebbing away so fast was so 
 dear to her, she had come to regard this golden- 
 haired child so tenderly, that the constraint she 
 had exerted over herself so long broke down 
 utterly, and laying her head on the pillow beside 
 him, she sobbed as she had never in her life 
 time done before. 
 
 He had never seen her weep and putting his 
 hand — how small and thin, and white it was-— 
 upon her rich brown hair, he said tenderly — 
 
 " I am not worthy of those tears, dear Miss 
 Maud, you must not be so sorry about me." 
 
 Maud put her arms round the child, and pressed 
 her sweet red lips to his, but her heart was too 
 full for one word of utterance. She made him
 
 200 MA UD A THERTON. 
 
 put his head upon her bosom, and resting thus 
 the child, tired out with his exertions, fell asleep. 
 
 It was in this position that Arthur found him 
 when he entered the cottage ; he signed to Maud 
 not to move, and having whispered a word of 
 comfort to the child's mother, sat quietly down 
 to wait the end. 
 
 It was not far off. Dr. Corrie came in for 
 a few minutes, but could do nothing. u Don't 
 wake the child," he said, "it is better he should 
 rest quietly." 
 
 Arthur took the doctor aside. 
 
 " I do not ask if there is any hope," he said, 
 u I see there is none, but how long ? " 
 
 " The end is very near," was the grave reply, 
 '• two or three hours at latest." 
 
 " Then I will stay till all is over," he said, 
 " and see if I can be of any use." 
 
 So the doctor left the cottage, and the light 
 slowly faded away from without, like the little 
 life within.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 201 
 
 After about an hour's silence the child woke, 
 but for the first time during his illness he was 
 delirious, and talked incoherently of many things. 
 Very strange the wanderings of his mind seemed 
 to the listeners round him. Sometimes he would 
 repeat stanzas from poems he had composed — 
 weak as boyish poetry always is, but with frequent 
 flashes of true thought and real beauty that held 
 out high promise never to be fulfilled. 
 
 Frequently the idea that Maud was in danger 
 of some kind, took possession of his mind, and 
 he suffered intensely at the thought of his power- 
 lessness to help her. She was in a desert, he 
 fancied, dying of thirst, and he must cross the 
 mountains to rescue her, — u I shall be too late," 
 he cried, " these mountains are so steep, their 
 sharp stones cut my feet." 
 
 They quieted him, and Maud whispered that 
 she was near him, and would not go away, but 
 still the shapeless idea of danger haunted him and 
 he moaned piteously.
 
 202 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " She is being swept away by the river's tide, 
 and I cannot save her." 
 
 How long this lasted they never knew, probably 
 less than an hour, for it was rather the natural 
 incoherence of a wearied brain, than actual de- 
 lirium. Tired out by the exertion of talking, he 
 soon fell asleep again, and after the lapse of about 
 twenty minutes woke perfectly calm and con- 
 scious. 
 
 His cough had ceased, but so also had his 
 power of utterance, he lay quite peacefully in 
 Maud's arms now. 
 
 Presently he folded his hands together, and 
 looked entreatingly at Arthur. 
 
 " He wishes you to pray," Maud whispered. 
 
 Arthur hesitated a moment, then knelt down 
 and repeated the Lord's prayer, in tones very un- 
 like his usual clear strong voice. At its conclu- 
 sion the child gave him a faint smile of thanks, 
 then put up his lips to Maud to be kissed. 
 
 She bent lovingly over him, and pressed her
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 203 
 
 lips once more to his, when she raised her head 
 again all was over, and the childish spirit was at 
 rest. 
 
 At rest with the Spirit of whom poetry is the 
 uncertain shadow, in the land where we shall 
 learn some day what life really means, when its 
 maddening cries of pain will prove the confused 
 prelude to harmonies eternal and divine.
 
 204 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Mining and banking shares he cherished dearly, 
 His airy castles all were built of gold, 
 And when he " babbled o' green fields," 'twas merely, 
 As good security he chanced to hold. 
 
 " TVT^W ^at ^ e servan ^ s have left the room 
 and we are quite alone I should like to 
 have a little private conversation with you, Lady 
 Glendale." 
 
 This ominous remark fell from the lips of Lady 
 Glendale's husband, and was uttered in a tone 
 which made the words extremely offensive. It is 
 written in the law of society which altereth not, 
 that if a man wishes to insult a young and beau- 
 tiful woman, he should first place a wedding-ring 
 upon her finger.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 205 
 
 Sir Thomas Glendale was a man of about five- 
 and-fifty years old, with shrewd keen eyes, and a 
 voracious looking mouth. His figure was portly, 
 his voice loud, he was well dressed, and simply, 
 the only vulgarity in his attire being that his 
 large hands which were coarse and red, were 
 sparkling unduly with rings. 
 
 Thirty-five years before, he had been serving 
 behind the counter at a small grocer's shop in 
 London, thinking himself well paid, when he 
 earned ten shillings a week. How he managed 
 to scrape together a little hoard nobody knew, but 
 the reason was not hard to find. If a customer 
 wanted a horse held, or a parcel carried, he would 
 volunteer his aid, and the sixpences and shillings 
 slowly accumulated. What did he care, if his 
 coat were out at elbows ? he could wait his 
 time. 
 
 He did not wait in vain, one day, when business 
 had been unusually bad, his master said to him : 
 " Thomas, my boy, it's all up, if I'd got a little
 
 206 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 more money, I could wait till things is better, but 
 I haven't ten shillings left in the house." 
 
 " How much money would set you up ? " said 
 Thomas with an affectation of indifference. 
 
 " Oh very little indeed — I dare say fifteen 
 pounds would be enough." 
 
 Thomas left the room and brought down his 
 hoarded money — seventeen pounds in all, which he 
 poured into the astonished grocer's hands. 
 
 " There," he said triumphantly, " I'll lend it 
 you on your note of hand, only I'll be hanged if I 
 take less than twenty per cent interest." 
 
 Things had turned out just as he had expected; 
 when the bills became due the grocer could not 
 pay his servant, so took him into partnership in- 
 stead. Fortune favoured them now, as it had 
 never done before. By dint of rigid economy young 
 Glendale contrived to scrape up (no other word can 
 convey the actual facts) a few hundred pounds — 
 and having sold his share in the old partnership 
 for fifty, set up in business for himself.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 207 
 
 But not in the old lowly style, lie had grown 
 tired of that, so he spent every farthing he 
 possessed, and incurred heavy debts beside, to 
 make a great show of wealth. It was the mere 
 trick of a gambler, he knew that well enough, 
 but he preferred brilliant possibilities to slow cer- 
 tainties. The cards all turned up in his favour, 
 and he soon learnt, for the first time, the intox- 
 ication of success. 
 
 For ten years he worked from seven in the 
 morning till late at night ; then he sold his busi- 
 ness and retired with fifty thousand pounds in 
 hard cash. 
 
 It was not a very large sum to speculate with, 
 but it was sufficient for his purpose, and he began 
 to buy up mining, banking, and railway shares 
 as though loss were impossible. 
 
 He speculated in the most hazardous style, 
 buying up shares which sold for little more than 
 their weight in waste paper. Here, again, for- 
 tune favoured him, many of his undertakings
 
 208 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 failed, but others succeeded so brilliantly that in a 
 few years he was known upon 'Change as a rich man. 
 
 Even this was not enough for him, he went on 
 adding to his colossal fortune till his name be- 
 came a by-word and the most extravagant 
 rumours were afloat concerning him. He could 
 write a cheque for a million of money at any 
 time, having always at least that sum lying idle 
 at his bankers ; he could equip a fleet at his own 
 expense, and had cellars beneath his great house 
 where bank notes lay upon the ground like straw. 
 The men who were best able to judge of his re- 
 sources laughed at all this, but they whispered 
 among themselves that Glendale could always, at 
 less than a month's notice, raise nine hundred 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 At last, however, he threw up his cards and 
 retired from the commercial gaming table. One 
 or two defeats, (trivial to him, but not inherently 
 so,) warned him that his luck might turn. He 
 took the hint and left off speculating.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 209 
 
 About this time he had been offered the honour 
 of knighthood ; he had accepted it, and with it a 
 seat in parliament. As he never spoke in the 
 House, (or out of it either on politics,) he was 
 universally regarded as a great man. 
 
 He had never married, but now that he had no 
 longer commercial gambling to occupy his mind, 
 he began to look out for a wife. 
 
 Like all his purchases it was a brilliant success 
 from a superficial point of view. He met Kate 
 Rushton one evening, and asked her in less than 
 a week to be his wife. She was young — he was 
 not particularly so : she was wonderfully beautiful 
 — he was rather plain : she was the lineal descen- 
 dant of a countess — he could trace his ancestry 
 no farther than his grandmother who was a char- 
 woman, she was^oor, and he was immensely rich. 
 Could any pair be better suited to each other. 
 
 Sir Thomas thought not : apparently Kate 
 Rushton was of the same opinion, for she con- 
 sented to become his wife.
 
 210 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 And now, after they had been married over a 
 year, Sir Thomas made the remark with which 
 this chapter opens. 
 
 " I wish to have some private conversation 
 with yon, Lady Glendale," he repeated. 
 
 " What is it ? " she asked, wearily. 
 
 " I am going to give a dinner party," he said, 
 in the quick sharp voice, with which he always 
 spoke, u to some political friends, and I have to 
 request you will receive them properly." 
 
 " I do not understand you," she replied, rather 
 scornfully. 
 
 " I mean this, my lady, that I'm not satisfied 
 with the way things are going on, that I'm not 
 satisfied, for instance, with you." 
 
 She made no reply, but sat listening as though 
 his words were concerning anything but herself. 
 
 He went on, after a pause, evidently much ex- 
 asperated by her silence. 
 
 " I am not pleased by your behaviour in society 
 — I won't allow you to flirt as you've been doing
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 211 
 
 lately, and I will have my friends treated with 
 respect." 
 
 She answered now — her light-treble voice in 
 marked contrast to his blustering tones. 
 
 u When I married you, did you think I cared 
 for anything but your money — did you fancy that 
 I loved you ? " 
 
 He laughed boisterously and coarsely. 
 
 " Not being a fool," he said, " I never gave it 
 a thought, but whether you care for me or not 
 you shall obey me, or I'll know the reason why." 
 
 She rose, without a word, to leave the room. 
 
 " Stay," he said, angrily, " you shall hear me, 
 there is a devil in me you will do well to leave 
 alone." 
 
 " Do you think," she said, with flashing eyes, 
 " that there are no devils in my breast ? " 
 
 He answered with an oath, " There may be, but 
 
 if you cross my will, I tell you I will spoil the 
 
 beauty of which you are so abominably proud." 
 
 For the first time during the interview she 
 
 p2
 
 212 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 trembled. Brutality has an awfulness little less 
 than infernal to a refined and sensitive woman. 
 
 He saw the advantage, and was not the man to 
 lose it. 
 
 " Sit down/' he said, imperatively. 
 
 She did so, trembling, and with both her hands 
 upon her bosom, as if to still the too rapid break- 
 ing of her heart. 
 
 " Now," he said, " I have not much to say, 
 I've not spoken like this before because I hate 
 scenes — I will be obeyed. If I'm not a match 
 for you in sarcasm, I'm more than a match for 
 you in strength, and I'd " 
 
 " What would you do," she asked, in a tone 
 struggling between fear and passion. 
 
 He laid his hand roughly on her shoulder. 
 
 " Sooner than have it said that my wife defies 
 me, and your bearing lately has been such as to 
 make men think so, I would kill you." 
 
 He saw with triumph, that she was very pale, 
 even to the lips. 'I have conquered her' he
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 213 
 
 thought to himself, and so without another word 
 he left the room. 
 
 For some minutes after he was gone, Lady 
 G-lendale sat perfectly motionless. Poets had 
 celebrated this woman's beauty in their sweetest 
 songs, her dreamy violet eyes had inspired many 
 an artist's dream, true men had offered her the 
 wealth of pure-hearted homage, but she had 
 turned from them all for the sake of a man, 
 coarse, brutal, selfish, and rich. 
 
 She had had her wish, (meanness was not one 
 of Sir Thomas's vices) and everything that money 
 could buy, or the most extravagant taste demand, 
 was always at her disposal. 
 
 The song of the bird in the gilded cage is ex- 
 tremely trite, and much that poets have said about 
 the glories of poverty, and the misery of wealth, 
 will not bear the test of common sense, but so 
 long as the hearts of men and women yearn for 
 sympathy, (and the dullest among us, is not 
 
 quite free from such longings,) so long will mere 
 
 p3
 
 214 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 material comfort be a sorry substitute for the 
 pure love of a true heart. 
 
 Lady Glendale bad found it so, with that 
 weariness tbe beart feels, when it faints beneath 
 the knowledge that its sorrow can only find alle- 
 viation in the grave. 
 
 She had sought the only relief within her power — 
 that of mingling in society. Wherever she went 
 she knew she was by far the most beautiful, and 
 there was a sense of triumph in that. She had 
 flirted desperately, what were hearts to her ? She 
 was miserable, and nobody cared for that, why 
 should she have more consideration for others ? 
 
 " Who is Glendale ? " She overheard a young 
 man ask another at a crowded evening party, and 
 the reply had been — 
 
 u Don't you know? Glendale used to be 
 a Whitechapel grocer, or something of that kind, 
 now he's a baronet, and a millionaire. He mar- 
 ried old Rushton's daughter, the loveliest girl in 
 London — there she is over there. Did you ever
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 215 
 
 see such a brilliant complexion, or such eyes and 
 hair ? But there her beauty ends, I believe there's 
 less tenderness in her breast, then there is in the 
 diamonds upon it," and the speaker had glanced 
 lovingly at his wife, an amiable little woman, 
 with woolly hair, and a nose, which I must spoil 
 the beauty of a period, by calling a " snub." 
 
 But as as it very often happen in these cases 
 society was wrong — if those who declared her 
 absolutely without heart could have seen now, as 
 she sat in the room, where she and her husband 
 had lately been talking, they might have modified 
 their opinion. 
 
 Fastened round her neck by a slight golden 
 chain was a diamond ring, which lay upon her 
 bosom night and day, she drew it forth and kissed 
 it passionately, then she threw herself upon the 
 ground and wept with all the agony of utter 
 despair. 
 
 It was not the first time she had winced at her 
 husband's coarseness and brutality, they had
 
 216 MAUD ATEERTON. 
 
 made life a burden to her ever since they had 
 been married, but to-night she had realised fully 
 for the first time,, the depth of misery and degra- 
 dation that lay before her. 
 
 " And it is for this," she moaned, " that I 
 parted with Arthur Calverley." 
 
 For she had always loved him — she knew it 
 now. When it devolved upon her to choose 
 between hardships and obscurity with him on 
 the one hand, and wealth and rank without him 
 on the other, it was not till after a long struggle 
 that the more selfish and frivolous element in her 
 nature had gained the victory, and she had made 
 a false and unworthy choice. 
 
 And now when she thought of the chivalrous 
 love that might have been her own, of the heart 
 she had thrown away in a moment of madness, 
 and of a voice whose lightest word was gentle in 
 its tone to her, the great room with its costly 
 furniture and lavish expenditure of wealth, faded 
 from her eyes, and she saw through her tears as
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 217 
 
 in an enchanted mirror, herself a loved and 
 honoured wife, strong to achieve and to endure for 
 the sake of him she loved, and a baby on her 
 breast, whose light touch could hush the unquiet 
 throbbings of her heart. 
 
 For a moment a sad smile played upon her lips, 
 like moonlight on rosy flowers, but the vision 
 was a lying one, and the dull realities of life rose 
 before her as cold and dreary as the grave. 
 
 She had brought this on herself by her own 
 mad folly, but He who pardoned the sinful woman 
 whom men would have slain, forbade us to pity 
 only those whose hands and hearts are pure. It 
 may be when the heavenly sunlight has swept 
 away all mystery and doubt, we shall learn that 
 these suffering erring souls were worthier of 
 love and compassion, than those who by keeping 
 afar from the passions of common humanity, 
 bore no stain upon the whiteness of then raiment.
 
 218 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " He has outsoared the shadow of our night." 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 (Adonais.) 
 
 Arthur did not see Maud for some days after 
 Alfred Thorby's death. When they met again, 
 it was beside the little river Elva, where they 
 had walked together — how long ago, it seemed 
 now! 
 
 " You are looking sad this morning," he said 
 gently after the first words of greeting. 
 
 " Am I ? " she replied. " I was listening to the 
 river, and its glad music seems changed to a long, 
 low wailing to-day. Listen."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 219 
 
 They walked on in silence for a few moments, 
 and then Arthur said with a smile — 
 
 " I must know the course of your thought 
 before I can listen with your ears — Miss 
 Atherton." 
 
 " I was thinking," she said " of Alfred, and all 
 his weird fancies and dreams. I can never tell 
 you how dear that golden-haired child was to me." 
 
 Arthur said nothing, but wondered if she knew 
 the secret which inspired the poetic fancies of 
 that pure young heart. 
 
 " And I was thinking about my father," she 
 resumed, " he has not been well lately, and has 
 complained of acute pain at the heart. Some- 
 how all these thoughts seemed echoed by the 
 river, and with them, the presentiment of coming 
 evil, but I am growing sentimental like Miss 
 Clare." 
 
 " That is not fair to yourself," he said. "After 
 so many years companionship it would be strange 
 indeed if no friendship had grown up between
 
 220 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 you and this fairy-like stream. I am half inclined 
 to be superstitious about it myself." 
 
 " I notice you rarely avail yourself of a con- 
 fession of weakness, Mr. Calverley," said Maud, 
 " but your generosity is not quite unmerited this 
 time. When I came here first I was only four years 
 old, but my nurse used to bring me down to the 
 river to throw pebbles into the water ; then as I 
 grew older I used to study here. And every poem 
 or novel I have ever read is associated with the 
 Elva, in the same way. One hot summer I had 
 a fever and the stream ran nearly dry, and Fhad 
 a childish fancy that there was some subtle sym- 
 pathy between us ; that it was glad or sorry when 
 I was so ; that its course was full and free when 
 I was well and strong, and if ever its waters were 
 dried up I should die. Of course I don't believe 
 in the old childish superstition still, but I could 
 not help fancying just now that it threatened a 
 coming sorrow. I suppose such fancies are the 
 result of an uneventful life."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 221 
 
 " I should not call your life uneventful," he 
 replied — " I think most men have a very narrow 
 conception of what events really are. After all 
 there is nothing in the universe wonderful but 
 thought. The notion that the actual events of 
 existence make up life is a vulgar one, the mere 
 act of shooting a man is precisely identical with 
 the act of shooting a rabbit, it is only the thought 
 of the actor that makes the deed criminal or just." 
 
 " Then I suppose you consider the tragedy of 
 life to lie in its secret struggles, of which the 
 world knows nothing," said Maud thoughtfully. 
 " Yes, I think you are right. But what of nature 
 — are not the seas and the mountains wonderful?" 
 
 " Yes," he replied, reverently, " they are very 
 wonderful, but are they not the embodied thoughts 
 of God?" 
 
 " In themselves they are not wonderful, but 
 spiritless and dull. I am artist enough to love Na- 
 ture passionately, but I hold that a storm-lashed 
 ocean, with its un fathomed depths of darkness
 
 222 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 and mystery below, and the mad lightening 
 quivering above are less wonderful, less mysterious 
 and less tragical, than the thoughts enfolded 
 in a woman's heart." 
 
 They had entered a little wood, lying outside 
 the village, where the air stirred the boughs of 
 the trees like whispered music ; Maud caught the 
 dreamy idea of it all, and sat down upon the 
 trunk of an old tree to rest. They were silent for 
 a few minutes, then Arthur said — ■ 
 
 " I hold not only that a woman's heart is won- 
 derful, but also that its power is mighty. I 
 believe that a man, inspired by a true woman's 
 love, her kiss having laid the seal of knighthood 
 on his lips, has a strength which can defy the 
 united powers of earth and hell." 
 
 He paused, and Maud said, wistfully — 
 
 " It would be a high ambition for a woman to 
 inspire the life of a brave man, to awaken high 
 capabilities in him of which he himself was 
 before unconscious, and lead him upward to high
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 223 
 
 ends and noble achievement : it was an old dream 
 of mine once, but my soul is not beautiful enough 
 for such sweet love as that." 
 
 " Maud," he replied quickly, calling her by her 
 Christian name for the first time, " such love is 
 yours now, and will always remain so. I have 
 tried to keep my secret, but I cannot. I love you 
 not passionately merely, but with a depth and 
 truth that are greater than my own heart. Since 
 the moment when I first saw your face, before 
 that, even when I had only heard your voice, I 
 have felt that you held my life in your hands, 
 and could mould it at your will." 
 
 Maud listened with a strange sweet gladness 
 to his words ; she loved him with all the wealth 
 of a woman's heart ; she perceived as only true 
 natures can, all that was noble in him, and finding 
 it worthy of worship gave her homage freely. 
 
 " One word more," he said, " my love would 
 seem to many, it may seem to you — a madness, 
 you are more highly endowed than any woman
 
 224 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 on God's earth, while I have nothing and am 
 nothing. But to love you was the first necessity 
 of my nature. I have always worshipped beauty, 
 and in you every dream of my life finds a full 
 and perfect meaning, and I want you to believe, 
 that I shall carry the remembrance of your lightest 
 word with me wherever I go." 
 
 Her eyes were fixed upon the ground, and the 
 little white hand resting upon the old tree 
 trembled, but still she did not speak. 
 
 " Forgive me," Arthur said, " if I have pained 
 you, I shall leave Elverley to-morrow, and we 
 may never meet again ; will you not tell me you 
 do not despise my love ? " 
 
 She raised her beautiful eyes to his face, and 
 he read his answer in them. 
 
 " Arthur," she said, in the low sweet voice he 
 loved so well, " I am not worthy of love like 
 yours, but I cannot hide my secret either, you are 
 incomparably dearer to me than the whole wide 
 world beside."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 225 
 
 And, with a long troth kiss, they vowed to love 
 each other tenderly for evermore. 
 
 " Neither Mand nor Arthur ever forgot that 
 hour in the wood where the air, laden with the 
 breath of wild flowers, rustled among the leafy 
 boughs, while the little river flowed in the dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Perhaps they sat two hours talking there, each 
 had so much to tell the other. Arthur told her 
 everything about Kate Kushton, and all the 
 poverty of action that had marred his life of late. 
 And Maud was so quick to understand every 
 feeling of which he spoke, so gentle in her judg- 
 ment of the past on which he felt so sorrowful 
 and angry, so encouraging as she spoke about the 
 future, that Arthur felt at once armed for the 
 struggle with the world, and let sorrow come as 
 it might, he knew that he could bear it now, and 
 since she loved him, could feel under any suffering 
 grateful that he lived. 
 
 " I shall leave Elverley in a day or two," he 
 
 Q
 
 226 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 said, " I have a home to build for you now 
 darling, and must begin at once." 
 
 " It is hard to part so soon," said Maud, " but 
 you are right Arthur. Have you spoken to papa 
 about this ? " 
 
 " No," he replied, " I had but faint hope of 
 your answer, but I do not think he will be sorry 
 about it. Do you ? " 
 
 " No," said Maud, " you are a great favourite 
 of his, I am sure he will be glad. Let us go and 
 tell him." 
 
 She rose to go, with all her old gaiety returned. 
 " Does the river sound threatening now, my 
 queen ? " he whispered. 
 
 " No," she answered gaily, " you are a magi- 
 cian, I think, its song is all of high hope now/" 
 
 So they walked together to the vicarage. Stand- 
 ing at the gate was little Mrs. Corrie, the doctor's 
 wife, and Arthur saw from one glance at her face 
 that something was wrong. 
 
 As they reached the house, Maud dropped some
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 227 
 
 flowers she was carrying, and instead of picking 
 them up for her, he signed to Mrs. Corrie, while 
 Maud's head was bent over them. " What is it ? " 
 
 She said nothing aloud, but formed three words 
 with her lips, her white face giving them an 
 awful clearness. 
 
 Arthur staggered backwards, as though he had 
 been struck by a strong hand in a steel gauntlet 
 
 The whole scene transpired in a moment. 
 Maud, who was gaily humming a song, finished 
 picking up the flowers, and was coming forward 
 to greet Clara, when she saw Arthur's face. 
 
 " What is wrong?" she cried, " you are hiding 
 something from me — your face is white as 
 death." 
 
 Arthur recovered himself with a strong effort. 
 
 " Dearest Maud," he said, " there is something 
 I must tell you, and you must be brave to hear. 
 Come into the house and you shall hear all." 
 
 They went into the first room they came to, 
 
 Arthur made her sit down on the sofa, and took 
 
 Q2
 
 228 MAUD ATHERTON 
 
 her hand in his. She made an impatient sign to 
 him to speak quickly, but she uttered no word. 
 
 u Darling," he said, tenderly, " you have a true 
 woman's heart, and you will not flinch at sorrow 
 I know ; your father " 
 
 " Is he ill?" she asked, faintly. 
 
 " He is very ill — it is gravely feared that his 
 life is in danger." 
 
 Even in the midst of all this sorrow and 
 anxiety, Arthur could not help feeling a proud 
 joy in her beauty. Her face was very pale, and 
 her eyes shone with unnatural lustre, as she said, 
 in a hollow voice, unlike her own — 
 
 " I know all — your faces tell it me — he is dead. 
 Take me to him." 
 
 Arthur almost carried her upstairs into the 
 silent room, so hushed and still, and there upon 
 the bed, as though in dreamless sleep, lay the 
 form of her dead father. 
 
 She realised the truth now, and flung herself 
 upon the bed in utter abandonment of grief.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 229 
 
 " He cannot be dead," she cried wildly, " this 
 morning he kissed me, and spoke so lovingly and 
 now " 
 
 Vain is it Maud to clasp those dear hands to 
 thy breast, they are cold, and give no responsive 
 thrill, to gladden the heart that beats so passion- 
 ately against them, vain is it to press thy red lips 
 to those white lips of his, or whisper sweet 
 words of tenderness in the ears that shall hear no 
 more such music till the dawning of eternal day. 
 All is over, and even love like thine is powerless 
 here. 
 
 Arthur let her grief flow uninterrupted for a 
 while, then he took her gently in his arms, and 
 said — 
 
 " You must be brave my darling, as he would 
 have wished, if not for your own sake, for mine, 
 you will come down stairs now with me. Will 
 you not ? " 
 
 His strength and gentleness comforted her even 
 
 in the midst of her grief. 
 
 q3
 
 230 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " Yes," she answered faintly, " you are strong 
 and good, I will do whatever you tell me." 
 
 But the effort was too great; and exhausted by 
 the conflict of feeling she fainted away and would 
 have fallen if he had not caught her in his arms. 
 When he had poured water on her face, and 
 revived her, her grief was quieter, and she let him 
 carry her to her own room. 
 
 Clara Corrie sat by her side there, and Arthur 
 went down stairs with a heavy heart. After an 
 hour, that seemed interminable, Mrs. Corrie came 
 into the room, her eyes swollen with crying, and 
 told him how it all happened. 
 
 Ealph Atherton had suffered for a long time 
 past from his heart, though it was only within 
 the last few weeks that Dr. Corrie, his regular 
 medical attendant; had discovered how seriously 
 it was affected. But this morning he had gone 
 out to call on a poor parishioner, and returned 
 slightly fatigued. Ten minutes afterwards he 
 told the old servant he was not feeling well, and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 231 
 
 would try if lie could sleep for an hour or two. 
 
 " Don't send for the doctor," he had said when 
 she had suggested doing so, " I shall be better 
 presently — and be sure you don't frighten Miss 
 Maud when she comes in." 
 
 Sarah had sent for Dr. Corrie notwithstanding, 
 but before he arrived at the Vicarage, Ralph was 
 dead. 
 
 " Maud is asleep," concluded Clara Corrie. 
 " After you had gone she sobbed herself to sleep, 
 like a broken-hearted child. Did you tell her 
 this morning that you loved her?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I am glad of that," said the little woman, as 
 hopefully as possible, " she needs a strong man's 
 love to support her under all this sorrow ; I think 
 the poor child would have died without you to- 
 day." 
 
 " You, too," said Arthur, u have been a kind 
 friend— you will stay in the house for a day or 
 two, and take care of Maud, will you not ? "
 
 232 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " Gladly," she said, " you may trust her with 
 me without fear." 
 
 Arthur went softly upstairs to look once more 
 on the cold impassive face. 
 
 It lay there cold and still, but with a smile on 
 the pale lips, as though he had seen his fair 
 young Italian bride once more, and was at rest 
 with her for ever. 
 
 Arthur raised the lifeless hand to his lips, and 
 breathed a prayer for the orphaned girl he loved 
 so tenderly, then reverently covering his face, left 
 him with sorrow, determination, and love in his 
 own heart.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 233 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " God's ichor fills the hearts that bleed, 
 The best fruit loads the broken bough, 
 And in the wounds our sufferings plough, 
 Immortal love sows sovereign seed." 
 
 Gerald Massey. 
 
 (Babe Christabel.) 
 
 A RTHUR took all responsibility of directing 
 affairs off Maud's hands. There was not 
 much to be done. Ralph Atherton left no fortune 
 behind him to be the cause of greedy litigation, 
 or hungry disappointment, and no relative of his 
 was living except his brother. Arthur wrote to 
 him, asking if he could come to Elverley and be 
 present at the funeral, and Sir Harold had replied
 
 234 MAUD AT HE ETON. 
 
 to the effect that lie would make a point of com- 
 ing, although a most important race was to take 
 place on that da}', in which two of his finest 
 horses were to take part. The orthography of 
 this letter was peculiar, but seeing that the 
 Baronet had in bis passionate agony, attained to 
 such a pitch of self-denial as the renunciation of 
 a horse-race, it is only charitable to ascribe this 
 to the distracting influence of grief. 
 
 However, he came, and was sincerely affected 
 when he saw the look of grief in Maud's fair 
 young face. Ralph and he had never had any 
 sympathies in common, and they had gone their 
 different ways by tacit consent on each side. 
 Ralph had made a faint effort at correspondence, 
 but quite in vain. Sir Harold hated letter- 
 writing, and half-a-dozen written sentences could 
 only by immense effort be obtained from him ; 
 even then they were not freely given, but ex- 
 tracted like an obdurate tooth. So communica- 
 tion had ceased between them utterly, and it was
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 235 
 
 hardly to be wondered at that Sir Harold, who 
 was by no means sentimental, should not be 
 moved to any paroxysm of intense agony at the 
 announcement of his brother's death, but when 
 he saw Maud he ceased to be indifferent. 
 
 " Fancy poor Ralph having such a lovely 
 daughter," he said to himself, " I expected to see 
 an awkward red-cheeked country girl, but she 
 looks like a countess, Ah, well, if I'd only had 
 a daughter like that." 
 
 There were actually tears in his eyes as he 
 thought this, and though he dashed them away 
 with his rough hand, muttering that u he was a 
 fool to think of such things," it was with un- 
 wonted gentleness that he spoke to Maud. 
 
 She, poor child, was very pale and unlike her 
 old self, but she spoke quite calmly now and 
 yielded to no further passionate outburst of grief, 
 
 The day after her father died, Arthur had first 
 pleaded, and then gently insisted that she should 
 rise above her despair.
 
 236 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " Life is too precious to be squandered in end- 
 less weeping, my darling," he said, "you are 
 faint and ill from keeping in this close room : 
 come down with me to your old seat by the river, 
 and let the air and the. sunshine try to comfort 
 you. You shall not talk unless you like." 
 
 So she let him take her to the old spot, and 
 there when she could bear it, he reminded her of 
 what Ralph had always taught about the meaning 
 and teaching of sorrow, and how souls must be 
 baptized thereby into deeper heroism, and 
 mightier power, and he was rewarded by seeing 
 that she grew calmer as he spoke. Hers was too 
 intense a nature to sorrow lightly, but it had no 
 morbid element in it, and she could not watch 
 the happy river, and the peaceful hills, the sun- 
 light of heaven, and the fields of golden corn, 
 without catching something of the meaning it all 
 conveyed, and though grieving no less, bearing 
 the burden of a quieter sorrow. 
 
 One blessed influence sorrow had already brought
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 237 
 
 upon its wings,for which Arthur was deeply grateful. 
 There had grown a new meaning in their love for 
 each other, she had clung to him for help, pro- 
 tection and support, and so had learnt that 
 reverence, without which no woman's love is 
 worth the name. He on the other hand while 
 still worshipping her, as something higher and 
 better than himself, was drawn nearer to her by 
 the sense of her weakness. 
 
 Mr. Hallett, the new clergyman, had come to 
 Elverley, and was to commence his clerical labours 
 at once. He was a good man, of unblemished 
 orthodoxy, frequently spoken of in religious 
 newspapers, as " an a,ble advocate of sound doctrine, 
 and evangelical truth," but he could no more fill 
 Ralph's place in the hearts and affections of his 
 parishioners than he could have designed St. 
 Paul's Cathedral or written < Paradise Lost.' 
 
 The funeral was perfectly simple, the hideous 
 black draperies, and ignorant misapplication of 
 baronial symbols, the mutes hired to look
 
 238 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 miserable for so much an hour, and the other ab- 
 surd and offensive surroundings, with which the 
 dread majesty and mystery of death are daily pro- 
 faned, were entirely dispensed with. The sunshine 
 streamed on no face, whose expression was a lie, 
 the tears shed upon that grave, were as sincere 
 as the hearts of angels. 
 
 The churchyard was crowded, Maud glanced 
 round at them all, and saw many faces quite 
 strange to her. Some had come from long 
 distances, and in memory of days long past; 
 others had lived in daily intercourse with him 
 till his death. They were of all classes of society, 
 and formed a strange group around the grave. 
 Lord Offborough, the lieutenant of the county, 
 and one of the lowest of the Elverley farm 
 labourers wept over their common grief side by 
 side. 
 
 The Eeverend Ezekiel Hallet looked at all this 
 with considerable surprise. He knew something 
 of popularity. After the publication of his books
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 239 
 
 on u Pernicious Heresies," and " The Doctrinal 
 errors of our time/' he had met with much 
 applause, and when he had delivered a course of 
 sermons against the heresy of a brother divine who 
 had denied the material flames of hell ; even the 
 aisles of his church had been crowded with 
 listeners. On this occasion enthusiasm ran to 
 such a height that he had been presented, a week 
 after their conclusion, with a silver tea and 
 coffee service and a most flattering address, in 
 which he was publicly thanked for 'having estab- 
 lished a scriptural truth finally and for ever; ' 
 but he had never won the love of human hearts — 
 that needed finer perceptions, and sympathy more 
 delicate than he could ever possess ; and now he 
 saw with utter amazement strong men shedding 
 tears as freely as women. What could be the 
 secret by which all this was wrought? 
 
 It was that Ralph had trodden humbly in the 
 footsteps of Him whom the common people heard 
 gladly, that his teaching in the pulpit and out of
 
 240 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 it, had been that God was the Father of the great 
 human family in no abstract sense, but as an 
 eternal truth, that they were girt round on every 
 side by divine love, even though they knew it 
 not, and therefore necessity was laid upon them 
 to quit themselves like men and heroes in the 
 tragic battle-field of life. . Most of all, perhaps, 
 it was because he had listened patiently to their 
 sorrows, sympathising as only royal hearts can, 
 and because they saw, what he never did, that his 
 own life had realised the ideal of Christian 
 chivalry he bade them strive to attain. 
 
 When the service was over, and the last 
 flowers had been thrown into the open grave, Sir 
 Harold Atherton, Maud and Arthur walked back 
 to the vicarage, without a single word. 
 
 The will was written on a single sheet of note 
 paper, and consisted only of half-a-dozen lines. 
 He bequeathed everything of which he died 
 possessed, absolutely and without qualification, 
 to Maud, mentioning in an informal letter to her
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 241 
 
 some trifling mementos lie wished given to 
 friends. He left a valuable library and a few 
 fine paintings, otherwise the whole estate was 
 not worth a hundred pounds. 
 
 The other papers read were those relating to 
 Maud's fortune. These also were very brief and 
 simple, the money left her by Sir James Atherton 
 was to remain untouched until her twenty-first 
 birthday, when it became absolutely her own. In 
 the event of Ralph Atherton dying before she 
 attained her majority, provision was made for her 
 living in the house of her guardian, Horace 
 Arvale, Esquire, of London. 
 
 " Who is Horace Arvale ? " asked Arthur, who 
 had been listening rather anxiously to the last 
 few clauses. 
 
 " He's a stock-broker or something of that 
 kind, I believe," said Sir Harold, " I know he 
 used to be a college friend of poor Ralph's, but I 
 can't tell you anything about him now, except 
 that he's got the vilest carriage horses in London,
 
 242 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 1 wouldn't give him five pounds for the lot 
 of 'em. Do you know anything about him, 
 Maud?" 
 
 " I have heard papa speak of him, uncle," she 
 replied, " they were dear friends at college, 
 indeed there was quite a romantic attachment 
 between them. And here is an unopened letter 
 for me with the London post-mark, it came yes- 
 terday, perhaps it is from him." 
 
 Maud broke the seal and read as follows — 
 
 " Dear Miss Atherton, 
 
 By the will of the late Sir James 
 Atherton, your grandfather, you inherit a legacy 
 with the details of which you are doubtless 
 familiar. As I am appointed executor to this 
 bequest, and am also your guardian till such 
 time as you shall have attained your majority, I 
 beg to state that I shall be happy to receive you 
 at once into my house, and if you will write me 
 word when it is convenient for you to come to
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 243 
 
 London, I will make all needful arrangements 
 for your proper reception, 
 I am, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Horace Arvale." 
 
 " Rather an extraordinary letter to write to the 
 daughter of one's dearest friend," thought Arthur, 
 but he said nothing. 
 
 a I will write to him at once," said Maud, 
 " and next Thursday I will go to London. That 
 will give me nearly a week for necessary arrange- 
 ments." 
 
 " Yes," said Sir Harold, " that's sensible, and 
 now " 
 
 He was interrupted by the entrance of Sarah, 
 who brought him in a telegram. 
 
 " Excuse me," he said, and read it eagerly. 
 " Ah, yes, I expected so, I must return to London 
 by the next train — on most important business." 
 
 His horses had gained the first two places in 
 that morning's race, of which highly gratifying
 
 244 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 circumstance the telegram informed him. After 
 all he was only human, and could he be expected 
 to be sorrowful when he was sure of winning 
 twenty thousand pounds, and the admiring con- 
 gratulations of envious friends ? " 
 
 So with a look of exultation, struggling to hide 
 itself beneath an expression of sorrowful resigna- 
 tion, he returned to London, leaving Arthur and 
 Maud alone. 
 
 They stood at the window watching the little 
 river Elva, which flowed on merrily in the dis- 
 tance as though life were bright as a day in 
 June. 
 
 " This is a beautiful world, Arthur," said 
 Maud, breaking the silence, "but it's a dis- 
 appointing one." 
 
 " It is disappointing," he replied, " but surely 
 the whole interest of life lies in it's struggles. 
 Our thought about what life means will mainly 
 influence us in the way we meet sorrow and 
 defeat. Call it a game as I used to do, and then
 
 MAUD ATHERTOK. 245 
 
 when hopes are shattered we must throw up the 
 cards, but call it a battle as your father would 
 have done, and then surrender to despair becomes 
 cowardly and false." 
 
 " Dear Arthur," said Maud, " you are right. 
 I am certain you are right. I will not quarrel 
 with the world. How can I while you are in it ? 
 But will you tell me what your plans are? " 
 
 "I go to London as I intended before, to fight 
 the world," he said, in a lighter tone. " It's 
 rather a stolid world I'm afraid, and the 6 open 
 sesame ' to its favor, is not easily pronounced, 
 but with your love to inspire me I am not afraid 
 of the issue. I shall call upon your guardian 
 directly after you are settled, and astonish him 
 by the announcement that I — a poor man without 
 any definite prospects — intend to marry his ward," 
 
 u Suppose he objects." 
 
 " He is certain to object, and we must wait 
 
 patiently till his authority ceases. Then we will 
 
 be married, and he may go to — the Stock 
 
 r3
 
 246 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 Exchange. We are young darling and can 
 wait." 
 
 Maud looked up into his face, her bright eyes 
 radiant with love and truth, and said with some- 
 thing faintly like her old smile — 
 
 " You need not fear for my constancy Arthur, 
 I will wait, if need be, for your sake till I grow 
 to be an old woman." 
 
 So they plighted their troth, on the sweet vow 
 of eternal heart loyalty, and each felt strong to 
 bear the future in the calm certainty of the other's 
 love.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 247 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1 Her letters penned in hours of happy leisure, 
 Have long been sanctified by secret tears, 
 
 Love plucked a rose-bud, which he gave to Pleasure, 
 But Sorrow treasured it in after years.' 
 
 Next day Arthur called at the vicarage to see 
 Maud once more before leaving Elverley for 
 London. 
 
 " I have been looking through my father's 
 papers," she said, " it would be a long task, for 
 there are a great many of them, only they are so 
 carefully arranged, that it is easy to see which 
 are of importance and which are not. There is a 
 diary he kept about twenty years ago. I cannot
 
 248 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 trust myself to read that yet, but I have made a 
 discovery." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " A parcel of letters," she answered softly, 
 " written by my mother. You know she died 
 when I was born, and I have never been able to 
 picture what she was like, but I know now, and 
 I understand too, why my father was sometimes 
 so grave and sad." 
 
 Arthur raised the letters she gave him to his 
 lips, as though he were kissing the hand that 
 penned the love-words long ago. 
 
 " We will read them all through together, 
 some day Arthur," said Maud, " but there is one 
 I want you to read now." 
 
 He took the letter — the ink was faded, but the 
 words were still legible. Together he and Maud 
 read silently as follows — 
 
 " You ask me, Ralph, to write you the story 
 of my life. A year ago, I should have dreaded 
 to recall a past so sad, but now your love makes
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 249 
 
 harder things than this easy to be done. I cannot 
 make a connected story of it, for much that I 
 must tell happened in my childhood, but I will 
 give you the pictures of the past I have not for- 
 gotten. 
 
 " My first remembrance is of a palace, on the 
 banks of a great river. Here I grew from a baby 
 to a child, though how long we lived there I can- 
 not tell, I know that my mother was young and 
 beautiful, and that in those days she seemed 
 always laughing. The sound of an oar breaking 
 through the water, or the musical laughter of 
 a beautiful girl, always recalls one picture to my 
 mind. I can see it before me now. Let me 
 write its description down. 
 
 " It is evening, and the clouds are still red with 
 the light of sunset. My mother has been point- 
 ing out the bright tints to my little sister Laura, 
 and to me. Laura is only three years old, I am 
 nearly five. Presently we hear the splash of oars, 
 and see my father's boat on the river below. He
 
 250 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 waves a laughing salute to iny mother, who tosses 
 him a white rose, which she takes from her 
 beautiful black hair, he catches it and throws her 
 a ring which sparkles with jewels, and I hear my 
 mother's silvery laughter as she puts it on her 
 ringer. This trivial occurrence starts out vividly 
 from my entangled memories of early childhood. 
 
 " My father was a young Italian noble, and (I 
 know it now though I was too young to under- 
 stand it then) had married my mother without 
 the knowledge of his family. She was beautiful, 
 accomplished and good, but she was the daughter 
 of a peasant, and this, their ancient pride would 
 never have forgiven her. But I know he loved 
 her passionately, he would sit for hours listening 
 to her playing the harp, or singing some sweet 
 old Italian ballad. You praise my voice, dear 
 Ralph, but her's was far more beautiful than 
 mine. 
 
 " One evening my father came home with a new 
 look of pride and joy in his face. He took my
 
 MA UD A THERTON. 251 
 
 mother in his arms and kissed her fondly, then I 
 heard him say to her — 
 
 " < My queen, listen to what I say. My cousin, 
 with whom I quarrelled long ago, is dead, and 
 our marriage need be a secret no longer. I 
 inherit his estates and am rich, and you shall 
 have the proudest nobles in Rome at your feet 
 before a year. Beatrice, too,' he said, turning 
 to me, ' shall wear diamonds in her hair, and 
 ride on a horse like the beautiful court ladies. 
 And little Laura shall have ' " 
 
 " My mother put one of her little white hands 
 laughingly on his mouth, and told him not to 
 drive us mad with promises, but I saw in her 
 eyes that her first thought was of the things she 
 would get for her children. 
 
 " We passed a merry evening, he and my mother 
 singing or telling us stories, till it was time to 
 go to bed, then he kissed us fondly and said we 
 would go to Rome to-morrow. 
 
 " But about midnight there was a great noise
 
 252 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 outside the gates, as though a number of people 
 were clamouring for admission ; then I heard my 
 mother give a loud piercing shriek, which I shall 
 never forget even if I live to be old. Little 
 Laura began to cry, but I leaped out of bed and 
 ran down stairs in my night-dress to see what 
 was the matter. When I saw what it was, a 
 feeling of faintness came over me that I think 
 must be like death. My father lay upon the 
 marble-floor dead. He had been stabbed from 
 behind by some unknown assassin, and the two 
 rough men whom I saw, with a childish dread 
 that they were his murderers, rinding him in the 
 street had recognised him and borne him home. 
 At first I thought my mother was dead too, for 
 she had fainted away when she saw their ghastly 
 burden, and she lay as unconscious of all around 
 her as he. One of the servants carried me up to 
 bed, and told me to try and sleep. I lay awake 
 for a long time listening to the cathedral chimes, 
 wondering why the Christ, who was strong and
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 253 
 
 merciful, could have suffered that cruel hand to 
 stab with such deadly truth ; but at last, wearied 
 with thinking, I fell asleep. 
 
 a But my mother did not sleep. She sat all 
 night long watching the moonlight reflected in 
 the river. I think if she had not had her 
 children to live for she would have killed herself, 
 for when I saw her in the morning the laughter 
 had gone from her eyes for ever, and her beauti- 
 ful hair, which I have heard my father call the 
 loveliest in the world, had turned quite white. 
 
 " After that day sorrows came fast upon us, 
 my mother was unable to prove her marriage, 
 the priest who had married them was dead, and 
 the only witness of the wedding had left the 
 country and been lost sight of long before, she 
 had no written proof of it, and if, as I believe, 
 there was any evidence among my father's papers 
 it was suppressed by the heir, his younger brother, 
 into whose hands everything fell. 
 
 " So we were turned out of our home with
 
 254 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 absolutely nothing. We, who had known nothing 
 but luxury, came into Rome with scarcely a florin 
 in the world. 
 
 " ' You are nine years old now, my Beatrice,' 
 my mother said to me, ' and must help me to 
 bear patiently the pain of living.' 
 
 " I said that I would try, and I did ; but ours 
 was a weary life, for though she toiled at needle- 
 work till her delicate fingers bled, we were very 
 poor. Often we had not enough to eat, and I 
 would say to her — 
 
 " Mother let me go out into the streets and 
 sing, you say I have a sweet voice, and I know 
 people will give me silver money, and then I 
 could buy you fruit and wine. 
 
 " But she always made the same reply. ' No 
 you are a noble's daughter, and you must not 
 behave as though your father had been a peasant.' 
 
 a But she grew weaker everyday, then I went 
 out into the streets and sang by stealth, persua- 
 ding her that all the money I brought was payment
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 255 
 
 for her embroidery. She never suspected the 
 truth. 
 
 " One night she called me to her side, and 
 said, — 
 
 " i Beatrice, are you brave enough to bear any- 
 thing I have to tell you ? ' 
 
 " I said ' yes,' but I know my lips trembled 
 with a dread foreknowledge of the truth. 
 
 " ' Then my darling,' she whispered ' I know 
 that I am dying. In a few days you and little 
 Laura will be alone in the world.' 
 
 u I remember throwing myself passionately at 
 her feet, and crying out some mad prayers that I 
 might die too, but she checked me. 
 
 u ' You must live,' she said, ' for little Laura's 
 sake, and the Saints will protect and feed you both.' 
 
 " Then she fastened round my neck a gold 
 chain with a locket attached, containing my 
 father's portrait, painted on ivory, and a lock of 
 his hair. Another one she clasped round little 
 Laura's neck, containing her own likeness and
 
 256 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 hair. Both were engraved with her maiden name, 
 Beatrice Genari. 
 
 " That night I crept out of bed to watch my 
 mother as she slept. The moonlight streamed 
 through the windows on her fair pale face, and 
 on little Laura lying asleep in her arms, smiling 
 at her dreams. I watched her for some minutes, 
 then tried to sleep again myself, but the memory 
 of that pale face haunted me, and I could not 
 rest. I stood beside her bed once more. She 
 had not moved, and a sick feeling of dread came 
 over me, as I saw how still the face was on which 
 the moonlight fell. I called her gently by her 
 name, but she did not stir, then I laid my hands 
 on her bosom, but it was cold with the icy chill 
 of death. 
 
 " She was dead, and Laura and I were left to 
 face the world alone. I was only eleven, but I 
 felt I must be the child's mother now, though I 
 was only two years older than she, but for this 
 my heart would have broken.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 257 
 
 " There were one or two jewels in my mother's 
 room that my father had given her, these the 
 woman of the house sold for me to pay for the 
 funeral. She was a kind-hearted creature, whose 
 husband was cruel to her, and I suspect now, that 
 she made up what was wanting from her own 
 small purse. 
 
 " When the funeral was over I said to her, 1 1 
 can get bread enough for us both by singing in 
 the streets. Will you let the room to me as you 
 did to my mother ? ' 
 
 " And she answered, ' If my Giulo were not so 
 passionate, I would take you both for my own 
 children. That I dare not do, but you shall 
 never pay me for the room, and you may live in 
 it as long as it is mine.' 
 
 u It may seem impossible to you, Ealph, that 
 two children could face the world alone and 
 unaided. But it happened exactly as I write. 
 We wandered about the streets of Rome, some- 
 times singing, sometimes playing with other
 
 258 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 children, sometimes talking about our father and 
 mother and the days that seemed so long ago. 
 Sometimes we sang to rich people and they gave 
 us money, sometimes to peasants who could only 
 give us bread or fruit. It was a strange fantastic 
 life, and often it made me weary, anxious and 
 sad, but little Laura grew bright and gay. She 
 had no anxiety for she had boundless faith in 
 me, and shook all responsibility and thought 
 from off her pretty shoulders. 
 
 u How beautiful she was ! I remember once 
 we had been singing before a great white house, 
 where a lady was sitting in the balcony, when a 
 servant asked us to come in, saying that the lady 
 wished to speak to us. I hesitated for a moment 
 for I was afraid of grand houses, but little Laura 
 laughed at me, ' Come on, Trichy,' she said, and 
 as I could never refuse her anything, we went 
 into the house together. There the lady spread 
 daintier fare before us than we had tasted for 
 years, and after we had finished and she had filled
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 259 
 
 Laura's pockets with sweets, she asked me our 
 story, aud with child-like confidence in gentleness 
 I told her everything. 
 
 " She listened thoughtfully then she asked me 
 my name. 
 
 " < Beatrice Genari,' I answered, for not know- 
 ing my father's name I always gave my mother's. 
 
 " ' And your sister's ? ' 
 
 a c Her name is Laura.' 
 
 " ' Beatrice,' said the lady, ' once I had a little 
 girl whom I loved dearly, but she died. If you 
 will part with Laura, I will make her a lady, 
 and treat her as though she were my own child, 
 and I will give you more money than you ever 
 had in your life.' 
 
 " I said ' ask Laura, if she wishes it I will part 
 cheerfully with her,' but my heart beat wildly 
 with fear of what her reply might be. 
 
 " ' What do you say Laura,' said the lady, 
 
 ' would you like to live with me and have all 
 
 these beautiful things for your own ? ' 
 
 S 2
 
 260 MAUD ATHERTON 
 
 u ' Altro,' cried the child, ' I should love 
 it of all things, but Trichy would live here too ? ' 
 
 " ' No, you must part with Beatrice if you wish 
 to live with me.' 
 
 " i Then I will not come,' said Laura indig- 
 nantly, ' I thought you were kind and good, but 
 you must be wicked and cruel to think of such a 
 thing. Let us go Trichy, I would not part with 
 you to be Queen of Italy.' 
 
 " But as we were going the lady called us back, 
 and whispered to me — 
 
 " ' The time may come when you will think 
 differently— if so come again to me.' 
 
 " Then she forced a gold piece of money into 
 each of our hands, kissed us, and let us go. 
 
 " But the time did come when I remembered 
 her words. Laura was very ill, and the doctor 
 said unless she had things which I was too poor 
 to buy her, she must die. 
 
 " Then I went again to the lady in the great 
 white house and told her all. She sent at once
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 261 
 
 for Laura, and put her under the best medical 
 treatment. ' You need not be alarmed for her,' 
 she told me, l the doctors say she is certain to 
 recover. You and she had better not meet each 
 other again, or she will not stay with me.' 
 
 " I answered, i you are right, my lady, she is 
 your child now and I will obey you.' 
 
 " She would have given me money but I would 
 not take it, my one yearning now was to die. 
 
 u I was about fourteen, but it was with a 
 mother's tenderness rather than a sister's that I 
 loved my beautiful Laura. Every night when 
 the darkness was falling, I would call at the 
 great house and ask the servants how she was, 
 and the answer always was — 
 
 "< She is better.' 
 
 " At last they told me she was almost as strong 
 
 as ever, and that the doctor was not coming any 
 
 more; then I kissed the iron gate and I have 
 
 never been near it since. 
 
 " Ah, Ralph ! it is love that makes up real life. 
 
 S3
 
 262 MATJB ATHERTON. 
 
 Even now as I write, though all this is years ago, 
 iny tears are falling fast and I cannot see the 
 words that I have written. 
 
 a I cannot tell how I lived after the separation. 
 I still sung for my bread, but I had grown grave 
 and sad, and people did not give me money so 
 freely as before ; at last, one day when I had been 
 singing an English ballad, a gentleman who had 
 been listening eagerly, spoke to me, and I saw 
 with wonder that the tears were in his eyes. 
 
 " l Where did you learn that song ? ' he asked 
 me. Although he could speak Italian well, I 
 could tell by his accent that he was English. 
 His face was handsome and had a strange ex- 
 pression of sadness that fascinated me. 
 
 " I told him an English servant long before 
 had taught it to me, and that I had learnt some- 
 thing of that language when I was quite a 
 child. 
 
 u i How old are you now ? ' he asked, with a 
 smile of tender pity.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 263 
 
 " ' I am a woman now,' I answered sadly, ' I 
 am fourteen.' 
 
 " He said i I am an artist, and you are very 
 beautiful. Will you come to the house where I 
 liye, and let me paint your eyes and hair ? ' 
 
 " I went to his house next morning and sat 
 still while he painted and talked to me. I told 
 him my whole story and by degrees he told 
 me his. He was an Englishman and very rich, 
 but years before he had passionately loved a 
 lady of whom I reminded him. She was dead, 
 and it was because my eyes and hair were like 
 hers that he loved to watch my face and paint it. 
 He had spoken to me first because the song I was 
 singing was one she used to love and he fancied 
 my voice was like hers. 
 
 " One day he said to me — 
 
 " l Beatrice, if the beautiful lady whom I loved 
 had lived she would have been my wife, and 
 there might have been born to us a daughter like 
 yourself. I am rich and you are poor, but we
 
 264 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 are both lonely, why should we not love and 
 comfort each other always. You shall call me 
 father and I will love you tenderly as though you 
 were my dead love's child.' 
 
 " I cannot tell what I said, but a great love for 
 him grew up in my heart, for I felt I was orphaned 
 no longer. 
 
 " I lived in his house three years and a half, 
 and few daughters know such love as he gave 
 me; I had masters to teach me many studies and 
 accomplishments, I had beautiful dresses and 
 rich jewels, I had more money than I could 
 spend, and my lightest wish, my idlest caprice 
 he would have granted though it demanded the 
 sacrifice of his fortune. 
 
 " But soon after my seventeenth birthday he 
 died suddenly, leaving no will. 
 
 u I had still the jewels he had given me, and 
 a little money. Living with him all this time I 
 had learned to talk and write English almost as 
 well as Italian. I thought I would go to England 
 and be a governess there.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 265 
 
 " One thing still bound me to Italy. It was 
 the thought of my little sister, with whom I had 
 wandered through the streets of Rome hand in 
 hand. My second father had made many fruit- 
 less enquiries for her, but just after his death a 
 messenger of his returned, saying that the child 
 had gone with the family that had adopted her to 
 Florence and there died. 
 
 Ci Sometimes since I have wondered whether 
 he spoke falsely, being weary of the quest, and 
 knowing no more money was forthcoming ; it may 
 be so and Laura may yet be alive, but I never 
 thought of doubting his words then. 
 
 " We had many English friends in Eome. 
 One lady told me her sister (who lived in London) 
 wanted a governess for her children. She was 
 going home and would take me if I liked. I 
 consented gladly and came to teach Lady Aldred's 
 children — this was five months' ago. 
 
 " Dearest Ralph, the rest of my life is told as 
 I write your name. For me, poor, lonely, friendless,
 
 266 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 you have sacrificed everything, you have 
 comforted me when my heart was sad, you have 
 stirred in my breast a passionate delight in life, 
 which five months' ago seemed a weary thing, 
 you are gentle, brave and chivalrous, and I have 
 but one thing to give you in return, that is yours 
 already. 
 
 " For with the passionate devotion of a woman's 
 heart, I am always, 
 
 " Most lovingly your own, 
 
 " Beatrice Genari." 
 
 So the letter ended. There were also a few 
 withered violets, and a lock of rich brown hair 
 wonderfully like Maud's. Maud locked them 
 away silently with the packet of letters, and after 
 a few sweet words of farewell on which they 
 lingered, like the tremulous vibration of musical 
 harmonies that are loth to die, she and Arthur 
 parted.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 267 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 . . . . " Turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice 
 looked out at her eyes with such a reality of represent- 
 ment, that I became in doubt which of them stood 
 there before me or whose that bright hair was." 
 
 Essays of Elia. 
 
 (The Dream Children.) 
 
 A WEEK afterwards Maud left Elverley. The 
 Reverend Ezekiel Hallet had decided within 
 his own mind that the villagers, were the most 
 unaccountable people he had ever seen. He had 
 scarcely recovered from his amazement at their 
 behaviour in the churchyard, when he began to 
 realise their devotion to Maud. a I have no ob- 
 jection to the young lady," he said to himself
 
 268 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 reflectively, " she is very beautiful I dare say, but 
 she holds some very unsouud doctrines, and as 
 she reads novels I am afraid she has a carnal 
 mind, but these people can talk of nothing else. 
 It's very unaccountable." 
 
 However the last farewell was spoken at 
 length, and Maud drove to Entwich en route for 
 London. Some of the bolder spirits among the 
 youths had proposed unharnessing the horses and 
 dragging the carriage themselves, but the dis- 
 tance being twelve miles and the calmer minds 
 demonstrating the arithmetical impossibility of 
 reaching Entwich in this way in time for the 
 train, the chivalrous scheme was abandoned. 
 
 But they mustered in great force notwith- 
 standing to see her go, though the cheers they 
 gave were rather faltering. Even after the village 
 was far behind, straggling children with flowers in 
 their hands, and tears in their eyes, made their ap- 
 pearance in the most unlooked-for fashion, forcing 
 their way through hedges, with a regal disregard
 
 MAUD ATHERTOJST. 269 
 
 of thorns. At last however this was over too, 
 and Maud was in the train feeling the dreariness 
 of existence as she had never in her life-time 
 done before. 
 
 Nature cares nothing for our joys and griefs. 
 It was a beautiful fancy though rather a conceited 
 one, that the world's great heart throbbed with 
 passionate joy or pitiful agony, in sympathy with 
 our own, that the stars flashed brighter when we 
 won the laurel wreath, shining with paler lustre, 
 when we learnt the bitterness of failure. But it 
 is not so. The bleak winds, we fancied to be 
 Nature's cry mingling with our own, moaned just 
 as piteously round the homes" where hearts beat 
 high with grateful love of life ; the sunshine we 
 thought heaven's smile upon the plighted troth 
 of happy lovers streamed through darkened win- 
 dows on the white and rigid features of the dead. 
 
 But Maud looking out of the railway carriage 
 window, could scarcely help believing that a 
 material change had fallen upon everything.
 
 270 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 The month was September, but already many of 
 the leaves had fallen from the trees, and the whole 
 country seemed blurred and indistinct, from the 
 heavy downfall of rain. The journey seemed 
 interminable. Ridiculous little stations with 
 such depressing names as Little Binkleby were 
 stopped at, apparently for no other cause than a 
 conversation between the engine driver and the 
 local railway porter — a misanthrope who com- 
 bined the functions of station master, parish 
 beadle, policeman and hard-bake manufacturer. 
 Then the engine seemed as voracious as a healthy 
 cannibal, and demanded feeding by heart-rending- 
 shrieks on every possible occasion. Maud found 
 it impossible to escape from the depressing 
 influence of all this, nor were her spirits 
 materially heightened by a stout lady sitting 
 opposite, who offered her sandwiches and a 
 brandy flask as light and nourishing refreshment, 
 and who was terribly loquacious on the subject of 
 babies. At last, however, the air trembled with
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 271 
 
 the rythmic harmony of a sonorous snore, the 
 excellent matron was asleep and Maud was left 
 to her own thoughts undisturbed. 
 
 Broken thoughts they were — of her father 
 whom she had loved so well — of her beautiful 
 young Italian mother whose strange story told 
 in simple womanly fashion haunted her like the 
 remembrance of a plaintive song — of the villagers 
 who had made her life so happy — of her child- 
 lover sleeping near her father in the rustic 
 churchyard— of Arthur Calverley whose love was 
 the one thing that made all this sorrow bearable 
 — and of the new life that lay before her. 
 
 At last the fragrant breath of the Bermondsey 
 tan-yards apprised them that their journey was 
 nearly over. 
 
 The stout matron woke up and gave an audible 
 sniff as though she scented odours of Paradise. 
 
 " It's a very healthy smell, my dear," she said 
 to Maud, " you needn't be afraid to in'ale it." 
 
 Horace Arvale had written Maud that some
 
 272 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 one would be there to meet her, and he himself 
 came forward as she alighted from the train. 
 
 " Miss Atherton, I am sure," he said quickly. 
 Maud answered in the affirmative, wondering how 
 he knew ; upon this he turned to the coachman 
 and gave directions as to her luggage in the same 
 rapid manner. After which he became thoughtful 
 and apparently forgot her altogether. 
 
 While the coachman was collecting the luggage 
 he stood brooding over some hidden thought, and 
 she had leisure to observe his face, the first 
 glimpse of which had disappointed her. 
 
 Horace Arvale was a man of about two or three 
 and forty, tall and thin, with a face deeply 
 wrinkled and hair prematurely grey. He had 
 good features and might have been handsome 
 but for the eager restlessness expressed by his 
 eyes and mouth. Their expression was so 
 strange that Maud half fancied they possessed a 
 Satanic power of fascination. At first she could 
 not think where she had seen anything like it
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 273 
 
 before, but at last she remembered it was in a 
 painting by one of the old masters in Sir Herbert 
 Stansfeld's possession, of a defeated gamester 
 who was playing his last card and knew that it 
 was useless, and she could not help thinking a 
 guardian of more common-place apjjearance 
 would have been preferable. 
 
 Yet he spoke very kindly to her, and handed 
 her into the carriage with great respect. She 
 soon discovered that he had two distant personali- 
 ties — one dreamy and abstracted, the other restless 
 and irritable. 
 
 With all her grief Maud's keen sense of the 
 ridiculous noted this. 
 
 " It's very uncomfortable " she thought to have 
 a guardian who seems to have something to do with 
 the powers of darkness. In his restless mood he 
 looks as if he were about to sign that contract 
 the German legends are so fond of, and when he 
 broods he looks as though he were repenting the 
 bargain. I shall call him Dr. Faustus."
 
 274 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " Have we far to go," she enquired for the sake 
 of saying something. 
 
 " No," he replied, " that is to say, not very 
 far." 
 
 After which brilliant conversation, they both 
 relapsed into silence. 
 
 At last the carriage stopped at a large house, 
 which looked aristocratic, ancient, grimy, and 
 dull. Maud shivered slightly at the sight of it, 
 and described it afterwards in a letter to Clara 
 Corrie, as an epitaph written in bricks and 
 mortar. 
 
 A condescending footman opened the door, to 
 which action another individual in gorgeous livery, 
 gave moral support by gazing pensively at the 
 hats and umbrellas in the stand. 
 
 " Perhaps you would like to change your dress 
 before I introduce you to my wife and daughter ? " 
 said Mr. Arvale. 
 
 " Thank you," she replied, " I should prefer to 
 do so."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 275 
 
 " Then if you please, Miss, I'll show you your 
 rooms." 
 
 The speaker was a plump fresh looking servant, 
 who, Maud saw at a glance, was nervously eager 
 to please and very neatly dressed. 
 
 The house was furnished with great taste and 
 refinement, and the gloom did not penetrate to 
 the interior. Maud looked with more satisfaction 
 than she had yet felt at the large rooms set apart 
 for herself, everything was luxurious and costly, 
 without being (as in the case of some mushroom 
 millionaires) offensively so. 
 
 " But if you please Miss, I'm to be your maid," 
 said the plump servant timidly, 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it," replied Maud, " you are 
 really the only object I've seen to-day that looks 
 fresh. What is your name ? " 
 
 " Fanny, Miss." And with a curtsey the 
 
 maiden who bore that name glided to the other 
 
 -end of the room and noiselessly produced a dress 
 
 from one of Maud's boxes, divining by some 
 
 t2
 
 276 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 mysterious instinct, (inscrutable to the dull minds 
 of us men) in which box the dress in question lay. 
 
 " I don't think I need trouble you any more, 
 Fanny," said Maud. " I am not a lady of fashion 
 you know, and never shall be." 
 
 u Oh, but Missis 'ud never forgive me, Miss, if 
 I anyways neglected my duties." 
 
 " I don't want you to do that," said her young 
 Mistress. " Your chief duties will be to be 
 agreeable as often as possible and to bear with 
 me when I'm cross, which is very frequent." 
 
 Here a bell rang. " That's the warning bell, 
 Miss," said Fanny, " as rings half-an-hour afore 
 dinner. Do let me do your beautiful hair, Miss, 
 even if I mayn't dress you." 
 
 Maud consented to this as a compromise, and 
 smiled at her maid's triumph when her toilet was 
 completed. 
 
 " There, Miss," she said, breathlessly, " there 
 an't many ladies in London looks as beautiful as 
 you."
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 277 
 
 By which remark Fanny revealed her powers 
 of artistic appreciation and the haziness of her 
 etymological ideas. 
 
 The second bell ringing Maud went down stairs 
 without further delay. 
 
 Mrs. Arvale was probably two or three years 
 
 older than her husband, and very unlike him in 
 
 all respects. The gentlest critic would never 
 
 have called her handsome though he chanced 
 
 to be short-sighted as well as charitable. The 
 
 most striking characteristic in her face was 
 
 obstinacy which made her features look as though 
 
 they had been unskilfully carved in wood. Her 
 
 eyes were obstinate, having an unpleasant habit 
 
 of glaring fixedly at the person whom she was 
 
 addressing; her nose was obstinate, having an 
 
 Excelsior tendency that was positively irritating, 
 
 her lips were obstinate, never curving by any 
 
 chance into a smile, and to crown all, her hair 
 
 was obstinate, each individual hair possessing a 
 
 wiry individuality of its own, and being as 
 
 t3
 
 278 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 difficult to put down as a refractory member of the 
 Church congress. 
 
 Maud turned with great relief from the mother 
 to the daughter. Blanche Arvale was a graceful 
 girl of nineteen, with a small slight figure, dark 
 eyes, and a timid shrinking manner. 
 
 She gave Maud a quick glance of involuntary 
 admiration, and held out a very small white hand 
 which she seemed rather surprised to find was 
 cordially clasped. 
 
 u I'm glad to see you, Miss Atherton," said 
 Mrs. Arvale, in a voice as sharply metallic as her 
 hair. " Of course you're tired. Sit down." 
 
 One of her ^peculiarities was her fondness of 
 short sentences ; she rarely adopted any punctua- 
 tion but full stops, and prided herself upon saying 
 everything as concisely as possible. With the 
 same end in view she spoke rapidly, and clearly 
 had not the faintest conception of what vocal in- 
 flection meant. 
 
 The dinner was excellent and splendidly served.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 279 
 
 Horace Arvale was an epicure and not only widely 
 renowned for his sumptuous banquets, but almost 
 equally particular when they dined alone. 
 
 Still Maud felt rather bored by it. She poor 
 child was not in very high spirits and said little, 
 Blanche only spoke twice, once to refuse claret 
 the other time to remark that the turtle soup was 
 too salt, a fact which her mother who had not 
 tasted it denied positively in a tone admitting of 
 as little reply as a Papal edict. 
 
 Horace Arvale could talk well when he chose, 
 which was not often. Once or twice when he 
 spoke to Maud he became animated and then his 
 conversation was interesting, even brilliant, but 
 he always relapsed into the old abstracted 
 manner. 
 
 " He's rather like a phosphorescent fish," 
 Maud thought, " emitting unexpected flashes and 
 then becoming black again." She noticed also 
 that he drank wine very freely, as though it were 
 his invariable custom.
 
 280 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 It was a great relief to rise from the dinner 
 
 table at last, and when they went into the drawing 
 
 room, her eyes brightened at the sight of the 
 
 grand piano. 
 
 " You play and sing Miss Arvale, of course," 
 
 she said. 
 
 " I have learnt," was the reply, " at least all 
 kinds of masters have tried to teach me, but I 
 have no musical talent. You have," she added 
 timidly, u I see it in your eyes." 
 
 " Nonsense child," said Mrs. Arvale sharply, 
 " you can do nothing of the sort. Eyes have 
 got nothing to do with it. The best player I ever 
 heard was blind." 
 
 Poor Blanche meekly assented, and sat down 
 to the piano without a further word. The piece 
 she had selected to play was one of Beethoven's 
 wonderful sonatas. It was easy to see she had 
 studied long and practised much, for she played 
 with great correctness and mechanical finish. 
 But expression was utterly lacking, and the whole
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 281 
 
 meaning of the sonata appeared to have escaped 
 her. Maud listened wonderingly ; could it be 
 that the girl had no poetry or music in her com- 
 position? Apparently not, for she rose from the 
 piano wearily as conscious of her failure, as any 
 listener could be. 
 
 " I can't play," she said, " do let me hear you 
 Miss Atherton." 
 
 Horace Arvale had been reading the money 
 article in the ' Times,' as regardless of his 
 daughter's music as it was possible to be. But 
 directly Maud struck a few wild notes on the 
 piano, he began to listen. 
 
 She played one of the i songs without words ' and 
 he dropped the newspaper without noticing it. 
 Then she began to extemporise in her brilliant 
 erratic way, all her sad thoughts finding utter- 
 ance in "the mystic inarticulate speech of 
 music," while her guardian became almost as 
 unconscious of his surroundings as she. Then 
 thought succeeding thought in rapid succession
 
 282 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 she began to sing. It was an old Italian ballad 
 she had found among her father's papers, the 
 plaintive cry of a sad heart for a joy that had 
 ceased to be. Her beautiful contralto voice gave 
 the soft notes and musical Italian words with a 
 sweetness and passion that bound two of her 
 listeners with a magician's spell. 
 
 Mrs. Arvale, however, who could scarcely dis- 
 tinguish between a cow and a nightingale sat 
 unmoved till, the song being over, she happened 
 to glance at her husband and gave a shrill 
 exclamation of astonishment not unlike the voice 
 of a steam-whistle. Maud turned hastily round 
 and saw the reason of her cry in one glance of 
 her guardian's face. 
 
 Horace Arvale had risen from his chair and 
 was leaning against the mantel piece for support. 
 His face was very pale and his eyes full of tears, 
 but even this was not so strange as the expression 
 of his eyes. A quick fancy passed through 
 Maud's mind that sightless eyes miraculously
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 283 
 
 opened to behold the light of heaven would look 
 like that. It was a painful look for it had the 
 appearance of wildly seeking something it could 
 not find, and yet there was a yearning tenderness 
 in it which softened his face almost into beauty. 
 All this Maud saw in one rapid glance, for as 
 though his wife's harsh voice had broken the 
 spell that bound him the look passed from his 
 face like a shadow, and his features assumed 
 their wonted expression of moody repose. 
 
 " What's the matter, Horace ? " said his wife, 
 with even more than usual sharpness. " You 
 look like a ghost." 
 
 He made no reply but sat moodily looking at 
 the paper without reading a word. Mrs. Arvale 
 repeated her question without any effect. 
 
 " It's late," said that exemplary matron. " I'm 
 
 going to bed. You go too, Blanche, and " 
 
 She was about to speak peremptorily to Maud 
 but thought better of it. 
 
 Maud spared her the trouble by saying u good
 
 284 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 night," at once being glad of the prospect of a 
 little quiet reflection by herself. In her own 
 room, when she had locked the door and let loose 
 the trailing tresses of her long brown hair, she 
 was able to pursue her thoughts in peace. 
 
 a It's a strange house," she murmured, half- 
 aloud, " I can't quite understand any member of 
 the family except Mrs. Arvale; there's nothing 
 mystical about her. I never saw such lips in my 
 life. They remind me of the leathery dogmatism 
 of a jujube. I wonder if they were ever in her 
 lifetime kissed. Mr. Hallet said he hoped I 
 should soon find some Christian work to do. 
 One of the first things I'll do when I recover 
 something of my old spirits shall be to torment 
 her. Everybody here is afraid of her so it will 
 be equally a duty and a pleasure." 
 
 Her bright eyes flashed with something of her 
 old merriment at this reflection. Though her 
 heart was sad and weary she could not help a 
 passing gleam of mischief.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 285 
 
 " Then there's Blanche," she mused, in a more 
 thoughtful vein, " she is so silent and timid that 
 it's not easy to form a satisfactory opinion of her. 
 I should be inclined to think her a very common- 
 place little girl but for her eyes, there is sup- 
 pressed passion in them — of that I feel certain. 
 
 " And Mr. Arvale is an incarnate enigma. At 
 one moment he bores me, at another he fascinates 
 me. I sit down to the piano and he is reading 
 the paper in the most prosaic fashion. I look up, 
 and find him looking at me as though I had uttered 
 a secret he had been hiding all his life. What a 
 remarkable look that was, I wonder " 
 
 And Maud trailed off into a profound reverie 
 on the events crowded into the last few weeks, 
 which was only broken by the church clocks 
 noisily proclaiming the hour of midnight. 
 
 All the inmates of the house were asleep except 
 Horace Arvale, he had writing to do, he said, 
 which would keep him at work another hour. 
 
 His desk was open and his papers were spread
 
 286 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 out upon the table, but lie neither looked at them 
 nor touched a pen, but sat with his head resting 
 on his hand in deep thought. Once his lips 
 moved and he murmured, " She is like her — she 
 is wonderfully like her." 
 
 What was he dreaming of as he sat alone in 
 the dimly-lighted room ? Of greater wealth, of 
 larger undertakings, of mighty enterprises that 
 should make him envied and renowned ? Or was 
 he thinking of eyes whose tender light was 
 shrouded in the darkness of death ; of a hand that 
 might have led him into nobler paths than he 
 had ever trodden ; of a heart that might have 
 kept his own pure in the sight of the angels of 
 God? 
 
 " If she had ever been mine," he muttered, 
 rising at last, "I should have been something 
 widely different from the man I am." 
 
 He extinguished the lights and left the room 
 with a look of weariness upon his face sadder to 
 behold than any expression of acute agony.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 287 
 
 May God's pity rest upon the men who have 
 once loved purely and truly, only in after life to 
 be recreant to the holy memory, for He alone 
 knoweth how unutterable is their need of help.
 
 288 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " For in a minute there are many days — 
 ! by that count I shall be much in years 
 Ere I again behold my Romeo." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 \ FEW days after Maud's arrival in London 
 
 Horace Arvale was sitting alone in his 
 
 library, when the more languid of the footmen 
 
 brought him in a card, and condescendingly 
 
 drawled something which was inaudible. 
 
 " What did you say ? " said his master sharply, 
 " gentleman's waiting sir, in the drawing-room 
 — says he must see you on important business," 
 said the tall footman, rather abashed.
 
 MAUD. ATHERTON. 289 
 
 " Show him in here then," said Mr. Arvale, 
 and in a few moments, the footman who had be- 
 come languid again, ushered in Arthur Calverley, 
 and retired much fatigued by such unwonted 
 exertion. 
 
 " You will forgive me if I remind you Mr. 
 Calverley," said Horace Arvale who seemed un- 
 usually nervous and irritable this morning, " that 
 my time is precious, and that I shall be glad if 
 you will be as brief as possible in explaining to 
 what I am indebted for the honour of the 
 visit." 
 
 " I will detain you very few minutes," said 
 Arthur, "I am here simply because I consider 
 myself bound to be frank and open with Miss 
 Atherton's guardian, and I wish to state exactly 
 in what relationship I stand with regard to that 
 young lady." 
 
 Horace Arvale started slightly at the mention 
 of Maud's name, but made no reply. 
 
 " I love Maud Atherton," said Arthur in his 
 
 u
 
 290 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 clear manly voice that never sounded so musical 
 as when he uttered her name, " far more pro- 
 foundly than I could tell. Her lighted look is 
 more precious to me than any words could convey. 
 Her beauty, her accomplishments, her brilliant 
 endowments of heart and mind, will command 
 her love and admiration wherever she goes, but 
 though far better men than I might love her, I 
 do not believe she could ever be worshipped by 
 anyone more tenderly than by me." 
 
 Horace Arvale made no remark whatever, but 
 Arthur saw that he was listening attentively. 
 
 " Let that pass," he resumed. 6i I only men- 
 tion it, because Miss Atherton being an heiress, 
 I of course lay myself open to suspicions of a 
 mean and degrading nature. That I am prepared 
 for, anyone who knows Miss Atherton knows how 
 absurdly insignificant the wealth of a thousand 
 empires seems in comparison with her, and as for 
 the people, who are stupid enough to think other- 
 wise, or imagine me stupid enough to do so, I
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 291 
 
 have learnt to bear their unfavourable opinion 
 with considerable composure." 
 
 u Have you finished ? " was the dry rejoinder. 
 
 " Not quite — I think you know my father 
 slightly Mr. Arvale, I have been educated for no 
 profession, and have always had it impressed upon 
 me that I was to be his heir, but his second 
 marriage has changed all that and left me, with 
 the exception of a few hundred pounds, without 
 either money or definite prospects." 
 
 A look passed over Mr. Arvale's face that was 
 not promising ; he would have spoken, but Arthur 
 said quickly. 
 
 u One word more. To Miss Atherton I have 
 spoken as freely on this point as I have done to 
 you, she honours me with her trust and love, and 
 is content to wait years if need be 'till I can give 
 her a home." 
 
 " May I ask," said Mr. Arvale, very de- 
 liberately, " what all this has to do with me?" 
 
 " You are Maud's guardian," returned Arthur, 
 
 u2
 
 292 MAUD ATHEUTON. 
 
 " and so had a right to this explanation, but my 
 visit had another and a less disinterested motive. 
 I wish to ask your permission, to be an occasional 
 guest in your house, I do not ask you to recognise 
 any engagement or sanction any betrothal. Such 
 a request would be unreasonable, I simply ask the 
 favour I have mentioned, which I am aware you 
 have a perfect right to refuse." 
 
 u I am glad you recognise that right," said the 
 other, drily, " for I intend to avail myself of it. 
 In reply to your confidence, Mr. Calverley, I have 
 merely to observe that I congratulate you on your 
 candour but must distinctly refuse to be a party 
 to anything so monstrously absurd. And with 
 that we will close the interview." 
 
 "No, Mr. Arvale," said Arthur, quietly, " I 
 must see Miss Atherton before I leave your 
 house." 
 
 " I can refuse that also," was the reply. 
 
 " You can refuse it but you cannot prevent it. 
 With your permission or without it I will see
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 293 
 
 Miss Atherton within a week, though you barred 
 and bolted every door in your house." 
 
 " How could you ? " asked the other. 
 
 For the first time during the interview Arthur 
 smiled. 
 
 " There are endless ways of attaining such an 
 object," he said, " why should I bore you by 
 enumerating them? Of one thing you may be 
 perfectly certain, I will see her somehow, and you 
 may as well sanction it as not." 
 
 Horace Arvale paced the room irresolutely for 
 a moment, then rang the bell and said to the 
 servant who answered it — 
 
 " Ask Miss Atherton if she will kindly favour 
 me with her presence for a few minutes." 
 
 The servant curtsied and withdrew, and Arthur 
 waited Maud's arrival with a passionate eager- 
 ness very unlike the appearance of composure 
 which he still preserved. 
 
 She came into the room a few minutes after- 
 wards with a heightened colour, looking so 
 
 U3
 
 294 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 beautiful that, in his heart of hearts, Horace Arvale 
 secretly admitted the justice of Arthur's remark 
 touching the absurdity of comparing her fortune 
 with herself as an object to be desired. 
 
 She and Arthur clasped hands in silence ; then 
 Mr. Arvale said, in quite a different tone to his 
 former remarks, as though the mere presence of 
 Maud had power over him — 
 
 " Sit down, I wish to say a few words to you 
 both. Mr. Calverley has surprised me very much. 
 He tells me, Maud, that something like — like an 
 engagement exists between you. Is this at all a 
 delusion on his part ? " 
 
 There was an angry flush on Maud's face at her 
 guardian's last words, but she answered his 
 question in that low thrilling tone of earnestness 
 Arthur knew so well. 
 
 " None whatever, sir. Mr. Calverley has 
 honoured me with his love, and I love him better 
 than anything in the broad world." 
 
 There was a quiet scorn for opposition in her
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 295 
 
 words that made the simple avowal more forcible 
 than if it had been accompanied by protesta- 
 tions of constancy or by tears. 
 
 Horace Arvale felt this, and for a minute or 
 two he fell into his abstracted mood, then he said 
 to Arthur — 
 
 " If I have spoken harshly to you I am sorry. 
 You may be actuated by honourable motives " 
 
 Arthur interrupted him by saying quietly — 
 " You know I am." 
 
 This Mr. Arvale would have denied, but the 
 steady look with which Arthur regarded him was 
 disconcerting, so he continued as though Arthur 
 had not spoken. 
 
 u But I should forget my duty as Miss Ather- 
 ton's guardian, if I sanctioned any engagement 
 between an heiress and a gentleman of no property 
 whatever. Let me see — how old are you Maud?" 
 
 " I was eighteen in June," she replied, feeling 
 an unreasonable anger with herself for not being 
 older.
 
 296 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " Then for nearly three years," he continued, 
 " I have authority over you, and if you disregard 
 my wishes on a point like this, your fortune is 
 forfeited. This is distinctly stated in Sir James 
 Atherton's will. On your twenty-first birthday, 
 my control over you ceases entirely, but until 
 that time there must be no correspondence or 
 communication ofanykindMr. Calverley between 
 you and my ward. I must ask you as a man of 
 honour to give me your word that there shall be 
 no infraction of this rule without my knowledge 
 and consent. If you refuse this you will compel 
 me to put restraints upon my ward that may be 
 painful to her, but if you are reasonable you will 
 recognise this, and consent to the arrangement." 
 
 " I do recognise it," Arthur replied u and 
 therefore I give your proposal a qualified consent. 
 You require me neither to see Miss Atherton, 
 nor write to her without your knowledge and con- 
 sent. Now circumstances might arise, which 
 would make it imperative for me to see Maud,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 297 
 
 and in that case I tell you frankly your consent 
 would become quite a secondary consideration, 
 but I promise you that not even in so extreme a 
 case as that, will I take any step without your 
 knowledge. Are you content with that? " 
 
 Mr. Arvale considered for a moment, then 
 answered, " I accept that promise, and with that 
 I suppose we may close the interview." 
 
 " Certainly," Arthur replied, " there is nothing 
 further to be said between us, but you will surely 
 allow me five minutes conversation with Miss 
 Atherton alone since I am not to speak to her 
 again for nearly three years." 
 
 Horace Arvale wavered, but Maud's eyes had 
 such a pleading earnestness in them that without 
 another word he walked out of the room and left 
 Maud and Arthur alone together. 
 
 He was the first to speak. 
 
 " Banishment is a very dreary sentence darling, 
 but we must be brave and patient. The time 
 will be ove: ai last and then that Mephistopheles
 
 298 MAUD ATHERTON 
 
 of a guardian of yours will have no more power 
 over you." 
 
 " He is more like Faust than Mephistopheles," 
 she answered, trying to laugh though her eyes 
 were full of tears. u I wish that horrid old 
 grandfather of mine had never left me the money. 
 I am perfectly willing to renounce it for your 
 sake, Arthur, and then we could defy everyone, 
 couldn't we?" 
 
 " No," said Arthur, firmly, " you must not 
 dream of such a thing. I heartily wish you had 
 never inherited it, and if Mr. Faustus Arvale 
 were to disappear one morning in a cloud of blue 
 smoke and your fortune with him, I am afraid I 
 should care as little for the loss of your money as 
 for the loss of your guardian, but it would be 
 selfish and dishonourable in me to allow such a 
 renunciation for my sake." 
 
 A large marble clock on the mantel- piece 
 ticked with a fiendish exultation at the rapid 
 flight of time, and now struck the hour by way of
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 299 
 
 noisily reminding them how few the remaining 
 moments were. 
 
 " What will you do, Arthur?" she asked him, 
 eagerly. 
 
 u I shall write," he answered, hopefully, " the 
 literary profession is not an easy one, but it has 
 prizes worth a lifetime's toil to gain." 
 
 "And you will win them," she said, with a 
 look of proud belief in him, " I am certain that 
 is your vocation, your name will be far-famed, 
 Arthur, when we meet again." 
 
 " If I gain any destinction," he said, u it will 
 be because the thought of you has inspired me. 
 If you find ever in my writings a thought, a be- 
 lief, or a fancy, that you think noble, true, or 
 beautiful, its authorship is yours not mine. The 
 three years will not seem long to me, for I have 
 so much to strive for, and accomplish. It was 
 one of Alfred Thorby's dreams to go out into the 
 world, like one of Spenser's knights, and redress 
 all wrongs, in your name, that must be my aim
 
 300 MAUD ATEERTON. 
 
 now, and whatever poor laurels I may win I will 
 bring them all to the feet of my Fairy Queene." 
 
 a Dear Arthur," she replied smiling gladly, 
 though the long lashes of her dark blue eyes were 
 still heavy with tears, " I am not what you think 
 me, but I will try to be ; I do not deserve your 
 words of love and praise, but they make me more 
 proud and happy than I can ever tell. And when 
 this ridiculous infancy of mine is over," she added 
 with a laugh that was suspiciously like a sob, 
 " the first use I will make of my acknowledged 
 womanhood shall be to surrender it to you." 
 
 The clock ticked feverishly, the few minutes 
 for which Arthur had stipulated had elapsed 
 already, and he expected the unwelcome sound of 
 Horace Arvale's footstep every moment. 
 
 a You will wear the ring darling," he said, 
 " and remember always what it means. Love — 
 loyalty — and trust — for you and for me." 
 
 It was a diamond ring of great beauty. Arthur 
 had enraged several jewellers, by the way he had
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 301 
 
 examined their entire stock, without his taste 
 being satisfied. It had cost him a hundred 
 guineas, which he could ill afford, but when he 
 saw the diamonds flash and sparkle as though 
 proud of their mistress, and glad to grace a hand 
 so small and white, he thought nothing of the 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Maud kissed the ring, then unclasped the neck- 
 lace from her throat. It was the one her father 
 had given her, with the locket attached, that had 
 been worn by Beatrice Genari, thirty years before. 
 
 " This is the only other jewel I value," she 
 whispered, " you know its story, wear it for my 
 sake now, when we meet again you shall return it 
 to me, but 'till then whenever you look at it, think 
 it is the assurance of my faith and constancy." 
 
 She bound it round his wrist, and would have 
 spoken further, but the sound of footsteps warned 
 her that they must part. 
 
 They had been standing together throughout 
 the hurried interview, holding each other's hands,
 
 302 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 but now Arthur held her in his arms and their 
 lips met with a long kiss, in which tenderness, 
 trust, and farewell found more perfect utterance 
 than in speech. 
 
 . The door opened and Horace Arvale entered 
 the room. 
 
 " You have had more than five minutes, Mr. 
 Calverley," he said. 
 
 " I know it," Arthur replied, " and I am 
 going." 
 
 He held Maud's hand in his a moment and 
 pressed it tenderly, yet he spoke no further word, 
 but bowing slightly to Mr. Arvale, left the 
 house. 
 
 Maud went upstairs to her own room, not 
 particularly caring to encounter either Mrs. 
 Arvale or her guardian. There was still rather 
 an unnatural brightness about her eyes, but it 
 was from earnestness of purpose, not as before 
 from tears. 
 
 u I have done with tears," she said, quietly,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 303 
 
 " how can I despair while I have such love as his 
 to make me strong. Yet he spoke as though all 
 the worth lay on my side and he were nothing." 
 
 She sat by the window with her eyes fixed 
 upon the streets below, but her thoughts were 
 far away as her flashing eyes — the colour that 
 fast as it went from her cheek returned as though 
 loth to leave so fair a resting-place, and the 
 smiles that played upon her rosy lips — confessed. 
 
 " And he will gain renown," she murmured to 
 herself, " I am certain of it. He has genius, and 
 there was determination in his face to day which 
 was resistless, and in every success of his I have 
 the profoundest joy— the sweetest triumph." 
 
 She rose from her seat with the resolution of 
 which she spoke reflected in her own face. 
 
 " These last few weeks have brought such revolu- 
 tion into my life," she murmured, almost uncon- 
 scious that she was thinking aloud, "they have 
 brought me sorrow that would have crushed my 
 heart a year ago ; but they have brought me love,
 
 304 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 and that means something better than the tearless 
 happiness I have always known." 
 
 She stood before a mirror, and looked not 
 vainly but with a natural pleasure at the sweet 
 face it revealed. 
 
 " He says I am beautiful," she whispered, " I 
 do not think I am that, but what beauty I have 
 I will keep fresh and young for his sake, and my 
 heart too, he shall not come back after our long 
 separation and find me dull and miserable." 
 
 She turned to a book-case in which the old 
 companions of her musings by the river Elva 
 had found a home. They were a strange collection 
 and gave no bad indication of Maud's mind. 
 Grave works of philosophy were side by side with 
 comedies, quaint sermons of old divines frowned 
 in their sombre covers at finding themselves in 
 the neighbourhood of burlesques and parodies, 
 the c Pilgrim's Progress ' was in comfortable 
 companionship with the i Pickwick Papers.' 
 George Herbert's poems were next to Butler's
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 305 
 
 6 Hudibras,' and the ' Talmud ' was leaning con- 
 tentedly against the ' Ingoldsby Legends.' 
 
 But every book gave indications of fre- 
 quent reading. Appreciative consideration too, 
 apparently, for each was freely pencilled, 
 and had those words of graceful criticism, 
 which a girl of wide culture and rapid percep- 
 tions writes with a beauty and truth that seem 
 instinctive. 
 
 She glanced at the backs of them all — plays, 
 poems, novels, history, theology, philosophy, 
 legendary lore, and contemporary criticism. At 
 last she took down 6 Sartor Resartus.' 
 
 " I want counsel," she said, " and Carlyle is 
 rich in it. I have been his disciple for a long 
 time and am not likely to be disappointed now. 
 What advice has Herr Teufelsdrockh, of Weis- 
 nichtwo, for me ? " 
 
 She opened the book at that wonderful chapter 
 on ' the everlasting Yea,' and her eyes fell on these 
 words — ' Do the duty which lies nearest thee,
 
 306 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 which thou knowest to be a duty. The second 
 duty will already have become clearer.' 
 
 " When did Carlyle ever fail ? " she said tri- 
 umphantly, u i the duty which lies nearest to me ' 
 is to defy and horrify Mrs. Arvale, I'll do it 
 without delay." 
 
 With which excellent decision, she replaced 
 the book and went down stairs.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 307 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 " Only heaven 
 Means crowned not vanquished, when it says forgiven." 
 Adelaide Procter. 
 
 (A Legend of Provence.) 
 
 fXN leaving Mr. Arvale's house, Arthur walked 
 
 rapidly away, scarcely conscious of anything 
 
 but the fact that he would probably not see 
 
 Maud for three years. It was not a soothing 
 
 reflection, and he could not repress the feeling 
 
 that if Horace Arvale's coachman would upset 
 
 him and so gently enable his spirit to take its 
 
 flight to a better world, where his powers of 
 
 enjoyment would probably be greater and his 
 
 x2
 
 308 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 powers of meddling with love affairs consider- 
 ably less, the man would be a benefactor to 
 society. Still he was not discouraged for he had 
 not been unprepared for a reception of this 
 nature, and though the world is rather a tough 
 adversary to encounter single-handed, being as 
 difficult to arouse from its indifference to us as 
 the heroic sluggard of Dr. Watts' s poem, who 
 sensibly preferred a warm bed and his own reflec- 
 tions to the fatigue of listening to bad philosophy 
 — though the world is stolid and indifferent 
 it is not invincible, and has prizes for those 
 who are strong enough to wrest them from its 
 grasp. 
 
 Arthur was young and handsome, every nerve 
 in his frame thrilling with the consciousness of 
 fearless strength ; with high spirits, rich mental 
 endowments and iron resolution ; and to one so 
 gifted failure appears impossible. 
 
 " This is different to my mad enthusiasm of 
 long ago," he thought, u however rough the road
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 309 
 
 may be it leads to Maud, I have a steady purpose 
 now, and I will succeed." 
 
 Absorbed in his own thoughts, he had walked 
 as far as Westminster Bridge without noticing it, 
 and was aroused from his reverie by the deep- 
 toned bell in the clock tower proclaiming the hour 
 of twelve ; the last vibration was yet stirring the 
 air when he heard a very soft voice make the 
 mysterious observation — 
 
 " Oh, if you please sir, Abel Alley." 
 Arthur looked round rather bewildered, and at 
 last discovered the speaker, a little girl of about 
 five years old, very raggedly clad in garments 
 that were many sizes too large for her, and con- 
 trasted ludicrously with her baby-face and tiny 
 figure. Her hair, which was long and tangled, 
 was unmistakably golden in colour, and had it 
 been properly combed would have been very 
 beautiful. She had large intelligent eyes, which 
 were red with crying. On the whole Arthur 
 
 decided that if her face were clean, she would be 
 
 x3
 
 310 MAUD ATHERTON, 
 
 exceedingly pretty, at present however her appear- 
 ance was simply fantastic and strange. This 
 extremely small figure stood at his elbow, breath- 
 lessly repeating — 
 
 " Oh, if you please sir, Abel Alley." 
 
 " I think you must be a fraction of the sphinx," 
 said Arthur, " my name isn't Abel Alley." 
 
 As if convinced to the contrary the child 
 repeated the words. 
 
 " On reflection," said Arthur, " you are not a 
 sphinx, but a relative of the raven that haunted 
 Edgar Allan Poe. For you are rather hoarse, 
 very black, very mysterious, and have only two 
 words for all conversation. Who in the name 
 of wonder is Abel Alley ? " 
 
 " Nellie Vumps — Abel Alley," said the child. 
 
 " The plot is thickening," said Arthur, u what 
 have thumps to do with it ? You are much too frac- 
 tional to threaten." 
 
 The child began to cry again, but still mur- 
 mured the magic words as though they formed 
 an incantation.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 311 
 
 t6 Don't cry little Raven," said Arthur kindly, 
 41 we'll get to the bottom of this mystery yet. 
 Where do you live ? " 
 
 The little creature answered despairingly, 
 " Abel Alley, New Cut." 
 
 " Oh," said Arthur, " that's it. Now you 
 begin to be intelligible Raven, which the original 
 bird never was. You've lost your way, and want 
 me to take you home I suppose. 
 
 The child gave a number of nods and left oif 
 crying directly. 
 
 " Under ordinary circumstances," said Arthur, 
 pursuing his fantastic humour, " I might 
 decline the honour, but I am a knight errant 
 now, Raven, and bound to redress all wrongs; 
 therefore you may consider me your slave. What 
 do you like best in the world ? " 
 
 u Hardbake," replied the child readily, finding 
 the plain question out of the long words by a kind 
 of instinct. 
 
 " Ah," said Arthur, you are a disciple of the
 
 312 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 utilitarians, and condense the philosophy of your 
 school of thought into a single word. Hardbake 
 is rather a bilious kind of refreshment, Raven, 
 and in the remote period when I used to eat it I 
 found it unpleasantly sticky, still candour should 
 be rewarded, and you shall have some." 
 
 So he took her into a confectioner's close by ? 
 and bought not only the delicacy in question but 
 some cakes and buns, which she devoured vora- 
 ciously. Then they went out into the streets 
 again together. 
 
 People looked curiously at him as they passed, 
 smiling to see him in such strange companion- 
 ship, but he cared nothing for that. Little girls 
 had always a kind of fascination for him, and 
 there was something about this one— dirty, un- 
 tidy and neglected as she was —that both interested 
 and amused him. 
 
 The child, stimulated by her unwontedly sump- 
 tuous repast and the new sensation of being 
 protected and spoken kindly to by a gentleman,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 313 
 
 lost all reserve and talked freely, with that 
 strange medley of childishness and old-fashioned 
 knowledge, ignorance and shrewdness that forms 
 the mind of London children whose nomadic life 
 is in the open streets, who are taught nothing 
 yet learn much. 
 
 " Are you the Prince of Wales, sir ? " she 
 asked, after a pause. 
 
 " No," said Arthur, laughing. " What in the 
 world put that idea into your head ? " 
 
 " Because I heard tell that he was rich and 
 handsome, and wore fine clothes, and you do that. 
 We never have gentlemen like you come down 
 the Cut." 
 
 Arthur smiled at the child's reasoning, but he 
 sighed as he thought of the influences around this 
 young life, and the overwhelming probabilities 
 against the child's escaping the universal taint. 
 
 M Ah little Raven," he said sadly, " you are 
 innocent now, and a clear stream of running 
 water would transform you into a dove, but if you
 
 314 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 get your wings soiled with shame, as nearly all 
 around you do, no tears will wash away that 
 stain." 
 
 The child looked wonderingly up into his face, 
 and after a minute's consideration, said gravely — 
 
 " Mother did wash my face this morning sir, 
 and she's always combing my hair, but 'taint 
 much good, I'm just the same in a few minutes." 
 
 u That's precisely the reasoning of half the 
 social reformers of the day," said Arthur, " but 
 you must persevere in washing Raven, and 
 so must they. Here is a gentleman who thinks 
 otherwise, but as his profession is a grimy one, 
 prejudice is natural in his case. Here friend, do 
 you know a place near here called Abel Alley ? " 
 
 The man he accosted was a sweep, with an 
 almost superhuman power of grinning. 
 
 " Yes, sir," he replied touching his forehead 
 with a sootbrush by way of salute, as unconcern- 
 edly as if it had been made for that purpose, " if 
 you take the fust turnin' on your right, and the
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 315 
 
 second— no — the third on yer left, go as fur as 
 yer can, you'll see a public wot's called ' The 
 Furrin' Prince,' right alongside o' that's a halley." 
 
 u I beg your pardon," said Arthur, " what did 
 you say there was ?" 
 
 " A halley," rejoined his sooty companion, still 
 grinning, " go down that and you'll find another 
 one at the bottom, that's Habel Halley, but I 
 warn yer it ain't a place for swells." 
 
 " Oh I've seen more rough service than you 
 imagine," said Arthur good naturedly, " and can 
 take very good care of myself, there's a lady in 
 the case you see," he added, stroking the child's 
 golden hair. 
 
 At this the sweep grinned as though he had 
 lived in solitude and silence for years, accumu- 
 lating hilarity, which now for the first time 
 exploded. Arthur handed him sixpence, saying — 
 
 " Let me advise you, if you spend that in beer, 
 which you probably will, to wait till you get out 
 of this neighbourhood. If the liquor sold here
 
 316 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 is to be judged of by the look of the public 
 houses, it would injure your liver, and then you'd 
 lose your remarkably cheerful disposition. Good 
 day." And with that Arthur left him. 
 
 " Of all the cool coves as ever I see," soliloquised 
 the sweep, as he watched Arthur disappear, " that 
 chap's the coolest." 
 
 At which reflection he grinned for fifteen con- 
 secutive minutes. 
 
 By closely following his advise however, 
 Arthur arrived at the public house of which he 
 had spoken, a very disreputable tavern, which a 
 gaudy signboard and a roughly painted inscrip- 
 tion proclaimed to be ' The Foreign Prince.' ' 
 
 Of this potentate's nationality it is difficult to 
 speak with anything like certainty, his face was 
 black as that of the Prince of Morocco, but there 
 is doubt whether this was owing to the artist who 
 designed it, or the atmosphere in which it hung. 
 The dress had been originally blue, red and green, 
 with a liberal allowance of gold-lace, expressed
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 317 
 
 by a bilious looking gamboge. But occasionally 
 gentlemen living in the neighbourhood, whose 
 objection to princes of any kind was greater than 
 their love for the fine arts, after drinking freely 
 of the Foreign Prince's liquors would pelt his 
 painted effigy with mud, and these anti-royalist 
 demonstrations had not improved the artistic 
 effect. 
 
 But the child on seeing the unsightly daub 
 clapped her hands, as recognising a familiar 
 object, and becoming Arthur's guide, led him to 
 the hovel where she lived. 
 
 Abel Alley was one of those pestilential haunts, 
 which are a stain and scar on the face of London, 
 giving the lie to our boasts of civilization, and 
 sending up to heaven day and night an inarticu- 
 late cry for vengeance. 
 
 The dwellings, if they could be called such, were 
 in various stages of ruin and decay, yet in these 
 miserable tenements unfit for human habitation, 
 men and women herded together in squalid
 
 318 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 hungry poverty, regardless of health and decency. 
 Surely the angels before the great white throne 
 must veil their faces from the sight of the agony 
 and misery of human souls, though men can bear 
 to think of them so calmly. 
 
 Arthur looked round the squalid alley with a 
 pitying glance. Such scenes were not new to him, 
 for it had been an old dream of his to consecrate 
 his life to the great work of social reform, the 
 work which no man, no society, no age can per- 
 fectly accomplish, but which must be attempted 
 manfully, and toiled at with the noblest powers 
 of heart, and hand, and brain, or society 
 suffers the direst penalties in every class. 
 
 " Abel Alley," said Arthur thoughtfully, " it 
 would have been more fitting to have called it 
 after Cain." 
 
 The alley was strewn with rubbish of all des- 
 criptions, animal and vegetable matter in advanced 
 stages of decomposition polluted the atmosphere. 
 Everything seemed damp and rotting undisturbed,
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 319 
 
 and the air to be heavy with contagion of disease, 
 moral and physical. 
 
 " This is home," said the child stopping at one 
 of the hovels. 
 
 1 Home ' was a single room with bare walls 
 and floors, and a low ceiling, in which the child, 
 her mother, another woman, and two more 
 children lived, ate their meals when they could 
 get any and slept. For purposes of suicide by 
 suffocation the place was well adapted, but it 
 was difficult to imagine anything else it was fit 
 for. 
 
 " Is that Nellie ? " said a weak voice. 
 
 " Yes mother," cried the child, and hugged her 
 affectionally. 
 
 " I have brought your little girl home," said 
 Arthur kindly, " I found her in the Westminster 
 Bridge Koad, where she had lost her way. Is 
 there anything I can do for you ? I am afraid 
 you are ill." 
 
 The woman to whom he spoke was young,
 
 320 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 indeed though haggard and worn by disease and 
 poverty she could not have been more than three 
 or four-and-twenty. She had long golden hair 
 like her child's, which hung neglected and unbound 
 below her waist, this, and her large sad eyes, were 
 the only traces left of what had been once great 
 physical beauty. 
 
 On learning the cause of Arthur's visit, she 
 looked gratefully at him, and the tears startled to 
 her eyes, kindness was evidently a novelty to 
 her. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," she said, " it was very — very 
 kind of you. Nellie is all the world to me — I 
 have nothing else to live for. As to myself sir, 
 that is not worth your thought, though I thank 
 you for that too." 
 
 She spoke in the unmistakable accents of one 
 who is not entirely uneducated. Arthur was 
 struck by this, and by the weariness of life that 
 every look conveyed. 
 
 " But you are not well," he said gently, " I am
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 321 
 
 not a doctor, but I have studied medicine for 
 some years. Let me feel your pulse." 
 
 It was feverish and very weak, he saw at a 
 glance that she was very ill, and formed his reso- 
 lution accordingly. 
 
 u Is any doctor attending you ? " he asked. 
 She shook her head. u I have no money for 
 doctors," she said, u and the Parish doctor doesn't 
 often come this way." 
 
 (i You need greater medical skill than mine," 
 said Arthur, " I will return this afternoon with a 
 doctor, in the meantime I will write a prescrip- 
 tion for a cooling draught that will ease the fever, 
 and may give you some sleep." 
 
 He wrote the prescription, and despatched a 
 messenger to get it made up. Then he took her 
 work, some rough tailoring, from her hands. 
 
 " You are not in a fit state for anything but 
 rest," he said. 
 
 " The work must be done sir," she said faintly. 
 
 u Then it shall be done," he replied cheerfully,
 
 322 MAUD ATHERTON 
 
 " I'd do it myself sooner than you should. Who 
 can do this work beside yourself?" 
 
 " Mrs. Jones sir, in the room above. " 
 
 " How much remains to be done ? " 
 
 " About two hours work, sir, it's for Messrs. 
 Lumm and Stunby, and I get paid at the rate of 
 a penny an hour." 
 
 Arthur felt a strong inclination to choke the 
 firm in question, by way of expressing his views 
 on the subject of merited remuneration, however 
 he only said, " I dare say Mrs. Jones will do it," 
 and ran up stairs with the obnoxious articles in 
 his hands. 
 
 Mrs. Jones was only too delighted at the 
 prospect of earning a shilling by two hours work, 
 and Arthur returned to the room below empty 
 handed. 
 
 " That little matter is disposed of," he said, 
 " and now all you have to do is to rest." 
 
 The poor girl — she was only old by poverty and 
 shame — burst into tears as he spoke.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 323 
 
 w Why do you trouble yourself about me ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " I have done very little," he answered lightly, 
 " you would do the same for me if our positions 
 were reversed." 
 
 She gave a low moan of pain, then cried 
 passionately — 
 
 " Do you know what I am ? An outcast from 
 society — a woman who has a child and yet has 
 never worn a wedding ring upon her finger ? " 
 
 " Yes," he replied quietly, " I know it very 
 well. What of that ? Have you forfeited thereby 
 all claim to human compassion and sympathy ? " 
 
 " They told me so at home," she answered 
 wildly, " when they drove me from the house 
 with my baby at my breast. They " 
 
 a Stay," said Arthur, interrupting her, " you 
 
 are exciting yourself more than your strength 
 
 will endure. You shall tell me your story bye- 
 
 and-bye if it will comfort you, but for the present 
 
 you must try to be calm and quiet." 
 
 y2
 
 324 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 " Tell me one thing then," she said, fixing her 
 large eyes earnestly upon him, " you have never 
 seen me in your life before, yet you have spent 
 time and money for my sake, you know my 
 degradation — yet you, a gentleman, have never by 
 so much as a look slighted or scorned me. You 
 talk to me with respect as though I were a rich 
 lady whose soul was pure. Why are you unlike 
 all the world ? " 
 
 Arthur hesitated a moment, then answered 
 proudly as the Red Cross Knight would have 
 spoken of the Faerie Queene — 
 
 a Because there is a lady, young and beautiful 
 whom I love, I parted with her this morning, but 
 the seal of her knighthood is on my lips, and I 
 dare not pass by sorrow without trying to lessen 
 it, or see wrong without attempting to redress 
 it." 
 
 She was about to reply when the messenger 
 returned with the medicine. Arthur gave her a 
 little of it, and having left her in charge of the
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 325 
 
 woman with whom she shared the room, went in 
 search of medical aid. 
 
 He was not long in returning with a doctor, in 
 whose skill he had great confidence, but his worst 
 fears were realised. 
 
 a She may last a week," was the verdict given 
 with an indifference, that sprang from profes- 
 sional habit not hardness of heart, <c or perhaps 
 ten days, but not longer. There's a low fever 
 hanging about her but that we can treat. What 
 she is dying of is fatigue, utter exhaustion of 
 body and soul. Would you like me to see her 
 again ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Arthur, *' she shall not die without 
 every effort to save her though the hope is a for- 
 lorn one. There has been cruel wrong there, 
 doctor." 
 
 u Ah," replied the doctor, " it's a pity she was 
 
 ever so handsome. My own daughters are all 
 
 ugly and I'm very glad of it." 
 
 With which observation he took his departure. 
 
 y3
 
 326 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 His predictions were literally fulfilled. Annie 
 Yempson (for that was her name, Yumps being 
 a corruption of Nellie's originating) lingered on, 
 her soul trembling between life and death, for 
 seven days ; on the eighth, when he called, she 
 said she was better and would like to tell him 
 something of her life. 
 
 He had contrived to have her removed into a 
 more comfortable room. It was poor enough, 
 bare and miserable, with no furniture but a bed, 
 a crazy wash-hand-stand (holding a cracked basin 
 and a jug without a handle) and a solitary chair, 
 but it was larger than the other as well as cleaner, 
 and such as it was she had it to herself. 
 
 Arthur sat down on the only chair in the room, 
 while she told him — her weak voice broken with 
 sobs — the story of her life. 
 
 She was the only daughter of a Nonconformist 
 minister, who had gained some celebrity as a 
 scholar and a preacher, a man of considerable 
 ability, but holding harsh, austere and pitiless
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 327 
 
 views. She had been educated in France where 
 she acquired many accomplishments, and dis- 
 tinguished herself in several branches of study. 
 But as any one but John Yempson would have 
 seen beforehand, French scenes, French books, 
 and French society were far more fascinating to 
 his daughter than volumes of Calvinistic theology 
 and sermons two hours long. Annie returned 
 from France when she was seventeen, and her 
 father scarcely knew whether to be delighted or 
 disappointed at the change in her. In secret he 
 was proud of her beauty, her grace and her ac- 
 complishments, but when he spoke to her, he 
 talked as if these things were positive sins, and 
 he put the harshest restraints upon her, " to save 
 her," he said u from the eternal torments of hell." 
 They lived in a little Devonshire village, where 
 Annie might have been as happy and as pure as 
 the flowers and birds, but John Yempson had 
 decided that only restraint could save her from 
 perdition, and therefore made her life dull and
 
 328 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 wearisome. From all the village gatherings she 
 was absent ; enjoyment was a carnal thing ; her 
 spirit must be broken to be made ripe for repent- 
 ance. She played the harp, and music was he- 
 terodox; she danced gracefully, and this was 
 clearly a gift conferred by the Devil; so on all 
 occasions when these accomplishments would be 
 admired, her father insisted upon her staying at 
 home. 
 
 But after she had been home a few months, the 
 young squire came of age, and there were 
 great festivities at the Hall. Her father gave a 
 reluctant consent to Annie's going, and so for the 
 first time since she left France she escaped from 
 the home atmosphere of grim austerity and 
 dreariness, to a gay scene of music, laughter and 
 the light tread of dancers' feet. 
 
 In all that company no one was half so fair as 
 Annie, no one danced so gracefully, no one's 
 laughter had such a musical tone. The young 
 squire noticed this, and not only danced with her
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 329 
 
 several times, but contrived in a conversation 
 they had together in the conservatory, to appoint 
 a place of meeting for the next day. 
 
 The meeting was the cause of an intimacy be- 
 tween them, which soon ripened on her part into 
 passionate devoted love, on his to a selfish sensual 
 degrading passion. 
 
 And so the old cruel tragedy was played over 
 again. She was young, inexperienced, and 
 thoughtless, trusting in the honour of a man who 
 was heartless, false, and diabolically selfish ; she 
 had no mother's influence to steady her, no wise 
 counsel from her father to be her safeguard — she 
 loved profoundly — she was tempted and she fell. 
 
 There came a day when she stood before her 
 father with her baby at her breast, and he unmind- 
 ful of One who poured the balm of Divine 
 tenderness and human love into such wounds as 
 these, cursed his erring daughter and drove her 
 from his home. 
 
 But for her child Annie would have thrown
 
 330 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 her life away. Deserted by the man who had 
 ruined her; spurned by the father whom she 
 loved ; scorned by her old companions — what 
 refuge remained for her but the grave ? But the 
 baby's little hand clasped her life so that she 
 could not let it go : days and months passed, she 
 was weak and ill, but she did not die. 
 
 She came to London, and for her child's sake 
 fought with death for five years. By sewing till 
 her delicate fingers bled, by working day and 
 night, she had earned enough to buy bread and 
 to pay for the miserable apartment where she 
 lived ; the struggle was nearly over, and in a few 
 hours the broken heart would be at rest. 
 
 It was not in this form she told her story. She 
 blamed no one but herself, and only asked him 
 to believe she was penitent. Arthur's fancy 
 filled in the details of the broken history, much 
 as they had actually happened ; but it was only 
 long afterwards that he learnt the story as it is 
 narrated here.
 
 MAUD ATHERTON. 331 
 
 " I am dying now," she said faintly, for the 
 effort had exhausted her, " the doctor told me I 
 could not live many days, but I could not bear to 
 have you think me viler than I am — I have 
 sinned, but every night I have cried to God for 
 forgiveness, though a minister once told me 
 Heaven would be deaf to my prayers. But you 
 do not believe that, do you ? " 
 
 u Whoever declares that Heaven rejects peni- 
 tence lies," said Arthur, "and such lies are 
 the chosen language of hell. Life is sad 
 enough as it is, but if the Eedeemer's sacri- 
 fice is not for all who seek it, life becomes 
 a tale of horror, at which heaven and earth 
 alike must shudder. I do not underrate the 
 gravity of your sin, but I need not speak of 
 that, for I read in every line of your face how 
 deeply you have suffered, and I dare not speak 
 of what God has forgiven. I do not hide from 
 you the fact that you are dying, and I believe 
 profoundly — in a few hours it may be, having
 
 332 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 cast all your sorrow at His feet — you will lean 
 on the bosom of Christ, and learn what this poor 
 world cannot understand — that the meaning of 
 Heaven is love." 
 
 She would have spoken, but he checked her. 
 
 " There is another thought that troubles you," 
 said Arthur " I can read it in your face." 
 
 She answered " yes," faintly, and made a weak 
 movement of her hand towards the child, who 
 was playing with some wooden bricks Arthur had 
 given her, as happy as though she had been a 
 princess of a fairy legend. 
 
 " Nellie," he called to her, " come here for a 
 moment." He raised the child to kiss her mother, 
 then laying his hand on Nellie's golden hair he 
 said — a my life henceforward is to work for the 
 cause of the weak and the wronged. I will take 
 this child after your life is ended, and try to supply 
 the place of the father she has lost. It is a 
 fitting beginning for my life work." 
 
 She raised his hand to her lips gratefully, and 
 with a kind of reverence.
 
 MAUD ATEERTON, 333 
 
 " I dare to hope for Christ's forgiveness now," 
 she said, " I could not while I found men and 
 women so stern." 
 
 Those were the last words she ever spoke. 
 Arthur left her with a kind farewell, and when he 
 returned next clay he found her dead. 
 
 She had not in her confession told him the 
 name of her seducer, and he had not asked her, 
 divining the motive of her reticence. But now 
 that he stood by her lifeless form, he saw that 
 the dead hand clasped something. He took it 
 from the rigid fingers and saw that it was the 
 likeness of a man. Of one too, whom he knew as 
 an old schoolfellow and associate, whom long ago 
 he had proved to be false and treacherous, and from 
 whom he had parted with undisguised contempt. 
 
 Annie Yempson had been wronged and deceived 
 by this man, her life had been made a curse to 
 her to satisfy his profligate nature, yet she died 
 not only forgiving but loving him still. It is 
 only when we fathom the patient forgiveness of
 
 334 MAUD ATHERTON. 
 
 womanhood that we begin to realise the ceaseless 
 forgiveness of God. 
 
 Arthur muttered the name of Morton Legrange 
 in no gentle tone as he looked at the portrait, then 
 flinging it on the ground, crushed it beneath his feet. 
 
 After the funeral was over, he took the child 
 aside and tried to explain what had happened to her. 
 
 She was only five years old, but she had learnt 
 premature wisdom in the streets, and it was 
 almost with a woman's grief and understanding 
 that she looked up into his face and said — 
 
 " What shall I do, sir? Nobody will take 
 care of me, and I shall die." 
 
 w I will take care of you little Raven," he 
 answered tenderly, " come with me, and we will 
 always try to make each other happy." 
 
 So with the child clinging to him, he left Abel 
 Alley ; and thus his work of social reform began, 
 and Nellie Yempson's life of raggedness and 
 misery ended. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 73, line 8 : for « breath " read " breathe." 
 Pages 127, 128 and 129: for ''Hermit" read "Hermia." 
 Page 130, line 18: for "cannot be" read ''cannot lie." 
 „ 163. „ 20: „ "absolutedly" read "undoubtedly."