LI E) R.AR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVLRSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 823 
 
 H225ig 
 
 v.i
 
 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 %
 
 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 BY 
 
 IZA DUFFUS HARDY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 " NOT EASILY JEALOUS," " BETWEEN TWO FIRES," 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 " little did my mither ken, 
 The day she cradled me, 
 The lands I was to travel in — 
 Or the death I was to dee ! " 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1877. 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 LONDON : 
 
 FEINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE, 
 
 BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET.
 
 Ni. 1 
 
 % 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 HOMEWARD 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 B
 
 GLENCAIRJ^. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Some waif washed up with the strays and spars, 
 That ebb-tide shows to the shore and the stars : 
 Weeds from tlie water, grass from a grave, 
 A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme !" 
 
 Swinburne. 
 
 rjlHE Boulogne train had sped through 
 -*- the suburbs of Paris, and left the 
 last white- walled villa, the last trim garden, 
 of Paris behind ; the six travellers in one 
 particular compartment of one particular 
 carriage were doing very much as the 
 
 B 2
 
 4 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 majority of travellers all tlie length of tlie 
 long train were doing ; that is to say, they 
 had " settled " themselves and their bag- 
 gage, and were mentally taking notes of 
 each other's appearance. Two of these 
 travellers, however, must be excepted from 
 this general statement ; the elderly French 
 couple were taking no notes of anybody or 
 anything, but were composing themselves 
 to sleep; and the attention their fellow- 
 passengers bestowed on them was but 
 brief, as Madame merely presented the 
 appearance of a bundle of shawls and a 
 brown gauze veil, and Monsieur of a tight- 
 ly buttoned coat, a shaven double chin, 
 and a dark grizzled moustache — the rest of 
 his face being hidden in the wide-awake 
 that was slouched down over his eyes to 
 keep off the sun.
 
 GLENCAIRN. 5 
 
 The remaining four passengers were an 
 unmistakably British family of three — 
 father, mother, and little girl — and a some- 
 what peculiar-looking gentleman at whom 
 the united family were stealing glances at 
 discreet opportunities, and who — at equally 
 decorous intervals and with equally scru- 
 pulous carefulness not to catch their eyes — 
 was returning their attention. 
 
 Travellers may be divided broadly into 
 three classes — those who utterly ignore the 
 existence of their f ellow- voyagers ; those 
 who regard them as natural enemies, 
 whose very existence is an offence ; and 
 those who look upon them with a moderately 
 friendly curiosity, take some interest in 
 their physiognomical characteristics, enjoy 
 solving the problem of their nationality, 
 and make acquaintance with them readily.
 
 6 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 The British family belonged to this latter 
 class ; and so — on this occasion, at least, 
 though it might not be his normal con- 
 dition — did the grey-coated, bearded 
 stranger of peculiar aspect. 
 
 He was not peculiar by reason of his 
 attractions, for he was not handsome at all ; 
 nor was there anything picturesque about 
 him save the abundant waves of hair, dark 
 and curling, which were pushed away from 
 his brow under the black felt wide-awake. 
 His beard was a shade or two lighter than 
 his hair, and he cultivated a somewhat 
 heavy moustache. Any peculiarity in his 
 appearance was partly attributable to the 
 uncommon expression of not very un- 
 common features, an expression at once 
 abstracted and keenly perceptive, gloomy 
 and yet not unsympathetic — partly to
 
 GLENCAIRN. 7 
 
 something in the large, deep-set eyes, 
 which puzzled strangers at first, until they 
 came to notice that one of those eyes was 
 a light grey, the other a darker hazel. He 
 might have been any age from thirty to 
 forty-five ; he might have belonged to almost 
 any nation ; and as he had not opened his 
 lips, his curious fellow-passengers were 
 somewhat exercised in their minds on the 
 subject of his nationality. The lady had 
 whispered to her husband, " Not English, 
 surely ?" and whether or not the stranger 
 had heard or understood the remark, he 
 had taken no notice of it. 
 
 The little girl — Katie Craven, a pretty 
 blonde child, gaily and carefully dressed, 
 and evidently her parents' pet and pride — 
 began chattering, asking when they should 
 reach Amiens ; whether there would be at
 
 8 GLENOAIRN. 
 
 Amiens " a lovely buffet like there was at 
 Macon ;" wliether they should dine at 
 Boulogne, and so on. The solitary silent 
 traveller was looking at the child while 
 she babbled on, and the mother, catching 
 a very tender and rather sad smile slowly 
 softening his face, regarded him sympa- 
 thetically, and wished to address him, but 
 was not sure whether she should venture 
 on her rather uncertain French, or her 
 still more doubtful German. He solved 
 the difficulty by addressing her in a per- 
 fectly pure English accent. 
 
 "Your little girl is young to travel. She 
 is your eldest ?" 
 
 '' My only one." 
 
 " How old ?" 
 - " She is eleven." 
 
 " An only child !" repeated the gentle-
 
 GLENCAIRN. 9 
 
 man — " I have an only child a year 
 younger than yours." 
 
 " And a great pet I dare say she is," 
 observed Mrs. Craven sympathetically, 
 becoming more interested in their fellow- 
 traveller. 
 
 " I daresay she will be," he replied, 
 smiling, but somewhat coldly. " I have 
 not seen her since she was a baby. — Is it 
 your little girl's first trip abroad ?" he 
 asked, after a pause, as if sociably inclined 
 for the ball of conversation to be kept 
 rolling. 
 
 *•' Yes ; she is a spoilt pet, and we 
 could not leave her behind." 
 
 "We have been all over Switzerland, 
 and I walked over the Col de Balme all 
 the way, and mamma had a mule," said 
 the little girl, evidently minded to take 
 her share in the discussion.
 
 10 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 " Have you also been doing Switzer- 
 land, sir?" inquired Mr. Craven, putting 
 down the '' Indicateur" he had been study- 
 ing, and manifesting that he too was dis- 
 posed that the conversation should not 
 drop. 
 
 It did not drop, but rolled on smoothly, 
 with occasional breaks and intervals, and 
 now and then shuntings of subject from 
 one line to another, until they reached 
 Amiens. During this period the solitary 
 traveller had learnt the entire history of 
 the family's Swiss tour, from their taking 
 the night express to Geneva to their ascent 
 of the E-igi, and their returning route via 
 Basle and Strasbourg ; and little Katie 
 had exhibited to him her Alpenstock, 
 stamped with the list of names, the point 
 of which she nearly poked into the somno-
 
 GLENCAIKX. II 
 
 leut Frencliman's eye. The family had 
 not learnt so much about the* solitary tra- 
 veller, but what they had learnt had in- 
 terested them, as it appeared that he had 
 come recently from Venice, but, beyond 
 that, from India, China, and, in fact, 
 literally all round the ^Yorld. The Cravens 
 never having been beyond the beaten 
 track of the tourist through Paris and 
 Switzerland, and that only twice in their 
 lives — once on their wedding tour, and 
 once again now — were naturally interested 
 in this traveller who had travelled so far. 
 
 At Amiens there was the usual rush 
 made for the buffet ; a tide of passengers, 
 chiefly male, setting towards the table 
 where the hot soui^ was ladled out ; an- 
 other tide, chiefly female, flowing along 
 the counter, where fruits, and cakes, and
 
 12 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 pates were set f ortli in tempting array ; a 
 general eddy of all ages, classes, and sexes 
 around the marble slab sacred to wines 
 and liqueurs ; a back-wave of hurried or 
 timorous travellers sweeping back, with 
 their hands full of brioches, and flacons, 
 and little baskets of fruit, towards the 
 platform, in great haste lest the train 
 should go off without them ; then, towards 
 the last minute, a general stampede for 
 the train, and much anxiety in everybody's 
 mind to discover their own carriage, where 
 their own wraps and umbrellas and small 
 baggage had been left. The Cravens be- 
 stowed themselves safely, and then began 
 to look out for their new acquaintance, 
 who did not make his appearance till the 
 very last moment, and only just as the 
 guard came along, banging the doors, and
 
 GLENCAIEN. 13 
 
 Mrs. Craven cried out excitedly, " Here ! 
 here ! make baste !" lie stepped coolly up 
 into the carriage. 
 
 The whole quartette appeared to be 
 rather more than less sociably inclined 
 after their hasty pretence of a luncheon — 
 a meal which was, however, still in pro- 
 gress of demolition, its second course not 
 having been disposed of in the hurry of 
 the buffet. The little girl had her hands 
 full of apricots ; Mrs. Craven was making 
 her way leisurely, and w^ith an appetite 
 refreshingly good to see, through the con- 
 tents of a bag of sweet cakes ; Madame in 
 the corner, still looking half asleep, held a 
 huge ham sandwich drowsily in one hand ; 
 Mr. Craven, with a prudent eye for the 
 coming hour, had got a small flask of 
 " fine champagne cognac."
 
 14 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 " For the boat," as lie explained, with a 
 confidential nod. " You are going to 
 cross, I suppose ?" lie added. 
 
 " Yes," replied the stranger, " I am 
 going to London, to see my little girl. 
 Your child reminds me of her. She has 
 fair hair — I think." 
 
 He added the last two words with rather 
 a gloomy air, and kind-hearted Mrs. Craven 
 instantly fell to reflecting how sad it would 
 be if she had never seen her little Katie 
 since she had been a baby ! Suppose she 
 did not even know the shade of Katie's 
 hair ! Yet such separations were ; parents 
 and children were sometimes parted ; and 
 thinking of these things, she smoothed out 
 the flaxen tresses that were so carefully 
 crimped and waved over her darling's 
 shoulders, and, looking at the stranger,
 
 GLENCAIRN. 15 
 
 wondered whether his child had a mother 
 living. 
 
 In order to make room for little Kate to 
 sit by the window, the gentleman moved 
 to one side, took a valise that stood beside 
 him on his knee, and leaned his crossed 
 arms upon it. 
 
 " Won't you put that up in the netting? 
 — isn't it heavy ?" asked Mr. Craven. 
 
 "No — it's a good elbow-cushion," the 
 other replied, smiling in his usual way — a 
 slight smile, almost the shadow of a smile, 
 but pleasant and gentle withal. 
 
 " You are a compatriot of my wife's, I 
 see," observed Mr. Craven, sociably, evi- 
 dently settling himself for a pleasant gos- 
 sip to beguile the time. 
 
 " A compatriot ? — how ?" 
 
 " My wife was a Scotch lassie by birth,
 
 16 GLENGAIEN. 
 
 and that (your name, I presume ?) is a 
 Scotcli name," replied Mr. Craven, pointing 
 to the label tied on to the valise, which 
 bore the words : 
 
 " Glencaim, 
 
 Paris a Londres." 
 
 " I may be Scotch for aught I know," 
 the gentleman replied ; " but as I never to 
 my own knowledge had any parents, I am 
 uncertain upon the point of my nation- 
 ality." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven did not understand 
 this at all. They said with a puzzled air, 
 "Yes?" and "Indeed?" and then Mrs. 
 Craven observed in an undecided, half- 
 questioning way, 
 
 "Left an orphan very young, I sup- 
 pose ?" 
 
 " Yes ; but at what age I can't exactly
 
 OLENCAIEN. 17 
 
 tell. I have the doubtful blessing of not 
 knowing my own birthday." 
 
 This puzzled Mr. and Mrs. Craven still 
 more. They looked bewildered and per- 
 plexed ; and Mr. Glencairn smiled with a 
 half-amused air. 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you how it was," he said, 
 narratively, with an unusual expansion of 
 confidence. " It's a curious story, too. 
 Amongst the hundreds of wrecks that 
 make no sensation, that are just briefly 
 chronicled and forgotten, the ship Glen- 
 cahii was wrecked in the South Atlantic — 
 years ago. Very few remember it now. 
 The people took to the boats, but only one 
 boat was saved. In that boat there were 
 some sailors, a woman and a child. The 
 woman died; so did two of the sailors. 
 Oddly enough, while strong men died, the 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 child lived. I was that child. None of 
 the survivors seem to have known the 
 woman's name, and I was too young to 
 tell them — a mere baby. I suppose she 
 was my mother ; but even that isn't cer- 
 tain. The only thing certain is that I and 
 three sailors lived." 
 
 " Good gracious !" exclaimed Mrs. Craven, 
 as if her breath was fairly taken away. 
 
 " A most remarkable thing," said her 
 husband, appearing deeply interested ; 
 while Kate was staring at the narrator 
 with wide-open blue eyes, as if he were the 
 hero of a fairy-tale. 
 
 "But did you never know anything of 
 your father, then ?" asked the lady. 
 
 " Nothing; except that, whoever he was, 
 he was not in that boat." 
 
 " And is there no clue to your name or 
 parentage at all?"
 
 GLENCAIRX. 19 
 
 "No. People saved from shipwreck 
 by niglit, you know, don't always have 
 pocket-books or letters about tliem. I 
 daresay my mother — she who was probably 
 my mother, that is — would have left in- 
 structions about me if she had thought I 
 should be saved, and if she had been Eng- 
 lish. But she was a foreign woman alone 
 among English sailors ; and if she had any 
 friends they were in the other boats, which 
 were never heard of more. So I was 
 launched in life with no name, no parents, 
 no country. It is not a cheerful begin- 
 ning." 
 
 " How dreadful ! — how very sad !" said 
 Mrs. Craven. 
 
 " You took the name of the ship, then?" 
 said her husband. 
 
 " Yes. They used to call me Tommy 
 
 c 2
 
 20 CtLenoaien. 
 
 Glencairn — but I didn't hold much to the 
 Tommy. Glencairn is the name I have 
 taken, after the ship that is the only parent 
 I ever could trace. Glencairn is the name 
 I am always known and addressed by — 
 though in business letters I sign the initial 
 T. That's the story of my name." 
 
 "A most interesting story," said the 
 sympathetic lady. 
 
 Mr. Craven was silent, trying to find 
 flaws in the consistency of the anecdote, 
 in which he did not place quite such im- 
 plicit faith as his wife. Mr. Glencairn, 
 probably reading the tenor of his neigh- 
 bour's thoughts, smiled quietly to himself. 
 However the acquaintance progressed 
 favourably and rapidly; and that night, 
 when they had arrived at their home 
 (having parted from their fellow-traveller
 
 GLEN CAIRN. 21 
 
 with an exchange of cards and addresses, 
 and mutual promises to call and renew the 
 acquaintance), Mr. Craven kept continually 
 being struck by new ideas as to questions 
 lie might have put, and suggestions he 
 might have made, with a view to eliciting 
 the exact amount of truth in Glencairn's 
 story. 
 
 " I wish I'd asked him the name of the 
 captain of the ship, and whether they 
 couldn't have got a list of the passengers 
 at Lloyd's," said Mr. Craven, meditatively, 
 being a man who was always interested in 
 his neighbour's affairs. 
 
 "Perhaps it was a foreign ship," sug- 
 gested his wife, who was determined to 
 believe every word of the story. 
 
 Meanwhile Glencairn, who had related 
 only the simple truth, unexaggerated and
 
 22 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 unembellislied, went on his way to the ten- 
 years-old daughter (whom, since she had 
 been a toddling white-frocked, blue-eyed 
 baby of little more than a year old, he had 
 never seen), the last look he had fixed 
 on whose baby face he could never bear to 
 think of, linked as it was with the bitterest 
 memory of his life. 
 
 She had been as a dream to him for 
 years past — a dream that he was going 
 now to realise. It could scarcely be said 
 that he loved her, for she was in his mind 
 a vague and changing vision, that some- 
 times looked at him with her mother's 
 eyes, and sometimes seemed a fair and 
 feminine image of himself. He had no 
 portrait of her, no lock of hair. The 
 letters in a round and childish hand that 
 had reached him occasionally at the other
 
 GLENCAIKX. 23 
 
 side of the world, few and far between as 
 they were, were yet the only tangible proofs 
 of her existence. He hastened, and yet 
 would have deferred the moment of meet- 
 ing. He who had loved few people, and 
 been loved by few, whose life had been 
 cursed by what should have been life's 
 blessing, wondered, 
 
 "Will the child love me?"
 
 24 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " O little souls ! as pure and white 
 And crystalline as rays of light, 
 
 Direct from Heaven, their source divine 
 Refracted through the mist of years, 
 How red my setting sun appears ! 
 
 How lurid looks this soul of mine !" 
 Longfellow. 
 
 TN a neighbourhood nearer to Regent's 
 -*- Park than to the City, but equally out 
 of sight of the Park's green grass and 
 foliage and the City's smoke and chimney- 
 tops— in a house exactly like the majority 
 of London houses ''all of a row"— in a 
 drawing-room furnished by line and 
 rule exactly as the Furniture Catalogues
 
 GLENCAIRN. 25 
 
 and the various volumes of Advice to 
 Young Housekeepers recommend, were 
 seated a little girl, an old gentleman, and 
 four old ladies. 
 
 The four ladies miglit be all freely 
 classed together under the above adjec- 
 tive ; but in truth two of them were of 
 that uncertain age which in a fashionable 
 lady in a fashionable grande toilette would 
 probably be called "a little past the 
 prime," yet which in these maiden sisters 
 with their Quaker-coloured dresses and 
 cappy head-dresses, was generally and 
 briefly set down as " old." The other 
 two, the thin widow and the portly matron, 
 were older ; and the gentleman decidedly 
 oldest ; he was eighty-one and had not a 
 visible tooth in his head. 
 
 The child, a prett}' little girl of ten years
 
 26 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 old, looked all the more childish, and her 
 companions all the older, from the contrast 
 between their Winter and her Spring. She 
 was Luli Glen cairn ; the two maiden ladies, 
 whom she called " Aunt," were her 
 mother's aunts, Miss Christiana and Miss 
 Priscilla Potter. These ladies, their 
 income being too small and their house 
 being too large for them, added to the 
 former and filled up the latter by 
 receiving as resident guests the widow 
 lady, Mrs. Boyd, and the old couple, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Foster, who contributed to the 
 household funds an equivalent for the 
 Misses Potters' hospitality and " the 
 comforts of a refined home," as the adver- 
 tisement which in the original instance had 
 brought all these congenial spirits toge- 
 ther, had set forth.
 
 GLENCAIKN. 27 
 
 It was not a boarding-house, not at all, 
 as Mrs. Boyd was wont to say emphati- 
 cally, and was strictly select. No wolves 
 had ever prowled around that fold; no 
 black sheep had ever obtained a moment's 
 admittance. There was the one little pet 
 white lamb in the fold, who was guarded 
 and treasured with zealous care. But the 
 day and the hour — or, to be strictly 
 literal, the evening and the hour — had 
 come when this little lamb was to be 
 claimed by one whom decisive Miss 
 Christiana regarded as a very black sheep, 
 and timid Miss Priscilla looked upon with 
 alarm as a probable wolf. Still they were 
 both careful to conceal from Lull their 
 doubts on the subject of her father, 
 hiding them under a prudent appearance 
 of confidence in the mutual happiness
 
 2S GLENCAIEN. 
 
 of parent and cliild in their re-union. 
 
 Glencairn liad written to say lie would 
 be with them that evening. There had 
 been business and bustle in the house all 
 day preparing a room for his reception. 
 There might be doubt and reluctance in 
 the minds of the mistresses of the fold as 
 to the advent of the lupine intruder, but 
 board and bed and open gates awaited 
 him, and the lamb was decked for the sa- 
 crifice, ready to be yielded to his claws. 
 
 Luli, arrayed in her prettiest white 
 muslin, with streaming blue sash and blue 
 ribands in her fair hair, sat with the rest 
 of the social circle in the drawing-room, 
 bolt upright in her chair, never turning a 
 leaf of the book of pictures before her, 
 listening for the bell, and looking every 
 now and then at the door.
 
 GLENGATEX. 29 
 
 " She's quite excited at the thought o£ 
 seeing her papa," observed Mrs. Foster in 
 the good-natured comfortable way in which 
 so many portly old ladies speak. 
 
 " Haven't you ever seen your papa, my 
 dear?" inquired old Mr. Foster, who did 
 not know, or did not remember what he 
 had been told about Luli's family history. 
 
 " No ; she was not a year and a half old 
 when her mamma died and her papa went 
 away," replied Miss Christiana, who gener- 
 ally took it upon herself to answer for 
 Luli. 
 
 " Ah, poor little dear — sad ! worse than 
 an orphan!" observed Mrs. Boyd, who 
 knew the whole story, wagging her head 
 gravely. Miss Priscilla glanced uncom- 
 fortably at Luli. Miss Christiana observed 
 with severity.
 
 30 GLEXCAIEN. 
 
 "Not at all; she's much better off than 
 any poor orphan, especially now that her 
 papa's coming back." 
 
 " It's always been like having no papa," 
 said Luli, putting in a word on her own 
 account, in a pretty little voice as soft and 
 «weet as her pretty innocent eyes. 
 
 " But you shouldn't get excited about 
 it; you've made yourself look quite pale," 
 said Miss Christiana reprovingly; whereat 
 Luli, who was shy and sensitive, blushed 
 rosy-red and looked almost ready to cry, 
 and, burying herself in her picture-book, 
 muttered in an injured and reproachful 
 tone, 
 
 " I'm not excited, Aunt Chrissy." 
 
 " Bless her heart ! we don't have our 
 papas come home every day," said gentle 
 Miss Priscilla cheerfully. The poor lady's
 
 GLENCMRN. 31 
 
 clieerfulness that evening was a really 
 heroic effort, for she was miserable at the 
 thought of parting from her pet lamb, 
 especially of entrusting her to the tender 
 mercies of one whom she deemed, not 
 unreasonably, to be well proven of the 
 lupine tribe, and possibly lacking even in 
 the proverbial covering of fleece. 
 
 A cab was heard to stop at the door, and 
 a bell rang. Luli started up from her chair 
 and stood listening. Then there was the 
 sound of the hall-door opening and foot- 
 steps in the hall ; and Luli sprang towards 
 the door, but before she reached it she 
 stopped, shy, nervous, and all trembling 
 with excitement, and looked appealingly 
 towards her aunts. 
 
 " I suppose it is your papa at last," said 
 Miss Christiana, rising up with some
 
 32 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 stateliness and shaking ont her skirts 
 leisurely. 
 
 "Eun and meet papa, Luli! you're very 
 glad, you know," said Miss Priscilla flur- 
 riedly, thus sending the child on before as 
 a sort of avant-courrier to break the ice. 
 
 Glencairn, standing in the hall in his 
 dark slouched hat and grey overcoat, 
 looking in his travelling attire a much 
 bigger man than he really was, and the 
 cabman, putting a large portmanteau down 
 with a thump on the floor, saw a fairy-like 
 childish figure all in white flutter down the 
 stairs lightly as a bird ; and Luli and her 
 father were face to face for the first time 
 in Lull's recollection. 
 
 The meeting was — like most other meet- 
 ings — not quite what either party had ex- 
 pected or hoped for. Lull's anticipations
 
 GLENCAIEX. 33 
 
 had been childishly vague, but she had 
 somehow expected something more roman- 
 tic and exciting than the actual fact 
 proved ; Avhile to him, perhaps this first 
 sudden sis^ht of the child so like her 
 mother, was productive of more pain than 
 joy. He saw before him, in that first 
 moment, not so much a promise of the 
 future as a ghost of the past. 
 
 Luli was pale and nervous as she asked 
 in a small shy voice, " Are you papa ?" and 
 he replied to her in a subdued tone that 
 did not convey to her immature percep- 
 tions any vivid idea of joy or emotion. 
 
 Then he stooped and kissed her quietly, 
 and then Miss Christiana sailing downstairs, 
 pronounced in her distinct voice and with 
 a strictly correct accent of courteous wel- 
 come, 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Glencairn ?" 
 
 And Miss Priscilla following, in her 
 flurry and her anxiety to atone for any 
 formality in her sister's manner, greeted 
 him with almost unnatural amiability, 
 italicising the warmest words of her wel- 
 come. 
 
 " I hope you had a pleasant journey — 
 very glad to see you — come in." 
 
 Glencairn did not expend many words 
 in this meeting, and the sisters Potter 
 were not especially favourably impressed 
 with him. But in the parlour, whither he 
 was presently ushered, and where he 
 straightway installed himself in the most 
 comfortable arm-chair, while Miss Chris- 
 tiana recited the remarks and inquiries 
 she deemed appropriate to the occasion, 
 Miss Priscilla noticed that he was not
 
 GLENCAIEN. OO 
 
 hearing a word lier sister said, but gazing 
 
 at little Luli. 
 
 "Well grown of her age, isn't she?" 
 
 said Miss Priscilla, that being the first thing 
 that occurred to her to say, although iu 
 point of fact Luli was not much developed 
 for her years. He nodded carelessly to 
 the sisters, and looking at Luli, smiled, 
 and his face gradually softened into a sin- 
 gularly tender and yearning expression. 
 Luli, meeting that look, drew slowly closer 
 to him. He did not speak, but the child 
 came nearer and nearer, drawn by an all- 
 powerful influence. She put her little 
 hand out shyly and laid it on his, and he 
 lifted her into his arms. 
 
 " Leave us a little while, please," he 
 said, bending his face over her golden 
 curls, and not casting a glance towards 
 
 d2
 
 36 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 the sister aunts, who withdrew, Miss Chris- 
 tiana somewhat dignified and haughty 
 under the dismissal, Miss Priscilla forgiv- 
 ing the request for the naturalness of the 
 feeling that prompted it. 
 
 When they returned to the parlour — 
 and they had some difficulty in determin- 
 ing the exact period of absence which 
 should be long enough for delicacy and 
 discretion, and brief enough to accord with 
 the duties of hospitality — they found Luli 
 still seated on her father's knee, with her 
 face buried in the collar of his coat. And 
 when Luli was addressed, she only lifted 
 up tear-stained eyes, red cheeks, and 
 tumbled curls for a minute, while she 
 asserted resolutely, " I won't leave papa !" 
 and then nestled her head down again, and 
 clasped her small arms closely round his
 
 GLEXCAIEX. 37 
 
 neck, as if apprehensive of being carried 
 away from him by main force. 
 
 " But, my dear, your papa requires some 
 refreshment after his long journey. I 
 have ordered a tray to be brought up." 
 
 " Bring it here, and Luli shall have some 
 supper with me," said Glencairn, who, as 
 Miss Christiana noticed from the first, 
 never appeared to think it possible that a 
 request of his should be other than 
 promptly complied with. " We'll break 
 bread together, little one," he added, and 
 the bearded lips were for a moment buried 
 in the child's soft fair curls. 
 
 So a tray of supper was brought, and 
 Glencairn made a rather hasty meal, after 
 travellers' wont, as if he had been standing 
 at a buffet ; and talked meanwhile about 
 his travels, and related an anecdote or
 
 38 GLENCATKN. 
 
 two. Luli, curled up on the elbow of his 
 chair like a soft white kitten, listened 
 adoringly ; Miss Christiana began to un- 
 bend a little, and Miss Priscilla to relent 
 into regarding her nephew-in-law as a 
 thoroughly improved and reformed cha- 
 racter. For Glencairn's manner was most 
 pleasant and charming when he chose it 
 should be so. No one could make himself 
 more agreeable than he when he had a 
 mind thereto. 
 
 His coldness melted into gentleness ; 
 his brusquerie softened into a frank bright 
 animation. The reticent, quiet manner 
 that had repelled them at first had vanish- 
 ed like a veil blown away; but, as they 
 were not many days in learning, it was a 
 veil that now and again would suddenly 
 fall over him, and wrap him in an ab-
 
 GLENCAIEN. 39 
 
 stracted and abruptly-expressed reserve. 
 
 After supper, the careful aunts wanted 
 to take Lull away to bed, but Lull objected 
 strongly, and her father sided with her. 
 
 " Let her stay with me awhile — it is our 
 first evening," he said, pleasantly and 
 lightly, but still as if his light requests 
 were law. 
 
 So they left her with him, and went up 
 to join their select circle of guests in the 
 drawing-room, and indulge in a good gossip 
 about Glencairn and his affairs, past, 
 present, and future, with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Foster, who were mildly interested, who 
 had heard the story before and forgotten 
 it, and Mrs. Boyd, whose memory on the 
 subject of others' sins was perfectly clear, 
 who knew all about it and was mournfully 
 inquisitive, insisted on speaking of Glen-
 
 40 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 cairn in a tone of the pious melanclioly 
 suitable to unfallen virtue when it speaks 
 of "wanderers and prodigals, and regarded 
 the occasion as a suitable one for a homily 
 on reclaiming the lost sheep. 
 
 Presently Miss Christiana remarked 
 decisively, " It is full time the child was in 
 bed." All the old people, agreeing, arose to 
 light their candles; and while old Mr. Foster 
 was tottering leisurely upstairs to his 
 room, and old Mrs. Boyd pouring a con- 
 fidential question into Miss Christiana's 
 ear, Miss Priscilla descended to the parlour 
 to summon Luli. 
 
 Glencairn was still sitting in the arm- 
 chair; Luli was fast asleep in his arms, 
 her rufiled curls hanging over his shoulder, 
 her face half hidden, and only a glimpse of 
 her pretty parted lips and fair, flushed 
 cheek to be seen.
 
 GLENCAIRX. 41 
 
 Miss Priscilla advanced very quietly. 
 Glen cairn looked up at lier from the golden 
 bead that lay on his breast, and smiled 
 with a half sad, brooding tenderness that 
 melted Miss Priscilla's heart, and inclined 
 her to kill the fatted calf. They were 
 quite silent for a few moments, both 
 intent upon the tired child sleeping in the 
 pure and perfect peacefulness that only 
 childhood knows, both anxious not to 
 wake her, both probably stirred at heart 
 by some thoughts springing from the same 
 source. Then he said, in a low voice, 
 
 " You have not brought her up to hate 
 me, then ?" 
 
 "We knew our duty better. You are 
 her father," said the aunt, and her look 
 was kinder than her words. 
 
 " She is like " he began softly, and 
 
 left the sentence unfinished.
 
 42 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 " She is her living image," said Miss 
 Priscilla. 
 
 " Too like !" he murmured, and his brow 
 clouded with a deep sadness. Miss Priscilla 
 stepped nearer, and the look of womanly 
 sympathy on her kind old faded face, drew 
 him on to utter his thought to her. 
 
 " Too tender a flower !"he said. " But 
 trust her in my care. As I deal with her, 
 may God so deal with me !"
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, 
 Speak of me as I am ; nothing extenuate, 
 Nor set down aught in malice. 
 
 One whose hand, 
 Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away 
 Richer than all his tribe !" 
 
 Othello. 
 
 " T REALLY think lie is very mucli 
 *- improved. People do reform, you 
 
 know," said Miss Priscilla Potter, in a mild, 
 
 suggestive voice. " I think he'll be a good 
 
 father to Luli." 
 
 " Maybe. Bad husbands do make good 
 
 fathers sometimes," responded her sister.
 
 44 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 '' He certainly has a heart," Miss Pris- 
 cilla continued, in a puzzled, reflective 
 way. "I can't make out how ever he 
 
 could " The sentence, left unfinished 
 
 as it was, might have been perplexing to a 
 stranger, but Miss Christiana understood 
 the allusion, and replied promptly, 
 
 " Men are bad. Prissy. That's the only 
 way of accounting for it." 
 
 " I trust and hope that he is treading a 
 better path now," said the gentler sister. 
 
 "I don't suppose he can be always run- 
 ning away with actresses, certainly. I 
 think it's very probable he won't do it 
 again. Once turned out to be enough," 
 replied the other, with biting emphasis. 
 
 Miss Priscilla sighed, shook her head, 
 and then observed, " He seems very fond 
 of Luli."
 
 GLENCAIRX. 4o 
 
 " He was very fond of Laura, if I recol- 
 lect right," answered Miss Cliristiana, " iu 
 their honeymoon ! — yes, and for a long 
 time after it. Mind, I think you are quite 
 right so far, Prissy — that he is inclined to 
 be fond of Luli, and kind to her. I do 
 him the justice to think he sincerely re- 
 pented, and that he recognises the doubly 
 sacred dut}^ which binds him to Laura's 
 chHd." 
 
 " There shall be more joy in heaven 
 over one sinner that repenteth," murmured 
 Miss Priscilla, whose heart had quite 
 melted towards Glencairn since she had 
 heard that promise of his so solemnly 
 spoken over the sleeping child. 
 
 " The heart is deceitful and desperately 
 wicked," responded Miss Christiana. " You 
 must remember. Prissy, how much it took
 
 46 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 to turn his heart. Althougli he may have 
 reformed now, I am convinced in my own 
 mind that he never would have repented if 
 it had not been for the shock which Laura's 
 death gave him," she said, with positive 
 emphasis, adding oratorically, as if giving 
 out a hymn, "Out of evil cometh good. 
 And if our poor Laura's death brought a 
 sinner to repentance, she did not die in 
 vain." 
 
 Miss Christiana, clearer-sighted and just- 
 er, if less merciful than her sister, was pro- 
 bably right in doubting whether Glencairn 
 would ever have "repented" had it not 
 been for the shock and the sorrow caused 
 him by his wife's death. She might have 
 gone further, and doubted whether " re- 
 pentance," properly so called, could ever 
 have any place in Glencairn's nature at all.
 
 GLENC.VIKN. 47 
 
 He had known the suffering of bitter re- 
 morse ; but it is questionable whether the 
 feeling which alone the sisters would have 
 regarded as true "repentance" had ever 
 filled his heart. He had been agonized, 
 defiant, embittered, miserable, but never 
 humbled. He had rebelled against Fate, 
 cursed Fate, cm'sed himself — but never 
 knelt for prayer or pardon. A fatalist and 
 a heathen by nature, a fine pagan spoilt by 
 being born in a Christian age, for all his 
 sins he blamed his destiny, and on that 
 destiny sullenly resented the suffering he 
 bore in the external patience of a Stoic. 
 
 This child of the shipwreck, who knew 
 no other parent, had led a strange and 
 chequered life, which was probably rather 
 the effect than the cause of his peculiar 
 and wayward disposition. He had been at
 
 48 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 first taken charge of by the wife of one of 
 the sailors who had escaped the wreck, an 
 American, whose house was in a little 
 villao^e on the North Atlantic coast. She 
 died, and the sailor brought him to Eng- 
 land, where friends of the captain of the 
 lost vessel, taking an interest in the forlorn 
 child, put him, as soon as he was old 
 enough, to a good school. Glencairn 
 stayed there awhile, but was not popular 
 with his companions ; he was unruly, sul- 
 len, and wilful, and one day, in a fit of 
 passion, he drew a clasp-knife upon a 
 schoolfellow, followed up his misdeeds by 
 threatening to stab the schoolmaster him- 
 self, and, obstinately refusing to apologise, 
 was naturally, for the sake of law and 
 order, expelled. 
 
 He then ran away to sea, and worked
 
 GLENCAIKX. 49 
 
 bis way to Madeira aud tlie Cape of Good 
 Hope. There he went up the country 
 into the interior, led a rough and roving 
 life for a time, and then fortune suddenly 
 turned and smiled upon him. He made 
 money by a stroke of luck in the diamond 
 diggings; that money doubled, trebled 
 itself, and he resolved to return to Eng- 
 land. 
 
 On the voyage he fell in love at first 
 sight with Laura Graham, an orphan girl 
 in mourning, who had come out with her 
 parents, and ha^dng lost both father and 
 mother, was on her way back to England, 
 to find a home with her nearest relatives, 
 her mother's sisters, the Misses Potter be- 
 fore alluded to. She arrived in England 
 duly, went to her aunts' house as Glen- 
 
 VOL. r. E
 
 50 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 cairn's betrothed, and left there in a month 
 as his wife. 
 
 Laura was one of those women to whom 
 to " love wisely " is impossible. Where 
 they love, they '' love too well." She did 
 not love Glencairn at all too well for his 
 comfort, but, as things unfortunately 
 turned out, a great deal too well for her 
 own peace. 
 
 It is not too much to say of Laura 
 Glencairn that she was a perfect woman 
 and a perfect wife. Glencairn had many 
 rough, unpolished ways, was strange and 
 fitful in his moods, and had a strong ele- 
 ment of " the untutored savage " in his 
 nature, which his wandering life had not 
 tended to ameliorate. But he loved Laura, 
 had loved her from the hour when he saw 
 her first in her pure, modest maiden beauty,
 
 GLENCAIRN. 51 
 
 sad aud pale in licr mourning, with the 
 rough sea winds tangling her golden hair. 
 She came upon liiin like a vision ; she 
 seemed to him a creature of another world. 
 He loved her with the romantic passion of 
 a first love ; and she in her turn simply 
 adored him. Her patience and forbearance 
 with him were limitless ; she merged her 
 own wishes, annihilated her own nature in 
 his. Love taught this inexperienced, gen- 
 tle girl all its marvellous keenness of per- 
 ception, its wondrous intuitions. Glencairn 
 had taken her, a sorrowful, lonely, penni- 
 less orphan, and had given her love and 
 happiness, a beautiful home, and what to 
 her seemed inexhaustible wealth. The 
 advantage practically seemed all on her 
 side ; but she gave hini the love that is more 
 precious than fine gold, that a woman can 
 
 E 2
 
 62 GLENCAIEX. 
 
 give but once, and tliat a man is blest if 
 he once receives. 
 
 There came an evil hour, which threw 
 Glencairn across the path of the woman 
 who marred his life. He was a creature 
 of passion and impulse, unschooled, un- 
 disciplined, principle and duty only known 
 to him by name, shrewd in some kinds of 
 business, understanding something of men, 
 but absolutely nothing of women, fresh 
 from a rough, roving life, and half a savage 
 still in the simplicity with which he fol- 
 lowed 
 
 " The good old rule, the simple plan, 
 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can.'' 
 
 Untutored as a wild nature of the prairie 
 and the plain, in his knowledge of the 
 world and of woman, he fell an easy victim
 
 GLEXCAIRN. 53 
 
 to tlie snare. As suddenly and absolutely 
 as lie had yielded to the romance of a first 
 pure love for a pure and noble woman, he 
 fell under the spell of a fatal passion for 
 one of the Dalilahs of modern days. Her 
 victory was complete, and she knew it ; and 
 he was rich at that time. It followed that 
 he left Laura and her child, and went oif 
 with his new love to Italy. 
 
 In some explanation of a wrong that was 
 too cruel to be palliated, let it be remem- 
 bered that he comprehended no more of a 
 true woman's nature than of an extinct 
 lano^uafre, and he had no idea that his 
 leaving Laura would break her heart. He 
 had taken care to arrange that she should 
 have plenty of money in her possession, 
 and the power of drawing on his bankers 
 for more. She had her child. She was
 
 54 GLENCAI.RN. 1 
 
 near lier motlier's sisters, who could advise ] 
 and care for her. Leaving her under such ; 
 circumstances did not seem to him to be 
 desertion. He did not realize with what 
 force the blow he was inflicting would fall. 
 But Laura sank mortally stricken be- 
 neath the shock. No spirit of wrath, of 
 indignation, of outraged love and wounded 
 pride, arose to sting her into resistance of 
 the sorrow that killed her. Her weak and 
 delicate physical frame broke down under 
 the strength of her anguish. She was 
 never heard to utter a word of blame or 
 anger against him, but shrank away from 
 the subject of his sin as from the touch of ; 
 a burning iron. She only knew that from \ 
 the paradise of his love she awoke to find ; 
 herself deserted and alone, and from that i 
 hour she failed and faded away.
 
 GLENCAIEX. 55 
 
 'When it was evidout that she was 
 dying, they made searching inquiries for 
 Glencairn, advertised, wrote or telegraphed 
 to every authority likely to be of assistance 
 in finding him. The news of Laura's dan- 
 ger reached him at last, but not before he 
 had discovered the utter worthlessness of 
 the woman for whom he had deserted her. 
 He had been a dupe ; he knew himself 
 now to have been befooled and deceived, 
 and knew that his true wife lay near to 
 death. As fast as the power of steam 
 could carry him, he hastened to Laura's 
 side. He was too late for his presence to 
 revive her broken strength, too late to call 
 her back to life and love, but not too late 
 to listen to her last faintly-whispered 
 words, to see a smile of more than earthly 
 peace and joy on her face before she died.
 
 56 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 The wages of sin were paid iiim. 
 
 Her funeral was barely over wlien he 
 fled away to the other side of the world. 
 In gloom and bitterness of spirit he made 
 haste to put the ocean between him and 
 England, leaving his little Luli in the care 
 of his lost wife's relatives. 
 
 'Now, returned after his ten years of 
 wanderings (which had not proved unpro- 
 fitable), he resolved never to be parted 
 ao^ain from the child who was the livino- 
 miniature of the wife he had mourned, and 
 to render the life of this child of his and 
 Laura's as happy as mortal power could 
 make it. 
 
 Glencairn had made innumerable ac- 
 quaintances in the course of his world-wide 
 wanderings, but he had not many friends, 
 especially in England. He had almost lost
 
 OLEXCATRN. 57 
 
 si<:^lit of the few of his school-fellows whom 
 he had liked ; with the majority he had 
 not been on good terms ; and he had quite 
 lost sight of that family of the lost Captain 
 Burnett who had partly educated him. All 
 these early associations had drifted away, 
 and the places where they had lived knew 
 them no more. For Luli's sake and her 
 future interests, as much as for his own, he 
 now looked up all the friends he could 
 muster ; and, not being afflicted with many 
 scruples as to the strict etiquette of accept- 
 ing casual invitations, he one day took Lull 
 out dressed iu her best, and went to call on 
 liis fellow-travellers from Paris, ]\Ir. and 
 Mrs. Craven. 
 
 They received him cordiall}', glad that 
 the acquaintance should bo renewed. 
 They had rather taken a fancy to Glencairn
 
 58 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 from the first, and tliey were delighted 
 with pretty, well-mannered, soft-voiced 
 Luli, who they decided at once would 
 make a sweet companion for Katie. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven were a couple 
 overflowing with good-nature and sympa- 
 thy and interest in their neighbours' affairs, 
 surrounded by a somewhat common-place 
 circle of friends, and delighting in any- 
 thing new and out of the way. Glen- 
 cairn was just what pleased them ; and the 
 fact that he was evidently "a man with 
 a story " — indeed, probably a man with 
 more than one story — was a cause of 
 much pleasant interest to Mrs. Craven, 
 who was fond of novels and of poetry of 
 an elementary kind. He afforded them a 
 delightful subject of speculation and con- 
 jecture ; and he could, when he was in the
 
 GLENCAIKN. 69' 
 
 mood, entertain them with " travellers' 
 tales " of thrilling interest. They liked 
 him, and he knew he was liked. Thus it 
 happened that the casual meeting sowed 
 the seed of an enduring intimacy, which 
 one day bore its fruit. 
 
 It seemed to Glencairn that, during his 
 absence, all his old friends had been scat- 
 tered to the four winds of heaven. He 
 inquired after one and another, and all 
 were " dead," or " abroad," or " married," 
 or "lost sight of." In the course of one of 
 the earliest of these conversations after his 
 return. Miss Christiana Potter observed, 
 
 *' "We must show Mr. Glencairn," (she 
 never dropped the 3fr.) " that pretty 
 sketch Duke Mayburne made of Luli and 
 the kitten. We are going to have it 
 framed some day."
 
 60 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 "Duke Mayburne? What, Tom May- 
 burn e's boy ?" said Glencairn. 
 
 " Yes. Mr. Mayburne's dead, you 
 know ; and Mrs. Mayburne and Duke 
 have gone to live with his brother — he's a 
 Manchester cotton-merchant ; he wants to 
 bring Duke up to the business, and by way 
 of attaining that end he has sent the boy 
 up to his partner's office in London, where 
 of course he has got his head stuffed full 
 of artr 
 
 " I shouldn't have thouQ-ht a London 
 ■cotton-merchant's office was the place for 
 Art," interposed Glencairn. 
 
 " But London is the place," responded 
 Miss Potter, who did not like to be dis- 
 agreed with. "Galleries and museums, 
 and statues ; and clubs and latchkeys and 
 what he calls artistic society, for a boy who
 
 GLEXCAIIIX. Gl 
 
 ought to be iu the schoolroom ! — not but 
 what he is a nice young fellow." 
 
 "And he's been jDainting Lull's por- 
 trait, has lie ? "Where is it ?" 
 
 " Prissy, call Lull to bring it. It's a 
 life-size picture," said Miss Christiana, 
 " and very pretty we think it is." 
 
 Miss Priscilla went out of the room on 
 tlie errand requested. Presently Lull's 
 flying feet were heard upon the stairs, and 
 she burst into the room with a large 
 water-colour sketch in her arms, which 
 work of art she proceeded to hold up ad- 
 miringly as near her father's eyes as she 
 could reach. 
 
 " See ! isn't it nice ? isn't the kitten 
 lovely ? It's grown bigger now — the 
 kitten has — but that's exactly what it used 
 to be a month or two asfo. I had tied a
 
 -62 GLEN CAIRN. 
 
 red ribbon round its neck, but Duke 
 would paint the ribbon blue." 
 
 Luli allowed her father a moment's 
 silence to admire the sketch, and then pur- 
 sued, pulling him down into a chair and 
 climbing on his knee, 
 
 "And Duke has drawn me a whole sheet 
 of comic characters for my scrap-book. 
 And, papa," more confidentially, and 
 glancing round to see that Aunt Chrissy 
 and Aunt Prissy were safe in the ad- 
 joining room, " he has made a picture of 
 old Mr. and Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Boyd in 
 his book, and wrote a verse underneath it ; 
 but he wouldn't give it to me. Duke is so 
 clever — he is nearly eighteen, you know, 
 and, as he says, that's old enough to 
 know his own mind ; and he wants to be 
 an artist. Don't you think, papa, people
 
 CLENCAIRN. 63 
 
 ought to be what they like, and what they 
 can do best ?" 
 
 "Where there's a will, there's a way. 
 AVhat people imnt to be, they luill be," pro- 
 nounced Glencairn. 
 
 " Duke will be a great artist then," said 
 Luli with evident satisfaction and perfect 
 confidence. 
 
 " And what do you want to be, Luli ?" 
 asked her father. 
 
 "Why, — well, but a woman can't be 
 anything, can she?" doubtfully inquired 
 Luli, who was not an infant genius, and 
 who had no idea whatever that the day of 
 Woman's Rights was dawning. " I think," 
 she added gravely, after a few moments' 
 puzzled reflection, having run through the 
 limited choice of feminine careers in her 
 small mind, " that I should like best to 
 be a columbine."
 
 64 GLEXCAIRX, 
 
 " A what ?" inquired her father, who, not 
 being an habitue of Christmas pantomimes, 
 was not quick at catching the idea. 
 
 " A columbine, you know — to fly on in 
 the transformation-scene, and having no- 
 thing to do but wear lovely fairy-dresses 
 and dance. Don't you think a columbine 
 must be one of the happiest creatures in 
 the world ?" 
 
 Glencairn laughed ; but he made no re- 
 mark, told her nothing calculated to dis- 
 perse the illusion. She would grow out of 
 all her illusions fast enough, he considered ; 
 let her remain a child in childish dreams 
 and ignorance as long as it was possible. 
 He would fain have kept this bud always 
 folded, with . the fresh dew of ignorant 
 innocence ever upon it. The dew would 
 exhale away, and the folded petals open to
 
 GLENCiURN. 65 
 
 the fierce sun and the rough winds soon 
 enough. Looking in her childish eyes and 
 remembering his own stormy youth, his 
 heart filled with an unuttered prayer that 
 those opening petals might unfold slowly, 
 that the sun of passion might rise late for 
 her, shine on her only faintly from afar, 
 and the rough winds of the world deal 
 softly with the blossom he deemed so 
 delicate and frail. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 66 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " In men whom men condemn as ill, 
 I find so much of goodness still ; 
 In men whom men pronounce divine, 
 I find so much of sin and blot, 
 I hesitate to draw a line 
 Between the two, where God has not." 
 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 
 /^NE day, wlien Glencairn was lounging 
 in the parlour, wMcli was generally 
 held sacred to him (for he did not greatly 
 affect the company of the " assembly of 
 ancients," in which terms he habitually 
 spoke of the drawing-room where the resi- 
 dent guests did congregate), the door was 
 pushed open, and the talented portrayer
 
 GLENCAIRX. 67 
 
 of the tabby kitten, Duke Maj^burne, who 
 had brought a present for Luli, in the 
 shape of a juvenile member of the canine 
 species, walked in sans ceremonie. 
 
 Glencairn had not seen Duke Mayburne, 
 or, at least, had only seen him as a child 
 many years before ; but he would have 
 recognised him at once by the descriptions 
 he had heard, even if the white terrier 
 tucked away under the young fellow's arm 
 had not identified him, for Luli had con- 
 fided with hiojh deliofht to her father that 
 she was to have this canine present. 
 
 Glencairn had an eye for beauty of all 
 kinds, male and female, life and still life, 
 and he looked at the visitor approvingly, 
 as he greeted him by name, and bade him 
 come in. Duke Mayburne was indeed an 
 almost perfect type of masculine beauty 
 
 f2
 
 68 GLENOAIRN. 
 
 and youth. He was quite a boy, and boy- 
 ish-looking still — tall and slight, with a 
 figure that would probably develop and 
 improve, and a face in which no improve- 
 ment seemed possible, so singularly hand- 
 some and attractive it was. He had hair 
 of a warm dark chestnut, curling in rich 
 and vigorous rings ; eyes large and bright 
 and grey ; a complexion neither fair nor 
 brown, but of a clear healthy olive pale- 
 ness; and features that were, from the 
 broad brow of square outline to the mas- 
 sively moulded jaw and chin, thoroughly 
 masculine in their strength and firmness, 
 but with a delicate clearness of outline 
 that endowed them with an absolute beauty 
 rare in manhood, and in middle-aged man- 
 hood so rare that one might doubt whether 
 Duke Mayburne's handsome face would 
 " wear well."
 
 GLENCAIKN. 69 
 
 As he stood tliere, with a frabk, boyish, 
 half-embarrassed smile, responding to 
 Glencairn's greeting, with his cap in one 
 hand, and the white, pink-eyed, jet-nosed 
 terrier tucked away snugly under his other 
 arm, Glencairn regarded him with a steady, 
 half-surjDrised, approving look ; but no 
 vision beyond the passing hour crossed his 
 mind, and no shadow fell between those 
 two as first they stood face to face. 
 
 " Tenfold handsomer than his father 
 ever was," thought Glencairn. 
 
 " I've brought Luli a pup, sir," said 
 Duke, somewhat awkwardly, thinking to 
 himself — "What is there so odd about Luli's 
 father's eyes ?" 
 
 "When he came to take a nearer view, he 
 noticed at once the peculiarity of Glen- 
 cairn's eyes — a peculiarity which its object
 
 70 GLENOAIEN. 
 
 never attempted to conceal by side -looks 
 or downcast glances, yet which often, as 
 on this occasion, produced on strangers an 
 impression rather curious than unfavour- 
 able; 
 
 Before they had time to exchange more 
 than a few words about the pup, whom 
 Duke deposited on the hearthrug and 
 commanded to " beg," which the pup was 
 too shy and startled to do, Luli appeared 
 upon the scene with a small scream of 
 delight, flew at Duke, shook hands with him 
 in a violent hurry with her eyes fixed on the 
 white dog, and forthwith fell on her knees 
 beside the animal, seized it by both fore- 
 paws, called it fifty pet-names in a breath, 
 and then found leisure to look up at the 
 donor of this precious gift, and say with 
 a delighted smile,
 
 GLENCAIRN. 71 
 
 " Oh, thank you — thank you ! you are 
 good, and I do like you; and I will love 
 my darling doggie so." Which assurance 
 was unluckily lost on the dog, who was 
 looking alarmed at these violent demon- 
 strations, and seeming not to have a single 
 wag in his drooping tail. 
 
 Duke Mayburne was not a mere barber's 
 block — handsome, and nothing else but 
 handsome ; yet it must be admitted that he 
 had not very much to say for himself that 
 day. He was slightly shy of older men unless 
 they were artists, in which case admiration 
 and interest outweighed shyness; and as 
 Luli only carried on a one-sided conversa- 
 tion with the dog, and Glencairn looked on 
 silently with his odd attentive piercing 
 eyes (which Duke somehow felt following 
 him even when he did not meet them), the
 
 72 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 young man was not quite capable of start- 
 ing a conversation on his own account. 
 
 However, presently Glencairn warmed 
 up, and began to ask questions and make 
 himself agreeable; then Duke responded 
 freely ; and Luli, sinking into silence, sat 
 hugging the pup, who, being by this time 
 convinced that no harm was intended him, 
 licked her hand gratefully, while her father 
 inquired after various members of the 
 Mayburne family, manifested a "friend of 
 the family " sort of interest in Duke's 
 career, related an anecdote or two of the 
 other side of the world, and drew out of 
 Duke, who speedily got at home with him, 
 the confession of his hopes and ambitions 
 for the future, which sprang from the 
 main fact that at present he hated business 
 and loved art.
 
 GLENCAIRX. 73- 
 
 Glencairu was not a business man, 
 thougli he had entered into many a specula- 
 tion, and made many a lucky investment 
 in his day. And he hated control and 
 restraints of all kinds, and never in his life, 
 "which had been so full of ups and downs, 
 had served regular hours in any sedentar}" 
 regular employment under orders for one 
 day longer than was absolutely necessary 
 to get him his bread. Necessary for very 
 daily bread it had sometimes been to him ; 
 and then he had bent silently to the yoke, 
 but had cast it off the moment he felt 
 himself able to do so. Thus, although he 
 said few or no words of sympathy or en- 
 couragement to Duke Mayburne's wayward 
 fancy, his influence was a sympathetic one, 
 and his look rested kindly on the boy's 
 face.
 
 74 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 "Not a bit like his father," he said when 
 Duke was gone. " And it is a fine face ! 
 If I am any judge of physiognomy, that 
 boy will have his will and make his way." 
 
 Luli was delighted with her dog, which 
 was called Jack. She demurred to this 
 unromantic cognomen a little at first, and 
 would have preferred " Conrad ;" but as 
 Duke had presented it to her under the 
 briefer and less euphonious name, and as 
 it answered to " Jack," and was not at all 
 responsive to Conrad, " Jack " the terrier 
 remained to the end of the chapter. 
 
 Apropos of this precious white pup, a 
 little incident occurred one day, which, as 
 straws show which way the current sets, 
 impressed the Misses Potter with varied 
 ideas on the subject of trusting Luli to the 
 tender mercies of their nephew-in-law.
 
 GLEXCMRN. 75 
 
 The two elderly aunts, and Glencairn, 
 and Lull and the dog, were enjoying the 
 healthful and harmless recreation of a morn- 
 ing walk in the park. Jack, much rejoicing 
 in the open air and the soft, fresh, elastic 
 turf, was careering in cii'cles about, looking 
 not unlike a large white rabbit frisking on 
 the green grass. Luli was watching her 
 pet's evolutions with great interest and 
 admiration, when a sandy dog of Bohemian 
 aspect, somewhat larger than carefully- 
 combed and cleaned, snowy-white Jack, 
 advanced to the assault, laid disrespectful 
 dirty paws on Jack's sleek and spotless 
 white shoulder, and attempted to seize him 
 by the ear. 
 
 Luli flew to the rescue, and tried to 
 catch her favourite up in her arms. The 
 other dog, not approving of this interfer- 
 ence, snapped at her hand.
 
 *7Q GLENOAIRN. 
 
 " Did lie bite you ?" asked Glencairn. 
 
 " Only a scratch," she said, startled, and 
 looking half inclined to cry. 
 
 "Which was it bit vou?" 
 
 " That nasty yellow dog," replied Luli. 
 
 Glencairn pushed the white dog to one 
 side, and kicked the unfortunate yellow 
 dog with a force that flung it several yards 
 away, where it fell helpless, with a howl of 
 pain, and lay yelping loudly. 
 
 The Misses Potter uttered little screams. 
 Glencairn turned and walked straight on 
 his way. Luli, very pale, her little lips 
 quite white, frightened into absolute pas- 
 siveness, followed her father tremblingly 
 for a step or two ; then the piteous cries 
 of the dog became more than she could 
 bear ; she stood still, burst into bitter tears, 
 and sobbed out,
 
 GLENCAIRX. 77 
 
 " Ob, tlie poor dog !" 
 
 " Why, it bit you," said Glencairn, practi- 
 cally. 
 
 " But it's burt ! — ob ! it's burt, poor 
 tbing ! — bark ! bear it !" And Luli stopped 
 up ber ears witb two fingers and sobbed 
 more loudly. 
 
 " Come along ; don't cry," said Glencairn, 
 taking ber band. He spoke not at all 
 barsbly, indeed quite gently ; but tbe cbild 
 felt be was not to be disobeyed, and let 
 bim lead ber along, away from tbe victim, 
 wbose piteous bowls fell fainter and fainter 
 on tbeir ears. Her Aunt Priscilla, partly 
 afraid of offending Glencairn, and partly 
 afraid of being bitten by tbe suffering dog, 
 did not go near it, altbougb ber beart was 
 melted, and sbe was sbedding a tear meekly 
 bebiud ber veil. Miss Cbristiana, less ten-
 
 78 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 der-lieartedj did not particularly yearn to 
 nurse the animal ; but she looked indig- 
 nantly at Glencairn, and muttered "Brute!" i 
 but she stood sufficiently in awe of him to 
 mutter it under her breath. 
 
 Luli reluctantly allowed herself to be led 
 to the gate of the park ; but there she 
 stopped, and pleaded earnestly and tear- 
 fully, 
 
 " Do, do, papa dear, let me go back and 
 see if the poor dog is better. Papa, darling, 
 please r 
 
 Glencairn hesitated a moment, looking 
 half impatient, and then relented. 
 
 " Well, well, go home with your aunts, 
 and ill go back and see how it is. I dare 
 say it's well by this time. If not, I'll give 
 some boy sixpence to look after it. There, 
 cheer up, little one ! it shall be all right."
 
 GLEXCATRN. 7^ 
 
 Gleucairu turned back and walked away 
 with quick strides. 
 
 When he returned home, and Luli ran 
 to him, asking eagerly, " How is the dog?"" 
 he replied, 
 
 *'It's better; it wasn't much hurt; it's- 
 not crying a bit now. I sent a boy to look 
 after it." 
 
 But Priscilla thought that the dog must 
 have been too much hurt to be so rapidly 
 cured ; and when she could find an oppor- 
 tunity of speaking alone to Glencairn, she 
 inquired of him, in a low voice — 
 
 " How did you manage about the dog ?" 
 
 " Why, I killed it," he answered ; '' that 
 was the best thing. Ribs were broken too 
 badly to recover. Here !" he added, sud- 
 denly, looking sharply at her, " don't say a 
 word to Luli ! The child's too sensitive- 
 Not a word to her, mind."
 
 80 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 Miss Priscilla implicitly obeyed him, 
 •chiefly because she dared not for her life 
 have done otherwise. But she mourned to 
 Miss Christiana — " Luli is so truthful and 
 open, and so tender-hearted ! And he is 
 so different from his child !" 
 
 It seemed to poor Priscilla strange and 
 almost impossible that the Glencairn of 
 that morning was the very same and no 
 other than the Glencairn who amused Kate 
 Craven and Luli by tale-telling that very 
 day after tea, and round whom the children 
 clung so trustingly and affectionately. 
 Katie Craven had come to tea with Luli, 
 and after that meal (partaken of in the 
 drawing-room in company with the an- 
 cients), whereat the two little girls had 
 been almost preternaturally well-behaved, 
 and had done credit to their schooling in
 
 GLEXCAIRX. 81 
 
 the " General Deportmeut " branch, they 
 raced down to the parlour for their 
 " treat," — the evening's treat — au hour 
 with Glencairn. 
 
 They drew two low footstools to the win- 
 dow, beside which his armchair was situ- 
 ated, and sat at his feet, while he told them 
 a wonderful story about the emerald eye 
 of an Indian idol. Old Mr. Foster was a 
 kind old gentleman, who gave the little 
 girls chocolate-drops, and asked them how 
 old they were, and what prizes they got at 
 school ; but Luli and her little visitors did 
 not look forward to half an hour with Mr. 
 Foster as a treat, and were never seen sit- 
 ting at his feet, adoringly listening to his 
 stories, as they were seen with Glencairn. 
 
 Miss Priscilla did not understand Glencairn 
 at all ; she could not help feeling a sort of 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 doubtful, half -reluctant liking for him ; and 
 this liking of her own puzzled herself. She 
 had been accustomed all her life to see the 
 sheep and the goats feeding in separate 
 pastures, with broad and high hedges 
 marking the limits of each. She believed 
 human natures to be black all through, or 
 white all through ; cruel and false all 
 through, or kind and true all through. 
 Glencairn was neither; he was kind and 
 cruel, faithless and true ; he was not a 
 sheep, and yet was not altogether a goat ; 
 and so he puzzled her. 
 
 As for Miss Christiana, she never did, 
 and never could, like Glencairn, and re- 
 joiced when he fixed a time for his depart- 
 ure, although she regretted that he would 
 take Luli with him, and she would be their 
 charge no more.
 
 GLENCAIKN. 83 
 
 " Unless lie gets tired of her !" Miss 
 Christiana added, grimly. 
 
 Glencairn, not having been in London 
 for so many years, was in no immediate 
 hurry to leave it, although he had little 
 love for great cities. During this visit — 
 which, bird of passage though he was, 
 endured some months — he saw a great deal 
 of Duke Mayburne, and conceived a rather 
 unusual preference for him, for as a rule 
 the society of young men was to him an 
 unbearable infliction. But this young 
 fellow's kindness to Luli (whose childish 
 prettiness pleased his artistic eye, and 
 whose childish aif ection for himself flattered 
 his youthful vanity) was gratifying to 
 Luli's father. A kind of intimacy, too 
 unequal and superficial to bear the title of 
 friendship, arose between the man and the 
 
 g2
 
 84 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 boy ; and it became a frequent occurrence 
 for Duke to join Gleucairn and little Luli 
 in their Sunday " outings." Glencairn 
 always took Luli out on a Sunday — some- 
 times for a long drive in tlie country, 
 sometimes on an excursion by rail, now 
 for a row on the river, and then for a 
 ramble at Hampstead, not on the Heath, 
 where the holiday-makers disported them- 
 selves, with shouts and laughter, and 
 much popping of ginger-beer and peeling 
 of oranges — but round the lanes and fields, 
 which were comparatively quiet. There, 
 under the shelter of some convenient bank 
 or tree, they would partake of a kind of 
 picnic lunch, composed of sandwiches 
 thoughtfully prepared by Miss Potter, and 
 a wine-flask provided by Glencairn, with 
 sometimes a similar contribution from
 
 GLENCAIRN. 85 
 
 Duke Maybiirne, and an extempore table- 
 cloth made out of the morning's news- 
 paper. 
 
 " On all Hampstead Heath I don't sup- 
 pose there is any more oddly assorted trio 
 than Ave are," Glencairn observed, as he 
 disinterred a cold sausage and a French 
 roll from the recesses of a brown paper 
 parcel. " Luli, why don't you run and 
 play with those little girls over there? 
 Duke, my boy, there are some kindred souls 
 for you — why don't you join them ?" indi- 
 cating a quartette of young men in their 
 Sunday array, many-coloured as Joseph's 
 coat in regard to their ties and gloves, who 
 were singing a popular air in chorus with 
 great satisfaction to themselves, and ap- 
 parently with truth, as they were asserting 
 that " Jolly dogs were they !"
 
 86 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 " Thanks, I'm quite happy as I am, if 
 you are not in a hurry to get rid of me," 
 responded Duke. "I don't particularly 
 want to be a ' jolly dog,' and I do want one 
 of those sandwiches." 
 
 " Ham sandwiches," observed Glencairn, 
 "the conventional British traveller's re- 
 freshment, selected probably because the 
 least satisfying, least refreshing, and alto- 
 gether most objectionable and inconvenient 
 meal for travelling. Now fruit — choco- 
 late Look here, did I ever tell you 
 
 howj when I was in the South Sea 
 Islands " 
 
 And Glencairn launched off into one 
 of his travellers' anecdotes. He had 
 plenty of them, though it was not often 
 that he related them ; he required to be in 
 an especially expansive mood to do so ; and
 
 GLENCAIKN. 87 
 
 it was the opinion of some who knew him 
 well that the most interesting and auto- 
 biographical anecdotes which he could have 
 told would never be related at all. 
 
 Duke liked to "set the old fellow going," 
 as he irreverently put it. Indeed the " odd- 
 ly assorted trio," the bearded, careworn 
 traveller of many lands, in the Autumn 
 prime of his rough roving life, the young 
 man in the vigorous May of his, and the 
 fragile girl-child on whom the early Spring 
 of life had scarcely dawned, got on always 
 well together, and were more and more 
 frequently in each other's company as 
 weeks went on. 
 
 They often went for a day down the 
 river together. Duke was very fond of 
 rowing ; indeed it was the only athletic 
 exercise he cared much about, or at any
 
 86 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 rate mucli indulged in. A horse was too 
 expensive a luxury for liim to gratify his 
 taste for riding often ; but a day's boating 
 was easily attainable, especially as Glen- 
 cairn also liked to take an oar, and they 
 often rowed down the river, pulling along 
 in sociable silence for half the day, while 
 Luli sat curled up in the bottom of the 
 boat playing with her doll or picture-book, 
 or with Jack, who was sometimes honoured 
 with a place amongst the party, and some- 
 times left at home howling and disappointed. 
 One day they had pulled a long way 
 down the river, past the bridges and the 
 smoke and the close-packed houses, away 
 to banks of sloping gardens and Autumn- 
 tinted trees. It had been a long, hard 
 row, and here they rested on their oars. 
 There were houses near, not the dingy
 
 GLENCAIKX. 89 
 
 ranks of tall, square brick boxes that 
 make and mar tlie streets of London, but 
 pretty villas of varied architecture, half 
 buried in trees and shrubbery, with green 
 velvet lawns slanting to the river, and 
 trimmed and pruned flowering bushes 
 following the bend of the bank. There 
 were people strolling about the gardens; 
 there was one garden that seemed to be- 
 long to an establishment something of the 
 nature of an hotel, to judge by the little 
 tables dotted about in arbours and under 
 trees. It was not a lonely spot by any 
 means ; there were several boats about, and 
 a string of big, heavy, hulking-looking 
 barges sliding by, black and ugly, like a 
 trail of blots across the bright, quiet beauty 
 of the river there. 
 
 There was a deep blue sky, flecked with
 
 90 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 soft snow-wreaths of floating cloud that 
 melted and merged into the blue as you 
 gazed upon them ; and in the west a rosier 
 light was rising, deepening as the sun 
 sank lower. 
 
 " There ' is the smoke that so gracefully 
 curled ' !" quoted Glencairn, looking at a 
 faint blue mist behind a tall laurel shrub- 
 bery. "But 'if there's peace to be found 
 in the world,' — by the heart humble or 
 otherwise, — I think you are as likely to 
 find it in a prairie camp or a city garret as 
 here !" 
 
 "Peace seems to me a very poor am- 
 bition," observed Diike, with youthful 
 rashness and energy. " How can mere 
 peace be an aim and object of anybody's 
 life ? It seems to me only needful to come 
 late in the day — a rest after all things have 
 been won."
 
 GLENCAIEN. 91 
 
 " Or lost," suggested Gleucairn. " "When 
 you have lost your stake, you'll look for 
 peace, and not find it. While you are 
 winning, it won't be for peace you'll seek." 
 
 " Papa, is a prairie prettier than this ?" 
 inquired Luli, who had been dwelling upon 
 the word she had caught a few moments 
 before, and who was seated in the stern, 
 enjoying the proud privilege of steer- 
 ins:. 
 
 " Well, I don't think it would be to your 
 taste. There's a good deal of sameness 
 about it. I say, Duke, we're not on the^ 
 right side for this steamer to pass. We'd 
 better pull across." 
 
 "We shall fall foul of those barges, 
 then, if we don't look out," observed Duke. 
 " Hadn't we better stop here?" 
 
 "There's time to fall in below th&
 
 92 GLENCATRN. 
 
 barges," said Glencairn. "Pull away 
 hard." 
 
 They did pull hard, but the steamer was 
 shooting along more rapidly, and the barges 
 were drifting out of the way slower than 
 Glencairn had calculated. Instead of get- 
 ting clear of the steamer, they were actual- 
 ly crossing its path ; but they would have 
 cleared it safely enough, if Luli, in her 
 alarm at seeing the steamer so close upon 
 them, had not let go the rope, and then 
 seized and jerked it the wrong way. The 
 boat swung round in the swell of the 
 steamer ; it seemed that the steamer barely 
 touched it ; but in a second it capsized and 
 tossed its three occupants into the water 
 close to the revolving paddle-wheels. 
 
 Glencairn seized Luli with one arm 
 almost before the water had" time to close
 
 GLENCAIEN. 93 
 
 over lier head, and with the other arm struck 
 out for the bank. The bank was not distant; 
 he was a good swimmer, and reached it 
 easily, encumbered though he was. He had 
 scrambled on to the shore and lifted Lull 
 up in his arms, shivering and drenched, 
 but quite unhurt, almost before the lookers- 
 on could rush from the gardens to his 
 assistance, before the ladies on board the 
 steamer had done screaming, and while the 
 men were yet flinging a rope over the 
 steamer's side. 
 
 Two or three sympathetic matrons and 
 maidens — one of whom had clambered 
 over an iron railing in her eagerness — im- 
 mediately made a rush for Luli ; but Glen- 
 cairn, pushing her dripping hair off her 
 face, and assuring himself anxiously that 
 she was safe and sound, wide-awake and
 
 ^4 GLENCAIKN. 
 
 conscious, and in no way the worse except 
 for fright, seemed in no hurry to give her 
 out of his arms. 
 
 Luli, rubbing the water out of her eyes, 
 very pale, but at first too terrified for tears, 
 looked round and then burst into a cry of 
 alarm, 
 
 " Duke ! Where is Duke ?" 
 
 Glencairn looked round too at the child's 
 cry. He had entirely forgotten their com- 
 panion ; or rather, knowing that the young 
 man could swim, he had not thought of 
 looking after him ; he had been only ab- 
 sorbed in the child. Now he saw in one 
 rapid glance that there was no glimpse to 
 be caught of Duke either in the water or 
 on the shore, and that there was thus a 
 very good reason for the excitement of the 
 people who were running to and fro on the
 
 GLENC^VIEN. 95 
 
 bank, and of those "who were still shouting 
 and caUing from the steamer and from the 
 boats that came crowding round. 
 
 Glencairn gave Luli into the arms of the 
 nearest woman, and echoed the question, 
 
 '« Where is he ?" 
 
 " He must have been hit by the steamer," 
 shouted one man. 
 
 " He went down like lead all in a 
 minute," called out another. 
 
 Glencairn tore off his coat and boots, 
 which in the suddenness of the overset he 
 had had no time to remove, and sprang to 
 the water's edge. He cast one glance, 
 swift and keen as an eagle's, up, down, 
 across the river ; shouted once more to the 
 men on board, " Do you see no sign of 
 him ?" and then plunged and dived down 
 near the spot where he supposed Duke 
 must have sunk.
 
 96 GLENC4IEN. 
 
 The groups on the bank, who were mo- 
 mentarity increasing in numbers, watched 
 breathlessly, and called aloud injunctions 
 to the boatmen, who shouted mutual in- 
 structions in turn. The women clustered 
 round Luli and hugged her and tried to 
 hush her frightened sobs. 
 
 All eyes were fastened on the spot 
 where Glencairn had disappeared. 
 
 Hush ! he is coming up again ! there is 
 his head by that boat ! there he is — and 
 there he is, alone! They are stretching out 
 hands to help him into the boat, but he 
 rejects the help. He has only come to the 
 surface to take breath ; he pauses only a 
 minute, and then he is down again, down 
 deep under the water out of sight. 
 
 They wait and watch ; it seems hours, 
 though it is only moments, that they wait
 
 GLEXaVIEX. 97 
 
 and watch; and the woman who holds 
 Lull is sobbing too hysterically herself to 
 soothe the child. At last — at last there is 
 a shout of " Here ! here he is !" from one 
 of the boats ; something dark comes to the 
 surface of the water; there is one mo- 
 ment's breathless watch, and then a ring- 
 ing shout of " Hurrah ! hurrah 1" goes up 
 to the sky. " He has got him ! he has got 
 him safe !" they cry, while eager hands are 
 held out to help to haul the two men into 
 the nearest boat. 
 
 One is of course perfectly insensible, and 
 hangs a limp, heavy, helpless mass over 
 their arms as they manage to drag him 
 over the side. The other seems very little 
 the worse for his diving-exploit and 
 scrambles up into the boat without much 
 difficulty. A few strokes take the boat 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 to the bank. There is a rush to assist 
 Glencairn out ; but he is in no need of 
 assistance, though still panting and breath- 
 less. He steps on shore, and stands, 
 dripping, in a pool of water, water running 
 in little rivulets from his hair and eyes 
 and nose and chin, the centre of an ad- 
 miring, eager, congratulatory group. 
 
 Luli flies to him and seizes his strong 
 wet dripping hand in both her small 
 trembling ones. His is trembling a little 
 too, as he clasps her clinging fingers close, 
 and turns to see that they are lifting Duke 
 out of the boat. 
 
 " Carry him to the house, quick," he 
 says with his usual authoritative tone. 
 
 "Oh ! is he dead ?" cries Luli sobbing 
 wildly. 
 
 "Dead? no! he's no business to be, at'
 
 GLENCAIEN. 99 
 
 least," lie answers abruptly. " I've seen 
 men come to who have been twice as long 
 immersed." He takes no notice of the 
 friendly offers and inquiries and compli- 
 ments that surround him, but suddenly 
 strides out of the circle towards the two or 
 three strono; men who are makino- some- 
 what clumsy attempts to "lift up tenderly," 
 and equally distribute between them the 
 weight of a perfectly senseless human 
 body about six feet high, and broad in pro- 
 portion. 
 
 " D n it ! do you want to destroy 
 
 what life there's left in him ?" he says 
 roughly. "Lay him flat on that rug 
 there, and carry him so." 
 
 Thus in obedience to his commands — 
 for, though many other pieces of advice 
 
 are offered, his is the instruction that is 
 
 h2
 
 TOO GLENCAIRN. 
 
 followed — the procession moves off to- 
 wards tlie house. 
 
 Glencairn asserts in answer to all in- 
 quiries that he is all right and perfectly 
 himself, but he has not gone above a few 
 steps when he staggers, and in spite of his 
 muttered exclamations, (which sound sus- 
 piciously like curses,) he has to be sup- 
 ported and have brandy poured down his 
 throat, before he can resume his independ- 
 ent step. 
 
 In the house Luli is cuddled and kissed 
 and straightway undressed and put to bed 
 by the sympathetic lady of the house, who 
 cannot think of any better way to dispose 
 of her. Glencairn, whose transitory faint- 
 ness has quickly passed away, is surround- 
 ed with attention, which he receives now 
 with a half careless but not unattractive 
 mixture of courtesy and taciturnity. 
 
 ii
 
 GLENCAIRN. 101 
 
 Concerning Duke Mayburne there were 
 many anxious questions as to whether he 
 could be recovered from that cold and 
 pulseless insensibility which looked far 
 more like death than life. Glencairn 
 maintained from the first that he would 
 revive ; but it was some time before the 
 question could be satisfactorily solved, and 
 some sign of the life that had been nearly 
 extinguished began to manifest itself. 
 
 He did not open his eyes to full con- 
 sciousness and murmur, " My preserver !" 
 Half-drowned people don't as a rule. 
 When he did revive — to find himself rolled 
 in hot blankets, rubbed, chafed, and other- 
 wise maltreated in a way that rendered the 
 return to life rather an unpleasant affair — 
 he stared vaguely round, and wondered 
 where on earth he was, and what had hap-
 
 102 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 pened. There were strangers round Mm ; 
 Glencairn was not there ; Luli was not 
 there. He had not the least idea whose 
 doing it was that he was still in the land 
 of the living, until the master of the house 
 presently enlightened him. 
 
 " My dear boy," said that gentleman, 
 with the familiarity and friendly interest 
 one naturally feels towards a fellow-crea- 
 ture one has just seen dragged back with 
 trial and trouble from the border-land be- 
 tween life aud death, *' if it had not been 
 for that noble fellow who dived down twice 
 at the risk of his own life to find you " 
 (this was the natural exaggeration of the 
 prevalent tendency to hero-worship, for 
 Glencairn was too good a swimmer to have 
 been in danger) — " if it had not been for 
 his heroic efforts, you would never have 
 been with us now."
 
 GLENCAIEX. 103 
 
 ""Who was it?" asked Duke, collecting 
 his confused senses, and looking round the 
 room. 
 
 " Your friend who was with you ; the 
 father of the little girl." 
 
 " Is she all right?" he inquired eagerly, 
 as the full remembrance of what had hap- 
 pened flashed clearly upon Mm. 
 
 He recollected the boat capsizing, and 
 nothing more except a moment's struggle 
 and a blank darkness coming over him. A 
 sufficiently bad bruise on his head bore 
 witness that some portion of the steamer, 
 probably the paddle-box, must have struck 
 him and stunned him as he sank. It was 
 evident that, whatever was the value of 
 Duke Mayburne's life, to that amount he 
 was indebted to Glencairn. But how 
 heavy or how light that debt might be.
 
 104 GLENCAIUN. 
 
 and how the after-years would pay it, only 
 those coming years would show. 
 
 Glencairn himself utterly refused to pose 
 as the preserver, and when they sent for 
 him to see Duke, bestowed on him no more 
 affectionate greeting than — 
 
 "Well, young man, so you've come 
 round all right ? Eather a close shave it's 
 been; Perhaps next time you get upset, ;| 
 you'll bear in mind that your head was not 
 intended by nature to knock against paddle- 
 boxes." 
 
 He would not be thanked, and barred 
 all attempts at expressed gratitude, saying 
 with an air of settling things finally, 
 
 ^' Shut up, my boy. It was a mere 
 chance. If I hadn't fished you out, some 
 other fellow would."
 
 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " She touched me with her face and with her voice, 
 This daughter of the people. Such soft flowers 
 From such rough roots?" 
 
 E. B. Browning. 
 
 rilHE river adventure was a nine days' 
 sensation anion o;st the small circle 
 of the Glencairns' friends, and a nine years' 
 stock anecdote for the Miss Potters. By 
 good fortune it led to no evil results ; no 
 consumption, nor rheumatic fever, nor 
 bronchitis followed it ; indeed, except that 
 Luli had a slight cold for some days, and 
 Duke an interesting cough for some weeks, 
 " Nobody seemed one penny the worse."
 
 106 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 Glencairn of course observed every pos- 
 sible precaution as regarded Luli, physic- 
 ally and mentally, even guarding to tlie 
 best of his ability against the accident's 
 leaving behind (as such alarms so often 
 do) any enduring nervousness in the 
 child's sensitive organization. His plan 
 was to take her on the water as soon again 
 as possible, and more frequently than ever, 
 so as to accustom and inure her to it ; 
 and he succeeded so well that although 
 she never forgot her fright, she was not a 
 prey to any recurrent fears as to the 
 " dangers of the deep." 
 
 Of course the episode rather tended to 
 increase than to diminish the intimacy 
 between the Glencairns and young May- 
 burne. Although Duke certainly had not 
 distinguished himself in any way on the
 
 GLENCAIHN. 107 
 
 occasioD, except by having a much narrower 
 escape than the rest, and giving a great 
 deal more trouble in his restoration, he 
 shared largely in the prestige of the adven- 
 ture. 
 
 The time drew near, however, when thi& 
 intimacy was to be interrupted by external 
 circumstances. Glencairn and Luli wera 
 going to cross the Channel, and Duke to- 
 remain in Loudon ; thus as none of the 
 three were likely to be good correspondents, 
 and as the duration of the Glencairns ab- 
 sence was uncertain, the friendship, so far 
 as seeing and hearing, giving and receiving 
 news, went, ran a risk of being broken 
 up and lost, if the random chances that had 
 worked to bring them together should 
 work equally to keep them apart. 
 
 Luli was in hisrh delio'ht at the idea of
 
 108 GLENOAIRN. 
 
 going away with lier father, and, child-like, 
 indulged more in the pleasures of hope than 
 in the sentiment of memory, and antici- 
 pated entering on her new life far more 
 eagerly than she regretted leaving the 
 old. 
 
 The evening preceding the Glencairns' 
 departure was Katie Craven's annual birth- 
 day party. Glencairn, having another en- 
 gagement, was unable to go ; but of course 
 Luli was not to be deprived of the treat, 
 but was to be escorted there and fetched 
 away by the Misses Potters' upper domestic. 
 Duke Mayburne was to be there too; he 
 had been introduced by Glencairn to the 
 Cravens, who had straightway taken a 
 fancy to his 'bright, attractive face, and in- 
 vited him warmly to share their hospi- 
 tality.
 
 GLENCAIKX. 109 
 
 Kate's birthday party is a heterogeneous 
 melee of various ages, little schoolfellows, 
 old uncles and grandmammas, old friends, 
 and old friends' grown-up sons and daugh- 
 ters, new friends and their little ones. 
 Just at first the elements do not mix very 
 well, but seek out affinities, and sejDarate 
 into congenial groups ; the little boys in 
 tartans and knickerbockers herd into one 
 corner; the boys in jackets, turn to the 
 schoolgirls about their own age ; the ma- 
 trons seek out the easy-chairs ; the heads 
 of families congregate on the hearthrug 
 with their backs to the fire ; and the young 
 men and maidens follow the elementary 
 laws of natural affinity. 
 
 Mr. Duke Mayburne, according to the 
 wont of young men in their teens, devotes 
 himself to a comparatively mature syren
 
 110 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 •of some eight-and-twenty Summers. Luli, 
 who is more interested in Duke than in 
 anybody else there, seats herself on a foot- 
 stool at the lady's feet, with the purpose of 
 enjoying their conversation, which she fol- 
 lows with simple interest, perfectly inno- 
 cent of any suspicion that her company 
 might (under some similar circumstances) 
 not be desired. As it happens, they are only 
 talking Millais, and Frith, and Faed, and 
 Luli soon gets weary of the discussion, and 
 inspired by the cheerful strains of a piano 
 and bells, wanders into the adjoining room, 
 where a quadrille is in progress of form- 
 ing. Luli is just too late to find a partner, 
 and is young enough to reply to the sym- 
 pathetic remark of a matron on this sub- 
 ject, 
 
 "There isn't one to spare, you see"
 
 GLENCAIRN. IH 
 
 (rather disconsolately). "But" (with 
 rising cheerfulness) " I shall stand here 
 and wait. I think, if I stand just here " 
 (confidentially), " I shall be sure to get 
 one for the next." 
 
 "I'll see that you do, my dear," says 
 the matron, smiling ; and Luli, her spirits 
 raised by this promise, stands by to amuse 
 herself watching the dance. There are 
 grown-up girls who know the figures, and 
 little ones who don't ; the two little girls 
 who are most cm fait at every turn, and 
 who consequently take the lead from the 
 other little ones, are Kate Craven and a 
 slender, dark-eyed girl in a pink-spotted 
 muslin frock that looks somewhat faded, 
 and is much eclipsed by the fresh and pretty 
 snow, white toilettes around her; for all the 
 other little girls are as tastefully and
 
 112 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 daintily attired as the grown-up young 
 ladies. Luli would not have noticed that 
 this girl's dress was inferior to the others 
 if she had not heard somebody behind her 
 remark that it was "shabby," but that 
 "the child was pretty," and "who was 
 she ?" To which Mrs. Craven replied con- 
 fidentially, in a slightly lowered voice, which 
 nevertheless Luli, as she stood beside 
 them watching the dance, heard quite 
 distinctly — 
 
 " Well, she is a little niece of our land- 
 lady's in the place where we lodged down 
 at Brighton. She is a very nice, well- 
 mannered child, and we got into the habit 
 of letting Katie make a companion of her. 
 Katie took a fancy to her, you see. They 
 are badly off, poor things, of course, and 
 they cannot afford to dress her as we dress
 
 GLENCATEX. 113 
 
 our children. But I like to see simplicity 
 in youth," added good Mrs. Craven, charit- 
 ably, and proceeded to imply a contradiction 
 of her own words by explaining that they 
 would have presented little Zora with a 
 new dress, but her coming to the party 
 had been quite suddenly arranged, to 
 please Katie: 
 
 Luli got a partner for the next dance, 
 and whirled round the room in high 
 delight. Duke Mayburne did not join the 
 festive throng in the dancing-room ; he 
 was still apparently absorbed talking art to 
 his mature charmer in the raven ringlets. 
 For the dance following, however, he and 
 that lady appeared upon the scene, and 
 floated away delicately into a slow polka- 
 mazurka. This being a dance unpractised 
 by Luli, she was obliged to sink into the 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 GLBNCAIRN. 
 
 ranks of the wallflowers again. When it 
 was over, Duke deposited his partner under 
 the wing of a chaperon and came to invite 
 Luli for the following Lancers. Luli 
 responded to the invitation delightedly; 
 she was proud of having such a big, tall, 
 handsome friend ; and then, too, she had 
 contracted a habit of carrying all her pro- 
 blems of life and the world to Duke for 
 him to solve ; and during the progress of 
 the polka-mazurka, a new problem had 
 suggested itself to her — or, rather, had 
 been suggested by the confidential instruc- 
 tion she had accidentally heard given by a 
 mamma to a little girl who, like Luli, was 
 " standing out " of the dance. 
 
 " Do not talk too much to that little 
 Zora Brown, my dear," this lady had said 
 to her offspring. " I don't wish you to be
 
 GLENCMRN. 115 
 
 friendly Tvith her. She is not a lady, you 
 know ; and your papa and I don't wish 
 you to associate with any but little ladies." 
 
 Luli, with great interest in the question 
 on which this remark had set her small 
 brain pondering, appealed eagerly to Duke 
 on the subject as they paired off to take 
 their places. 
 
 " Please tell me, how can you know 
 whether people are ladies or not ? Because 
 I heard that lady say that Zora Brown was 
 not a lady ; and I want to know, what 
 really makes a lady ?" 
 
 Although she spoke confidentially, Luli 
 had not spoken in a prudently lowered 
 voice, and had already finished her speech, 
 when she perceived, to her horror, Zora 
 Brown passing at her elbow, so close that 
 she could not fail to have heard the in- 
 
 I 2
 
 116 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 discreetly plain words. That slie liad 
 heard them, was evident by her deep 
 blush and hasty move away from Luli, 
 who, on her part, coloured as deeply, and 
 looked far more confused and over- 
 whelmed. 
 
 This mal-a-propos incident saved Duke 
 Mayburne from the responsibility of solv- 
 ing the problem Luli had propounded, for 
 she was so abashed and distressed by her 
 own indiscretion that she made no further 
 allusion to it, and was delighted to escape 
 from conversation into the mazes of the 
 Lancers. 
 
 After this dance came supper for the 
 younger people, which prospect Luli 
 greeted gladly, not only for the natural 
 and obvious reason, but also because she 
 saw in it a means of endeavouring to atone
 
 GLENCAIEN. 117 
 
 for her error. Accordingly, in the supper- 
 room, she armed herself with the most 
 oorofeous ecold and silver cracker she could 
 find, and making her way up to Zora 
 Brown, eagerly touched her arm, and 
 whispered, holding out the gilded peace- 
 offering, 
 
 " Please will you pull this with me ? I'm 
 so sorry I said that." 
 
 Zora Brown looked a little surprised, 
 and then she smiled — looking very pretty 
 and pleasant when she smiled — and ac- 
 cepted the olive-branch, saying, with a lack 
 of eloquence but an abundance of good- 
 nature, 
 
 " Oh, never mind. I didn't care !" 
 
 The cracker was pulled, the motto read, 
 and the sugar-plum eaten ; and then Luli, 
 who did not feel that she had done quite
 
 118 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 ■ enough, glanced round the table till her 
 eyes lit on a dish of tempting crystallised 
 sugar-rings. She helped herself to these 
 with a liberal hand, and brought the plate 
 to Zora, saying, ' 
 
 " Please eat these with me ; and you 
 won't think anything more about what I 
 said, will you ?" ; 
 
 " Oh no," promised Zora, munching a : 
 sugared citron-ring. "But I want to 
 know too just what you were asking that 
 gentleman. You were asking what makes 
 a real lady, and that is what I often want 
 to know." 
 
 " I will ask papa," said Luli reflectively. 
 " Papa is sure to give me an explanation." 
 
 " I've got no papa to ask," said Zora a 
 little sadly. 
 
 Luli felt sympathetic, but could not
 
 GLENCAIRN. 119 
 
 think of anything comforting to say or do, 
 except pushing the largest and sugariest 
 piece of citron she could find into her 
 companion's hand. She was more puzzled 
 than ever, because there was nothing as far 
 as she could detect, in her new acquaint- 
 ance's voice, and look, and manner in the 
 least incompatible with being a lady. She 
 was a pretty, delicate-featured, soft^eyed 
 child, with a gentle voice, and very fair, 
 small, well-shaped hands, and a sort of 
 sweet self-possession of manner which 
 made her seem a year or two older than 
 Luli, though there was only about a few 
 months difference. 
 
 " Where do you live ?" Luli ventured to 
 ask, as they grew confidential with the 
 ready familiarity of very young girls. 
 
 " At Brighton. Not in a fine house like
 
 120 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 this. My |)eople let furnislied apartments. 
 I suppose that's why — " Zora finished her 
 sentence with a smile which Luli under- 
 stood and answered. 
 
 " No, I don't think that can be it," Luli 
 said thoughtfully, continuing in her sim- 
 plicity, " because my aunts have people 
 staying with them, and they pay for their 
 rooms, which is very much the same 
 thing." 
 
 " It seems very much the same thing, 
 certainly," said Zora; "but then your 
 people are richer than mine, I suppose. 
 I'm an orphan, and I'm poor. I shan't 
 have any money, ever, unless I marry a 
 rich man." 
 
 Marriage did not enter at all into Luli's 
 speculations upon life at present, and she 
 was not prepared to respond on that
 
 GLEXCAIRN. 121 
 
 branch of the subject. So Zora continued, 
 waxing warmer and more confidential — 
 
 ** And then of course I shall be a lady. 
 Money seems to me to be the only thing 
 that really makes a lady. They say it's 
 other things. I should like to see, if there 
 was a duchess in rags, barefoot at a 
 crossing with a broom in her hand, who 
 would know she was a duchess then ! 
 Fine feathers make fine birds." 
 
 " But it takes more than only feathers 
 to make birds," rejoined Luli. " The jay, 
 you know, was found out, although he 
 pretended to be a peacock." 
 
 " But human beings are all one species, 
 not cut up into different genuses like 
 birds, and beasts, and fishes," said Zora 
 the literal, declining to be led away into 
 similes.
 
 122 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 Lull was just rejoining that there were 
 black men and white men, which undenia- 
 ble assertion might perhaps have beaten 
 Zora from the field of argument, when all 
 the young people arose from supper to 
 make way for their elders. 
 
 "I'm going abroad to-morrow," said 
 Lull to Zora Brown at parting, with an 
 unconscious accent of pride on the word 
 " abroad," " so I'm afraid I shan't see you 
 again, but I should like to see you. I like 
 to talk to you." 
 
 "I should like to meet you too," said 
 Zora, with an affectionate smile. " Are 
 you going abroad to school ?" 
 
 "I'm going to travel with papa. But I 
 am to go to school part of the time. Have 
 you been at school ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, for three years."
 
 GLENCAIRN. 123- 
 
 " Ab, I thought you had," said Luli, 
 satisfied with her own penetration, " be- 
 cause you knew about species and genuses." 
 
 Zora laughed at this. 
 
 "I did not learn Natural History at 
 school," she said. *' I bought a book of it, 
 full of pictures. I thought, though I was 
 only a sparrow, I'd learn all about the pea- 
 cocks and canaries." 
 
 Luli embraced Zora Brown at parting ; 
 indeed on the strength of her journey on 
 the morrow, she flung herself into the arms 
 of almost all the ladies and some of the 
 old gentlemen present, vowed with many- 
 kisses everlasting friendship with Katie- 
 Craven, and was only disappointed because 
 the publicity of the parting prevented her 
 from entering into a similar covenant with. 
 " dear old Duke."
 
 124 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 On her return home that night to the 
 aunts and her father, there was of course 
 —considering the impending journey 
 "abroad" and the birthday party — so much 
 to be said about so many things that not 
 much was said about anything. But Luli 
 found time to give Glencairn a hasty nar- 
 rative of the "dreadful blunder" she had 
 made, and referred to him the vexed ques- 
 tion which she was confident in his power 
 to solve. 
 
 Glencairn at that hour had not oppor- 
 tunity to enter deeply into the subject ; he 
 found time, however, to say just enough to 
 set Luli pondering more perplexedly than 
 ever. 
 
 " What makes a gentleman ? — what 
 makes a lady?" he repeated. "Money? 
 Money won't gild vulgarity, child; don't
 
 GLENCAIEX. 125 
 
 fancy it will. Rank? I've known a vis- 
 count who was a snob and a sneak. Edu- 
 cation ? "Well, the cleverest swindlers and 
 rogues I ever met, and I've met many, 
 were the best educated. Family ? The 
 best blood gets spoilt by a bad cross. 
 Family ! why look here, Luli, look at me 
 and at yourself — at us two who don't even 
 know what we are ! We may be, you and 
 I, child, of royal blood or of beggar's blood 
 — you may be an Earl's granddaughter or 
 a costermonger's ; I may be an admiral's 
 son or a cabin-boy's. And is there any- 
 one who can tell whether sang azur runs in 
 our veins or not ? "We are that which our 
 circumstances make us ; and who we really 
 are, child, neither you nor I will ever 
 know !"
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 OUTWARD.
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 " If we should meet once more, 
 If both should not forget, 
 "We shall clasp hands again the accustomed way 
 As when we met. 
 So long ago, as I remember yet !" 
 
 Christina Rossetti. 
 
 rpiIE tranquil uneventful life wliich Lull 
 Glencairn had led under her aunt's 
 care, that level, monotonous life, Tvith its 
 little daily pleasures and trivial incidents 
 that to her seemed important, fell back 
 into the past and became but a memory 
 from the time that her father took her 
 under his own sole charge. 
 
 The change was complete and sudden ; 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 the kaleidoscope was sliaken for the first 
 time, and the whole pattern of her life 
 broke up and sparkled into newer, richer, 
 more vivid combinations, and the old forms 
 were lost for ever. She had never been 
 further from home than on a midsummer 
 trip to the seaside ; Glencairn took her to 
 live abroad. She had known no city but 
 London ; he took her to Paris when Paris 
 was in the full brilliance of its Winter 
 season. She had no idea of what moun- 
 tains and glaciers in their full and beauti- 
 ful reality were : he took her on a tour 
 through all the highways and byways of 
 Switzerland, and enjoyed her delight more 
 than he enjoyed any pleasure of his own. 
 
 Although Luli was too young to fully 
 understand and appreciate all the pleasures 
 of travel, she was quite old enough to enjoy
 
 GUENCAIEN. 131 
 
 them ; and she lived the life of a dream, the 
 absolute, simple, self-absorbed happiness 
 of a child to whom its own present joy is 
 all. 
 
 Such pure and simple absorption in the 
 present, such limitless delight so bounded 
 within the straight and narrow lines of the 
 hour that is, comes but once again when 
 childhood has past, and comes then as Love. 
 
 So Lull, always a happy and contented 
 child, was happier than ever now, and fair- 
 ly adored the father who lavished on her 
 all these new joys which in her short life 
 hitherto she had not even dreamt of. 
 .. Glencairn did not, however, waste his 
 daughter's life away in an endless idle 
 holiday. He attended to her education, 
 now putting her to a day-school, then to a 
 l)oarding-school, now having a master, and 
 
 k2
 
 132 GLENCATRN. 
 
 then a governess, for her, in all the princi- i 
 pal cities of Europe. She learned Italian ; 
 in Naples, German in Dresden, and was i 
 *' finished" in French at the best establish- 
 ment Glencairn could find in Paris. 
 
 Luli was not brilliantly clever ; but she 
 was intelligent, painstaking, and anxious 
 to please, and was never found a back- 
 ward, careless, or unsatisfactory pupil. As 
 she grew year by year less of a child, and 
 womanly manners and qualities gradually 
 developed in her, Glencairn recognised in 
 her more and more clearly his wife living 
 again. , 
 
 She was very gentle, docile, affectionate, \ 
 and governed easily and entirely by her 
 affections ; but she was singularly free 
 from the besetting faults that too frequent- \ 
 ly mar a soft and gentle nature. Of all
 
 GLEN'CAIEX. 133 
 
 tlie various forms of duplicity, and of the 
 weakness that always more or less tends 
 towards deceptiveness, Luli had never 
 a trace. She was the most guileless, 
 credulous, and innocent of children, the 
 most stupidly unworldly, the most easily 
 managed, and most easily deceived, but 
 the last to screen herself in any childish 
 fault by any attempt at concealment. She 
 was like Glencairn in a certain quiet 
 tenacity that verged on obstinacy, and a 
 spirit that, notwithstanding all her shy 
 gentleness, rose defiant against injustice, 
 and that, though it would readily bend to 
 kindness, roughness could not break. In 
 all other qualities, especially in her spot- 
 less truth and tenderness and simplicity, 
 she was her mother's living likeness. 
 The Glencairns lived abroad for several
 
 134 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 years, now taking a villa or a suite of 
 apartments for the season or the year, now 
 wandering from hotel to " pension," and 
 " pension "to " furnished flat ;" they paid 
 occasional visits to England, but these 
 visits were few and brief; and Luli lost 
 sight of almost all the acquaintances and 
 friends of her childhood. The Cravens, 
 who had been to her only casual friends of 
 a few weeks, and whose acquaintance with 
 Glencairn had begun by a mere chance 
 meeting in a train, were, oddly enough, the 
 friends they saw most of. The Cravens 
 liked the Glencairns, and always sought 
 them out when the former were in Paris or 
 the latter in London. Kate Craven and 
 Luli kept up a correspondence, and thus 
 were always aware each of the other's 
 whereabouts. Of other friends, Duke May-
 
 GLENCAJEN. 135 
 
 burne included, Lull soou quite lost the 
 trace ; and it was only chance at last that 
 threw Duke May burne across her path 
 again some seven or eight years after they 
 had drifted apart. 
 
 It was at Etretat they met, to which 
 peaceful little village the Glencairns, tired 
 of the incessant bustle and gaiety of its 
 brilliant neighbour Trouville — a veritable 
 Paris-sur-Mer — had come for quiet and 
 rest. It was just before the tahle-d'hcHe 
 dinner, when the summoning bell was 
 momentarily expected to ring, that Duke 
 Mayburne was lounging in the courtyard 
 of the Hotel Blanquet, being one of a 
 straggling and aimless group who were 
 standing about in various attitudes of 
 placid do-nothingness, watching a white 
 pony of rebellious inclinations who refused
 
 136 GLENOAIRN. 
 
 to go the way he should go, and manifest- 
 ing a superficial interest in the pony's 
 argument with his driver, for the simple 
 and obvious reason that there was nothing 
 else on the spot to inspire interest until 
 the dinner-bell should sound. Duke May- 
 burne was standing as aimlessly, and re- 
 garding the pony and chaise as neutrally, 
 as the rest of the little assembly, when, 
 happening to turn his head, he found 
 himself face to face with Luli Glencairn, 
 though at the first glance he did not re- 
 cognise her, and only wondered " why that 
 pretty girl was staring at him." She had 
 remembered him instantly, and her gaze 
 of surprised recognition warmed into a 
 pleased and welcoming smile, as she said 
 frankly, 
 
 "You here? Why, who would have 
 thought of meeting you ?"
 
 GLENCAIRX. 137 
 
 Duke bowed politely, but puzzled, and 
 was about to drop a mild liint that he 
 should like to be enlig^htened as to the 
 name of his fair acquaintance, when sud- 
 denly the recollection flashed upon him. 
 
 " Luli — it is Luli Glencairn !" and he 
 seized her hand with a delighted smile. 
 *' You must forgive me that for the moment 
 I was not sure it was you ; you were a 
 child, you know, and now — you are so 
 
 grown, so " Duke cast an eloquent 
 
 look upon her face that finished his sen- 
 tence satisfactorily. " I need not ask how 
 you are, but I've got to ask how you have 
 been, and what has become of you all these 
 years." 
 
 " Papa ! who is this ?" said Luli, turning 
 with a bright smile to Glencairn, who just 
 then made his appearance on the scene.
 
 138 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 The recognition of the two men, being 
 assisted by this hint, was immediate — pro- 
 bably would have been immediate even 
 without the hint. They grasped hands 
 gladly, heartily ; and their meeting was 
 cordial enough to delight *Luli, who ex- 
 claimed with playful reproach, 
 
 " And papa, he didn't know me a bit at 
 first !" 
 
 " I appeal to you, Mr. Glencairn, as to 
 whether there is any marvel in my remiss- 
 ness at recognising in this lady the child I 
 used to play with " 
 
 " And cut out comic pictures for, and 
 give puppies to," interposed Luli merrily. 
 
 The dinner-bell now clanged out a deaf- 
 ening summons, and the three went in 
 together to the taUe-dhote, talking all the 
 way.
 
 GLEXCAIRX. 13^ 
 
 It was perhaps not a matter of surprise^ 
 that Lull should have known Duke May- 
 burne before he recognised her. He was 
 scarcely changed at all ; he had grown a 
 light moustache ; he was a handsome man 
 instead of a handsome boy ; he was broader 
 of shoulder and more self-possessed of 
 manner and polished of accent ; but in 
 face he was singularly little altered. The 
 years that had ripened Luli from the child 
 to the girl — for you could hardly call that 
 fair, slight, fresh, frank, light-hearted 
 creature a woman yet — had altered her 
 far more, and improved as much as they 
 had changed. 
 
 She had been pretty, as all fair-com- 
 plexioned, golden-haired children with no 
 positive disfigurement are pretty ; she was 
 now really beautiful. She had grown tall
 
 140 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 and very slight ; indeed tlie sligHtness of 
 
 her figure and the pure transparent pink 
 
 and white of her complexion indicated that 
 
 her health was probably not robust. Her 
 
 hair was a shade darker than it used to be, 
 
 but it was still of a golden tint, too warm 
 
 for flaxen, too bright for yellow, without a 
 
 trace in auburn in all its hues, pure ripe 
 
 gold in the light, and richly embrowned in 
 
 the shadows. Her features were regular; 
 
 her small delicate face was of an oval 
 
 shape, and her eyes — were those large soft 
 
 eyes blue or grey ? Duke Mayburne could 
 
 not solve that point when he came to 
 
 notice them ; they seemed to him 
 
 " Eyes too expressive to be blue, 
 Too lovely to be grey !" 
 
 He manoeuvred successfully to sit next 
 to Luli at dinner, naturally deeming it
 
 GLENCAIKN. 141 
 
 pleasant to sit by one of the prettiest girls 
 at the table, with whom he suddenly found 
 himself on delightfully friendly terms. 
 
 "You don't look much like quill-pens 
 and red-ruled ledgers," observed Glen- 
 cairn, good-humouredly regarding the 
 young man's attire. Duke's coat was a 
 loose velvet one ; his collar was sufficiently 
 low and his tie sufficiently neglvje to look 
 artistic ; he was probably well aware that 
 a certain amount of neglige suited his pic- 
 turesque style ; and the hat, which on en- 
 tering the room he had hung up on one of 
 the pegs for that purpose provided, was a 
 soft slouched felt, not unsuitable to the 
 stao:e brio^and. 
 
 '' No ; my weapon is the pencil, and not 
 the quill, I rejoice to say." 
 
 " I should have thought it was the brush,"
 
 142 GLENOAIBN. 
 
 suggested Luli, to whom a pencil did not 
 appear an artistic implement. 
 
 "Brush and oils are in the future," he 
 replied. "My works at present merely 
 serve to embellish the ephemeral literature 
 on which you expend your monthly shilling 
 or your weekly sixpence. I started finally 
 at the foot of the ladder, but only after one 
 or two vain endeavours to leap up to the 
 top at a bound. Those endeavours remain 
 in my little studio with their faces to the 
 wall and the dust settling on their backs." 
 
 " You did not enter your uncle's office 
 then ?" said Glencairn. " I think I heard 
 something from Miss Potter of your deter- 
 mination." 
 
 "Yes; Aunt Ohrissy told us that news 
 — and added her comments thereupon !" 
 said Luli, with rather a mischievous little 
 smile.
 
 GLENCAIEN. 143 
 
 " "Which were probably of a kind uncom- 
 plimentary to my wisdom, if not doubtful 
 of my sanity ?" conjectured Duke with an 
 amused lauofh. 
 
 "And how do you find it answer?" in- 
 quired Glencairn. 
 
 " Oh, I get on well enough," replied the 
 young artist lightly. " I have never ex- 
 perienced anything nearer starvation than 
 being reduced to a mutton-chop and a pint 
 of bitter ale. To be sure that happened at 
 first with rather monotonous frequency ; 
 but I have had no nearer acquaintance 
 with the wolf at the door than throwing 
 him the bone of my chop out of the 
 window." 
 
 Duke tossed his handsome curly head 
 back with a smile that was partly defiant 
 of the Fates and partly confident in them.
 
 ] 44 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 Lull and lie talked on, and laughed ; and 
 Glencairn put in a word now and then. 
 Their neighbours at the table were no 
 drawback to the freedom of their conversa- 
 tion, as all around them the Erench tongue, 
 and the French only, babbled shrill and 
 voluble above the clattering of the forks. 
 
 After dinner the trio did not separate, 
 but walked together along the beach, and 
 watched the cliffs in the fading light of 
 sunset, and then resorted to the little 
 "Casino" by the sea, where the various 
 visitors to Etretat were taking their plea- 
 sure according to their various tastes. The 
 Glencairns and Duke Mayburne sat at a 
 little table discussing tiny cups of cafe noir 
 in one of the verandahs facing the sea, 
 while from the music-room issued snatches 
 of Offenbach-ian airs, and from the billiard-
 
 GLEXCAIEX. 145 
 
 room the click of the cue ou the ball, and 
 from the little scattered tables the popping 
 of lemonade-corks ; and along the terrace 
 a stream of dark figures, like moving sil- 
 houettes against the grey sky and sea, took 
 their nightly promenade. There was a 
 Hght perpetual murmur of voices and low 
 laughter, and now and then a shrill childish 
 burst of merriment broke in upon the 
 bright dance-music without jarring it. 
 Behind it all the sea whispered its eternal 
 secrets softly to the shore. Some few stray 
 units of the public had wandered down 
 over the rough stones to the water's edge ; 
 but the public in general preferred the 
 smoothly-paved terrace, and the lively 
 strains of the band, who made night gay 
 with their minstrelsy. 
 
 The scene was pretty and the time was 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 peaceful, and things in general were very 
 pleasant, all the more pleasant to Duke 
 Mayburne for Lull's presence, all the more 
 pleasant to her for his. 
 
 " Good night. May I say Lull still, or 
 must I be formal now ?" he asked, as they 
 parted. 
 
 " We are too old friends to be Mr. May- 
 burne and Miss Glencairn, surely," she 
 replied, frankly, giving him her hand. 
 
 " Good night, Luli, then." 
 
 " And good night, Duke." 
 
 They did not lower their voices nor im- 
 port any sentiment into the occasion ; they 
 were simply frank and friendly as old 
 playmates and companions naturally are ; 
 and Glencairn had no lecture to read Luli 
 on the familiarity of her manner ; nor was 
 she, who was still simple and open as a
 
 GLENCAIRN. 147 
 
 child, in the least fearful lest she should 
 have been too unreserved. She had been 
 almost as naively, naturally affectionate in 
 her greeting to her childhood's friend and 
 hero as if she had met a brother. Glencairn 
 had brought her up freely, though not 
 carelessly ; he knew his daughter's nature 
 well, trusted her implicitl}^, and left her the 
 almost perfect liberty he deemed she 
 merited; thus she had grown up alike 
 more simple and innocent, and more free 
 and fearless than most girls who have 
 mothers to guard and guide, and sisters to 
 grow up with them. 
 
 " Handsome fellow young Mayburne is 
 still," observed Glencairn. "Not gone off 
 a bit — rather improved, in fact." 
 
 " Yes, he is," agreed Luli. " If you had 
 not pulled him out of the river, papa, there 
 
 l2
 
 148 GLENCAmN. 
 
 would liave been one fewer of the already 
 too few perfectly handsome faces in the 
 world," she added, demurely, nestling her 
 two hands through her father's arm, as 
 they walked homewards. 
 
 These were fair samples of the class of 
 remarks that were always the first to be 
 made about Duke Mayburne. Everybody 
 who spoke of him at all spoke first of his 
 appearance — as the exception, to criticise, 
 — as the rule, to admire. He paid the 
 penalty of being like a piece of living 
 sculpture, and looking as if he had been 
 modelled from the antique, by being al- 
 ways talked about as if he were only a 
 fine specimen of animal nature, admirably 
 bred to carry off the prize at a show of 
 beautiful humanity. When people knew 
 him better they came to observe him in
 
 GLEXCAIKN. 149 
 
 other lights, — to see that he was what the 
 world, both masculine and feminine, ap- 
 proves as "a very good fellow," frank, 
 sanguine, healthy-tempered, affectionate, 
 and sincere, with no more vanity than must 
 of necessity accompany such a face and 
 figure, and with plenty of versatility and 
 energy and talent, which did not, however, 
 promise to rise to genius. 
 
 But ou a first acquaintance he was as 
 a rule regarded merely in the light of a 
 highly successful specimen of masculine 
 beauty.
 
 150 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 " Between the sunset and the sea, 
 Love watched one hour of love with me." 
 
 Swinburne. 
 
 rj^HE custom of having sitting-rooms 
 does not prevail at Etretat. You go 
 tliere to lead an out-of-door life, and a 
 sitting-room is regarded as a superfluity. 
 It is evident by the construction and ar- 
 rangement of the houses, both public and 
 private, that the architects and landlords 
 looked upon it as heterodox to spend more 
 hours within four walls than are necessary 
 for eating, drinking, and sleeping. You
 
 GLENCAIRN. 151 
 
 cau entertain your friends at table-dhote 
 dinner ; you can smoke and play billiards 
 with them at the Casino ; you can meet 
 them on the beach ; but for society, as re- 
 presented by morning-calls and drawing- 
 room visits, there is no provision, so that 
 unless you are rarely fortunate or unusually 
 extravagant in your accommodation, you 
 have no medium between receiving your 
 visitors in the privacy of your sleeping 
 apartment or in the publicity of the general 
 resorts. 
 
 It was consequently on the beach that 
 the Glencairns encountered Duke Mayburne 
 next. Luli and her father were sitting 
 watching the bathers, when the young 
 artist, who had evidently been looking for 
 them, came up and joined their group. 
 They had been fortunate enough to secure
 
 152 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 two of tLe curious little •wooden chairs 
 whicli Etretat generously provides (gratis !) 
 for its visitors ; and as there was not a 
 vacant chair to be found near, Duke pro- 
 ceeded to stretch himself on the beach at 
 their feet, cheerfully regardless of the 
 roughness of the stones. It was a fine 
 morning, and all Etretat, that is to say, 
 all the visitors and Summer residents, were 
 out upon the beach, half to bathe, and the 
 other half to look on at the bathing. This 
 was the correct and regular rule, which 
 scarcely anyone departed from ; everyone 
 either disported him or herself in the sea, 
 or watched those who were so disporting 
 themselves for admiration or criticism. 
 
 The sea inshore was green as emerald 
 and clear as glass ; the very pebbles could 
 be counted through the transparent waves
 
 GLEXCAIRX. 153 
 
 beyond the white ribbon of surf that out- 
 lined the curving shore. Further out at 
 sea, the green was dashed with dark 
 splashes of calm deep purple ; and green 
 and purple towards the horizon melted 
 into a line of vivid blue. On the left side 
 of the bay, beyond the cliffs, the Aiguille 
 rock stood out high and lofty and lonely 
 as the spire of a cathedral ; to the right, 
 the ridge of rock, honeycombed into natu- 
 ral archways, ran out to sea like an arm 
 stretched forth by the high battlemented 
 cliffs to guard the ba}^ The land and 
 sea lay bathed in sunshine, peaceful 
 and silent, except for the murmur of the 
 waves. Humanity supplied an abundant 
 element of amusement and bustle in the 
 scene. From out of the little square 
 " cabins " of wood or canvas arranged in
 
 154 GLENOAIEN. 
 
 rows and blocks along the upper part of 
 the beach, remarkable figures kept emerg- 
 ing, and crossing the wide slope of shore 
 between the cabins and the sea, running 
 the gauntlet of hundreds of amused and 
 curious eyes on their way ; for the specta- 
 tors had come one and all, as they came 
 daily, to see and criticise and be amused. 
 
 Those bathers who were habituated to 
 the manners and customs of the place 
 walked leisurely and coolly down the beach 
 in their various costumes de bam, pausing 
 now and then to address a word or two to 
 their friends on the way. Those whose 
 first venture it was wrapped their cloaks 
 closely about them, and hastened along, 
 looking half ashamed of themselves. 
 People who were vain of their figures 
 stood posed in elegant attitudes on the
 
 GLEXCAIEN. 155 
 
 diviog-plaDk before leaping ; people who 
 had no cause for vanity plunged in with 
 baste and hurry. Young girls with white 
 peignoirs robed loosely round them, tripped 
 daintily down to the water's edge, and, 
 dropping the snowy wrappers and stepping 
 forth graceful and pretty in their neat 
 Bloomer-like costumes, ran lightly into the 
 waves. 
 
 Some old gentlemen marched solemnly- 
 down and took off their spectacles and gave 
 them into the care of friends, and stood on 
 the brink and shouted for a bathino-.mau 
 to come and lead them forth to the combat 
 with the waves ; other old gentlemen with 
 silvery beards ran up the plank with the 
 activity of youth and precipitated them- 
 selves head first into ten feet of water. 
 
 Luli Glencairn was highly amused ; and
 
 156 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 she and Duke Mayburne cliattered and 
 laughed, in occasionally uncharitable mer- 
 riment, while Glencairn, with a huge 
 umbrella over his head to keep the sun off, 
 pored over a book of travels, and occa- 
 sionally smiled scornful incredulity at the 
 author. 
 
 Luli was holding up a parasol lined with 
 pink, which reflected a becoming rosy tint 
 on her face ; she had a black velvet ribbon 
 tied round her neck, which made her fair 
 skin look fairer than ever ; she wore a 
 light grey dress and an oval grey straw 
 hatj and except for the relief of a pink 
 flower, and a gleam of pink ribbon, her 
 golden hair was the brightest spot of colour 
 in the undeniably pretty picture she made 
 — a picture all the prettier for the childlike 
 mirth which lit up her eyes and dimpled 
 her cheek with smiles.
 
 GLE^■CAIE^^ 157 
 
 " Look ! just look at his bald head ! isn't 
 it like a white life-buoy bobbing about ?" 
 she exclaimed in a confidential whisper, as 
 one ancient gentleman, with only a very 
 thin and frao-ile frinore of hair around his 
 scalp, swam shore wards. 
 
 " Who is ^the wasp ?" inquired Duke, 
 indicating a tall, slim young man clad all 
 in brilliant stripes of black and gold. 
 
 " I don't know. He bathed yesterdaj'. 
 He is French, I think, and dives beauti- 
 fully. Watch him !" The black and gold 
 gentleman walked up to the highest end of 
 the plank and plunged head first, like an 
 arrow painted in zebra stripes, down through 
 the clear green water. " Now — now ! look 
 at the one in crimson !" continued Luli. 
 " See how he poses and faces the audience, 
 as if he were before the footlights. He is
 
 158 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 ■always doing statues ; yesterday he folded 
 his arms and looked like Julius Cgesar ; lie 
 stretches his arms up before he dives, and 
 stands like a Caryatides ; and the other day 
 when it was very rough, he did the Dying 
 Gladiator beautifully, leaning on one elbow 
 in the surf." 
 
 " He is Mark Antony to-day, and there 
 is his Cleopatra — crowned and bejewelled," 
 observed Duke, as the gentleman in the 
 elegant crimson costume bowed low and 
 extended his hand to a young lady in an 
 elaborate blue-braided toilette de hain, with 
 her hair all concealed by a lofty and bright- 
 ly trimmed head-dress of oilskin, and still 
 wearing a broad gold bracelet on each arm. 
 As this pair exchanged courteous and 
 graceful greeting, the Zebra emerged, 
 sputtering, dripping, breathless, from the
 
 GLENCAIRN. 159 
 
 waves, almost at their feet, and endea- 
 voured to emulate tlie grace of tlie other's 
 bow of recoornition to the fair wearer of 
 the bracelets; but the laudable attempt 
 was a lamentable failure ; and Cleopatra 
 accepted Mark Antony's offered hand. 
 
 " She can't swim," said Luli, " and Mark 
 Antony can swim just a little, and is very 
 proud of it, and splashes about in the most 
 conspicuous place he can find, taking great 
 care not to be very much out of his depth, 
 but making sure that everybody will have 
 the opportunity of admiring him." 
 
 "You are such a severe little critic, 
 Luli, that I rejoice heartily that I bathed 
 early this morning, when your critical eyes 
 were not here to behold." 
 
 " I never laugh at the honest cowards," 
 began Luli, explanatorily, but was not 
 allowed to finish her sentence.
 
 160 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 " Thank you !" exclaimed Dake, laiigli- 
 ingly, opening his handsome grey eyes to 
 their widest extent. " Thank you very 
 much ! that really is a great satisfaction. 
 Honest cowards are exempt from your 
 ridicule ; and you kindly assure me of the 
 fact. I ajDpreciate the delicate inference !" 
 
 " I did not mean anything of that kind," 
 protested Luli, "and you know I did not — 
 only you wouldn't hear me out !" 
 
 "I apologise," he said, humbly. "It 
 was very rude of me to interrupt you, but 
 I really couldn't help it. That's my invaria- 
 ble excuse for all my sins, as you will find 
 out, and I generally find it answer. "Well, 
 now, continue. You never laugh " 
 
 " Only at people who are affected and 
 strike attitudes; and, yes, I am afraid 
 sometimes at fat old people, who are very
 
 GLENCAIRN. IGl 
 
 awkward ! It's very uncliaritable of me, I 
 kuow ; but I really can't help it." 
 
 " My invariable excuse, literally and 
 exactly repeated !" said Duke, triumphant- 
 ly. " See, Luli, what a thing it is to have 
 a friend who sets you good examples ! 
 May the lesson learned this day bear fruit !" 
 he added, in a pompous and slightly nasal 
 tone, that made Luli laugh a pretty tink- 
 liug laugh musical as a carillon of bells, as 
 she answered, 
 
 " I didn't need that example at all ; I am 
 a great deal too much given already to say- 
 ing ' I can't help it !' " 
 
 " You cannot be too much given to so 
 useful a habit," he responded. "It is a 
 most serviceable weapon wherewith to 
 clear your own way and get your own will 
 in this world." 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 GLENCAIRN, 
 
 " How is that ?" asked Luli. 
 
 " To say that ' you cannot help ' doing a 
 thing is a polite and euphuistic way of 
 conveying that you intend to do it," said 
 Duke, as solemnly as a judge. 
 
 " I'm afraid those are not very orthodox 
 moral lessons you are reading to my little 
 girl, Master Duke," observed Glencairn, 
 shutting up his book with one of his soft, 
 subtle, half cynical smiles. 
 
 " If they are not good ones, I am very 
 confident Luli will never learn them," said 
 Duke, dropping his mimic gravity, and 
 speaking frankly and deferentially. 
 
 " That's about true," said Glencairn, 
 turning his eyes slowly upon his daughter's 
 face, with the tenderness just touched by 
 sadness with which he often looked at her. 
 
 Their little group was presently joined
 
 GLENOAIRN. 163 
 
 by a French family, consisting of parents, 
 two daughters, and a son of tender years — 
 acquaintances of a day whom tlie Glen- 
 cairns had casually picked up. But Duke 
 Mayburne did not separate from the party. 
 All together they walked up the cliff, to 
 *' the little grey church on the windy hill," 
 as Duke, who had quotations from ancient 
 and modern poets at his fiiigers' ends, 
 immediately dabbed it. All together they 
 met on the beach again at the second great 
 assembly of the " beauty and the chivalry " 
 of Etretatj i.e., the afternoon bathing, 
 which is, if possible, a more fashionable 
 and regular lounge than the morning bath- 
 ing. Not all together, but three together, 
 Glencairn, Duke, and Luli, they resorted 
 once more to the beach during the sunset 
 
 m2
 
 164 GLE^^CAIRN. 
 
 hour wlien the tahh-d-hote was orer ; and 
 secretly two out of the three at least re- 
 joiced that their party was reduced to a 
 trio again, and hoped that the family of 
 agreeable and conversationally inclined 
 foreigners would not find them out in their 
 secluded spot on the now quiet and com- 
 paratively lonely beach, which by morning 
 and afternoon sunlight was so gay. 
 
 The outlines of the cliffs were clear and 
 bold in this last hour of daylight ; the 
 broad bay lay calm and tranquil ; the sea 
 was deep and shadowy and darkly blue ; 
 soft clouds were floating in the dim azure 
 of the sky ; and all along the horizon the 
 flame of sunset burned. 
 
 Looking out across the sea to the lurid 
 west, Duke Mayburne began quoting 
 Browning's " Home Thoughts."
 
 CLENTAIRX. 165 
 
 "Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died 
 
 away ; 
 Sunset ran, one gorgeous blood red, reeking into Cadiz 
 
 bay; 
 Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay, 
 In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar 
 
 grand and gray." 
 
 "Do you know those lines, Lull ?" 
 " No ; whose are they ?" said Luli, all 
 her attention awake, bending towards him 
 with such hushed and eager interest that 
 she needed not to utter any words of ap- 
 preciation. 
 
 Duke continued — 
 
 " Here, and here, did England help me! how can /help 
 
 England, say ! 
 Whoso turns as I this evening turn to God to praise 
 
 and pray. 
 While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa !" 
 
 " Browning !" said Glencairn, quietly, in 
 a matter-of-fact way. 
 
 " Those fiery sunsets always recall those 
 lines to me," observed Duke.
 
 166 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 Lull did not say a word ; her cheek was 
 resting on her hand ; and her large, soft 
 eyes gazed out pensively over the sea. 
 But Duke knew by some sure instinct that 
 she had listened in rapt attention to every 
 line. Duke Mayburne had a deep musical 
 voice, and did not recite poetry at all 
 badly. 
 
 "I have seen a sunset like that, only 
 more vivid, off Gibraltar," said Glencairn. 
 " There are some hours that almost make 
 a poet of one in spite of one's self." 
 
 "It is such hours as those, I fancy," 
 observed Duke, " which account for those 
 occasional incomprehensible successes that 
 occur but once, rockets that blaze and 
 fall. Such influences must be the moving 
 spring of the people who make one hit, 
 write one poem, paint one picture, rise for
 
 (;lencairn. 167 
 
 once to genius, and then are heard of no 
 more." 
 
 "I sometimes think that every man is 
 capable of one flight into genius during 
 his life," said Glencairn, meditatively. " The 
 question is, does one true poem make a poet, 
 or one picture an artist ?" 
 
 " I should fancy," said Luli, half hesitat- 
 ingly, in her soft appealing way, " that if 
 a man can write one good poem, the power 
 of poetry must be in him, even if it can 
 only be developed under certain circum- 
 stances. And if circumstances can once 
 develop that latent power, why should 
 not such circumstances occur again, and 
 again draw it out ?" 
 
 '' I think Luli has hit upon a truth," said 
 Duke.
 
 16S GLENCAIRN. 
 
 " I have known the child teach me truths 
 before now," said Glencairn. 
 
 Luli nestled a little nearer to her father 
 with a caressing smile ; but which of the 
 two men's approval she valued most, who 
 shall say ? 
 
 The three sat there upon the shore until 
 the fire of sunset had sunk, and paled, and 
 faded away into the dusky mingling of sky 
 and sea, and the young crescent sailed 
 slowly up over the tall cliffs to the left, 
 where the Aiguille Rock stood out distinct 
 among the grey shades. Then they walked 
 together along the terrace and lounged 
 through the Casino and turned homewards. 
 
 When she had bid good-night to her 
 father and shut herself into her room that 
 night, Luli opened her window, and leant 
 upon the sill, looking out at the dark sea
 
 GLENCAIEN. IGO 
 
 and the dark sky, and the black, moveless 
 masses on the beach that looked like 
 strange, shapeless black animals sleeping, 
 but were only the fishermen's covered and 
 roofed-in boats. 
 
 She waited there silently, with the cool 
 sweet sea-breeze breathing peace and 
 serenity round her, and fanning her cheek 
 with a soft and sleepy caress, until a red 
 spark brightened out of the darkness and 
 a shadow fell upon the ground just under 
 her window. 
 
 Duke had mentioned to her casually that 
 he walked that path with his nightly cigar. 
 She did not know that she wished to see 
 him pass ; she did not think about ana- 
 l^'sing her feelings; she had not asked 
 herself why she leant so long out of her 
 window this night ; but there she remained
 
 170 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 until that tall dark figure drew near. He 
 looked up, and recognized her in the 
 flickering lamplight, though not more 
 clearly and instantly than she recognized 
 him through the shadows. He stood a 
 moment, and raised his brigandish-looking 
 hat as he looked up at her window. Then 
 she drew slowly back, so gradually that her 
 white figure seemed to melt away in the 
 hazy lights and shades of her room ; and 
 that night she leant from her window no 
 more, nor peered into the passing shadows 
 aeain.
 
 171 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " It was a sad and happy time, you say ; 
 Yet sweet as is an ever -changing tune ! 
 Ah me ! the close of that still July day 
 
 When with the sun's excess earth seemed to swoon, 
 And we together wandered on the shore, 
 
 Half feeling we should wander there no more !" 
 
 RIarston. 
 
 rriHE suu of another day is setting be- 
 -*- hind the sea at Etretat. The moon, 
 that was a few evenings ago a pale 
 crescent, will be almost a full orb when she 
 rises this night. The Glencairns are sitting 
 on the shore watching the sunset again ; it 
 has become a resrular custom with them : 
 they never miss a sunset now, be it fair or
 
 1 i 2 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 cloudy; and they never sit watching it 
 alone. 
 
 This night the sea is clear as a mirror 
 and calm as a lake ; the real cliffs standing 
 up bold and dusky against the pale dreamy 
 blue sky are scarcely more clearly outlined 
 than the reflected grey cliffs that dip down 
 in the serene grey sea. Away on the 
 horizon the azure of the sky melts into gold 
 and deepens into rose ; the great burning 
 sun has sunk in a blaze of light just now ; 
 the brilliance of the western colours is 
 paling, and crimson, gold, and azure are 
 blending into a harmony lovelier than their 
 vanished and contrasted glories. 
 
 The family Delamotte have joined the 
 Glencairns to-night ; they are seated on a 
 semi-circle of chairs in a sociable group. 
 Luli is at the extremity of the semi-circle,
 
 GLEXCAIEX. 173 
 
 having purposely choseu her place ou the 
 outskirts of the group. 
 
 She wears, iu lieu of hat or bonnet, a 
 pink and white woollen square pinned over 
 her head and falling to her shoulders ; 
 for Etretat (in these the early days of its 
 popularity) is primitive in its manners and 
 customs, and allows startling liberty iu 
 vagaries of costume. Gentlemen prome- 
 nade the terrace in high conical straw hats 
 adorned with rosettes ; a square red or 
 blue beret is the fashionable morning wear ; 
 and ladies discard hats in favour of hoods, 
 of all varieties of shape and in all the 
 colours of the rainbow, whenever the 
 spirit so moves them. Duke has told Luli 
 that the light fleecy woollen kerchief she 
 wears is far more becoming and picturesque 
 than a hat, and Luli studies the picturesque
 
 174 GLEN CAIRN. 
 
 accordingly. She is leaning back in her 
 wooden chair ; her head slightly turned to 
 join in the half French, half English con- 
 versation, her hands lying idly in her lap ; 
 she is fair and fresh and lovely in the 
 fading light ; the sunset is beautiful ; they 
 are all saying how charming it is ; and Luli 
 is very enthusiastic in her expressions of 
 delight ; but she is not happy ; she is rest- 
 less and disturbed; her eyes are inclined 
 to tears ; and lier heart is beating un- 
 evenly. 
 
 Foolish child ! why is this ? Is she not 
 young and beautiful, with a life full of 
 limitless hopes and possibilities ? — is she 
 not at this loveliest hour of the day look- 
 ing on the loveliest scene the place affords ? 
 — is not Duke Mayburne in the same vil- 
 lage, probably now not many hundred yards
 
 OLENCAIRN\ 175 
 
 off? supreme unreasonableness and 
 folly of the dawn of Love ! he is not by 
 her side just at this moment; and some- 
 thing may possibly have happened to pre- 
 vent his coming ; and it is a whole long 
 half -hour later than he has ever been be- 
 fore ! And for these mighty and sufficing 
 causes the child's heart is full of sadness 
 and disappointment. This is their last 
 evening but one ! and if he should fail 
 to-night, they will see only one more 
 sunset together ! and she feels miserable 
 at the thought. 
 
 Another half -hour has past ; and the 
 sunset has faded ; the stars are coming 
 out shyly one by one; and Luli is su- 
 premely happy, for Duke is by her side. 
 Naturally he takes his seat next Luli ; and 
 as she has chosen her place on the ex-
 
 176 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 treme edge of the social circle naturally 
 they two soon drift away out of the gene- 
 ral conversation into a tete-a-tete of their 
 own. 
 
 " Have you finished your picture of the 
 little grey church on the windy hill?" 
 
 '' No ; not yet. I have been haunted all 
 day by a wild desire to do Hiawatha,— sail- 
 ing into the purple vapours," you know ; 
 these sunsets have suggested the idea to me 
 so forcibly. I would set to work at it im- 
 mediately ; but that fellow Noakes has done 
 it already. He is always getting the 
 start of me in ideas." 
 
 " Noakes ? Yes^ I know him. What do 
 you think of him ? " 
 
 " Landscape — good," pronounced Duke. 
 "Figures — fashion-plate. Did you ever 
 see mortal woman with such shoulders
 
 GLENCAIEN. 177 
 
 and waists as all Noakes's girls have ? " 
 
 " I don't admire his girls much, certain- 
 ly. He does not look much like an 
 artist. I used to meet him very often 
 in Rome." 
 
 *'In Kome ! Happy Luli, to have seen 
 Bome ! and yet I do not know that I am 
 not more to be envied ; for my first sight 
 of Rome is before me still. 1 hope to go 
 this Winter." 
 
 " This Winter," said Luli, with a totally 
 unconscious accent of disappointment. 
 " We shall be in London all this Winter, I 
 think." 
 
 " Why don't you winter in Italy ?" asked 
 Duke ; " don't you hate London fogs and 
 frosts? Think what delightful times we 
 might have all together m Rome !" 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 " How I sHould like it ! I want to do 
 Rome again ; I am afraid I did not fully 
 appreciate it. My taste is so -uncultivated, 
 you see ; I always want to be talked to 
 about things — " 
 
 " And told what to admire ?" he re- 
 sponded. "All right; come to Eome, and 
 I'll tell you where to be enthusiastic." 
 
 " I wish we were going to winter in Italy ; 
 but I'm afraid there is not the slightest 
 chance, " said Luli, who w^as too simple 
 and unconscious to disguise a tone of re- 
 gret. 
 
 This very simplicity of hers slightly mis- 
 led Duke Mayburne, who was more pre- 
 pared for a woman's saying what she did 
 not mean than what she did. Luli seemed 
 to him now, except that she was taller and 
 prettier and better cultivated, exactly the
 
 GLENCAIEN. 179 
 
 same simple, affectionate, confiding cliild 
 that slie liad been eight years before. 
 Tbej bad been early playfellows, and now 
 were very good friends, with just that 
 tinge of romance colouring their friendship 
 which generally forms an element in friend- 
 ship between the opposite sexes in their 
 youth. Lull was so utterly free from self- 
 analysis and self-consciousness that there 
 was in her tone and manner none of the 
 coy coquetry, nor fitful reserve, nor caprice, 
 nor shyness, which Duke Mayburne would 
 have well understood. As it was, he did 
 not realise how rapidly the old childish 
 friendship on her side was deepening and 
 warming, and rising into love. 
 
 " Let us walk to the Mairie and see if 
 the aborigines are dancing their war-dance 
 to-nig:ht," he suo-grested, after the last 
 
 n2
 
 180 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 golden beam of sunset liad faded and the 
 moon had risen, and was silvering the tiled 
 roofs of the little village. 
 
 The motion was carried by unanimous 
 vote ; and away to the Place de la Mairie 
 accordingly the whole party directed their 
 steps, that being the spot where the natives 
 were wont to hold their revels, and where 
 the visitors occasionally resorted to look on 
 curiously, as if on the gambols of " war- 
 ranted harmless " members of the Comanche 
 tribe. 
 
 The natives were evidently holding high 
 festivity this night. Men and women, old 
 and young, were dancing round hand-in- 
 hand in a great circle to the music of their 
 own voices. All were singing, some out of 
 tune, some (but not so many) in tune. 
 One big fellow, in a loose blue blouse, was
 
 GLENCAIEN. 181 
 
 apparently tlie leader of the melody, aud 
 the ruling spirit of the dance. The circle 
 of dancers whirled around in perfect 
 rhythm with their song, now singing softly 
 and circling slowly, slackening as their 
 voices sank until they were moving at a 
 languid walk, then treading the measure 
 faster as the song rose higher, till the up- 
 roar of the chorus filled all the Place, and 
 the rush of the dance grew fast and furious. 
 Some of the dancers, exhausted, loosed 
 hands, and dropped out of the circle, which 
 united again instantly as they fell back 
 from it ; fresh recruits kept joining ; 
 the circle increased and increased as it 
 whu'led around, till, at the fastest rush of 
 the dance, and the highest tumult of the 
 song, it broke and spread all over the 
 Place (causing the nearest of the spectators
 
 182 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 to beat a hasty retreat), and men and 
 women, still singing, caught hands again, 
 and fell spontaneously into smaller rings, 
 which, like bubble circles in the water, 
 spread and spread, till all were mingled 
 into the one great whole ; and then the 
 entire thing began again. 
 
 It reminded Luli somehow of the 
 Witches' Dance in Macbeth, only, instead 
 of the blue fires of the cauldron, the scene 
 was lit by a full golden moon, pouring 
 down a flood of light upon the leaping 
 figures that wheeled and whirled around 
 as wildly as Indians in a war-dance. In 
 the shadows of the sparse fringe of trees 
 that border the Place, the small and select 
 audience stood looking on at this new 
 hallei divertissement, with the open ground 
 for a stage, the twinkling light of the
 
 GLENCAIEN. 183 
 
 Mairie for footlights, and a first-rate move- 
 able moon overhead. 
 
 Duke happened to remark upon the 
 suggestiveness of a Red Indian festival in 
 the scene ; the observation was by no 
 means original — indeed, it was the stock 
 remark that all the audience were bound 
 to make in turn ; and Glencairn responded, 
 
 " So I've heard people say — who never 
 saw a Bed Indian !" 
 
 " I never did, except in a show, and I 
 fear he was merely painted with red 
 ochre," admitted Duke good-humouredly. 
 
 "/never saw even a sham Indian," said 
 Luli. " Papa ! you ought to have brought 
 me home one, stuffed !" 
 
 " Shall I buy you a native here ? a live 
 one, to entertain your friends at the next 
 London evening party by a specimen of the 
 aboriginal dance ?"
 
 184 GLENOATEN. 
 
 " Oh, wliy doesn't somebody introduce 
 La Ronde into civilized society ?" exclaimed 
 Luli enthusiastically. " What a delightful 
 change it would be from the everlasting 
 quadrilles and Lancers !" 
 
 "And how perfectly in keeping with 
 black cut-away coats and tarlatan trains 
 and white gloves those graceful antics 
 would be — such as that gentleman is per- 
 forming now !" observed Duke with an 
 amused smile, indicating a burly broad- 
 shouldered peasant who, shouting at the 
 top of his stentorian voice something about 
 " Vive la jeunesse — vive I'amour !" was 
 leaping half his own height into the air and 
 cutting a series of truly remarkable capers. 
 
 Presently Glencairn suggested that, if 
 Luli "had had enough of it," he was 
 amply content ; and they all three walked
 
 GLENCAIRN. 185 
 
 back to the hotel and bade each other good 
 night in the courtyard. Luli went to her 
 room and sat by her window as usual. 
 For this too had become a regular custom. 
 As surely as evening after evening they 
 met on the beach by sunset, so night after 
 night, Luli sat watching at her window till 
 Duke passed on his nightly smoke and 
 ramble. She never had very long to wait ; 
 but had it been lono; she would have 
 watched and waited still, and deemed the 
 evening incomplete if it was not crowned 
 and finished by that momentary glimpse of 
 his tall figure pacing along the shore. 
 Duke knew of course on whose window-sill 
 the white figure always leant, silent as a 
 picture; he always looked up, waved his 
 hand, and smiled as he went by; it was 
 pleasant to know she would be there look-
 
 186 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 ing down ; but lie would not liave missed 
 much in the evening if on passing he had 
 looked up at an empty window, — the 
 frame without the picture- — and seen no 
 candle glimmering on golden hair. He 
 would not have wondered, and would have 
 slept as sound as usual. 
 The happy 
 
 " Days of summer-coloured seas, 
 Days of many melodies," 
 
 went by ; the last morning of the Glencairns' 
 stay at Etretat came. It was a stormy 
 morning, of constant wind and capricious 
 showers. Glencairn, Duke, and Luli made 
 their way, under united umbrellas, in the 
 teeth of the wind, to the Casino, where 
 Glencairn resorted to the reading-room, 
 and Luli looked wistfully towards the 
 sea.
 
 GLENCAIEX. 187 
 
 " You'll get blown away if you go on the' 
 beach; you had better sit down under 
 shelter," said her father. 
 
 " I don't want to miss going down to the 
 sea this last morning," pleaded Luli. 
 
 " Let me take Luli along the beach," said 
 Duke eagerly. " Trust me; I will not let 
 her be blown away into the waves." 
 
 "All right," said Glencairn carelessly, 
 nodding assent, without looking up from 
 the columns'of the " Moniteur," but calling 
 after her as she hastened to avail herself of 
 the permission, " Keep your cloak wrapt 
 close round you, Luli ; it's cold." 
 
 Duke offered Luli his arm, and they 
 made their way together across the terrace 
 and down on to the beach. 
 
 It was the hour and the place for th& 
 morning bathing — but bathers there were
 
 188 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 none. The haigneurs, those hardy old sea- 
 dogs, who spend the best part of their 
 days in the water, teaching novices to 
 swim and encouraging timid bathers to 
 plunge bravely, were lounging on the 
 shore, their " occupation gone," and would 
 have been in dry clothes, for a marvel, if 
 it had not been for the drenching spray. 
 
 The big waves are plunging like hungry 
 wild beasts upon the stones, with a roar as 
 if furious that no prey should be offered 
 to them. Now and then they seem to 
 pause for a moment before breaking, and 
 you catch a glimpse of a cave of deep 
 emerald roofed with white-fretted foam for 
 just the space of a flash, before the 
 emerald vault curves and crashes in, and a 
 storm of snowy surf bursts on the beach. 
 These green, deep hollows of the wave,
 
 GLEXCAIEX. 189 
 
 that only exist for the moment, remiud 
 one strangely of the croucb of a beast of 
 prey, followed by the leap and the crash 
 and the roar. 
 
 The horizon is piled up with thunder- 
 ous-looking clouds ; thick mists of cloud 
 are coming down upon the cliffs ; there is 
 not a bit of blue peeping out in sky or sea. 
 The white horses are galloping shorewards 
 one after another, tossino^ their foaming: 
 manes; the spray is flying on the shore, and 
 beats into the faces of Duke and Luli as 
 they stand together by the sea. 
 
 "It is not the least good trying to put 
 the umbrella up," says Luli, laughing at 
 Duke's endeavour to open that implement, 
 and at the games which the wind, like a 
 tricksy sprite, plays with it meanwhile. " It 
 does not rain ; and I like the spray."
 
 190 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 " I believe you are quite glad that this 
 is our last morning !" observes Duke, look- 
 ing down at her bright face. " The very 
 elements are testifying their distress in un- 
 mistakeable language; and you are as 
 bright as yesterday's sun was !" 
 
 " Because yesterday's sun ivas bright ; 
 and we have had all the brightness, and it 
 seems that we are taking the sunshine and 
 the Summer away with us," she replies — 
 and adds, after a moment, with truly 
 feminine consistency, "But you needn't 
 remind me of its being the last day." 
 
 " Here is something to divert you from 
 the reflection successfully," responded 
 Duke. " Behold ! a heroic bather comes to 
 dare the dangers of the deep !" 
 
 The announcement is true, and a general 
 thrill of interest runs through the few
 
 GLENCAIEN. 191 
 
 faitliful habitues of the batliing-quarter of 
 the beach, whom not even the wind and 
 showers have kept from their daily resort, 
 as this interesting object appears. All 
 eyes are turned upon the hero, who has 
 issued in full costume de bain from his 
 cabin, and is marching grandly down the 
 beach. He is stout ; he is tall ; he is bald ; 
 he is of imposing presence, and appears 
 not at all unconscious of his proud position 
 as the unique braver of the elements at 
 that hour. Luli, amongst others, watches 
 him with great interest. 
 
 He beckons one of the hardy old sea- 
 dogs, who hastens to respond to the sum- 
 mons. Taking the brawny hand of help 
 extended to him, the hero strides valiantly 
 towards the stormy ocean. Leisurely he 
 marches forwards until the surf reaches
 
 192 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 nearly up to liis knees, and then stands still. 
 Will he leap forward and dive under the 
 next wave ? The retreating surf leaves him 
 standing high and dry. Composedly as 
 one selecting a bed of slumber he lies down 
 upon the hard stones. The next moment 
 a wave breaks, and the surf rushes up 
 and covers him, and disrespectfully rolls 
 him over and over like a cork. The hero 
 evidently does not like it; he splutters and 
 scrambles to his feet wildly, clutching the 
 helping hand of the bathing man, and takes 
 up his position a little farther from the sea, 
 where he sits down solemnly in Turkish 
 fashion, and apparently enjoys his bath 
 very much, every retreating wave leaving 
 him seated on the glistening beach, alone 
 in his glory, and e^ery returning wave 
 rushing around his shoulders, until one
 
 GLENCAIRN. 103 
 
 mischievous great wave, plunging on ahead 
 of its fellows, maliciously surges over the 
 crown of his head and flings him down, and 
 leaves him grovelling on hands and knees, 
 and rolling over and over in his haste to 
 roll shorewards out of the way of the next 
 wave. 
 
 " This was the noblest Roman of them 
 all !" quotes Duke. 
 
 Luli is covering her face with her hands, 
 in convulsions of laughter and anxiety to 
 screen her mirth fi'om its object, who, in 
 his struggle to escape the devouring ele- 
 ments, has rolled nearly to her feet. 
 
 " Oh !" she says with a sigh of exhaus- 
 tion from pure merriment, "how proud he 
 was of his prowess when he went in !" 
 
 " How are the mighty fallen !" adds 
 Duke. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 GLENCAIRX. 
 
 " I hope he isn't Enghsh !" observes Luli 
 in some alarm, for they have been speak- 
 ing in voices by no means lowered. 
 
 " English !" replies Duke scornfully and 
 patriotically- " An Englishman roll about 
 in six inches of water like a porpoise, and 
 catch convulsively at a Frenchman's hand 
 to save himself !" 
 
 " I shall not have any fat French hero to 
 make me laugh to-morrow, nor any English 
 patriot to laugh with me," she remarks 
 half dolorously, half playfully. 
 
 "And to-night no sunset ! and our place 
 on the beach will know us no more ; and 
 the waiter at the Casino will watch for the 
 light of our countenances in vain !" 
 
 They remain, chattering and laughing 
 like two children, until heavy drops of rain 
 begin to fall, and then start in a great
 
 GLENCAIRN. 195 
 
 hurry to return to Glencairn, in case Lull 
 should be deemed to have encroached on 
 the permission given her. 
 
 The wind and the rain beat in their 
 faces as they make their way in a slanting 
 line along the beach ; the spray leaps after 
 them in playful showers, as if to prove how^ 
 far it can reach. The umbrella is hope- 
 less; the frolicsome wind turns it inside 
 out, and it has to be delegated to the use 
 of a walking-stick. Lull's cloak fla^Ds to 
 and fro, and tries to take unto itself wings. 
 She has no hat, only her pretty white 
 kerchief pinned securely to her head ; stray 
 ends of golden hair are blown loose from 
 under it and flutter like flickering sun- 
 beams over her dark cloak. The fresh air 
 and the dashing spray have given a bril- 
 liant colour to her fair oval cheeks ; her 
 
 o2
 
 196 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 eyes are sparkling, and a smile liovering 
 round lier lips, as, clinging to Duke's arm, 
 she picks her way with light dainty steps 
 over the rough wet stones. Duke looks 
 down and is struck by a new sense of her 
 beauty. He never saw her look so pretty 
 before. 
 
 " We breast the wind and weather to- 
 gether bravely, don't we?" he remarks. 
 Then a sudden idea, a fancy rather than a 
 definite thought, occurs to him ; and he 
 looks at her more intently, and says 
 dreamily and vaguely, 
 
 "Who knows ?" 
 
 He would probably under similar circum- 
 stances have said the same to any pretty 
 woman, and have forgotten it. But Luli at 
 these words blushes to such a vivid and 
 burning crimson, and such a startled, sur-
 
 GLENCAIRN. 197 
 
 prised, suddenly conscious look flushes over 
 her face before she can avert it from his 
 gaze, that he re eq embers long afterwards 
 that beautiful startled blush and its simple 
 and altogether insufficient cause. 
 
 When he bids good-bj-e to the Glencairns 
 that day (for his road lies to London and 
 theirs to Brittany), it is to Glencairn he 
 speaks, but at Luli he looks, as he says, 
 
 " I shall see you in London, as soon as 
 you return."
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 IN CALM WATERS.
 
 201 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " ^\'hat followed then? What has been done 
 And said, and writ, and read and sung ? 
 "\\'hat will be writ and read again, 
 "While love is life and life remain ?" 
 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 
 FT is far ou in October when the Gleu- 
 cairns return to London. They take 
 up their residence again at the quiet home 
 of the Misses Potter, where there are some 
 little changes now, but not important ones. 
 The busy spinster-sisters are growing 
 greyer, and the brightness of Miss Chris- 
 tiana's keen eyes is shaded by a pair of 
 gold-rimmed spectacles.
 
 202 GLENOAIEN. 
 
 Two of the oldest of the Ancients of the 
 select little circle are deceased, and their 
 place is filled by a gentleman of compara- 
 tively juvenile years ; he is only sixty, and 
 gives very little trouble, because he 
 habitually dines out, is not asthmatic nor 
 rheumatic nor gouty, and is not in the 
 habit of demanding midnight mustard- 
 plasters and beef -tea, as has been the wont 
 of his predecessors. Mrs. Boyd lives and 
 thrives still, still sighs over sinners from 
 the height of unfallen virtue, still regards 
 Luli as the child for whom she used to 
 dress dolls, wonders that " those foreign 
 countries don't spoil the child," and still 
 points to Glencairn as a " reformed charac- 
 ter " — when Glencairn and his proud fond 
 daughter are safely out of hearing. 
 
 The maiden- sisters are glad to have the
 
 GLENC.URX. 203 
 
 Glencairns back ; the presence of the Glen- 
 cairns means good-humour and glad service 
 of the servants, who see the gleam of 
 bright half-sovereigns in prospect — means 
 daintier dishes than are usual on the table 
 freely ordered and liberally compensated 
 for — means generous glasses of old port 
 and dry sherry lavishly outpoured — means 
 boxes for theatres, carriage drives, and 
 concert-tickets — means also, far over and 
 above all these, the bright influence of a 
 young, fresh, frank-hearted girl they love. 
 Glencairn does not object to abiding under 
 the roof of the Misses Potter; he is not only 
 free there, but master there; the habits and 
 customs of the household, " according to 
 his humour, ebb and flow !" and Luli would 
 not be happy to be in London, and away 
 from her dear aunts.
 
 204 GLENCAIRX. 
 
 The Cravens are in town, just returned 
 from an Autumn trip to Brussels. Duke 
 Mayburne is in town, not able yet to get 
 away from London east winds to blue 
 Italian skies. Naturally, as tlie Autumn 
 days wear on, Duke becomes a frequent 
 visitor at the Glencairns' ; and as between 
 the Cravens and the Glencairns there is 
 constant communion, the young artist 
 drifts into a pleasant social intimacy with 
 both families. 
 
 Kate and Luli, only daughters and spoilt 
 darlings both, are friends, not of the dearest 
 and closest, but pleasant companions, who 
 get on well together, and are perhaps more 
 quietly and undemonstratively loyal to each 
 other than some gushing bosom confidantes. 
 Kate Craven has g-rown a bloominof-, livelv 
 blonde, a trifle fast, without much depth or
 
 GLENCAIEN. 205 
 
 intensity, but warm-hearted, and without 
 an atom of harm or malice in the whole of 
 her honest, candid nature. She proclaims, 
 with unblushing frankness, that " really, 
 Duke Mayburne ought to be ticketed 
 * Dangerous !' he is so awfully handsome 
 that all the girls will go falling in love with 
 him !" Duke flirts with Kate a little in an 
 openly playful and meaningless way ; he 
 does not flirt with Luli, but treats her in 
 the tone of an old and admiring and privi- 
 leged friend and adopted brother. 
 
 In spite, however, of the supposed abso- 
 lute fraternity of their friendship, it some- 
 how does not please him to see Luli ap- 
 parently absorbed (for really absorbed in 
 anyone but himself she never is), in any 
 other man's conversation. 
 
 At a Christmas party at the Cravens', —
 
 206 GLENCAIKN. 
 
 where there are assembled a curiously mixed 
 set of people, those who have been invited 
 from choice, and those who have been in- 
 vited from duty, or from old association — 
 Duke feels unreasonably indignant with a 
 young man who catches Luli and kisses 
 her under the mistletoe. 
 
 "Do you like this sort of thing?" he 
 saj'-s to her aside, with a look of eloquent 
 disgust at the object of his indignation, 
 who is at this moment endeavouring to 
 entice Kate Craven beneath the mystic 
 shrub. 
 
 " What sort of thing?" asks Luli, glanc- 
 ing up half puzzled, and following his eye 
 to see what it is that arouses his dis- 
 taste. 
 
 " Those liberties to be taken by a little 
 snob like that — a walking advertisement of
 
 GLENCAIEX. 207 
 
 bair-oiland cheap jewelry!" observes Duke, 
 in reference to tlie Lothario, who was then 
 imprinting a hurriedly-snatched salute on 
 Kate's cheek, and who certainly had not 
 stinted pomade upon his curly head, or 
 rings upon his fingers, or studs upon his 
 breast. 
 
 Luli laughed ; she had been a little un- 
 comfortable and annoyed for the moment 
 by the gentleman's demonstration ; but it 
 would take a great deal more than a 
 Christmas joke to make Luli Glencairn 
 angry. 
 
 " It was tolerably cool of him certainly ; 
 and I have only seen him twice in my life," 
 she replied to Duke's observation. 
 
 " I suppose you women like coolnesSj" 
 he remarked, rather dissatisfiedly. 
 
 ''Not that kind of coolness," she answered
 
 208 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 more gravely; ''and as for that tiresome 
 young man, I hate him ! Doesn't he re- 
 mind you of the ' oiled and curled Assyrian 
 bull ?' in Maud, you know ?" 
 
 While this critical and confidential aside 
 Tvas going on, the fun beneath the mistle- 
 toe was waxing fast and furious ; the girls 
 were uttering little shrieks ; the young men 
 were flocking round. 
 
 Mr. Craven appeared upon the scene of 
 action, dragging with him a by no means 
 reluctant victim — an old gentleman, whom 
 Lull had noticed, and who, indeed, had 
 attracted several people's attention during 
 the evening by his "jolly" laugh, and a 
 sort of simplicity and unworldliness of 
 manner, combined with a gallant and com- 
 plimentary tendency, and a devotion to the 
 younger ladies, which he did not seem to
 
 GLEN CAIRN. 209 
 
 suspect could be less welcome to them now 
 than in the days of his youth. This old 
 gentleman his host now brought under the 
 mistletoe, and announcing, " Ladies, now's 
 your chance !" left him plante la. 
 
 The ancient conqueror — who was bald 
 and yellow and wrinkled, and thoroughly 
 unattractive, and thoroughly unconscious 
 of his unattractiveness, — evidently nothing 
 doul)ting of his reception, looked around 
 smiling ; the girls all hung back ; some 
 sriofsrled. 
 
 Luli feared the old gentleman's feelings 
 would be hurt. It seemed to her that it 
 must be humiliating for him to stand 
 there, waiting in vain, the centre of all 
 eyes ; and one girl's unconcealed giggle 
 sounded sillily heartless and offensive. 
 Luli could not bear to see any one humili- 
 
 VOL. 1. p
 
 210 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 ated or sliglited. She stepped forward 
 from lier place, and timidly and blashingly 
 went to the old man's side and saluted the 
 withered cheek. 
 
 Duke looked at her with a new light of 
 
 admiration. There was something in her 
 
 impulsive movement so freshly girlish and 
 
 innocent — her slight figure had flitted past 
 
 so softly and lightly, and with such a shy, 
 
 flower-like grace she had lifted her golden 
 
 head to the old grey head, and then drooped 
 
 back, and cast a timid, startled, fawn-like 
 
 glance around, — that her loveliness struck 
 
 the young artist suddenly like a revelation. 
 
 His admiration was succeeded by a scowl 
 
 as an eager aspirant after the mistletoe 
 
 honours darted forward and caught her, 
 
 still under the mistletoe, and brushed her 
 
 cheek with his lips ; and a general laugh
 
 GLENCAIRN. 211 
 
 and scLifUc and scramble ensued, from 
 which Luli returned blushing far redder, 
 and looking far more discomposed than 
 before. 
 
 " It was too bad of them ; they knew I 
 did not mean that," she said, half com- 
 plainiugly. 
 
 It was characteristic of Luli that she 
 was talking to Duke Mayburne in her usual 
 confiding, friendly way for a great part of 
 the evening, but took the greatest care 
 never, when he was by her side, to drift 
 with him a step in the direction of the 
 mistletoe, and rested in the most confident 
 certainty that he would not endeavour to 
 entrap her thither, or catch her unawares, 
 as others had done. It is e([ually charac- 
 teristic of her unconscious influence over 
 k Duke, that he made no attempt to kiss 
 
 r 2
 
 212 GLEXCAIRN'. 
 
 Lull, although, when she was out of the way 
 in the adjoining room, he availed himself 
 freely of the licence of the season in regard 
 to other young ladies. This abstinence 
 from the usual Christmas privilege — which, 
 at a party where general imformality and 
 freedom and " jollity " prevailed, Duke 
 might so naturally and easily have claimed 
 from Luli — did not promise well for the 
 endurance of the fraternal character of 
 their friendship. 
 
 When a man, not generally over scru- 
 pulous, avoids a harmless and ordinary and 
 allowable familiarity with a woman, it is 
 time for him to look to the safety of his 
 heart. 
 
 The friendship between Duke and Luli 
 — for friendship on his side it might even 
 yet be called — had, however, no opportunity
 
 GLENCAIEN. 213 
 
 for any further developments that Winter, 
 for Duke went away to Rome before the 
 New Year was many days old. 
 
 The Glencairns remained in England. 
 The father taking a fancy into his head 
 that the London "Winter did not agree with 
 Luli, took her and Miss Priscilla down to 
 the Isle of Wight, installed them there in 
 comfortable apartments, and spent as much 
 of his time with them as possible. He was 
 obliged to be a good deal in London, be- 
 cause at this time he occupied a post of 
 some responsibility in a company which 
 was then paying high dividends, and 
 which possessed boundless hopes, limitless 
 prospects and possibilities, and a limited 
 capital. 
 
 Luli was rather dull sometimes, when 
 she had been left some days alone with
 
 214 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 her aunt ; she had nothing to do but read 
 and sketch and embroider, and talk of her 
 father, and think of Duke Mayburne, and 
 feel — what she would have thought it 
 wickedly ungrateful to put into words even 
 to herself — that there were diversions in 
 life more pleasant than walking "by the 
 sad sea waves " with Miss Priscilla. 
 
 However, she was fond of her kind, soft- 
 hearted aunt ; and her beloved father came 
 down as often as he could ; and she had 
 her artist friend over the sea to dream of, 
 and exalt in- her " maiden meditation " into 
 an ideal hero. So she was happy enough 
 in a quiet way. Once Kate Craven came 
 down to spend a week with Luli ; and Luli 
 was glad to have Kate's bright, lively com- 
 panionship. 
 
 The rainy evening jDrevious to this
 
 GLENCAIRN. 215 
 
 arrival had seemed very dull and dreary to 
 Luli, as she and her aunt sat one on each 
 side of the fire, and one knitted and the other 
 embroidered, and the sea moaned in the 
 distance, and the rain pattered on the 
 window-panes. The next evening was 
 rainy and windy too ; but Kate Craven's 
 ringing laugh, her bright blue eyes and 
 blooming cheeks, her clear, high, merry 
 voice, would have diffused a sunshine 
 through the room, even had any more sun- 
 shine than Glencairn's presence been need- 
 ed there. His was not apparently a very 
 enlivening presence, as he sat lounging 
 back in his arm-chair, the reading-lamp 
 drawn close to his elbow, his eyes bent on 
 the newspaper in his hand ; but wherever 
 he was was always home and comfort and 
 peace to Luli, whose loving nature respond-
 
 216 GLENCAIBN. 
 
 ed to his tenderness with all the uplooking, 
 trusting devotion of her loyal little heart. 
 
 He was reading his paper ; the girls 
 were chatting in a confidential, homely 
 way ; Miss Priscilla was knitting, and 
 occasionally putting in a word. 
 
 " By-the-by, Kate," asked Luli, casually, 
 ^' what has become of that pretty little girl 
 I met once, long ago, at your house — a 
 little girl you had picked up at Brighton ? 
 I recollect I took quite a fancy to her." 
 
 " Little girl ? Brighton ?" repeated Kate, 
 vaguely. " Oh, yes ! to be sure ! little 
 Zora Brown. " Oh, I haven't seen her for 
 more than a year ; she wrote to me when I 
 was in Paris, and I stupidly lost her 
 address. I really must look her up." 
 
 " She was very pretty, if I remember," 
 observed Luli. " How is she ? What is 
 she doing ? An orphan, isn't she ?"
 
 GLENCAIRX. 217 
 
 " Yes, poor cliild ; some old relation of 
 hers let lodgings at Brighton, and there I 
 picked her up. I hope she is getting on 
 well ; I don't want to lose sight of little 
 Zora ; the last I heard from her she was 
 studying music professional!}' — goi^g to 
 teach singing or something, I suppose. 
 She had an extremely sweet voice." 
 
 " It must be very hard for a young girl 
 all alone in the world to get on," remarked 
 Luli, sympathetica^. 
 
 " Yes," agreed Kate, with a half repent- 
 ant little sigh, " poor Zora ! no money ! 
 no parents ! scarcely any friends ! hard 
 lines, isn't it ? I often wish I could have 
 done more for Zora ; she was such a dar- 
 ling girl. I do wish I'd helped her more, 
 in some way or other." 
 
 " Very often our good deeds stop at
 
 218 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 wishes. I can think of so many things I 
 ought to have done and didn't do," said 
 Miss Priscilla. 
 
 "Not very many, I should think," ob- 
 served Glencairn, putting down his paper, 
 and answering Miss Priscilla's remark with 
 a kindly smile. " And it is better so than 
 to think of the bad things you have done,, 
 and might have avoided doing. There are 
 plenty of such in most men's lives ; and the 
 worst of it is that they wouldn't avoid them 
 if they could at the time ; and having eaten 
 the fruit and tasted the ashes, they then 
 cry out upon the tempter and revile the 
 apple-tree." 
 
 "Is it such a very bad world, papa ?" 
 asked Luli thoughtfully. 
 
 " Read and see !" he replied. " Here is a 
 slight sample of the world of to-day, — and
 
 GLENCAIEN. 219 
 
 the world of to-morrow will probably be 
 the same," he continued, skimming the 
 columns of the paper and reading aloud — 
 "Barbarous Assault" — " Tragic Death ot 
 a Burglar "— " Wife-kicking "—" Horrible 
 Murder" — Shocking Cruelty to a Dog " — 
 " Attempted Fratricide." I don't know that 
 it is such a bad world," he added medita-- 
 tively, " but it is an inconsistent world. 
 Human nature is inconsistent, root and 
 branch ; and you cannot train it into con- 
 sistency in either good or evil." 
 
 " How do you mean ?" asked Kate. 
 
 " Simply that no one living was ever all 
 bad or all good. It is about the most im- 
 portant truth in life, and generally the last 
 truth that people — women especially — ever 
 find out. Now look here, this murderer !" 
 laying his hand upon the newspaper and
 
 '220 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 alluding to a case they had previously 
 spoken of at tea-time. "Do you suppose 
 this man was what you call a thoroughly 
 bad man throughout all his life ? Do you 
 suppose he had not affections — that he had 
 not innocent hopes — blameless pleasures — 
 good impulses sometimes r He had borne 
 an excellent character for kindness and 
 general good conduct hitherto." 
 
 " The black spot did not show ; but it 
 was there," said Luli. 
 
 " The black spot was there ; exactly so," 
 agreed Glencairn. "That is the very 
 point ! One evil trait marred the whole 
 character; but the character was not all 
 evil. Then there is that fellow in France 
 who got off with ' extenuating circum- 
 stances ' the other day. He was a ruffian 
 certainly ; but I make no doubt he had
 
 GLEXCAIRX. 221 
 
 some soft spot iQ his heart for some old 
 mother or little child or faithful friend " 
 
 " T do not believe he had any T saidLuli 
 decisively. " That wretch, you know, 
 Kate," she added explanatorily, " who 
 murdered the old man and his wife for 
 their money." 
 
 "The brute! did he get off?" asked 
 Kate. 
 
 " Now you will observe," said Glencairn, 
 " that Luli, who is habitually the gentlest 
 and most charitable of creatures, has no 
 mercy whatever for these men, whose 
 crimes jar upon the whole tone of her 
 nature, and whose temptations she never 
 could comprehend. I believe that she, who 
 doesn't even like to kill a wasp, would sign 
 the warrant for their destruction body and 
 soul without any hesitation."
 
 222 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 " I would have any amount of mercy on 
 their souls,'' said Luli, " but no mercy on 
 the life in them which they did not respect 
 in others." 
 
 Glencairn smiled, affectionately as re- 
 garded Luli, but by no means assentingly 
 to her proposition. 
 
 " Too much weight is attached in 
 general in this country to the mere act of 
 destruction of human life," he observed. 
 " We all must die. The soldier kills his 
 enemy in battle. We have other enemies 
 sometimes than our foes on the battle-field. 
 There are injuries more cruel than death 
 which may be inflicted with impunity. The 
 mere act of taking life does not of itself 
 constitute crime. We may do it under 
 certain circumstances with a stainless con- 
 science."
 
 GLENCAIIIX. 223 
 
 " Goodness me, Mr. Glencairn !" exclaim- 
 ed Kate, opening her bright bkie eyes 
 wide. " And you talk as coolly as if 
 you quite knew all about it too! — as if 
 you had experienced how it feels to take 
 human life, with or without a stainless 
 conscience!" 
 
 "It is not such a marvellously uncom- 
 mon experience in the kind of life I lived 
 for many years," he replied quietly; "but 
 such experiences are not for you to com- 
 prehend. Don't imagine, Katie, that I have 
 been recommending manslaughter as a new 
 and fashionable diversion for noblemen 
 and gentlemen," he added with his quietly 
 amused and singularly sweet smile ; "I 
 have merely been endeavouring to persuade 
 you that there is generally a white spot in 
 the blackest sheep."
 
 224 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 . ''Well, I will try to think so, papa," 
 said Lull, nestling closer to his side with a 
 pretty caressing gesture. 
 
 " Your pater is awfully nice, Luli," ob- 
 served Kate in freely confidential chat 
 when the two girls were alone ; "he is all 
 that's kind and charming, and yet, do you 
 know, I should be tremendously afraid of 
 offending him, if I'd much to do with him. 
 Isn't he rather dreadful sometimes ?" 
 
 " Papa dreadful ! Never," said Luli, 
 quite amused at the idea. " He is as good 
 as gold ! Sometimes he gets angry — into 
 quiet rages, you know, with people who 
 offend him, but he has really never spoken 
 a cross word to me." 
 
 " Never boxed your ears or anything ?" 
 pursued Kate curiously. 
 
 Luli laughed outright as she assured
 
 GLENCAIRN. 225 
 
 Kate tliat he had not adopted this course 
 of education ; but Kate rejoined, 
 
 "Well, he is a darling, 3'ou know; but 
 he looks as if he wouldn't think much of 
 beating anyone." 
 
 " Kate, you are too absurd !" cried Luli 
 through another burst of laughter. " Do you 
 suppose he keeps a rod in pickle for me, 
 or that I am kept on my good behaviour 
 by fear of getting a black eye ?" 
 
 When Kate returned to London, Luli, 
 accustomed as she was to travelling and 
 change, might have felt dull again, if it had 
 not been for a talisman that arrived from 
 over the sea — a letter with a Roman post- 
 mark, addressed to Miss Glencairn, which 
 her father brouo^ht down from London in 
 his pocket one day, without suspecting 
 that it was about the most precious present 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 he could have brought her. It was from 
 Duke Mayburne, of course ; it was only an 
 ordinary letter written in the " old friend 
 and brother" character, but in it he gave her 
 a lively and detailed sketch of his life in 
 E-ome, and said that " he should see her 
 in May." On which promise Luli lived 
 while the months of March and April wore 
 slowly away. 
 
 Early May saw the Glencairns back in 
 London, and Miss Priscilla re-united to her 
 sister, and the whole establishment assem- 
 bled again in the old house near the 
 E-egent's Park. Late May sees Luli watch- 
 ing and waiting day after day for the one 
 visitor whose voice in the hall she longs to 
 hear, and leading in her secret heart a kind 
 of Mariana in the Moated Grange existence. 
 On the first of June there comes a ring
 
 GLENCAIKX. 227 
 
 at the bell, a well-kuowu step and voice, 
 an opening and shutting of tlie drawing- 
 room door, and a totally unnecessary 
 announcement to Luli in the parlour, 
 "Mr. Mayburne, if you please, Miss." 
 Luli enters the room, looking rather 
 pale, but very pretty, especially when a 
 soft colour suffuses her face as Duke 
 presses her hand, and her eyes droop 
 beneath the glad, admiring smile with 
 which he welcomes her. Miss Priscilla and 
 old Mrs. Boyd are there ; Miss Priscilla 
 takes great interest in hearing " all about " 
 Rome ; and Mrs. Boyd inquu'es, in her 
 mild, piping voice, if it isn't very uncom- 
 fortable to be all among those dreadful 
 priests, if many efforts are made to pervert 
 the unwary tourists, and if there is any 
 fear now of being walled-up alive in a 
 
 q2
 
 228 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 monastery? Duke makes himself agreeable, 
 as in duty bound, to the old ladies ; be 
 does not talk much to Luli, and Luli is 
 very silent, sitting quietly listening to bis 
 voice in a state of passive bliss. 
 
 Glencairn and Miss Christiana come in ; 
 Duke is invited to stay to dinner, and 
 does not refuse the invitation. Shortly 
 before dinner the party break up gradually, 
 and disappear one by one, on cares of toi- 
 lette bent. Miss Christiana and Miss Pris- 
 cilla don stiff black silk dresses, that could 
 very well stand erect without their wearers ; 
 old Mrs. Boyd adorns her scanty grey 
 locks with a marvellous triumph of mil- 
 linery, all lace and blue ribbons. But long 
 before any of these toilettes are completed, 
 Luli has hastened through her apparelling, 
 and is down with Duke Mayburne in the 
 drawing-room.
 
 GLENCAIRN. 229 
 
 "White is her favourite wear, and she 
 knows Duke likes her in white ; so she has 
 hurried on her freshest white muslin dress, 
 and snooded her hair with delicate green 
 ribbons, and tied her best emerald locket 
 round her neck. She is so purely fair that 
 the combination of green and white be- 
 comes her well ; she looks like a lily in it 
 — not a tall, stately garden lily, with its 
 firm, carven marble petals, but a delicate, 
 drooping, fair, and fragile lily of the valley. 
 Duke, as a young man and an artist, is 
 naturally far from insensible to her attrac- 
 tion. He really doubts just at this mo- 
 ment whether ever any olive-skinned 
 southern beauty, with the warmth of Italian 
 suns on her cheek, and the depths of Italian 
 passion in her eyes, can equal this pure 
 English lily.
 
 230 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 " Well, Luli, and how has everything 
 been going on with you these five months ?" 
 he inquires, comprehensively. 
 
 " Just as usual. The Isle of "Wight was 
 rather monotonous after a time, and I am 
 glad to be back in London." 
 
 " And there is no news ?" Then he 
 adds, on an impulse, half lightly and half 
 seriously, looking at her with more intent- 
 ness, " Have you fallen in love with any 
 fellow, Luli?" 
 
 "No," replies Luli, frankly, blushing 
 crimson. 
 
 ''No? I'm glad of that," he says, 
 lowering his voice a little. 
 
 Here Miss Priscilla enters, and Luli, 
 with the histrionic talent that even the 
 frankest and most guileless girls suddenly 
 develop sometimes, greets her with a
 
 GLENCVIEN. 2ol 
 
 sweet smile, and looks remarkably placid 
 and innocent, as tlie tell-tale blush fades 
 slowly from lier cheek.
 
 232 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "All thoughts, all passions, all delights — 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame — 
 All are but ministers ofLove, 
 And feed his sacred flame. 
 
 " She listened with a flitting blush, 
 
 With downcast eyes and modest grace, 
 And she forgave me that I gazed 
 Too fondly on her face. 
 
 " I calmed her fears, and she was calm. 
 And told her love with virgin pride : 
 And so I won my Genevieve — 
 My bright and beauteous bride !" 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 rj^HE year wears on from golden June to 
 
 mild and mellow September. All 
 
 this Summer season — in London till the
 
 GLENCAIRN. 233^ 
 
 annual migTatiou sets in, and then in 
 Cornwall, and then with closing September 
 in London again — Duke Mayburne and 
 Lnli Glencairn are never apart. 
 
 At the opera or theatre his handsome 
 curly head is seen between the acts bend- 
 ing over the stall where Luli sits ; at even- 
 ing parties they dance together, and recall 
 in confidential half-whispers the peasants' 
 " Ronde " in the Place de la Mairie, and 
 laugh over Etretat memories together ; in 
 mornings and afternoons Mr. Mayburne's 
 quick double-knock at the door becomes 
 familiar to the handmaiden who attends to 
 the Glencairns' visitors. People begin to 
 notice the young artist's attention to Miss 
 Glencairn ; some say decidedly, " That's a 
 case," and begin to wonder how much ho 
 makes a year ; others observe explana-
 
 234 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 torily, '' They are very old friends, I be- 
 lieve ; liave known each other from child- 
 liood upwards." When it is discovered 
 that Duke has taken a fortnight's trip 
 down to Cornwall, of which county it is 
 known that Luli and her father are explor- 
 ing the beauties, the interest of all their 
 >common friends deepens ; but by a rare 
 chance of good fortune it happens for once 
 that nobody interferes with premature 
 congratulations or well-meaning leeble 
 jocularity to 
 
 " Shake in Spring the blossoms Autumn had seen fruit." 
 
 So all this season Luli is happy, and her 
 heart is lit up with the soft and tender 
 golden light that breaks across the east 
 before the sunrise. And all this season 
 Duke is falling deeper and deeper into love 
 with her. He has not fallen over the preci-
 
 GLENCAIRNT. 235 
 
 pice head-over-ears down into tlie depths 
 of love at once ; lie has slid almost un- 
 consciously down a gradual incline, and 
 awaked to the certainty that he loves Luli 
 better than he has ever loved any human 
 creature before — better than he can con- 
 ceive the possibility of ever loving anybody 
 else. 
 
 His circumstances do not at present 
 warrant his rushing into matrimony ; and 
 he reviews his position with as practical 
 and sensible an eye as can be expected from 
 a man in love. He does not intend to 
 make any declaration of his affection — at all 
 events, not yet. He means to wait and 
 work, and make no avowal. 
 
 But one day, when September has fled, 
 and taken with her the last of the Summer, 
 and October is giving a foretaste of Winter
 
 236 GLENOAIP.N. 
 
 before the mellow warmtli of tlie Indian 
 Summer shall flood the land, Dnke May- 
 burne's prudent intentions vanish into the 
 air as many prudent intentions do — melt 
 away as suddenly and completely as the 
 witches from Macbeth's sight. 
 
 It happens thus. Miss Christiana is out. 
 Miss Priscilla is attending to old Mrs. 
 Boyd, who is ailing, and is lying upon the 
 sofa in the drawing-room. Duke and Luli 
 are left alone in the parlour. They have 
 been talking — wandering from one subject 
 to another ; and now there has fallen a 
 silence. 
 
 Luli is leaning one elbow lightly on the 
 arm of her easy-chair, her hand supporting 
 her head, and her fingers pushed into the 
 wavy coils of her hair. A ray of the 
 October sun gleams upon the frail white
 
 GLENCAIRN. 237 
 
 fingers and tlie rare golden hair ; her face 
 is partly in shadow, in that soft half-light 
 which lightens beauty and modifies plain- 
 ness ; and her large dreamy eyes are up- 
 turned to Duke in a gentle grave attention 
 as if of listening, though he has finished 
 the observations (on High Art, and the 
 blindness of the English nation to its rules 
 and requirements) which he had been 
 making. 
 
 Duke looks at her in silence for a few 
 seconds, and then says impetuously, and 
 quite irrelevantly to any subject that had 
 been mentioned before, 
 
 " I wish you would not look so lovely to- 
 day !" 
 
 " Why ?" she responds niiively. 
 
 " Because it's dangerous — because if I 
 look at you longer I shall be led on to 
 say ■'
 
 238 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 " To say — what ?" she asks as he 
 pauses, and asks it almost in a whisper. 
 
 " To speak words that would be rash, 
 mad, for me — a poor artist — to say to 
 youT 
 
 Lull does not shrink away or avert her 
 eyes; and instead of blushing she grows 
 paler, looks a little startled, and her breath 
 comes shorter. Duke feels that he is not 
 repulsed ; he stretches out his hand impul- 
 sively and lays it upon hers ; the colour rises 
 in his cheek, and his large grey eyes light 
 up with a deeper glow than she has ever 
 seen in them before, as they dwell upon her 
 fair face in a gaze that it seems he can 
 never tear away again. 
 
 Now her eyes droop, and her lips quiver, 
 and she bends shyly and half averts her 
 face from him. He takes her other hand
 
 GLENCAIKX. 239 
 
 in bis, the hand that was nesthng in her 
 hair; and as he grasps both her slender 
 trembling little hands in his own strong 
 ones, and she bends aside, and 
 
 " Her head droops as when the lily lies 
 O'ercharged ■with rain,'' 
 
 there is a contrast between the self-assertion 
 and power of his attitude and the almost 
 humility of his voice ; he looks down on her 
 like a king and pleads to her like a captive 
 as he whispers tenderly, 
 
 "Luli — darling ! dare I speak?" 
 After all, there are very few words 
 spoken ; but a few suffice. 
 
 Half an hour has passed, and seems to 
 them a nameless time, elastic enough to 
 comprise a year, and brief enough to be 
 counted as a moment. So little has been 
 said — so much comprehended ! the future^
 
 '240 GLEN CAIRN. 
 
 tlie vague future for wTiicli tliey have 
 formed no plans, and of which they have 
 scarcely yet said a word, is opening before 
 them in a long and radiant vista of golden 
 sunshine. 
 
 Duke's arm is round Lull's waist ; he is 
 ruffling up the loosened tresses of hair, 
 smoothing them off her temples ; he bends 
 to kiss the sweet lips that yield so timidly 
 and tremulously to the first caresses they 
 have ever known, — when one of the folding 
 doors leading into the dining-room swings 
 open suddenly and quietly, and Glencairn 
 appears upon the scene, and gazes amazed 
 upon the pretty tableau vivant. 
 
 Duke and Lull start ; Duke rises up from 
 his chair, turning a shade paler than usual. 
 Luli, all suffused in burning blushes, buries 
 her face in her hands. Glencairn glances
 
 GLENCiVIEN. 241 
 
 from one to tlio other keenly, his brows 
 knitted into a frown that may either be of 
 intentness, perplexity, or anger. 
 
 "What does this mean?" he says 
 quietly. 
 
 " It means, Mr. Glencairn," Duke replies 
 respectfully, but quite firmly, " that I love 
 Luli, and that the temptation to tell her so 
 
 was stronger than I could withstand." 
 
 " Is that it ? And what has Luli to say 
 in the matter ?" 
 
 They cannot tell from Glencairn's 
 manner whether anger or kindness is to 
 follow his present cool composure. 
 
 Luli has nothing to say but one word, 
 " Papa?" pleadingly uttered in a low quiv- 
 ering voice ; but she draws closer to Duke 
 Mayburne's side, and looks from him to her 
 father with soft appealing eyes. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 242 GLENGAIEN. 
 
 " You liad better go upstairs, Luli, and 
 leave Duke with me." 
 
 She has never disobeyed a command of 
 Glencairn's in her life, and does not now. 
 She is almost too agitated to speak ; she 
 leaves the room slowly and with lingering 
 steps, looking back from the door, with 
 expressive entreaty at her father, with 
 longing trust and anxious tenderness at 
 her lover. 
 
 It seems to her that the time she waits alone 
 in her room is a week — a month — a year ! 
 She tries to read, but the words convey no 
 meaning to her brain. She sits silent, wait- 
 ing, watching, till the ticking of the clock 
 seems to whirr in her brain. Time has never 
 seemed so long to her before as this period 
 that goes by with creeping minutes and lag- 
 ging seconds, each second ticking away with
 
 GLENCAIRN. 243 
 
 sucli maddening steadiness, so much slower 
 than the beating of her heart, until at last 
 a tap at her door makes her start, and a 
 servant enters. 
 
 " Mr. Glencairn wishes to see you in the 
 parlour, Miss, if you please." 
 
 '' Is Mr. Mayburne gone ?" Luli inquires, 
 with an attempt at nonchalance, turning 
 away her head lest the girl should remark 
 her chano^inor colour and flutterino^ breath. 
 
 " Yes, Miss," the servant replies, regard- 
 ing Miss Glencairn with interest and 
 fellow-feeling, and perfectly au fait with 
 the position of affairs. 
 
 Half fearing, half hoping, Luli descends 
 the stairs, and slowly pushes open the 
 parlour-door, whilst, although she is not 
 aware of it, an animated discussion is go- 
 ing on in the kitchen and in the drawing- 
 
 r2
 
 244 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 room concerning her prospects ; for the 
 series of interviews between her, her lover, 
 and her father, have been noted with much 
 interest, and correctly interpreted, both 
 above and below stairs. 
 
 " Come in, child," says Glencairn, quiet- 
 ly and tenderly, but without looking up. 
 
 He is sitting in his usual arm-chair, 
 and near his feet there is a foot-stool, the 
 same foot-stool on which Luli used to sit 
 in her childish days when first her father 
 came back to her. By one of those gentle 
 womanly instincts that are generally safe 
 to adopt as guides, she goes softly up to 
 him and takes her place at his feet, as she 
 has so often done since that long ago time. 
 Glencairn lays his hand on her head and 
 smoothes her hair for a moment before he 
 speaks.
 
 GLENCAIRN. 245 
 
 " Diiko is what the world calls, and 
 justly calls, a 'bad match,'" he begins 
 abruptly. " You know that, Luli ?" 
 
 "I know that he has not much money," 
 she replies, collecting her energies for the 
 ordeal, and feeling stronger and calmer 
 now it has fairly commenced. 
 
 "Money, in the sense of a settled in- 
 come or a safe capital, he has none. He 
 may succeed, and make money; he may 
 fail and drag on in poverty all his life. 
 You are very young, Luli. Can you not 
 put this fancy away as a dream — let Duke 
 go his way, and go yours — and find 
 another lover some day whom you will 
 like as well, and who can provide for you 
 in comfort?" 
 
 *' Can I put this fancy away as a dream ?" 
 she repeated ; then answered, with a charac-
 
 246 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 teristic quiet constancy and steadiness, 
 " No, papa, I cannot." 
 
 " Recollect how uncertain his future is ! 
 Are you in earnest in wishing to encourage, 
 and allow to grow into the passion of a 
 life, a girlish romance that, if it is stamped 
 out now, will leave no serious mark be- 
 hind?" 
 
 " It cannot be stamped out now,'' she 
 said, softly, but steadfastly still. 
 
 " Are you so fond of him, then ?" he re- 
 joined, slowly, half wistfully. " Tell me, 
 child, is this a romance, or is it love? 
 Think well." 
 
 She raised her eyes to his bravely and 
 freely now. 
 
 " Papa," she cried, impetuously, earnest- 
 ly, solemnly, as if taking a vow to heaven, 
 *' I Ja love him ! You must know I do !"
 
 GLENCAIEN. 247 
 
 As Glencairn looked at her, lie saw her 
 mother in her now more vividly than ever 
 he had seen her before. He saw the light 
 of love on Lull's face transform it into 
 Laura's very own. Surely those eyes, so 
 full of purity and innocence and passionate 
 tenderness, were Laura's eyes ; that look of 
 childlike guilelessness and womanly earnest- 
 ness — with the new depth and intensity 
 which proved the brook between " woman- 
 hood and childhood fleet," was crossed and 
 left behind for ever — was Laura's very 
 look. 
 
 He gazed at Luli, and seemed almost to 
 forget what they had been saying, or that 
 they had been speaking at all. 
 
 " You are like your mother — the day we 
 stood on the deck — and caught the first 
 sight of the English cliffs." he said brokenly, 
 dreamily, as if talking to himself.
 
 248 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 This mention of lier mother cast a solemn 
 shadow over the girl's fair young face. 
 She knew that he had loved her mother 
 first, on the voyage from the Cape to Eng- 
 land, and that in his reverie now he had 
 drifted back on board that vessel again. 
 She looked at him in hushed faith and love 
 and sympathy ; and a sacred silence lasted 
 long unbroken between the two. 
 
 At last, smoothing her golden head again, 
 Glencairn spoke. 
 
 " Child, have I ever thwarted a wish of 
 yours ?" 
 
 " Never, darling, never !" 
 " And I will not now," he said slowly. 
 " But listen, Luli, I lay down certain con- 
 ditions. No thought of marriage yet. No 
 binding covenant of engagement yet. You 
 may see each other as often as you like,
 
 GLENCAIRN. 249 
 
 for a few montlis, as a kind of test and 
 trial time ; then, if you really both hold 
 faithfully to each other, be openly engaged; 
 and when he proves to me that he can 
 support a wife, marry — and not till then. 
 "Will that arrangement satisfy you ?" 
 
 "It is all I could desire !" she answered, 
 gladly and gratefully ; for in the early stage 
 of a pure and imaginative girl's love, 
 "love is enough," and the present is 
 all. 
 
 " Have you told him he may come ?" 
 she asked shyly, caressingly laying her 
 cheek on Glencairn's hand. 
 
 " Yes ; I have told him exactly what I 
 have told you — and a little more. I told 
 him, in order to avoid all possible misinter- 
 pretation, that you have no fortune — not a 
 penny even of pocket-money or dowry but
 
 250 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 what I please to give. I liave lost money 
 lately; and unless the luck changes, I 
 may not be able to give you a brass 
 farthing." 
 
 " Duke will not care for that," she said, 
 softly and trustfully. 
 
 "Money is a necessity," replied Glen- 
 cairn. " Men must care for it. But I 
 think you are right, Luli, in believing that 
 Duke is not mercenary, and that money, 
 simply as money, holds a very subordinate 
 part in his scheme of life. I like Duke 
 Mayburne," he continued, reflectively, as if 
 weighing his words. " I liked him from 
 the first — from the day that he brought you 
 the white pup — do you remember, child? 
 He has talent, energy, a kind heart, a singu- 
 larly handsome face " 
 
 Glencairn paused in his enumeration of
 
 GLENCAIRN. 2ol 
 
 this list of shining qualities, — whether be- 
 cause he had arrived at the climax, or be- 
 cause he was hesitating whether to add 
 another quality or not, Liili was too happy 
 and grateful to care. It was enough to 
 lift her to the highest pinnacle of joy that 
 her father spoke well of her lover. She 
 cared no more to inquire on what he 
 founded his good opinion than to analyse 
 her own heart, and seek to discover why 
 she had made this man its idol. He was 
 not an unworthy idol, " taking him for all 
 in all," although he did not possess the 
 heroic qualities with which her transfiguring 
 eyes invested him. 
 
 Of course Duke makes his appearance 
 the next morning, and Luli greets him in 
 a beautiful rosy tremor of shy joy and 
 tenderness. He has never seen her look
 
 252 CtLencairn. 
 
 so lovely before ; her beauty is perfected 
 now, as a woman's beauty never is until tbe 
 one true light of life sheds around it the 
 halo of that first fresh glory which, once 
 illuminated, will never wholly fade. 
 
 They build fair castles in the air ; it is 
 the season for golden dreams. How bright 
 and high those cloud-castles tower up on 
 the horizon ! how real they look in the 
 distance, save only for the fact that no 
 such perfect harmony and beauty was ever 
 realised ! Duke is naturally, however, a 
 shade less supremely blest and delighted 
 than Luli with the arrangement laid down 
 by her father. 
 
 " I may trust you, dearest, may I not?" 
 he says (as if he required assurance !). 
 " You will not let yourself be tempted 
 away from me ? You promise that you 
 will be mine ?"
 
 GLENCATRN. 2o3 
 
 " Am I not yours now, Duke ? Shall I 
 ever be yours more faithfully and truly 
 than I am now ?" 
 
 " You will be faithful, then ? Even if it 
 should be for years ?" 
 
 " All the years that I live I will be true 
 to you !" 
 
 "But I could not reproach you if you 
 broke that vow," he says, half seriously, 
 half jestingly. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because you are a woman, darling," he 
 replies, and smiles, and raises her hand to 
 his lips and kisses it. 
 
 " Don't be cynical," she says tenderly, 
 and nestling trustfully to his side ; " that 
 is a speech lago would have made !" 
 
 " Well, wouldn't you rather that I should 
 be lago than Othello ?"
 
 '254 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 ^'- No r replies Lull emphatically, with a 
 fire kindling in her soft eyes. " Othello's 
 was the crime of love, and Desdemona was 
 the first to forgive him and plead for him 
 in Heaven, I know I" 
 
 " If she was like you, she was an angel," 
 observes Duke, not too relevantly ; but 
 some degree of irrelevance is to be pardon- 
 ed to a lover looking down into the depths 
 of such eyes as Luli raises to his. 
 
 So, eyes to eyes, and lips to lips, and 
 heart to heart, they forget the future and 
 the past — forget the possibilities that 
 crouch in ambush beside the path of the 
 happiest lovers, the names of the cruellest 
 of whom are Fickleness and Jealousy, and 
 the name of the mildest is Death.
 
 255 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " A fair and gentle creature, meant 
 
 For heart, and hearth, and home content." 
 
 L. E. L. 
 
 " Shadows that shroud the To-morrow, 
 Glists from the life that's within ; 
 Traces of pain and of sorrow, 
 And may be a trace of sin." 
 
 Joaquin Miller. 
 
 npHE Winter has come, and has ruled 
 over the land until the term of his 
 sovereignty is almost gone. Already the 
 forces of Spring are mustering, and the 
 coming monarch is making ready to 
 advance to the possession of the throne. 
 But the grim old king will not yield with- 
 out a struggle ; and he is too potent still
 
 256 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 for the buds, timid heralds of the invader^ 
 to dare to peep; only the hardy little 
 crocuses have courage to defy him, and 
 declare in the teeth of his biting icy 
 winds that Spring shall come, is coming. 
 Still Winter's pale banner floats across the 
 grey snow-laden sky ; still Winter's breath 
 traces fanciful hieroglyphics of his decrees 
 on the window-panes in figures of frosted 
 crystal. 
 
 In a room on the fourth floor of a Lon- 
 don house, which bears a placard of 
 " Apartments " in its parlour window, a 
 girl is sitting curled up on the hearthrug. 
 The rug is a shabby one, so threadbare that 
 little of its original pattern is distinguish- 
 able ; but its presence could ill be dispensed 
 with — the room being so sparely carpeted 
 with narrow strips of faded Kidderminster
 
 GLENCAIEN. 257 
 
 that the ancient hearthrug forms a valuable 
 contribution to the furniture. This fourth- 
 floor back in Summer is reputed to be a 
 charming, airy apartment ; but in Winter 
 the -wind delights to whistle playfully 
 through the chinks of the window and 
 door, and down the chimney and in at the 
 keyhole of the cupboard. It is decidedly 
 a cold room at this season, and Zora 
 Brown's present occupation is poking sticks 
 of firewood and bits of paper into the 
 grate, to rekindle the handful of smoulder- 
 ing coals. She does not commit the ex- 
 travagance of a fire every day and all day 
 long ; but this afternoon is very chilly, and 
 she wants to coax the obstinate embers 
 into a cheerful blaze, by which she will 
 first prepare, and then partake of her soli- 
 tary cup of tea. 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 Zora Brown, who was a child when Lull 
 Glencairn met her at the birthday party, and 
 wondered who and what she was, is a woman 
 now — a pretty, graceful young woman, who 
 picks up the sticks of charred firewood 
 with dainty fingers, and who has all the 
 nameless and indescribable refinements of 
 a gently-bred lady in her air and attitude, 
 and every turn of her hand and bend of her 
 head, even now while engaged in the un- 
 romantic task of lighting a fire. 
 
 She has on a blue serge dress, which 
 has seen so much wear that only much 
 careful darning holds it together in some 
 places ; and the muslin frills at her neck 
 and wrists are not so fresh as they pro- 
 bably were a day or two ago. Zora is 
 neat and trim, and as careful of her meagre 
 toilette as she can be ; but she is not one of
 
 GLENCAIKN. 259 
 
 tliose wlio hold tliat no ribbon at all is better 
 than a faded ribbon. She likes things 
 bright and new and fresh — when she can 
 afford them ; but if she cannot get fresh 
 ribbons, she regards a faded breast-knot as 
 a very great deal better than none. Yet 
 there is no suggestion of tawdry, faded 
 finery about her ; rather, she has the gift 
 of wearing her well-worn dress and faded 
 ribbon and crumpled frills, so that, instead 
 of their making her look shabby, she 
 makes them look presentable. 
 
 There is a sound of footsteps and a 
 rustling of skirts upon the stairs, but as 
 Zora does not expect any visitors, and the 
 wood is just beginning to burn beautifully, 
 she takes no notice, till somebody plays a 
 tattoo on the door, and calls, " Zora !" 
 
 " Come in. Who is there ?" 
 
 s2
 
 260 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 Zora turns from her task with surprise 
 and interest ; but she has not time to rise 
 up from her humble position before Kate 
 Craven bursts into the room with her 
 habitual vivacity, albeit she appears pant- 
 ing and breathless. 
 
 " Zora, my dear child, how are you ? Oh, 
 those stairs ! Good gracious ! what are 
 you doing there? Oh, what a height to 
 live at ! I am quite out of breath ! "Why 
 don't you have a lift? Seven flights of 
 stairs, I declare it is !" 
 
 " Only four," observes Zora, smiling, and 
 looking really pleased to see her visitor, as 
 she returns Kate's osculatory greeting. 
 
 *' Well now, my dear girl, what has be- 
 come of you all this time ? I thought I 
 would come and see you instead of writ- 
 ing ; so here I am. Isn't it an age since
 
 GLENCAIKN. 261 
 
 ^e have met ? Why do you live up in this 
 sky-parlour ? What are you doing now ?" 
 says Kate, pouring forth remarks and ques- 
 tions all in a breath. 
 
 " I live here principally because it's eco- 
 nomical," Zora replies. " If you will ex- 
 cuse me, I will put another stick into this 
 obstinate fire. Draw your chair close, so 
 as to get all the little warmth there is. It 
 has been in such a sulky temper I cannot 
 make it burn." 
 
 The two girls are a great contrast in 
 appearance ; Kate Craven in her sweeping 
 silk dress, her velvet hat and feather, her 
 sealskin mantle with its deep fur trim- 
 ming ; and Zora Brown in her poor little 
 darned serge frock ; but Zora Brown be- 
 trays no embarrassed consciousness ; and 
 her manner to her guest, sweet and gentle
 
 262 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 as it is, is delightfully free from subservi- 
 ency, and equally far from the awkward- 
 ness of assuming and claiming an equality 
 on which there is any doubt. Zora's man- 
 ner never asserts the doctrine of " Liberty, 
 Equality, and Fraternity," but simply ^rove^ 
 it — proves it by a softness, a delicacy, a 
 refinement of look and accent of which no 
 lady in the land need have been ashamed. 
 
 " Well, and now tell me all about your- 
 self, Zora," says Kate, when the sulky fire 
 is beginning to smile, and Zora has risen 
 and taken her seat beside her visitor. 
 " As for my adventures," Kate continues, 
 lounging back in her chair, " they are soon 
 told. Two Winters in Paris — one in 
 Brussels, — I wrote to you from Brussels, 
 by-the-by. Every season in London all the 
 season long. Lots of society ; lots of fun ;
 
 GLENCiURN. 263 
 
 lots of flirtatioD. I have grown an awful 
 flirt, they tell me; but I don't believe it 
 myself. Anyhow I find life a very jolly 
 thing ! How do you find it ?" 
 
 "Not so jolly as you do certainly," re- 
 sponds Zora, with a rather pensive smile. 
 " The world has not gone very well with 
 me ; but I ought not to complain, for it 
 might have done much worse." 
 
 " Have you not got any money ? How 
 do you make your living?" asks Kate, 
 frankly inquisitive. 
 
 " Just now I give a few lessons to little 
 children, by which I provide myself with 
 bread, and cold mutton, and occasional 
 cups of tea." 
 
 " Why don't you get a governess's place 
 in a nice family ?" 
 
 "It is easier said than done. First and
 
 264 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 foremost, I am not well-educated enough. 
 I could take no place beyond giving wliat 
 they call rudimentary instruction to little 
 children." 
 
 " Upon my word, I don't think I could 
 even do that ! Teaching must be a horrid 
 bore !" exclaims Kate. " Why don't you 
 advertise for a companion's place ?" 
 
 " I did. I tried that twice ; but " 
 
 Zora hesitated thoughtfully, " it didn't do. 
 And then I once gave some sittings to an 
 artist; and that didn't do either." She 
 coloured a little, and continued rather hur- 
 riedly, " And oh ! Kate, my one good chance 
 in life I lost ! I have not done regretting 
 that yet ! I told you once, I think, that 
 I was studying singing. "Well, I was to 
 come out in an English operetta. It was 
 only a beginning ; but it would have been
 
 GLEXOAIR^f. 265 
 
 a good beginning. And so 1 made my 
 dehut ; and I sang for nearly a week ; and 
 I was full of hope. And tlien I had inflam- 
 mation of the lungs, and lost my voice ; 
 and the doctor told me I must not sing 
 even if I got my voice back. And I tried 
 to sing again, and broke a bloodvessel and 
 nearly killed myself. So you see my one 
 good chance is gone." 
 
 "Oh, poor child! that luas hard upon 
 you!" observed Kate sympathetically. 
 " But you'll get a better chance yet, Zora 
 dear, in some other line. Singing isn't the 
 only career in the world. And then very 
 likely you'll marry ; you are sure to marry ; 
 I wonder you haven't married yet !" 
 
 " It does not do to trust to that chance," 
 said Zora softly, but practically. 
 
 " What languages can you speak ?" asked
 
 266 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 Kate, as if inspired by a sudden thought. 
 
 " Only a little French." 
 
 " Not Italian ?" 
 
 "No; I wish I could! I am sure I 
 should love Italian. I taught myself just 
 enough to pronounce my Italian songs — 
 but that is all." 
 
 " Ah, not Italian ; that is a pity. I was 
 thinking," said Kate slowly — " but no — ah ! 
 well, I'm afraid not. "Well, now anyhow, 
 Zora, we must see if we can't get you some 
 recommendations or something. You must 
 advertise again. I'm sure that's the right 
 thing. And now, dear, I must go. Good- 
 bye. No, no tea, thank you ; not a drop. 
 And, Zora, you must come and see me, 
 mind; we must not let each other drift 
 again." 
 
 Kate imprinted a hearty, kindly kiss on
 
 GLENCAIRN. 207" 
 
 Zora's cheek, and departed, her silken 
 skirts rustling down the staircase, and 
 catching on an obtrusive nail, which drew 
 an aggrieved exclamation of " Oh dear ! 
 what a dreadful place !" from the wearer. 
 
 Zora sits alone, gazmg into the red 
 embers and letting her tea get cold, saying 
 to herself with a sigh, " "What a contrast !" 
 and with a smile, " I am glad to have seen 
 her. It was good of her to come." 
 
 On this afternoon too, beside another 
 fire, another girl is sitting, not alone, and 
 with no need to resort to the red coals for 
 an object to gaze at and dream over. Liili 
 Glencairn is leaning back in a low easy- 
 chair, peaceful and graceful and happy, the 
 pure daylight resting on one pale oval 
 cheek and curving coil of fair hair, the red 
 gleam of the firelight flickering on the
 
 2 63 GLENOAIRN. 
 
 other side of her face and touching the 
 soft cheek nearest it with an unnaturally 
 bright glow. She is slowly smoothing the 
 fur of j a large tabby cat that lies 'curled 
 into a cushion in her lap and purring 
 lazily in its slumber. The girl and the cat 
 look together like a picture of home happi- 
 ness, each equally and supremely comfort- 
 able and content, — except indeed that Luli, 
 with those dreamy spiritual eyes of hers, 
 can never look utterly absorbed in any 
 purely sensuous pleasure of luxury and 
 •ease; and even in her happiest moments, her 
 soul, when her eyes glance upward, seems 
 always to be looking beyond, away into a 
 land of dreams. 
 
 On the other side of the hearth sits 
 Glencairn, in his usual characteristically 
 careless lounging attitude; he scarcely
 
 GLENCAIEN. 2G9 
 
 looks above a year or two older than wlieu 
 nearly a dozen years ago lie returned to his 
 unknown little daughter ; his dark waves of 
 hair are but slightly threaded with silver ; 
 and his odd piercing sombre eyes are at 
 peace. By the mantelpiece stands Duke 
 Mayburne, carelessly picturesque as ever 
 in his velvet coat and loose necktie, hand- 
 some as ever, with his rich curling chestnut 
 hair and beard, his splendid grey eyes well- 
 set under the broad white brow, and his 
 profile like that of the "Wounded Gladia- 
 tor" — a resemblance Luli had discovered 
 at her last visit to the Crystal Palace, and 
 which, considering the discoverer was in 
 love with Duke, was far less flattering to 
 him and more accurately truthful than 
 might have been expected. 
 
 They have been discussing literature and
 
 '270 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 the drama, Shakespeare in general, " Mac- 
 beth" in particular; and from Macbeth 
 and the Weird Sisters, Glencairn gives 
 the conversation a fresh turn. 
 
 " Macbeth simply acted out his destiny," 
 he observes, positively. ^'He was irre- 
 sponsible from the first. Only by an irony 
 of Fate some deceptive glimpses of the 
 future were shown to him. He could not 
 turn aside from the path he was bound to 
 tread ; only a will-o'-the-wisp was set danc- 
 ing before him to throw false lights on the 
 quagmire wherein he was fated to be 
 swallowed up. Fate does play such pranks 
 with us sometimes. I cannot see the good 
 of them," he continued, meditatively. 
 ■" They cannot help us to avoid an evil ; 
 and, as a rule, the foreshadowing of the 
 future is worse than useless."
 
 GLENCAIRN. 271 
 
 " Do you believe in supernatural mani- 
 festations, then?" asked Duke. 
 
 " There is nothing that to my mind is 
 supernatural," Glencairn replied. "There 
 are powers that know the future. Under 
 certain circumstances, they can communi- 
 cate their knowledge." 
 
 " The premise that there are powers that 
 know the future assumes that the future is 
 pre-ordained, so that what they foresee is 
 inevitable ?" 
 
 " That is so," Glencairn said quietly ; 
 " and in that consists the irony of some of 
 those strange warnings which we seldom 
 understand, and by which we cannot 
 profit." 
 
 " That is pure fatalism, is it not ?" asked 
 Luli, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Yes," he answered ; " we all must dree 
 our weird."
 
 272 GLENCATRN. 
 
 " There are some prophecies," observed 
 Duke, practically, "that do not need the 
 doctrine of spiritual or unearthly know- 
 ledge to account for them — forecasts that 
 may with tolerable safety be ventured upon 
 by reasonable calculation ; for coming events 
 do sometimes * cast their shadows before * 
 literally." 
 
 " There are some such prophecies as 
 you speak of," admitted Glencairn ; " and 
 there are others that no reasonable calcu- 
 lations can possibly explain. How would 
 you account for a man's double walking 
 before his death? — or for the Banshee's 
 cry foretelling trouble ?" 
 
 " Are such things well authenticated ?" 
 inquired Duke. 
 
 " Who can doubt the mass of testimony 
 towards them? A friend of my own, a
 
 GLENCAIKX. 273 
 
 young Irish fellow of Kildare county, has 
 heard the Banshee twice, and it was each 
 time followed by a death. You have heard 
 me speak of M'Gregor ? McGregor's father 
 saw his wraith walk in the garden the 
 day he was seized with his last illness. 
 Do you not know that your favourite poet, 
 Shelley, in the last month of his life, saw 
 a cloaked figure, which disclosed his own 
 face to him, and vanished ?" 
 
 Duke looked somewhat incredulous, and 
 remarked that " Shelley was a visionary 
 and a dreamer." 
 
 " But what is the use of these appari- 
 tions ?" pondered Luli. 
 
 " Unless it be to warn a fellow to make 
 his will and prepare his last requests," 
 suggested Duke. 
 
 " In the case of a man burdened with the 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 GLENOAIEN. 
 
 secret of any crime, it might be well that 
 he should know his last hour was near, 
 that he might secure the peace of his soul 
 beyond the grave," said Glencairn. "But 
 I acknowledge such cases are rare. As a 
 rule, there is in these forecasts no such 
 clear motive as to warn a sinful man to 
 free his soul from its secrets. I don't 
 understand it — it is beyond me." 
 
 " It is beyond us all," said Duke, respect- 
 fully forbearing to attack Glencairn's evi- 
 dently unconquerable superstition. 
 
 " Such appearances, if they are clearty 
 proven as occurring before the events they 
 foreshadow," said Luli, reflectively, " seem 
 to serve only one purpose — that of proving 
 that things are predestined." 
 
 " Which I think, for the good of the 
 world in general, might as well be left un- 
 proven," observed Duke.
 
 GLENCAIRN. 275 
 
 "Meaning tliat tlie doctrine of pre- 
 destination is too strong meat for the souls 
 of the million ?" said Glencairn. " Well, 
 perhaps you are right there, Duke." 
 
 " The million, you see," rejoined Duke, 
 "would be too apt to stop at the comfort- 
 ing theory that all the crimes they commit 
 are predestined, and would not advance 
 the next step to the perception that their 
 punishments, in some world or another, 
 are probably predestined too." 
 
 " Hard on the million that !" observed 
 Glencairn smiling ; " and pretty hard on us 
 all. Hard on Judas Iscariot that his 
 name should be a mark for obloquy for 
 centuries on account of a crime which he 
 had been for centuries destined to commit." 
 
 Here the door opened ; " Miss Craven " 
 was announced, and Kate, who had come 
 
 t2
 
 276 GLEN C 'HEN. 
 
 on from her afternoon visit to Zora to dine 
 and spend the evening with the Glencairns^ 
 made her appearance. 
 
 " My dear Katie, you are come just in 
 time to rescue us from fathomless depths 
 wherein we were getting lost," said Luli, 
 as the two girls exchanged an affectionate 
 greeting. 
 
 "Depths of heterodoxy from which we 
 will extricate ourselves forthwith," added 
 Glencairn. 
 
 "Ghosts, wraiths, and Banshees, Miss 
 Craven," said Duke in a deep and sepulchral 
 voice. 
 
 " my gracious ! And in this twilight 
 room !" cried Kate. " For goodness' sake 
 light the gas !"
 
 BOOK TV. 
 
 SAILING SUMMER SEAS.
 
 279 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " Love well who will ; love wise who can ; 
 But love ; be loved ; for God is Love. 
 Let love be ripe in ruddy prime, 
 Let hope beat bigh, let hearts be true ; 
 And you be wise thereat ; and you 
 Drink deep, and ask not any more !" 
 
 JoAQum Miller. 
 
 npHE Spring lias budded, bloomed, and 
 faded, and Summer fruit is ripe. In 
 tlie country, beyond the dust, and smoke, 
 and heat of the great city, all is peace, and 
 melody, and beauty now. Looking on the 
 billowy sea of chimney-pots, the intermin- 
 able Sahara of dry and dusty tiles, it makes 
 one thirsty, as if for a cooling beverage in
 
 280 GLENOAIEN. 
 
 fever, to think liow, only a few miles 
 off, 
 
 " Over waving ways 
 Of deep green grass the gusty winds did bring 
 Soft subtle scents of sweet flowers blossoming 
 With sound of wild birds singing face to face." 
 
 But in London a general yearning for tlie 
 country does not seem to prevail, for the 
 fact that the season is at its height, and 
 that London is full to overflowing, is 
 brought before you prominently at every 
 hour of the day and night. In the morn- 
 ing and after the noon, the Row and the 
 Ring are crowded, and the upper ten 
 thousand, in sober broughams, in dashing 
 barouches, in low victorias, in lofty four- 
 in-hands, on " black horses and white, red 
 horses and grey," parade themselves before 
 the eyes of the million. The million lean 
 over the railings, and gaze, and criticise,
 
 GLENCAIRN. 281 
 
 and envy, and admire, as the always hand- 
 some horses, and the sometimes beautiful 
 riders — for you get the best of equine 
 oftener than the best of human beauty in 
 this exhibition — pass by in the unending 
 round. 
 
 At night, walk through the West-end 
 streets and squares ! Here, there, and 
 there again, red cloth is laid across the 
 pavement, striped awnings flutter in the 
 evening breeze, and strains of music float 
 out from the open windows. Here car- 
 riages are setting down for a ball ; there 
 taking up from a dinner-party ; here, there, 
 and everywhere small audiences are con- 
 gregated on the pavement to enjoy the 
 entertainment provided gratuitously by 
 the London wealthy for the London poor. 
 Visions of beauty — visions of wealth —
 
 282 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 Worth's latest creations in dress— diamonds 
 that are family heirlooms — flash by like 
 shows in a magic lantern, under the eyes 
 of the little street- Arab, the working-man 
 and the working woman ; and so, to high 
 and low, to the drone and the busy bee of 
 the London world, the London season 
 brings its excitement, its pleasure, its 
 weariness of body and of soul. 
 
 By this season of course Duke Mayburne 
 and Luli Glencairn are openly acknow- 
 ledged to be "engaged," though the 
 acknowledgment has not been made 
 suddenly or all at once ; indeed it would 
 have puzzled both of these young people 
 to have fixed the day on which their under- 
 standing became a ratified engagement, 
 although they had of course considered 
 themselves betrothed, and had been mutu-
 
 GLENCAIRX. 2S3 
 
 ally pledged to eternal constancy from the 
 day on wliicli Duke first spoke of his love 
 to Luli. The publicity had come gradually ; 
 people had "chaffed" them more and 
 more, and they had avoided the chaff less 
 and less, and confided in one friend after 
 another ; and Glencairn had looked on 
 tranquilly, and interposed no objection, 
 but, according to one of his favourite 
 theories, had "let things drift." So things 
 had drifted, until this season Duke and Luli 
 were openly affianced in the eyes of the 
 world ; and although they had not yet 
 fixed any time for their marriage, the}^ 
 were full of hopes and dreams and schemes 
 for their united life; and the cloud-castles 
 towered higher, fairer, brighter than ever. 
 Luli was as happy as the Summer days 
 were long ; the sunshine of her smile lit up-
 
 :284 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 all the household, and it was almost pathetic 
 to see how her happiness was reflected in 
 the look of smiling content on old Miss 
 Priscilla's faded, time-worn face. Even 
 stern Miss Christiana relented into tender- 
 ness when Luli's blue, soft eyes, all spark- 
 ling with joy, looked into hers as if sure of 
 sympathy : and Mrs. Boyd smiled, although 
 she could not forbear a simultaneous sigh, 
 as Luli's glad voice carolled bird-like 
 snatches of song while she went about the 
 house, light of foot and light of heart. As 
 for Glencairn, he was a man of but one 
 love, one aim. His daughter made all the 
 music, all the sunshine, all the holiday of 
 his life. 
 
 After all, in spite of the often and loudly 
 asserted selfishness of human nature, it is 
 chiefly in sympathy with the young, and in
 
 GLENCAIKX. 285 
 
 watching what seems the resurrection of 
 their own 3'outh, that the old live again. 
 It is by entering into the spirit of the life 
 of youth that is in the full flush and flow 
 of living, that they who have lived their 
 lives exist. 
 
 People, however, in this world, old or 
 young, can seldom sympathise without 
 volunteering advice as to the conducting 
 of the circumstances which inspire their 
 sympathy. Lessons innumerable concern- 
 ins: the management of a husband and a 
 household are offered gratuitously to the 
 jo\mg fiancee. Golden maxims are shower- 
 ed upon her ; minute and accurate plans of 
 life are drawn up for her benefit. If Luli 
 followed all, or even half, the advice that is 
 given her by the elders of her own sex as to 
 the "management" of Duke in the coming
 
 ■286 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 days, the path would be more likely than 
 not to conduct the young couple by no 
 very circuitous route into the Divorce 
 Court ! As regards the management of 
 income and expenses, the advice, though 
 each separate piece of it sounds sensible 
 enough, when fitted together forms a sujffi- 
 ciently puzzling whole. 
 
 " Ah ! don't waste your money, my dear, 
 on that ridiculous notion of honeymooning. 
 Of all the rubbish, I think it is the ab- 
 surdest convention for a young new-married 
 couple to fly into exile as if they had done 
 something wrong, and were banished from 
 their native land ! When Jones and I 
 were married, we went straight from the 
 altar home to our little cottage at Hamp- 
 stead. And do you do the same, my dear!" 
 one matron would say.
 
 GLENCAIIiN. 287 
 
 " I hope you will take a good long liappy 
 honeymoon trip, my dear. When you come 
 back and begin housekeeping, ah ! then 
 you'll find your troubles begin !" another 
 would prophesy. 
 
 " You will take a small house, of course ? 
 I should advise you to look out Kensington 
 way; and be careful not to allow more 
 than a sixth of your income for rent. 
 Statistics prove," &c. " Statistics " always 
 was the beginning of a long and instructive 
 lecture. 
 
 '* You won't commit the extravagance of 
 a house, of course ? A young couple can 
 live so delightfully in genteel furnished 
 apartments," would be the next adviser's 
 beginning. 
 
 " Really," observes Luli confidentially to 
 Duke one day, ** I feel like a target for
 
 288 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 everybody to fire advice at ! Mrs. Groves 
 lias been here to-day, and without making 
 the slightest inquiry as to our plans and 
 projects, proposed to go and negotiate for 
 us for a suite of rooms on the seventh floor 
 of the Langham Hotel. She said it would 
 be so delightful for you to have a smoking 
 and billiard-room on the premises. I had 
 some difficulty in persuading her that her 
 plan was rather premature, as we had not 
 begun to form our own schemes yet." 
 
 "I wonder why it is that people are 
 always as ready with their advice when it's 
 not wanted, as they are chary of their help 
 when one has any need of it," pondered 
 Duke. 
 
 " Perhaps it is because it would be so 
 delightful to their feelings to be able to 
 say, ' That young couple owe all their
 
 GLENCAIEN. 289 
 
 happiness to my judicious counsel!'" sug- 
 gested Luli. *' And on the other side, 
 don't you think, Duke, it might be rather 
 satisfactory for us to be able to say, in case 
 of any failure, that the responsibility rests 
 with our advisers ?" 
 
 " I think I'd rather succeed or fail on my 
 own hook," he said. 
 
 "But / had rather, if anything went 
 wrong, that you should find fault with any- 
 body else than with me," she rejoined. 
 
 " Find fault with you, my pet ! "What 
 am I likely to have to find fault with my 
 little darling about?" 
 
 " That unpleasant discovery has yet to 
 be made — and oh ! what an unpleasant dis- 
 covery it will be !" she added with a 
 very sincere sigh at the dolorous prospect. 
 
 VOL. I. tr
 
 290 GLENOAIEN. 
 
 " Duke, I wonder if I ever could be angry 
 witli you ?" 
 
 " Don't let us try the experiment, dearest 
 — in case you should find you could !" he 
 answered, smiling, and fondly caressing her 
 bright waving hair, that always got pictur- 
 esquely ruffled during their interviews, 
 and required considerable smoothing and 
 combing after his departure before it could 
 be made presentable. 
 
 " One thing is satisfactory," observed 
 Luli, as she lifted up his wrist for inspec- 
 tion, " you wear studs ! So many buttons 
 the less — so many chances of quarrel the 
 less ! This is what I am informed, at 
 least. Buttons and dinners ! — those are 
 the two critical points." 
 
 "You shan't be troubled much as to 
 buttons, pet ; and as to dinners — well, I'll
 
 GLENCAIEN. 291 
 
 promise not to tlirow the disli-covers at 
 yon, not indeed to throw anything larger 
 than a salt-cellar. "Will that content you ?" 
 
 " I don't see why there should be any 
 need of even so harmless a missile as a 
 salt-cellar," she responded cheerfully as a 
 re-assuring reflection occurred to her. " I 
 shall have plenty of time to study your 
 tastes at table-d-hote dinners before we set 
 up domestic meals — although to be sure 
 foreign hotels will scarcely be a fair test, 
 as you will have to control any inclination 
 for showing dissatisfaction by flinging 
 about the table furniture." 
 
 ' ' Did I ever show you what a long bill they 
 sent me in at Etretat for the decanters 
 and dishes and goblets I had destroyed in my 
 righteous anger at their confoundedly bad 
 dinners ?" he inquired gravely. 
 
 u2
 
 292 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 "And, whew ! Lull, do you know what 
 o'clock it is ?" he added presently, holding 
 out his watch. 
 
 " Is it so late ?" she said with unaffected 
 regret. 
 
 " The time always flies so with us," he 
 observed somewhat complainingly. " Never 
 mind ! it will bring next Summer the soon- 
 er, won't it, darling?" He smiled as he 
 spoke of next Summer ; for it was then 
 that they hoped, if things went well 
 with Duke in a worldly sense, to try 
 the dangerous experiment of domesticity, 
 and then those " buttons and dinners " 
 would become serious realities. 
 
 '' Shall I see you to-morrow ?" asked 
 Luli, looking down with the soft coy shy- 
 ness that was the nearest approach to 
 coquetry she knew.
 
 GLEXCAIKN. 293 
 
 " Not to-morrow, dear. I am so liard 
 at work just now. I had to be up at five 
 this morning to get that double-page sup- 
 plement of the Guildhall reception off in 
 time ; and I shall have to sit up half to- 
 night, for there's the block waiting for 
 Conrad and Medora without a line drawn 
 on it yet !" 
 
 '•On Wednesday then?" 
 
 " Well, there's the Sociable Club dinner 
 on Wednesday ! it wouldn't do for me to 
 miss that, you know. But on Thursday at 
 the garden-party we shall meet and have a 
 jolly day. Look out for me at the station 
 before starting. And make yourself look 
 your prettiest, darling, for I want all my 
 friends to envy me. I think they do that al- 
 ready pretty well!" he added with a self-satis- 
 fied air and a smile of proud proprietorship.
 
 294 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 Duke was one of the class of men who 
 like their choice to be admired, who wish 
 to see the seal of the world's approval set 
 upon their taste, who, far from being jeal- 
 ous of other men's appreciation of the 
 charms of their beloved, would rather like 
 than dislike to see the pathway of her con- 
 quering car strown with victims — it being 
 well understood that they must be hopeless 
 victims, on whom she must not waste her 
 tears, or even lavish her smiles. Luli was 
 nothing of a coquette ; but she was woman 
 enough to take a naive and simple pleasure 
 in her beauty for his sake ; and he being 
 as proud of her as he was fond, the admir- 
 ation which her pure Saxon blonde loveli- 
 ness attracted was equally gratifying to his 
 vanity and his love. 
 
 On the day of the garden-party accord-
 
 GLENCAIEN. 295 
 
 ingly, Lull was arrayed in her best and 
 looking her loveliest, dressed all in white, 
 as he liked her to be, floating, cloudy, 
 filmy white, with touches of tender blue 
 gleaming through the transparent gauze, 
 and a graceful head-dress that professed to 
 be a bonnet — consisting of two white fea- 
 thers, a bunch of forget-me-nots and a 
 tulle streamer, — nestling among the fair 
 braided masses of her hair. 
 
 The meeting-place appointed for all the 
 London guests is the railway-station, 
 where a special set of saloon carriages are 
 attached to the tail of an ordinary train for 
 their benefit, to bear them in sociable 
 comfort to their destination. The guests 
 are mustering accordingly. From City 
 and suburb, from the aristocratic west, 
 from the modest north and south, and from
 
 296 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 the despised east — "the cry is still they 
 come." 
 
 The party is a mixed one ; it has become 
 an annual affair — one of the yearly off- 
 spring of an alliance between Art and 
 Commerce. The host and the large circle 
 of his old friends and colleagues represent 
 commerce; the hostess and the larger 
 circle of their later friends represent art. 
 Oil and grocery made the money ; art helps 
 to spend it. Trade made the master of 
 Holmswood Hall ; and now the master of 
 Holmswood Hall helps art to thrive ; and 
 into the treasury of art, gold pours from 
 the coffers which trade filled. Many a young 
 artist will look back gratefully to the 
 hand, a hard-working, honest, kindly hand, 
 that signed his first cheque, and proved 
 truly a helping hand to steady him up the
 
 GLENCMRN. 297 
 
 first step of the ladder. Many a great 
 painter's chef-d'oeuvre, and many a pro- 
 mising Tvork of rising genius, adorn the 
 walls of the handsome country-house — 
 (a "Mansion suitable for the Occupation of 
 a Nobleman or Gentleman " had been the 
 terms set forth in the advertisement which 
 tempted its present tenant to negotiation) 
 — whither now the special train, unless 
 goods-vans or coal-trucks should come into 
 collision with it on the way, will whirl the 
 attendant guests. 
 
 So here are the party assembling in 
 battalions on the platform and in the 
 waiting-room. Here are the artists, and 
 the artists' wives and daughters, some 
 dressed in the fashion, some out of it, not 
 so slightly out of it as to be despised, but 
 so daringly out of it as to be admired, some
 
 298 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 attired simply and gravely as nuns, others 
 in ricli and rare and perfect harmo- 
 nies of colour that are a rest to the eye to 
 look upon. And here is dear Mrs. Craven 
 in a vivid emerald silk, with a bird of para- 
 dise in her bonnet ; and next her the wife 
 of a millionaire in a crude scarlet satin that 
 would set one's teeth on edge to look at it if 
 she had not in charity veiled a great 
 portion of it in falls of heavy black lace. 
 This costume is crowned by a miraculous 
 erection of white blonde and white flowers, 
 concerning which Duke whispers to Luli, 
 
 " If I look at her any longer, I shall be 
 compelled to snatch it off! so take me 
 away on to the platform, out of the way of 
 temptation." 
 
 Luli is too glad of the opportunity of 
 getting out of the crowded group in the
 
 GLENCAIRN. 299" 
 
 waiting-room, and pacing up and down the 
 platform with her beloved. On the plat- 
 form other members of the party are 
 wandering about in twos and threes,, 
 awaiting the departure of their train, with 
 a languor that contrasts with the alertness 
 and the bustle of the travellers proper who 
 are bound for the Continent by another 
 train just about to start. Porters dash 
 briskly along with trucks of luggage, their 
 movements seeming expressly designed to 
 amputate the toes of the unwary. The 
 garden-party people mostly undulate 
 quietly in their tranquil promenade to let 
 these instruments of danger pass ; but some 
 of them get absorbed in conversation 
 and have to steer clear at the last moment 
 with a start and a jump, and — if masculine 
 — a growl. The travellers proper rusli
 
 ^00 GLENCAIKN. 
 
 frantically about and are perpetually trying 
 to cross the path of the porters and having 
 to dodge and turn and retreat. The 
 garden-party people look half enviously at 
 the travellers who are bound from sultry 
 London for the cooling balm of the sea- 
 breezes and the fresh delight of the sea- 
 waves. Those big portmanteaux with the 
 many defaced labels, those travelling- valises 
 tied up with a bundle of rugs and um- 
 brellas and Alpenstocks, are tantalizing to 
 look upon ; they rouse a burning thrill of 
 the migratory fever that begins to stir in 
 all London veins as the season waxes to its 
 height. 
 
 The travellers in their turn regard the 
 garden-party, some with envy, and some 
 with lofty pity. The garden-party are not 
 going abroad ; true — but then they have
 
 GLENCAIRX. 301 
 
 no luggage to look after, and no Channel 
 crossing before tliem. And then, too, 
 while the female travellers proper are clad 
 in suits of dust-coloured home-spuns and 
 sober checks and modest browns and greys, 
 the ladies of the garden fete look so fresh 
 and radiant in their snowy muslins and 
 rainbow-tinted silks ! 
 
 "Now, Duke," begins Luli, eagerly, as 
 they emerge on to the platform, " I have 
 something very particular to say to you." 
 
 " All right, dear ; I'm all attention. Is 
 it to propose that we should elope ? Is 
 that heap of luggage yours ? — and am I to 
 take the tickets ?" 
 
 " Not yet, please ; but it is something 
 that does concern tickets and luggage. You 
 remember last year there was a talk of our 
 joining the Cravens in a trip to some warm 
 climate for the Winter ?"
 
 502 GLENCATRN. 
 
 " Well, I don't remember ; but I dare say 
 there was." 
 
 "Yes, there was ; and this year the plan 
 lias been revived. Mr. and Mrs. Craven 
 came round yesterday to talk about it. 
 You see, there will be a capital opportunity 
 this season," she pursues, narratively and 
 eagerly, " because they know a gentleman 
 who has a villa on the Lake of Como, and 
 he wants to let it furnished in September. 
 So we might spend the Autumn there, 
 take it for three months, you know, and 
 then at Christmas move on down to Rome 
 and Naples, and return in the Spring. 
 They brought us a photograph of the 
 villa, and the gentleman's letter about 
 terms, and all that ; and, in fact, papa and 
 Mr. Craven very nearly arranged it all 
 yesterday. I have been longing to see 
 you and tell you all about it."
 
 GLENCAIRN. 303 
 
 " Thinking it would be a clieerful piece 
 of news for me ? But I do not see tlie 
 delioflit of ' ocean wide between us rollinsc ' 
 for a whole long Winter. However, if 
 
 you are pleased 1 daresay you'll enjoy 
 
 yourself very mucli." 
 
 " I shall, I hope," she answers, brightly, 
 drawing near to him confidentially, as if 
 more of the plan remained to be unfolded. 
 
 " By'r leave !" yells a passing porter, 
 trundlino^ a truck over the hem of her 
 dress. 
 
 " Come out of the way of these fellows," 
 says Duke, leading her to a seat by a book- 
 stall. Just as she has settled herself and 
 her flowing folds of snowy drapery on tlie 
 bench, a stout lad}', with two bandboxes, a 
 basket, and a bag, advances, and sinks 
 breathlessly into the vacant seat next Luli,
 
 304 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 wliicli Duke was about to occupy. The 
 lovers exchange comically piteous looks, as 
 it is manifestly impossible to continue a 
 confidential conversation across the portly 
 person of the intervening stranger, to say 
 nothing of the piled-up barrier of small 
 baggage on her lap. 
 
 " Holloa, Mayburne ! you here too ?" 
 says a tall man, with long blonde hair and 
 an eye-glass, who is sauntering by. 
 
 "Most of the clan are here, I think," 
 responds Duke, as the pair shake hands. 
 Then, perceiving Luli, Mr. Lof tus bows low, 
 removing his grey felt wide-awake with a 
 graceful sweep ; and when, in the course 
 of a few minutes, the stout lady, with an 
 exclamation of " Porter ! porter ! guard !" 
 leaps up from her seat, and, clutching her 
 bandboxes and bags, makes a wild rush at
 
 GLENCAIKN. 305 
 
 a passing official, Mr. Loftus calmly slips 
 into her place, and begins to converse 
 with Luli in a deferentially admiring tone. 
 
 Presently a bell rings, and the Holms- 
 wood party are summoned to take their 
 seats. Duke and Luli have no need to 
 manoeuvre much to get into the same 
 carriage ; they are manoeuvred for, and a 
 good deal of trouble in that line is taken 
 off their shoulders, as the world is general- 
 ly kind to engaged couples — too kind 
 sometimes, as lovers of laconic and re- 
 served, and ladies of shy and retiring, 
 natures feel when they perceive the eyes 
 of a friendly and sympathetic world watch- 
 ing for evidences of their mutual devotion. 
 
 However, to be in the same saloon- 
 carriage is not necessarily to have opportu- 
 nities of private conversation. The corner 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 GLENOAIEN. 
 
 where Duke and Luli have found seats is 
 shared by Mr. Lof tus, also by a third artist, 
 and a lady who, being evidently minded to 
 make herself agreeable to the three gentle- 
 men, and having ascertained to which of the 
 two professions represented in the party they 
 belong — she being herself presumably of 
 the other branch — asks each in turn how 
 many pictures they have in the Academy 
 this year ? As two of them have had their 
 pictures rejected, and the third has a 
 grievance against the Academy and does 
 not send, this opening is less successful 
 than it deserved to be. 
 
 The saloon carriages afford their occu- 
 pants the priceless privilege of being able 
 to move about and change places accord- 
 ingly as their inclinations tend. Thus long 
 before they reach their destination, the
 
 GLENCAIRX. 307 
 
 party have followed the natural law of 
 affinity. The two elements have separated ; 
 Art lias its group, and Commerce its 
 group, and each division is absorbed in 
 that most tempting of mortal occupations 
 — talking shop. 
 
 At the station, where carriages are in 
 waiting to conve}'' them to Holmswood, and 
 where a row of heads, projecting from the 
 windows of the ordinary portion of the 
 train, manifest the interest the travellers 
 proper take in seeing the garden-party 
 alight, the elements get shaken up together 
 again ; but in the beautiful park-like 
 grounds around Holmswood Hall, once 
 more the kindred spirits seek each other 
 out. And there Duke and Luli, for the 
 first time, find themselves able to renew 
 their tete-a-iete. 
 
 X 2
 
 308 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 " I tlaouglit I never should be able to get 
 a word with you," exclaimed Luli half 
 laughingly, half plaintively. " Talk of 
 ' oceans wide !' I am sure we have been as 
 effectually separated to-day so far. Well, 
 now, Duke, I was telling you about the 
 plan of wintering in Italy, wasn't I ?" 
 
 "Yes, and you were dwelling on the 
 scheme with unflattering delight." 
 
 " But, Duke, you would come too ? Of 
 course you would ; think how delightful it 
 would be ! The villa contains ample 
 accommodation, they say ; you would come 
 and stay with us there on a nice long visit, 
 as long you possibly could. Why should 
 you not ? I should not care a bit for it if 
 you didn't go. I would not go without 
 
 you." 
 
 " Well, but I don't see how it's to be
 
 GLENCATRN. 309 
 
 managed," he responded slowly and doubt- 
 fully, yet evidently liking the idea. " I am 
 afraid I cannot leave London for long:. To 
 be sure I had made up my mind to take 
 my holiday rather late, as I knew you 
 would be going away somewhere. But 
 — Italy is a long way! And, Luli, if I 
 squander my substance on pleasure travel- 
 ling, how are we to set up house-keeping 
 when the time comes ?" 
 
 " Oh, take your railway fare out of the 
 kitchen furniture, and cut the drawing- 
 room short for your hotel bills !" she 
 pleaded coaxingly with a light happy 
 laugh. 
 
 " TVe must consult one of your numerous 
 counsellors as to what articles of furniture 
 may be most easily dispensed with," he said. 
 "I'll think over your plan, Luli; but I'm
 
 3 10 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 not sure about being able to manage it." 
 " We have to write and fix about taking 
 the villa this week," she replied, ''so do 
 make up your mind quickly, that's a dear 
 boy !" 
 
 The gardens of Holmswood are like one 
 huge flower-bed, bright and variegated with 
 living and moving flowers. The long 
 smooth slopes and level lawns of green 
 velvet turf are so covered with the ladies' 
 bright light trailing dresses that but 
 little of the green ground is visible. Be- 
 tween the branches of the trees, through 
 the shrubberies, behind the bushes, those 
 bright colours gleam and glance. The men 
 in their black coats are not in reality few, 
 but they are so swallowed up and eclipsed 
 in the radiance and amplitude of the ladies' 
 attire, that they seem like a scanty swarm
 
 GLENCAIRN. 311 
 
 of black insects buzzing in and out among 
 these various '* roses and lilies and daffy- 
 down dillies." The fair sex do preponde- 
 rate, of course ; was there ever an English 
 party where they did not ? 
 
 The luncheon summons all, black-coated 
 bees and rainbow-coloured flowers, to a 
 gorgeous dejetine?' laid out in a scarlet and 
 white striped tent. To most of the seniors 
 this appears the real work of the day ; to 
 most of the juniors the real business only 
 commences afterwards, when the whole 
 party are set free to wander about the 
 grounds at their own sweet wills. 
 
 It is then that the bees and the flowers 
 pair off as neatly and naturally as the beasts 
 in Noah's Ark. The secluded parts of the 
 shrubberies are full of stragglers in couples; 
 there is a young couple in each of the
 
 312 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 summer-liouses ; a young couple in each of 
 the little boats on the lake ; the pine-wood 
 is full of errant pairs who get lost and 
 seem in no hurry to find themselves. 
 
 Duke and Luli make a conspicuous 
 failure in their duty as engaged lovers. 
 Luli calls down the criticism of Mrs. 
 Grundy on her own unconscious head by 
 walking with Mr. Loftus and dancing with 
 him the first quadrille on the lawn. They 
 are talking of Duke's talent and Duke's 
 prospects for a great part of the time ; but 
 this Mrs. Grundy does not know. Duke 
 steals away to the smoking-room with a 
 few congenial souls — the art editor of a 
 rising illustrated periodical, an artist who 
 has made his name, two others whose 
 names are in process of making, and an art- 
 critic who has done his best to assist the
 
 GLEXCAIRX. 313 
 
 process in one case, and to put a sum- 
 mary stop to it in the other. The lion lies 
 down with the lamb, however; and the whole 
 group amicably bury themselves in smoke 
 and congenial conversation in the hazy and 
 Havana-scented shades of the smoking- 
 room, whence it takes all the energies of 
 the hostess to disinter them at the hour 
 when dancing begins, and every man is 
 expected to do his duty. 
 
 Glencairn is discovered placidly seated 
 under a tree on the summit of a gentle 
 elevation, with a good view of the grounds, 
 smoking and surveying the scene. 
 
 " Marius among the ruins of Carthage !" 
 exclaims Kate Craven, coming upon him 
 suddenly with her attendant cavalier. 
 " How long have you been up here ?" 
 
 " Only about an hour, I think."
 
 314 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 " Well, if this is your way of enjoying 
 society, we won't disturb your felicity !" 
 And Kate and her escort pass on. 
 
 Glencairn presently descends and mixes 
 in the festive throng ; joins in the mascu- 
 line group of which his future son-in-law 
 forms a part, for a time, and then gets up 
 what Kate announces to Luli to be " quite 
 a flirtation " with a lady who suits his taste, 
 who has large thoughtful eyes, and a sym- 
 pathetic presence, who listens well and 
 does not say much. Glencairn, whe7i he 
 talks — which by the way is not often — likes 
 a good listener. 
 
 In the evening the gardens are lit up, 
 and supper is laid in the tent in ample 
 time for the guests to partake thereof 
 before the carriages are ordered to convey 
 them back to the station. The supper is
 
 GLENCAIRN. 315 
 
 a merrier and a noisier meal than the 
 di'jeu7iej\ There never was much starch 
 and stiffness about the party, but what 
 Httle there was is worn off their manners 
 and customs now, as thoroughly as it is 
 worn out of the dresses tliat rustled so 
 freshly and crisply this morning, and hang 
 so limply this evening. The girls are all 
 flushed with dancing ; their eyes are bright, 
 their curled or braided locks are straying 
 in truant tresses from under their bonnets 
 and over their temples; and several of 
 them would be horrified if they could look 
 in the mirror and see how the wliirl of the 
 waltz had tilted their headgear out of place. 
 The champagne is flowing free as the 
 illuminated fountains that are playing out- 
 side in the gleam of red green and panto- 
 mime fires. Above all, the popping of
 
 S16 GLENCAIRN. 
 
 cliampagne and seltzer corks, tlie snapping 
 of crackers, tlie clatter of spoons and forks, 
 rise the merry voices and the laughter as 
 the fun grows fast and furious. 
 
 *' I haven't seen much of you to-day, 
 Duke. What have you been doing with 
 yourself?" inquires Luli, bestowing her 
 entire attention on him, to the utter 
 neglect of the lobster-mayonnaise which an 
 attentive friend on the other side has 
 heaped upon her plate. 
 
 "I've been doing good work, my pet," 
 replies Duke, deeming it quite safe to be 
 affectionate under cover of the clatter and 
 the chatter going on all round. " I have 
 been cultivating the friendship of a gentle- 
 man on whose will and pleasure a good 
 deal depends. You behold him over 
 there," — nodding towards the end of the
 
 GLKNCAIRN. 317 
 
 table, where the critic and the editor are 
 alHed in a joint attempt to break into the 
 citadel of an obdurate raised pie, whose 
 walls of granite refuse to yield even to the 
 combined attack. " Yes," continues Duke, 
 " I think I have done a good stroke of 
 business to-day ; and if you go to Italy, I'll 
 join the party !" 
 
 " That's jolly !" exclaims Kate Craven, 
 overhearing these words from the opposite 
 side of the table, where she is seated, and 
 putting her head on one side to catch a 
 glimpse of Duke and Luli between a barley- 
 sugar temple and an epergne of flowers that 
 intervene. " I'm so glad you'll join us ! 
 "Won't we have fine times ! Mr. Glencairn ! 
 Mr. Glencairn ! please come out of that 
 brown study and fill my glass. Now, this 
 is to drink to the happy re-union of the
 
 318 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 most attractive members of the present 
 party on tlie sunny shores of Lake Como !" 
 
 " Whom does that toast include, Miss 
 Craven?" inquires Duke, through the 
 trellis-work of the barley-sugar temple. 
 
 " Not you, of course," retorts Kate. 
 
 "/ am out of it, I'm afraid, Katie?" 
 suggests Glencairn. 
 
 " No, indeed you are not — we couldn't 
 do without yoM," she replied, with frank 
 friendliness, and added more demurely, with 
 a mischievous sparkle in her eyes — " A 
 skeleton at the feast is absolutely necessary 
 to our contentment, and you make such a 
 first-rate Bones !" 
 
 Glencairn laughed aloud, and his some- 
 what grim expression vanished in a broad, 
 amused smile. Audacity never displeased 
 him, and he liked " little Kate," who,
 
 GLENC.UEN. 319 
 
 having been half frightened at her own 
 impudence, looked sideways at him, and 
 then chorussed his laugh merrily, and well- 
 satisfied. 
 
 " We cannot reach across the table to 
 clink glasses," observed Luli, smiling under 
 the drooping ferns and flowers of the tall 
 epergne, "so it must be a case of 'Drink 
 to me only with thine eyes !' I echo your 
 toast, Kate — to our happy re-union on the 
 Lake of Como !" 
 
 The champagne creamed and frothed in 
 the glasses, 
 
 " With beaded bubbles winking at the brim." 
 
 Snap went the crackers ; clatter went the 
 forks ; Kate's clear laughter rang loud, and 
 Lull's softer merriment echoed low, as they 
 drank their toast and read their mottoes to 
 each other across the table, and joined en-
 
 320 GLENOAIEN. 
 
 thusiastically with Duke and Glencairn in 
 various schemes for making the most of 
 the delights of a Winter season in Italy. 
 
 So the plan became a settled thing, and 
 from that hour there was no more doubt 
 or discussion as to Duke's joining the 
 party. It was certain that he would man- 
 age to do so for at least a portion of the 
 time. 
 
 We seldom know when we take the most 
 important step of our lives. Sometimes, it 
 is true, we know or feel that we are on the 
 threshold of a supreme crisis that will turn 
 to our life's joy or our life's anguish ; but 
 of tener it happens that the act that looked 
 a promise or a threat leads to nothing, 
 while the little seed we trod carelessly 
 down in passing shoots up a giant ladder. 
 It is curious to look back to the moment
 
 GLENCAIRN. 321 
 
 when we stood at the turuing-poiut of our 
 lives, and think how utterly unconscious 
 of that fact we were. The cross-roads lay 
 before us ; and all our future rested in the 
 balance of whether we turned to the right 
 or to the left. And we, so unconscious of 
 the import of our act, set foot carelessly on 
 the path that led us to the goal — not 
 knowing. 
 
 How little we know ! how impenetrably 
 the heavy mist of the future veils from us 
 the outcome of the step we take till the 
 turn has been irrevocably taken and the 
 cross-roads left behind ! How little you 
 thought, you whose career in life has been 
 so bright and prosperous, on that day near 
 two score years ago when you, — then young 
 and struggling at the very foot of the 
 ladder of Fame, — stood deliberating "to 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 GLENCAIEN. 
 
 go or not to go.,?" concerning that visit to 
 a country house which you deemed would 
 be "slow" and "a bore," that the friend 
 and patron who was to help you to all your 
 success in life was waiting there ! 
 
 And you, traveller of many lands, how 
 little you knew, as you muttered anathemas 
 on your tardy cabman while you gazed on 
 the distant vanishing smoke of the train 
 you had missed, — the train which was to 
 have whirled you at express speed to the 
 sea-port whence your vessel sailed that day, 
 — that the cross-roads at which you stood 
 were those of life and death ! That vessel 
 sailed, and was never heard of more. 
 
 You too, fair-haired and sad-eyed 
 woman, with the silver streaks in that still 
 bright and abundant hair, you at whom 
 strangers gaze and say, " That woman has 
 a history !" how little did you think that
 
 GLENCAIRN. 323 
 
 night — when you were dancing, a gay and 
 happy girl, at a party that seemed to you 
 precisely like all other parties of the season, 
 and in the intervals of the dance glanced 
 round the crowded room indifferently, and 
 said languidly, " AVho is that odd-looking 
 man over there? somebody new?" — that 
 your pale sad face should bear witness in 
 a life-long memory of him ? Yet the die 
 was cast in the moment you turned your 
 girlish, innocent, unclouded eyes on him, 
 though you knew it not then, nor for many 
 a day thereafter. 
 
 Looking back, we see these things, and 
 realise with a thoughtfulness, 
 
 " JNIixed with sad wonder, in our heart," 
 
 the import of the steps we took, not 
 knowing ! 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.