IMMIMI^l— ■— BfciiiHi—iiiiiiiii i
 
 
 
 L f 5 R.ARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 82.3 
 J73-E 
 
 v.l
 
 LOVING AND LOTH. 
 
 31 ftobel. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 " ROSA NOEL " AND " THE SISTERS LAWLESS." 
 
 " Escape me? 
 
 Never 
 
 Beloved. ! 
 
 While I am I, and you are you, 
 
 So long as the world contains us both, 
 
 Me the loving, and you the loth, 
 
 While the one eludes 
 
 Must the other pursue . . . ." 
 
 R. Browning. 
 
 IN THEEE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON. 
 
 1875. 
 
 [All rights reserved. )
 
 
 < 
 
 J"73f 
 ir. I 
 
 CONTENTS TO VOL I. 
 
 HAFTER PAGK 
 
 I. THEIR NEAREST NEIGHBOUR 1 
 
 II. " WITH YARIAND LOOK, RICHT LIKE A LORD 
 
 UNSTABLE" .25 
 
 III. " ALL ON A SUMMER'S DAY " - - - - 63 
 
 IV. "WHIPS AND STINGS " ----- 76 
 V. KITH AND KIN- ------ 94 
 
 VI. " WHILST THOU LIVEST, KEEP A GOOD TONGUE 
 
 IN THY HEAD" - - - - - ■ - 108 
 
 VII. A NEW SENSATION 117 
 
 VIII. PALMISTRY ------- 136 
 
 IX. A GNAT MAY TROUBLE A LION - - - 144 
 
 X. THE ART OF CONVERSATION, ACCORDING TO 
 
 SUSIE -------- 157 
 
 XL A PEEP AT THE WILLIS FAMILY - - - 173 
 
 XII. HUNGERFORD IN SUSPENSE - - - - 187 
 
 XIII. A POPULAR SEANCE 204 
 
 XIV. SUSIE ENGAGED - - - - - - 214 
 
 XV. THE CHILDREN'S PARTY ----- 243 
 
 XVI. A MORNING WALK - - - - - - 273
 
 LOVING AND LOTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THEIR NEAREST NEIGHBOUR. 
 
 OWN in the heart of the slum- 
 berous country, away from the 
 railway and from society, lived 
 Susie and her mother. 
 
 Susie, being pale and plain, and without 
 the charm of fortune, bade fair to be one 
 of the shabbily-served many for whom no 
 lover has ever sighed, and whom no suitor 
 has wooed. 
 
 vol. I. 1
 
 is Loving and Loth. 
 
 Susie knew her short-comings. Already 
 she had begun to learn that she was ugly 
 and unpleasing, and it gave her a heart- 
 ache ; for if she had not a longing to be 
 loved, she longed mightily to enjoy life — to 
 have it, indeed, one long pastime. 
 
 Feeling herself an inadequate cause to 
 produce any wished-for effect, she aimed at 
 having brighter fortunes brought to her by 
 the person she loved best in the world — 
 her mother. 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay had been married from the 
 school-room, widowed while yet in her 
 teens, and now at four- and- thirty was still 
 beautiful and redolent of youth. 
 
 Susie, with her light gray eyes, pale 
 skin, and little humorous turned-up nose, 
 might have been any age from twelve to 
 thirty. She was in reality seventeen ; but 
 for the promotion of her interests she wore 
 her hair hanging down her back in a curly
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 
 
 mass, her dresses to her ankles, and per- 
 sonated with ease not quite fifteen. She 
 knew herself to be thought and spoken of 
 as an ugly little girl with disagreeable 
 manners. Her mother's admirers shirked 
 her, the very servants pronounced it to be 
 a pity that she had not beautiful fair hair, 
 and a pretty complexion, and a taking way 
 with her, like her mamma. 
 
 The lovely widow and her ugly daughter 
 had roamed about on the Continent till 
 they were tired of it. They had done Ems 
 and Spa, and Biarritz, Nice and Cannes, 
 and Mentone, in a cheap, unsatisfactory 
 sort of way ; and with a loathing of foreign 
 places and manners upon them, and a long- 
 ing in their hearts for peace and repose, 
 crossed the Channel, strayed through Eng- 
 land, and finally nestled themselves down 
 in the little home [that had been left Mrs. 
 
 1—2
 
 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Dawnay by her dead mother. It was 
 lonely, quaint, and rustic. They suffered 
 whimsical tortures at first from terror of 
 burglars, earwigs, and horned cattle ; they 
 exhausted the novel enjoyments of their 
 own cow, their culinary experiments in 
 their own kitchen, their pedestrian expe- 
 riments of wandering off, and getting lost 
 in lonely lanes. 
 
 Then came a weariness of this dull life ; 
 a sense of miss and loss after the thorny 
 pleasures of other days. But this, too, 
 passed ; the current of their life flowed 
 on evenly, if a little sluggishly. They 
 had no events to mark the days with ;. 
 monotonous and neutral-tinted, the hours 
 succeeded each other. They got to know 
 a few people about them ; that is to say, 
 they had a formal acquaintance with them : 
 all but one.
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 
 
 Dear to Susie's heart was their nearest 
 neighbour, whose old home, rich in romantic 
 tradition and memory of the past, hid itself 
 behind ivy-clasped trees, only showing a 
 blood- shot eye on winter evenings, when 
 the leaves had grown few, and the sun was 
 glowing red in the west. 
 
 Sir Alfred Ogle was an estimable, courte- 
 ous, rather diffident old gentleman, who 
 had a way of beginning fine and long- 
 worded sentences, and then not being able 
 to finish them to his own satisfaction or 
 that of his hearer, limping off discreditably 
 in little common-place words that left bare 
 the little common-place idea of the whole 
 speech. 
 
 He was unmarried, and was without any 
 heir of his name to his large property, 
 which, being unentailed, was presumably 
 to fall to a fortunate young relative on the 
 mother's side.
 
 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Let us go and gather wild roses, Mery, 
 and have the room filled with them to- 
 morrow when Sir Alfred comes, " said Susie 
 to her mother one day in July. 
 
 " Wild roses !" repeated Mrs. Dawnay, 
 turning her large liquid eyes and fixing 
 them on her daughter's frank gray ones ; 
 " why, the hedges are full of them, Susie." 
 
 " I know they are ; and see if Sir Alfred 
 does not think it sad for us to have nothing 
 but wild roses ; he will send us ov 7 er a 
 quantity of tame ones, I am sure he will ; 
 his gardens are crowded with them/' 
 
 "I do not care for his roses, do you, 
 Susie V 
 
 " I care for anything that is his, which 
 finds its way over as a friendly offering to 
 us" — (Susie was always delicately careful 
 to enshroud her schemes in ambiguity). — 
 " Sir Alfred will come in here to-morrow,' '
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 
 
 she went on, " and he will say, c How 
 charmingly you have adorned your draw- 
 ing-room with the unassuming product of — 
 the hedges.' Then I will say childishly, 
 6 1 made Mery go with me.' Then he will 
 say sentimentally, ' What ! you insisted on 
 your mamma's subjecting herself unneces- 
 sarily to the ardours of — old Sol V Come, 
 mother, put on that hat of yours so simple, 
 yet so serious ; make up your mind that 
 sheep are harmless ; try and think of them, 
 if we meet them, as simply mutton, and 
 let us go now ; it is nearly half-past four." 
 
 Susie jumped off the window-sill, where 
 she had been sitting, and went upstairs to 
 her room, as she finished speaking. 
 
 The following day, when Sir Alfred Ogle 
 came to luncheon, he entered a room 
 crowded with pale and dying humble rela- 
 tions of the Queen of Flowers.
 
 Loving and Loth. 
 
 He came in exceedingly warm, and pain- 
 fully, embarrassedly conscious of the fact. 
 He seemed to see nothing sad in the idea 
 of the widow decking her little drawing- 
 room with eglantine ; and though many of 
 his remarks were flowery enough, they had 
 no sort of reference to his own roses. 
 
 Susie he treated as usual, as something 
 much less than woman, and rather more 
 than child. She went to sleep in her low 
 wicker chair soon after lunch, just in the 
 midst of a story he was telling, and he 
 felt more inclined to think of her as a child 
 than he had ever done before. 
 
 He and the widow, sitting on either side 
 the open window, with a little breeze blow- 
 ing refreshingly over them, discovered that 
 they had many coincidences of opinion and 
 taste, but somehow Mrs. Dawnay found 
 time to remember that the room was warm,
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 
 
 the minutes not winged, the luncheon and 
 profound quiet narcotic, and that Susie 
 was asleep. 
 
 It was the very last day of July. 
 
 " On Tuesday I expect my nephew — my 
 nephew on the distaff side. He comes on 
 board his yacht to Cowes, and usually stays 
 with me until the commencement of the 
 gaieties of the regatta week, when he car- 
 ries me off with him." 
 
 " Oh !" said Susie, suddenly ; so sud- 
 denly that they almost started. " Then 
 you are going away from St. Quentin's V 
 
 " For an inconsiderable time. Yes," he 
 answered, looking at her with a smile; " I 
 remain with Eugene until the seasons of 
 nautical festivity are concluded in all the 
 places where they have regatta weeks ; 
 pigs, poles, and all that sort of thing, you 
 know."
 
 10 Loving and Loth. 
 
 "Oh," said Susie again, in a relieved tone, 
 " then you will soon be back. You are 
 such a nice neighbour, we should be sorry 
 to lose you/' 
 
 This with the allowable ingenuousness 
 and simplicity of not quite fifteen. 
 
 Sir Alfred uncrossed his legs, and re- 
 crossed them. Perhaps he would have 
 blushed a little, if the warmth of the room 
 had not given his face all the colour of 
 which it was susceptible. 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay, fanning herself gently with 
 a black fan whereon Susie had painted 
 will-o'-the-wisps with lamps, looked at her 
 daughter meanwhile. How ugly she was ! 
 even her partial mother's eyes could see no 
 beauty, nor faint approach to beauty, in 
 that pertest of snub noses, those most 
 honest of green-gray eyes, that little mouth
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 11 
 
 turning up waggishly at the corners, that 
 colourless skin. 
 
 The widow moved slightly, and so caught 
 the reflection of her own oval face with its 
 apple- blossom tint, and crowned by ropes 
 of waving golden hair. She sighed, and 
 twisted her head impatiently away. Why 
 could not Susie have inherited some of that 
 waning loveliness she had just seen ? 
 
 Sir Alfred caught the sigh ; it seemed 
 to him a fitting sequel to Susie's little 
 speech. 
 
 Susie went on with her catechism. " Is 
 your nephew married ?" 
 
 " My nephew is not yet in matrimonial 
 fetters, — no. He is an admirable repre- 
 sentative of the jeunesse doree of the 
 period. He is a young man about town : 
 good-tempered ; fair ; good features ; blue 
 eyes, and all the rest of it."
 
 12 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Ugh I" said Susie, with a pronounced 
 shudder ; a we always wish to have averted 
 from us the youth of the period, don't we 
 mamma ? We don't like these sprigs with 
 their fair hair and blue eyes, do we V 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay smiled slightly, and closing 
 her fan, leaned one soft pink cheek on it, 
 her elbow resting on her knee, her eyes 
 roving over the basking fields and cool, 
 dark copses, to the narrow strip of deeply 
 blue water that lay against the paler sky. 
 
 Sir Alfred took a good long look at her, 
 full of approval and admiration. Well, no 
 one could accuse him of being a sprig with 
 fair hair and blue eyes, for whatever tint 
 his hair had been was now one of the con- 
 cerns of the past. As for his eyes, they 
 were the colour of medlars, and reminded 
 one of those fruits of the earth. 
 
 " I think that my nephew will meet with
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 13 
 
 your approbation," he said. " He usually 
 meets with the most unqualified ad- 
 miration. He is a great favourite with 
 ladies." 
 
 " Is he V responded Mrs. Dawnay, with 
 a dreamy gentleness ; " I like pretty boys." 
 Susie darted a look at her which caused 
 her to qualify her speech by adding, " Or 
 lather, I used so to do when I was younger 
 than I am now. I have not the patience 
 now that I then had, I fear, with their 
 boyish over-estimation of themselves, their 
 foolish little affectations, their transparent 
 devices to appear older than they really 
 are, their airy scepticism regarding things 
 that they have not themselves yet proved 
 or experienced, or that they have not yet 
 learned to prize as truths." 
 
 " I agree with you," said Sir Alfred ; 
 " indeed, I discover many concurrences of
 
 14 Loving and Loth, 
 
 opinion between yourself and me. We 
 jump together, Mrs. Dawnay." 
 
 " We do agree in many things I think," 
 answered the widow, with her gentle smile. 
 " But what are you speaking of now ? Not 
 having patience with the foolishnesses and 
 crudities of very young men, or in admit- 
 ting that they are sometimes both foolish 
 and crude V 
 
 " Yes, exactly," rejoined Sir Alfred; " the 
 latter." And he became absorbed in watch- 
 ing the strengthened breeze ruffling her 
 smooth golden hair. 
 
 A few more little speeches, a few more 
 smiles, and he rose to go. Outside the 
 green garden gate a dog-cart was going up 
 and down, waiting for him. The horses 
 were superb, the servant and cart faultless. 
 If everything belonging to him had not 
 been perfect of its kind, he would have had
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 15 
 
 some difficulty in getting rid of twelve 
 thousand a year. 
 
 " You have no flower in your coat," said 
 Susie, standing in front of him, and looking 
 up at him with a boyish frankness. " We 
 have nothing in the shape of a flower to 
 offer you but a brier rose. You know we 
 don't allow flowers in our garden; we grow 
 all our own vegetables — every one. We 
 have not a flower ; all crowded out by the 
 vegetable family. That is my doing ; Mery 
 tried hard to keep one small corner, but 
 one morning I got up with the early worm 
 and pulled up all her flowers (they were 
 half dead already, poor things, so that it- 
 did not matter) ; and by noon young- 
 Thomas and I had it planted with beans." 
 
 " Mary V said Sir Alfred, in a sternly 
 interrogative tone, and ignoring all the rest 
 of her sentence. " Mary V
 
 16 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Don't think that when I call my mo- 
 ther Mery, I call her M-a-r-y. That would 
 be disrespectful ; besides, it isn't her name ; 
 her name is Margaret. I call her M-e-r-y, 
 patois, you know, for little mother." 
 
 " No," said Sir Alfred, " I must confess 
 to ignorance. Thank you for your kind 
 offer of a rose, Miss Susie, but I have over- 
 stepped that period when to florally deco- 
 rate affords any satisfaction. I never care 
 to stick flowers in my coat now." 
 
 Then Sir Alfred went, and Susie rushed 
 to the window to see him get into the 
 dog-cart. 
 
 " Don't, Susie, it will embarrass him to 
 feel that he is being watched. He cannot 
 be very agile any longer, poor old fellow." 
 
 " That isn't my fault," said Susie, and 
 kept her place. 
 
 Certainly his joints were not as limber
 
 TJieir Nearest Neighbour. 17 
 
 as they probably were twenty years before. 
 Susie waited until she saw his harness flash 
 in the full sunshine far up the road ; then, 
 crossing the room to where her mother now 
 was, she seated herself on a footstool in 
 front of her, and leaning her elbows on her 
 knees, and resting both white cheeks on 
 her hands until they were pressed upwards 
 into giving her eyes an unnaturally crafty, 
 foxy expression, gazed up at Mrs. Dawnay's 
 face, and after a little silence spoke, and 
 with energy. 
 
 " So many men have snubbed me, I 
 should like just once to snub some man — I 
 long to do it. Do you think this youth, 
 this coming nephew, will be snubbable, 
 mamma ?" 
 
 "No; and I do not like to hear my 
 daughter make such an acid speech as that. 
 If you have been snubbed it is because you 
 
 vol. i. 2
 
 18 Loving and Loth. 
 
 have seemed to be a sharp, disagreeable 
 little girl. Why do you not plait or coil 
 that long, rough mane ? You would look 
 older then." 
 
 " Thank you, mamma, but I had rather 
 look fifteen than seventeen, and I should 
 think you would rather have me ; and 
 about being snubbed, that is not the reason. 
 If I had been a lovely little girl with golden 
 hair and pink cheeks, no one would have 
 had the heart to snub me. Have I not 
 seen how nice your men friends could be to 
 pretty little girls ? No, I am not winsome. 
 I once overheard Mr. McCheyne saying so 
 to deaf Mr. Abbot. People are never 
 drawn to me. They cannot be agreeable 
 to me, and so they are disagreeable. I 
 don't care !" 
 
 "Do not care, my Susie — you are too 
 sensible to care. You are far cleverer than
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 19 
 
 many of the men who, you say, snub 
 you. 
 
 " What is the use of being clever if 
 people don't like one ?" said Susie, gloomily. 
 
 " Be cleverer still, Susie, and make them 
 like you." 
 
 " How V 
 
 " For one thing, never tell a story to 
 match, as I have sometimes heard you. 
 When a man tells a rather funny story, do 
 not cap it by one of your own on the same 
 theme, but funnier still ; that is sure to 
 annoy him. And you must be a better 
 listener than you are now, to be agreeable. 
 Remember how interesting the talker is to 
 himself, and how it wounds self-love and 
 pricks pride to see roving eyes, and a 
 fidgety waiting for him to finish that you 
 may begin talking yourself. Flattery is a 
 weapon too coarse and clumsy for you ever 
 
 2—2
 
 20 Loving and Loth. 
 
 to use ; but if you have a kind and gentle 
 heart, out of its abundance you will give 
 the sweetest, most acceptable flattery — that 
 is spontaneous, that cannot be defined, that 
 is delicate and intangible, yet delightful, 
 and surely perceptible as the perfume of a 
 violet. But after all, my child, I could talk 
 to you til] the sun rose again, and use all 
 the words in the dictionary, yet I could not 
 tell you how to make people like you. Per- 
 haps the safest and shortest thing that I 
 can say to you is — like people." 
 
 " I can't," said Susie, sighing ; " I don't 
 feel drawn to them." 
 
 " Then they will never like you," re- 
 joined Mrs. Dawnay, with decision. 
 
 " I would give — not my soul, exactly, 
 but almost — to be unspeakably lovely, and 
 to ride over men rough shod," said Susie, 
 with a monotonous intensity.
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 21 
 
 " I am glad, then, that beauty has not 
 been given you." 
 
 Susie flushed with wounded vanity. 
 
 "Always a dangerous gift, it would 
 have been a fatal one to you, if a domi- 
 neering and insatiable vanity had accom- 
 panied it." 
 
 Susie withdrew her elbows from her 
 mother's lap, and, rising, walked bare- 
 headed out of the house, and Mrs. Dawnay 
 watched her promenading about on the 
 grass in front of the windows, her thumbs 
 stuck in her leather belt, and with a very 
 cross face. 
 
 Tall and lithe, she moved hither and 
 thither with a swift, careless grace. The 
 now slanting sunbeams warmed her brown 
 hair into dull gold here and there ; her 
 little irregular profile looked as if cut out 
 of ivory, against the dark polished green
 
 22 Loving and Loth. 
 
 of the laurels. A fox terrier that had 
 been given to herself came out, and 
 with canine persistency dogged her foot- 
 steps. 
 
 Her mother watched her sadly. She 
 knew her to be proud and sensitive, sus- 
 picious and imaginative, luxury loving, and 
 poverty hating ; she knew her to have a 
 longing for the beauty she could never 
 possess, aspirations that would never be 
 realized, hopes and wishes never to be 
 gratified ; in fact, she knew her to be hand- 
 somely dowered with every moral and 
 mental attribute calculated to give her a 
 most unhappy future. 
 
 Taking a low, light chair, the widow 
 placed it outside the long window on the 
 grass, and seated herself. 
 
 Presently Susie came running up to her,, 
 saying eagerly,
 
 Their Nearest Neighbour. 23 
 
 " He might yawn in my face, you know ; 
 men often do ; it is a way they have, not 
 only with me, but with others ; then I 
 could say, to snub him " 
 
 " Say to whom ?" asked Mrs. Dawnay. 
 
 "Why, the coming nephew/' answered 
 Susie, looking rather foolish. 
 
 " You may never see him, my dear ; I 
 do not know any reason to suppose that 
 you should." 
 
 " Oh, no, of course not," said Susie, try- 
 ing to look as if that idea had presented 
 itself to her before ; " but in time of peace 
 prepare for war, you know." 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay only smiled, without an- 
 swering. Her daughter, with a return of 
 the huffed, injured look, to her face, darted 
 away, and going to the back of the house, 
 began working energetically in the garden. 
 They did not meet again until dinner, and
 
 24 Loving and Loth. 
 
 then Susie chatted a3 gaily as ever about 
 a thousand nothings, that sounded spicy 
 enough in her crisp and rapid utterance of 
 them.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " WITH VARIAND LOOK, RICHT LIKE A LORD 
 UNSTABLE." 
 
 N Tuesday, the 2nd of August, 
 the fine iron gates of St. Quen- 
 tin's swung open ; a phaeton, 
 with a pair of clean-pasterned, quaintly- 
 clipped cobs, dashed through ; a young man 
 driving them gave a smile as sweet, brief, 
 and bright as a coquette's, to the woman at 
 the Lodge. 
 
 Sir Alfred's nephew had arrived. He
 
 26 Loving and Loth. 
 
 was a young man who looked as if he had 
 found ]ife a pastime, and himself a success, 
 pleasure pleasurable, and amusement enjoy- 
 able ; as if submission to disagreeable facts 
 had never been required of him, or any- 
 thing in the shape of a dark foreboding 
 ever been present with him. 
 
 His uncle shook him warmly by the 
 hand, and said he was glad to see him, 
 glancing over his shoulder meanwhile at 
 the clock, that pointed to a quarter before 
 the dinner hour. 
 
 " Dinner in a quarter of an hour," said 
 he, and keeping his hand on his nephew's 
 shoulder, where he had placed it, walked 
 him gently out of the room and upstairs, 
 telling him as they went along that he 
 need not ask how he was, since he looked 
 as blooming as a young dog-rose. This 
 feeble fun required a laugh ; then Eugene
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 27 
 
 shut his uncle's laugh out, and his own in, 
 and began preparing for dinner. 
 
 What a cook Sir Alfred had, and what 
 wines, and what silver, and what turquoise- 
 studded Sevres ! 
 
 " I am in love with this pouting, 
 powdered beauty ; I always have been," 
 said Eugene, gazing amorously into his plate 
 at dessert, and hesitating an instant before 
 cutting an apricot on the charming face. 
 
 Sir Alfred, sitting sideways at the table, 
 with his napkin tucked in at his neck like 
 a bib, was gobbling grapes as if he were 
 making his meal off them, aud had not 
 already fared sumptuously. He did not 
 answer at once, for the best of reasons, and 
 when he spoke, it was with a gigantic frog 
 in his throat, that reduced his voice to a 
 husky and mysterious whisper. 
 
 " Porcelain representations of the beguil-
 
 28 Loving and Loth. 
 
 ing fair sex are the safest for boys to fall 
 in love with. Give me the claret, Eugene, 
 and, by the way, remind me not to forget 
 to send or take some of these grapes to Mrs. 
 Dawnay to-morrow." 
 
 " And who may Mrs. Dawnay be V 
 
 11 I'll take you over and show you to- 
 morrow ; she is worth seeing," — with a 
 shade of conviviality in his manner — " yes, 
 by Gad ! she is the sort of woman to ex- 
 hibit as a specimen, my neighbour, Mrs. 
 Dawnay ; she really is." 
 
 " I am glad to hear it," replied' Eugene, 
 *' as I am to have the advantage of seeing 
 her to-morrow. And how about Mr. Daw- 
 nay ? Is he shadow or substance ? Is he 
 food for the fishes ? the worms ? or the 
 lovely Mrs. Dawnay ? Is he here or " — 
 vaguely — " there V 
 
 " He has been dead these fifteen years."
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 29 
 
 " A widow ?" 
 
 " Yes, a widow," assented Sir Alfred, 
 fidgeting, and helping himself again to claret. 
 
 " Good-bye St. Quentin's," said Eugene 
 to himself. "A specimen widow in the 
 heart of the country, a neighbour, and no 
 one to protect him. Poor Uncle Ogle !" 
 
 " And is she lone and lorn V he said. 
 " Does she live alone at — wherever she 
 does live V 
 
 " No ; she has one little girl." 
 
 " And how high is the little girl ; as 
 high as the table V 
 
 " She is very nearly as tall as yourself/ 7 
 answered Sir Alfred, combating his nephew's 
 flippant tone with a dignified one. 
 
 Eugene gave a slight exclamation. 
 
 " Grown up, eh ? Then the widow is 
 no longer young, of course." 
 
 " She is not a day over five-and- thirty.
 
 30 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Her daughter cannot be more than fifteen. 
 Are you ready for a cup of coffee, 
 Eugene V 
 
 Eugene tried to lead him gently back 
 to the subject that he had abruptly quitted, 
 with intention ; but his uncle would not be 
 led. 
 
 After coffee, Eugene smoked, and Sir 
 Alfred slept. Outside, the moonlight 
 flooded the park. The trees looked as if 
 they could never rock and sigh and toss 
 bare branches again ; they stood so leafy, 
 so silent, and so motionless ; every little 
 twig seemed sound asleep and dreaming, 
 not a leaf stirred. 
 
 Eugene stepped softly out of the win- 
 dow on to the terrace, and stood bathed in 
 moonlight, gazing out and up, by turns ; 
 out on the cold and silvered and silent 
 beauty of the earth ; up to heaven, where
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 31 
 
 one or two restless stars shot past the 
 tranquil moon, and their changeless sister 
 stars, and fell into the abyss of space and 
 were lost. 
 
 Eugene w T as not impressed by the scene. 
 His heart felt as light as a wreath of his 
 cigar smoke, his mind was fall of petty- 
 plans (they did not seem petty to him) for 
 the next few weeks : people whom he 
 wanted on board his yacht, people whom 
 he did not want ; this, that, and the other. 
 Presently he began sauntering up and 
 down on the broad, smooth stones, treading 
 more on his toes than his heels, out of con- 
 siderateness, as he passed the open win- 
 dows of the dining-room. With a start 
 and a grunt, Sir Alfred awoke just when 
 the clock was finishing striking eleven. 
 He came out and yawned in the moon's 
 white face, gave a careless glance at the
 
 32 Loving and Loth. 
 
 idealization of his park, said " Good- night" 
 to Eugene, and went up to bed. In a few 
 minutes his nephew followed him. 
 
 When the uncle and nephew made their 
 appearance at The Cottage the following 
 day, they found Mrs. Dawnay seated at 
 the piano singing, while Susie, her elbows 
 on her knees, her cheeks pressed upwards 
 into her eyes, was poring with knitted 
 brows over various scraps of paper — evi- 
 dently bills and tradesmens' books — their 
 tradesmen came from Newport. 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay rose with her sweet and 
 winning grace, came forward, and shook 
 hands. Susie rose too, turning her back 
 full on them for a moment, as she stuffed 
 the bills and books under the cushion of 
 her chair. 
 
 Sir Alfred introduced his nephew, Mr. 
 Everard. " I have driven you over some
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 33 
 
 grapes, Mrs. Dawnay," he then said, trying 
 to make his words sound as joke-like as 
 possible. 
 
 " Thank you very much/' answered the 
 widow. 
 
 And " Thanks" came from Susie. " I 
 adore grapes !" 
 
 " Does Sir Alfred call this a slip of a 
 fellow ?" she was thinking as she glanced 
 sideways at Eugene's hale, straight-featured 
 face, with the eyes purely, clearly blue, that 
 are rarely seen — burning blue eyes, full of 
 light and life — and at his strongly-made 
 figure. Then she thought what a guy she 
 looked herself, in her draggled green per- 
 cale, with its great round white spots like 
 wafers. Her nervous finders flew invo- 
 luntarily to her hair, and it seemed to her 
 that almost a yard away from her head she 
 felt it bristling out rough and untidy. But 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 Loving and Loth. 
 
 she need not have troubled herself, Eugene 
 was not observing her. She appeared to 
 him to be an ugly little school-girl, only to 
 be overlooked, not to be looked at. 
 
 Presently, however, he found that unless 
 he talked to her he should be reduced to 
 absolute silence, for his uncle had gone out 
 at the French window with the widow, and 
 was monopolizing her in the shade of a 
 tall laurel, where each had taken a garden- 
 chair. 
 
 He turned to Susie, who, feeling that 
 she was not even looking a neat fright, 
 averted her head with awkward shyness, 
 giving him only her little pale snub-nosed 
 profile to gaze at as he talked. 
 
 " Do you like Beaucombe, Miss Dawnay ?" 
 
 " No, not much." 
 
 " It is too quiet for you, I suppose." 
 
 " How did you know that we had lived
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 35 
 
 on the Continent V said Susie, turning her 
 eye out at him sideways like a vicious colt, 
 but not moving her head an inch. 
 
 " I did not know it," replied Eugene, 
 astounded. 
 
 " I thought from your saying that about 
 it's being too quiet for me, that of course 
 you had heard we had lived chiefly on the 
 Continent." 
 
 "No, I had never heard it. And you 
 like the Continent ?" 
 
 " I like it about as well as I do Beau- 
 combe." 
 
 " From your tone I should think that 
 you meant to say you hated both," said 
 Eugene, laughing. 
 
 " I do not hate either. I loved it here 
 until everything got to be so threadbare : 
 milking the cow, going primrosing, listen- 
 ing to the nightingales, going out into the 
 
 3—2
 
 36 Loving and Loth. 
 
 kitchen and making things that sounded 
 delicious in a book " 
 
 " But were not so delicious when they 
 came to the table," supplied Eugene, as she 
 paused. " Then you are tired of a country 
 life r 
 
 "Yes : heart of the country life, in a 
 cottage. The country must be nice with 
 horses, and a large place near a large town, 
 and people full of news visiting you." 
 
 " But you have some pleasant neigh- 
 bours about you here ¥■ 
 
 " Only one or two, and they are all 
 old." 
 
 " Oh, it is a bore for you if you have no 
 little girls of your own age. You must be 
 very lonely." 
 
 " Mamma is pretty nearly my own age," 
 said Susie, calmly. "We like the same 
 things usually too, and have fine quarrels,
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 3T 
 
 and makings up. It is just like having a 
 sister." 
 
 " What a piquant and delightful state of 
 affairs I" 
 
 Here the widow managed to get back 
 into the room again, Sir Alfred close behind 
 her. Eugene turned away from Susie with 
 an air of relief that did not go unobserved, 
 and addressed himself to Mrs. Dawnay. 
 
 " This is the most picturesque, jolly little 
 spot," he said ; " I have often admired it 
 in passing. I am very glad that it is in- 
 habited at last." 
 
 " We like it very much. Almost the 
 only drawback is, that Susie has no advan- 
 tages, as she has no governess. It would 
 be a great boon to be nearer town, where 
 she could have masters." 
 
 Eugene murmured that it was a pity. 
 
 " However," said the widow, with a
 
 38 Loving and Loth. 
 
 bright smile, "we study together some- 
 times, she and I. We improve our minds 
 with the least dry history we can find, and 
 translate French romance together." 
 
 Then Sir Alfred claiming her ear, she was 
 obliged to turn away, and Eugene to take 
 up with Susie again. 
 
 " Do you like French V Asking simple 
 questions was his only idea of conversation 
 with school-girls, particularly if they hap- 
 pened to be plain-featured. 
 
 " So that you need not be troubled to 
 find out any more of my likes and dislikes, 
 let me tell you that the only things I posi- 
 tively dislike are snobs and Satan." 
 
 Eugene saw the pretty mother's cheek 
 flush, although she was listening to Sir 
 Alfred with apparent interest and atten- 
 tion. Susie certainly did not do credit to 
 her training.
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 39 
 
 "At all events/'' he answered, "that 
 gentleman you mention is not a snob ; he 
 is a Prince, and a gentleman ; and I con- 
 fess to a sanguinary and snobbish weakness 
 for blood" he added, a mischievous gleam 
 coming into his eyes. 
 
 " Do you ? Do you value pedigree ? I 
 have an immensely long pedigree. I can 
 trace my family straight back to Adam — 
 can't you ? Or perhaps you can trace 
 yours back to the monkeys ? Poor mon- 
 keys !" she went on, talikng him down as 
 he essayed so speak. " Oh ! it is hard on 
 them ! That we should have moved on, 
 and left them still cracking nuts with their 
 teeth and swinging by their tails ' Who 
 knows ? perhaps they have yearnings that 
 they can't express for patent American 
 nut-crackers, travelling by steam, playing 
 on the concertina, shooting pigeons, dyeing
 
 40 Loving and Loth. 
 
 their hair golden, wearing false teeth, and 
 going down in a diving-bell." 
 
 " Susie, stop !" cried Mrs. Downay, turn- 
 ing suddenly away from Sir Alfred. " I 
 dislike to hear you running on in that flip- 
 pant way about a theory that I have a 
 great objection to." 
 
 "Very well, my Mery; suggest some- 
 thing, and I will go on talking about it." 
 
 But Mrs. Downay had turned back to 
 Sir Alfred with a slight apology for inter- 
 rupting him, and she did not answer. 
 
 " Would you like to see my dog ?" asked 
 Susie in her youngest way. 
 
 " Oh, certainly, if he does not bite." 
 
 Susie rose and left the room, returning 
 in a minute with the lively fox-terrier. 
 
 " I call him mine," she said, " but he is 
 not mine ; he is my mother's. He was 
 given to her. No one would ever dream of
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 41 
 
 giving a dog to me. Bat, however, it 
 doesn't matter." 
 
 " Why should not some one dream of 
 giving him to you ? You are the very little 
 girl to give a dog to." 
 
 "Ami? Why?" 
 
 " Because I think that you would like a 
 dog much better than a work-box, a book, 
 or, let me see — a fan." 
 
 Susie gave a short laugh. 
 
 " A work-box, or a book, or a fan ! I 
 did not mean instead of anything. Well, 
 never mind. When did you know that you 
 were coming to see us ? Ten minutes be- 
 fore you started ? This morning ? or last 
 
 night r 
 
 " I knew it last night. My uncle told 
 me not to let him forget to take or send 
 some grapes to Mrs. Dawnay." 
 
 " Oh ! he told you last night," repeated
 
 42 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Susie with an air of satisfaction ; " and you 
 only came in the afternoon, I know, for I 
 saw his phaeton drive past. How long are 
 you going to be here ?" 
 
 " I leave the day after to-morrow." 
 
 " So soon !" she said, regretfully. " And 
 does Sir Alfred go with you V 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " And when are you coming back V 
 
 11 I am not coming back. I shall leave 
 my yacht some time in September, as I go 
 to Scotland." 
 
 " Poor yacht ! then it will stop sailing 
 &bout when you leave it." 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 Susie asked no more on that score. 
 
 " Was your uncle as glad to see you as 
 usual V was her next inquiry ; and she 
 actually lifted her eyes to his, with some- 
 thing in their expression odd and pretty, 
 and that pleased him.
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 43 
 
 " As usual f How glad is he to see me 
 usually when I come ?" 
 
 " Oh, very, very, awfully glad !" said 
 Susie, fervently and eagerly. 
 
 "Well, I do not think this time he was 
 two ' verys '; he was one." 
 
 Susie dropped her eyes, and gave the top 
 of her dog's head a loud kiss. She was 
 smiling. Eugene began to think her a 
 rather nice little thing. 
 
 " You have not asked me the name of my 
 mother's dog/' she said. 
 
 " But I ask now, — What is his name V 
 
 "It is spelt S — k — i — p, and pronounced 
 Skip/' she answered, with a childish laugh. 
 " I named him ; it is my favourite name for 
 dogs ; if I had a dozen they should all be 
 called Skip. What is the name of your 
 dog?' 
 
 " T have no doer."
 
 44 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " No dog ! How many friends you must 
 have, then !" she said, in a sad, envious 
 tone. 
 
 "You must explain to me what you 
 mean by that." 
 
 " People with friends — real friends — can 
 do without the friendship of a dog; but 
 people without friends prize dearly a dog's 
 friendship ; they can hardly live without it." 
 She drew her own dog closer to her as she 
 spoke. 
 
 " Surely you have plenty of friends ?" 
 
 " None," she replied, looking at him as if 
 she wished her words to sink into his very 
 soul. " Not one." 
 
 " Nonsense !" 
 
 "Not one," she repeated. "I believe 
 a great many more people would have asked 
 mamma to marry them if it had not been 
 for me."
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 45 
 
 " Really !" he said, rather taken aback. 
 
 " But I think the more they knew of me, 
 you know, the less they would have dis- 
 liked me. Yes, I could assure any one who 
 married mamma that I would prove no 
 drawback to their happiness." This was 
 said as a most solemn asseveration is made. 
 
 " Dear me," said Eugene half to himself, 
 " how very funny." 
 
 A misgiving seized Susie that this was 
 not the way to talk of her mother, and that 
 her mother would be shocked and indig- 
 nant to hear her. Off she went abruptly 
 to another subject. " The birds ate all my 
 strawberries," she remarked, as if this was 
 a piece of intelligence sure /to interest him. 
 
 " Indeed ! That is not doing credit to 
 their early education." 
 
 Susie flushed a more vivid scarlet than 
 he thought her pale skin capable of. " You
 
 46 Loving and Loth. 
 
 mean that for me !" she said in a tone of 
 uncontrollable anger. " What a home 
 thrust it was !" 
 
 " Pray do not imagine anything so tho- 
 roughly false and absurd," said Eugene, 
 half scornfully, half in amusement ; " my 
 thoughts were quite confined to the birds, 
 I assure you ; exclusively." 
 
 Susie looked neither convinced nor 
 soothed. 
 
 " If it is not too naif to say it, I must tell 
 you that I think on the contrary that your 
 early education was surely without one flaw." 
 
 Susie now did look mollified. 
 
 "Then if you mention me," she said, 
 " you will be sure to say that my mother 
 has been able to make a crab walk almost 
 straight." 
 
 "I shall be sure to mention you, of 
 course, but I shall not say that."
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 47 
 
 " Oh, please do f 
 
 "Very well. At any rate I shall cer- 
 tainly mention that she, or somebody, has 
 taught you to say please as prettily as it 
 can be said." 
 
 Susie gave Skip a rapturous hug. " Oh I" 
 she exclaimed, " if you would only give me 
 an opportunity to say it again \" 
 
 She felt quite carried out of herself, and 
 spoke with the most delightful girlish 
 abandon. 
 
 " But, unfortunately, to give you another 
 opportunity I must refuse you something," 
 he answered smiling. " I am afraid you 
 have had your last chance, Miss Susie." 
 
 Susie bent her little head shyly down, 
 but not awkwardly now, and felt disagree- 
 ably conscious of her limp percale with the 
 white wafers on it. She was blushing, and 
 a tender smile softened the curling corners 
 of her mouth.
 
 48 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " I am afraid that you think me a young 
 lady/' she said looking up. " Do you ¥' 
 
 " No. Only at the poetic age when 
 brook and river meet." 
 
 " Perhaps I am older than you imagine. 
 If I tell you exactly how old I am will you 
 promise faithfully not to tell any one ; 
 above all, your uncle ?" 
 
 " Yes ; I promise most faithfully." 
 
 " I shall be seventeen in December." 
 
 Eugene looked genuinely amazed. 
 " Nearer river than brook." he said. " I 
 had thought you about fifteen." 
 
 " If you had known that I was seven- 
 teen, would you have talked to me in the 
 same way ? Said just the same things ?" 
 
 " Precisely. Or, no ; I do wrong to say 
 that. I should probably have taken more 
 pains to make an agreeable impression." 
 
 " No one has ever gone the right way to
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 4D 
 
 work to make an agreeable impression on 
 tne." 
 
 " And what is the right way ? if I may 
 ask." 
 
 " Something the way you have done. 
 My mother is asking you if you will have a 
 cup of tea." 
 
 When they each had taken their cup, 
 Susie thought how nice it would be if Mr. 
 Everard and herself could but take theirs 
 out under the old apple-tree in the garden 
 — the only one, which spread out its vener- 
 able arms as though saying " bless you my 
 children" to the gooseberry -bushes beside 
 it. She was judicious enough to refrain 
 from making any suggestion of the sort, 
 however, and listened with a stolidity that 
 she meant should pass for attention, to 
 a dilapidated old story that Sir Alfred was 
 telling. Sir Alfred was making himself 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 Loving and Loth. 
 
 agreeable according to his light, which on 
 this point was indeed but a tiny spark. 
 
 There was no harm, though, in mention- 
 ing that they had a garden. At an instant 
 when Sir Alfred's cup was lifted to his lips, 
 she said to Eugene, in an underhand yet 
 emphatic way, " We grow all our own 
 vegetables in our garden." 
 
 " How much I should enjoy a dinner or a 
 luncheon with you," he replied, discovering 
 one beauty in her face — thick black curling 
 eyelashes, that gave to her eyes almost a 
 painted look. "Vegetables that you have 
 grown yourself, and things that you have 
 cooked yourself out of a book." 
 
 " Oh, come to-morrow," said Susie breath- 
 lessly cutting him short. " I promise not 
 to give you cold veal. Once I asked some 
 one to lunch on my own responsibility — 
 asked him to stay on as luncheon time
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 51 
 
 *came ; he had ventured to come in the 
 morning ; love makes men very unconven- 
 tional I think ; mamma was out ; he was 
 hungering for a sight of her ; I was sure 
 that she would be home for luncheon, and 
 since he was reduced to a mere jelly-fish by 
 love, it seemed to me, I thought he would 
 not mind having only cold veal. ? Twas all 
 we had. Mamma staid for lunch some^ 
 where ; she did not come home ; and this 
 unfortunate fellow had only me and cold 
 veal. He did try so hard to eat it ; but 
 love and disgust were too much for him. 
 At last he said, as if a shiver were going all 
 down his back, ' Eating cold veal is like 
 kissing one's sister !' " 
 
 " And what did you say to that ?" 
 " Oh, I V answered Susie, making de- 
 mureness a mask from behind which mis- 
 chief peeped out. " I said, 'There are some 
 
 4—2 
 
 ^*ncrr< Of IUJ««*
 
 52 Loving and Loth. 
 
 men who, to look at them, I should think, 
 had never got anything, and could never 
 get anything — but cold veal, so they had 
 better make the best of it/ Do come to- 
 morrow ; mamma will be delighted." 
 
 " Thanks, I cannot come to-morrow/' 
 answered Eugene, who had a belief that 
 his uncle intended asking the widow and 
 her daughter to lunch at St. Quentin's. 
 
 Susie looked excessively disappointed. 
 " Your manner is so misleading that I ac- 
 tually thought you wanted to come," she 
 said. 
 
 " So I do. My manner is a correct ren- 
 dering of my feelings. There is a great 
 charm about this cottage ; I should be de- 
 lighted to break bread under its roof." 
 
 " If you are going the day after to- 
 morrow you cannot have the delight unless 
 you come to-morrow."
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 53 
 
 In her mind Susie had catalogued various 
 nice things that could appear at their sim- 
 ple board. 
 
 " I am not able to come to-morrow." 
 
 Susie sighed regretfully. She had 
 known how frangible were men s engage- 
 ments when their inclinations and their 
 acceptances clashed. 
 
 " I am sorry," she said, and not in the 
 icy tone that betokens anger more than 
 sorrow. 
 
 "So am I — rather," he replied with a 
 smile. 
 
 Here was an opportunity for a snub ! 
 But to snub properly there must be an 
 accumulation of force from preceding irri- 
 tation, and, except for the last minute, 
 Susie had never felt so bland in her life. 
 She had nothing to snub with. There was 
 no malice in her heart. She was conscious
 
 54 Loving and Loth. 
 
 that her mother had one ear open to her, 
 but no words seethed in her heart and 
 bubbled over at the lips ; her heart was 
 like a pool with sunbeams slanting down 
 on it. She was silent, despising herself 
 for hoping that he would say something to 
 take away the flavour of that slighting 
 "rather." 
 
 " How do vegetables look when they 
 are growing V he inquired, thinking that 
 a stroll round a quaint old garden with 
 this pert child would be rather amusing. 
 
 " Potatoes look all top, beans look all 
 pole, asparagus at this season looks all 
 sprangling with red berries ; it is growing 
 like Jack's beanstalk, that is the reason. 
 Would you like to come and see it ? I 
 will take out a need]e and thread, and 
 string you a handsome coral necklace, if 
 you choose."
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 55 
 
 " Yes ; I choose, decidedly." 
 
 He had no sooner spoken than Susie 
 was off, and leaping up the stairs like a 
 kangaroo. She came back with a broad- 
 brimmed garden hat on, trimmed with 
 smart tartan ribbon, and in her hand she 
 carried a bewitching basket full of reels 
 and silks and scissors. On her finger a 
 thimble was already placed. They went 
 away together, round to the back of the 
 house, down a red path fringed by labur- 
 nums, and laurels, and laurestinus, into the 
 garden, where a lad was at work on a 
 cucumber frame. 
 
 " Young Thomas," Susie said, explana- 
 torily. " Old Thomas, his father, does the 
 heavy gardening, and young Thomas the 
 light. Young Thomas and I work capi- 
 tally together ; he is the very thing for an 
 amateur with fancies, which is what I con-
 
 56 Loving and Loth. 
 
 sider myself. Old Thomas is rooted to his 
 own ideas, but with Young Thomas it is 
 like rolling a ball down a roof. He takes 
 an idea, and off he goes — well, rather too 
 fast." 
 
 " Given to works of supererogation, is 
 he?" 
 
 " If you suggest something being pruned, 
 you go out and find that the bush is gone, 
 and that the prunes, or prunings, lying on 
 the ground, are all that is left of it but the 
 roots and a little bit above them. This is 
 the asparagus bed ; I suppose it looks a 
 mere scrap of a thing after your uncle's V 
 
 " I have never seen my uncle's. I am 
 sure this is large enough to supply two 
 ladies." 
 
 " It little dreamed that it was going to 
 supply a gentleman with a necklace,* said 
 Susie, seating herself quietly on the neigh-
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 57 
 
 touring potato tops, and tearing off a 
 quantity of red berries. Then she threaded 
 a large needle, and began stringing the 
 berries rapidly, Eugene watching her, and 
 convincing himself that he could not follow 
 her example, and seat himself on those 
 waving green tufts. 
 
 The light was so deeply rose-coloured, 
 that it seemed as if it must paint perma- 
 nently pink the white cheek steeped in 
 it, and change to ruby the pale coral 
 lips. 
 
 All in green and scarlet as she was, with 
 her environment of green, and the red 
 berries in her hand, her little white face 
 looked as a solitary anemone might in a 
 large posy of scarlet geraniums and their 
 leaves. 
 
 She quickly strung a long string, and 
 tied the two ends together.
 
 58 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Bend down your head," she said, look- 
 ing up at him. 
 
 He did so, and she flung the vegetable 
 ornament over it. 
 
 " I dare say you will feel a little foolish 
 with it," she said, reading his thoughts, 
 " but please don't take it off. Mary never 
 sees anything that people do in a ludicrous 
 light, unless they mean it to be seen so ; 
 she has such a tender heart, and your 
 uncle is not one of the very observing sort ; 
 do you think he is T 
 
 " No ; and particularly at present he is 
 not. I will treat this " — touching it — " as 
 I would a V.C., if I had had the bravery 
 to obtain one ; that is, I will lay it care- 
 fully away, and refresh my spirit by look- 
 ing at it from time to time ; I will treasure 
 it for ever." 
 
 Susie watched him as he talked, watched
 
 Richt like a Lord Unstable. 59 
 
 his smiling lips and his untroubled 
 eyes. 
 
 " This is your way of talking to foolish, 
 bird-witted girls," she said, sadly. "I 
 understand exactly what sort of man you 
 are ! You e steal the sweet forget-me-nots 
 that grow for happy lovers,' and present 
 them, very withered and stale, to people 
 whom you don't care a bit about." 
 
 " You are so wise and poetical, that I 
 do not understand you," rejoined Eugene, 
 with arrested attention ; " but I will try and 
 unravel your meaning as we drive home." 
 
 He made a step towards the house ; then 
 remembering, turned back again and oifered 
 his hand to Susie to help her up. She took 
 it, and rose to her feet. 
 
 In after days she recalled the scene, and 
 it would rise before her with the accuracy, 
 the vividness of a photograph.
 
 tf Loving and Loth. 
 
 The old garden, the gaudy light, the 
 string of red berries hanging round Eu- 
 gene's neck, looking incongruous, and as if 
 he had been playing with a child ; the 
 figure of young Thomas tinkering the cu- 
 cumber frame ; her limp percale ; Skip 
 enjoying a hidden scent under a gooseberry 
 bush. 
 
 They went back to the house, and found 
 Sir Alfred about to take leave. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Susie, shaking hands 
 with Eugene. " As you go the day after 
 to-morrow, I suppose I shall not see you 
 again." 
 
 He only said good-bye with what Susie 
 in her heart pronounced to be an unfeeling 
 smile. 
 
 She did not run to the window to watch 
 the dog-cart drive off, as was her common 
 way : she stood still where she was, with a
 
 JRicht like a Lord Unstable. 61 
 
 far-a-way look in her eyes. Looking out 
 with child's eyes on to a woman's future. 
 
 " Did you really snub him, Susie ?" said 
 her mother softly, and with a little laugh. 
 
 "No," answered Susie, dragging down 
 her eye-brows, thrusting out her under lip, 
 sticking her thumbs in her belt and staring 
 down at her shoes. 
 
 "My child! don't look so cross. Forget 
 that I asked you ; listen to your bird, how 
 sweetly he is singing." 
 
 " I don't hear any bird/' said Susie 
 without looking up, " I hear a slate pencil 
 scratching on a slate — that is all." 
 
 "Poor little dicky !" sighed Mrs. Dawnay^ 
 glancing up at the canary piping shrilly in 
 his gilded cage. " Sir Alfred has asked us 
 to lunch with him to-morrow, Susie." 
 
 " Has he !" said Susie, with a marvellous 
 change and brightening of expression.
 
 62 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Oh ! I must run out and tell Ann to 
 wash and iron my embroidered white dress ; 
 it is the prettiest one I have. Fancy my 
 having this thing on : that looks as if it 
 had come out of a rag-bag !" • 
 
 " I do not think it matters at all," said 
 the widow laughing.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ALL ON A SUMMERS DAY. 
 
 T is not l steal the s.weet forget- 
 me-nots/ it is c move the sweet 
 forget-me-nots that grow for 
 happy lovers / I made a mistake/' said 
 Susie. She was standing with Eugene on 
 the terrace of St. Quentin's, waiting with an 
 irritated patience for a peacock to unfold 
 his obstinate tail. " If any one else had 
 misquoted anything so familiar,howI should 
 have laughed at them."
 
 64 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Eugene looked bewildered. "I have not 
 heard you say anything about forget-me- 
 nots/' he said. 
 
 " Oh, not to-day, yesterday — but you 
 have forgotten/' 
 
 " Not at all," said Eugene, who obviously 
 had forgotten. 
 
 "But you have," insisted Susie in vexation. 
 
 " If it was, as you say, some misquota- 
 tion, then it is just as well that I have," he 
 replied indifferently. 
 
 Susie pouted and did not speak for a mo- 
 ment. Then she said, watching the lazy 
 smoke floating reluctantly away from his 
 lips, " I thought it made men good-natured 
 to smoke." 
 
 " I think it does ; but the companionship 
 of some people is even more effectual than 
 smoking the best of cigars," he said, taking 
 his own cigar out of his mouth, and looking
 
 "All on a Summers Daij." 65 
 
 into her eyes with a look learned long ago, 
 but dangerously new to her. 
 
 "I should like to be over there," she 
 said, after an instant's pause, and pointing 
 as she spoke to verdure and shade and still 
 foliage, where fancy could picture a grey 
 road winding under the embracing tree- 
 boughs, past sleepy mills and broad roofed 
 cottages. 
 
 " I will order the phaeton and drive you 
 over if you wish." 
 
 " Oh, mamma would never let me go !" 
 
 " Nonsense ! we are in Acadia down 
 here. The Acadians never thought any- 
 thing of going off hand in hand anywhere, 
 with their — -friends. Or we might have the 
 waggonette and all go. I will ask them." 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay was sitting a little distance 
 off with the host and the Rector and his 
 wife, who had also been lunching there. 
 
 vol. I. 5
 
 66 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Eugene said not one word about the 
 waggonette,, but he did suggest taking 
 Susie for a drive over to a farm where he 
 had some matter or other to see about. He 
 suggested it as he would have suggested 
 allowing a little boy of four to ride his 
 stick. 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay hesitated a moment, and 
 then, disliking to put Susie on a young 
 lady's footing, said, " Yes, she may go ; but 
 please don't let her get out and climb and 
 scramble, Mr. Everard. She does tear her 
 dresses so terribly ; and don't let her be 
 troublesome about stopping to gather this 
 flower, and that flower." 
 
 So Susie was driven off in the phaeton, 
 her mother repeating the same injunctions 
 to her that she had given to Eugene. She 
 was driven off with manv cautions not to be 
 a troublesome child, and a tomboyish little-
 
 " All on a Summer's Day." 67 
 
 girl. No one cautioned her not to be a 
 troubled maiden, a womanly } 7 oung woman. 
 
 They scarcely met a living creature : 
 their own voices, their own wheels, the beat 
 of their own horses' hoofs were almost the 
 only sounds that broke the monotony of 
 repose. 
 
 Once or twice a dog barked, a bird 
 twittered, a cow lowed ■ but for that, the 
 pastoral world about them seemed all their 
 own. 
 
 Susie, in a white gown, with pale pink 
 roses in her pretty leghorn hat, and paler 
 pink gloves on her little hands, and pink 
 and white striped silk stockings that her 
 coquettish high heeled shoes displayed, 
 looked as Eugene could not have believed 
 her capable of looking. Her heavy hair 
 hung to her waist in curling, dark masses, 
 and in her face was the innocent, rare hap- 
 
 5—2
 
 68 Loving and Loth. 
 
 piness that does not know itself to be 
 happiness ; that has not yet been ques- 
 tioned and forced to own, " Yes, I am 
 happiness — farewell, I fly !" 
 
 Through all Susie's words, looks, and 
 tones ran the prophecy of something to 
 come infinitely deeper and sweeter than 
 anything that her life had yet known. Of 
 her own fore-casting the poor little pro- 
 phetess herself was unconscious, but the 
 young man beside her knew, and the know- 
 ledge gave her an interest to him that 
 her unimpressive face could not else have 
 given. 
 
 "That," said she — indicating with her 
 shell-pink parasol a farm on " uplands airy" 
 a little bit off — " that is where our butter 
 and eggs, and some of our fruit come from. 
 Isn't it a cool, warm, pleasant looking 
 place ? It looks, I mean, as if it must be
 
 " All on a Summer s Day." 69 
 
 cool in summer, warm in winter, and plea- 
 sant always." 
 
 " Let us see it a little nearer," said Eu- 
 gene turning the horses abruptly off into a 
 rough looking road apparently leading up 
 to it. "Should you like to live on a farm?" 
 
 " Oh, no ; milk and cream make mamma 
 bilious. Why, you are driving up to it !" 
 
 " Yes ; I want to speak to Jarrett about 
 something ; and perhaps they will give us 
 a glass of milk., Milk and cream do not 
 make me bilious." 
 
 "Nor me." 
 
 They drove up to the old grey front 
 of the house where passion-flowers, pale 
 and starry, were clinging and trembling. 
 
 At the sound of the wheels a little Blen- 
 heim spaniel came out barking furiously. 
 This brought a girl of eleven, with shaggy 
 hair and enormous elastic-side boots, with
 
 70 Loving and Loth. 
 
 two great straps prominently sticking out 
 at the ankle of each. She stared wonder- 
 struck at the pink and white lady, the 
 handsome young gentleman, and the im- 
 movable groom, who, as the horses came to 
 a standstill was immovable no longer, but 
 out and at their heads. 
 
 " Where is your father ?" said Eugene to 
 this damsel. " I should like to see him." 
 
 ' ' Fey ther's in the house," answered the 
 girl pointing over her shoulder. 
 
 Eugene jumped out. " You will not 
 mind waiting here for half a second," he 
 said to Susie, and disappeared within the 
 porch. Though why one whom Susie con- 
 sidered so fine a gentleman should have 
 gone to the farmer, and not desired the 
 farmer to come to him, she really could 
 not determine. 
 
 He was gone thousands of half seconds ;
 
 "All on a Summers Day." 71 
 
 and when he came out it was with a mug 
 of milk in his own hand. The farmer 
 stood behind him ; his rustic comeliness 
 seeming a poor and homely thing enough, 
 when compared with the beauty of young 
 Dives in front of him. 
 
 Eugene held the milk up to her, and she 
 drank half ; it was a large ale mug ; he 
 drank the rest ; and this token of non- 
 fastidiousness where she was concerned 
 caused Susie a delightful blush. She even 
 noticed that where her lips had pressed his 
 did too, and wondered if that was accident 
 or intention. He handed the mug to the 
 farmer, and getting in beside Susie, nodded 
 a good-day to him. "You understand, 
 then f! he said as he drove off. 
 
 " Oh yes, sir, I understand." 
 
 Susie would have liked to let loose a 
 whole pack of questions on him ; for the
 
 72 Loving and Loth. 
 
 most insignificant thing he could do was 
 fraught with interest to her. But she for- 
 bore, that she might not be obliged to 
 torture herself with self-upbraiding and 
 dissatisfaction to-night when her head 
 should be on the pillow. She wished that 
 there should be nothing to afterwards 
 make herself uncomfortable about in the 
 whole of this completely satisfying day. 
 
 For her to feel as if she had achieved a 
 great triumph, a great success, — feel as if 
 she was a beautiful young conqueror in- 
 stead of an unpretending over-flattered girl, 
 was perhaps more due — far more due — to 
 his being a past master in the art of pleasing, 
 than to her artlessness in being over pleased 
 by a handsome young man of the world 
 who had been at some little pains to make 
 himself remembered by her. 
 
 It was so late that he drove her to her
 
 " All on a Summer s Day." 73 
 
 own home, and not to St. Quentin's ; he 
 got out himself, saying that he would come 
 in and bid adieu to Mrs. Dawnay as he had 
 not already done so. They entered the 
 house by the drawing-room window. 
 
 " Mamma is not in the house ; I feel that 
 she is not," said Susie the instant her foot 
 crossed the threshold. " I daresay she has 
 gone back with Mrs. Hay for afternoon tea." 
 
 " I am sorry," replied Eugene — " sorry 
 not to say good-bye to your charming 
 mother. We leave to-morrow morning 
 early. Will you say good-bye to her for 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes," said Susie. 
 
 " Good-bye," holding out his hand to her 
 and smiling. 
 
 Susie took the hand, making a little 
 curtsying movement as she did so ; a half 
 genuflection it was.
 
 74 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Certainly, thought Eugene, if her face 
 was faulty her grace was faultless. 
 
 " Keep a small corner in your memory 
 for me," he said, with a gaiety that robbed 
 his words of all sweetness for Susie. 
 
 " Well, I will ; a very little bit of a scrap 
 of a corner," she replied in exactly his own 
 tone ; " and you keep the order I bestowed 
 on you ; if I ever see you again I shall ask 
 you if you have it." 
 
 Eugene looked amused ; the trashy thing- 
 was not even now in his possession ; what 
 had become of it he knew not. 
 
 " You haven't it now I" cried Susie, with 
 speedy intuition, and frowning at him. 
 
 " Ask me if I have not ten years from 
 now, and see what I will answer," he said, 
 impressively, and relinquishing her hand as 
 he spoke. " Good-bye, again." 
 
 " Good-bye," said Susie, coolly, and turn- 
 ing away.
 
 " All on a Sitmmer s Day" 75 
 
 He crossed the little lawn, and she heard 
 the sound of his wheels as he drove off and 
 was gone. 
 
 She was pouting, frowning, reddening. 
 " Asparagus berries I" said she. " How 
 disgusting the two words sound. Why not 
 have given him a turnip, or a nice melon 
 scooped out, with eyes, nose, and mouth 
 cut in it, to remember me by ?" 
 
 She threw off her hat, tore off her gloves, 
 and seating herself at the piano, began to 
 play " Tarn O'Shanter" with unnecessary 
 clatter, as if she herself were pursued by 
 witches whose name was Legion.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WHIPS AND STINGS. 
 
 jND about those bills, Susie ? 
 Have you added them toge- 
 ther r 
 
 This was one day in September, and 
 poor Mrs. Dawnay made the query in a 
 very timorous tone. 
 
 " Oh ! don't mention them," said Susie, 
 throwing them down on the floor, leaning 
 her head back, and closing her eyes as she 
 would have done if any one had been beat- 
 ing a dog or hurting a bird in her pre-
 
 " Whips and Stings." 77 
 
 sence. "That box of dresses from Paris," 
 she said, after a miserable pause, opening 
 her eyes with an effort, and speaking tra- 
 gically, " I wish they were all at the bottom 
 of the sea \" 
 
 " I wish they were back in Paris again ; 
 I do, indeed,", sighed the widow. " Imagine 
 her daring to put real lace on the petti- 
 coats !" 
 
 "And our having to pay for it," added 
 Susie. " I should not have minded her 
 daring to put it on, if only we had not to 
 pay for it. Then the butcher, the baker, 
 the candlestick-maker ! Why, I thought 
 you could live for nothing, or next to no- 
 thing, down in the country — the real, 
 honest country ; and we with our own 
 vegetables and our own cow ! It really 
 is horrible to think of what we owe 
 in one way and another ; living in such
 
 78 Loving and Loth. 
 
 a simple little way as we have done, 
 too." 
 
 " And how much do we owe, Susie V 
 asked her mother, trembling. 
 
 " Seven hundred pounds, eleven shillings, 
 and sixpence," said Susie, with slow in- 
 tensity. 
 
 " Oh, Susie f 
 
 " And oh, Mery ! the cow, you know, the 
 jardinieres, and piano, and gilded chairs, 
 and things ; the copper casseroles, and ket- 
 tles and pans, and rolling-pins and skillets, 
 and spice-boxes, and all the tricks of the 
 trade ; the glass all over fern-leaves ; the 
 new tea-cups and things that they sent for 
 from Newport for us ; the new carpets and 
 curtains. Why, I don't believe you realize 
 that we have all but refurnished the house. 
 Then our mere eating and drinking are as 
 expensive, it seems to me, as if we were a
 
 ,,s Whips and Stings." 79 
 
 family of ten. Yes, ten grown-up men ; 
 all bons-vivants." 
 
 " No, no," said Mrs. Dawnay, depre- 
 catingly. " And what are we to do V 
 
 There was no answer from Susie, except 
 in a tone that would have been a fit con- 
 comitant for wailing and gnashing of teeth. 
 " Those dresses !" 
 
 There came another pause, then it was 
 Susie who said, " What are we to do V 
 
 " Yes ; what are we to do V! said the 
 widow, with mournful reiteration. 
 
 "We must do something," said Susie, 
 un suggestively. 
 
 " Yes ; but what ?" 
 
 Still another pause. 
 
 " It doesn't sound very much," said 
 Susie ; " seven hundred pounds eleven 
 shillings and sixpence. Don't I make it 
 sound small, mother V
 
 80 Loving and Loth, 
 
 " No, no ; not when I know what our 
 account is at our bankers." 
 
 " And how are we to manage V 
 
 " How, indeed, when our whole income 
 for a year will not pay it V 
 
 . " I can feel it making wrinkles on my 
 forehead," said Susie, rubbing her hand up 
 and down on her baby brow. 
 
 " It is a very dreadful thing to be deeply 
 in debt without any idea of how and when 
 you can get out again," said Mrs. Dawnay, 
 in a troubled voice. " And I believe that 
 after giving a year's credit they charge five 
 per cent, interest." 
 
 " I feel as if I were at sea in a bowl !" 
 cried Susie, starting up and beginning to 
 walk distractedly up and down the room, 
 her glance bent moodily on her smart shoes 
 and silk stockings fresh from Paris. 
 
 " There is but one thing to be done that
 
 " Whips and Stings." 81 
 
 I can see/' said Mrs. Dawnay, with a sad 
 deliberateness. "We must write to your 
 Aunt Adria." 
 
 Aunt Adria was a sister of Mr. Dawnay, 
 who had married a Mr. Willis many years 
 ago. A rich man, but beneath her in birth. 
 So much beneath her, according to the 
 family idea, that the only way to receive 
 him was to make a feud over him. Mr. 
 Dawnay had been conservative, and for his 
 conservatism his sister had been grateful, 
 and Mrs. Dawnay knew it. 
 
 Susie drew back her head with a gesture 
 of intense pride, and stopped short in her 
 promenade amongst the furniture. 
 
 " Horrible !" she said, dismembering the 
 word, and lingering over each little syllable. 
 " I — intend — I intend to ask Sir Alfred to 
 help us." 
 
 11 Susie ! you will never do that." 
 
 vol. i. 6
 
 82 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Yes, I shall — to-day if he comes ; and 
 I suppose he will — he hardly ever skips a 
 day now." 
 
 Susie rushed out of the room before she 
 had quite finished speaking. In all her 
 life she had never disobeyed her gentle 
 mother ; and if her mother had now for- 
 bidden her she must have yielded ; she 
 could not disobey her ; she would have be- 
 lieved that some dreadful evil would over- 
 take her should she do so. 
 
 She rushed out of the room, and out of 
 the house, and out of the garden-gate too ; 
 scampering down the road, and down a 
 lane, and into a well-known favourite copse, 
 as fast as her feet could carry her. She did 
 not go back for luncheon ; indeed, she felt 
 as if it would be meritorious on her part 
 never to eat again, but to live on air like an 
 orchid, for air certainly costs nothing. She
 
 Whips and Stings" 83 
 
 stole home about three o'clock, and, enter- 
 ing the drawing-room, looked about her 
 with a woe-begone face, fearing to find her 
 lovely but indebted mother either in tears 
 over her liabilities, or sitting with a satin 
 cheek on a satin hand, and a book upside 
 down on her lap, brooding, with melancholy 
 eyes fixed on vacancy. 
 
 The room was cool, perfumed, and still, 
 except for a softly recurring sound coming 
 from a luxurious sofa in the darkest 
 corner. There lay Mrs. Dawnay, calmly 
 asleep, her golden head lying easily on the 
 down, lace-covered cushion, a magazine sit- 
 ting on its half-open leaves on the floor 
 beside her where it had tumbled, rose-leaves 
 from an over-ripe rose in her belt drifting 
 over her. 
 
 With great relief and satisfaction Susie 
 took a book she was reading softly from the 
 
 6—2
 
 Si Loving and Loth. 
 
 table, and went tip-toeing out to the seat 
 in the laurel's shade, where she established 
 herself, and soon became enthralled in 
 "Eva," 
 
 The click of the garden gate made her 
 look up ; there was Sir Alfred advancing 
 over the grass towards her. 
 
 " Ah !" he said, coming beside her, " stu- 
 dious Miss Susie ; ' Eva/ and in the origi- 
 nal — unruly member! accomplished Miss 
 Susie P 
 
 Susie looked up into his withered old 
 face, and the violent throbs of her heart 
 seemed to be saying to her, "Seven hundred 
 pounds eleven shillings and sixpence." 
 Could she ask him for help ? 
 
 "Sir Alfred," she faltered out, and 
 paused. No — impossible ! It was easier 
 to appeal to kith and kin, after all, than to 
 a stranger like this. " Mamma is asleep, or
 
 " Whips and Stings' 1 85 
 
 was asleep, Sir Alfred/' she said, in her 
 usual tone ; " Let me run in and see if she 
 is awake." 
 
 But the widow, who had heard her guest's 
 voice, came out herself, flushed from sleep, 
 smiling, and looking lovely in her beautiful 
 new dress. 
 
 " What a fool I should have been to ask 
 him," thought Susie, quite gloating over the 
 baronet's enraptured gaze. " As if it was 
 not all coming out perfectly right for us. I 
 sha'n't let her write to Aunt Adria — hate- 
 ful old cast-iron image ! Indeed my Mery 
 shall not write. I must finish this alone," 
 she said, honestly enough, " for I am going 
 to cry over it. I peeped at the end, and it 
 is so, so sad ! I am going to cry dreadfully 
 over it, and I do not like for any one to see 
 me cry." 
 
 She went away with her book ; and
 
 86 Loving and Loth. 
 
 among the seedy vegetables, the currant and 
 gooseberry bushes of the ugly old garden, 
 let loose the flood of her sympathy and 
 sorrow over her unfortunate heroine, to 
 whom fate and man were implacable. 
 
 " Whose griefs have you really been cry- 
 ing over, sweet one ?" asked Mrs. Dawnay, 
 as they seated themselves at the dinner- 
 table — " your own, or Eva's ¥' 
 
 ' f Oh, her's — poor Eva's!" said Susie; 
 " ours will come out all right, I dare say. 
 Do not write to Aunt Adria, mamma ; at 
 least, not quite yet/' 
 
 " I have already written." 
 " You have not sent the letter ?" 
 " But I have. I wrote while you were 
 out — you were gone a very long time, Susie 
 — and young Thomas has taken the letter 
 to post." 
 
 Susie pushed back her chair from the 
 table, grief and indignation in her face.
 
 " Whips and Stings." 87 
 
 "Wrote without letting me see the 
 letter ? Oh, mother !" 
 
 " I have kept a copy of it for you to see, 
 dear. I have done quite right ; it was the 
 only thing to do. I do not very much mind 
 being in debt to Adria ; but these people ! 
 — I cannot live and feel that I am dealing 
 "unjustly by people whose trade gives them 
 their daily bread. I blame myself more 
 than words can say for going on so reck- 
 lessly. Why did I not think ? But I do so 
 love pretty things !" This was the conclu- 
 sion, with a sigh. 
 
 " And so do I," said Susie, going on with 
 her dinner, "I dote on them; and I thought 
 one could live in the heart of the country 
 for just nothing at all. Well ! there is a 
 bubble burst !" The end of this sentence, 
 too, was a sigh. 
 
 A few mornings after this conversation
 
 88 Loving and Loth. 
 
 took place, a letter came from Scotland to 
 Mrs. Dawnay. She opened it, and out of it 
 dropped a cheque ; after glancing at it she 
 handed it to Susie ; and Susie saw that they 
 were almost righted. 
 
 " Now for the letter," she said ; " let us 
 hear what Aunt A dria has to scold." 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay began to read ; and after 
 going as fast as she could through the 
 severities and cold amenities of the first 
 part, read very much slower and more care- 
 fully as she drew near the end of the letter. 
 
 " Susie's education must have been very 
 imperfectly attended to/' wrote the lady, 
 " with your unsettled life, small means, and 
 extravagant tastes, and I suppose that 
 advantages for her in the place where you 
 now are, there are absolutely none. Mr. 
 Willis and I have a proposition to make to 
 you, and it is that you shall allow her to
 
 " Whips and Stings" 89 
 
 come to us in London, in November, for 
 nine months or a year, to share with our 
 Alice the masters, etc., with whom she is 
 finishing her education, before being pre- 
 sented in the spring. Susie shall be very 
 welcome, and you will thus be spared all 
 expense as regards her, for, of course, in 
 dress and all other little matters she will 
 be our charge. A horse will be provided 
 for her, that she may accompany Alice in 
 her rides. Health, conduct, and deport- 
 ment all shall be attended to," and so, 
 with a few more curt sentences, the letter 
 came to an end. 
 
 The mother and daughter looked at one 
 another without speaking for a full minute. 
 Susie then took up the cheque and fingered 
 it. 
 
 « Very kind of her to send us this," she 
 said.
 
 90 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Very/' echoed the widow, in a heart- 
 sick voice. 
 
 " Had I better go, mother, do you think ? 
 Oh, mother, say no !" 
 
 " My heart says no, daughter dear ; but 
 my common sense says yes. It is the very 
 thing that I should like above all others to 
 do ; to go up to town and have the best of 
 finishing masters and mistresses for you; 
 to have you ride every day on a well- 
 appointed horse ; to have you made, in 
 fact, into one of the most graceful and ac- 
 complished of girls. That is impossible. I 
 cannot go with you ; I can afford none of 
 it. The want of money is the root of much 
 evil. Nine months or a year would soon 
 pass. Perhaps I might manage to come 
 up and go into lodgings in March or April, 
 and so see you again." 
 
 " No, I will not go, mamma !" — with a
 
 " Whips and Stings" 91 
 
 desperate effort to speak quietly, and a 
 deep blush — " do not be angry with me, 
 or shocked at me, but I have a sort of 
 fancy that we may some day go to St. 
 Quentin's to live, so why need we separate ? 
 Anybody must be blind not to see how — 
 how — in fact, I think that any day now 
 Sir Alfred may ask you to come and live 
 for ever at St. Quentin's. n 
 
 "You will of course give up this idea 
 when I tell you what I had not intended 
 to tell you, but which you force me into 
 doing. Sir Alfred has already asked me. 
 He asked me the last time he was here." 
 
 " And you refused V 
 
 Her mother looked at her steadily, and 
 slightly bowed her head. 
 
 Susie bent down her's, saying to herself, 
 as the blood leaped into brow and cheeks 
 " Another bubble burst !"
 
 92 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Presently she looked up, and speaking 
 with perfect calmness, said, 
 
 "lam wretched at the thought of leav- 
 ing you, mamma, but if you would promise 
 to come up in March or April, I think I 
 can manage to make myself willing to 
 
 go-" 
 
 " That is right, Susie ; yes, it is quite 
 right ; but what shall I do without you ?" 
 
 Susie ran to her, clasping her round the 
 neck, and raining kisses on her soft 
 cheek. 
 
 " All alone down here ! Oh, I cannot 
 go away and leave you I" 
 
 " What, not from November till March ? 
 Yes you can, dear, and you must. I shall 
 be separated from you just long enough not 
 to actually sicken for a sight of you, and 
 then I shall see you again. It is very good 
 and thoughtful of Adria."
 
 " Whips and Stings!' 93 
 
 " Why couldn't she have asked you to 
 come ? I should think she would have 
 remembered how you would be left down 
 here in the dull, dead country, all alone.' ' 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay shook her head with a 
 smile. 
 
 " That would have been quite too much," 
 she said. "It is very kindly thought of, 
 and kindly done of Adria. It will be very 
 nice for you, Susie."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 KITH AND KIN. 
 
 *N a calm, sunny, November day, 
 the mother and daughter stood 
 on Ryde pier bidding one another 
 farewell. They did it with commendable 
 self-control ; yet Susie felt wretched enough, 
 and so, too, did her mother. They could 
 hardly bear to finally unlock their clinging, 
 trembling hands, and separate ; but it was 
 done at last. Susie stumbled down the 
 sanded steps behind the rector's wife, who 
 had taken charge of her to town, and went
 
 Kith and Kin. 95 
 
 on board the boat. Mrs. Dawnay leaned 
 over the pier railing to see the last of her 
 one chicken. 
 
 There she was, a girlish, graceful figure, 
 with eager, unconscious gestures of fare- 
 well. There was but one person in the 
 world to her at that minute, and that one 
 was her mother. 
 
 " How lonely your mamma will be 
 without you," said Mrs. Hay, half 
 way over, wrapping herself warmly in a 
 shawl. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Hay," cried Susie, bending 
 towards her eagerly, " don't let her be 
 very lonely; go and see her very, very 
 often, won't you V 
 
 " Certainly I will ; it is always a plea- 
 sure. I promise you that I will quite over- 
 run her, and I intend to make great calls 
 on her time and charity for my poor people,
 
 96 Loving and Loth. 
 
 too ; she shall almost forget to miss you, 
 my dear." 
 
 At the Victoria Station, Susie parted 
 from Mrs. Hay, and entered a brougham 
 that had come to meet her, and while the 
 good lady went bumping off in a four- 
 wheeler, with all her goods and chattels 
 a- top, her. young charge was rolled spring- 
 ingly away in blissful carelessness as to 
 her effects. Extreme thoughtlessness made 
 Susie eminently fitted to be a fine lady. 
 
 She had only had peeps at London while 
 passing through it, and looked out of the 
 window with a good deal of interest as she 
 w 7 ent rapidly along. It was a still, mild 
 day, and a number of people were abroad. 
 Down through the wide streets of Bel- 
 gravia and Ken sing ton- wards they went, 
 to pause at last before a great, new-looking 
 house, fronting the east.
 
 Kith and Kin. 97 
 
 Susie got out, entered the open door, and 
 went up-stairs. She was shown into a 
 small bright room with one occupant. The 
 one occupant was a fair-haired blooming 
 girl, with eyebrows as arched as crescent 
 moons. She had on a coquettish muslin 
 apron, with pockets and blue bows, and on 
 the apron lay a little Blenheim spaniel, 
 which she was combing with a broken ivory 
 comb. 
 
 As Susie entered, she pushed the dog off, 
 threw down the comb, and, rising, met her 
 cousin half-way with some speech of wel- 
 come, followed by an embrace and kiss. 
 The cousins had not seen each other since 
 they were young children. 
 
 " I will show you your room," said Alice 
 Willis. " Mamma will be sorry not to have 
 been here when you arrived. She will be 
 back now at any moment." 
 
 vol. i. 7
 
 98 Loving and Loth. 
 
 As she spoke she went out of the room 
 and upstairs, Susie following her. Her 
 room was pretty and comfortable-looking ; 
 but the aching in her heart that the separ- 
 ation from her mother caused, made no- 
 thing seem enjoyable or even satisfactory 
 to her. 
 
 She began mechanically taking off her 
 hat and jacket, her cousin watching her, 
 and noting that the warm, close-fitting 
 travelling dress had the cachet of a French 
 dressmaker. She picked up one of Susie's 
 gloves that had fallen to the floor. ' ' What 
 sized gloves do you wear V she asked. 
 
 " Sixes," said Susie. 
 
 " Why, I take six and a quarter \" 
 
 " Do you V said Susie, indifferently. 
 
 " And I daresay you can wear boots as 
 small as mine ; I wear threes." 
 
 "Oh, I wear twos."
 
 Kith and Kin. 99 
 
 "Keally!" (Miss Willis considered the 
 word 'really' to be all that any occasion 
 demanded, from news of the downfall of a 
 dynasty to the price of a new bonnet.) 
 " But then size of feet and hands is all a 
 matter of proportion ; I am five feet five" 
 drawing herself up. 
 
 " So am I/ 1 said Susie, beginning to 
 bathe her face in the chilly water. 
 
 " So ! you can wash your face ?" 
 
 " Of course I can : you don't imagine 
 that I would let anyone wash it for me V 
 
 " Some girls cannot, unless they can 
 have a thorough re- making up afterwards. 
 Marble white girls come out shining red 
 girls I can assure you." 
 
 " Dreadful !" exclaimed Susie, forgetting 
 her mother for an instant. " I am not 
 made up ; but you can tell that at a glance, 
 without my taking the trouble to inform 
 
 7—2
 
 100 Loving and Loth. 
 
 you. — Oh, who are these ? Cora and 
 Lucy V for two little girls, one eleven, and 
 one eight, had come into the room. 
 
 " Yes, Cora and Lucy." 
 
 Susie kissed them, and asked them if 
 they knew who she was. 
 
 " Oh yes," the}^ both answered ; she was 
 Susie — Cousin Susie, who had come to live 
 with them. 
 
 The younger one, Lucy, was holding the 
 little King Charles in her arms. 
 
 " Is he yours ?" asked Susie. 
 
 "Oh no," came in a chorus from the three. 
 " He is mine," " He is Alices." 
 
 " Where did you get him V said Susie. 
 
 The little ones looked at Alice. 
 
 Alice let her white eyelids fall, with a 
 half smile and conscious hlush. 
 
 " He was given to me — sent to me," she 
 murmured ; "I love him to distraction !"
 
 Kith and Kin. 101 
 
 She snatched the dog from her sister, and 
 began kissing his little head violently. 
 
 " The giver ought to hear you/' returned 
 Susie, with not too much toleration. 
 " Ought to hear what you say, and ought 
 to hear those kisses. He or she could, if 
 they were in the street, and the window 
 open. I never heard kisses that sounded 
 so like the cracking of a whip." 
 
 Alice raised her head, and regarded her 
 cousin with speechless surprise and indig- 
 nation. 
 
 Susie was not aware of having said any- 
 thing offensive. Little Cora giggled, show- 
 ing two rows of small pearly teeth. Lucy, 
 watching her opportunity, darted forward 
 and seized the spaniel, who yelped at the 
 roughness of her grasp. 
 
 " Take him out," said Alice, shortly ; " I 
 hate to hear him yelp."
 
 102 Loving and Zoth. 
 
 " Susie !" said a voice at the door, " you 
 have come !" 
 
 A lady entered, tall, stiff, and slight, with 
 worn features, and strange eyes, like an 
 angry parrot's. 
 
 "Yes, Aunt Adria, here I am," and 
 Susie met Mrs. Willis half way, holding 
 up pursed lips, like a child, to be kissed, 
 her full round tones contrasting with the 
 melancholy cadences of her aunt, who spoke 
 like one in a miserable dream. 
 
 The questions she asked her niece, the 
 various speeches she made to her, were 
 with far-away glances, and uttered with the 
 monotonous evenness of a woman drugged 
 to apathy. 
 
 But she meant to be kind ; and with 
 welcoming words dying faintly on her lips, 
 left the room as noiselessly as she had en- 
 tered it.
 
 Kith and Kin. 103 
 
 A maid came to unpack Susie's boxes. 
 Alice seated herself comfortably and looked 
 on ; talking meanwhile of vanities. Susie 
 had thought herself rather given over to 
 the love of millinery, but she discovered 
 that as a cup full of water is to the ocean, 
 was her love of finery when compared with 
 her cousin's. 
 
 At the sound of the dressing-bell Alice 
 rose. 
 
 " We are to dine to-night. I thank the 
 spirits there is not a seance. What is the 
 use of dressing and looking well only to sit 
 in the dark V 
 
 " A seance ? Is Aunt Adria a spirit- 
 ualist ?" 
 
 "We dabble in it. But do not be 
 afraid ; you will not be bored by it. 
 Mamma is most anxious to know what 
 happens to us after the sad event "
 
 104 Loving a)id Loth. 
 
 11 By the ' sad event/ I suppose you 
 mean dying V interrupted Susie. 
 
 "Yes. She is miserable in thinking of 
 the separation of friends. It is a sad 
 thought, you see, to feel that they go no- 
 where, and that we are parted from 
 them " 
 
 " Yes," cried Susie, " but there is one 
 sadder still : I don't want to part from 
 Susie," hugging herself affectionately. 
 
 Alice at that moment was furtively look- 
 ing at herself in the glass. 
 
 " When some women look in the glass," 
 said Susie, " it is to be hoped that they go 
 away and straightway forget what manner 
 of women they are." 
 
 " Do you mean because they are so 
 ugly V 9 asked Alice, crimsoning. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Did you intend that for me, then ¥*
 
 Kith and Kin. 105 
 
 continued Alice, her voice trembling with 
 anger. 
 
 " No, no ! I never thought of such a 
 thing. Oh, my speeches are unlucky !" 
 
 " You are malapropos," said Alice, in tart 
 assent, and left the room. 
 
 " Oh, Alice \" cried Susie, pursuing her 
 out into the passage, " Of course I did 
 not mean you ; you are anything but ugly ; 
 you are as pretty as " 
 
 " Hallo, hallo !" said a firm masculine 
 voice in the half-darkness, " who is this, 
 shouting compliments to Alice at the top 
 of their lungs V 
 
 " It is I," said Susie, sneakily, " Susie." 
 
 " Oh !" said the voice, nearer now ; " come 
 and let me look at you. I am your Uncle 
 Willis. We have yet to make each other's 
 acquaintance." 
 
 He moved under the gas as he spoke,
 
 106 Loving and Loth. 
 
 and Susie following him, they shook hands, 
 and saw each other's faces. 
 
 Mr. Willis looked as if he had been 
 adding up figures all his life. His manner 
 was cheerful, almost jocular ; it was only 
 when he said " Ha-ha !" and made it do 
 duty for a laugh, that one knew he would 
 like to take a long holiday from life. 
 
 " I was only speaking to Alice," said 
 Susie, explanatorily. 
 
 " Where is she ? I do not see her," said 
 Mr. Willis, looking about him. 
 
 " I don't know," returned Susie, blankly. 
 " I suppose she has gone to her room." 
 
 Mr. Willis stared, said " Ha, ha !" and 
 passed on. 
 
 As his footsteps died away, an opposite 
 door was cautiously opened, and Alice's 
 blonde head thrust out. " This is my 
 room," said she ; "come and see it."
 
 Kith and Kin. 107 
 
 " But, after all," said Susie, stepping in, 
 " it does not much matter whether one is 
 pretty or not, since by the time one is fifty, 
 time has stripped us of our good looks." 
 
 " Oh, you are still on the same theme," 
 rejoined Alice, after looking at her for an 
 instant in perplexity. " I have often 
 thought," she continued, pensively, "if I 
 were given my choice of growing ugly 
 fatly, or growing ugly thinly, which I 
 should select." 
 
 " I should rather be thin," said Susie, 
 unhesitatingly. " Being thin may have a 
 tragic side, but not a comic, as being fat 
 has. There is nothing ridiculous and 
 laughable in attenuation, but there is in 
 huge quantities of flesh ; it makes one un 
 objet pour rive." 
 
 " You are right. But on the other hand 
 bones are pathetic. I am not sure that it
 
 108 Loving and Loth. 
 
 is not better to make people feel like laugh- 
 ing, rather than crying." 
 
 " There would be no indecision in my 
 mind, were I to be given a choice," said 
 Susie. " But I must go back and dress. I 
 should think you might have your wish, 
 and grow enormously fat. I know a lady 
 who looks now like a white whale ; when 
 she was young I can imagine that she 
 looked like you." 
 
 So Susie, in all simplicity and speaking, 
 took her departure from the room.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHILST THOU LIVEST, KEEP A GOOD 
 TONGUE IN THY HEAD. 
 
 ;T only took twenty-four hours for 
 Susie to permeate the moral at- 
 mosphere of her new home. 
 She was like a small galvanic battery, 
 giving shocks to the self-love, the egoism, 
 of each member of the Willis family. 
 
 Her sinewy frankness, her bald truthful- 
 ness were as irrepressible as the moon's 
 changes. The only thing to be done, as 
 snubbing failed, was to submit to her.
 
 110 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Mrs. Willis, involved in chimeras of un- 
 seen worlds, and an unknown existence, 
 was quite out of sympathy with her niece's 
 youthful realism. 
 
 Susie drifted through a dim, moist, No- 
 vember day, side by side with these vessels 
 of various fabrics ; managing to jostle even 
 against the little pipkin, Lucy. 
 
 There was a morning walk with the two 
 younger girls and their governess, Miss 
 Wix, Alice meanwhile taking a ride. 
 
 Kensington Gardens, in depressing 
 Quakerish dress, was selected as usual 
 by Miss Wix, and here Susie scampered 
 about a little with the children, to the 
 admiration of beholders. 
 
 One beholder, a tall dark man, striving 
 to accomplish the difficult feat of watching 
 without appearing to look, was seen 
 through by Susie, who desisted from her
 
 Whilst thou livest, keep thy Tongue. Ill 
 
 gambols, and limited herself to a quick walk. 
 An Italian lesson with her cousin occu- 
 pied a part of the afternoon, and so the 
 gray hours wore away. 
 
 Alice and she were to dine late, and in 
 the evening there was to be a seance. 
 
 Now, at six o'clock all four cousins were 
 collected in Susie's room. The two little 
 girls, not having as yet much self-love to 
 be wounded — self-love being among those 
 other tormenting acquirements which add 
 to the burthen and weight of accumulating 
 years — were on the road to loving their 
 cousin very dearly, notwithstanding her 
 bluntness. 
 
 Alice was bewailing her hard fate of 
 dressing and looking " decent," to sit in 
 the dark nearly all the evening. 
 
 " But you will not dine in the dark," 
 said Susie, cheeringly. " And if I
 
 112 Loving and Loth. 
 
 get an opportunity, I will tell my neigh- 
 bour in the circle to observe your contour." 
 
 " I will thank you to say nothing about 
 me. I am already horribly afraid of your 
 glaring statements. Why, you would be 
 very likely to say that I was vain." 
 
 " No, no ; I should never say that you 
 were vain," said Susie, in the earnest, 
 hearty manner which carried conviction 
 with it. 
 
 Alice's face took on more than its usual 
 complacent, stall-fed look. 
 
 " But," continued Susie, in the same 
 round, sturdy tone, " if any one were to 
 say that you were vain, I should not con- 
 tradict them." 
 
 " If any one were to say to me that you 
 were a sort of human porcupine, 1 should 
 not contradict them," rejoined Alice calmly, 
 but with quick- winking eyes. When she
 
 Kith and Kin. 113 
 
 was annoyed she always winked an incre- 
 dible number of times in a minute. 
 
 " You would be right," said Susie, cheer- 
 fully. " Look at Charlie ; he smells that 
 you are angry." 
 
 " I am not angry." 
 
 " Dogs smell anger, grief, death, dis- 
 honesty, beggary, kindness, treachery. I 
 wonder what the scent of them is like ? 
 Who did you say gave him to you, 
 Alice r 
 
 " I merely said that he had been made a 
 present to me," answered Alice, with her 
 conscious smile. 
 
 " Oh, beg pardon. I didn't know it was 
 a secret." 
 
 " It is not a secret." 
 
 " Alice does get so red and hot and silly 
 looking whenever she says Mr. Everard's 
 name : no wonder she does not want to say 
 
 vol. I. 8
 
 114 Loving and Loth. 
 
 it," observed little Miss Cora, in a tone of 
 the tenderest commiseration. 
 
 " Mr. Everard, — Mr. Eugene Everard ? 
 do you know him V asked Susie, turning 
 ' sharply on Alice. 
 
 " Yes ; do you V with counter astonish- 
 ment. "He often joins me when I ride, 
 and he has dined here several times. 
 Where on earth did you meet him ? On 
 the Continent V 
 
 " No ; his uncle lives near us, and he 
 came to spend a day or two with 
 him." 
 
 "Do you know his uncle well ?" 
 
 " Yes, rather," said Susie, laconically. 
 
 "You cannot know Mr. Everard 'yes, 
 rather/ though, if he was only there a day 
 or two. Do you think him handsome ?" 
 
 "Very." 
 
 " And agreeable ?"
 
 Kith and Kin. 115 
 
 " He is a humbug, and humbugs are 
 very agreeable." 
 
 " What do you mean when you say a 
 humbug ? A story-teller ?" 
 
 ' c No ; a pretty speech-maker." 
 
 " Oh, how red you are !" put in Cora, 
 pointing straight into her sister's flushed 
 face. 
 
 Alice struck down the little hand. 
 
 "Rude child!" she said. "I shall tell 
 mamma how rude and unmannerly you are. 
 —Pray, what did he make pretty speeches 
 about to you, Susie ? Did he tell you you 
 were as beautiful as a Houri? or as learned 
 as a somebody or other ?" 
 
 " Of course not. I should not call crude, 
 downright things like that pretty speeches. 
 I don't remember now exactly what he said, 
 but I remember perfectly well the impres- 
 sion he made on me. — Look at him wriggling 
 
 8—2
 
 116 Loving and Loth. 
 
 his dear little snub nose about, he smells 
 the dinner. There is the dressing-bell, 
 Alice." 
 
 Alice departed, seizing the dog from the 
 bed by the back of the neck as she went, 
 and carrying him off, kicking convulsively. 
 
 The children ran away after their sister. 
 Susie seated herself before the glass ; her 
 hands listlessly clasped, her eyes fixed on 
 the carpet. They knew him then. At any 
 time she might see him. And Alice was a 
 blonde beauty.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A NEW SENSATION. 
 
 " Wealthy and proud was he : 
 He had all that was worth a wish on earth." 
 
 ANICAE HUNGERFOKD had 
 
 been everywhere, seen every- 
 thing, done everything, ex- 
 hausted all the emotions ; and now, at six 
 and thirty, was beset with an ennui so 
 afflicting, that often, if he had happened to 
 be a woman instead of a man, he would 
 have shed tears of weariness and self-pity. 
 
 He had been in love several times, but 
 had never yet seen the woman whom he
 
 118 Loving and Loth. 
 
 seriously wished to make his wife. He had 
 been in many places that, for a little while, 
 he had thought enchanting ; but he never 
 yet had been in one that he sincerely desired 
 to make his home. His first thought on 
 opening his eyes of a morning, was " How 
 am I ever to get through this day ? with 
 its hours that no clock measures as I 
 measure V 
 
 For time now appeared to him to be an 
 invention of the Arch-Enemy ; from which 
 there was no escape except into eternity, 
 and eternity, strange to say, he trembled at, 
 from the very conviction that once to be on 
 its dim and boundless shores was never 
 more to be " bored." 
 
 He was good-looking, and would have 
 been better looking if he had not had a 
 famished look in his dark, shadow-circled 
 eyes. He had seen so many men make
 
 A New Sensation. 119 
 
 fools of themselves with their imitation of 
 the Sir Charles Coldstream manner, their 
 affectation of being bored to death, their 
 constant forcing upon people that they had 
 found their doll stuffed with sawdust, — that 
 it was one of the few aims of his life never 
 to appear devoured by ennui, as he always 
 was in reality. 
 
 He was in London in the dreary month 
 of November, en passant, and was trying to 
 decide how to dispose of the long, coming 
 winter. Trying to decide whether he 
 should feel less desperately tired to stay 
 where he was, or to rove from one gay 
 capital to another in search of the diversion 
 which he had long ago ceased to find. 
 English country house life he detested. 
 
 One morning he was seated at the breakfast 
 table, idly balancing a sovereign on the tip 
 of his finger, thinking that the best way to
 
 120 Loving and Loth. 
 
 decide about " go " or " stay " was to toss up 
 — when Eugene Everard entered the room. 
 
 Mr. Hungerford smoothed his brow, 
 smiled, and greeted his guest as civilly as a 
 man can who has a deep, unspeakable 
 grudge against another. 
 
 " What are you going to do this even- 
 ing V asked Eugene in the course of conver- 
 sation. " I suppose that just now you are 
 not very busy." 
 
 "lam never very busy. I always like 
 the theatre ; I was thinking of going to the 
 Gaiety, to-night, to have a laugh to sleep 
 on." 
 
 "I think I can give you a new sensation , 
 perhaps ; I am going to a seance to-night ; 
 come with me." 
 
 " Why do you think that I want a new 
 sensation V asked Hanicar, tenaciously, 
 " the old ones are quite enough for me, I
 
 A New Sensation. 121 
 
 assure you. Besides, I do not think I 
 should like the heat and crowd, and elbow- 
 ing and vulgar agitation." 
 
 "There will be nothing of the sort at this 
 seance, for it is at the house of some friends 
 — acquaintances — of mine. Everything will 
 be done to the scent of flowers and sound 
 of slow music. You will only come in con- 
 tact with — the little fingers of the daughter 
 of the house, perhaps, as your Land touches 
 hers, and you may come away with some 
 new ideas concerning your ancestors ; for 
 instance, that your respected grandfather 
 has found his affinity in the spirit world to 
 be Ninon de l'Enclos, or something of that 
 sort ; but if you have any curiosity to hear 
 what it is pretended are communications 
 from the souls of the dead, come by all 
 means." 
 
 " I should much prefer having a commu-
 
 122 Loving and Loth. 
 
 nication from my own ghostly inhabitant ; 
 however, I dare say that it will amuse me 
 very much, so I will come. Who are the 
 people, and where do they live V 
 
 Eugene told him ; and then the talk 
 drifted off to other matters. 
 
 They went to the Willises together that 
 evening. Mrs. Willis was only too delighted 
 to have such a man brought as Ranicar 
 Hungerford ; so well known and much 
 thought of was he. As for Alice, she was 
 in a flutter; and, while Ranicar was speak- 
 ing to her mother, murmured, in smothered 
 elation, a list of his excellencies to Susie. 
 Susie caught the words " Show place in 
 
 shire — clever, — wrote — the one with 
 
 the grey cover, you know. Hugely rich." 
 Then he was brought over and introduced, 
 and she managed cleverly to get him quite 
 away from Susie, and have him all to 
 herself.
 
 A New Sensation, 123 
 
 Eugene stayed by Susie. " Cut out !" 
 thought Susie, looking after Alice and 
 Mr. Hungerford. 
 
 " Why did I not see you yesterday after- 
 noon when I called V asked Eugene. " I 
 heard then that you were here. I was 
 very much surprised." 
 
 " I know you were here/' said Susie. 
 
 He waited for her to go on, but, finding 
 that she did not mean to do so, said in a 
 tone of suave regret — 
 
 " I am sorry that you did not think me 
 worth coming down for." 
 
 Susie did not answer ; indeed, she would 
 have found no listener. For Eugene, as 
 well as every one else, had turned to look 
 at the two people who had come to furnish 
 the evening's entertainment. 
 
 Mr. Van Vleck and his niece, Miss Meclor. 
 But where the others stared in moderation
 
 124 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Eugene was agog ; the man he overlooked ; 
 it was the girl who chained his attention, 
 not solely by her beauty, but by his belief 
 that he and she had met before, — in a mo- 
 ment he had remembered when and where. 
 It matters not to you, reader. 
 
 Having recalled the occasion, he forgot 
 all else but her lissome grace, and the 
 Creole beauty that masked her soul. 
 
 Mr. Van Vleck (an American, whose 
 home was on the border of fair Lake 
 Winnipesauke) introduced his niece with 
 evident pride. 
 
 She crouched a courtesy ; swaying back 
 amongst her black draperies until her face 
 looked like — 
 
 " A flower worked on black crape." 
 No motion could have been more supple 
 and sinuous. 
 
 Her hands were noticeable. It was not
 
 A N&iv Sensation. 125 
 
 a fat, dimpled hand, such as a promoted 
 milkmaid might have — a hand with pulpy 
 knuckles ; it was lean, smooth, sinewy ; 
 like the hand of an American Indian. 
 
 All the people who had come sharp-set 
 for the supernatural were eager to com- 
 mence operations. The footmen, carrying a 
 table, made their appearance through the 
 folding doors ; chairs were arranged, and 
 they took their places. 
 
 The girl medium sat between Susie and 
 Mrs. Willis. 
 
 There were to be, first of all, written 
 communications, therefore the lamps were 
 left burning. 
 
 A sheet of paper was placed under Miss 
 L^ontine Medor's hand ; a pencil between 
 her fingers. There was a breathless wait- 
 ing. Hungerford, who sat on Susie's other 
 side, thought he had never seen two profiles
 
 126 Loving and Loth. 
 
 offer a sharper contrast to each other than 
 Miss Medor's and Susie's. Susie's naif, 
 wide-eyed, lily-pale, with parted, dewy 
 lips ; watchful, attent. The other with 
 sleek brown features, every muscle drilled 
 to deceive. The line of the lips stark and 
 motionless, but of a feverish red ; the long 
 black lashes sweeping a smooth creamy 
 cheek. Miss Medor was a Creole. 
 
 Presently he felt his nervous little neigh- 
 bour thrill. Strange spirals like cork- 
 screws had begun to make their appearance 
 on the paper. 
 
 "Who that has entered the spirit life, 
 related to those present, wore curls V 
 asked Mr. Van Yleck in a deep voice. 
 
 A solemn silence prevailed. 
 
 " Grandma Dawnay wore a frisette, with 
 bunches of little curls," said Susie, in a 
 small, trembling voice.
 
 A New Sensation. 127 
 
 Miss Medor slowly turned towards her. 
 
 " A message is coming from her to you/' 
 she said in a low, impressive tone. 
 
 " Oh dear ! oh dear !" said Susie, ex- 
 tremely perturbed. " Is there ?" Then, 
 suddenly : " I don't believe it. Grandma 
 Dawnay would never take the trouble to 
 send me a message. Why, she said that 
 she would rather have a plague of grass- 
 hoppers than me staying in the house with 
 her again !" 
 
 Mr. Van Vleck bit his lip savagely. 
 Miss Medor's brown skin paled. People 
 looked inclined to laugh. 
 
 " Susie/' said Mrs. Willis, in an awful 
 voice, " if you are going to treat a solemn 
 subject with levity, I beg that you will 
 leave the circle." 
 
 " This young lady has broken the com- 
 munication," said Mr. Van Vleck. " It
 
 128 Loving and Loth. 
 
 will be useless to proceed with this branch 
 of our occult — hum ! ha !" 
 
 And on this, he got up and lowered all 
 the lamps. Returning, what strange 
 sounds became audible ! Crepitations and 
 thumps, celestial music on the concertina, 
 bells tinkling. 
 
 " I am frightened !" said Susie, quaver- 
 ingly. 
 
 " I hope you're scared out of a year's 
 growth," muttered Mr. Van Vleck to him- 
 self. 
 
 " Pray leave the room," said Mrs. Willis, 
 with irritation. 
 
 Susie rose to her feet and began to glide 
 away. To her surprise, Hungerford did the 
 same. 
 
 " Let me come with you," he said ; " I 
 am tired of this " 
 
 On their way through the semi-darkness
 
 A New Sensation. 129 
 
 they came upon another figure, moving 
 quietly. It was Eugene ; and he seated 
 himself beside Leontine in Susie's stead. 
 
 In the adjoining room it was bright and 
 cheerful. There was Mr. Willis reading, 
 with one ear evidently turned on the dark 
 doings next door, after which he had a 
 hankering that he would not confess. 
 
 " This is Mr. Hungerford, Uncle Willis," 
 said Susie, " we came out because I was 
 frightened, and he did not believe in it." 
 
 " Believe in it ! I should think not," 
 said Mr. Willis ; " as great nonsense as 
 ever came meandering from Tophet." 
 
 Susie and Ranicar seated themselves. 
 Ranicar wondered why he did not go home 
 and go to bed, since he was not amused. 
 
 Terrible rappings and thumpings and 
 discordant airs on the piano came from the 
 next room. Susie, feeling safe here in the 
 
 vol. I. 9
 
 130 Loving and Loth. 
 
 light, smiled. Mr. Willis, unable longer to 
 abstain from joining in the grim fun, 
 jumped up and vanished through the fold- 
 ing doors. 
 
 Ranicar yawned and pulled his mous- 
 tache down, trying to quench it. 
 
 Susie turned as pink as the inside of a 
 water-melon. 
 
 " If you do that again I shall leave the 
 room," she said. 
 "Do what?" 
 
 " Yawn. Can't you eat your yawns ? 
 It shows very little strength of will if you 
 cannot. The ugliest thing in the world is 
 one of those griffins with a great gaping 
 mouth that supports shields, and after 
 them the next ugliest thing is a man 
 yawning." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Rannicar, 
 rising and holding out his hand, " I will
 
 A New Sensation. 131 
 
 not be the next ugliest thing in the world 
 again, for I am going to say good night. 
 Will you say good night to your mother 
 for me ?" 
 
 " My mother ! That is my aunt, not my 
 mother. If it had been my mother you 
 would not be now going home bored and 
 yawning." 
 
 " Should I not ¥' said Ranicar, lingering. 
 " Is she so beautiful then ?" 
 
 " So people say." 
 
 " In that dimly - lighted hurly - burly 
 next door, beauty might as well be 
 ugliness." 
 
 "It was not dark at first. You could 
 see that Miss or Mrs. Medium was hand- 
 some T 
 
 "Yes; I saw that/' 
 
 " Then you do think her beautiful V 
 said Susie, sharply. 
 
 9—2
 
 132 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Yes ; a spit- fire, gipsy beauty. Soften- 
 ing a little, perhaps, under the influence of 
 my friend Eugene's suave tones." 
 
 " They had met before," said Susie. 
 
 " Why do you think so ¥' 
 
 " I saw it in her red-hot eyes." 
 
 " You had met Everard before T 
 
 " Twice ; down in the Isle of Wight. 
 Come," she cried, impulsively, " let us go 
 back and be bewitched." 
 
 " Befooled, rather." 
 
 " Then befooled. I find it tame in here, 
 in the light, with a yawning you ; come 
 back into the manufactured twilight, and 
 let us be befooled together. It is better 
 and more amusing for you, be sure, than 
 going home to bed." 
 
 " Who is to befool me V 
 
 " She will." 
 
 " No ; because it is her trade. But
 
 A JVew Sensation. 133 
 
 come ; ]et us go and try again to be enter- 
 tained by bad jugglery." 
 
 They went back to the confused dark- 
 ness of the next room. Susie, creeping up 
 to one of the lamps, turned it broadly into 
 a full light. For an instant confusion was 
 confounded. Leontine cast a glance of 
 fury at her. Susie gave a little childish 
 laugh. The light revealed Eugene still 
 sitting beside the medium. There was a 
 burning colour in Leontine's dark cheeks, 
 and a passionate pleasure in her eyes. 
 Eugene seemed absorbed in watching her. 
 Susie thought he would never look away. 
 "When he did, it was to glance, not at 
 Alice, but at her own little pale face. His 
 expression changed ; he got up and went 
 over to where she was sitting. " I took 
 your place," he said, bending over her ; 
 " do you want it again ?"
 
 134 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " No ; indeed I do not/' answered Susie, 
 emphatically ; " I'd rather sit and hold a 
 bat or a snake than her hand. What is 
 her name ?" 
 
 " Miss Leontine Medor." 
 
 " Have you ever seen her before ?" 
 
 " Once. How is your dog V 
 
 " You need not have been in such a 
 hurry to change the conversation ; I was 
 not going to ask you any more questions. 
 He is very well, thanks. So is Alice's dog 
 Charlie, that you gave her." 
 
 " Oh ! A pretty little fellow, isn't 
 he?" 
 
 " So pretty that he is made a bone of 
 contention of from morning till night. 
 No, from morning till morning ; for the 
 children quarrel about which shall have 
 him to sleep with them \" 
 
 " Do they quarrel over him V
 
 A New Sensation. 135 
 
 " Indeed they do. Sometimes I actually 
 think that I shall see Cora staggering back 
 against the wall with his head and 
 shoulders, and Lucy capsizing into the 
 coal-scuttle with his tail and hind-legs. 
 Oh, Mr. Hungerford !" as that gentleman 
 came near her, " are you made a believer 
 in it ? Shall you ever come again and sit 
 hand in hand in the dark ?" 
 " Yes ; I think I shall." 
 " Then you are interested in it V 
 " Not particularly ; but I shall come 
 again nevertheless. Good night."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PALMISTRY. 
 
 iR VAN VLECK intended that 
 Leontine should be a maker of 
 the almighty dollar. 
 A little back room in Swanbury Crescent 
 was made gorgeous and Oriental for her. 
 She was advertised as a " Trance, test, and 
 clairvoyant medium ; for revealing startling 
 facts ; to be consulted on affairs connected 
 with the living and dead. Hours, 12 till 
 8. Terms, one guinea." 
 
 In her brilliant room, astounding in its
 
 Palmistry. 137 
 
 colours, its furniture, its whole aspect, she 
 looked a thrilling thing. Hearts beat 
 faster, lips trembled, clear understandings 
 grew muddled, sharp eyes became dull, 
 when the owners of the same stood on the 
 inside of those noiselessly swinging velvet 
 doors, and found themselves face to face 
 with eyes that no plummet of searching 
 gaze could ever fathom. 
 
 Wonderful indeed they thought her. 
 Startling were the revelations she made, 
 discomposing the disclosures. She was 
 strong in some occult force which they 
 were wanting in ; where they were stone 
 blind, she saw ; where their thoughts wan- 
 dered gropingly, hers followed unerringly. 
 She was young, beautiful, and a woman. 
 The guineas poured in fast. 
 
 One afternoon, just as the daylight was 
 beginning to die out, she sat alone at last,
 
 138 Loving and Loth. 
 
 after a day of hard work. A startled 
 gentleman, who had come incredulous, and 
 gone away convinced, had just been shown 
 out. She threw herself down on a low, 
 broad couch, firelight making one cheek 
 red, moribund daylight making the other 
 pale. The doors which she had not thought 
 to see open again to-night, swung open now. 
 A man's figure entered, and advanced to- 
 wards her. She stopped playing with the 
 seed-pearl fringe of a si]ken covering which 
 Mr. Yan Vleck had brought from the Le- 
 vant, and the daylight-tinted cheek grew 
 firelight- tin ted. The man was Mr. Eve- 
 rard. 
 
 " Will you look into my unknown 
 future, and tell me something of it ?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Her breathing grew quicker. 
 
 61 Sit down in front of me," sheanswered >
 
 Palmistry. 139 
 
 " and hold out your hand. I must look into 
 your hand to tell you of the future ; the 
 past and present I read through your eyes." 
 
 Eugene took his place in front of her, 
 and near enough for her to take easily the 
 hand he extended to her. 
 
 She folded her arms, and bending her 
 head, looked with a brow-knit eagerness 
 into the upheld palm ; so closely and 
 eagerly, that he felt the warm breath on 
 his sensitive palm nerves. 
 
 She was quite silent, and for so long a 
 time that he grew impatient. 
 
 " Come," he said, " are you going to tell 
 me what you see in my hand ? Do you 
 see weal or woe, success or failure, long life 
 or short V 
 
 She looked up at him with the sunny 
 smile that only a daughter of the south can 
 have.
 
 140 Loving and Loth. 
 
 "I shall keep this knowledge for my- 
 self," she said. " You must not give your 
 guinea. I will read you as easily as if you 
 were a sign-board ; but I shall not tell you 
 what it is I read. I shall not tell any one. 
 I shall keep it to myself; it shall be my 
 own, own possession," and she laughed. 
 
 Eugene drew back his hand hastily. 
 
 " That requires my permission," he said, 
 haughtily. 
 
 She fastened her eyes greedily on his 
 face. 
 
 " Too late," she said. " I read you like 
 an open book." 
 
 " Or pretend that you do," he mut- 
 tered. 
 
 " I read you like an open book," she 
 repeated. " You have marked, and will 
 mark, many heart lines " 
 
 She paused.
 
 Palmistry. 141 
 
 " Surely," he said, in his low, memo- 
 rable voice, " after coming here full of the 
 deepest interest and curiosity, you will not 
 send me away unsatisfied V 
 
 " Yes, I shall," returned she, darting a 
 glance at him, fraught with sorcery. 
 
 There was nothing in her face that for- 
 bade his approaching his own more closely 
 to it ; there was nothing in her eyes that 
 repelled an ardent glance from his own into 
 them ; there was nothing in her low, tremu- 
 lous voice to discourage him from sinking 
 his own to a dulcet monotone. 
 
 The bright blaze leaping up, made wells 
 of fire of her dark eyes. There was some- 
 thing about her uncanny, yet ensnaring. 
 In her presence, Eugene felt like a naked 
 human soul, without appanages of Norman 
 blood, aquiline features, patrician length of 
 limb, and those more remote accessories of
 
 142 Loving and Loth. 
 
 wealth, rank and position, and he had 
 never been able to forget them before. 
 
 " You are not angry with me for refusing 
 to tell you what I suppose I had no right 
 to withhold from you T asked Leontine, 
 her eyes seeming to lengthen, soften, 
 darken, as they shared the smile which 
 displayed her glittering teeth. 
 
 " Yes — no," answered the man of the 
 world, with rustic hesitation. 
 
 Thanks were spoken, thanks were smiled, 
 thanks were looked by Leontine. A flimsy 
 veil of gratitude, from behind which peeped 
 out a beautiful and resolute woman's deter- 
 mination to be loved. 
 
 The daylight died quite away, and still 
 Eugene stayed. Some one came in softly, 
 and placed candles on the table, but still 
 he lingered on. When at last his sense of 
 the proprieties dragged his other charmed
 
 Palmistry. 143 
 
 and unwilling senses away, the shivering 
 stars were up in the cold November sky, 
 the street lamps were lit, and night was 
 closing in.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A GNAT MAY TROUBLE A LION. 
 
 .S Ranicar Hungerford was walking 
 in the Park a few days after the 
 seance, his attention was at- 
 tracted to a deplorable object, hatted, hab- 
 ited, and mounted on a sedate grey horse. 
 Deplorable because its face was so white 
 and scared, its eyes so terrified, its lips so 
 pale and trembling. It was Susie, taking 
 her first ride in the Park/ A steady old 
 groom rode on one side of her; on the 
 other, Alice, her blue eyes fall of a tranquil
 
 A Gnat may trouble a Lion, 145 
 
 enjoyment of her cousin's sufferings — an 
 enjoyment which she did not allow her lips 
 to express. 
 
 Ranicar leaned over the rail and put up 
 his glass. 
 
 " Don't they see that the child is almost 
 fainting ?" he said to himself, compassion 
 creeping into his heart. 
 
 As they came up to him, Susie, whiter 
 than the cliffs of Dover, swayed in her 
 saddle; Alice, staring hard at him, observed 
 her not ; the old groom, less absorbed in 
 self and handsome lounger, came to a stand- 
 still, laying his hand at the same time on 
 the bridle of Susie's horse, and checking it 
 too. 
 
 Alice looked sharply, crossly round, and 
 gave a little scream. Ranicar, hastily slip- 
 ping under the rail, caught Susie in his 
 arms just as she swayed over, the whip 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 Loving and Loth. 
 
 dropping from her little limp hand, her foot 
 still in the stirrup ; this he extricated. 
 
 As she opened her eyes immediately, 
 Alice did not get down, contenting herself 
 with asking Mr. Hungerford plaintively 
 what was to be done. 
 
 " I can tell you very quickly," he an- 
 swered. " You go on with your ride, and I 
 will take your cousin home in a cab. You 
 feel like yourself again, don't you, and able 
 to go V — this to Susie. 
 
 " Perhaps I had better come, too," said 
 Alice, suddenly tending towards Samari- 
 tanism. 
 
 " Not the least use ; a pity to spoil your 
 ride. Besides, I am constitutionally op- 
 posed to four-wheelers. I will take Miss 
 Dawnay with great care, believe me, in a 
 hansom. " 
 
 Alice's vanity being rasped, and her in-
 
 A Gnat may trouble a Lion. 147 
 
 clination thwarted, she made her ill-natured 
 eyebrows nearly stand on end, dropped her 
 eyelids, grew pink, and muttered something 
 about " Mamma thinking it odd." 
 
 But Susie suddenly spoke up faintly, yet 
 with spirit. 
 
 " My mother would have no objection to 
 my going with such an elderly and respect- 
 able person. " There she paused for breath, 
 and a slight mischievous laugh. " If you 
 had not kept me awake till four this morn- 
 ing, telling me hobgoblin stories, Alice," she 
 went on, " this would not have happened. 
 I am not such a contemptible muff as your 
 face remarks that I am. Ta-ta, go on with 
 your ride ; I would not spoil it for the 
 world. Kindness is not the word for this, 
 Mr. Hungerford •" 
 
 Sick and dizzy again, she stopped. He 
 drew her arm through his, and walked her 
 
 10—2
 
 148 Loving and Loth. 
 
 away to the Albert Gate, lifting his hat in 
 farewell to Alice. Alice rode on without 
 turning to look after them. 
 
 To be called "elderly" and "respect- 
 able," even in half jest, was a new sensation 
 to Eanicar. He felt as if he were being 
 looked at through the wrong end of an 
 opera-glass. 
 
 " Wretched to be a faggot of nerves, is it 
 not V he asked coldly and slightly, as they 
 took their seats in the hansom. 
 
 "I don't know, I'm sure," said Susie. 
 " I am not nervous, as a rule ; only certain 
 things make me nervous. Disagreeable, 
 ill-proved things, with a downward ten- 
 dency, make me so. Things that convince 
 the judgment, and sweep the ground from 
 under your feet, have not the same effect ; 
 but things that put worrying thoughts into 
 the head, for which the person who gives
 
 A Gnat may trouble a Lion. 149' 
 
 them provides no answer, I confess do make 
 me nervous. I give you an instance. Some 
 articles called e Vagaries/ that came out in 
 the " 
 
 " Ha !" ejaculated Ranicar, leaning his 
 elbows on the door of the hansom ; " do 
 you know who wrote them ?" 
 
 " Y — yes," said Susie, knowing that she 
 was going to prevaricate, and feeling quite 
 unhappy in contemplating her wickedness 
 — "I have heard his name, but I've — I've 
 forgotten it. The writer was described to 
 me, too." 
 
 " Was he ? What was the description ? 
 I know the man slightly. Was he described 
 as an elderly and respectable person ?" 
 
 " He — let me see — he was described as 
 being not at all handsome, — as having eyes 
 the colour of a thunder-cloud, looking as if 
 he had a tooth-ache (having a tooth-ache
 
 150 Loving and Loth. 
 
 and being very much bored, give a face the 
 same expression, you know), and wearing 
 rings on his singularly tale-telling hands 
 that had once been worn by dead rela- 
 tions." 
 
 Ranicar gave a short dry laugh. " What 
 are tale-telling hands, pray V 
 
 " I mean that they look — " quite forget- 
 ting herself; then catching herself up 
 again — "J don't know what the person 
 who told me meant." 
 
 " Ask them, will you ?" said Ranicar 
 carelessly. 
 
 But Susie, with a conscience-smitten 
 look, did not answer him. "I am like the 
 dropped stitch in a stocking, without 
 Mery \" she exclaimed. " I go ravel, ravel, 
 ravelling down, and am not able to help it. 
 I need, her to pick me up again." 
 
 A dissatisfied expression settled on her
 
 A Gnat may trouble a Lion. 151 
 
 face. If he had been an old umbrella- 
 mender, with a plurality of hats, she could 
 not have looked at him with more coldly 
 Tinappreciative eyes ; but he was so pecu- 
 liarly constituted that this served the turn 
 of Eros as no artless or studied flattery, no 
 skilled or guileless glances of admiration at 
 his handsome face could have done. She 
 had lain for an instant a helpless child in 
 his arms, too, and he had been inspired 
 with a transient pity for her. Small things, 
 these ; but small things are often the initia- 
 tion of events grotesquely disproportioned 
 to their littleness. 
 
 The words those curling, naif lips uttered, 
 seemed to him to be something that he had 
 been waiting for years to hear. So many 
 women had talked at him, dressed at him, 
 smiled at him, been lovely mute beggars for 
 his name and position. Here was a little,
 
 152 Loving and Loth. 
 
 cool, pale girl who talked to him, partially 
 saw through him, looked away from him, 
 and seemed almost ready to see a ludicrous 
 side to his character. He felt a pleasurable 
 emotion as he made full and free acquain- 
 tance with every tint and line of Susie's 
 unveiled youthful face. There was so little 
 self- consciousness in her that she actually 
 seemed to forget she had a face, which was 
 a refreshing change to him, after studying 
 the features of women who tried to 
 make their expression subserve their in- 
 terests. 
 
 Words that he thought must be agree- 
 able to her, or any other woman, coming 
 from him, rose to his lips, but died there, as 
 he watched the frank young countenance 
 translating some message from the heart. 
 
 Eugene Everard was walking slowly 
 along the pavement, and she was looking at
 
 A Gnat may trouble a Lion. 153 
 
 him, — that was all, but it was every- 
 thing. 
 
 " I want him to see me I" she said, under 
 her breath. 
 
 " Do you ? Why ?" returned Ranicar, 
 coldly, catching what she said. 
 
 " I want him to wonder — " 
 
 " Wonder at what V 
 
 Susie only blushed eloquently, for Eugene 
 was taking off his hat, and she was bowing 
 back to him with a shy smile. 
 
 Under the soft sky of Mentone lay 
 Ranicar's only sister in her quiet grave. 
 Two years ago she had died. People had 
 hinted that if there were such a thing as 
 a broken heart, that heart of hers, now 
 mouldering, was broken. 
 
 Opposite her bed, the bed on which she 
 died, had used to hang the picture of some 
 one dressed in Rifle-green. In one corner
 
 154 Loving and Loth. 
 
 two little letters were scrawled — E. E. they 
 were. When she died, the picture was 
 turned towards the wall first ; then a man's 
 jewelled hand detached it ; and the same 
 hand, trembling with fury, drove a knife- 
 blade through the azure-eyed, smiling face, 
 and flung it savagely into a blazing 
 fire. 
 
 " He has on uniform ! — oh !" said Susie. 
 
 " Do you find a man in a peculiarly dark 
 volunteer uniform such a dazzling appari- 
 tion ?" 
 
 "No," said Susie, loftily, "but I like a 
 uniform." 
 
 "And what about the man in that 
 uniform? Do you find him to your 
 taste V 
 
 "Oh, yes," answered Susie, speaking 
 somewhat carelessly, but not as much so 
 as she desired, "he is nice enough." Too
 
 A Gnat may trouble a Lion. 155 
 
 careless these four last words. Suspiciously 
 careless enough to make Ranicar draw his 
 lips into a thin, hard line under his mous- 
 tache. 
 
 " This has been too good of you," said 
 Susie, touching his hand lightly as she 
 jumped out, for they were now at the door. 
 Ranicar rather wished that Mrs. Willis 
 lived at Fulham. " Too good. Will you 
 come in ? I'll thank you some more if 
 you will come in where there are no 
 cabmen." 
 
 "You tempt me very much, but I can- 
 not, thanks. You will see me to-morrow 
 night, for your aunt wrote me a note, say- 
 ing there was to be a seance, and I am 
 coming to it." 
 
 " Oh, are you ? Well, an revoir then. 
 I did not faint, remember." 
 
 Then she ran up the steps with an
 
 156 Loving and Loth. 
 
 abruptness that bordered on incivility, and 
 was gone. 
 
 But Ranicar was rather tired of good 
 manners.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ART OF CONVERSATION, ACCORDING 
 TO SUSIE. 
 
 WOMAN is true to her best in- 
 stincts when she avoids the 
 blurting candour of wounding 
 truthfulness, and cleaves to the tender 
 deception of assuaging evasions. 
 
 Susie was generally true to her second 
 best instincts, and was candid where can- 
 dour was sure to annoy, displease, and 
 hurt. Her small prevarication of yesterday 
 made her a prey to remorse until the mo-
 
 158 Loving a? id Loth, 
 
 ment when she found Ranicar seated beside 
 her, and clasping her hand in the mystic 
 circle, and was able to whisper to him 
 without preamble, " It was you who wrote 
 those things in the , and nobody de- 
 scribed you to me. I looked at you, and 
 said what I did, just for mischief." 
 
 His face changed. She had purposely 
 made him an object of ridicule, then ! It 
 would not do to allow her to know that he 
 had actually believed she was only repeat- 
 ing some one else's words. 
 
 " Of course," he said, in a very low, calm 
 voice. " Is it possible that you thought I 
 had any vanity to wound ? or even if I had, 
 that you could wound it V 
 
 " I thought you might have/' said Susie, 
 speaking louder in her earnestness, " be- 
 cause I know that it only needs for a man 
 to be a very little bit good-looking, and he 
 is vain."
 
 The Art of Conversation. 159 
 
 " What sort of men can you have met, 
 poor child V 
 
 " All sorts/' said Susie, hastily. 
 
 " Sh ! Sh !" came from some one opposite. 
 Susie fancied from Mr. Everard. Ranicar 
 knew it. 
 
 Eugene, who always hankered after that 
 which another desired, and seemed working 
 to possess, found in Hungerford's roused 
 manner in speaking to Susie, and his self- 
 forgetful glances towards her, direct testi- 
 mony to Susie's claim on his own interest. 
 
 Accordingly, when the circle was broken, 
 and the lamps bright, he went over to her 
 side. 
 
 " You and Hungerford seemed to have 
 hit on something very interesting to talk 
 about." 
 
 Eanicar, who still lingered by her, looked 
 away carelessly and indifferently, listening 
 absorbedly.
 
 160 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Not in the least interesting," said 
 Susie, disclaiming eagerly. " Not a bit. 
 I was wondering, so was Alice, whether you 
 would come to-night. Are they going to 
 make a convert of you ? Oh, Mr. Everard, 
 don't let them." 
 
 " There is no fear of it ; perhaps if every 
 one I found here were enthusiastic on the 
 subject, I should be swayed — " 
 
 " Almost every one that you find here 
 does believe in it ; / don't." 
 
 "No, you don't." 
 
 Eanicar moved away, bitten by his snake- 
 ring, so hard-clenched was the hand which 
 wore it. 
 
 " You don't, and you a believer and an 
 enthusiast, I should find very convincing." 
 
 " No, no !" said Susie, movingly. " If 
 the beautiful medium does not convince you, 
 how could I ?"
 
 The Art of Conversation. 161 
 
 " She convinces me of one or two things, 
 but not of the truth and credibility of 
 Spiritualism. You, too, convince me of one 
 or two things." 
 
 " Oh, what are they ? Tell me ! tell 
 me!" 
 
 " I had begun to doubt that there were 
 any such things left in the world as honesty 
 and ingenuousness, and the frankness of 
 childhood lingering after childhood had 
 passed ; but when I saw you, the doubt 
 was dispelled. I really believe you are 
 exactly what you appear to be." 
 
 " Of course T am." 
 
 " That when you seem to be pleased, you 
 are pleased ; when you seem to be sulky, it 
 is because you are sulky, not because you 
 put on a pout, and lower your eyelids, 
 fancying that it makes you look like a 
 Greuze, or a something or other you have 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 Loving and Loth. 
 
 seen in a gallery, and fondly imagined was 
 like you." 
 
 " I should never imagine myself like a 
 Greuze or anything else," said Susie, burst- 
 ing into a self-derisive laugh. " Strange 
 that a person who is not sincere should 
 value sincerity," she went on. 
 
 " But you do not think that I am in- 
 sincere V 
 
 " I do not think that sincerity is ever so 
 sweet- spoken as you are. Look at me — " 
 (Eugene looked and laughed. She frowned 
 back at him for this too literal interpreta- 
 tion of her words). " Look at me," she 
 repeated. " Why, I all but tell people 
 exactly what I think of them, and how they 
 do hate me ! I have been so young up to 
 now, that I have only been an enfant 
 terrible; but fancy an enfant terrible grown 
 up, and that is what I shall be, if I don't
 
 The Art of Conversation. 16:> 
 
 take care. But I am going to correct my- 
 self. You can't go through life, you know, 
 saying what you think." 
 
 " I should, if I were you. It is admirable 
 to be so candid." 
 
 " I'd rather be sweet than candid," said 
 Susie, and was not ashamed to roar with 
 laughter at her own small fun, and wondered 
 why he did not laugh more. She had not 
 learnt that people laugh louder when you 
 do not laugh. 
 
 " They are already beginning to think," 
 said she — " I mean Aunt Adria, and Alice, 
 and Uncle Willis — that I am a most dis- 
 agreeable inmate, and Mr. Hungerford re- 
 warded me just now for my truthfulness 
 by a snub — at least it was going to be a 
 snub, it was just coming out of the shell — 
 when you said, ' Hush !' So you see my 
 popularity is as great as ever up here !" 
 
 11—2
 
 164 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Do tell me what you were saying to 
 him," said Eugene, eagerly. 
 
 Susie shook her head. 
 
 " Yes, pray do, I — " 
 
 " Mamma has a set of signals for me," 
 continued Susie, cleaving his sentence in 
 half without compunction. " She always 
 has one ear open for me, no matter who 
 she is talking to ; and I have learnt to 
 understand the flicker of an eyelash, the 
 most imperceptible nod, coming from her ; 
 but now you see, I am as independent as a 
 — as a comet." 
 
 " But your aunt — " began Eugene. 
 
 " Oh, but I scarcely see her all day." 
 
 " How do you know what I was going 
 to say ?" said Eugene, with perfectly un- 
 ruffled temper. ""You didn't let me finish 
 my sentence." 
 
 " Oh, I knew exactly what you were
 
 The Art of Conversation. 165 
 
 going to say/' said Susie, carelessly. " I 
 should like to cut everybody's sentences in 
 half; I always know what they mean be- 
 fore they've finished, so it is just as well to 
 economize their words for them. People do 
 ta]k so much on a stretch." 
 
 " They ought to take a hint from you/' 
 said Eugene, with playful irony. 
 
 " There ! I wish I had never allowed 
 you to finish that speech," said Susie. " I 
 did hope that I had at last found somebody 
 who would be amiable to me. For you 
 have been, until now. I shall never forget 
 how sweet you were down at home. Just 
 a little mawkish, you know, but flawlessly 
 amiable, unmixedly sugary. Now what I 
 should like to be, is an extremely fascinating 
 person who tells the truth. Mamma says that 
 I have no adaptability. A pretty long word, 
 isn't it? That is exactly what you have V
 
 166 Loving and Loth. 
 
 "According to that, then, we are counter- 
 parts," said Eugene. " I expect to see you 
 in a year or two a mild, evasive lady, saying 
 the right thing to everybody, and very easy 
 to get on with." 
 
 " There is an old gentleman who lives 
 down near us, who plants walking-sticks 
 and umbrellas, and expects them to grow" 
 returned Susie. " Yes, really ; he waters 
 them with the kindest care, loosens the 
 earth round their tender ferules, watches 
 them as a mother her sick child, tries one 
 after another, still hopiDg for success. He 
 has quite a large bed of them. — But don't 
 you know him ? You must be quite a 
 home in our neighbourhood." 
 
 "I am," said Eugene, " but I have only 
 the merest " 
 
 "But you took me?" asked Susie earnestly, 
 not observing that he had coloured, and
 
 The Art of Conversation. 167 
 
 shifted his glance away from her uneasily 
 in replying. 
 
 " You see what I mean ? That you both 
 expect impossibilities V 
 
 " Yes ; he is mad, of course " 
 
 " Now that I think of it, ours is a rather 
 mad neighbourhood." 
 
 " Look here, you are getting personal. 
 My uncle is a neighbour of yours ; I some- 
 times am." 
 
 Eugene had risen, and with his patience 
 just a little overtaxed was looking about 
 the room. There stood Leontine talking 
 to Mrs. Willis. What about, he wondered? 
 Progression? Causal force — could there 
 be a more Phidian head than hers ? 
 More exact features, more smiting 
 eyes ? 
 
 Susie had followed the direction of his 
 eyes with her own.
 
 168 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " I should like to tell her," she said, 
 "just what a humbug I consider her V 
 
 " I should like to tell her " 
 
 " Just what a beauty you consider her ?" 
 
 "Very well, yes. It is quite as well 
 to let you finish my remarks in your own 
 way, as you will not let me finish them in 
 my own." 
 
 Here a young lady began to sing ; or 
 rather, having seated herself at the piano, 
 she began to play an accompaniment to 
 words distinctly spoken in a faint, doleful 
 sort of recitative. 
 
 " Do you know what I call that V asked 
 Susie, in a round, unsoftened voice. " I call 
 it 'Words without Songs.'" And she 
 laughed with the greatest relish. 
 
 " You will go and tell her so, of course V 
 
 "Why of course?" 
 
 " That is your way, is it not ? I have
 
 The Art of Conversation. 169 
 
 gathered as much from what you have 
 said." 
 
 Susie paused to think. 
 
 " No, no/' she said, putting her head on 
 one side, and considering. "That is a little 
 too much of the monkey you know." 
 
 " I wish I could get you to tell me what 
 you said to " 
 
 '• He looks like a picture of an old knight 
 — or rather an old picture of a knight, 
 doesn't he ? — standing there ?" 
 
 Eugene found, that the only way to 
 manage was to disregard her. " To Hun- 
 gerford ? — And by the way, what were you 
 doing with him yesterday in a hansom, and 
 with a riding-habit on ? Are you fast ? 
 That was a fast tiling to do." 
 
 " Funny ! he actually took the trouble to 
 ask me yesterday what I thought of you, 
 and here you are thinking it worth while to
 
 170 Loving and Loth. 
 
 ask me my opinion of him! Circumstances 
 over which one has no control placed me in 
 that hansom with him ; and as for being 
 fast it was the slowest thing I ever did in 
 my life." 
 
 "Really? Slow? I thought he ba- 
 nished every feeling, but pleasure and 
 triumph. Pleasure at his wit and wisdom, 
 triumph at having been able to place 
 yourself under their influence." 
 
 " Now it is my turn to say, Really ? 
 I could not have been worthy of having 
 everything banished but this, for I felt much 
 as usual. I was too insignificant you see." 
 
 " Wo rid- worn men often fancy just such 
 naive, fresh children as you. As nothing 
 can ever surprise, or please, or amuse them 
 very much, they like something that it is 
 possible to surprise, delight, and amuse 
 twenty times a day."
 
 The Art of Conversation. 171 
 
 " Don't," said Susie, frowning. "I don't 
 like to hear you talk so." 
 
 " Susie," said the chill voice of Mrs. 
 Willis, " come here, my dear ; we wish to 
 hear you sing." 
 
 Susie, frowningly going forward, was 
 about to refuse, when Eugene's earnest 
 voice begging for "one song," as a famished 
 man might beg for bread, turned the scowl- 
 ing negative into a reluctant affirmative. 
 
 Alice feeling terribly interfered with, and 
 looking pouting and sulky, sat with only 
 the companionship of a very angry mood. 
 Hungerford stood opposite the folding doors 
 with an immobility of feature that tells 
 suspiciously nothing. 
 
 " You are going to sing," he said, coming 
 towards Susie, " I wish it was to me only !" 
 
 Susie gave a startled look up at him ; he 
 thought it the sweetest look that he had
 
 1 72 Loving and Loth 
 
 ever seen on a woman's face. When he 
 heard her voice he found that it possessed 
 the rare quality which prevented it from 
 reminding one of the voice in speaking. It 
 had not too human a sound. It was flute- 
 like, bell-like, bird-like by turns, but it 
 never for one instant sounded like Susie's 
 voice in speaking. 
 
 " You are she,'"' he said to himself, 
 
 " In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
 That none else has for me."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A PEEP AT THE WILLIS FAMILY. 
 
 USIE found that as a sojourning 
 place for the soul, her aunt's 
 house might be all that was 
 
 elevating, cultivating, educating, refining ; 
 
 but as an abiding place for the body, it was 
 
 just a little confused, disjointed, disorderly, 
 
 unlooked after. 
 
 It is ten o'clock of a snapping January 
 
 morning. A busy, nipping wind is making 
 
 weepy eyes, violet cheeks, blue noses ; 
 
 painting the human face with hideous war-
 
 174 Loving and Loth. 
 
 paint, to do battle with it ; sending stray 
 bits of paper on swift, aimless errands, 
 despatching scattered rubbish on dirty 
 missions to freshly scoured areas. 
 
 Susie, who has always been an early 
 riser, has breakfasted tete-a-tete with her 
 uncle. Now he has gone money-grubbing 
 in the city. Susie runs to the window 
 and watches him depart. He is going by 
 the underground railway, and sets off for 
 the station on foot. 
 
 She nods and smiles at him as he goes 
 by, but he does not see her ; tramping past 
 without looking up, only buffeting with the 
 wind. 
 
 It is always a foolish feeling to speak 
 to some one who does not hear, to nod and 
 smile at some one who is totally uncon- 
 scious of these our muscular tokens of good- 
 will.
 
 A Peep at the Willis Family. 175 
 
 " He did not see me," says Susie, turn" 
 ing and speaking apologetically to the 
 furniture. 
 
 How still the house is, but for a faint, 
 mysterious, scraping, scratching sound from 
 the hall. 
 
 There are no signs of Alice. Mrs. Willis 
 has breakfasted in her dressing-room, as 
 she usually does. Susie looks at the clock, 
 turns her glance to the breakfast-table. 
 
 The empty egg - shells, jam - smeared 
 plates, bacon gradually changing its hot 
 transparency to cold opacity, give her a 
 feeling of repletion. 
 
 " Doomed never to be a chicken !" she 
 says, driving the spoon still more firmly 
 through the empty egg-shell, and making 
 it stand upright. 
 
 Then she yawns and goes out of the 
 room, leaving the door open.
 
 176 Loving and Loth. 
 
 The peculiar fidgeting, crawly sound is 
 explained on going into the hall, by finding 
 Lucy sliding down the baluster with an air 
 of inexhaustible enjoyment. 
 
 " Where's Miss Wix, Lucy ? I am 
 longing for a walk. Have you been ? or 
 are you going V 
 
 " I don't know," says Lucy ; " Miss 
 Wix is writing something for mamma. 
 Our lessons are put off till she's finished." 
 
 " And where is Harriet ?" 
 
 " Upstairs mending our stockings," 
 answers Lucy, editorially, and slides down 
 with shrieks of friction. 
 
 Susie mounts upwards, and hearing the 
 sound of a voice in the drawing-room, looks 
 in. Cora is in possession. She has 
 braided her fair hair into two ragged pig- 
 tails, and fastened the ends of them on the 
 top of her head with a high Spanish comb.
 
 A Peep at the Willis Family. 177 
 
 She has purloined one of Alice's smart little 
 aprons, and helped herself out of a cabinet 
 of curiosities to a string of amber beads, 
 wherewith to adorn her neck. She has 
 also made herself a train, by fastening a 
 waterproof cloak round her waist by the 
 neck ; the hood turned inside out makes a 
 pannier like a plum-pudding, and is very 
 satisfactory. 
 
 She is kneeling on the hearth-rug comb- 
 ing Charlie, who, with short irritated yelps, 
 tries to get away, snapping first over one 
 shoulder, then over the other. As he all 
 but succeeds in making off, she combs him 
 back again. She is talking to him all the 
 time. 
 
 Susie stops to listen. 
 
 " My young May Moon, but you must 
 be combed. Sugar-plum dog, be quiet ! 
 Sweet as sugar that grows on a tree ! 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Bright being from another sphere ! If 
 you'll be good, we'll take you all to walk 
 with us. Yes, all of you, from your nose 
 to your tail. You imp of darkness ! You 
 nearly bit me !" 
 
 " Oh ! you little — coxcomb — you little 
 fop ! (Where is the word I want !) What 
 are you doing V says Susie, entering. 
 
 ' ; I am not a cock's- comb /"' replies Cora, 
 starting to her feet, and getting as red as 
 that crown of the poultry -yard potentate 
 which she mentions. 
 
 " I never saw anything so ridiculous in 
 my life," continues Susie, gazing at the 
 waterproof cloak, the Spanish comb, the 
 beads, and the apron. 
 
 It is astonishing what a stock of abusive 
 words children have. Susie is now treated 
 to some of the most trenchant in her 
 cousin's vocabulary. She winds up by say-
 
 A Peej) at the Willis Family. 179 
 
 ing that Susie is a ''nasty beast of a 
 meddler." 
 
 Susie makes her escape and goes on to 
 her intended gite, Alice's room. She opens 
 the door unceremoniously and walks in. 
 Alice is "happed" up in bed, the window- 
 curtain drawn aside to admit just a shaft 
 of light that falls on the novel she holds. 
 
 The room is rather cold, but her face 
 is crimsoned with the excitement of the 
 scene she is reading. It is a French novel, 
 of accurate immoralities. 
 
 She starts as Susie enters, saying, im- 
 patiently : — 
 
 " Weil r 
 
 " Oh, are you not up V says Susie, in a 
 tone nicely balanced between surprise and 
 disgust. 
 
 " You see that I am not/' 
 
 (C But why ain't you ? Mr. Mon Santo 
 
 12—2
 
 180 Loving and Loth. 
 
 will be here at eleven, and it is half-past 
 ten now." 
 
 " I can't take my singing lesson possibly; 
 I have an affreux headache !" replies Alice, 
 raising her eyebrows, dropping her eye- 
 lids, and feeling exactly like Mme. De 
 Fange, who always breakfasts in bed 
 surrounded by all that there is of the most 
 marvellously beautiful in art and up- 
 holstery, her chocolate in a faienge cup, 
 handed her by the intrigue-assisting femme- 
 de-chambre. 
 
 " You look as if you had," replies Susie, 
 staring with obvious disapproval at her 
 cousin. " If you were blushing for the 
 sins of the whole human family you could, 
 not have a redder face/' 
 
 Alice, who is feeling raffinee, frele, pleine 
 (lane sympathiqae amenite, all like Mme. 
 De Fange, is roused into acerbity of speech.
 
 A Peep at the Willis Family. 181 
 
 She requests Susie, with some warmth, to 
 leave the room. 
 
 Susie does so, and after standing for a 
 moment, ruffled, lonely, and at a loss, re- 
 solves to penetrate to her aunt's dressing- 
 room. 
 
 She finds Miss Wix there, seated at the 
 window, writing ; her little rabbit profile 
 unassisted to a definite outline by the 
 strong, sharp light behind it. 
 
 Mrs. Willis, in a pretty dressing-gown 
 trimmed with lace, is writing, too. She 
 hands over her rough, rapid jottings to 
 Miss Wix, who copies, smooths, arranges. 
 
 « Well, Susie T 
 
 " The fact is, Aunt Adria, that I'm 
 longing to go out," says Susie, apparently 
 beginning in the middle of a sentence, 
 "or I would not have come in and dis- 
 turbed you. Could I not run out for
 
 182 Loving and Loth. 
 
 a few minutes by myself, for a mouth- 
 ful of fresh air, before Mr. Mon Santo 
 comes ?" 
 
 "By no means," answers Mrs. Willis, 
 hazily. " By no means. After Miss Wix 
 has finished writing for me, you can go 
 with her and the children ; there will be 
 time before luncheon. They need not to- 
 day have lessons until afterwards." 
 
 " Could I write anything for you, Aunt 
 Adria ? I write quickly. My m's and n's 
 and u's are all shaped like spear-heads, but 
 they are pretty legible." 
 
 " I wish," said Mrs. Willis, with sudden 
 earnestness, " that young people could be 
 made to think less of the fleeting present 
 and more of the never-ending future. I 
 wish they could be brought to see what the 
 true aims of life are. " 
 
 "Mother has taught me," said Susie,
 
 A Peep at the Willis Family. 183 
 
 simply — " at least, she has taught me to 
 know what they are, even if I do not suc- 
 ceed in practising them." 
 
 "Young people," continued Mrs. Willis, 
 pursuing her own train of thought, " live as 
 if this life was all. Do they realize what it 
 would be if it were all ? What a mockery, 
 what a spirit-breaking encounter with cir- 
 cumstance, what a dying by inches, only to 
 die!" 
 
 Mrs. Willis's voice broke down, her lips 
 grew white. Like many others, she had 
 found the thought of uncertainty as to a 
 future state so insupportable, that, craving 
 fuller assurance than what is given in the 
 simply solemn words of the Bible, she had 
 feverishly seized at what seemed like tan- 
 gible proof of the thing she thirsted to know. 
 She was no happier than before. The black 
 doubt still dogged her ; and still she watched
 
 184 Loving and Loth. 
 
 and hungered and sought for surer signs ; 
 but never to have the peaceful faith of her 
 early womanhood again — ah ! never again. 
 There is no peace in trying to replace faith 
 by sight. There would have been peace 
 could she only have meekly resigned herself 
 to feeling — " I shall be satisfied ; but, oh I 
 not here." 
 
 " Do you realize what it would be, Susie, 
 for this life to be all T 
 
 Susie shuddered from head to foot. 
 
 " Of course," she said. " Anything that 
 has been something does not want to be 
 nothing ! Fearful ! Oh, Aunt Adria, don't 
 dont make me think of it I" 
 
 Little Miss Wix, her eyes vacantly fixed 
 on the wall, bites the tip of her pen and 
 does a mental sum. 
 
 " Anything that has been something does 
 not want to be nothing."
 
 A Peep at the Willis Family. 185 
 
 She stops biting her pen and meditates. 
 The mental arithmetic is suspended. 
 
 Well, yes ; even a something that has 
 been only a little plodding, poorly-paid 
 nursery-governess would rather go fagging 
 on for an unlimited number of years, an 
 insignificant joyless anything, than be — 
 nothing. 
 
 iC Immortality !" says Mrs. Willis, clasp- 
 ing her hands till the tendons stand out 
 from the strain put upon them. " August, 
 thrilling word ! And are we to loose you 
 from our warm human grasp, to give you 
 over to the cold, hard uses of chiselled mar- 
 ble, and fading picture, and mouldering 
 paper ? Oh ! the Inquisitors of other days 
 who tortured the body and allowed that 
 there was a soul to curse, were merciful 
 compared with these men, who, seated on 
 crumbling intellectual heights, wring the
 
 186 Loving and Loth. 
 
 heart by dogmatic denial and emphatic 
 doubt." 
 
 She stops, looks at Susie's attentive, 
 honest face. Susie, young, trusting, en- 
 viably unshaken — Susie, who had been 
 taught the simple old faith, and who, per- 
 haps — happy Susie ! — may cling to it with 
 childlike confidence all her life. 
 
 u ' The world is something, none can doubt, 
 But no one finds the secret out ; 
 To childhood, and to souls devout, 
 Comes the best revealing,' " 
 
 murmurs Mrs. Willis. " Miss Wix, I think 
 that you need not write any more at pre- 
 sent. Go and take Miss Cora and Lucy for 
 a walk. Go with them, Susie, since you are 
 longing for fresh air."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HUNGERFOPJ) IN SUSPENSE. 
 
 S if seized with the most absorbed 
 credulity, or the most pains- 
 taking spirit of inquiry, Hun- 
 gerford from this time made his appearance 
 at everything spiritualistic that included 
 little Miss Dawnay. Very often, too, he 
 joined her in her rides. 
 
 Sometimes, imprecating Eugene Everard, 
 he told himself that he had everything to 
 fear from him, as he watched the faint 
 colour going and coming in Susie's cheeks
 
 188 Loving and Loth. 
 
 when Eugene was talking to her in his un- 
 meaningly devotional way. At other times, 
 metaphorically snapping his fingers in Eve- 
 rard's face, he would assure himself that 
 there was nothing to fear from him, as he 
 noted the look of cold disgust on Susie's 
 face when some decipherable glance of pas- 
 sion passed between him and the Creole. 
 
 Once — one night after walking miles up 
 and down the room, and after receiving 
 much electricity from the carpet — he seemeol 
 to recover those sensations which had been 
 his before Susie had proved to him that 
 the formidable foe to his indifference was 
 indifference. 
 
 Coming to a standstill, he looked into his 
 own face in the glass, and felt that from 
 that moment he abjured the pale-faced, 
 blunt, and difficult child who had wound 
 herself about his heart. He dwelt with
 
 Hungerford in Suspense. 189 
 
 sturdy determination on the irregularity of 
 her white features, on the crudity of her 
 manners, on all her bars to beauty and fas- 
 cination. That he, of all men, should ad- 
 mire that which was not admirable— should 
 be captivated by what was not charming ! 
 
 He threw his whole will-power into the 
 effort to convince himself that from this 
 moment he was a free man again. Free to 
 criticize unlovingly, free to judge with cold 
 nicety, free to cavil unsparingly as he had 
 once done. 
 
 Full of the fine sense of self-mastery and 
 conviction, he betook himself to bed, only 
 to toss and turn sleeplessly ; his self-con- 
 gratulations and belief in his own self- 
 conquest seeming to drive everything like 
 repose away. He heard the clock in the 
 neighbouring steeple strike four times. 
 Four o'clock came of a cold winter s morn-
 
 190 Loving and Loth. 
 
 ing, and not for one instant had come to 
 him the mild divider of what would other- 
 wise be a maddening continuity of acts, 
 words, and thoughts. 
 
 He was weary of his inward reasoning, 
 and of his wakeful restlessness. Small 
 vexations were no more bearable by him 
 than a swarm of wasps by a tiger. He 
 lighted the candle, and for a minute or two 
 sat up, his chin resting on his hand, his 
 brows knit, his eyes fixed as though weigh- 
 ing some intention in his mind, whose re- 
 sult might be momentous. 
 
 At last he put forth his hand and drew 
 his watch towards him ; a pen-knife, too, 
 that lay on the table beside it. On his 
 watch-chain hung as a charm a tiny Chinese 
 trifle — a little blue porcelain tube, divided 
 and hung in the middle by a gold ring. 
 From one end of this tube he pricked a
 
 Hunyerford in Suspense. 191 
 
 particle of some substance which he bit off 
 the point of the blade. Then he flung 
 down the watch and the open knife, ex- 
 tinguished the candle, and sank back on 
 the pillow. 
 
 How was it that in all his tossings and 
 turnings he had not been able to find this 
 position before ? It was the position above 
 all others that brought delicious ease to the 
 limbs, rest to the head, relaxation to the 
 muscles. In a few minutes slumber ap- 
 peared to be pervading the chilly air he 
 breathed ; a warm fragrance seemed to have 
 usurped the cold and scentless atmosphere 
 of his room, the clock in striking had lost 
 its harsh distinctness, the five strokes 
 sounded vague, far away, and musical. 
 His thoughts, too, seemed to have lost 
 their harsh distinctness, and were vague, 
 and came to him, in a soft, rhythmical
 
 192 Loving and Loth. 
 
 monotony ; then they became brightly 
 tinged and symmetrical, nothing that was 
 not pleasing being presented to the inner 
 vision. 
 
 Upon this followed a phase when, al- 
 though grown more fascinating, more rosy, 
 they lost their just proportion, and were 
 the fantastic imageries not shaped by a 
 mind free from disturbing and unnatural 
 influences. 
 
 His limbs tingled slumberously, as though 
 every muscle were being touched with down 
 dipped in nard. Then an overpowering 
 drowsiness weighed on each stimulated 
 faculty ; imagination, thought, and feeling 
 became merged in profound unconscious- 
 ness. 
 
 When he went to sleep it was six o'clock, 
 when he awoke it was eleven. His first 
 thought on opening his eyes was not of
 
 Hungerford in Suspense. 193 
 
 Susie's imperfections, but of Susie, young 
 and candid, fresh, pure, fair-faced, clear- 
 eyed, silver-voiced, and enthrallingly in- 
 different to him. So much gained by the 
 inner conflict between will and inclination 
 of the night before. 
 
 At one o'clock he was riding by her side 
 in a quiet part of the park, his heavy-lidded 
 eyes fixed on her piquant face. Behind, 
 with Alice, came Eugene Everard, only 
 waiting his opportunity to slip into the 
 place that seemed most desired by Hunger- 
 ford. Alice, with her blooming face all 
 aglow, was talking with the exhilaration of 
 gratified vanity, skipping eagerly from one 
 subject to another, because she only talked 
 for talk s sake, and had no preference as 
 regards topics. Very fragmentary and 
 flighty talk it was, but she would have 
 said that Eugene was delighted with it, for 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 Loving and Loth. 
 
 he infused a misleading amount of atten- 
 tion and gratification into his face and 
 manner. 
 
 Mrs. Willis had by this time made so 
 many distinguished friends and acquaint- 
 ances in the Spirit world, as to have almost 
 ceased to regard the claims of a rather 
 commonplace and undistinguished earthly 
 family. More and more they were left to 
 the care of servants, governesses, and them- 
 selves. 
 
 The dress, deportment, etc., which she 
 had promised Mrs. Dawnay should be her 
 care, were neglected for higher demands on 
 her time, which took the varied shapes 
 that any dominant interest is sure to 
 assume. 
 
 " Your aunt tells me, Miss Dawnay," 
 said Ranicar to Susie, " that she expects 
 to be in town until quite the end of
 
 Hungerford in Suspense. 195 
 
 July. Shall you be with her all that 
 time T 
 
 "I dont know. No, I think not. 
 Mamma is probably coming up in April, 
 and then I shall go into lodgings with 
 her." 
 
 "I ask you," he said, in a low tone, 
 " not because I am given to idle curiosity, 
 but because my movements will be in some 
 measure regulated by yours." 
 
 " Really ?" said Susie, who had caught 
 the habit of using the word from her 
 cousin, as young people do. " I should as 
 soon imagine that you would give me your 
 
 watch to regulate, as " 
 
 She paused awkwardly. 
 " My giving you myself to regulate/' he 
 supplied, with a slight smile. 
 
 " Your movements," murmured Susie, 
 " I was going to say that ; something about 
 
 13—2
 
 196 Loving and Loth. 
 
 your movements, I was going to say, you 
 know, but I had to stop and think what I 
 meant. Are you not very tired of London ? 
 I thought people like you never stayed 
 in London in the winter — you and Mr. 
 Everard." 
 
 "It is very easy to see why Everard 
 stays/' said Kanicar, trying not to speak 
 with a sneer. 
 
 " Why does he stay V asked Susie, 
 eagerly. 
 
 Eanicar shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " He stays to act the part of the biter 
 bit. He is bejuggled, bewitched." 
 
 " By the Creole," said Susie ; not ques- 
 tioningly, but as an assertion. 
 
 He did not contradict her. 
 
 " He seems to like Alice," she continued, 
 timidly ; " he is very often at the house 
 when Miss Medor is not there."
 
 Hung erf or d in Suspense. 197 
 
 "He is almost a masculine personation 
 of ' My last Duchess,' in that he ' loves 
 whate'er he looks upon, and his looks go 
 everywhere.' " 
 
 " I do not think you are right in that," 
 said Susie, with a half sigh. " I am going 
 to ask him,''' turning the sigh into a mis- 
 chievous smile. 
 
 Banicar frowned, and bit his lip fero- 
 ciously, but before he could expostulate or 
 prevent, Susie had turned her horse's head, 
 and cut off Alice and Eugene as they came 
 up. 
 
 " Mr. Hungerford says that you are 
 like his last Duchess," she said, laughing 
 lightly, " because you love whate'er you 
 look upon." 
 
 " Does he say so V answered Eugene, in 
 a tone of threatening and formidable jocu- 
 larity. "It is very flattering, Hungerford,
 
 198 Loving and Loth. 
 
 that you should select me for a character- 
 sketch." He pressed forward in speaking 
 to Susie's side. Somehow Susie's horse, 
 too, moved on. Ranicar and Alice were left 
 abreast of one another. In the shape of 
 small manoeuvres nothing could have been 
 more successful. 
 
 " What else did Hungerford say of me, 
 pray ?' ; asked Eugene. 
 
 " Nothing," answered Susie, becoming 
 cautious and prudent, as she always was 
 in speaking of people behind their backs, 
 although those qualities were often con- 
 spicuously absent when she engaged in con- 
 versation with them. 
 
 " We are going to Mr. Van Vleck's to- 
 night," she went on, partly to get away 
 from the subject, partly to moot one of 
 paramount interest to her. " There is to 
 be an evocation of something or other ; no-
 
 Hungerford in Suspense. 199 
 
 body knows what, exactly. One or two 
 stubborn people, who have not been con- 
 vinced before, are to be convinced to-night 
 by their own eyes. What would be the 
 long words for seeing with their own eyes ? 
 I can't think of them." 
 
 " Ocular demonstration, I suppose." 
 " And you will be there, Mr. Everard V 9 
 " Yes, I shall be there." 
 "You are infatuated with her." 
 ' ' By no means," flushing hotly. " I am 
 interested in her." 
 
 Susie's truthful eyes were searching his. 
 " I am not a susceptible person. Believe 
 me, Miss Dawnay, when I say so, and 
 doubt Hungerford's misrepresentations if 
 they have led you to fancy the contrary." 
 
 " Oh, they have not ; I am sure you are 
 not ; but I see when you look at her that 
 your eyes and heart rebel against looking
 
 200 Loving and Loth. 
 
 anywhere else. She is beautiful ; she is 
 tropical, dark, fiery, the counterpart of a 
 cold English nature/' 
 
 He did not answer, and the look of 
 hauteur that he could assume upon occa- 
 sions settled on his face. 
 
 Susie, perceiving it, felt aggrieved, and 
 pouted. 
 
 " Talk," she said, after a moment's un- 
 broken silence. "Say something, do. I 
 am tired of looking at your freezing- 
 face." 
 
 " Then why look at it ?" he replied, 
 smiling in spite of himself. 
 
 " I am not," staring between her horse's 
 ears. iC What was it I said that you did 
 not like ?" 
 
 " To tell you the truth, I sometimes 
 object to personalities." 
 
 Susie looked deeply mortified. " I can-
 
 Hungerford in Suspense. 201 
 
 not bear being found fault with. I never 
 could from a child," she said. 
 
 "From a child? Why, what are you 
 now but the most engaging of children ?'■ 
 he rejoined, turning to her with his most 
 cordial smile. It was not often that he 
 lapsed from his sunny suavity as he had 
 just done. 
 
 " I may have been a child when you first 
 saw me, but I am not one now," she re- 
 joined, with simple gravity. 
 
 " Have so many events been crowded 
 into your life V 
 
 " No, not that ; but I seem to have 
 found out so many new feelings, and so 
 many new things about people." 
 
 " What new feelings have you found 
 out, you fortunate discoverer ?" 
 
 " Do not call me fortunate. I have 
 discovered what it is to have an aver-
 
 202 Loving and Loth. 
 
 si on ; I have found out what it is — " She 
 paused. 
 
 " Go on," he said, with some curiosity. 
 
 " I have found out what it is like," she 
 continued, trying to speak in the same tone 
 and manner that she had before used, " to 
 think, and speak, and act for myself with- 
 out having a mother to fly to for advice and 
 dictation." 
 
 "Why have you taken an aversion to 
 her ?" asked Eugene, not very much heed- 
 ing her last words, since they were not what 
 he expected them to be. 
 
 "Her! you say her as if I had told you 
 the name of the person." 
 
 " It is not hard to guess it." 
 
 " No, perhaps not for you to guess. I 
 have a strong repugnance to her, because I 
 think her an impostor. I detest deceit. 
 But I'm not going to talk of her any more."
 
 Hungerford in Suspense. 203 
 
 She touched up her horse, and went off 
 at a trot. Eugene kept on at her side. 
 
 By this time Alice and Hungerford had 
 cantered past them, and were seen going 
 out of the gate. They followed. 
 
 "I can't help it/' said Susie, as a re- 
 vertive apology, " any more than I can 
 help having an appetite. I do hope 
 luncheon is ready. No, I'd rather Mr. 
 Hungerford helped me down ; he is a great 
 deal taller than you are."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A POPULAR SEANCE. 
 
 ASTONISHING preparations for 
 the evocation of the coming 
 night were made in Swanbury 
 Crescent. Not one of them savoured of 
 the supernatural. A little room was sepa- 
 rated from Leontine's room by a door of one 
 great sheet of glass, and over it was a noise- 
 less sliding panel papered like the rest of 
 the room. There were, too, a few trifling 
 arrangements as if for a celebration of the 
 " Glorious 4th," and all was ready at eight 
 o'clock.
 
 A Popular Seance, 205 
 
 Leontine moved about a dazzling appari- 
 tion in black and gold and scarlet. She 
 was restless with impatience. She longed 
 to read in her uncle's face whether she was 
 looking her best to-night. There was a 
 little marplot and spoil-plan coming, who, 
 in Leontine's estimation, never had any 
 best. She was always pale and plain, with 
 a face as expressionless as a swan's egg. 
 Leontine was gazing at herself meanwhile 
 in one of the looking-glasses. 
 
 " I am not bad-looking, am I, Uncle 
 Aloysius ?" she burst out at length. 
 
 " You're as handsome as they make ; em," 
 answered he, succinctly. 
 
 " Here comes somebody !" cried Leontine, 
 starting away. 
 
 Enter a gentleman who had married first 
 a wife who was all body, secondly a spouse 
 who was all soul, and who now wanted 
 tidings from both of them.
 
 206 Loving and Loth. 
 
 It was tiresome, waiting for the people 
 to file in. He for whom Leontine watched 
 so feverishly was one of the last to 
 come, and he entered the room by Susie's 
 side. Susie looking up out of eyes as deep 
 and honest as wells with truth lying at the 
 bottom of them ; Eugene bending his head 
 with cordial courtesy to listen to what she 
 was saying. Behind were the Willises and 
 Mr. Hungerford. 
 
 "Are you going to frighten us very much 
 to-night V asked Eugene, with a smile, of 
 Leontine. " I hear that you are." 
 
 "Yes, I hope so," she answered curtly, 
 and drawing her eyebrows together. 
 
 "Don't do anything very terrible," he 
 said, in a low voice, " for there is one very 
 timid little heart here." 
 
 " Is it within my control ? Timid hearts 
 should not come here."
 
 A Popular Seance. 207 
 
 "I will sit beside her, and if she is fright- 
 ened do my best to soothe her," said Eugene, 
 watching carefully the effect of his words. 
 
 But Leontine was too complete and 
 trained an actress to betray herself by any 
 sign of feeling, and Eugene was sensible of 
 a vague disappointment. He moved slowly 
 away, and seated himself beside Susie. 
 
 There were the usual manifestations. 
 Rather tame and used up they were by 
 this time. 
 
 It was not until late that the event of the 
 evening — the evocation — took place. Raps, 
 spelt out beforehand, announced it to be 
 Hendrick Hudson. And in the midst of 
 rolling clouds of smoke and flickering gleams 
 of pallid light, an indistinct form was visible 
 for a few seconds, and then vanished, carry- 
 ing with it much of the faith of those as- 
 sembled, in Spiritualism ; for the Evocation
 
 20 S Loving and Loth, 
 
 was a failure. Everybody was so secretly 
 or openly suspicious of trickery, of artifice, 
 that there was a speedy breaking up, and a 
 cool reluctance of manner, even on the part 
 of the Spiritualist advocates, in admitting 
 the supernatural claims of the apparition to 
 credibility. 
 
 No arrangement was made with Mr. Van 
 Yleck for a future seance ; there was the 
 censorious silence that tells so much, on all 
 sides. People said good-night with an air 
 of chill dignity, and departed. 
 
 " Shall you come to-morrow ?" whispered 
 Leontine to Eugene as he was taking leave 
 of her (he had lingered until the last). 
 
 He fashioned a thought to suit himself, 
 as we all can do on occasions. 
 
 " She is so beautiful ; why should I not 
 indulge an admiration which pleases and 
 gratifies her, and is perfectly harmless — to
 
 A Popular Seance. 209 
 
 myself, and very amusing. Yes," he said 
 aloud, "I have some handwriting I wish 
 you to characterize for me. About twelve 
 I shall come." 
 
 This was only one of many times that 
 he had made an excuse for coming by 
 bringing scraps of handwriting for her 
 to see. 
 
 When the doors had swung together 
 after him, Mr. Van Vleck flung himself 
 down in a chair in something the attitude 
 of his national spread eagle, and dejection 
 clouded his sharp, intelligent face. 
 
 " If we don't gain more headway, Leon, 
 we must shut up shop," he said. " Folks 
 are tired of the real genuine manifestations, 
 levitation of ponderable objects, percussive 
 sounds, music played by invisible agency 
 and so on ; and if they are to be imposed 
 on, I ain't the jockey to do it. I can't set 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 Loving and Loth. 
 
 up for a juggler ; I'm too old a dog to learn 
 jugglers' tricks. Suppose you sink the 
 medium, put the woman to the fore, make 
 the most of your good looks, expend your 
 will-power in fascination, and catch a landed 
 proprietor." 
 
 " I don't know of one," said Le'ontine, in 
 an even, unexpressive voice. 
 
 " I know of one in posse, don't you ? 
 And by the time you've caught him he 
 may be in esse. You know who I mean — 
 Everard." 
 
 " Everard," repeated she, lingering over 
 the name as if she liked hearing herself say 
 it. " Yes, I might have known that you 
 meant him " 
 
 She could not meet her uncle's eyes, al- 
 though she had self-mastery enough not to 
 blush, or look confused. 
 
 "You shirk looking me in the face as
 
 A Popular Seance. 211 
 
 you answer," quoth he in a tone of quiet 
 amusement. " So much the better ; I guess 
 every female thing has her melting mo- 
 ments. Your heart would have done to 
 ice a mint-julep with, Leon, but I shouldn't 
 wonder if it was going to be thawed now." 
 
 To this Leontine gave no answer; she 
 made a movement impatient almost to 
 fierceness. 
 
 " His old uncle, isn't it V asked Mr. 
 Van Vleck, after a pause. 
 
 "Isn't what?" 
 
 " His old uncle who is going to leave 
 him the property. But I know it is. I 
 only asked to draw you out. I might as 
 well try, though, to draw a mouse out of a 
 hole by showing it a cat ; ; tis his mother's 
 brother, unmarried and elderly. Everard 
 comes here too often for an indifferent man. 
 He thinks he's amusing himself, perhaps. 
 
 14—2
 
 212 Loving and Loth. 
 
 It'll be a noble occupation for you, Leon- 
 tine, to ' play the slave to gain the 
 tyranny ;' that is, if you succeed, and gain 
 it. It won't be very noble if you fail. 
 I've seen prosperous fortunes for two or 
 three individuals made out of one young 
 man's love folly. Gracious Peter ! How 
 Jove does dilute a man ! Dilute him ?" 
 pausing to pile on contempt, " you could 
 suck him through a straw !" 
 
 "A man must love very much," mur- 
 mured L^ontine, " to throw over barriers, 
 and make light of objections mauy in num- 
 ber as the hairs of his head." 
 
 " But you'll do your best to make him, 
 Leontine ?" said he, rising. 
 
 " Yes, my very best," she murmured in a 
 stifled voice. 
 
 " I say," he said, returning, " I should 
 almost lot on it, if it wasn't for that little
 
 A Popular Seance. 213 
 
 pale-faced thing. I'm afraid of her ways, 
 and I'll bet you are, too. And I'll bet you 
 don't love her, or you wouldn't have 
 wanted to scare her so. For pure, gra- 
 tuitous, unremunerative malice, give me 
 a woman !" 
 
 " I should like," said L^ontine, slowly, 
 " to scr-ratch her with a rusty nail !"
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SUSIE ENGAGED. 
 
 OWAKDS the end of the winter 
 Mrs. Dawnay received a letter 
 from Susie, which filled her 
 heart with amazement, pleasure, pride. 
 Banicar Hungerford, of whom she had 
 heard as being world-disdaining and world- 
 beloved, fastidious, cold, and gently cynical, 
 was attracted by her little daughter. From 
 the elaborately evasive style of many of 
 Susie's former letters she had suspected it. 
 Now, as she read, the suspicion changed to
 
 Susie Engaged. 215 
 
 certainty. She was conscious, too, that 
 those short bald sentences expressed some 
 misgiving, and implored counsel and help, 
 although it was only in such words as 
 these, — 
 
 " I almost wish I had not come up. I 
 want to see you so much, and yet I hardly 
 want to come back to forlorn Beaucome. 
 Did you ever see Mr. Hungerford ? He is 
 handsome, is he not ? and clever. A great 
 deal cleverer than Mr. Everard. If we 
 Were rich, we should look at life through 
 pink glass windows, shouldn't we ? You 
 don't believe in love nonsense, do you, 
 mother ? The best sort comes after mar- 
 riage, doesn't it ? Mr. Hungerford is so 
 anxious to know you ; he almost thinks of 
 going down to the Isle of Wight on pur- 
 pose to make your acquaintance. I think 
 you would find that he spoke of me as if he
 
 216 Loving and Loth. 
 
 liked me very much. Do you remember 
 telling me once that the best way to make 
 people like one was to like people ? It is 
 an excellent rule ; I have tried it. 
 
 " If Mr. Hungerford should tell me still 
 more plainly than he has done how much 
 he likes me, guide me in what I am to say 
 to him. Suppose you sit down directly on 
 receiving this, and answer it." 
 
 Mrs. Dawnay did sit down directly and 
 answered it, writing with a most loving 
 heart certainly, but with a sufficiently cool 
 and judicious spirit guiding her pen. 
 Nothing was very emphatic that Mrs. 
 Dawnay said, but everything was written 
 with an intense desire to sway and con- 
 vince. 
 
 Susie, on receiving the letter, ran up 
 to her own room with it, eagerly tearing 
 open the envelope as she went. After
 
 Susie Engaged. 217 
 
 reading it, she threw herself down on the 
 bed, letter and all, and hiding her face in 
 the pillow, burst into a fit of tears. 
 
 " Oh ! mother, mother !" she whispered, 
 " you are my guide, my ideal, and my 
 trust. You and my own heart have never' 
 been at war before, but you and it are at 
 war now I" 
 
 Susie was only seventeen, and her mental 
 store was not great. She had no large 
 fund of experience and self-knowledge to 
 draw on. No stock of accumulated con- 
 clusions, or well-weighed probabilities. 
 The words she said to herself were almost 
 as simple as those Gretchen says as she 
 pulls the daisy's pink-tipped petals. 
 
 " He loves me ; he does not love me. 
 He, not loving me, gives me only a heart- - 
 ache ; self-contempt ; I will forget him. 
 Forget the tones of his voice, the expres-
 
 218 Loving and Loth. 
 
 sion of his face, the colour of his eyes — 
 soon. Not all at once, but very soon." 
 She started up and dried her eyes. " And 
 I shall succeed in being rich and tine, and 
 loved, too ! Although I fail in being quite 
 happy. But the great thing is to be 
 loved." 
 
 She got off the bed and went to bathe 
 the tear-marks from her face. Mingled 
 with the splashing of the water, she heard 
 her aunt's voice. Mrs. Willis had entered 
 without knocking, and was speaking to 
 her. 
 
 " Susie, Mr. Hungerford is in the draw- 
 ing-room ; he is waiting to speak to you 
 alone." 
 
 " Yes," said Susie, with the expression 
 worn on seeing a letter with a black seal 
 beside one's plate ; " I've rather been ex- 
 pecting him."
 
 Susie Engaged. 219 
 
 "Ah!" returned Mrs. Willis; "then 
 you are prepared to see him, and I need 
 not make any comment on what I suppose 
 lies before you." 
 
 Mrs. Willis spoke in the sleep-walker's 
 tone that she had grown to have, absently 
 twisting a bracelet round and round her 
 wrist meanwhile. She glided on into her 
 dressing-room, and Susie went slowly 
 downstairs, thinking feeble thoughts of 
 how it was what numbers of girls did ; 
 that mamma knew what was best. That 
 nothing mattered so long as 
 
 In the midst of the third thought 
 she opened the drawing-room door and 
 found herself face to face with Ranicar 
 Hungerford. 
 
 She held out a hand to him in the half- 
 way, slow manner of physical repulsion. 
 He did not appear to notice, and grasped it
 
 220 Loving and Loth. 
 
 strongly, seeming reluctant to let it 
 
 " I thought I should find you in," he 
 said. 
 
 " The day is so stormy and wild that we 
 have none of us been out," rejoined Susie. 
 " Alice is in her room with a head- 
 ache " 
 
 " An undesirable companion," said 
 Hungerford, filling in her pause, " a head- 
 ache. Have you, too, a headache ? There 
 is a weary look about your eyes." 
 
 " No," replied Susie, selecting a small 
 chair in an isolated position. " To tell the 
 truth, I have been crying, and that is the 
 reason my eyes look heavy and dull." 
 
 " Crying ?" he repeated, tenderly. 
 " Pray tell me what about." 
 
 " First one thing, then another ; I 
 began to cry over a letter from my mother ;
 
 Susie Engaged. 221 
 
 then I found several other things to cry- 
 about, so I went on." 
 
 "Did your mothers letter so sadden 
 you ? But I will not annoy you with 
 questions, although it is hard not to make 
 your joys and sorrows my own ; would you 
 be willing to let me share them with you 
 —Susie r 
 
 Susie murmured something inarticu- 
 lately, and slipping out of her seat, took 
 up a position of armed neutrality at the 
 piano. 
 
 " I did not hear," he said, following her. 
 
 Again she spoke, but this time her 
 words were drowned in the soft and flute- 
 like air she was playing. 
 
 He made the two small hands prisoners 
 in one of his. 
 
 " You do not mean me to hear what you 
 say," he cried, looking at her intently.
 
 222 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " In these strange evening meetings we 
 have grown to know each other very well, 
 have we not V he went on abruptly. 
 
 "I do not feel that I know you very 
 well," murmured Susie ; " I can't tell how 
 it may be with you ; I daresay you may 
 understand me ; I must be a very simple 
 story for you to read, you have such know- 
 ledge of the world and of character." 
 
 " And if T have, my knowledge has only 
 taught me to distrust and to suspect. I 
 have come to look upon human beings as 
 motives — motives all tending self- ward. I 
 cannot at this moment think of one person in 
 the world who cares for me for my own sake. 
 Since my sister died no one has prized me, 
 I am bitterly conscious, except for the sake 
 of what I could give them, get for them, 
 help them to get. I have some prestige. 
 Why, I know not ; people value being seen
 
 Susie Engaged. 223 
 
 with me, having me at their houses, having 
 it known that I am their acquaintance ; 
 not for my own sake, but for the sake of 
 what my advantageous worldly accidents 
 have given me. This is very tiresome 
 when it is all a man has. It is quite bear- 
 able, I dare say, when it is only a part of 
 his life ; when he has from one honest 
 heart a love that is for himself alone ; 
 altogether apart from what fortune and 
 circumstance have allotted to him. There 
 is an honesty and a candour about you, 
 little one, that drew me to you from the 
 evening I first met you. I trust you ; 
 that does not surprise you, perhaps, for you 
 probably know yourself to be trustworthy ; 
 and I love you." 
 
 Susie drew her hands away from his 
 retaining ones, and let them rest slightly 
 on the keys without sounding a note.
 
 224 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Do you ?" she said, very low. . " Why? 
 I have not a pretty nor a charming face !" 
 
 " Your face is inexhaustible of charm to 
 me," he replied, looking at her as Susie had 
 once or twice in her life imagined a man 
 looking, " and I love you — why, indeed ! 
 Because I believe that you were born for 
 me to love." 
 
 " Expressly for the purpose !" said Susie, 
 under her breath, with a little gleam of 
 irritated amusement in her eyes. 
 
 "Yes," he said, catching her words, "ex- 
 pressly for the purpose. I have never loved 
 any one before, as I do you. That is, I have 
 never sincerely wished to make any one my 
 wife, as I do you." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " What is your answer ; will you be my 
 wife, or " 
 
 Susie's answer was only to cower and
 
 Susie Engaged, 225 
 
 grow pale, and slide her fingers softly over 
 the keys. 
 
 " Pray speak !" he said, in a low moved 
 voice. 
 
 " I can't," answered Susie, in tones that 
 sounded very clear, loud, and firm beside his. 
 
 " But you must." 
 
 Still Susie showed all the reluctance to 
 answer that a newly caged wild bird does 
 to sing. 
 
 Hungerford hardly knew what he had 
 expected from her when she should first be 
 placed in the position of the claimed, but of 
 her final answer he had almost made himself 
 certain. 
 
 " Listen," said Susie, twirling herself 
 round on the music-seat, "I have been 
 making a little plan in my head in this last 
 minute ; this is it. Ill blindfold you with 
 my pocket-handkerchief, and lead you to 
 
 vol. i. 15
 
 226 Loving and Loth. 
 
 quite the other end of the room, and twist 
 you round three times; then you must find 
 your way to the piano, and strike one note 
 at random with one finger. If the note is 
 C my answer shall be si, yes. If you strike 
 
 any other note, why, then ; ' Her 
 
 sentence trailed off into uncertainty. 
 
 " What a childish proposition !" he said, 
 half angry, half amused. 
 
 " But it seems to suit me so well/' said 
 Susie, in a propitiating tone. 
 
 "You are right, it does. Having set my 
 preference on a child, I must take the con- 
 sequences. So blindfold me." 
 
 He dropped on his knees beside her. 
 Susie drew a small gossamer handkerchief 
 from her pocket. 
 
 " Too small," she said, trying to knot it 
 at the back of his dark, haughty head : 
 "you must give me your own."
 
 Susie Engaged. 227 
 
 He o-ave it to her. and she fastened it 
 securely over his eyes ; then she sat looking 
 at his half-hidden profile, silent and embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 " Now," he said, gropingly putting 
 forth one hand, " now for the rest of it, I 
 am to be led to the further end of the room, 
 turned round three times, and left to find 
 my bewildered way to the piano to strike 
 the note C !' 
 
 " Perhaps you may strike it, perhaps 
 not," said she, hastily. " There are six of 
 them besides C. You may chance on 
 another, since there are six !" 
 
 " It shall be perfectly fair," said Ranicar, 
 laughing easily. " Come, lead me away." 
 
 Susie, limply taking the ends of his 
 fingers, led him across the room to the 
 space in the bow-window opposite the 
 piano. The rain was beating angrily 
 
 15—2
 
 228 Loving and Loth. 
 
 against the panes ; people hurried past, 
 their heads bent slavishly to the wind. In 
 an opposite window a child was being 
 dragged away with its mouth wide open 
 as if screaming. She turned Hungerford 
 round three times. 
 
 " Now, how many fingers do I hold up V 
 she asked, with implicit, childlike confidence 
 in his good faith. 
 
 " One," said Ranicar unhesitatingly. 
 " Go/' was her answer ; "I am holding 
 up two, so you cannot see." 
 
 Ranicar walked gropingly across the room 
 to settle his fa,te. He found the piano ; 
 Susie, on tip-toe, followed him noise- 
 lessly, and with craning neck, parted lips, 
 wide-open eyes, and clasped hands watched 
 his uplifted finger slowly descending on 
 the key-board. The thoughts flitting 
 through her mind were a confusion of
 
 Susie Engaged. 229 
 
 childishness and worldly wisdom ; but it 
 was with a deep breath almost amounting 
 to a sob, that she saw the long slender 
 fin o;er with its filbert nail come down with 
 a crash on the note C. Ranicar with his 
 other hand tore off the handkerchief. 
 
 " Mine !" he said, turning and catching 
 her in his arms. "Say, yes, with your own 
 sweet lips, Susie ; or I will be satisfied if 
 you say si." 
 
 " You could see " was the way Susie 
 obeyed him ; she spoke with a heartfelt 
 resentment. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " I could not." 
 
 " Please let me go !" 
 
 " No." 
 
 And for the first time in her seventeen 
 years, Susie was given the unpeaceful kiss 
 of love.
 
 230 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " I have a happiness that I can grasp I" 
 exclaimed Hungerford, still not releasing 
 her. His voice had a ring in it of the 
 youth he had lost. 
 
 " Happiness," said Susie, and in her 
 tones was all the melancholy of a blurred 
 future. " What is happiness ?" 
 
 " This/' he answered, again pressing his 
 lips on hers. " To me," he added, looking 
 her in the face. 
 
 At this moment footsteps were heard 
 approaching the door. Susie started, and 
 Ranicar released his hold on her. 
 
 "Mr. Everard," announced the servant, 
 and Susie, looking like a culprit caught in 
 flagrant misdemeanour, murmured half a 
 greeting to Eugene, did not hold out her 
 hand, was filled with the most gnawing 
 confusion and embarrassment. Ranicar, of 
 course, was just as usual, but his heart was
 
 Susie Engaged. 231 
 
 full of maledictions against the dangerous 
 intruder who had come to pay an afternoon 
 call. Any slight awkwardness that there 
 may have been in the situation was quickly 
 put an end to by Mrs. Willis coming into 
 the room. 
 
 Eugene being an excellent manceuvrer, 
 it was only a few minutes before he was at 
 the piano turning over the sheets of some 
 new songs with Susie, while Ranicar was 
 left to chafe inwardly as he talked com- 
 monplaces with ,Mrs. Willis. Mrs. Willis 
 felt vaguely regretful that she had not 
 given directions to have any visitor who 
 might come, shown into another room. It 
 was a large house, and there were three en 
 suite. 
 
 " Why did you look so guilty and at a 
 loss when I came in?" asked Eugene of 
 Susie, wishing to force from her a reply to
 
 232 Loving and Loth. 
 
 the question that he had already answered 
 in his own mind. 
 
 " Because I felt so." 
 
 "Then I must ask you why you felt so?'* 
 
 " No, you must not." 
 
 "But I shall, and do." 
 
 Susie was silent. 
 
 "Hungerford can give you everything in 
 the world," said Eugene quietly, finding 
 that she did not intend to reply. "To a 
 poor dependent dog like myself, he seems a 
 very enviable fellow, with his lot of money 
 and his mastery over his own actions. I 
 suppose I must congratulate you V 
 
 Susie shook her head, purposely making 
 the motion as meaningless as she could. 
 
 Eugene watched her narrowly. To eyes 
 that daily studied the sense-pleasing beauty 
 of the Creole as his did, the passionless 
 purity, and faulty fascination of Susie's
 
 Susie Engaged. 233 
 
 small white face, were unsatisfying to his 
 lower, stronger nature, while his higher, 
 weaker nature felt the nameless charm as 
 the blind feel and delight in the fresh wind 
 blowing scents and sounds of unseen 
 flowers and birds to them. 
 
 " I must let her slip away from me !" 
 thought he, and sighed. " And if I have 
 a little heart-ache to see her belonging to 
 Hungerford, Leontine shall console me. 
 I'll congratulate him, of course/ 5 he said. 
 " How very rustic of me not to have said 
 that first. I called this afternoon to ask 
 your aunt if she was going to have a seance 
 to-night. She usually has one on Tues- 
 days." 
 
 "If she has one at all — and I have heard 
 nothing about it — she will not have Mr^ 
 Yan Vleck aod his niece for the performers," 
 said Susie, with a faltering coldness. "You
 
 234 Loving and Loth. 
 
 had better go to my aunt yourself and ask 
 her," she continued, rising and moving away 
 to where Mrs. Willis and Hungerford were. 
 
 There was a numb feeling about her 
 heart, and an aching sensation in her throat 
 which only a fit of weeping could have re- 
 lieved. Naturally her pride and self-con- 
 trol drove back the tears, but sent these 
 painful sensations to take their place. 
 
 She found herself counting the lapis- 
 lazuli balls in Hungerford's watch chain, 
 while she listened to Eugene asking her 
 aunt, and pronouncing the Creole's name. 
 
 She heard her aunt reply that there was 
 
 to be a seance in her house to-morrow 
 
 evening, with a new spiritualist light — 
 
 J" A wisp that flickered 
 
 Where no foot could tread — "\ 
 
 a Miss Milly King. She heard Eugene's 
 conditional consent to come, then her cold
 
 Susie Engaged. 235 
 
 hand was grasped by his warm one in fare- 
 well, and presently he was gone. 
 
 There had been but very few words ex- 
 changed between them ; nothing had been 
 said to mar the brightness of her fate, yet 
 she felt it to be marred ; she felt herself a 
 miserably free agent to dispose of her 
 future as she chose. She dreaded being 
 left alone with Hungerford again. 
 
 " I wonder," thought she, "if I make a 
 sort of prayer to Aunt Adria not to go 
 away, and look at her all the while, it will 
 not show through my eyes, and force her 
 to stay." 
 
 This was Susie's idea of animal magne- 
 tism. 
 
 Mrs. Willis half got up, then sank back 
 again. It was not of much importance, of 
 course, that a being, who at the end of an 
 uncertain number of years would find an
 
 236 Loving and Loth. 
 
 affinity for her never-dying soul in the 
 spirit land, should be left to arrange about 
 taking a fleeting and wearisome pilgrimage 
 with a fellow pilgrim — but — Mrs. Willis's 
 soaring mind dropped down like a tired 
 bird for a moment, and she remembered 
 her own young love-dream, and the stolen 
 interviews that had seemed to her so many 
 prizes snatched from time, and infinitely 
 more important than those spiritual prizes 
 of progression, perfected will-power, psychi- 
 cal selection. She rose up, and left her 
 niece alone with her lover, and the prayer 
 in her heart that had proved ineffectual. 
 
 An hour later Susie was standing in her 
 room before the glass, gazing at the reflec- 
 tion of her face. 
 
 " I think I must have underrated my- 
 self," she thought, with a complacency that 
 she had never enjoyed before. ,f My eyes
 
 Susie Engaged. 237 
 
 are the colour of the sky, seen through old- 
 fashioned greenish glass windows, which 
 must be uncommon. My nose is unob- 
 trusive, which must be an advantage ; it 
 points heavenward, too, which is considered 
 a fine idea, as to the spire of a church. My 
 mouth is jolly when I am happy, and pretty 
 when I am sad, and the corners droop as 
 they do now. My skin is as examinable as 
 a quite new white kid glove. Bah !" she 
 concluded, turning away in disgust, " if I 
 were Miss Leontine Me'dor, I should be 
 looking at eyes like a stag's at bay, nose 
 that Helen or Cleopatra would not have 
 turned up their noses at. Oh, how de- 
 lightful to have your own beauty staring 
 you in the face." 
 
 As she had not any beauty of her own to 
 stare her in the face, she dressed without 
 once again looking in the glass, and with
 
 238 Loving and Loth. 
 
 coils of hair very one-sided, and a crooked 
 bow at her neck, went down to the draw- 
 ing-room, where she found her aunt sitting 
 alone reading. 
 
 Susie in faltering words told her that she 
 was engaged to Mr. Hungerford. 
 
 " I am sure that your mother will quite 
 approve/' said Mrs. Willis, drawing her 
 down and kissing her abstractedly some- 
 where near her ear. "Alice" — to her 
 daughter, who, following the advice of 
 Zeno, had trampled pain beneath her feet, 
 and now made her appearance for the first 
 time that day — " Alice, Susie has a piece 
 of news for you." 
 
 " Have you ?" said Alice, turning on her 
 cousin. " Engaged ! and to Mr. Hunger- 
 ford, of course. I know it without your 
 telling me. And you are very happy, of 
 course V
 
 Susie Engaged. 239 
 
 " I suppose I feel as other girls do who 
 are called happy/' said Susie. 
 
 " He is a great deal older than you," 
 returned Alice. "What strange fancies 
 men do take !" 
 
 " Yes," said Susie, eagerly, and not at 
 all offended. " Another instance is Mr. 
 Everard and the medium, Miss Medor." 
 
 " Oh, do you think, so V remarked Alice, 
 sceptically. "I do not call that an in- 
 stance. He does not care for her." 
 
 " No V said Susie, breathlessly. 
 
 Alice held up her hand, screwed her 
 wrist round, bent her head down to meet 
 it, and, blushing, snapped a tight bracelet 
 together. 
 
 " No," she answered, with an air of sly 
 satisfaction. " From the way he has spoken 
 to me, I am positive that he — that it — oh, 
 I know exactly how it is. If he were to
 
 240 Loving and Loth. 
 
 go away to-morrow, he would forget her the 
 day after to-morrow." 
 
 To transfer her jealousy from Leontine to 
 Alice was not much of a consolation to 
 Susie. That Eugene had said many gra- 
 cious flattering nothings to her cousin she 
 did not doubt. Well ! husks should be the 
 food for vanity. 
 
 " Perhaps you think so," she said, as a 
 reply to her cousin's last words. "I do 
 not ; she is so beautiful." 
 
 " But as dark as a mulatto, almost," ex- 
 claimed Alice, detractingly, and mentally 
 reviewing her own blonde charms. 
 
 " So beautiful," repeated Susie, in heart- 
 hungry tones. " He could not forget her 
 face all at once." 
 
 "What sort of engagement ring shall 
 you have ?" asked Alice. 
 
 " I don't know," answered Susie, " why
 
 Susie Engaged. 241 
 
 should I have any ? I think if I'm asked, 
 I'll say that I'll have a black pearl set in 
 black enamel." 
 
 "A mourning ring!" said Alice, sourly. 
 " Of course as a compliment to Mr. Hunger- 
 ford, nothing could be more apropos" 
 
 Susie only laughed. 
 
 " Come, come, children !" said Mrs. 
 Willis, with languid annoyance. "You 
 have made a very good match, Susie ; pray 
 do not forget to thank your guardian spirit 
 to-night." 
 
 " My guardian spirit V echoed Susie in 
 surprise. " I did not know I had one. 
 My thanks and my prayers are to God, 
 Aunt Adria." 
 
 " Oh, very well ; educate the soul by 
 probity, integrity, consideration for others, 
 and your prayers and thanks will no doubt 
 be acceptable. And magnanimity," said Mrs. 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Willis, plunging back into the middle of 
 her sentence again. 
 
 " Magnanimity/' said Susie, slowly and 
 carefully, as if afraid that she might forget 
 some of the syllables. " That means the 
 noblest sort of kindness V 
 
 " Yes ; magnanimity forgives quickly and 
 ungrudgingly, not slowly and sparingly. 
 It is cheerful charity, all-embracing faith^ 
 all-cherishing hope."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE CHILDREN'S PARTY. 
 
 USIE was walking in Kensington 
 Gardens with the children and 
 their governess. Her betrothed 
 had gone down to the Isle of Wight to 
 see Mrs. Dawnay. Susie was not with- 
 out a pleasurable sense of freedom, and 
 stepped along with almost a jaunty 
 air again, although there was a per- 
 plexed and discontented look in her 
 face. 
 
 Eugene, strolling along one of the leafless 
 
 16—2
 
 244 Loving and Loth. 
 
 alleys towards twelve o'clock came up with 
 her, and paused by her side. 
 
 " You're not riding to-day ?" he said. 
 
 " No, I did not feel inclined to ride ; 
 Alice is riding without me." 
 
 " And how is Hunger ford V 
 
 " I don't know ; he went down to Beau- 
 come this morning to see mamma." 
 
 " Ha ! for the official seal, as it were. 
 Happy Hungerford !" f 
 
 Susie, glancing at him, saw that he looked 
 haggard and restless, and not happy Everard 
 by any means. She wondered what trou- 
 bles were pressing on him, to give the rest- 
 lessness of heart and mind and purpose 
 which was shown in his face. 
 
 As she was about to speak, the children, 
 rushing up panting from behind, caught 
 each an arm, and hung there, nestling them- 
 selves closely to their cousin with an air of
 
 The Children s Party. 245 
 
 confidence and fearlessness of rebuke. She 
 was not so lavish of the word " don t " as 
 their sister. 
 
 "Do you enjoy walking with your 
 cousin ?" asked Eugene. 
 
 "Yes," answered Cora, a hazel- eyed> pale- 
 faced, straight-featured child, with sharp, 
 ever-working wits. " We like better to 
 have Susie go with us than Alice; Alice 
 always wants to go in the streets, and she 
 is always looking at herself in the shop- 
 windows ; she pretends she is looking at 
 the things ; I know she isn't, because she 
 looks into furniture-shops, iron-shops, seed- 
 shops, empty shops, and all." 
 
 Eugene laughed ; but the laugh, in spite 
 of himself, ended in a tired yawn. 
 
 " I am blue," he said, apologetically. 
 
 " Suppose," returned Susie, looking at 
 him with a half womanly, half childlike ex-
 
 246 Loving and Loth. 
 
 pression of compassion, " that you come to 
 the party to-night — Lucy's birthday party 
 that she is going to have. It might cheer 
 you up, perhaps. I know that Aunt Adria 
 would be delighted for you to think it worth 
 while to come ; and Lucy would be very 
 pivoud to have you — wouldn't you, r-less 
 one V bending down and looking into the 
 child's face. 
 
 Lucy only hung her head in confusion. 
 Eugene, whose evenings now for a long 
 time had been spent in amusing himself at 
 the Creole's, hesitated at the idea of dis- 
 posing of his time elsewhere. But as a 
 thirsty man may desire cold water rather 
 than the rich wine drunk to the confusion 
 of the faculties, the dulling of the percep- 
 tions, the fevering of the senses, so he was 
 willing to exchange those fiery draughts of 
 "amusement" for the insipid and pure re-
 
 The Children's Party. 24 
 
 freshment of a few hours in the society of 
 children — and Susie. 
 
 " I should like to come very much," he 
 said gravely, casting down a glance at Lucy, 
 " but you see I'm not invited." 
 
 "We are going to have a wing in the 
 cake ; we are going to dance ; we are going 
 to play games," said Lucy, lifting large, shy 
 eyes, and setting forth the attractions of 
 her natal day celebration. 
 
 " But you haven't asked me to play 
 games, nor me to dance; and as for the 
 cake, I don't believe you would let me have 
 a slice to try my luck for the ring." 
 
 " Oh, yes !" 
 
 " You would ? And if I get it, I promise 
 to give it away to somebody. Who shall it 
 
 be r 
 
 "Me." 
 
 " Ah! now I shall come. At what time?"
 
 248 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Five," said Susie ; "five till nine. He 
 cannot help trying to please even Lucy," she 
 thought. 
 
 Gliding along one of the side-paths, stop- 
 ping every now and then to read the Latin 
 name at the foot of some tree or shrub, was 
 to be seen a tall woman, in a dark, heavy 
 dress. The figure had a pronounced indi- 
 viduality. 
 
 " I think I see some one that I must 
 speak to," said Eugene, hurriedly, his mind 
 taking a leap from careless playfulness to 
 eager earnest. "Aurevoir." 
 
 He moved away as abruptly as he spoke, 
 and in a moment they saw him beside the 
 woman, whose face had never been turned 
 towards them. He walked slowly off, in a 
 listening attitude. The back of the girl 
 had been as easily recognizable by Susie as 
 if she had stood face to face with her.
 
 The Children s Party. 249 
 
 " What a tall lady !" remarked Cora. 
 " I hope I shall be as tall as that when I 
 finish growing. It will be fun having Mr. 
 Everard to-night. Can he play games just 
 like us, Susie ?" 
 
 " Oh ! he can play any sort of game," an- 
 swered Susie, with a child's pout, a woman's 
 bitterness. " Walk slower, children ; we 
 are leaving Miss Wix too far behind." 
 
 All shyness, and white muslin and coral 
 beads, the little, hostess gave her minute 
 hand to her tall guest, with a blush of min- 
 gled fright and satisfaction. 
 
 Susie, seated at the piano, was holding a 
 child on her lap, while she guided its fat 
 fingers over the keys for an accompaniment 
 to the baby voice shrilling out '" Ten Little 
 Niggers." 
 
 Bestowing a few words on Alice, which
 
 250 Loving and Loth. 
 
 increased the complacency of her expression, 
 Eugene made his way over to Susie, and 
 waited patiently for the diminution of the 
 ten little niggers to one. Then the child, 
 having wriggled down and run romping 
 away, to add its mite to the ever-increasing * 
 Babel, Susie was at liberty to look up and 
 attend to him. But he was very silent ; 
 and the air of unrest that he had worn in 
 the morning was unchanged. 
 
 " I am going to play for them to dance ; 
 go and get a little partner," said she, coax- 
 ingly. " A very little one, for the sake of 
 being funny ; you are so tall." 
 
 " But not so tall as Hungerford, you 
 know." 
 
 " He is extremely tall," answered Susie. 
 " I think he has grown since I saw him 
 first. Go, Mr, Everard, and take that little 
 thing with a frock that has no belt."
 
 The Children s Party. 251 
 
 "That baby?" 
 
 " She can dance." 
 
 " Do you know," said Everard, lowering 
 his voice, " how very much I should like a 
 dance with you ? Will not some one else 
 play?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, Miss Wix ; after she has seen 
 about some things." 
 
 Eugene moved away, and Susie watched 
 him bending himself double to meet the 
 needs of his baby-curled partner's exceed- 
 ing low stature. He had obediently taken 
 the infant of her selection. She laughed 
 heartily, and then she knew how sore- 
 hearted she was ; for her laughter seemed 
 to touch the source of her tears, instead of 
 being the outcome of genuine amusement. 
 
 Afterwards Miss Wix took her place, and 
 she danced indefatigably with the children, 
 singling out always the plainly dressed and
 
 252 Loving and Loth. 
 
 insignificant ones, whose little companions, 
 with the snobbishness unfortunately dis- 
 cernible even in children, shirked them. 
 
 "Come/' said Eugene, advancing towards 
 her smiling, as she stood resting for a mo- 
 ment, "you ought to reward me by giving 
 me a dance, for I really have been making 
 myself an awfully entertaining fellow to 
 the smallest of them in the next room ; 
 and to be thoroughly entertaining to human 
 beings of that age I find one has to put up 
 with a good deal of bodily discomfort, such 
 as going on all fours till you feel apoplec- 
 tic, and bumping your head against the 
 brackets, playing blind man's buff, and the 
 rest of it. Come." 
 
 Susie hesitated a moment, but Miss Wix 
 was playing such an enticing waltz, and 
 Eugene danced thoroughly well. She laid 
 her hand on his shoulder, and they glided 
 away.
 
 The Children's Party. 253 
 
 As they paused for breath a tall figure 
 strode in among the children, like Gulliver 
 among the Lilliputians. It was Mr. Hun- 
 gerford, just returned from the Isle of 
 Wight. He looked eagerly about for 
 Susie, and seeing her, bent his steps to- 
 wards her. 
 
 "Back again!" cried she, springing for- 
 ward to meet him. "Oh, how is mamma?" 
 
 "Quite well," he answered, drawing her 
 arm through his, and leading her away. 
 " What were you doing ? Dancing with 
 Everard ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You did not expect me to return so 
 soon, perhaps ?" he said in a tone of cold 
 vexation. 
 
 " Don t you wish me to dance with him ? 
 I will not now that you have come." (He was 
 disarmed.) "Oh do tell me about mamma.
 
 254 Loving and Loth. 
 
 How was she looking? Did not your heart 
 go out to meet her ? Didn't you wonder 
 how she ever came to have such a daugh- 
 ter?" 
 
 " She is lovely, most lovely," he replied, 
 warming with enthusiasm. " She .is 
 everything that is charming, and graceful, 
 and lovable. I have never seen any one 
 more " 
 
 " And did she like you V asked Susie, 
 ruthlessly cutting him short, and throwing 
 all the eagerness into her voice that was in 
 her upraised eyes. 
 
 Ranicar smiled. " If there is any liking 
 to be gained by an admiration so profound 
 that it cannot help making itself evident, 
 then really, I must be liked by Mrs. Daw- 
 nay." 
 
 " Did she like you very much?' continued 
 Susie, intensifying her tone and glance.
 
 Th- Children s Party. 255 
 
 "She must tell you that, not I. She did 
 not, naturally, measure out her opinion of 
 me in words and sentences that I can re- 
 peat to you." 
 
 There was something very unflattering 
 in these eager, bald inquiries. They proved 
 to a certainty that Susie had not pre-sup- 
 posed the value that her mother would set 
 on him as a son-in-law, or the impression 
 he would make on her. 
 
 " At least," added he, " I am able to tell 
 you that your mother confides you and 
 your- happiness to my keeping." 
 
 " Well ! I daresay it is all real," said 
 Susie, speaking and sighing together. 
 " But I somehow feel as if I were playing? 
 at being engaged." 
 
 A lover's interpretation of a somewhat 
 doubtful speech was the one that Rauicar 
 gave to this.
 
 256 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " Here is something that will perhaps 
 make it seem more real," he said in a low, 
 tender voice, and slipping a ring on her 
 finger. Susie looked at it as if it was a 
 scar or disfigurement that an unfortunate 
 accident had afflicted her hand with. 
 
 " Do you like it ? Perhaps I should 
 have asked you to tell me what stone you 
 preferred." 
 
 " This one is very beautiful," rejoined 
 Susie, recovering herself, and looking more 
 hospitably at the great diamond flashing 
 on her finger. "It seems almost too hand- 
 some for me. I feel as if I had become 
 the protector of something more, valuable 
 than I am myself. I know now exactly 
 what the sensations of the guardians of 
 little Royalties are." 
 
 "Susie, Susie, your charming conversation 
 is flavoured with the most childish nonsense."
 
 TJie Children s Party. 257 
 
 " This is a children's party," said Susie, 
 the word " childish" being a suggestive one. 
 "Come, you must help entertain thechildren; 
 you must dance, you must be amusing." 
 
 " Entertain the children ? — dance?" he re- 
 peated, and the melancholy of his eyes, the 
 haughty carriage of his whole tall form, 
 seemed to make her words unsuitable and 
 incongruous. " I never dance now." 
 
 " No !" said Susie, looking at him with 
 the greatest astonishment. " And you 
 must know how so -perfectly." 
 
 " Do you think that an ultra-civilized 
 human being should take the same delight 
 in dancing that a savage does V 
 
 " "Why I am just as civilized as you are," 
 returned Susie, combatively, " and yet I 
 love dancing." 
 
 " You are seventeen, and dancing is 
 always among the loves of civilized seven- 
 
 vol. i. 17
 
 258 Loving and Loth. 
 
 teen. I daresay the taste of an ice gives 
 you a pleasurable emotion, and the sight of 
 a box of bon-bons would make you blush 
 with satisfaction as few satisfactions will be 
 able to make you blush when you are seven 
 and thirty." 
 
 "I don't know about all that," said Susie 
 doubtfully, "but I know that I love dancing. 
 And if you can't dance, you can play games ; 
 so come and play. You* must indeed help 
 to amuse these little girls and boys. Miss 
 Wix must play for the older ones to dance, 
 Aunt Adria is arranging the things for the 
 lottery, and Alice is doing what she can." 
 
 " Yes," said Ranicar, moving to where he 
 could obtain a view of the adjoining room, 
 " at this moment she is opening and shut- 
 ting her fan, and talking to Everard with a 
 sort of perturbed coquetry." 
 
 Cl Come," said Susie, becoming more eager
 
 The Children s Party. 259 
 
 and impatient to play games, and running 
 out of the little room at the end of the 
 suite — into which he had taken her, because 
 they had it to themselves — into the next, 
 where the juvenile sports of flirtation and 
 hunt the slipper were going on (the flirta- 
 tion was limited to Alice and Eugene). 
 
 The children were tired of hunt the 
 slipper, and Lucy ran up to her cousin, 
 demanding, as she came, a nice new game. 
 
 " Let me think/' said Susie, giving all 
 her mind to it, in a way that delighted 
 Ranicar, " what have you played ?" 
 
 Two or three little voices clamoured the 
 names of the played-out games. 
 
 " We'll have Stage Coach/' said Susie, 
 decidedly, "and you, Mr. Hungerford, shall 
 tell the story. Now mind you make it 
 very funny, so that they will be convulsed 
 with laughter " (this in his ear), " for Lucy 
 
 17—2
 
 2G0 Loving and Loth. 
 
 wants them to go away, and say that it is 
 the nicest party they have ever been at in 
 their lives." 
 
 " My dear Susie, I could not make a 
 child laugh." 
 
 " A child laugh ! Why I expect you to 
 make them all laugh, every one of them." 
 
 " Impossible. Tell the story yourself." 
 
 t( No, they would not be half so well 
 satisfied with me. I cannot help- but think 
 it disobliging of you. Well ! if you will 
 not, I must ask Mr. Everard. He has done 
 already everything most kind. He has 
 been blindfolded while his hand was painted 
 to look like a face (he pretending all the 
 time that he did not know the trick of 
 it), and a crying doll's cap put on it, 
 and a long doll's dress over his arm. He 
 has played blind man's buff (letting himself 
 be caught over and over again) ; he has
 
 The Children 's Party. 26 1 
 
 danced with the smallest scraps of children 
 just because I asked him — I shall go to him 
 and tell him I want him for Stage Coach." 
 
 " I am quite willing to be outdone by 
 him, and to admit that he has the power of 
 adapting himself to children of the tenderest 
 age, while I am deficient ; but I object to 
 your interrupting his conversation with 
 your cousin to ask him. I will tell the 
 story. Just start me please, and give me 
 a few heads or leading points." 
 
 " Sit down, children, and name your- 
 selves," said Susie. 
 
 Then began a scramble for seats; marked 
 preferences and avoidances being shown 
 with an honesty cloaked in riper years, 
 and there was an overpowering chorus of 
 • treble voices, crying out, "I'll be the door," 
 — " I'll be the baby,"— " I'll be — " this, 
 that, and the other.
 
 262 Loving and Loth. 
 
 "Now," said Susie, indicating to Hunger- 
 ford a conspicuous chair in the centre of 
 the attentive circle, " now, you know, of 
 course, that you must begin by saying, 
 1 Once upon a time a Stage Coach was 
 going down hill — ' and after that the only 
 thing to do is to" — here came an interrup- 
 tion in the shape of Alice and Eugene 
 joining the circle, and having to have names 
 provided for them — " is to tell as funny a 
 story as you can think of, bringing in all 
 those words as often and as d roily as you 
 possibly can." 
 
 "Very well," said Eanicar. "Once upon 
 
 a time a Stage Coach was going downhill — 
 
 say on the Corniche Road." 
 
 Eugene looked swiftly away from Susie, 
 
 to whom he had begun talking, to the 
 
 obliteration of the child between himself 
 
 and her.
 
 The Children's Party. 263 
 
 " There were in this coach an old (or 
 young) maid ;" — (old maid gets up, twirls 
 itself like a teetotum, and subsides) — " a 
 crying baby, two or three more passengers, 
 a hamper — ." Here he enumerated the 
 imaginary contents of the coach, stringing 
 together a strange and subtle story; which, 
 if it did not amuse the children, caused 
 them to sit open-mouthed, straining their 
 little wits with an interest that made them 
 forget to twirl their small selves when their 
 name was mentioned. 
 
 The subtlety of the story lay in its 
 having interwoven with it facts pregnant 
 with distressful meaning to one mind pre- 
 sent. 
 
 Eugene, bound by conventional fetters 
 to sit still and listen, clenched his teeth so 
 hard that the joint of the jaw ached up 
 into his temple. It was almost unen-
 
 264 Loving and Loth. 
 
 durable that he should thus have recalled to 
 him the only time in his life when he had 
 suffered acutely, when he had had forced 
 to his lips a draught of self-contempt "bit- 
 terer to drink than blood." It was so ruse 
 on the part of Hungerford. It was like 
 finding an infernal machine in a child's toy. 
 He fixed his eyes resolutely on Kanicar 's 
 neck-tie, to convey the impression that he 
 was looking him in the face, which in reality 
 he was unable to do. For an instant he 
 looked away, glancing sideways at Susie, 
 and Susie's two grey eyes met his with an 
 expression of wondering perplexity, for 
 Susie had very quick perceptions, and 
 though she did not in the least under- 
 stand the tragic under- current of that 
 child's game, she was confounded by 
 a look in the faces of both men, who 
 were making the trivial play a medium
 
 The Children's Party. 265 
 
 for the expression of most virile ani- 
 mosity. 
 
 Eugene had never known before, that the 
 brother of the young and high-strung girl 
 who had not been able to bear a defeated 
 love, saw in him the destroyer of his sister's 
 happiness ; and that he should select so 
 strange a place and manner for making 
 him aware of his knowledge, filled him with 
 mortification, and angry wonder, and desire 
 of retaliation. He knew that it was the 
 expression of his own face that had com- 
 mitted him to Susie, and he felt an active 
 resentment against the man who had 
 arrayed masked enemies of words before 
 him to stab him in the dark, and force his 
 own lips and eyes to betray him. 
 
 Rani car's story drew to a close. There 
 was a finale of laughter and romping and con- 
 fusion, and the game of Stage-Coach was over.
 
 266 Loving and Loth. 
 
 "Did I do it well?" asked Ranicar of 
 Susie. 
 
 " No," she answered, frankly ; " the chil- 
 dren did not understand you. You were 
 making it serve some purpose of your own, 
 which I could not, of course, fathom, but I 
 think Mr. Everard did ; perhaps you meant 
 him to." 
 
 " You are remarkably keen-sighted. He 
 is a double-hearted fellow, Susie." The 
 last words were as the whirling straws that 
 betray the vortex. 
 
 "I had rather you did not tell me so, 
 even if it is your honest opinion of him," 
 she said, moving away. 
 
 He strode after her, and in his icy tone 
 of displeasure, more formidable than the 
 out-blazing of anger, said, " Why do you 
 shrink from hearing me tell you in confi- 
 dence what I know Everard to be ?"
 
 The Children's Party. 267 
 
 " Because," answered she, her hands 
 growing cold and tremulous, her voice un- 
 steady, " because he has something so win- 
 ning, so promising in his face " 
 
 "Promising!" repeated Eanicar, with 
 angry contemptuousness ; " no doubt; pro- 
 mising that which no woman ever finds 
 fulfilled. He is a man who is taken on 
 trust because his face and his smooth 
 tongue belie him. He is a man who makes 
 his own life enjoyable by defrauding others 
 of their capacity for enjoyment. You will 
 never hear me speak in this way of any 
 other fellow man, therefore give me your 
 belief ; and give me your obedience too, for 
 I am going to demand a promise from you 
 that in future you make a complete stranger 
 of Everard ; that there is to be no dancing 
 with him ; no riding, no walking in Ken- 
 sington Gardens. Your cousin tells me
 
 268 Loving and Loth. 
 
 that this morning you were walking there 
 with him, and that it was you who asked 
 him to come here to-night. Why did you 
 ask him ? Is his society so very agreeable, 
 so 'precious to you V 
 
 Susie's heart of hearts answered " Yes." 
 Susie's hitherto truthful tongue faltered 
 out " N-no, but she had always liked Mr. 
 Everard." 
 
 " You area child, and charitably childish 
 in your construction of things. Now give 
 me your word that from to-night you make 
 of Everard a stranger, who is to cross your 
 path as little as he crosses mine." 
 
 " Very well," said Susie, in a low tone, 
 " I will copy your way of treating him as 
 exactly as I can ; that will be most satisfac- 
 tory to you, of course." 
 
 There was something in her way of 
 speaking not at all satisfactory to him?
 
 The Children s Party. 269 
 
 He looked down at her with an air of angry 
 surprise. 
 
 " That is a singular way of answering," 
 he said. " I have never heard you speak in 
 that tone and manner before." 
 
 "Because I have never been asked before 
 to give such a promise," replied Susie, with 
 something like retort. " How you dislike 
 Mr. Everard !" 
 
 " If you saw his character as I see it, you 
 would understand that my dislike for him 
 was one of my claims to hatred of falsity." 
 
 " You are robbing him of every claim to 
 be liked." 
 
 " If there was any danger of your liking 
 him, I am glad that I am. Still another 
 thing, and then we will have done with 
 speaking of him. He is weak enough to be 
 always determined that his liking and ad- 
 fniration for a woman shall be justified by
 
 270 Loving and Loth. 
 
 having that woman the object of some other 
 mans preference. Where a selection has 
 been made by some one whose opinion he 
 values, he too selects, with a view to sup- 
 planting. He has never been known to 
 have any originality of choice until 
 now." 
 
 " Until now ?" repeated Susie, question- 
 ingly, and lifting up a face that had grown 
 crimson because of the sting contained in 
 his words. 
 
 " Yes ; until now. I have not heard of 
 any one but himself throwing away their 
 emotions on that weird and fiery creature, 
 the American Medium/' He had spoken 
 throughout to his young love as one having 
 authority ; but Susie, who would have ac- 
 cepted with meekness his dictum on other 
 less significant matters, chose to cleave still 
 to her simple belief in Eugene's clear blue
 
 The Children s Party. 271 
 
 eyes and unclouded features, his life-loving 
 smite and sympathetic voice. 
 
 " I thought him very nice the first time 
 I saw him, and I should not be surprised if 
 I always thought him so," she returned, 
 with innocent, inoffensive persistence. 
 
 " Very well ; I have placed him before 
 you in his true light. Keep to your own 
 childish and superficial judgment, if you 
 please, but maintain a consistent coldness 
 towards him, remember, for he is a man 
 whom you must not have for a friend. 
 Some day, when you are dearer and closer 
 to me even than now, I will sadden that 
 young heart of yours by telling you a story 
 of which he is the contemptible — hero. 
 Not now, not now. I see your lips parting 
 inquisitively. Would you like me to dance 
 one dance with you ? You think I must 
 ' know how perfectly — "
 
 272 Loving and Loth. 
 
 " I am tired," said Susie, shrinking away 
 from the arm that would have encircled her, 
 " and vou have not told me half of what 
 there must be to tell about mamma." 
 
 Here hands small but rough clutched 
 her ; voices all shrill, and trying to out- 
 speak one another, clamoured for her ; she 
 was hurried away into the next room, blind- 
 folded, and imprisoned within a circle of 
 small figures, a walking-stick in her hand ; 
 she was a child playing with children, and 
 Eanicar — a lonely man, whom the world had 
 tired — was left standing among the little 
 dancers (who sometimes stumbled against 
 him and jostled him), looking over their 
 heads at the wand-like figure of his love, 
 surrounded by a restless ring of children.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A MORNING WALK. 
 
 UT I have come expressly to 
 walk with you." 
 
 " Then you must go away 
 expressly not to walk with me." 
 "Why?" 
 " Because—" 
 
 The children's party was an affair of only 
 last night. It was the early hour of 10 
 a.m., and Ranicar, to whom breakfast at 
 nine and a walk afterwards ■ did not come 
 within the range of possibility, was at the 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 Loving and Loth. 
 
 moment asleep and dreaming. But Eugene 
 was broad awake and acting. 
 
 " ( Because you are engaged ' is the way 
 to end the sentence," I suppose ; " but I 
 don't find your engagement an argument 
 against my walking down this quiet alley 
 with you, a governess behind, two children 
 in front. I like watching children run 
 races." 
 
 " There are plenty of other children to 
 watch. " 
 
 " True," he answered, looking full at her, 
 " but I like, too, watching something else 
 of which there is but one in the world." 
 
 " It is always a pleasure to me to do 
 any little thing I can for people," said 
 Susie, completely putting aside his last 
 words. " Wait, children. As you are so 
 fond of seeing races run, I'll gratify you by 
 running one, to run away from you. One,
 
 A Morning Walk. 275 
 
 two, three, and away ! See if you can 
 catch me, Cora." 
 
 She ran off; a word or two of expostula- 
 tion reaching her from Miss Wix. 
 
 She was caught up with, but not by 
 Cora. Cora was seen coming panting to- 
 wards them, well distanced. 
 
 " I can be quite as young and frisky as 
 you are," said Eugene. 
 
 Susie looked very self-condemned as he 
 spoke, and, turning away from him, trans- 
 formed herself from a child to a woman, 
 walking with measured steps to meet Miss 
 Wix, with whom she came gravely back. 
 
 " I think," said little Miss Wix, with a 
 sense of what was becoming, " that we 
 will take a shorter walk than usual this 
 morning, as you were very tired last 
 night. Come, Miss Cora, we are going to 
 turn off here." 
 
 18—2
 
 276 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Eugene — whom to baffle was to energize 
 — felt himself dismissed. He said good- 
 morning with a bright smile, and walked 
 away to Swanburj Crescent. 
 
 " Mamma," said Alice, just before lunch- 
 eon, bursting into her mother's dressing- 
 room, with an Italian book under her arm, 
 " Susie ought not to be meeting Mr. 
 Everard in Kensington Gardens when she 
 is walking with Miss Wix and the children, 
 ought she V 
 
 Mrs. Willis turned her ground-glass eyes 
 with their dilated pupils on her daughter — 
 she was reading " Hesperia," and the inter- 
 ruption came to her as a sudden glare of 
 daylight upon a man groping underground 
 by lantern-light for treasure. 
 
 ' ' Does she meet him ?" said she, trying 
 to concentrate her faculties on the unim- 
 portant present of her niece.
 
 A Morning Walk. 277 
 
 " She meets him constantly. Cora told 
 me just now that she had met him this 
 morning. It is very wrong to Mr. Hunger- 
 ford, isn't it ? He ought to be told, I 
 think. Shall not you tell him, mamma V 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Willis, waving her hand 
 impatiently, " her mother will be in town 
 before long, and I shall be able to free my- 
 self of the responsibility of Susie. Your 
 Aunt Margaret will manage these things 
 for her, and see that Mr. Hungerford is 
 not improperly treated ; but I will say a 
 word to Susie about it." 
 
 " And you shall not tell Mr. Hunger- 
 ford r 
 
 " No. Go down, Alice, and tell Susie to 
 come up here to me. Don't come back 
 yourself, and shut the door gently." 
 
 " Do you want me, Aunt Adria ?" came 
 in Susie's young voice.
 
 278 Loving and Loth. 
 
 "Yes," replied Mrs. Willis, closing her 
 book on one finger ; " sit down. I merely 
 wish to say to you that I disapprove of Mr. 
 Everard joining you in your early walks 
 with the children. I hear that he is in the 
 habit of meeting you " 
 
 " Oh, no I" cried Susie, " only some- 
 times. I tried this morning to appear 
 annoyed. I think he saw it. I believe it 
 will prevent his coming again. " 
 
 " You had better give up your walks in 
 the morning if there is danger of your 
 meeting him." Mrs. Willis withdrew her 
 finger from the leaves of her book. " I 
 hope," she said, " that you have not 
 entered too lightly on your engagement. 
 That you questioned your real self —your 
 soul — before you gave your promise to him. 
 It is only for earth-life, certainly, that you 
 have agreed to be his ; but it is a pro- 
 bationary stage, this earth-life, and we
 
 A Morning Walk. 279 
 
 must not trail the wings of our divine 
 indweller, the soul, in the dust of unjust, 
 underhand, or pusillanimous actions. 
 Where is the beautiful ring that you 
 showed me last night ? Why is it not 
 where he placed it, my dear ?" 
 
 She had taken Susie's left hand in hers, 
 and was looking into her niece's face with 
 some warmth of interest. 
 
 "It is so terribly handsome and valu- 
 able/' murmured Susie, blushing. " I am 
 going to put it on when I dress for 
 dinner." 
 
 " But Mr. Hungerford is to lunch here ; 
 he will be here now at any moment. 
 What will he think to see that you have 
 taken off the gage d* amour he has just 
 given you V 
 
 As she spoke these words, Susie com- 
 prehended for the first time what her aunt 
 must have been like in the young days
 
 280 Loving and Loth. 
 
 when she disobeyed her parents and 
 married Mr. Willis. 
 
 "I'll go and put it on," she answered, 
 indifferently, and at this moment the sound 
 of the knocker was heard. 
 
 " Lucy," said Alice, who was in the 
 school-room with her sisters, a room behind 
 the dining-room, from whose door the front 
 hall was visible, " peep out and see if that 
 
 is Mr. Hungerford. Cora," she continued 
 
 * 
 when the little one's back was turned, 
 
 " Susie and I want you to tell Mr. Hunger- 
 ford that Mr. Everard was walking with 
 you in Kensington Gardens this morning 
 again." 
 
 "He was running races with us," 
 amended Cora. 
 
 " Very well, tell him that. Don't forget, 
 and I'll give you that little tatting-case of 
 mine, which looks like a porte-monnaie."
 
 A Morning Walk. 281 
 
 " Will you ? Indeed, then I shan't for- 
 get Ally, I'll tell him the minute I see 
 him." 
 
 Alice made no reply ; hurrying from the 
 room upstairs to her own. 
 
 Hardly were they seated at the luncheon 
 table, before Cora, in a round, clear voice, 
 burst out : — 
 
 " Mr. Everard was running races with 
 us this morning in Kensington Gardens, 
 Mr. Hungerford." 
 
 " Was he ? With you and your little 
 sister T 
 
 "Yes ; with Lucy and Susie and me." 
 
 " Ah \" said Eanicar, unmoved. " And 
 who won ?" 
 
 " Oh ! Susie and Mr. Everard. I 
 shouldn't have been so far behind if Lucy 
 hadn't tumbled down, and I stopped to 
 pick her up. I wish I hadn't."
 
 282 Loving and Loth. 
 
 Ranicar, with admirable self-control, cast 
 not a glance at Susie, and refrained from 
 the faintest show of annoyance. Only 
 seeming to think that speaking of running- 
 races in the early morning led up to the 
 subject of early rising and its effects on 
 character and constitution. 
 
 Susie listened with an unburthened con- 
 science for which her lover did not give 
 credit, joining in the conversation gaily. 
 
 Poor child ! Although she would not 
 admit it to herself, the very fact of 
 Eugene's caring to seek her, caring to walk 
 with her, choosing to tell her that there 
 was only one face like hers in the world, 
 and that it pleased him to watch it, eased 
 her heart of its secret trouble, leaving only 
 a vague misgiving to torment her still. 
 
 After luncheon the Willis family dis- 
 persed this way and that like rays of the
 
 A Morning Walk. 283 
 
 rising sun. Only Susie and Ranicar were 
 left in the drawing-room. 
 
 Susie sat on the arm of a large chair 
 whose cushion was occupied by Charlie. 
 She was drawing his long silken ears 
 through her fingers ; Ranicar's ring flashed 
 on one of them. 
 
 " Susie/' Hungerford began at once, " is 
 this the way that you yield to my wishes, 
 and carry out your own words in which I 
 put my trust V' 
 
 " You mean about Mr. Everard I suppose," 
 said Susie, bluntly. She disdained the shal- 
 low evasion of pretended misunderstanding. 
 "I was rather sorry to see him," she con- 
 tinued, "and I told him to go. Then I ran 
 a race with the children, not for him to run 
 too, but to run away from him." 
 
 "I wish," said Hungerford, frowning, 
 " that I could share these early walks with
 
 284 Loving and Loth. 
 
 you ; but I am a very poor sleeper, and the 
 morning hours are the only ones I cannot 
 spare to you out of my whole day. But if 
 Everard has the bad taste ever again to 
 force his presence on you, you are to give 
 them up. I prohibit them." 
 
 Ci Oh, but the children will be so miser- 
 able ! Why, they will hardly go now with- 
 out me." 
 
 "Nonsense. You understand you are to 
 give them up. Susie," he went on, clasping 
 the hand and the spaniel's ears that it would 
 not relinquish, "you would have told me 
 voluntarily that you had seen Everard this 
 morning, would you not V 
 
 " No," said Susie, with the utmost deci- 
 sion; "I should not really. I was so afraid 
 that you might be angry, and I cannot 
 bear to be scolded for what is not a bit my 
 fault."
 
 A Morning Walk. 285 
 
 " Have I scolded you, my little love ?" 
 
 "No," answered Susie; "you have spoken 
 quietly enough to me, but why should you 
 not ? I have done nothing." 
 
 He pushed away the little dog, and 
 seating himself in its place, clasped Susie, 
 looking tenderly up into her face. She very 
 coldly and shyly looked on the ground, and 
 swayed away from him as far as possible. 
 
 " Oh !" she exclaimed, breaking the 
 silence suddenly, while her expression grew 
 bright and animated, "Mamma is coming 
 up sooner than she intended. She will be 
 here a week from yesterday ; Aunt Adria 
 has got her rooms in Clarges Street, and I 
 am going to her. I am so glad ! Aunt 
 Adria is very kind indeed, but she seems 
 to have taken a vow not to care for the 
 trivial things of every-day life ; and we all — 
 I mean Uncle Willis and Alice and I and
 
 286 Loving and Loth. 
 
 the children — come under that head. I 
 suppose she is progressing, but every day 
 we go back a little bit. Every day Cora 
 gets more pert, and Lucy more shy and 
 fonder of jam, and a greater cry-baby. 
 And Uncle Willis is more and more in the 
 city, and Miss Wix and the servants get 
 more careless, and Alice grows vainer ; and 
 as for me, I do exactly what I please, and 
 nobody seems to notice." 
 
 " But I shall see that you ' please ' to 
 do nothing against my wishes, so I am sa- 
 tisfied/' After this there were things said 
 which were as gall to her, as honey to 
 him. 
 
 Her air of being on the defensive amused 
 him; her small repulses he thought piquant; 
 he found a delicious coyness in what was 
 really a cold avoidance of his caresses. The 
 -averted | cheek, the lowered eyelid, the half-
 
 A Morning Walk. 287 
 
 frowning eyebrow, allured him more than 
 all frank assurances of love given in tender 
 glance, in soft smile, in head inclined to- 
 wards him, would have done. These were 
 not unknown to him. 
 
 There is nothing more blind than a sa- 
 tiated man of the world when he wooes a 
 very young girl, who, proud of her conquest, 
 and self-pleased with her great achievement, 
 is loth to relinquish that which stings her 
 small grasp. 
 
 There is strength in the very laxity of 
 her half-willing hold. Nothing fetters a 
 man so securely to a woman as a sense of 
 freedom from bondage ; and this sense he 
 must have if she is perfectly unexacting ; 
 if she demands no time, no promises, no 
 assurances, no confessions, no confidences, 
 no sacrifices ; and none of these things did 
 Susie demand. Taking whatever her lover
 
 288 Loving and Loth. 
 
 chose to give her with a calm acquiescence 
 that had nothing of expectancy in it, no- 
 thing of the jealous exaction, the ever 
 claiming appetite of vanity that Hunger- 
 ford had always considered would be a tax 
 on his slender stock of tolerance and pa- 
 tience. 
 
 "Are you happy?" he asked suddenly, 
 touching the thick plaits of her hair. 
 
 " Oh, I am perfectly satisfied," she an- 
 swered with a smile, but turning her eyes 
 away from him and fixing them on the toe 
 of a little velvet slipper thrust out prepense 
 to serve her eyes. 
 
 He thought her manner at this moment 
 full of quaint coquetry, and looked admir- 
 ingly at the fascinating grace of her posi- 
 tion and bend of the head. 
 
 "Why don't you say 'perfectly happy, 
 Eanicar ; you have never called me by my 
 name."
 
 A Morning Walk. 289 
 
 " I could not ; it is such a very unusual 
 ■one. I don't like unusual names — in 
 books." 
 
 "Come," he said with rather a vexed 
 laugh, " That c in books ' was an after 
 thought. You meant that you did not like 
 unusual names simply. Call me Car then ; 
 my sister used to call me that." 
 
 " It is short and easy to say, certainly,' ' 
 murmured Susie. "I will say it over aloud 
 to myself when I am alone, and then per- 
 haps I shall learn to call you so. Get down, 
 Charles, you are in the way." 
 
 " This is your cousin's dog, is it not ?" 
 
 " Yes ; Mr. Everard gave it to her, and 
 I was with him when he got it ; I did not 
 know it at the time though." 
 
 " When and where was that V asked 
 Hungerford, involuntarily letting the lids 
 
 vol. i. 19
 
 290 Loving and Loth. 
 
 fall over his eyes until their burning light 
 was concentrated to two fiery sparks. 
 
 "Down at Beaucome. We had been 
 lunching with his uncle, and after luncheon 
 I went for a drive with him." 
 
 " Alone ¥' 
 
 " Yes. Mamma told him to be sure and 
 not let me get out and scratch my hands 
 and tear my frock, I remember ;" with a 
 low laugh. 
 
 " Then you knew him very well down in 
 Eeaucome V 
 
 " No, I had not time ; he was only there 
 two days." 
 
 " Susie, why does this speaking of Eve- 
 rard affect the circulation of your blood? 
 A moment ago you were pale, and now you 
 are the colour of your coral beads." 
 
 His voice was quite low and even, but 
 some influence in it, or in the guarded
 
 A Morning Walk. 291 
 
 anger of his face made Susie regret her 
 gratuitous frankness. 
 
 " If I am flushed," she answered, " it is 
 because fire will scorch ; I am sitting too 
 near it. Let me move, please." 
 
 "And you were not going to tell me 
 that he walked with you this morning ? or 
 did I misunderstand you ? I hope I mis- 
 understood you ; it would not have been 
 like your usual honesty (one of your 
 chief charms to me) not to have told 
 me." 
 
 "You did not misunderstand me. I 
 was not going to tell you'; I]explained to 
 you why." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Ranicar, looking at her 
 less unfavourably, " in your admission 
 that you did not intend telling me, there 
 should be enough candour to satisfy 
 
 me." 
 
 19—2
 
 292 Loving and Loth. 
 
 She did not answer, and again his face 
 darkened as he watched her. 
 
 Alice, in her mischievous, malicious play, 
 had done much to hasten the coming of the 
 " little rift within the lute." 
 
 " Susie," said Hungerford, abruptly, " I 
 think you understand that I am not a sub- 
 ject for even the most innocent coquetries 
 to be practised on." 
 
 " No," she replied with some spirit. " I 
 understand you hardly at all. You are so 
 much beyond me in age and wisdom and 
 cleverness, that I cannot know what you 
 wish me to say and do, unless you tell me 
 in so many words." When she reached the 
 end of her speech the spirited tone had 
 died away into one of the meekest con- 
 ciliation. 
 
 " You know my wishes about Everard," 
 he answered ; " and though you tell me in
 
 A Morning Walk 293 
 
 such an ingratiating way that you will 
 order your actions by my words, yet 
 I know that you are too self-willed to 
 submit to much dictation even from me. 
 There, do not pout and frown, becoming as 
 it is to you. Come to the piano, and sing 
 me one song before I go. I have an en- 
 gagement at five/' 
 
 When Alice Willis went to her room 
 that night, she saw a document of imposiug 
 dimensions pinned on her pincushion. She 
 opened it, and found within the blank page 
 of a copy-book, which was its enclosure,, 
 another torn-out page of a copy-book em- 
 bellished with angular letters of monstrous 
 size forming this excellent maxim : " Pro- 
 crastination is the thief of time." Under
 
 294 Loving and Loth, 
 
 it came in the same angular letters a trifle 
 smaller : 
 
 "My dear Alice, 
 
 " Do not forget to give me the tat- 
 ting-case. 
 
 " Your affectionate sister, 
 "Cora Le Marchant Willis." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, POINTERS, GUILDFOED, SUEEEY.
 
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