II B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 U N IVERSITY 
 Of 1LLI NOIS 
 
 823) 
 St 92.2 1
 
 TRUE WOMEN 
 
 A fob* Stag. 
 
 BY 
 
 KATHARINE STUART. 
 
 " Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend." 
 
 Pope — Essay on Criticism. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 SAMUEL TINSLEY, 
 o, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1877. 
 
 (All Rights Reserved.)
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/truewomenlovesto01stua
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 ? ■ 
 
 (Y3 
 
 CO 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 I. MKS. BLIGHT AND HER BURDEN 1 
 
 II. POOR CHRISTINA LONG 12 
 
 III. "and all UNCHARITABLENESS " - - 28 
 
 IV. OUT IN THE FRESH AIR - - - - 38 
 V. SIBYL LORAINE 51 
 
 VI. THE DRIVE TO LYNN 59 
 
 VII. DELIVER US FROM EVIL 75 
 
 VIII. FOR DAYS AND DAYS — FOR EVER - - - 86 
 
 IX. THE REVEREND MATTHEW TRAILL - - - 99 
 
 X. OH WOMAN! WOMAN ! Ill) 
 
 XI. ONE OF THE GANG - - - - - - 119 
 
 XII. HOW FRIENDSHIP GREW - - - - - 134 
 
 XIII. THE BEAUTY OF PENDRILLS - - - - 144 
 
 XIV. THE OLD DEAN - - - - - - 153 
 
 XV. THE LADY OF THE MANOR - 165
 
 iv Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVI. "he was in the divorce court " - - 175 
 
 XVII. WHAT MRS. LORAINE WENT TO GREYMINSTER 
 
 FOR ... - - - 186 
 
 XVIII. LADY VANSITTART'S GARDEN PARTY - - 206 
 
 XIX. "I WILL STAND THIS NO LONGER" - - 224 
 
 XX. "'NOBODY AXED YOU, SIR, 5 SHE SAID" - 241
 
 TRUE WOMEN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MRS. BLIGHT AND HER BURDEN. 
 
 Trust not yourself ; but your defects to know, 
 Make use of every friend — and every foe. 
 
 Pope (Essay on Criticism). 
 
 " A most unhappy woman" Mrs. Blight called 
 herself, and as a most unhappy woman we 
 present her to our readers. 
 
 Not because her means were smaller than 
 those of most of her neighbours whom she de- 
 tested ; nor because she was the mother of 
 four plain daughters and two unruly, idle sons ; 
 
 vol. i. 1
 
 True Women. 
 
 nor even because she was a widow ; but be- 
 cause her nature was of that hopeless, unhappy 
 kind which could only put the worst construc- 
 tion upon the thoughts, words, and deeds of 
 her fellow-creatures. 
 
 Her nature knew not the blessed influences 
 of Hope, Faith, and Charity ; and, wanting 
 these influences — the three true graces of 
 Christian womanhood — her career was of ne- 
 cessity a ceaseless struggle with untoward cir- 
 cumstances and mortifying mistakes. Mrs. 
 Blight was indeed a most unhappy woman. 
 
 As a young girl, Martha Eliza Grundy had 
 seemed reserved only, and slightly suspicious 
 of her fellow -creatures. But as a wife, with 
 more opportunity of showing her true nature, 
 her hopeless distrust developed rapidly ; and 
 the cares of a family brought out her despairing 
 hopelessness in all its appalling repulsiveness. 
 She never rested, nor let those about her 
 rest. She never knew the sweet repose of
 
 Mrs. Blight and her Burden. 3 
 
 folding her hands when weary, while thinking 
 that every one about her was doing their best. 
 
 In the pithy descriptions of her dependents, 
 she was te that dreadfid suspicious " at home, 
 and " an awful worrit " to such sufferers as 
 poverty or sickness had placed at her mercy. 
 
 " Twins to start with, and four more in five 
 years ; and Dr. Blight sick upon my hands 
 the whole time," was wretched Mrs. Blight's 
 mysterious record of her early married life. 
 
 We know of but one fate to equal it — one 
 that stands out so clearly from the mists of 
 heroic antiquity, that it seems to belong to 
 our own experiences, though we seldom use 
 its moral as well as we might. 
 
 We allude to the story of Pandora, with all 
 her best gifts and graces turned to evils and 
 let loose upon her at her inauspicious nuptials. 
 Few of us try to realise how bravely she bore 
 up, with Hope alone left at the bottom of her 
 rifled casket.
 
 rue 
 
 Women. 
 
 The fable is worthy the attention of every 
 married woman, but especially of every one 
 who finds herself and her good gifts wasted on 
 an uncongenial spouse. We trust that to each 
 such sufferer a little prattlingPyrrha may bring 
 Love to the aid of Hope, and soothe the aching 
 heart and weary hours. 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Blight had never heard of 
 Pandora, the heroic Eve of heathen history ; 
 at any rate, she had smothered Hope at the 
 very outset of her married life ; and from that 
 moment everything went wrong with her ; and 
 then her increasing family, and Dr. Blight's 
 long illness, were only what might have been 
 expected. 
 
 There are sorrows that are sacred ; and our 
 pen shrinks from describing Dr. Blight's long 
 penance, and the miseries of his married life, 
 chained as he was to that hopeless and uneasy 
 body : a body devoid, figuratively speaking, 
 of all soul.
 
 Mrs. Blight and her Burden. 5 
 
 Bat Mrs. Blight as a wife was harmless, com- 
 pared to Mrs. Blight as a widow. 
 
 On Dr. Blight's death the worst traits of 
 her character developed themselves with a 
 rapidity known only to malignant diseases. 
 There was now no antidote to her poison, and 
 she became truly the scourge of her neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 Dr. Blight had been the true friend as well 
 as medical adviser of most of his opulent neigh- 
 bours, and the untiring benefactor of such as 
 were needy. 
 
 His gentle, compassionate sympathy for all 
 sin and suffering insured him a welcome in 
 every house ; and the tears shed by all classes 
 of his patients blinded both rich and poor for 
 a time to their chief danger in losing him. 
 
 Before the first burst of cordial condolence 
 with his family had died away, his widow had 
 forced herself afresh on the toleration of the 
 many ; and upon the timidity of a few she
 
 True Women. 
 
 had imposed herself as an authority in his 
 place. 
 
 Her visits were searching and terrible to all. 
 She spared neither sex nor age, gentle nor 
 simple. 
 
 Her onslaughts were against human nature 
 in general, and her weapons triple-edged, and 
 poisoned with Envy, Hatred, and Malice. 
 " It was no use for any of her neighbours to 
 try to conceal anything from her," she said ; 
 she could " see into the very depths of their 
 deceitfulness." She could " sift people's con- 
 sciences to their very dregs." And from those 
 dregs, conjured up by her cruel suspicions, she 
 forthwith proceeded to judge them, and, with 
 the help of an ultra -pious friend, Mrs. 
 MacBeggah Tweedy, a widow almost as hope- 
 less and desperate as herself, to publish their 
 conviction to society at large. 
 
 It was not to be expected that Mrs. Blight 
 kept what she considered her proper position
 
 Mrs. Blight and her Burden. 7 
 
 in the parish, of Rippleford without super- 
 human, struggles, and many a sad blow. 
 
 Some of her neighbours kept all their 
 patience for Dr. Blight's orphans, and snubbed 
 his widow courageously. 
 
 One saucy young beauty openly declared 
 she " would as soon think of taking an artist's 
 lay figure for her guide, philosopher, and 
 friend as Mrs. Blight ! It would have quite 
 as much heart," she said, laughing, " and look 
 quite as motherly 1" And her hearers found 
 that those few saucy words described admir- 
 ably their own unspoken impressions of their 
 hard and heartless neighbour. 
 
 Sooner than endure the misery of living 
 with her, Mrs. Blight's son-in-law, Mr. 
 Stephen Long, had thrown up her husband's 
 wide-spread and excellent family practice. 
 Indeed the unhappy young man had fled 
 from home, and deserted his wife ; and this 
 most unhappy young wife, Christina Long,
 
 True Women. 
 
 was the eldest of Mrs. Blight's twins, and 
 the chief weight of Mrs. Blight's burden. 
 
 The eldest of the unwelcomed twins. A 
 small, pale, graceful, and gentle creature; called 
 by the servants and the poor, who alone knew 
 her, "the very image of her father!" and said by 
 them to inherit his patience, his kind heart, and 
 tender toleration for the weakness of others. 
 
 If Dr. Blight's life had been spared, his 
 poor little Christina's fate would have been 
 brighter. The young people married with 
 his hearty consent. He thought highly of 
 Stephen Long, the son of an old friend, and 
 his own favourite and steady assistant ; and 
 what match could have been more fitting for 
 his quiet, domestic little daughter ? 
 
 " Stay and help me, Stephen," he urged 
 with frank cordiality. " Take the place of an 
 elder son, and don't rob me of my daughter, 
 there's a good fellow." 
 
 And Stephen Long, feeling strong and
 
 Mrs. Blight and her Burden. 9 
 
 hopeful, had responded to his father-in-law's 
 hand-clasp by a hearty promise to repay his 
 kindness as an honest man should. And for 
 a time who so happy as the Doctor in watch- 
 ing his pale girl grow into a rosy and almost 
 pretty woman ! 
 
 . But after the good Doctors death, poor 
 Stephen Long's affairs went wrong. 
 
 In hopes of getting away from the home 
 Mrs. Blight now made unbearable to him, 
 and of making money and an independence 
 rapidly, Stephen was tempted to join a friend 
 in taking a farm. 
 
 They failed, of course, and Stephens small 
 patrimony was lost ; and he found himself 
 saddled with the debts of a dishonest partner, 
 for so the friend turned out. 
 
 Owing to Mrs. Blight's unhappy failing of 
 making the worst of everything, an unfair 
 share of blame and even discredit fell upon 
 Stephen Long in his trouble.
 
 10 True Women. 
 
 The young people were forced to accept the 
 grudged hospitality (we cannot find a more 
 appropriate term to describe the shelter given 
 to them) of Mrs. Blight for one half of the 
 year, and of Mrs. Long, Stephen's mother, for 
 the other half. What each of the married 
 pair had in turn to bear from their mothers- 
 in-law is easier imagined than described. 
 
 At the end of little more than two years 
 from Dr. Blight's death, Stephen Long dis- 
 appeared, and if only a tenth part of what 
 Mrs. Blight stated were true, Christina should 
 have rejoiced to be rid of him ! But poor 
 Chrissy lay at the point of death, fretting for 
 a little infant whose face she had never seen ; 
 while her mother proclaimed aloud its fathers 
 iniquities, and her mother-in-law asserted as 
 loudly, 
 
 " She has no heart ! for she is every inch 
 a Blight !" 
 
 It was a sad stor} 7 , but a very short one — the
 
 Mrs. Blight and her Burden. 11 
 
 story of a ruined, reckless man, and a broken- 
 hearted woman, and a little baby's grave 
 without a name in the corner of Eippleford 
 churchyard, which was u kept and cared for," 
 and planted with tiny, unpretending wild 
 flowers by loving but invisible hands.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 POOR CHRISTINA LOXG. 
 
 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick ; but when the 
 desire cometh, it is as a tree of life. — Proverbs xiii. 12. 
 
 Shortly before his death Dr. Blight had paid 
 a visit to a dear and far-off cousin, and it was 
 said had charged her to be kind to his poor 
 girls if they ever needed a true friend. And 
 this lady, who his wife declared had "jilted 
 him in his foolish days, to say no worse of the 
 double-faced thing," on hearing of Christina 
 Long's piteous condition and rapidly failing- 
 health, after two years' weary separation from 
 her husband, had hastened to fulfil her pro- 
 mise to her kinsman.
 
 Poor Christina Long. 13 
 
 " My dears," Mrs. Bird said to her last- 
 married daughter and son-in-law, who lived 
 with her — " a man after her own heart/' Mrs. 
 Bird called him — " My dears, here is a letter 
 from Mary Blight that I must answer in 
 person. She should have written it months 
 ago, in my opinion ; but now it has come I 
 will not let the grass grow under my feet, or 
 waste a day in talking over what is to be 
 done. Hear what she says." She read them 
 Marys letter. " Suppose I bring poor Chris- 
 tina Long home with me for change of air, 
 while we devise some plan for restoring her to 
 a home of her own again. Poor unhappy 
 girl. What do you say, Frank T 
 
 Frank being a man of few words, just 
 looked up approvingly from his Gardeners 
 Chronicle, smiled, and said : 
 
 "Go." 
 
 And his wife having given her consent 
 with a sympathetic kiss and words of encou-
 
 14 True Women. 
 
 ragement, Mrs. Bird packed up and departed, 
 eager with loving-kindness, strong in the 
 remembrance of her old cousin's trust. 
 
 Mrs. Bird was a beaming, kindly little 
 woman, whom unceasing efforts to do good 
 alone kept from growing as broad as she was 
 long. 
 
 She was for ever called by pet names by 
 people who persisted in claiming relationship 
 with her, as " Auntie " Bird, "Sis" Bird, or 
 " Granny " Bird ; and to these claims she 
 responded heartily, having love for a million 
 at least, as it seemed, in her warm and ever 
 active heart. 
 
 Old Age himself seemed to be smitten with 
 her tender, unselfish, trusting nature ; he 
 carried his frosts and his snows, his aches and 
 his pains past her, and left her as rosy and 
 as brown-haired and bright-eyed as her 
 daughters ; while he gave her an almost 
 patriarchal group of descendants to mark
 
 Poor Christina Long. 15 
 
 to her in his gentlest way how fast the time 
 was flying. 
 
 The loss of her dearly-loved husband, Mrs. 
 Bird spoke of as her one sorrow ; and even 
 that was borne bravely, for she looked 
 upon death as the beginning, not the end of 
 life! 
 
 " Every day brings me nearer to him," she 
 used to say, with a hope of an eternal reunion 
 which a weak-eyed young curate strove in 
 vain to damp or daunt with fears of a more 
 humble and orthodox nature. 
 
 Every one of us fails in grace one way or 
 another ; and Mrs. Bird, as a widow, could 
 form no definite idea of a heaven in which 
 she should not find again the best man she 
 had known on earth, and she said so frankly 
 to Mr. Stole. 
 
 " My dears," she would say to her children, 
 with a mixture of indignation and humour 
 that was characteristic of what she called her
 
 16 True Women. 
 
 battles royal with that melancholy and half- 
 starved young man, "what more can that 
 poor, silly young fellow know of heaven or of 
 the Creator's hidden will than I do ? If God 
 ever blesses him with a wife and children of 
 his own, let him come and talk to me then, 
 and I will listen to him, and give him good 
 advice, and nourishing food into the bargain, 
 for I declare I do not believe he ever has half 
 enough to eat." 
 
 And Mrs. Bird's belief was shown in end- 
 less gifts of good things, that she " supposed a 
 young bachelor had no means of procuring 
 without more trouble than they were worth." 
 Fresh-laid eggs, sausages, and home-cured 
 bacon for the hungry-looking high-church 
 hermit's breakfast. Game, fowls, corned 
 pork, and good port wine many times in the 
 3^ear, for the frail body's creature-comfort after 
 his zealous ministrations among the poor. 
 And at Christmas, Mrs. Bird's christian help
 
 Poor Christina Long, 17 
 
 was poured out to the poor curate with a 
 liberality that, at last, left him no possibility 
 of doubting her devotion to the church, and 
 healed all the breaches between them with a 
 sovereign balm. 
 
 If Mrs. Bird had any other fault than want 
 of faith — in the curate — it was in a reckless 
 manner of dealing with the good things of 
 this life without scruple, and without the 
 slightest pretence of charity. When remon- 
 strated with, she invariably explained her 
 actions to be the promptings of her own con- 
 science, regretting much that her neighbours 
 should not understand them. 
 
 She could not enjoy her many blessings, she 
 avowed, unless she used and shared them. 
 But as for taking any credit for generosity, — 
 that she gave the credit of alone to the poor 
 and needy, who denied themselves in helping 
 others ! 
 
 Mrs. Bird was certainly not orthodox. Her 
 
 vol. I. 2
 
 ] 8 True Women. 
 
 whole blameless life had not one particle of 
 profession in it, and she refused to all men 
 the right of dictating to her the mode in 
 which her religious belief should show it- 
 self. 
 
 Mrs. Bird's children and children's children 
 had come to believe that her religion consisted 
 in doing courageously, and with untiring zeal, 
 the duties that fell to her daily share. It 
 seemed, indeed, as if she was helped and sup- 
 ported by a hidden strength and guide. A 
 blessing followed the work of her hands ; and 
 the verse of the sweet Psalmist, " Eschew 
 evil and do good : seek peace, and ensue it,"' 
 she seemed for ever to hear and obey. 
 
 No wonder that Dr. Blight should have 
 turned his thoughts towards this warm- 
 hearted, and ready-handed, motherly cousin, 
 when he thought of his approaching separation 
 from his own daughters, and longed to secure 
 her interest for them in time of need.
 
 Poor Christina Long. 19 
 
 The time for concealment had passed ; it 
 was no breach of married confidence or loyalty 
 if now he owned to part of the wretchedness 
 of his life, and the haunting dread of his 
 death, for the sake of the girls so soon to be 
 left forlorn and fatherless. 
 
 What passed between Mrs. Bird and her 
 old friend not even her daughters ever knew. 
 But the leave-taking was remembered as one 
 of the saddest that the porch of Mrs. Bird's 
 sunny dwelling had ever held. Tears were 
 in Mrs. Bird's eyes as she kissed the haggard 
 face bent down to receive this silent seal to 
 the promises no child even had heard, And 
 the bent and aged-looking " playfellow " of 
 the rosy woman who kissed him with tears 
 in her eyes, went his way silently. He had 
 no heart even to respond to the kindly words 
 of his other relations ; his last look was to 
 the friend to whom he had at last confessed 
 the long hidden miseries of his life. 
 
 2—2
 
 20 True Women. 
 
 And at last one of Mrs. Blight's unhappy 
 daughters had written to ask Mrs. Bird's 
 advice and help. The twin sister of the un- 
 happy Christina Long had called her to come 
 to their aid. 
 
 " Oh ! Cousin Bird," poor Mary Blight had 
 written ; " If you cannot help us, I feel sure 
 my darling will die ! Do not think me wild 
 to write this. Come and see for yourself." 
 
 When Mrs. Bird alighted at the staring 
 ' White House ' at the cross roads of Bipple- 
 ford, after a journey of two hundred miles, 
 she was as fresh as when she left home. 
 As fresh as a rose, or a lark, or any other 
 emblem of nature's brightness and joy. 
 
 Never was her advent more welcome than 
 now. " Christina was in bed with one of her 
 headaches," Mrs. Blight reported with an 
 aggrieved air in place of a sympathetic 
 sorrow. " She will neither eat nor speak. 
 There she lies on her bed, as white as the
 
 Poor Christina Long, 21 
 
 sheets, with her eyes shut. If you open the 
 shutters to look at her, she turns her face 
 away, and you can see the pulses in her throat 
 go throb, throb, throb ! I am sure I can't tell 
 what ails her. Dr. Floyd says it is a mind 
 diseased. A nice kind of physician he is, to 
 hint such a thing and not try to cure her, or 
 tell me what I ought to do. I am sure, the 
 burden that girl has been to me from the day 
 she was born ! Teething to begin with, and 
 measles, worse than all the others put together, 
 and then her marriage! and now this silent 
 sickness, as I call it. If you can rouse 
 her, and get her to go with you for change 
 of air, I'm sure I shall be as glad as any 
 body." 
 
 " Cousin Bird," Mary whispered, with an 
 almost hysterical hug on the landing, outside 
 the invalid sisters door, "how good of you to 
 come at once ! But I fear nobody can help 
 us ! Nobody ! It is all grief at Stephens
 
 22 True Women. 
 
 cruel silence ! He sends her money from time 
 to time, but not a word with it ! I found her, 
 the day I wrote to you, in a dead faint, with 
 one of these letters and all sorts of his little 
 keepsakes, and the clothes she had prepared 
 for the poor little baby in her lap and on the 
 floor ; and since then she has never complained, 
 but I see that the pain is terrible !" 
 
 Mrs. Bird put her arm round the poor loving 
 sister who told this simple story of Christina's 
 grief, and kissed her silently ; and the girl held 
 back the sobs that were so hardly controlled, 
 and spoke again: 
 
 "If you could only find out where Stephen 
 is, and write him word. All she wants is to 
 know he is well and happy — not money !" 
 
 " My dear," then said Mrs. Bird, " let me 
 see Chrissy and give her a kiss, and tell her 
 all I know of Stephen. He is well, and, I 
 firmly believe, means well, and all will come 
 right in time."
 
 Poor Christina Long. 23 
 
 Mrs. Bird passed gently into the darkened 
 room, and stole her way across to Christina 
 Long's little narrow white bed — a world too 
 wide, small as it was, for the reed-like figure 
 lying on it. The poor girl heard the soft 
 footfall beside her sister's, and strove to raise 
 her head. 
 
 " Don't move, don't move, my dear !" was 
 whispered in the visitor's most caressing tones. 
 " I have only come to give you a kiss, and 
 give you a little good news ; when you are 
 better we will talk more together." 
 
 The kiss was silently given and as silently 
 returned, while Mary noiselessly placed a chair 
 for their friend close by the bed, that Christina 
 might still hold the hand she had taken into 
 her own with a convulsive clasp. 
 
 " I heard quite by chance of Stephen lately," 
 Mrs. Bird said, gently and slowly, after a few 
 moments' pause. " He was well, and is gaining 
 quite a reputation as a doctor again in Trinidad.
 
 24 True Women. 
 
 Trust me, my dear, your sorrow and his shall 
 pass away. All will come right in time !" 
 
 Here a great sobbing cry burst from pcor 
 Christina. " Oh, my heart, my heart !" she 
 cried, and she put her head on Mrs. Bird's 
 soft arm, and wept and wept as a tired child 
 on its mother's breast. 
 
 " Well ! did you say ? and well thought of? 
 
 Oh, Stephen ! my Stephen ! How could I 
 
 Mary ! Mary ! mamma must be wrong ! Oh, 
 forgive what I say ! It was all, all my fault, 
 Cousin Bird ! Papa would never have let me 
 believe anything against Stephen ! He was 
 so honest and true, papa called him Mastiff 
 Long !" 
 
 " Let her cry, Mary, and pour out all her 
 trouble,'' Mrs. Bird said, to reassure the trem- 
 bling girl, who was frightened by this unusual 
 outburst of Christina's pent-up woe. " She 
 will be better afterwards. She has played the 
 Spartan long enough. I never knew any
 
 Poor Christina Long. 25 
 
 woman the better yet for allowing a fox to 
 gnaw her body or mind. Let her cry." 
 
 " Dear cousin, has anyone seen Stephen? 
 Tell me all, dear cousin. My heart feels 
 starved J 7 
 
 "And so does Stephen's, my dear, I feel 
 sure. But they shall both be fed, my dear, 
 and filled with honest love once more, before 
 I shall feel that I have kept my promise to your 
 poor father. But now you must rest, my 
 child, and then take a little food, and then try 
 to sleep ; and to-morrow we will lay our heads 
 together, how to get at Stephen. He must be 
 brought home, or you must be taken out to 
 him. But you must tell me of your trouble 
 from the very beginning, or I shall not know 
 how best to help you." 
 
 " Shall I bring her some tea, Cousin Bird ?" 
 
 " Tea, my dear Mary ! Bring her a little 
 wine and water and a bit of toast, unless you 
 can get her half a cupful of soup. No tea, if
 
 26 True Women 
 
 I can help it. A little strong soup, or roast 
 chicken, or an egg beat up in half a glass of 
 wine, for she looks exhausted. And have a 
 fire lit, my dear." 
 
 " Poor, forsaken, fatherless girl," Mrs. Bird 
 wrote to her own petted daughters. " There 
 she lay in that cold long attic, with its ill- 
 fitting doors and windows, and its two old 
 fireplaces fitted up as cupboards. She has 
 gathered into it all that remains of her ill- 
 fated little home. I never saw such a whited 
 sepulchre of a room as it was, so filled 
 with the ghastly remains of long-lost happi- 
 ness. 
 
 " My dears ! I could have shaken Cousin 
 Blight when I came downstairs. I was glad 
 to go to my own room and wash my face, for 
 I had cried over Christina. I had, indeed ; 
 for I never saw a sadder sight than the little 
 black silk pad she wore to keep her weddino--
 
 Poor Christina Long. 
 
 2Y 
 
 ring on her poor little worn finger. I am 
 sure her mother is at the bottom of it all ! 
 Mother indeed ! I could make as good a 
 mother with flints and chalk !"
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AND ALL UNCHARITABLENESS. 
 
 All seems infected that th' infected spy 
 As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye. 
 
 Pope {Essay on Criticism). 
 
 " Well, now that I see how unchanged you 
 are, and that the girls have only improved 
 since we last met, let me hear of all my 
 cousins good friends — the neighbours," Mrs. 
 Bird said cheerily to her grim hostess over 
 their supper. 
 
 She knew well that if anything could stave 
 off a catalogue of the thousand and one griev- 
 ances Mrs. Blight had ready to enumerate 
 against her burden, Christina, it would be a
 
 "And all Uncharitableness" 29 
 
 general onslaught upon the other widows and 
 orphans of Rippleford. 
 
 No one can have failed to notice how gre- 
 garious these " shorn lambs " are. In the 
 safest and sunniest pastures they huddle 
 together and add to one another's helpless- 
 ness and misfortune by their vague unreason- 
 ing fears of man and wolf. 
 
 Rippleford was a perfect colony of widows 
 and orphans, and it is of these the story is to 
 be told. 
 
 "Let me hear of the nearest neighbours 
 first, up the shad}^, lime-scented road, oppo- 
 site Mrs. Loraine's great beeches, to the 
 church. How are the ladies at Pen drills ? I 
 forget how Mr. Douglas Burleigh's scrape 
 ended. Did he marry the pretty Spanish 
 adventuress or not ¥' 
 
 " It ended better than any one expected," 
 Mrs. Blight was forced to own ; without 
 showing any shame, however, at being forced
 
 30 True Women. 
 
 to take back the false coin she had circulated 
 so freely. 
 
 "It was a marriage then? I should have 
 h>een grieved if that fine, honest-looking 
 English squire had proved a coward or a 
 villain. After losing that sweet son, Willie, 
 at the Redan, all Mrs. Burleigh's pride would 
 naturally settle upon her only boy, Douglas." 
 
 " Well, yes ! Mrs. Burleigh had to join in 
 begging for Theresa 'Saavedra ; the relations 
 were as proud as peacocks, and would hardly 
 give their consent. Mr. Burleigh brought 
 his bride here for the honeymoon. She was 
 all eyes, like a half-fledged young bird ! but 
 now she turns out to be a beauty and an 
 heiress, not a Spanish creature at all. Her 
 mother was a Miss Dillon till she ran away 
 with Don Leo di Saavedra. Mr. Burleigh 
 lives on his wife's estates in one of the 
 northern counties, and leaves Mrs. Burleigh 
 and Miss Madge Pendrills all to themselves.
 
 "And all Uncharitableness" :U 
 
 He has four or five children, and they say he 
 is properly henpecked, for her mother lives 
 with them." 
 
 " And pretty, bright-eyed Madge ?" Mrs. 
 Bird asked eagerly ; " how well I remember 
 her pretty way of tossing back her sunburnt 
 curls ; what a dignified little fairy she was." 
 
 " Oh, she's here !" Mrs. Blight said grimly, 
 " doing- as much mischief, and flirting as hard 
 as she can with young « Guy Vernon of the 
 Chase. I can't talk of her or her mother 
 with any patience ! She. has a way of folding 
 that old Indian shawl of hers round her when 
 she rises to receive me, as if I chilled her. I 
 long to ask her what she means by it. I see 
 them as little as I can ; but Louisa arid Eliza 
 pester me to keep on terms of civility." 
 
 "We are nearly cut off from all fun here by 
 mamma's feuds," Eliza said. 
 
 Eliza Blight prided herself on her sincerity 
 and accuracy, and managed to control her
 
 32 True Women. 
 
 mother and her vivacious sister Louisa in 
 turns very usefully with the tight reins of 
 fact. 
 
 " We are certainly hated wherever we go, 
 and only asked out for papa's sake anywhere/' 
 she added with heedless honesty. 
 
 " Or because people don't like to be too 
 rude to mamma, for their own credit's sake," 
 Louisa giggled ; and Mrs. Bird hastened to 
 stop their discordant duet by inquiring, 
 
 " Is it really to be a match, then, between 
 the young giant, Mr. Vernon, and the fairy 
 Miss Burleigh ?" 
 
 "No one can make out," Mrs. Blight 
 owned. " It would be a good thing if it was 
 settled one way or the other. He is a great, 
 red-haired reprobate ; but then he is a great 
 catch, and so Mrs. Burleigh has him for ever 
 there." 
 
 " Oh, mamma !" Mary ventured to say, 
 " ever since William Burleigh's death he
 
 11 And all Uncharitablencss." 33 
 
 has been like a son among them at Pen- 
 drills/' 
 
 " You know nothing about it, Mary ; how 
 should you ! Mark my words, he will come 
 to no good I" Mrs. Blight said solemnly ; and 
 no one ventured to break the silence that 
 followed Guy Vernon's doom, till Mrs. Bird 
 thought, at least there 'will be a kind word 
 for Mr. Traill, the dear good Vicar, and said : 
 
 " And good Mr. Traill ? Is he not married 
 yet ? The Vicarage wanted a mistress sadly." 
 
 " Who would marry him V Mrs. Blight 
 
 asked, with a snap, " He is afraid of his own 
 
 shadow. He gives away all his money to 
 
 designing women with large families, till he 
 
 has not got a tidy coat to his back ; and he 
 
 goes about muttering Greek to himself all 
 
 day long. Many people blame Sir Augustus 
 
 Vansittart exceedingly for giving the living to 
 
 such a scatter-brained old scholar, just because 
 
 he was such a friend." 
 
 vol. i. 3
 
 34 True Women. 
 
 "Dear me !" laughed Mrs. Bird, "to think 
 of my forgetting the two greatest neighbours 
 of all, the lady of the Manor and her ungainly 
 son ! How are they ?" 
 
 " Don't talk of him !" 
 
 "Poor fellow — is he dead?" 
 
 " No, indeed ; hut he was in the Divorce 
 Court, and got out, no one knows how. By 
 the husband running away, I believe. I wish 
 you could hear Mrs. MacBeggah Tweedy s 
 account of him. Every one ought to know the 
 story, she says. I thought at one time she 
 would make a tract of it." 
 
 " Dear me ! I hope she will not," Mrs, Bird 
 said, with a very grave face. " Such grievous 
 stories are better forgotten." 
 
 " What can be better than warning tracts?" 
 Mrs. Blight asked, ready for battle. 
 
 "The fifth chapter of Matthew," Mrs. Bird 
 answered readily. " I have given a shilling to 
 every one of our people's little girls who can
 
 "And all Uncharitableness." 35 
 
 say that through, slowly, and without any 
 thoughtless mistake," she said, turning to Mrs. 
 Blight's daughters as she spoke. " They re- 
 peat it to me every Christmas Eve, when they 
 come to fetch their new red cloaks. They do 
 look so pretty, standing all in a row, with their 
 dear little faces in underneath the hoods." 
 
 "Good-night, Cousin Blight; good-night, 
 girls. Mary dear, are you coming with me ? 
 That is kind." 
 
 " Come, tell me, Mary — for I did not dare to 
 
 ask any more news of the neighbours from 
 
 your mother — do you really see nothing of the 
 
 dear people who loved your father so well ? 
 
 The Loraines, for instance, and old Mrs. 
 
 Vernon ?" 
 
 " Very little indeed," Mary was forced to 
 
 own. " Chrissy and I never go out since her 
 
 disgrace." 
 
 " Disgrace /" echoed Mrs. Bird, almost 
 
 angrily. " There is no disgrace in her trouble,
 
 36 True Women, 
 
 child ! and I would fain believe nothing but 
 despair in Stephen's desertion. Upon my 
 word, things are come to a pretty pass here, 
 Mary, if Christina's affliction has been called 
 her disgrace, for you can never have found 
 such a word to apply to it yourself, Mary. I 
 am sure of that. Don't cry, my dear. I 
 came to comfort you, not to scold ! Now, 
 there's a good girl,, smile again, and trust 
 me; I came to comfort you both, and not to 
 scold !" 
 
 And Mary smiled, and tried to believe in 
 the comfort to come. 
 
 And as she crept silently to the little bed 
 beside Christina's, later, and found the sick girl 
 breathing softly in a sound and peaceful sleep, 
 her eyes were again dimmed with irrepressible 
 tears — but they were tears of thanksgiving. 
 Christina's face was as full of peace as that of 
 a sleeping child. As Mary watched her, the
 
 "And all UncJiaritableness." 37 
 
 sweet, sad mouth curved with a smile, and a 
 whisper of " Stephen !" passed her lips, telling- 
 of a happy, and Mary prayed that it might 
 be a prophetic, dream.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUT IN THE FRESH AIR. 
 
 " In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees." 
 
 Tennyson (Princess). 
 
 " Will you come with me, Mary ? I am going 
 to call on Mrs. Loraine," Mrs. Bird said sud- 
 denly, after pacing silently round and round 
 Mrs. Blight's stiff garden next day after 
 lunch, planning how she could best help poor 
 Christina. 
 
 She had spent all the morning, this true 
 and trusty friend, by Christina's narrow bed 
 in the long attic ; listening to the sick girl's 
 story, from the very beginning of Stephen's 
 troubles. Alas ! they dated from the day of
 
 Out in the Fresh Air. 39 
 
 Dr. Blight's death, and had increased rapidly 
 till his despairing flight put him beyond the 
 reach of misconstruction and calumny. 
 
 From Stephen's forlorn wife there fell no 
 word of blame, except of her own weakness 
 and ignorance. He had been to her all that 
 he promised to be. His flight alone still 
 seemed to her an act of wildness, akin to 
 insanity ; as wild as her own wild refusal to 
 see him, of which she had been told. Much 
 indeed of her story was what had been told 
 her by Mrs. Blight. She had a terrible im- 
 pression of seeing Stephen at the door, push- 
 ing his way between her mother and the 
 nurse, who was guarding her, and of her 
 screaming for help ; and then of a long, long 
 blank silence without peace, and of lying still 
 without rest ; and then of longing to see 
 Stephen, to hear what had really happened ; 
 and then of hearing he was gone ! 
 
 " Cousin Bird," the poor girl said, " do
 
 40 True Women. 
 
 you think I could have been mad ? When I 
 heard mamma say, ' Stephen is a wretch, and 
 has deserted you ! He is gone !' it seemed as 
 if the words were roared at me through a 
 speaking-trumpet, such as they speak with 
 from ship to ship at sea. I do not know if 
 the horrible things that I heard were told to 
 me, or if I said them myself; but it seemed 
 as if every wickedness I had ever heard or 
 read of, was told of my Stephen. I cannot 
 even ask Mary what happened. I will not do 
 Stephen any further wrong if I can help it." 
 
 " My child," Mrs. Bird said wisely, " try 
 to look upon all that time as a time of sick 
 fancy and trial. Many a sane mind can be 
 sick almost to madness, and yet be pure and 
 loyal to its holiest instincts for ever after- 
 wards. All that you have suffered has been 
 borne by others, but, with tender care, no 
 harm has come to the sufferers, as it has come 
 to you and Stephen. He shall know of all
 
 Oat in the Fresh Air. 41 
 
 your sorrow ; and he will best know how to 
 guard you against any more such affliction." 
 
 11 And my baby,' Cousin Bird ? Was any- 
 thing wrong ? was it deformed ? Why was I 
 not allowed to see it even ? Forgive me ! 
 forgive me, Cousin Bird ! but even now I feel 
 that if I had but held it in my arms — dead — 
 I could bear its loss more calmly." 
 
 " We will know that, too, my dear, before 
 I leave you. I will see the woman that 
 nursed you, and hear all I can of your 
 infant, and you shall hear the truth, for truth 
 
 I know is the only comfort in such cases. But 
 why do you think of its being deformed, dear?" 
 
 " Because I heard them say it was a 
 6 mercy it was taken !' It was cruel, cruel," 
 she said, trembling with her recollections of 
 that helplessness in such unfeeling hands ; 
 
 c 
 
 I I heard such cruel things of Stephen and of 
 our baby as I lay there." 
 
 " Well, they are all over. Let us t ry now
 
 42 True Women. 
 
 to think of more comforting facts. Of 
 Stephen's well-doing in Trinidad ; of his 
 getting on again in the profession your 
 father said he must distinguish himself in. 
 He told me he hoped great things of Stephen, 
 my dear. He had so clear a head, so cool a 
 judgment, such a liberal mind, such powers of 
 observation, such readiness in seizing facts, 
 such firmness in grasping them. We shall all 
 be proud of Stephen still, my Chrissy, I feel 
 sure, for your father was a wonderful judge of 
 character." 
 
 Even as she spoke, Mrs. Bird found herself 
 overwhelmed by the remembrance of Dr. 
 Blight's one great failure of judgment — his 
 choice of Martha Eliza Grundy instead of 
 herself, and she was speechless, with the sad 
 story of the father and of his forlorn Christina 
 weighing heavily on her heart. 
 
 " Come with me, Mary, to Mrs. Lorain e's.
 
 Out in the Fresh Air. 43. 
 
 But first let us take a brisk walk. I must 
 recover myself in the open air. I feel stifled 
 with Christina's £rief. Mrs. Loraine had a 
 brother in Trinidad, I think I heard Stephen 
 Long had gone to him. We may at least get 
 at him through Mr. Ponsonby." 
 
 " Mrs. Loraine was kindness itself to 
 Stephen," Mary said in answer to Mrs. Bird's 
 remark. "But I dread calling at The Beeches,, 
 cousin. Mrs. Loraine must hate to hear our 
 names. We slighted, all her kindness ; and 
 we spread those cruel reports about Miss 
 Loraine's jilting, or being jilted by Captain 
 Franks, and young Mr. Meredith. Oh 
 cousin ! it has all been so very, very wretched 
 since papa died. I little knew how strong 
 his influence was over us all !" 
 
 " Don't say 'we,' child, or 'all of us.' Don't 
 mix yourself up in things yon. have nothing 
 whatever to do with. You and Christina 
 have nothing to fear from your dear father's
 
 44 True Women. 
 
 true friends and neighbours. You must 
 shake off your morbid dread of their dislike, 
 and act for yourselves as your father's 
 daughters. See what poor faint-hearted 
 Chrissy has come to with her fear of saying 
 'No* to your mother. You know what I 
 mean, Mary ? No woman grown, above all 
 no married woman, has any right to give her 
 conscience into even her mother's keeping. It 
 makes my blood boil to hear that your mother 
 so worked on that poor feeble girl's mind as 
 to bring about a parting at such a moment. 
 I have just heard the whole story, Mary, and 
 Stephen Long must hear it too. Where 
 were your brains, Mary, to say nothing of any 
 pity for your poor brother-in-law, to let him 
 be forced to leave without a a*ood long talk 
 
 with his wife V 
 
 " She was so ill — " Mary began, with tearful 
 eyes, startled by Mrs. Bird's vehemence. 
 
 " A pretty way, truly, to cure her ! To
 
 Out in the Fresh Air. 45 
 
 send her husband packing, and to refuse to 
 let her see her baby." 
 
 " I was not allowed to enter the room, 
 cousin. When I did, she asked for Stephen 
 and the baby. Both were gone, you know, 
 and then came the light-headedness, and 
 fancies against Stephen. She raved " 
 
 " She just very nearly died of the wicked- 
 ness your mother put into her poor wandering 
 mind !" Mrs. Bird interrupted again angrily. 
 " Why, the joy of receiving one's infant is the 
 most merciful compensation for the pains of 
 maternity ! Suppose / had invented lies and 
 sent my sons one way and their infants 
 another ! a pretty churchyardful I should 
 have had to contemplate by this time ! But 
 it was not your fault, my poor Mary. I am 
 no better, indeed, than your mother to-day. 
 Let us now go to Mrs. Loraine's, and see what 
 can be done to repair the cruel, wicked mis- 
 chief that has been made."
 
 46 True Women. 
 
 " I have been wrong — that is, very weak 
 tind selfishly afraid. I don't wonder you 
 despise me," Mary Blight said dolefully, after 
 thinking over what till now had appeared to 
 her as her hard but filial duty. 
 
 " My dear, I do not despise you, and I be- 
 lieve you are neither weak nor selfish. Such 
 another case, perhaps, never fell to any other 
 daughter's share in this world. You could 
 have no experience to guide you, and no old 
 woman should tell a young one to take in- 
 stinct or inclination as her guide in direct 
 ■opposition to a parent. I have been unjust. 
 But as for despising you, Mary — to know you 
 is to love you — and poor Chrissy too ! Re- 
 member what I say, for I mean it, and say 
 only what I know to be true. Let me stop to 
 enjoy those lovely glades of greensward, Mary, 
 and all those groups and hanging beech- woods. 
 How brightly the house and gardens flash out 
 at every turn of this approach ! I never know
 
 Out in the Fresh Air. 47 
 
 which is the loveliest of the places round here, 
 nor which of the cross-roads leads to the most 
 beautiful bits. But if I had a carriage I think 
 I should enjoy driving down past Lady 
 Vansittart's great shining hollies to the Ripple, 
 and across the ford, and away over Shepley 
 Common, to enjoy the scent of the furze and 
 the heather — the incense of the waste, I call it 
 — most of all." 
 
 " I must ask leave to take you home by the 
 Vicar s Walk, Cousin Bird, as you enjoy our 
 beautiful bits here so much ; that is one of the 
 most beautiful in all Rippleford. They say 
 Mr. Traill composes all his sermons there on 
 his way to the Manor and back. Mrs. Lorain e 
 gives him a right of way through her American 
 garden and wilderness to his friend Sir Augus- 
 tus Vansittart's. The Vicar's Walk is a lovely 
 green ride, mossy, and bright with tiny 
 ground flowers. The larches sweep down to 
 the ground on either side of it for nearly half
 
 48 True Women. 
 
 a mile. — It is so peaceful, — though the woods 
 are full of game, arid squirrels, and singing 
 birds of every kind. No guns are ever allowed 
 to be fired there, because Sir Augustus rears 
 his pheasants at the new farm he bought, 
 or rather Sir William, his father, bought, at 
 Mr. Loraine's death. The bursts of song from 
 the invisible birds there seem to me sweeter 
 than anywhere else. To them it must seem a 
 leafy heaven of safety. Don't laugh at me, 
 cousin. I am often so wretched, I think if it 
 were not for all the joy-giving proofs of the 
 Almighty's goodness I see out of doors, I should 
 die of despair." 
 
 " My poor Mary," Mrs. Bird said gently, 
 " I can believe it, dear." 
 
 " The sight of Miss Loraine, too, does me 
 positive good," Mary continued. " I wish I 
 knew more of her." 
 
 " Is she still as like her lovely step-mother, 
 and Grace as unlike mother and step-sister, as 
 ever ?"
 
 Out in the Fresh Air. 49 
 
 " I think so," Mary answered. " But it is 
 long since I have seen them together — in their 
 home I mean. Whenever we do meet, Miss 
 Loraine is so gentle and courteous, I cannot 
 help fancying she knows how unhappy we are." 
 She spoke almost in a whisper, for they were 
 now mounting the steps to ring at Mrs. 
 Lorain e's great glass doors. 
 
 " How I love glass doors, and the welcome 
 this bright hall gives one even before the doors 
 are opened !" Mrs. Bird said, looking in eagerly 
 upon the old-fashioned Turkey carpet and the 
 old oak chairs with their flowered leather 
 seats. " The sight of all those plants, and 
 quaint carvings, and the rich old china, and 
 that old, old clock, makes waiting here quite 
 a delight. Ah, Ellis is still here ! How portly 
 he has grown ! How do you do, Ellis ? May 
 we come in ?" 
 
 Ellis's hearty welcome was hardly disguised 
 under his conventional solemnity as he ushered 
 
 vol. i. 4
 
 50 True Women. 
 
 in the cousin and daughter of the still dearly- 
 remembered Dr. Blight. He remarked, in 
 tones of respectful reproach, " It is years since 
 you have been among us, ma'am. I hope all 
 your young ladies are well ! Mes. Bird, 
 ma'am, and Miss Blight I"
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SIBYL LORAINE. 
 
 There's in you all that we believe of heaven, 
 Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, 
 Eternal joy, and everlasting love. 
 
 Otway (Venice Preserved). 
 
 Sibyl Loraine would have no forced love, she 
 said. Her very pets should be free, that their 
 affection might be spontaneous and genuine. 
 Her generosity and unselfishness fully equalled 
 those of Pope's Eloisa, though happily she had 
 never required to vaunt them so lustily. 
 
 Her pets just now were a flock of rainbow- 
 tinted pigeons, and when Mrs. Bird and Mary 
 entered the drawing-room they found Mrs. 
 Loraine writing, and saw her step-daughter 
 
 4-2 «1 OV tti** 08
 
 52 True Women. 
 
 outside, feeding her birds under the broad 
 verandah between the two conservatories flank- 
 ing the garden-front of The Beeches. 
 
 The birds' wheeling flights in the autumn 
 sunshine, their sudden down-flutterings, and 
 eager pattering round their young mistress's 
 feet, made the group a very animated one. 
 
 Very lovely Miss Loraine looked as she 
 hastened in to welcome pale-faced Mary Blight 
 with smiles and kindly greetings; and her first 
 words brought a glow of comfort to her timid 
 guest. " How long it is since we last met ! 
 How is Mrs. Long ?" 
 
 With Sibyl's hand guiding her to a cosy 
 seat, Mary bore unflinchingly Grace Loraine's 
 half-sleepy, supercilious stare, as she half rose, 
 half bowed, and then resumed a half-lying 
 position on the sofa, and paid no further 
 attention to her mother's visitors. She 
 was soon again deep in the surging, tem- 
 pestuous passions and thrilling intrigues of a
 
 Sibyl Loraine. 53 
 
 modern sensational novel ; and the joys and 
 sorrows of her neighbours, the realities of 
 life around her, were nothing whatever to 
 her. 
 
 Mrs. Loraine was deeply interested in Mrs. 
 Bird's mission to Rippleford and The Beeches. 
 Wishing to talk the subject over fully, she 
 frankly proposed that Sibyl and Miss Blight 
 should go away and leave them, a plan that 
 gave to Mary, at least, an hour of unalloyed 
 delight in the garden and hothouses in Sibyl's 
 sweet society ; and sent her home happy in 
 the possession of tokens of sympathy for the 
 sick Christina. Blossoms of strange beauty 
 and subtle fragrance, and a bunch of won- 
 drous Muscat grapes — with stalk and leaves 
 that made it a perfect picture — almost as 
 richly perfumed as the flowers. 
 
 What an amount of happiness had Sibyl 
 Loraine packed into one tiny basket, Mary- 
 thought, as she received it from her beautiful
 
 54 True Women. 
 
 hands ; for many a word of kind sympathy 
 and remembrance accompanied the fruit and 
 orchids. 
 
 Meanwhile the two elder ladies in the 
 drawing-room had cordially agreed in laying 
 all the blame of Christina Long's miserable 
 plight on the two mothers-in-law, her own 
 and Stephen's. 
 
 They hardly laid a fair share of blame on 
 Stephen Long himself, we think ; but then, 
 as Mrs. Bird said : 
 
 " Abusing the man is not the best way to 
 bring him home repentant. When once he 
 has come back to his wife, we can tell him 
 what we think of him, poor fellow." 
 
 Mrs. Loraine said : 
 
 " I believe I knew more of his misery than 
 most of his neighbours. He quite broke 
 down here one day. I cannot remember now 
 what I did to affect him so deeply ; but I 
 know it pained me to see how unused he
 
 Sibyl Loraine. 55 
 
 had become to any little common kindness. 
 He has a very tender heart. I think we 
 need only write him what we both know of 
 his wife's illness, and tell him the story you 
 have told me to-day ; it will bring him home 
 at once. If he does not hurry home I shall 
 begin to believe in Mrs. Blight — I shall be 
 truly grieved." 
 
 "Do you know his address?" then asked 
 Mrs. Bird. 
 
 " My brother's people will find him," Mrs. 
 Loraine told her confidently. " He took charge 
 — medical charge — of the English overseer 
 and people on the Ponsonby Estate. He will 
 soon be found. Meantime can we do nothing 
 for his forlorn little wife ? How is it we 
 never see her V 
 
 " Her sister Eliza, who tells the truth at 
 least, though not always in the kindest 
 manner, says she gardens all the spare time 
 of her mornings, which is not much, at the
 
 56 True Women. 
 
 back of the house, and sews indoors all the 
 afternoon, not to be seen. She declares 
 Mrs. Long is their Cinderella. ' Everything 
 disagreeable that nobody else will do, Chrissy 
 has to do ; and the blessing of it is she does 
 it without grumbling/ is Eliza's description of 
 the patient Christina's life." 
 
 " Has she no pleasures, no consolations V 
 Mrs. Loraine asked with much feeling. 
 
 u She has Mary's devoted affection. But 
 Mary, too, is utterly crushed," Mrs. Bird felt 
 herself justified in revealing. 
 
 "It is truly appalling to see how much 
 misery one such woman can cause. She is 
 like the fabled Upas-tree, so deadly is her 
 poison to all who come under its influence F 
 Mrs. Loraine said, omitting Mrs. Blight's 
 name for fear of wounding poor Mary Blight, 
 who just then returned, bright with the re- 
 flected happiness and the sympathy of the 
 sunshiny Sibyl.
 
 Sibyl Loraine. 57 
 
 " Now, Mary, take my advice," Mrs. Bird 
 urged as they slowly returned by the 
 beautiful larch-ride to the cross roads and 
 Mrs. Blight's comfortless home ; " make the 
 most of all your father's old friends and 
 neighbours. All kindness is ready for you 
 and Christina too, in Sibyl Loraine's home ; 
 and you would draw in new life there. How 
 beautiful she is ! I could hardly take my 
 eyes off her. I thought at first her deep 
 grey eyes were her greatest charm. But 
 now I belieye, after all, it is her mouth. 
 What a sweet, tender, coaxing smile she has ! 
 I never saw such beautiful, sunny brown 
 hair, and the way she coils it round and 
 round that onyx-ball comb is inimitable. 
 What quiet easy grace she moves with ! I 
 declare I never saw so lovely and lovable- 
 looking a girl as Sibyl Loraine. I'm sure I 
 hope I shall dream of her." 
 
 " I cannot tell you how kind she has been
 
 58 True Women. 
 
 to me," Mary said, showing her treasures. 
 " See, these are for Christina ! and she sends 
 her word she must come and rest in the 
 Vicar's Walk as soon as she can leave the 
 house. She is to have a low easy bench sent 
 down to our end of it especially for Chrissy's 
 use. Cousin Bird, you have brought a bless- 
 ing with you. My heart seems full of hope 
 once more. Tell me, what have you done ?" 
 
 " All is in good train, dear ! Mrs. Loraine 
 will write, so will I ; but we must guard 
 against impatience on Christina's part. She 
 may still be some few weary months without 
 her husband. We must preach patience and 
 trust to her, and pray for God's blessing on 
 our earnest hopes."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DRIVE TO LYNN. 
 
 And this our life, exempt from public haunts, 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 
 
 Shakespeare {As You Like It, ii. 1). 
 
 " By which road shall you drive in to Lynn 
 to-day, Sibyl ? Mamma is going to stay at 
 home to write that tiresome woman's letter 
 to Trinidad." 
 
 " By the back road, Grace, of course." 
 
 " Why of course ?" 
 
 " You know mamma does not wish us to 
 drive past the barracks, or rather the guard- 
 room, when we drive to Lynn without her." 
 
 " As if being stared at did one any harm 1"
 
 60 True Women. 
 
 said the fair-seeming Grace, who had the art 
 of looking down and cuddling herself all over 
 into dimples when enjoying the admiration of 
 mankind, and so got the credit of being 
 "such an innocent little thing." 
 
 We honestly own to having a horror of 
 such fair-seeming girls as Grace Lorain e, who 
 can take in turns the airs of modesty or inso- 
 lence, languor or liveliness at pleasure from 
 their stores of affection. We could never see 
 that soft odalisque-like Grace without think- 
 ing that when that something on her upper 
 lip became confirmed, and her rosy pulp 
 hardened, and her sleepy eyes acquired the 
 authority of middle age, she would become 
 not only a coarse and ungraceful, but even a 
 repulsive woman. 
 
 How she could have been Mrs. Loraine's 
 daughter, and even half-sister to Sibyl, we 
 never ceased to wonder. 
 
 " I think I know why you wish to go the
 
 The Drive to Lynn. 61 
 
 front road to Lynn, Grace. It is to get rid of 
 those odious French books Jane Tweedy lent 
 you. I will go round to the library with you 
 with pleasure." 
 
 " Suppose I have got no odious French 
 books to return, dear ! and do not intend 
 going with you to Lynn." 
 
 " Then you have English novels quite as 
 unfit for your reading. I saw ' Dare All ? on 
 your sofa to-day, while mamma was talking 
 to you of 'My Novel/ and really thought you 
 were reading it. Oh Grace, how can you be 
 so base ? mamma trusts us so fully !" 
 
 " Keep your indignation for your own sins, 
 and your friend Miss Burleigh's," Grace re- 
 torted angrily. " You will get none of my 
 novels to amuse yourself with on the back 
 road by your pretty ruse." 
 
 " As if I would read them, Grace ! Non- 
 sense ! Give them to me to return, or come 
 with me yourself."
 
 62 True Women. 
 
 " There comes the carriage ! Mamma's 
 darling obedient treasure had better make 
 haste ! You are a humbug, Sibyl," the gentle, 
 innocent Grace added, as Sibyl went into her 
 own room sorrowfully enough. " I hate her," 
 Grace said to herself; " she will never help 
 me to anything I want, though mamma would 
 never suspect her. How I shall get that 
 third volume of 'Queans of Paris' I don't 
 know, unless clever Jane Tweedy will bring 
 it to church for me in the soft leather Bible- 
 case." 
 
 Graceless Grace Loraine ! As a child, 
 greedy and sly, in spite of lavish kindness and 
 encouragement ; as a girl, treacherous and 
 corrupt, in an atmosphere of truth and 
 honour 1 Heaven help those in your power 
 as a woman, and give you no dearer ties than 
 those you have already outraged !
 
 The Drive to Lynn. 63 
 
 It was Davies's opinion — and Davies was an 
 authority on such matters — that there 
 " wasn't a pair of horses, nor yet a carriage, 
 search the county round, as could hold a 
 candle to his blood bays and his barouche 
 at The Beeches." 
 
 " You may mostly tell widder ladies' 
 carriages by their lumbering weight, and the 
 steam on their closed windows," he declared, 
 and we found, comically enough, many that 
 answered his pithy description. " But my 
 missis/' he added condescendingly, " don't 
 meddle with what she don't understand, and 
 you see the result in them bays, and that 
 there barouche !" 
 
 Mrs. Loraine was wise enough to trust the 
 management of her stables to her brother-in- 
 law, Colonel Loraine ; the happiness of whose 
 life consisted in bringing a military discipline 
 and his own severe taste, not to say despotism, 
 to bear on the cellars and stphles of his less
 
 64 True Women. 
 
 experienced friends. In the Colonel's absence 
 Davies plumed himself on being supreme in 
 the stable-yard at The Beeches. When the 
 Colonel came down Davies was the meekest of 
 his employes. 
 
 Into Davies's dark-green barouche Sibyl 
 nestled herself, contrasting as well with its 
 lighter lining as an opening rosebud with its 
 leaves, and was soon rolling lightly towards 
 the lodge-gates on her way to Lynn. 
 
 Mrs. Loraine watched the carriage along 
 the winding approach, now almost lost in the 
 deep shade of the noble clumps of trees 
 which gave their name and fame to her park, 
 now flashing out again into the sunshine, and 
 scattering the pheasants who were leisurely 
 feasting on the mast which the beeches now 
 shed with every breeze that blew. 
 
 There was a peep of the carriage again 
 as it passed slowly out of the grand iron 
 gates to the high-road ; and from thence
 
 The Drive to Lynn. 65 
 
 Sibyl never failed to send a kiss homewards. 
 Mother and daughter clung to such fond and 
 foolish little habits of Sibyl's childhood, and 
 had a hundred little innocent ways of in- 
 creasing their stores of love and confidence. 
 
 Mrs. Loraine's iron gates were as unrivalled 
 as her step-daughter, and deserve notice as 
 we are passing through them. The story 
 was, that they had been brought over from 
 some grand French chateau, belonging to an 
 ancestor of the Loraines. Probably they had 
 been copied from a French design, at least. 
 They were stately, towering, highly ornate, 
 with the family initials cunningly interwoven 
 on each of them. They rolled to and fro, in 
 iron grooves of their own, needing all the 
 lodge-keeper's strength to set them in motion ; 
 and when they closed, it was with a clang 
 that could be heard far and near, and struck 
 terror into the hearts of any juvenile 
 passers-by. 
 
 VOL. T. 5
 
 66 True Women. 
 
 It would be difficult to find lovelier peeps 
 of more peaceful park-lands in all England 
 than round about Rippleford on the way ta 
 Lynn or Dullford ; or beyond the old common 
 of Shepley to Vernon's Chase, the show-place 
 of that side of Rootshire. 
 
 And whether you passed between the well- 
 banked woods, all tufted with graceful ferns, 
 or looked far away over the stretches of rich 
 red loam or blue-green swedes, or watched 
 the lazy cattle grouped in shady corners of 
 the rich pastures, or the game feeding so un- 
 suspectingly in the green wood rides that 
 would soon re-echo with a murderous feu de 
 joie, you could not but feel how bounteously 
 nature had dealt with the landowners of 
 Rootshire thereabouts. 
 
 There were " bits " in and round the village 
 well known to artists and botanists, and 
 others, that the quietly-disposed neighbours 
 could never keep free from merry- making
 
 The Drive to Lynn. 67 
 
 urchins, and screaming petticoated mites of 
 mischief. The ford was one of these ; there 
 the barefooted imps, with their ragged little 
 trousers rolled up to their knees, had a 
 decided advantage over their elders and 
 betters ; for on whichever side of the Ripple 
 the argument began, the lovers of order and 
 quiet were speedily routed and probably 
 well splashed into the bargain. 
 
 The stepping-stones, with the sparkling 
 eddies round them, had a fascination for 
 ourselves long past the time when it was 
 thought pretty for us to pull off our shoes and 
 stockings and wade through the laughing 
 Ripple itself. 
 
 The village of Rippleford was so scattered, 
 it was difficult to define it. Here it was 
 snugly sheltered under Lady Vansittart's 
 roadside oaks ; there it had arranged itself in 
 a row, or single file, as if on the march to 
 Dullford. Here, again, it had stopped on a
 
 68 True Women. 
 
 pretty green, and spread itself round a bril- 
 liant foreground of old-fashioned flowers, and 
 was half-smothered in clematis and Virginian 
 creeper ; while, further on, some poor strag- 
 gling homesteads were propping themselves 
 up in an old orchard, and were pretty nearly 
 as mossy, and twisted, and tumble-down as 
 the old apple-trees themselves. 
 
 Kippleford Church was mercifully hidden 
 among its old yew-trees, and overgrown with 
 ivy. Otherwise it was in itself as bewildering 
 a specimen of British bad taste, demonstrated 
 in bricks and mortar, as the United Kingdom 
 could produce. 
 
 But such as it was, above all now that 
 Nature had so tenderly veiled the deformities 
 of Art, it was the delight of its good Vicar's 
 heart ; and it was kept so free from speck or 
 blemish, and dressed forth so gaily for all 
 Church festivals that the blood sometimes 
 ran cold in the veins of Mr. Traill's Low
 
 The Drive to Lynn. 69 
 
 Church parishioners as they groaned, " What 
 next ! what next I" 
 
 The churchyard had an indescribable still- 
 ness and peace in it that seemed little short 
 of miraculous in such a populous village. 
 The solemn yew-trees and crumbling tomb- 
 stones overhung the wayward Hippie as it 
 danced and sang on its way to the sunny 
 southern bank of Mrs. Vernon's lawn ; they 
 formed an allegory of careless life and peace- 
 ful death to those who cared to read the 
 lesson Nature spread before them. 
 
 Strangers passing a few days in the village, 
 even brides and bridegrooms spending a short 
 honeymoon at its dainty little inn, never 
 failed to feel the charm of that tranquil spot ; 
 and many wished that when their turn came, 
 they might be laid to rest in such a peaceful 
 home. 
 
 But we must linger no longer among the 
 
 o o o 
 
 much-loved nooks of Rippleford. We should
 
 70 True Women. 
 
 be half way to Lynn, listening with Sibyl 
 Loraine to the outpouring of the gatekeeper's 
 heart at the " pike " — " Mrs. Bunney's 
 hutch," as it was called, owing to the numer- 
 ous offspring that had fallen to that poor 
 little woman's share. 
 
 Mrs. Blight considered Mrs. Bunney to be 
 " wanting in common decency ! Three-— living 
 — at once ! And to christen them as she did ! 
 It was wrong and quite discreditable of Mr. 
 Traill to encourage such a creature ! And as 
 for recommending her to claim the Queen's 
 bounty — she would like to know if the Queen 
 approved of Jewish names for Christian chil- 
 dren ?" 
 
 The obnoxious little Bunneys had been 
 baptized, by command of a crotchety god- 
 father, as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. 
 
 " They're a born into a fiery furnace o' 
 trouble, they be ; let's hope they may come 
 out on it as well as they three faithful
 
 The Drive to Lynn. 71 
 
 servants o' the Lord," Farmer Loam had said 
 solemnly. 
 
 In vain Mr. Traill had set before the old 
 Biblicist that it was in no way well to run the 
 risk of bringing ridicule upon the babies as 
 well as upon those time-honoured and heroic 
 Jews ! 
 
 Farmer Loam had waxed almost as irate as 
 Nebuchadnezzar himself " in his rage and 
 fury," and had threatened to withdraw any 
 help that it might have been in his heart to 
 give the widow Bunney and her orphans, 
 and had had his way of course. 
 
 " One Bible name be as good as another," 
 quoth he to Mr. Traill. " You bean't 
 ashamed o' yourn, sir, be ye ? There ain't 
 no commandment about picking and choos- 
 ing, as / knows on. If I'd a chosen Judas 
 now ye might a had some reason to complain ; 
 but I've a chosen names to show the power 
 and glory o' God to all as trust in Him.
 
 72 True Women 
 
 Names with a meaning as has worn well, 
 and will wear yet many a troubled year to 
 come." 
 
 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego now 
 stood unsteadily holding on by the board in 
 the " pike " door, behind which Mrs. Bunney 
 dammed her family flood. The poor woman 
 had a struggle to release herself from the six 
 little fists that clung to her as she made her 
 way over it, to take her legal shilling at the 
 carriage-door, blushing and overjoyed to find 
 half-a-crown and a pound of tea with it in 
 Sibyl's gracious hands. 
 
 " Mamma wants to know how you all are, 
 Mrs. Bunney ? and where Jem is ? We 
 have some weeding for him if he is not 
 employed elsewhere." 
 
 " Bless your mamma., and you, too, miss 1 
 Jem's doing finely, miss. Sir 'Gustus Yansit- 
 tart have took him to mend his backbone, he 
 }, with beef and beer ! He Ve fed and
 
 The Drive to Lynn. 73 
 
 clothed him up. You wouldn't know him, 
 Miss Loraine ! Jem have got charge of 
 five of Sir 'Gustus's valuablest dogs, and 
 he's to have a pound apiece for 'em if 
 they are safe and well when the Baronite 
 comes back, to put into the savings bank, 
 miss." 
 
 " What a trusty boy Jem must be," Sibyl 
 said heartily, to give the mother time to take 
 breath. 
 
 " He be that, miss. And Sir 'Gustus have 
 pretty nearly supervented his crutches with 
 steels and springs. He says hell make a 
 man o' my boy, my poor little cripple, now, 
 miss ; but the babies misses Jem sadly, miss. 
 Poor little dears," she added to the three 
 little men who had gone bodily down to- 
 gether in a struggling, roaring heap behind 
 the board. " TheyVe six double teeth 
 coming through among 'em. Shadrach's is a 
 coming sideways, 'parently. Tis dreadful
 
 74 True Women. 
 
 hard for him, and for me too, miss — there ! 
 there ! Bless your dear mamma ! — there ! 
 mammy's a coming. Bless my heart alive ! 
 I cant take ye all up at once f
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DELIVER US FROM EVIL. 
 
 Hope humbly then, with trembling pinions soar ; 
 Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore. 
 
 Pope {Essay on Man). 
 
 Lynn was an active, stirring, but somewhat 
 old-fashioned country town, cast into the 
 shade by an oppressive neighbour, Dullford ; 
 but it had a brave heart, and goodly ambi- 
 tions, and quite a famous pig-market of its 
 own, long before the neglected drainage of 
 Dullford led people to turn up their noses at 
 the pretensions of that place. 
 
 Lynn knew it was behind the times, and 
 had roused itself to great exertions before 
 there was any whisper of moving the military
 
 76 True Women. 
 
 glory of Dullford to new barracks on its 
 breezy hillside. 
 
 It had opened a branch from its rivals 
 railroad, and built a nest-like station upon 
 that branch, and placed two tidy flies and a 
 bran-new omnibus there to catch any portion 
 of the great stream of traffic through Rootshire 
 that might trickle into its countrified streets. 
 
 But after the barracks were built, and 
 soldiers were to be seen exercising on Lynn's 
 Long Acre, and a band played weekly before 
 the King's Arms, and moustached dandies 
 lounged among Lynn's fluttered townsfolk, a 
 change came over the place, as sudden as any 
 transformation scene in a theatre. Its soul 
 rose above pigs. Beer and skittles lost their 
 charms. Plate-glass windows replaced many 
 a rattling leaden lattice. 
 
 The one herring and haddock dealer threw 
 out the entire front of his snug home, and put 
 in white marble and lobsters, where hitherto
 
 Deliver us from Evil. 7 7 
 
 his well-fed cat had basked among his wife's 
 scarlet geraniums and emblematic ornamental 
 shells. The butcher, not to be outdone, or 
 thrown in the shade, burst out in an alarming 
 display of brass hooks and gas-jets. And the 
 confectioner at once suppressed his store of 
 " kisses " and " hardbake " and set forth to his 
 admiring neighbours a ghastly bride-cake, 
 upon which Cupid and Hymen appeared in 
 sugar regimentals, kneeling in trembling joy, 
 on wires, beside a sugar drum. 
 
 Having a quarry of good stone at hand, 
 Lynn next bethought itself of building a 
 theatre, to the mayor of Dullford's extreme 
 mortification, for his poor little neighbour's 
 success seemed to be assured by such reckless 
 projects. The rector of Lynn pleaded earnestly 
 for another church ; but the builders got the 
 better of the clergy, and the theatre was more 
 than half way up before even the site of the 
 church was chosen.
 
 78 True Women. 
 
 The theatre, in fact, was so far advanced as 
 to give its name to the back-road by which 
 Sibyl Loraine was passing into the town. It 
 was a quiet road usually, but now, encumbered 
 by heaps of stone and rubbish, and all the 
 earth dug out of the theatre's foundations, it 
 had come to be nearly disused. 
 
 Davies drove slowly and carefully past the 
 pits and puddles, bricks and rubbish ; it 
 was altogether against the grain he drove 
 that way at all, and the pace he chose was one 
 of solemn protest, while in truth he watched 
 with interest the progress of a huge block of 
 stone that was being hoisted to crown the 
 bold-faced building as a base to the royal 
 arms. 
 
 " Stop, Davies ! Let us see it placed !" 
 Miss Loraine cried eagerly, and, excited by the 
 intense interest of the moment, she stood up 
 in the carriage. 
 
 There were men below halloing caution,
 
 Deliver us from Evil. 79 
 
 men above halloing encouragement, and 
 many idlers silently watching the monster on 
 its way, its almost imperceptible progress 
 through the air. 
 
 There was a pause, and then a cry — an un- 
 earthly cry — which Sibyl never forgot; then a 
 violent rattling of chains, a heavy thud upon 
 the earth, and a cloud of blinding dust, and 
 then — a moment of dead silence. 
 
 The monster had fallen to the ground ! 
 All the chains and ropes and pullies, so tried 
 and trusty hitherto, had failed, and there it 
 lay ; and as the men started back and apart, 
 Sibyl saw that one had fallen beneath it, never 
 to rise again ! She saw his head and out- 
 stretched arms. 
 
 " Fetch Dr. Floyd \" she gasped to the terror- 
 stricken servants, as she opened the carriage- 
 door herself and sprang out. " Fly for Dr. 
 Floyd!" 
 
 In a second more she was among the men.
 
 80 True Women. 
 
 Some seemed stunned, all were aghast and 
 purposeless, till Sibyl, with all the strength of 
 despair, pushed at the stone and cried for 
 help. " Help ! help ! Remove the stone, 
 before he dies !" 
 
 Then tools were brought, and crowbars, and 
 savage strength was brought to bear upon the 
 block to turn it on its side, and then the man 
 was free. 
 
 One of the labourers brought a mat and laid 
 it gently over to hide the ghastly sight from 
 Sibyl's view. 
 
 " Mike's choking with his blood !" cried one 
 poor fellow, and, eager to raise the head, he 
 stooped towards the bleeding man, and fainted 
 dead away. 
 
 " Oh, let me help!" said Sibyl's tearful voice, 
 and the men made way. " Bring water," she 
 said. " Is there no wife or mother to help 
 him r 
 
 " His wife and childer's in Ireland," a orufT
 
 Deliver us from Evil, 81 
 
 voice from the crowd answered her. " Mike 
 come from Dublin wi' a gang. They didn't 
 bring no women." 
 
 " Fetch me some water ! Oh, bring Dr. 
 Floyd ! Help me to rest his head on my 
 lap !" 
 
 She bathed the face. She tenderly freed 
 the purple mouth from blood and sand. She 
 loosened the shirt to give the fluttering heart 
 relief. But all in vain. 
 
 " Can't none on ye say a prayer to ease his 
 soul V the gruff voice asked, as the man still 
 seemed to breathe. " Mike was a rare one for 
 prayin ! Say a prayer, mum, if ye knows one 
 handy. You can't do no more for him ; but 
 maybe his soul's alive though his poor body's 
 crushed to nought" 
 
 And Sibyl steadied her voice, and leant over 
 Mike, repeating the only prayer that came to 
 mind. 
 
 " That's the right one for us all," the gruff 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 True Women. 
 
 man said, meaning to thank her for her effort. 
 " His will is done on earth, and delivered from 
 evil our poor mate is. He's gone ! 'Twill fall 
 heavy on his poor Mary that he died here all 
 alone with ne'er a whole bone in his poor, 
 hardworking body," Mike's mate added, with 
 tears on his dusty cheeks, where tears had not 
 been seen for many and many a year. 
 
 The man had told the truth. Mike was 
 safe from earthly pain and care. He was de- 
 livered from evil. That long, long, quivering 
 sigh had carried his soul into the Infinite. 
 The silent, motionless dead remained in 
 Sibyl's arms. 
 
 She was brought thus suddenly and unpre- 
 pared into the presence of the King of Terrors, 
 face to face with the most terrible reality of 
 life. 
 
 At that moment she had utterly forgotten 
 herself, in wondrous pity, in mute reverence 
 for the dead lying in such ghastly loneliness
 
 Deliver us from Evil. 83 
 
 in the midst of that living crowd. At that 
 moment the poor unknown labourer lying at 
 her feet was almost as a brother to Sibyl 
 Loraine. She yearned over him and the 
 " Mary and little childer," unconscious of their 
 heavy loss. 
 
 The men had taken the body from her lap, 
 and made a rough couch for it of their coats, 
 and laid it gently down. And now Sibyl 
 Loraine, with an instinct she was hardly con- 
 scious of, knelt down beside it, and gently 
 closed the glazing eyes, and putting back 
 the matted hair from the sunburnt brow, she 
 bent and kissed it. 
 
 " Let me know his wife's name," she 
 whispered to the man, whose voice and tears 
 had given her courage to address him. " I 
 will write and tell her gently." 
 
 " God bless you ! you shall have it. John 
 Sullivan shall bring it to you — he's his 
 cousin ; but we can't find him, leastways 
 
 6—2
 
 84 True Women. 
 
 not now. 'Twill pretty nigh break his 
 heart." 
 
 "Send him to me," she urged, giving her 
 address, " or come yourself. Tell him we 
 are Irish," she said, to lessen the distance 
 between herself and the unknown mourner. 
 
 " Tender an' true ye are, God bless ye !" a 
 voice cried from the crowd, as Sibyl made 
 her way hurriedly to the carriage in which Dr. 
 Floyd, Colonel Meredith, and others had just 
 arrived. And as they all closed about poor 
 Mike, poor Sibyl sank back in it trembling. 
 Now that all need for exertion was over re- 
 action set in. Her shuddering, and short, 
 almost inaudible sobs, alone told what the 
 strain had been. 
 
 " Cover Miss Loraine with these rugs, 
 Ellis," Davies said with nervous asperity. 
 <f Better she be wrapped in a horse-cloth 
 than look at them stains, and shiver like 
 that."
 
 Deliver us from Evil. 
 
 85 
 
 Ellis was an old and old-fashioned re- 
 tainer, loving his young lady as the apple of 
 his eye. So now he got into the carriage and 
 covered his young mistress with all the care 
 of a woman. 
 
 " Thanks, Ellis," she murmured. " Get me 
 a glass of water somewhere, and take me 
 home."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FOR DAYS AND DAYS— FOR EVER. 
 
 "Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and 
 horror hath overwhelmed me." — Psalm lv. 5. 
 
 Of course Mrs. Blight heard quickly of the 
 Lynn tragedy, and went off at once to her 
 friend Mrs. MacBeggah Tweedy, to give a 
 version of it, by which every item of truth 
 became a spiteful falsehood. 
 
 " Of all Miss Loraine's doings I do call that 
 the wildest and the wickedest," she averred. 
 " To go out of her way to see a man that 
 was crushed to death ! and to rush into the 
 very thick of the crowd to touch him, as they
 
 For Days and Days— for Ever. 87 
 
 say she did. Some one said she kissed him. 
 But I can't quite believe that, unless she was 
 hysterical. People don't mind whom they 
 clutch at then. It was bad enough to take 
 pleasure in going to see a man weltering in 
 his blood. All alone, too. She hadn't even 
 a gentleman with her. What will she come 
 to?" 
 
 Mrs. MacBeggah did her best to answer 
 this query by raking up some hard texts to 
 fling at a shameless sister, and by splitting 
 them up she made them sharp and one-sided 
 enough to suit her purpose admirably. And 
 then the two ladies had early tea, and 
 thoroughly enjoyed the vision they called up 
 of Miss Loraine's wretchedness to come. 
 
 They neither of them knew that at 
 moments of great pain and peril and misery, 
 all the worldly barriers between rich and 
 poor, man and woman, sinners and saints, 
 are thrown down : feuds as well as chance
 
 88 True Women. 
 
 distinctions are all forgotten. In pain and 
 peril we are heartily glad of every loving 
 word, and heartily return any loving hand- 
 clasp. 
 
 When in imminent danger we cling together 
 in true and honest humility, as the chastened 
 children of God. We do not ask if the 
 devoted crew of the lifeboat that is braving 
 the storm to rescue us are men of family. 
 Or if the heroic firemen who risk their lives 
 to save our darlings from the burning ruins 
 are " people one would like to know." At 
 such moments our affectations leave us. Our 
 masks fall off. We are true, then, to the 
 purest and best promptings of our hearts. 
 
 It would seem, indeed, as if we must 
 stand on a Mount Calvary of our own, and 
 be overshadowed by the infinite terror 
 of our own cross before we can be true 
 Christians. 
 
 We think the one hardened, impenitent
 
 For Days and Days— for Ever. 89 
 
 thief would surely have remained the solitary 
 exception, even if all mankind had been cru- 
 cified with him. 
 
 Neither Mrs. Blight nor Mrs. Tweedy had 
 ever had any experience of such emotions as 
 overwhelmed Miss Loraine during those cruel 
 moments of Mike Sullivan's agony after the 
 accident at Lynn. We do not blame them 
 for their ignorance, but we do blame them, as 
 loudly professing Christians, for forgetting 
 how many, and how solemn too, are the texts 
 charging erring humanity to bridle its tongue 
 and to forbear from judgment. 
 
 Meantime, Sibyl Loraine strove in vain to 
 shut out from her mind the piteous fellow- 
 creature she had held in her arms, dying 
 and dead ; and the piteous grief of Mary 
 and the children, to whom she had 
 sent the evil tidings through their parish 
 priest. 
 
 She had started on that drive to Lynn full of
 
 90 True Women. 
 
 the joy of a self-approving innocent existence, 
 and suddenly she felt how paltry she was, how 
 powerless to cope with that unseen strength. 
 She felt as humble, and as much afraid as 
 Eve is described to have been in gaining the 
 knowledge of good and evil. And her soul 
 was, as it were, naked before her, trembling 
 with pain and shame. All her joyous care- 
 lessness was gone. All her hitherto sweet 
 fancies and maiden meditations gave place to 
 a brooding trouble ; and an awful longing to 
 know whither death had carried his prey, and 
 what had escaped from the crushing torture. 
 She had seen how, in a moment, the shadow 
 of life was replaced by the great reality, 
 death, and she searched her heart eagerly for 
 its belief in the immortality of her trembling 
 soul. 
 
 She turned back, in vain, to try to find any 
 infantine remembrance of her father ; she 
 almost regretted she had never loved very
 
 For Days and Days— for Ever. 91 
 
 dearly any one who had died ; lest that 
 terrible object alone should meet her on the 
 threshold of the unknown world. She was 
 but an inexperienced, timid girl after all ; 
 and was fighting with a crowd of terrible 
 fancies, little knowing that time would efface 
 most of them as surely as dawn follows 
 night. 
 
 She was no coward usually ; but her nerve 
 had been rudely strained, and was still all 
 unstrung ; and there remained on her lips for 
 days and days an indescribable sensation of 
 •chill ; and she had a dread of darkness, and a 
 feeling, too, that these were but symbols of 
 the •inevitable night which each bright day 
 brought nearer to her. 
 
 Mrs. Loraine found that her watchful 
 tenderness was uncared for, hardly noticed in 
 fact, by her darling. Sibyl was pale, and sad, 
 and silent, or when she spoke, it was to blame 
 herself for her butterfly life, and to wish that
 
 92 True Women, 
 
 she could be of use to some one, join some 
 nursing sisterhood, follow in Florence 
 Nightingale's footsteps, however humbly and 
 far off. And Mrs. Loraine became alarmed, 
 and felt lost without her usual outspoken and 
 hopeful confidant. 
 
 She determined to consult her dear friend 
 and near neighbour Mrs. Burleigh, though 
 to seek a substitute for Sibyl, to talk of Sibyl, 
 seemed like treachery, and depressed her 
 sad]y. 
 
 Again and again she had nearly told Sibyl 
 that she must get sympathy if not advice else- 
 where. She refrained with superhuman efforts, 
 and went her way without speaking to Sibyl 
 on foot to Pendrills. To order out Davies and 
 the carriage on such an errand seemed to give 
 it publicity ; so she went on foot, and alone ; 
 for Grace had said, " What could it signify if 
 Sibyl had had a good fright and was ill ? Other 
 people had to get over it. Her trouble was
 
 For Days and Days— for Ever. 93 
 
 not so crushing as Mike Sullivan's. Don't 
 worry, mamma !" 
 
 Finding Mrs, Loraine was not to be cheered 
 by her indifferent philosophy, Grace tried no 
 better exhibition of feeling, perhaps had not 
 any to exhibit. At any rate, she settled her- 
 self most comfortably in Mrs. Loraine's chair 
 by the fire as soon as the sweet, anxious 
 mother left the room, and read her sen- 
 sational novels without interruption until her 
 return. 
 
 Only once before in all her life inKippleford — 
 that is, in eighteen years — had Mrs. Loraine 
 been driven from the sweet sanctuary of her 
 own home to seek advice. Then, too, she had 
 gone afoot, and alone — lest the shame of the 
 wretched kitchen wench, for whom she sought 
 a safe shelter, should be spread by neigh- 
 bours themselves no better perhaps than the 
 fallen girl she desired to give another fair 
 chance to.
 
 94 True Women. 
 
 " What ought I to do for my darling T she 
 asked Mrs. Burleigh, after telling the story of 
 the sad accident and its effect upon Sibyl. 
 
 Mrs. Burleigh was full of sympathy in every 
 word and look, and held her friend's hand with 
 one of those grasps that do away with any 
 necessity for friendly professions. 
 
 " She tells me she is sick of her butterfly 
 life. She wishes to go into training as a nurse, 
 and to be a sister of charity, without joining 
 any professing set of women. ( To follow 
 Florence Nightingale, however humbly,' was 
 the way she put it. What ought I to do ?" 
 
 " It is a very natural, a very noble wish. 
 Stirred as Sibyl's tender nature has been, all 
 that is finest and most generous in it now 
 prompts her to sacrifice herself for others, and 
 to lessen suffering in every form. 
 
 " You would not surely have me consent ?" 
 Mrs. Lorain e interrupted in nervous alarm. 
 " Oh ! how different to the fate her father
 
 For Days and Days— for Ever. 95 
 
 would have wished ! and I have dreamed of 
 for her, as a happy wife and mother ! What 
 shall I do to prevent her own plan V 
 
 " Take time/' Mrs. Burleigh said in a 
 courageous, decided tone, that was as good as 
 sal- volatile to Mrs. Lorain e. " Tell her you 
 can do nothing rashly for her. Get her to tell 
 you all that is passing in her mind. Promise 
 her wishes careful consideration if, after the 
 first shock and the first impulse dies away, she 
 should calmly adhere to them. Such training 
 as she proposes by no means unfits a woman 
 for the duties of married life. It would be a 
 blessing, I think, if more young ladies got 
 tired of butterfly life and devoted themselves 
 to some useful purpose. Sibyl will ennoble any 
 work she devotes herself to. But you may 
 remind her how much she may do for those 
 about her, within present reach. Show her 
 that it is by no means always an easy thing 
 to be a great and good woman in that state of
 
 96 True Women. 
 
 life into which it has pleased God to call her. 
 Try and keep her self-sacrificing ambition 
 within call ; it is so apt to go drifting to the 
 moon/ 7 Mrs. Burleigh said, smiling, as she saw 
 the lines of pain and perplexity smoothing out 
 of the fair face before her. " I believe, dearest 
 Mrs. Loraine, Sibyl will listen to reason. I 
 cannot fancy any heroics ever taking her from 
 you. Try change of air and scene, first of 
 all, to remove her from the painful impressions 
 crowding upon her here. Why not take the 
 girls for a long visit to your dear old uncle, 
 Dean Ponsonby ? Greyminster is not a gay 
 town, but it holds many new interests, and 
 masses of thought, that will awaken Sibyl's 
 mind to new exertion, and put fresh vigour 
 into her character/ 7 
 
 " We paid him such a long visit two years 
 ago," Mrs. Loraine said, hesitating ; " yet I 
 believe he would do anything in the world for 
 Sibyl. 77
 
 For Days and Days— for Ever. 97 
 
 "I should think so, indeed! He will be 
 overjoyed to have you I" 
 
 "But you forget the minor canon ! If the 
 Dean was alone I should not hesitate. But 
 Henry Elliot lives with him now." 
 
 " I should not fear Henry Elliot. Besides, 
 is he not engaged to the bishop's daughters ? 
 Mrs. Blight certainly spread a halo of romance 
 over him with some such report." 
 
 " There was something not quite straight- 
 forward, I believe. He was engaged to one, 
 and tried to make love to the other, or some- 
 thing like it, — and the bishop sent his daugh- 
 ters abroad. They are dear good girls. I 
 shall be sorry if Sibyl does not see them." 
 
 "Well, then," said Mrs. Burleigh with 
 decision, " let the girls know all about it, and 
 I should not fear either of them will fall a 
 prey to the fascinating Henry Elliot ! Do 
 propose your visit to the Dean at once. But 
 how I am laying down the law ! I, who 
 
 vol. I. 7
 
 98 True Women. 
 
 never ask or take advice, except from 
 Douglas !" 
 
 "How glad I am I came to you !" said 
 Mrs. Loraine. " You have done me so much 
 good." 
 
 " Well, now we may have tea, and then 
 Madge and I will walk home with you. It 
 will do Sibyl good to see another butterfly as 
 happy as mine is. But as for Sibyl's plan, if 
 the worst came to the worst, you would be ill, 
 my dear neighbour ! and do you believe she 
 would leave you then ? Depend upon it, the 
 sweet sister of charity would be found as she 
 is generally now, the creature nearest to your 
 heart." 
 
 .
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE REVEREND MATTHEW TRAILL. 
 
 " Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor." 
 
 Dryden (Character of a Good Parson). 
 
 " Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way." 
 Goldsmith (Deserted Village). 
 
 Good Mr. Traill, the Vicar of Kippleford, 
 was a man of few words; and being an 
 abstruse scholar, naturally had few ideas that 
 he could communicate to the generality of 
 his female parishioners,— and fate had per- 
 versely placed him in a parish crowded with 
 women, widows with many marriageable 
 
 daughters. 
 
 7—2
 
 100 True Women. 
 
 Mr Traill was nervous, or perhaps we 
 should say irritable, in the company of ladies. 
 They" disturbed the current of his thoughts, 
 without yielding him any compensating: 
 pleasure during the disturbance. 
 
 " Afraid of his own shadow," Mrs. Blight 
 said of him ; while those who knew Mr. 
 Traill better declared he had a fine turn for 
 dry humour, and that he found food for his 
 taste in being by turns patronised by Mrs. 
 Blight as a shy recluse, and then maligned 
 by her friend Mrs. Tweedy for his love of low 
 society ; for he attended all harvest homes, 
 cricket matches, and club feasts, with a hearty 
 desire to add to the innocent enjoyments of 
 the people, not only to keep those enjoyments 
 within sober bounds. 
 
 But to both these censorious ladies his love 
 of his old pupil, Sir Augustus Vansittart, and 
 his habit of dining at The Manor when any- 
 thing was going on there, proved what a
 
 The Reverend Matthew Traill. 101 
 
 " sad, sad worldling and worshipper of 
 mammon the man was !" 
 
 If Mr. Traill had a besetting sin, it was 
 indolence ; a slothful desire not to be troubled 
 with trifles, especially trifles relating to his 
 own affairs, which led surely, and swiftly too, 
 to the undoing of those to whom he intrusted 
 those affairs. 
 
 He believed himself to be cultivating a 
 Spartan contempt for the luxuries of life, a 
 soul above the male Marthas, for there are 
 many such, of creation. While simply and 
 truly he was too indolent to make his 
 servants do their duty by him, and had a 
 sickening dread of his cook's scowls and his 
 gardener's cunning and obstinacy. 
 
 Mr. Traill believed he could endure martyr- 
 dom for great principles. He could die, if 
 need were, like Sir Thomas More, or Dr. 
 John Forest ; but he could not stop the cold 
 joints being taken bodily away by Mrs.
 
 102 True Women. 
 
 Thorns friends in the village ; nor ask the 
 cantankerous Bellworthy to give him back 
 the key of the beer- cellar, of which he was 
 making such a disreputable use. 
 
 No ! Mr. Traill could not encounter Mrs. 
 Thorn's scowls, nor the bitterness of Bell- 
 worthy when admonished. Most of the most 
 painful, because pitiful, duties of daily life 
 Mr. Traill lumped together under the unfair 
 heading of " fuss," and shirked them, as we 
 believe he would not the pains of a worthier 
 martyrdom. 
 
 The Vicarage told tales of its master. It 
 was the house of the sluggard. He could 
 hardly get out or in for the trailing roses, and 
 unpruned pears, that were the glory of the 
 dwelling in Mr. Carey's time. Many a small 
 rent might be seen on the Vicar's back and 
 breast, caused by the branches that had 
 clung to him in vain, to remonstrate as he 
 passed among them.
 
 The Reverend Matthew Traill. 103 
 
 The paths in his garden were closing up 
 from the encroachments of straggling lilacs, 
 and overgrown guelder roses, whose few 
 blossoms were cast over the wall to complain 
 to passers-by of their master's neglect and 
 the rank, dank soil within. 
 
 When Mr. Traill noticed the neglected 
 state of his own possessions, he said nothing, 
 but quietly took his way through Mrs. 
 Loraine's well-kept gardens to the unrivalled 
 larch-walk. There he drew in all the scent 
 of their tasselled foliage, all the fresh and 
 soothing influence of the "buds and bird 
 voices" round him, and spun the thread of 
 his next Sunday's discourse, in charity with 
 all men, Bellworthy forgetting. 
 
 The indoor arrangements at the Vicarage 
 were in keeping with its garden, and a dis- 
 credit to the good man who suffered them. 
 
 Mrs. Thorn allowed no rival near her. She 
 preferred the companionship and uncertain
 
 104 True Women. 
 
 help of guileless maidens and raw youths who 
 dared not interfere with her. This being 
 the case, the village aspirants for service with 
 gentlefolks got " took in at Traill's," as they 
 expressed it, first of all, to practise on the 
 Vicar s crockery and patience. 
 
 At his first words of reproof, after long 
 suffering, which always allowed them time to 
 gain a character, they would complain loudly 
 of their hardships in his service, and so 
 depart. 
 
 After a decent time allowed for the burial 
 of all bitter memories, the cunning young 
 ones would appear at the good Vicar's study 
 window, smiling, and in their Sunday best, 
 to ask him to recommend them. And full of 
 faith in the goodness of Providence, he would 
 do so ; and so started many a rolling stone on 
 a new and smashing career. 
 
 At the time of which we write, Mrs. 
 Tweedy had fairly, or unfairly rather, bullied
 
 The Reverend Matthew Traill. 105 
 
 the Vicar into taking the chief scholar of her 
 own pet Sunday class into his service as 
 parlourmaid, for which place she was about as 
 well fitted as for that of maid of honour to her 
 Majesty. 
 
 Betsy's sole ambition was to secure a beau 
 to tramp upon the highways with on Sunday, 
 to " keep company " as they say in Rootshire. 
 But, as yet, Betsy carried her pinks and her 
 southernwood with flushing cheeks past the 
 lounging Adonises of the Church Lane 
 " without so much as ever a how-dy'e-do from 
 them stoopids." 
 
 Betsy was hopelessly fat, with shoulders 
 near her ears, and no sign of any waist to her 
 body as yet, and this may have had some- 
 thing to do with her disappointment, for 
 certainly many worse girls than Betsy other- 
 wise had succeeded in gaining the admiration 
 of the Rootshire youth, and shared their 
 time and flowers almost too lavishly with
 
 106 True Women. 
 
 " them stoopids," if only half that Mrs. Blight 
 said was true. 
 
 Betsy had her good points ; she thought 
 "ever so much more of master," she did, 
 " than of that there old cat, Mother Tweedy." 
 And this semi-reverence, and her unruffled 
 temper under Mrs. Thorns " haggravatin," 
 made her less obnoxious to her master than 
 many a more efficient maid might have been. 
 On the whole, Mr. Traill preferred a blunder- 
 ing girl to a blundering boy to wait on him ; 
 the latter blew so hard at the slightest exer- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Traill was just now, therefore, in com- 
 parative clover. Betsy thought ever so much 
 of him, and Mrs. Thorn and Bellworthy 
 having " fallen out," and being sadly afraid of 
 one another's power of revelation, his Rever- 
 ence had better dinners, and his garden was 
 being " tidied up a bit." 
 
 He fondly hoped his long-suffering for-
 
 The Reverend Matthew Traill. 107 
 
 bearance was to be rewarded, that things 
 were coming right of themselves. He was of 
 good heart, enjoying the superb autumn im- 
 mensely, though he missed Sir Augustus 
 Vansittart's society sadly, and longed for the 
 tramp on the heathery moors his friend 
 urged his coming to Glenducie for. 
 
 " It is not to be thought of," Mr. Traill told 
 himself firmly, after a careful perusal of his 
 pass-book from the Lynn and Rootshire 
 Bank. 
 
 " I declare I thought my balance must be 
 three times what I see it is ; and every 
 penny of this quarter's money is as bad as 
 spent ! Goodness knows how long poor 
 Bates must remain in bed ; and if I don't pay 
 for his substitute in the school he must 
 resign — and starve. I declare, too, I haven't 
 a coat, or hat, nor yet boots to appear in 
 among strangers. This has been such an
 
 108 True Women. 
 
 autumn. Claims of all kinds falling as thick 
 as Lady Vansittart's acorns ; and Vansittart's 
 absence makes such a difference. But he has 
 troubles enough, poor fellow, without my 
 writing him begging letters. While I have a 
 guinea left in my own breeches-pocket I will 
 not prey upon him — my own boy, as it were. 
 
 " True priests, he said, and preachers of the word, 
 Were only stewards of their sovereign Lord ; 
 Nothing was theirs ; but all the public store." 
 
 Such was the Vicar's soliloquy, as he 
 watched the blackbirds taking their after- 
 noon meal upon his lawn, varying their 
 desperate tussles with the vigorous worms by 
 hop, hop, hopping round, admiring nature, 
 with their heads on one side not to miss a 
 sound that should lead them straight to a 
 fresh struggle with their writhing victims. 
 " Yery hard upon the worms," he thought ; 
 and to drive out the thought of the many 
 injustices and evils he. could not prevent, he
 
 The Reverend Matthew Traill. 109 
 
 took his way to give the sick schoolmaster, 
 Bates, an hour's confab and sympathy. 
 
 And as he went his way, many a designing 
 woman with a sick child in her arms, or a bad 
 leg, or an idle husband, put herself in his way, 
 and got the better of the Vicar's prudence, 
 in face of that study of his pass-book — justi- 
 fying all Mrs. Blight had said. 
 
 " Poor things ! poor things ! What are my 
 troubles compared to theirs," he would ask 
 himself, " with no wife or children or vari- 
 cose veins to torment me ¥' 
 
 " Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
 And e'en his failings lean'd to virtue's side."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 oh woman! woman! 
 
 " Cease from anger, and forsake wrath ; fret not thyself 
 in anywise to do evil." — Psalm xxxvii. 8. 
 
 It turned out a stormy afternoon, and the 
 Vicar having heard of a case of urgent dis- 
 tress a mile or two beyond Bates's present 
 lodging, had had a long walk in the rain 
 before he got home to enjoy one of the Glen- 
 ducie grouse and a glass of Bellworthy's beer. 
 He owned to himself he was fairly fagged, 
 and needed rest after a sad scene with a 
 dying parishioner. 
 
 After dinner therefore, instead of changing 
 all his clothes, as a rational man would who
 
 Oh Woman ! Woman ! Ill 
 
 has been well damped, and now steams as he 
 sits by the fire, he took down an ancient 
 friend from his bookshelves, and settled him- 
 self to his beloved Greek. 
 
 " Master's a knocking nails into his coffin 
 as hard as ever he can knock !" Mrs. Thorn 
 said angrily, bursting into a homely but 
 alarming parabole to Betsy. As she passed 
 down from her attic retirement, with all 
 the polish and fragrance of yellow soap 
 fresh upon her, she had looked in upon the 
 study fire, and had given a word of honest 
 advice to the reckless man as he sat there 
 steaming. 
 
 " Lor' ! whatever do he do that for ! I left 
 him as comfortable as could be, with one of 
 they square books as looks so heavy, and be 
 so light, a mumbling to himself, upon his 
 knee. I didn't see no coffin ! You makes 
 my very flesh for to creep, Mrs. Thorn !" 
 
 " Stupid !" cook said grimly. " 'Tis easy to
 
 112 True Women. 
 
 make your flesh creep. Your heart's about 
 the size of a hazel-nut. Did you never hear 
 that saying before ? There, run ! there's the 
 door-bell !" 
 
 "A letter from Mrs. Blight, Miss Betsy 
 Giles," said a sarcastic, ill-looking boy in 
 buttons, who was the terror of all the cats 
 and dogs in Rippleford — another pet by-the- 
 bye of Mrs. Tweedy 's ; " and if she don't get 
 an answer pretty sharp, she'll call for it 
 herself. So tell your guv'nor to mind his 
 eye." 
 
 Betsy shut the door in the ill-looking boy's 
 face with dignity ; but on returning to give 
 an answering message from her master she 
 found Ned Spong standing on his head with 
 his feet against the door-post, and her indig- 
 nation got the better of her. 
 
 " Get down, do ! Oh, you haggravatin' 
 himp ! You've broke the paint ! I'll tell 
 master ! — see if I don't ! Master won't write
 
 Oh Woman ! Woman ! 113 
 
 till he pleases. You be off ! That's the 
 
 answer. " 
 
 " 'Taint," said Ned. 
 
 " Tis," said Betsy. 
 
 " Who got all them verses to learn for 
 sniggering at Mother Tweedy's face when it 
 was all o' one side like a blighted apple 
 with the toothache V asked the ill-favoured 
 Ned jeeringly. 
 
 " Who got two great whacks across his 
 back the next Sunday as ever was, for letting 
 they marbles go drop, drop, drop down the gal- 
 lery-stairs V Betsy was wild enough to retort. 
 
 " Fie, children, G.e !" said the good Vicar, 
 opening the study-door to reprimand the 
 loiterers without having heard the discordance 
 of their duet ; " wasting your employers' time 
 like that while you chatter on the door-step ! 
 If Ned Spong is a friend of yours, Betsy, ask 
 him in to tea some Sunday to talk over school- 
 days." 
 
 vol. i. 8
 
 114 True Women. 
 
 " Friend V Betsy said in anguish to Mrs. 
 Thorn, when she complained of her master's 
 cruel mistake ; "if I don't find a better 
 friend than Ned Spong, I shouldn't care how 
 soon I dies an old maid !" 
 
 We believe — but our wisdom came later 
 with sad experience — that most of Mrs. Mac- 
 Beggah Tweedy's pet Sunday-class scholars 
 were no better than Betsy Giles and Ned 
 Spong. 
 
 They were little whited sepulchres. Much 
 goodness might be buried in their hearts. 
 Let us hope with the good Vicar that it was ; 
 but, honestly, their hearts were so deep ive 
 never found any. 
 
 "My dear Sir/' Mrs. Blight's letter ran : 
 
 " After your unhappy difference 
 
 with my friend Mrs. MacBeggah Tweedy 
 
 regarding the religious darkness of your 
 
 parish, and the way you have really christened
 
 Oh Woman ! Woman ! 115 
 
 Mrs. Bunney's three children with their 
 horrible Jewish names, she feels it impossible 
 to address you herself ; so I consider it my 
 duty to let you know how the members of 
 your Lying-in Club are going on with Lady 
 Vansittart's flannel in her absence. 
 
 "As long as you will allow for three 
 breadths and a tuck for shrinking and a hem, 
 all the worthless and designing women scrimp 
 the petticoats, and sell the remainder, which 
 is enough for two. 
 
 " We know your Mrs. Gore has done this, 
 for when we taxed her with it, she said if she 
 had scrimped any way it was for her baby ; but 
 when we desired her to show us if the baby 
 had it on, she refused to let us touch the 
 cradle while it slept. 
 
 " She has refused to come for Mrs. 
 Tweedy 'a tea-leaves, as others gladly do, 
 thanking God for all His mercies. 
 
 " When we told her we would get the 
 
 8—2
 
 116 True Women. 
 
 allowance of milk she has from Sir Augustus 
 Vansittart's model farm stopped, if she spoke 
 as she did to us, she said she could not come 
 to and fro three miles for the tea-leaves, 
 because her little ones drag her down upon 
 the road. She put her apron over her face 
 and cried with rage. 
 
 " We ask you if that woman ' shall perish 
 in iniquity V 
 
 " ' Shall not the wicked be snared in the 
 work of her hands V 
 
 " ' We will provoke to anger the hearts of 
 many against her F 
 
 " ' Shame shall cover her !' 
 
 " What we ask of you now is to withhold 
 your ill-deserved bounties till we are satisfied 
 with this woman's humility and repentance. 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " Martha Eliza Blight." 
 
 " Oh woman ! woman !" groaned the
 
 Oh Woman ! Woman ! 117 
 
 Vicar, as he came to the well-known signa- 
 ture of this letter. It was by no means the 
 worst specimen of Mrs. Blight's compositions 
 he possessed. She had written it off, as she 
 would say, in haste, out of her heart. The 
 subject was clearer, the perverted texts fewer 
 than usual. 
 
 " ' Cease from anger, and forsake wrath ; 
 fret not thyself in anywise to do evil/ How 
 many precious and moving admonitions do 
 you overlook in seeking denunciations for 
 your poorer, more tempted sisters ! But I 
 will not use woman as a term of reproach. I 
 must not be so stirred to anger myself by 
 such foolish doings. I must not let my daily 
 bread be embittered by Mrs. Blight's fermen- 
 tations. ' Dragged down by little ones upon 
 the road.' My poor friend, my poor Mrs. 
 Gore ! you have described yourself only too 
 truly. And could those mothers not feel 
 for you ? Never mind ! while I have bread
 
 118 True Women. 
 
 my people shall not want. While I have 
 warmth they shall not perish ! c Dragged 
 down by little ones upon the road/ "he re- 
 peated again, much moved by the simple 
 truth and fulness of Mrs. Gore's plaint ; 
 
 " Yet of my little, I have some to spare, 
 
 To feed the famished, and to clothe the bare."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ONE OF THE GANG, 
 
 " A breast that needed not ideal woe." 
 
 Byron (Lara). 
 
 " A wild-looking man, calling himself John 
 Sullivan, wants to speak to you, Miss Loraine. 
 But I would not advise you to have anything 
 to do with him, miss. He has been hanging 
 about the back-yard, gardener says, for more 
 than an hour, swearing " he'll get speech of 
 you," as he says, " alone" But gardener and 
 me will make him clear out if you please to 
 say he must go," Ellis had, most unwillingly, 
 to inform his young mistress during Mrs. 
 Loraine's absence at Pendrills.
 
 120 True Women. 
 
 Ellis's authority in the back premises was 
 seldom, if ever, questioned, and if John 
 Sullivan had not been half a head taller than 
 himself, and of a brawny and gigantic pre- 
 sence, he would have liked to have given him 
 something more decided than scornful looks 
 and short words — an unmistakable shove, for 
 instance — in return for the stolid persistency 
 of his demand to speak alone with Miss 
 Lorain e. 
 
 Ellis knew, however, that his strength lay 
 not only in his magnificent calves, but in the 
 unrivalled courtesy of his demeanour, and 
 steadiness of his habits. Neither of these 
 three great gifts would avail him against John 
 Sullivan's bone and muscle. He felt he might 
 as well try to shove the rock of Gibraltar — 
 better, indeed, as that would certainly not 
 shove back, and John Sullivan's under jaw 
 said " Beware," and looked like retaliation, if 
 ever a jaw spoke !
 
 One of the Gang. 121 
 
 " It's all right, Ellis. I expected him. Ask 
 him in." 
 
 " I wouldn't, indeed, miss/' Ellis felt bound 
 to advise. " He looks for all the world as if 
 he had come out of a pig-sty. His legs are 
 bound with straw-bands ; his clothes are 
 mucked with mortar ; not the kind of indi- 
 vidual — excuse me, Miss Loraine — to ask in. 
 Your mamma is so particular." 
 
 " Very well then, I'll go out to him," Sibyl 
 answered, and out she went, before Ellis could 
 close the drawing-room door and follow to hear 
 the greeting. 
 
 Ellis was still further aggrieved very soon 
 after, by being asked to bring some cold meat 
 and beer for the man so mucked with mortar. 
 But as Miss Loraine herself asked for them, 
 and held her hands outstretched for them, 
 Ellis could not refuse the service re- 
 quired of him for the disrepu table-looking 
 stranger.
 
 122 True Women. 
 
 After this trial of his loyalty Ellis retired, 
 highly displeased, with his hands under his 
 coat-tails, to tell his sorrows to the cook he 
 confided in. 
 
 " I would give a sixpence to know what 
 that big brute in the tool-house has got to say 
 to Miss Loraine," he grumbled. 
 
 " You never has no patience with your 
 young ladies, Mr. Ellis,' ' cook said cheerily. 
 " You'll hear it all at dinner when Miss 
 Sibyl tells her mamma. And then if you've 
 a mind for anything nice for supper, you 
 must come and tell me," she added, laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 " It ain't anything to laugh at," growled the 
 balked retainer in plush. 
 
 Miss Loraine shut her protege into the tool- 
 house with the meat and beer, while she ran 
 into the house for her hat and waterproof; 
 and then, accompanied by her strange com- 
 panion, she went her way out of the back-
 
 One of the Gang. 123 
 
 yard, and through the dense evergreens of the 
 American garden. 
 
 " It's no business of mine," Ellis muttered 
 when the mans cat-skin cap could no longer 
 be seen over the tops of the rhododendrons 
 and kalmias, meandering steadily through the 
 choicest bits of Mrs.Loraine's pleasure-grounds 
 round to the Vicar's Walk ; " but it's a pity 
 the Colonel is not here, to stop young ladies 
 from keeping company with tramps. That's 
 all I say !" 
 
 " You've no call to say such a thing, then, 
 Mr. Ellis," snapped cook, who had not a bad 
 idea, on the whole, of woman's rights, as well 
 as an overweening love for the beautiful 
 daughter of the house. " Miss Sibyl never 
 did anything as a lady didn't ought to do yet, 
 nor never will. If you'd take my advice," 
 cook added solemnly, feeling she had 
 lost her temper, "you'd take two of your 
 antibilious "
 
 124 True Women. 
 
 " Antibilious be " Ellis began. 
 
 Mrs. Loraine's bell and the need for calm 
 prevented Ellis from finishing his sentence. 
 He soon recovered himself, and answered Mrs. 
 Loraine's summons with the stately suavity 
 that made him so great a treasure in that 
 lady's household. 
 
 " The door-bell again, Bet-see !" screamed 
 Mrs. Thorn, above the clatter of her cups and 
 saucers and spoons, and the bubbling of her 
 tea-kettle upon the hob. " Depend upon it, 
 she've come ! I wouldn't be master then, not 
 if I was George Peabody himself then, that I 
 wouldn't." 
 
 Mrs. Blight was the bugbear of every 
 household in Bippleford, and to meet her 
 Betsy tied her apron-strings afresh — as in 
 Bible days they girded their loins — and pre- 
 pared for single combat.
 
 One of the Gang. 125 
 
 " She ain't agoing to timidate me> then," 
 said the brave Betsy. 
 
 " But when the door was opened the birds 
 began to sing," Betsy said later. " It give me 
 such a turn to see Miss Loraine's pretty face 
 a-smiling at me when I opened it. How pretty 
 real ladies do speak," she continued, softening 
 her own voice to imitate the sweet tones that 
 had greeted her with the inquiry : 
 
 " Can I see Mr. Traill, Betsy ? Ask him to 
 spare me a few minutes, will you T 
 
 " Lor ! who could refuse any think that was 
 asked 'em like that ? Not master, I be 
 bound ! for I've showed her in. But she's got 
 such a man with her /" 
 
 " Who is it ? Speak out if you've a mind 
 to be a pleasant fellow-servant. Who is it — 
 the Colonel V cook asked, angry at having to 
 get her curiosity gratified by a chit like Betsy 
 Giles. 
 
 " Lor, no ! It's a kind of hulking navvy,
 
 126 True Women. 
 
 with a back — he didn't turn his face — a back 
 ever so high, and ever so broad ; as broad as 
 yourn pretty near." 
 
 " Betsy Giles," said Mrs. Thorn, with injured 
 majesty, " I'll trouble you to let that plate of 
 buttered toast alone till you can keep a civil 
 tongue in your head." 
 
 "Well, I never!" Betsy said in dis- 
 may. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Betsy Giles, before 
 you're sorry for it." 
 
 And we grieve to say Betsy did as she was 
 hid. We almost wish this exhibition of 
 unchristian levity had been made before 
 Mrs. Tweedy herself, that she might have 
 split up some texts suitable for such an 
 occasion. 
 
 As for Mrs. Thorn, she was, she owned, 
 utterly powerless to cope with this " limb of 
 Satan," and she took refuge, as many very fat 
 women do in moments of impotent fury, in a
 
 One of the Gang. 127 
 
 copious shower of tears while she finished the 
 buttered toast. 
 
 7& $fc ^ $fc 3fc 
 
 " Miss Loraine ! Asking to see me ? What 
 ails the woman ?" thought the harassed Vicar. 
 " Why could not she write if she had anything 
 to say V 
 
 "Show her into the drawing-room, Betsy. 
 Light the fire there with a few sticks, dry 
 sticks ; and then fetch me a tidy coat, child, 
 if you can find one." 
 
 Betsy again did as she was bid ; and by 
 the time Mr. Traill had struggled into a fresh 
 coat and tidy shoes, the drawing-room fire- 
 place was vomiting forth clouds of dense grey 
 smoke, after which the window had to be 
 opened, and the angry smoke went roaring 
 wildly up the chimney, and Mr. Traill and 
 Miss Loraine became visible, bowing and 
 retreating to chairs as far from each other's as 
 they could get.
 
 128 True Women. 
 
 " How angry he looks," thought Sibyl. 
 " He is red in the face." 
 
 The poor Vicar meant only kindness, but 
 smoke was one of the domestic troubles he 
 bore least well. And Betsy had brought him 
 an old dress-coat, tight in the arm-holes 
 too, and he could think of nothing but a 
 village Guy Faux as he first seated himself, 
 he was so nearly suffocated and felt so 
 stiff. 
 
 " I came to you because I did not know 
 what to do, Mr. Traill," his sweet visitor said 
 naively. " I hope you will help me, and not 
 be angry." 
 
 " Tell me all about it, my dear young lady. 
 What can 1 do for you V Mr. Traill asked, 
 recovering all his courtesy. 
 
 Then Sibyl answered by telling poor John 
 Sullivan's story. He was cousin to the man 
 crushed to death at Lynn the week before. 
 He had been drinking: the morning of the
 
 One of the Gang. 129 
 
 accident. He had forgotten to fasten or stop 
 some part of the machinery for hoisting the 
 great stones. And when the men slackened to 
 take breath at the crank, it had flown out of 
 their hands, the chains had given out with a 
 run, the block had fallen with deadly force, 
 and poor Mike Sullivan was beneath it. 
 
 r " I have brought this wretched man, John 
 Sullivan with me," Sibyl said, steadying her 
 voice, which broke sadly in describing that 
 terrible scene in Lynn. " He is wild with 
 remorse ; he has written to the widow a most 
 dreadful letter, accusing himself of having 
 murdered her husband. It ought not to go, 
 ought it? Will you hear the mans story, 
 Mr. Traill, and make the misfortune clear to 
 him, and take away the guilt ; you will not 
 be hard upon him, will you ?" she pleaded, 
 with tears in her eyes. " He cannot do more 
 than earnestly repent ! You will comfort 
 him, will you not V she pleaded again ; " and, 
 
 vol. I. 9
 
 130 True Women. 
 
 above all, you will not let Mrs. Blight or her 
 dreadful friend know what I have told you, — 
 no one knows it but me. They will not 
 believe that any one can be miserably sorry 
 and repent. Even Lady Vansittart disap- 
 proves of reformed characters prowling about 
 the neighbourhood ; I heard her say so. 
 Among them they would hunt him to death, 
 or into real crime. He has been hiding in the 
 woods all these days." 
 
 " Trust him to me/' Mr. Traill said gently ; 
 "no one can be more anxious than I am to 
 protect the poor and the sorrowful from them 
 all. Trust him to me/' 
 
 ***** 
 
 " The Philistines be upon thee," Mr. Traill 
 cried mentally a little later, when having 
 ushered Miss Loraine and her penitent into 
 his study, he saw Mrs. Blight standing on the 
 front doorsteps. 
 
 " She said she saw master at the window,
 
 One of the Gang. 131 
 
 so in she tramped, never so much as a * if you 
 please ' about her," Betsy informed Mrs. 
 Thorn, who was still weeping as she washed 
 up her tea-things. " Lor, now, make it up, 
 do ; and come and listen to her a-worritting 
 of master. She's gone into the drawing- 
 room. There's the Tweedy sitting outside in 
 the carriage staring before her as hard as 
 Daniel in the Bible lion's den, and awful he 
 do stare ! come and listen, do." 
 
 " Stop your chatter," Mrs. Thorn whispered, 
 as she rolled her arms in her apron to dry 
 themselves at their leisure, and put her ear to 
 the chink of the cloth door in the passage. 
 Taking care to interpose her high, broad, 
 malignant back between the chink and Betsy. 
 " Master says ' his time's not his own/ she 
 hissed softly to the eager girl. I like that ! 
 ' It belongs to a poor soul burdened with an 
 imaginary crime.' Lor ! he must be put 
 about afore he'd say that of Miss Loraine." 
 
 9—2
 
 132 True Women. 
 
 " You forgets the navvy," hissed Betsy back 
 to her. " But go on listening, do 1" 
 
 Cook was right, it was under severe pres- 
 sure of surprise and annoyance the Vicar had 
 blurted out John Sullivan's right to be heard 
 before Mrs. Gore's accuser. 
 
 " Oh ! how dare she !" panted Mrs. Thorn. 
 Cl Tell master, indeed, he'd got a visitor there 
 he didn't dare for to let her see ! ' Petticoats,' 
 says she ; would she have Miss Loraine come 
 out without 'em ? Take herself off, will she ? 
 Get along with you do, you spiteful, ugly, old 
 
 ma 
 
 gpie 
 
 !" 
 
 Mrs. Blight never forgot that visit to the 
 Vicarage. Long afterwards she brought up 
 her suspicions against the Vicar and the 
 petticoats she had seen reflected in the lower 
 glasses of the study book-shelves. 
 
 " The man I did see, and heard him own 
 he was f one of the gang.' ' A wretch burdened
 
 One of the Gang. 133 
 
 with a crime/ and that wretch was John 
 Sullivan, the monster Mr. Traill and the 
 Loraines are recommending everywhere to do 
 odd jobs. It is shameful of them. What 
 will Lady Vansittart say of such doings when 
 she returns ? She is perfection among the 
 vulgar herd, and does not allow such doings 
 when she is at home. Mark my words, one 
 day or other their eyes will be opened, they 
 will be robbed. That's some comfort."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW FRIENDSHIP GREW 
 
 " Ay, these look like the workmanship of heaven, 
 This is the porcelain clay of human kind." 
 
 Drtdex. 
 
 Many were Mr. Traill's excuses now for 
 visiting the pleasant Loraine family before 
 the ladies took their departure for Grey- 
 minster. Dean Ponsonby had responded as 
 Mrs. Burleigh had predicted. He was over- 
 joyed to receive them, and begged them to 
 stay all winter, and as far into the spring as 
 they could bear to remain away from their 
 neighbours and their flowers. 
 
 John Sullivan and his future made a very
 
 How Friendship Grew. 135 
 
 tough problem for the vicar to solve, and it 
 was not to be solved on the Queen's highway, 
 with chance meetings, and the chance of in- 
 terruptions from Mrs. Blight or Mrs. Tweedy. 
 So Mr. Traill went by the Vicar's Walk nearly 
 as often as when his friend was at the Manor, 
 and stopped to talk in the sunny verandah 
 quite as often as he went ceremoniously up to 
 the great glass doors, to be let in by the solemn 
 Ellis. 
 
 Mrs. Loraine and Sybil felt they themselves 
 had gained a friend, as well as one for Sibyl's 
 gigantic protege. 
 
 Mr. Traill had to break to Miss Loraine 
 the bad news of her penitent's utter unfitness 
 for his old vocation. The man's nerve was 
 gone. He had trembled like an aspen leaf, 
 great drops of anguish stood out upon his 
 brow, and he came near fainting when Mr. 
 Traill went with him to the scene of the 
 tragedy.
 
 136 True Wo 
 
 men. 
 
 " He could no more mount the huge scaf- 
 folding ladders, and work upon the narrow 
 planks above now, than he could grasp the 
 bright blue sky, if there. The foreman said, 
 when once a man's heart failed in that wise, 
 he could never again be trusted up the ladders 
 with a load." Mr. Traill reported on their 
 return from Lynn : " He would have taken 
 him on again with pleasure, for he never heard 
 a word against the. man ; but the scene of the 
 disaster was altogether too much for him. 
 There was no pretence about it," Mr. Traill 
 said with much feeling. 
 
 " We should have thought of that, and not 
 tried his courage so cruelly," Sibyl said. 
 " How much suffering we women inflict heed- 
 lessly, in our ignorance. ,, 
 
 For it was Miss Loraine who had per- 
 suaded the Vicar to replace the man among 
 his fellows. 
 
 He was an awkward pet, and but grimly
 
 How Friendship Grew. 137 
 
 received by the pampered menials at The 
 Beeches. Even his begrudged meals in the 
 tool-house were made more bitter to him by 
 the sounds of the boisterous enjoyment that 
 gladdened the inmates of the servants' -hall 
 close by. 
 
 John Sullivan was made to feel that he 
 was a Pariah about The Beeches, and was 
 gradually acquiring a "hang-dog look." 
 
 Davies had with difficulty been persuaded 
 to let him sleep in a spare loose-box, and the 
 gardener had gently but firmly refused to let 
 him set foot in bis department. 
 
 " But he is terrible from his size only," 
 Sibyl assured her friend. " How frankly he 
 answers all we ask him. How anxious he is 
 to do all and more than he is told. He was 
 at work till quite dark last night sifting the 
 cinder-holes for lazy Piatt." 
 
 " But as we know nothing of the man, we 
 can hardly expect any one to take him in to
 
 138 True Women, 
 
 lodge until he shows us what he is," the 
 Vicar said cogitatingly, " I will see if Mrs. 
 Gore will take him in for a time ; and I dare 
 say I can find work for him for some weeks in 
 my garden. It wants looking to sadly." 
 
 Bell worthy had no objection. He was not 
 one of those lazy good-for-nothings, who will 
 neither do their work themselves, nor let any 
 one else do it for them. No ; he was willing 
 enough to have the zealous remorse-driven 
 Irishman to do all his work ; and loudly did 
 Bellworthy praise him for tramping into 
 Dullford one Sunday to see a Catholic priest 
 and take the pledge. 
 
 Meantime the Vicar found it very sweet 
 indeed to be caught on his way to and from 
 the schools and his parish visits, and forced 
 to stay and lunch at Mrs. Loraine's. Her Irish 
 blood was never more prettily betrayed than 
 in her hospitable welcomes, and in her gentle 
 way of setting her fidgety guest at his ease.
 
 How Friendship Grew. 139 
 
 Out of his own shell, the pulpit, Mr. Traill 
 was apt to be singularly uneasy, and even 
 morose, it had been said ; but he seemed 
 positively to bask in the sunshine of Mrs. 
 Loraine's presence. 
 
 Even the most abstemious man alive has a 
 love for the good things of this life hidden 
 away in some little forgotten corner of his 
 heart ; and Mr. Traill enjoyed heartily the 
 dainties served to him by the respectful Ellis 
 with all the appetising accompaniments of 
 sparkling glass, and snowy napery, and a 
 flower-decked table. He hardly recognised 
 in the delicate cubes and cutlets in Ellis's 
 old silver dish the haricot he had known at 
 home as a conglomerate of lukewarm carrots 
 and mutton, clotted with fat, and sprinkled 
 with cinders ; for haricot was the dish Mrs. 
 Thorn specially preferred to regale her master 
 with on his return from Friday's school. It 
 " kep' ot," as she believed, with less trouble
 
 140 True Women. 
 
 than most things, on a cunning arrangement 
 of poker and tongs before the fire. It also 
 gathered in volume by the falling of cinders 
 thereon, but of such minor troubles of the 
 cuisine Mrs. Thorn took no note. The 
 " 'arico' " was for master, not for herself. 
 
 It was pleasant, too, to be seated after 
 lunch in a cosy armchair by Mrs. Loraines 
 fire, with all the latest reviews and that 
 morning's Times within reach. And all these 
 innocent pleasures were enhanced a thousand- 
 fold by the presence of gentlewomen — " the 
 porcelain clay of human kind " — so very 
 bright, busy, and unaffected as Mrs. Loraine 
 and her stepdaughter. 
 
 He learned more of his charming pa- 
 rishioners in those few weeks than in all the 
 years of his life in Eippleford before. , He 
 spoke with them freely of his many puzzles 
 and annoyances, of his likings and of his dis- 
 likings ; and found, especially about these
 
 How Friendship Grew. 141 
 
 latter, such perfect sympathy between himself 
 and his fair hostesses. 
 
 Mrs. Loraine talked over forlorn Mrs. 
 Long's affairs with him ; and together they 
 had vowed to let sunshine in upon that and 
 many another blighted existence. 
 
 Mary Blight was often to be found at The 
 Beeches now. Mrs. Bird had carried off the 
 sick Christina with her when she left ; and 
 the gentle, uncomplaining girl was half 
 ashamed of enjoying herself too much among 
 Mrs. Bird's cheerful young people. Mary 
 was happy in the possession of her darling's 
 bright letters. Mrs. Bird had indeed left a 
 blessing behind her. Hope, and love, and 
 trust had sprung up afresh under her foster- 
 ing care in the hearts of Mrs. Blight's burden, 
 the twins. 
 
 Mr. Traill was to keep a sort of watch over 
 the unhappy Christina on her return, and 
 to write to his friends about her and Mary.
 
 142 True Women. 
 
 They were never again to be allowed to fancy 
 themselves friendless. 
 
 Sibyl charged him, indeed, with many a 
 new care besides that of her giant bricklayer. 
 She charged him, too, not to forget Mrs. 
 Loraine and herself. 
 
 " Mind ! we are to begin again just where 
 we leave off, most reverend pastor ! If you 
 do not come back to lunch with us at once, 
 and sit in your own chair, and go on with 
 Thackeray, I shall join the MacBeggah 
 Tweedy faction, and teach the children 
 1 texties ' you don't approve of. But if you 
 are here to receive us on our return, and are 
 very good indeed, I will give you ' The New- 
 comes ' as a reward !" 
 
 And Mr. Traill laughed, and promised, and 
 flourished his stick gaily as he departed. 
 
 " What a dear, good, simple-hearted, chival- 
 rous gentleman he is, mamma," Sibyl said, as she 
 turned back from this leave-taking to the hall.
 
 How Friendship Grew. 143 
 
 " How little we knew of him really till now. 
 Why can't we all be more neighbourly than 
 we are, and regale one another sometimes 
 with sympathy, instead of silks 'and satins 
 and side dishes for ever." 
 
 " I really do believe we have made dear good 
 Mr. Traill's life happier these few weeks past, 
 love," Mrs. Loraine answered readily enough, 
 cunningly adding, as she thought of why she 
 was leaving home, " when we return we will 
 try to bring our little world more closely still 
 about us without silks and satins and side 
 dishes ! You have it in your power to do 
 a great deal of good here, darling."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE BEAUTY OF PENDRILLS. 
 
 " A rosebud set with little wilful thorns. 
 And sweet as English air could make her, she." 
 Tennyson (Princess). 
 
 Mrs. Loraine and her step- daughter Sibyl 
 spent their last evening at Pendrills. 
 
 Many were the small cares and respon- 
 sibilities to be given over to Sibyl's faithful 
 friend, the beautiful Margaret Burleigh, 
 known to the little rural world of Hippleford 
 as Miss Madge. 
 
 " Beinember to go through the fernery now 
 and then, Madge ; and take any seedlings 
 that look promising. Viner will be so bent
 
 The Beauty of Pendrills. 145 
 
 on surprising us with forced grapes and 
 strawberries of gigantic size on our return, that 
 he will disdain looking after the lovely common 
 things I care for. We had quite a fight the 
 other day because I told him I preferred roses 
 and violets all the year round to his choicest 
 orchids. And don't forget my pigeons. Do put 
 on one of my garden hats when you feed them, 
 and let them settle on you, and take a few 
 peas or a little salt out of your hand. Don't 
 let them learn to be contented with the 
 scullery-maid or old Piatt," Sibyl charged her 
 friend. 
 
 " The poor widows' money is due every 
 Saturday early. They all call for it, dear 
 Madge. I would not trouble you," Mrs. 
 Loraine said, turning round to smile upon the 
 two friends in the cosy window recess, " but 
 they do not like to receive their small pensions 
 from the servants. And Mrs. Bunney's flannels 
 are ready for the 1st of January." 
 
 vol. i. lo
 
 146 True Women. 
 
 16 Mamma, do let Madge take them before 
 that. The dear little ' mis-be-christened 
 Jews/ as the mother says Mrs. Blight calls 
 them, may be all half- frozen by the 1st of 
 January." 
 
 Of course Mrs. Loraine never refused any 
 request of her darling that she could 
 grant, and Mrs. Bunney was to have her 
 flannels early in November. 
 
 Sibyl and Madge prattled over their winter 
 costumes, and their meeting in spring, and 
 their promised correspondence. Madge was 
 to draw Mary Blight to Pen drills, and to 
 have sympathy ready for Mrs. Long on her 
 return to Bippleford. 
 
 Mrs. Burleigh and Madge thought Sibyl 
 had " forgotten it all," and was quite her old 
 bright self. But Sibyl had seen how she had 
 pained her mother, and still hankering after 
 some heroic self-sacrifice, was trying to do her 
 duty as she had learned to define it in her 
 Catechism.
 
 The Beauty of P-endrills. 147 
 
 Very unwillingly, indeed, the friends 
 parted ; but it was one of Colonel Loraine's 
 canons that the blood bays were never to be 
 kept waiting in the cold, and the last words 
 and last kisses were as few as they were 
 hearty ; the unwillingness was of warmly-ex- 
 pressed regret, not of lingering delay. 
 
 " How I shall miss you, dear Sibyl. But 
 let me wrap you up well. Good-night. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 Margaret Burleigh, who parted with such 
 unaffected hearty love from her one great 
 friend, Sibyl Lorain e, was the beauty of 
 Pendrills, of whom Mrs. Blight's bitterest 
 speeches were usually made. 
 
 Mrs. Bird, indeed, had heard but a small 
 part of Mrs. Blight's grievances regarding the 
 unconscious Mrs. Burleigh and her beautiful 
 only daughter. When Mrs. Blight drew her 
 thin lips in most spitefully, or begged her 
 gossip Mrs. Tweedy most solemnly to " mark 
 
 10—2
 
 148 True Women. 
 
 her words," Miss Burleigh's name was almost 
 sure to follow. 
 
 " How dared she go on as she did with Mr. 
 Vernon ; never knowing her own mind one 
 day from another." 
 
 The same thing might have been said of 
 Mrs. Blight herself, for she would one day 
 describe Miss Burleigh as " sly," the next as 
 " over-demonstrative." One day as " bold," 
 the next as "mincing and prudish." 
 
 According to Mrs. Blight's account, Miss 
 Burleigh was a Janus -faced, heartless 
 coquette. We can assure our readers she 
 was nothing of the kind. She was as far as 
 a high-spirited, tender-hearted, idolised girl 
 can be, " sans peur et sans reproche" 
 
 She ignored affectation, and was altogether 
 free from prudishness, though as finely en- 
 dowed with instinctive modesty as any 
 English maiden we ever met, and we claim 
 for English maidens the right to bear off the
 
 The Beauty of Pendrills. 149 
 
 palm in this respect from every nation in the 
 world. 
 
 Full of enthusiasm and generous impulse 
 as her friend Sibyl Loraine, and ever thinking 
 less of herself than others, she might, indeed, 
 sweet fool, "rush in, where angels fear to 
 tread ;" but there could be no doubt time 
 would bring its gentle cure for this rashness, 
 as it had for the brown tint of her skin, and 
 the extreme thinness that had provoked Mrs. 
 Blight into calling her a " little horror " as a 
 child. 
 
 Time, that had given a peach-like bloom 
 and dimples, that so amply j ustified the hope- 
 ful friends, who boasted how early they had 
 seen the promise of Madge Burleigh's loveli- 
 ness. 
 
 We hate descriptions of beauty, but how can 
 we omit mention of Madge's wealth of glossy, 
 rippled, dark-brown hair ; with a red-gold 
 sunset glow upon the ripples ; or of her
 
 150 True Women. 
 
 proudly-set head ; or of her lithe firm figure, 
 or of her delicately-formed hands and feet, and 
 the soft brown eyes that would have made 
 any ugly face lovable. 
 
 Of all the exclamations of surprise or delight 
 uttered at sight of Madge Burleigh, we ever 
 thought " bewitching," the most appropriate 
 and descriptive. 
 
 That Madge had, what Mrs. Blight called 
 " a temper " we should be sorry to deny. It 
 gave a life, a charm to her expression that no 
 " mere white curd of asses' milk " will ever 
 possess. Her lips were given to smiling very 
 saucily at the pretty speeches — white lies — and 
 petty vanities of her neighbours, great and 
 small. Her soft brown eyes had been known 
 to flash, and her smooth brows to frown when 
 mean or silly sentiments were uttered in her 
 hearing, even though Lady Vansittart herself 
 may have rolled them out with a grandi- 
 loquence worthy of nobler motives.
 
 The Beauty of Pendrills. 151 
 
 Indeed, Miss Burleigh, had not a mean or 
 paltry trait of character in her composition. 
 Her brother Douglas and his dear friend the 
 Reverend Arthur Carey, the last Vicar of 
 Rippleford had been her trainers and tutors. 
 She had, therefore, heard more manly than 
 womanly thoughts on many matters, and had 
 imbibed quite unconsciously more of the spirit 
 and frankness and independence of boyhood 
 that is usual to most girls. 
 
 But we must beg our readers to remember 
 that the " fast young woman " of the pre- 
 sent day was unknown in the days of 
 Margaret Burleigh's girlhood. That most 
 odious of modern monstrosities had not then 
 startled true women into asking "what 
 next?" 
 
 Mr. Burleigh and his friend had not dis- 
 dained the softer virtues of womanhood, they 
 had merely striven to implant in the tender 
 nature of their darling a share of their own
 
 152 
 
 True Women. 
 
 quiet courage, and the magnanimity that 
 redeems our sex from the pettiness, help- 
 lessness, and idle rivalries of paltry woman- 
 kind.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE OLD DEAN. 
 
 " Shut up 
 In measureless content." 
 
 Shakespeare (Macbeth, ii. 1 ). 
 
 When not driving slowly through the lovely 
 lanes round Greyminster, or niched into his 
 stall in the cathedral, with his black velvet 
 cap drawn well over his fine old head, Dean 
 Ponsonby might be found shut into his old 
 oak-paneled library, with the rich crimson 
 cloth doors and curtains to protect him from 
 the chill and the turmoil of the everyday 
 world without. 
 
 Of all the good rooms of the stately 
 Deanery that was his favourite, and in it he
 
 154 True Women. 
 
 had shown his last great effort of taste, and 
 love of the comfortable. 
 
 This oak-paneled room looked out upon 
 the finest old garden bit of the Cathedral 
 Close. Out of Oxford perhaps no such 
 stately elms, or velvet turf, or densely -tufted 
 ivy had joined together to make a picture for 
 an old clerical Don equal to that the Dean 
 had made his one plate-glass window to the 
 ground to look out upon. It was a perfect 
 picture, framed in by the clustering evergreen 
 roses and passion-flowers that basked upon a 
 south front wall. The other windows were 
 high, and deep, and old-fashioned, with panes 
 of the same date as the panels — small with 
 heavy frames. 
 
 The centre window alone of the five had 
 the Dean allowed to be broken through, it 
 might be a vandalism, but it was certainly a 
 successful one ; for every one admired his 
 courage and that window.
 
 TJie Old Dean. 155 
 
 The old Dean had long been oppressed by 
 the height and bulk of his ancient bookcases. 
 One fine day it came to him — like an inspira- 
 tion — to have them divided, and fitted all round 
 the room, and between the great windows to 
 the ground. Upon them he then set his fine 
 bronzes of Demosthenes and Cicero, with two 
 or three Pompeian vases, and a model of the 
 Parthenon ; and here and there a terra-cotta 
 pot to hold brilliant and precious greenhouse 
 plants, for he delighted in flowers. 
 
 He then gave some of the family portraits 
 that overcrowded his dining-room, and had 
 them carefully let in to the panels above ; 
 and caused a long-neglected but valuable old 
 Venetian glass to be hung over the smoke- 
 dried mantelpiece. 
 
 He indulged himself with a new Turkey 
 carpet, and several luxurious easy-chairs in 
 rich crimson morocco binding, as he called it, 
 and looking round he found the effect of his
 
 156 True Worn 
 
 len. 
 
 conglomerate was to make the room as com- 
 fortable as it was remarkable ; and he was 
 well content, smiling to himself as he thought 
 of the welcome he would give his old friend, 
 the bishop's Beatrice, when she should 
 come to live with him even as a daughter in 
 that unrivaled room. 
 
 We have heard how mysteriously that 
 hope had ended ; and after that the poor old 
 Dean looked round upon his work again, and 
 doubted the wisdom of such changes " for a 
 man of his age." 
 
 And then came graver and more depressing 
 doubts still, as to the fairness of his retaining 
 his preferment, now that he could neither 
 preach nor listen with advantage to others or 
 himself; and from that moment the soft car- 
 pet and luxurious chairs, the close companion- 
 ship of his favourite books, the busts, the 
 pictures ceased to charm. 
 
 He told himself he needed rest and
 
 The Old Dean. 157 
 
 warmth, nothing more ; and such should not 
 be the condition of honest labourers in the 
 Lord's vineyard. 
 
 He had been for many, many years an 
 active, zealous friend and counsellor of the 
 Bishop's, spending freely and well the liberal 
 stipend of his honourable calling. His old 
 friend was still hale and able-bodied, doing a 
 fair if not full day's work for his hire ; 
 while the Dean told himself, and fairly, he 
 was little better than a child, and in the way 
 where honest labour and progress must be 
 looked for. 
 
 Dean Ponsonby had worked out his salva- 
 tion much to his own satisfaction, and with 
 much charitable patience for those who had 
 been stumbling-blocks in his way. His mind 
 was quiet and easy ; but the times no longer 
 suited him. The Church even was not what 
 it had been : " New men, new manners,'' a 
 want of reverence ; retorts, not always
 
 158 Ti 'ii e Worn en . 
 
 courteous, shocked him. Even this last 
 strange disappointment, or shame in his own 
 family had not been as things in his best 
 days had been. 
 
 It was time for him to resign, and his 
 nephew's approval or disapproval could no 
 longer influence him. 
 
 His friend the Bishop would support 
 him against Henry Elliott, whose opposi- 
 tion could neither be loudly nor publicly ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 The young man's chief strength lay in his 
 popularity ; he was shorn of that, and with it 
 perhaps of some of his self-sufficiency. 
 
 In deference doubtless to the Bishop's sup- 
 posed displeasure, Mr. Elliott had not been in- 
 vited to join the Greyminster Amateur Orpheus 
 Club; and had a tenor of equal merit been found 
 to replace him, that omission would have been 
 as gall and wormwood to Mr. Elliott ; but as 
 it was, his substitute made one or two public
 
 The Old Dean. 159 
 
 failures, and the old favourite was elated 
 rather than depressed. 
 
 He gave his enemies few chances of snub- 
 bing him. His bearing under his cloud was 
 admirable, and marked by the nicest shades 
 of reserve or frankness, of hauteur, or deferen- 
 tial meekness, as his daily duties and contact 
 with the Cathedral magnates might require. 
 
 He was a model minor canon, say what 
 they would. There was no voice, no hands, 
 no brow, no presence to be compared to his 
 in all Greyminster, in the pulpit or out of it. 
 
 The old Dean was failing fast ; he was his 
 heir, or generally supposed to be so ; for the 
 old man had none nearer or dearer to him. 
 
 Henry Elliott felt that he might wait 
 patiently for the return tide of Greyminster 
 feeling, and he was so waiting, when Mrs. 
 Loraine's offer of a visit, so eagerly accepted 
 by the Dean, reminded him of the existence 
 of a dangerous rival, and of his own pre-
 
 160 True Women. 
 
 carious hold of the old gentleman's affections 
 and favour. 
 
 ***** 
 The Dean made much of his charming 
 niece and great-nieces. 
 
 Mrs. Blake, his valued housekeeper, gave 
 them the smiling, reverential welcome she 
 had learned from the late Mrs. Ponsonby for 
 the Dean's most valued friends. 
 
 The state guest-chamber, from which when 
 the leaves were off the Rookery trees the 
 shimmering of Sea-lieu Bay could be seen, 
 the room Mrs. Ponsonby delighted in, and 
 had adorned with her richest old china and 
 inlaid furniture, was prepared for Mrs. 
 Loraine and Sibyl. Grace chose to be alone 
 always, and she took possession, in solitary 
 grandeur, of the dimity bedroom overlooking 
 the close. 
 
 The arrival of Dean Ponsonby 's fair guests 
 made quite a commotion in and around Grey-
 
 The Old Dean. 161 
 
 minster. The grandees of the neighbourhood 
 as well as the Cathedral greybeards were 
 moved to unusual efforts to be amiable to such 
 unexceptional visitors. 
 
 11 Such beauties — quite little heiresses, too, 
 in their way — were not to be met with every 
 day," one or two neighbours said to one or 
 two others, who they thought should exert 
 their powers of pleasing. 
 
 There was quite a flutter of dissipation 
 within the holy precincts of the Cathedral. 
 
 The Dean gave one or two dinners, whereat 
 Mrs. Blake proved that her right hand had 
 not forgot its cunning ; and he gave also a 
 delightful musical party. On this occasion 
 Mr. Elliott secured the assistance of the 
 Cathedral organist and his gentle daughter, 
 and Grace Loraine alone, to carry out a pro- 
 gramme of such sweetness and variety that 
 he literally flooded the hearts of his hearers 
 with a storm- wave of song. 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 True Women 
 
 The magnificent tenor, so grievously missed, 
 was sweeter than words could describe. In 
 Beethoven's "Adelaide," Schumann's " Spring 
 Night," Schubert's " Hark ! hark ! the lark!" 
 and Haydn's " In native worth and honour 
 clad," he lavished that sweetness, but he 
 was deaf to the almost penitent cries of 
 applause as to the prayers of his audience for 
 even a single encore. 
 
 Greyminster was made to feel acutely that 
 Mr. Elliott sang for Dean Ponsonby and his 
 fair relations alone. The admiration of the 
 little world round him was as much a matter 
 of indifference to him as the aid of the mem- 
 bers of the Orpheus Society. 
 
 Henry Elliott stood alone, but unrivalled, 
 with the old organist and the two young 
 girls to throw his unrivalled powers into 
 relief. 
 
 Nothing could be more enjoyable than the 
 social successes of the winter in Greyminster.
 
 The Old Dean. 163 
 
 Mrs/Loraine saw the bloom returning to her 
 darling's cheeks — the light and joy of life 
 once more animating every look and move- 
 ment of the being she loved best, — and was 
 happier than words can describe. 
 
 The girls made every day fresh projects, 
 new interests, firmer friendships with the 
 Dean's hospitable neighbours and friends. 
 Time flew, and there seemed as many plea- 
 sures in store, as those the Miss Loraines had 
 already enjoyed, in and about the Cathedral 
 and its lovely neighbourhood. The circle of 
 their magical influence increased from day to 
 day, and no one suspected what Miss 
 Loraine's wish, or her mother's /ear had been, 
 nor to what a tragic incident their long, 
 bright visit was owing. 
 
 It would have been difficult indeed to 
 persuade Greyminster that the death of a 
 poor Irish bricklayer at Lynn was the cause 
 of so much social interchange of thought, feel- 
 
 11—2
 
 ]64 
 
 rue 
 
 Women. 
 
 ing, and hospitality. And perhaps the only 
 person to whom the curious contrast of cause 
 and result occurred was Sibyl Loraine herself. 
 She did not forget, she only seemed to do so ; 
 for the greater part of her happiness con- 
 sisted in making others happy.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE LADY OF THE MANOR. 
 
 "Superiors % death ! and equals ? — what a curse ! 
 But an inferior not dependent 1 — worse." 
 
 Pope (Characters of Women). 
 
 Mes. Blight, censorious Mrs. Blight, had 
 one idol, and Mrs. Blight said in speaking of 
 this idol : " She is perfection among the 
 vulgar herd." 
 
 At sixty years of age Lady Vansittart of 
 Hippleford Manor was a very august person- 
 age indeed. In her youth she had been 
 described by the judges of such matters as a 
 " devilish fine woman," and this description
 
 166 True Wo 
 
 men. 
 
 was even more applicable to the gorgeous 
 black and red and white beauty with which 
 she strove to reproduce her memory of the 
 past, when Nature withdrew her lavish gifts. 
 
 Her family was worthy of her. Her three 
 daughters had married so well, that even 
 among themselves they found it hard to 
 decide which was the greatest lady. 
 
 With them we have little or nothing to do, 
 save to mention that their great alliances 
 shed lustre upon the mother as the general 
 who had fought three such glorious matri- 
 monial campaigns. Their visits to Eippleford 
 were in one respect as those of angels', inas- 
 much as they were few and far between, and 
 the visions were confined to the servants at 
 the Manor; their mother's neighbours were 
 rarely blessed even by the knowledge of their 
 coming or going. 
 
 Sir Augustus Vansittart, the only son and 
 heir of the Lady of the Manor, was as great
 
 The Lady of the Manor. 167 
 
 in his way as his mother — that is different 
 from every one else, and above the reach of 
 ordinary parallels. 
 
 He was an original, finding his occupations 
 and pleasures anywhere and everywhere but in 
 the beaten paths said to lead up to his position. 
 
 He was a successful game-rearer, a fair 
 rough carpenter, a knowing groom, and a 
 first- rate whip. Indeed on his coach-box he 
 mounted to excellence, and literally as well 
 as figuratively towered above his fellows. 
 
 From boyhood up to his present imperial 
 measure of manhood at thirty-two, he was 
 always spoken of as causing a good deal of 
 difficulty. 
 
 The Eev. Matthew Traill, his quondam 
 tutor, had required all the moral courage of 
 his earnest nature to accept the charge 
 placed in his hands by the sententious 
 mother of the young giant, then in his seven- 
 teenth year and sadly neglected.
 
 16S True Women. 
 
 " I require you, sir," Lady Vansittart said 
 in tones of hard authority, " to guide and in- 
 fluence Sir Augustus Vansittart according to 
 my views, and to bring him forward with the 
 neglected branches of his education as rapidly 
 as possible. He is a very remarkable boy. I 
 do not choose to be brought into collision with 
 him myself. No amount of reasoning has 
 had any effect on him hitherto, and of course 
 coercion is out of the question. He inherits 
 his character and great firmness from myself, 
 and I have no doubt he will do very well in 
 the end; but meanwhile the responsibility 
 will rest upon you." 
 
 There were many reasons why a good home 
 and a large salary should not be lightly 
 rejected by the gentle and learned Matthew 
 Traill, but the responsibility thus set before 
 him suddenly was almost more than he had 
 heart for, as the saying is ; for he saw no 
 hope of any sympathy in his struggles, or of
 
 TJie Lady of the Manor. 169 
 
 even a courteous recognition of his services 
 
 from the imperious mother, whose manner 
 
 towards him was only a shade less severe 
 
 than that of the haughty butler who had 
 
 ushered him into the presence-chamber. 
 
 He felt that in the suite of rooms set apart 
 
 for him, in a cold wing of the rambling old 
 
 Manor, overlooking a back yard surrounded 
 
 with inferior offices, he would be as utterly 
 
 alone as Alexander Selkirk on the island 
 
 of Juan Fernandez, without being monarch 
 
 of anything he surveyed, and probably with 
 
 every right disputed. As little chance was. 
 
 there that he 
 
 " Might learn from the wisdom of age " 
 
 as 
 
 " Be cheered by the sallies of youth." 
 
 His friends, Mr. Burleigh and Arthur 
 Carey, the then Vicar of Bippleford, had 
 evidently thought more of his pecuniary gain 
 than of his aspiration to do good and gain
 
 170 True Women. 
 
 honour in so doing. He was profoundly 
 discouraged, and was turning over in his 
 mind the best mode of retreating from a 
 false position, when his door was thrown open 
 by the " very remarkable boy " himself, who 
 came to offer with rough hospitality, mingled 
 with keen curiosity, to " show him over the 
 place, and find out what kind of things he 
 cared about/' 
 
 " Mr. Burleigh thought you might be 
 happy enough in my father's library," the 
 young giant continued ; " but if you know 
 anything of dogs, I wish you'd just come and 
 see my bull-terriers. Old Sir Henry Vernon's 
 can't hold a candle to them ! Besides, his 
 poor beasts don't know him when they see 
 him. Mine are everything to me !" 
 
 And Mr. Traill saw the place, and the bull- 
 terrier pups, and found his pupil, too, rather 
 like a younger Alexander Selkirk without 
 any humanising memories to " reconcile man
 
 The Lady of the Manor. 171 
 
 to his lot ;" and we need hardly say he did not 
 resign his responsibilities, but, on the con- 
 trary, attached himself to them ; and it is but 
 fair here to state that he never repented 
 having done so. 
 
 There had been a Sir William Vansittart. 
 He had done all that his family required of 
 him early in life by marrying his heir ess - 
 cousin, and was content to be known for the 
 next fifteen years of his life as Lady Vansit- 
 tart' s husband — as many a V.C. is proud to 
 be known through life by the fame of one 
 brave and daring exploit. 
 
 He was not, therefore, much missed when, 
 on one occasion, Lady Vansittart returned 
 from abroad in a close cap, and told her 
 neighbours that she had " buried Sir William 
 at Mentone." 
 
 Lady Vansittart bore her bereavement as 
 she bore herself — nobly. She at once devoted 
 herself to the perfecting and settlement in
 
 1 72 True Women. 
 
 life of her three handsome daughters, and 
 that great work being accomplished with 
 eclat, she gave her unruly son into Mr. 
 Traill's gentle hands, and devoted herself to 
 the social regeneration of the little world 
 surrounding her ancestral acres, and was 
 ready to advise and admonish all who came 
 within the mystic boundary she called the 
 circle of her acquaintance. 
 
 She accepted the responsibilities fate por- 
 tioned out to her in a very different spirit from 
 that of most lone women. 
 
 She recognised all the claims of society upon 
 her time, her strength, and her income. 
 
 She was never known to tremble at any 
 emergency, or to shrink from any duty of 
 inflicting pain. 
 
 We therefore think she was fully entitled 
 to be considered what she claimed to be, " a 
 very remarkable* woman," and the greatest 
 blessing that could possibly have been be-
 
 The Lady of the Manor. 173 
 
 stowed upon a country neighbourhood, peopled 
 with the waifs and strays of tempests of 
 grief or change — anchorless widows and 
 drifting orphans. 
 
 In such a neighbourhood a strong-minded, 
 ■clear-headed, well-to-do chief of some kind is 
 grievously needed ; and Lady Vansittart 
 dealt courageously with its small social 
 puzzles, and informed the few depressed 
 gentlemen that sickness or misfortune 
 tethered within the circle of her acquaintance, 
 that " half-pay officers, old Indians, and 
 invalid unemployed clergymen were the ruin 
 of every society in which they had any 
 voice." And no one had dared to contradict 
 her. 
 
 There was a report, indeed, that Com- 
 modore Brians had struck his crutch violently 
 through the worm-eaten floor of his smoking- 
 arbour at Nelson Villa, and sworn that he 
 would " blow her out of the water if she ever
 
 174 True Women. 
 
 said anything of the kind on his quarter- 
 deck !" but nobody but Mrs. Blight believed 
 it. 
 
 Bippleford generally adored in trembling 
 its Lady of the Manor. She was magnet 
 strong enough to draw the military out of 
 Lynn ; she gave its largest croquet -parties, 
 and hunt-breakfasts, and dinner-parties ; and 
 she was the mother of the richest unmarried 
 man within driving distance of the many 
 mothers with many unmarried daughters who 
 made the society of Eippleford so terribly 
 tame, when it was not downright sluggish.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 "HE WAS IN THE DIVORCE COURT." 
 
 " Around him some mysterious circle thrown 
 Eepell'd approach, and show'd him still alone ; 
 Upon his eye sate something of reproof, 
 That kept at least frivolity aloof ; 
 And things more timid that beheld him near, 
 In silence gazed, or whisper'd mutual fear ; 
 And they the wiser, friendlier few confess'd 
 They deem'd him better than his air express'd." 
 
 Byron (Lara). 
 
 Our story would be incomplete if we omitted 
 all notice of Sir Augustus Vansittart's per- 
 sonal appearance, for it was as remarkable 
 and as unlike that of his fellows as his train- 
 ing and his tastes. 
 
 He was enormous ; heavy, high-shouldered,
 
 176 True Women. 
 
 with a head almost too large for the huge 
 shoulders on to which it was so closely 
 set. 
 
 His eyes were somewhat a fleur de tete, 
 and his jaws massive. He would have been 
 described as elephantine, if every one had 
 not seen that he bore a ludicrous resem- 
 blance to the elephant's comparatively mo- 
 dern rival in unwieldy size, the hippopo- 
 tamus. 
 
 Any one acquainted with the outlines of 
 animal nature must know at once, that 
 though no baronet with fifteen thousand a 
 year can be called a repulsive creature, we 
 cannot honestly represent Sir Augustus as an 
 attractive man. 
 
 His unloved and unlovely life had had 
 an evil influence upon his outer man. He 
 affected, even if he did not feel, utter in- 
 difference to the opinions and feelings of 
 others. He assumed an air of almost
 
 "He ivas in the Divorce Court' 1 177 
 
 brutal indifference, and was often avoided as 
 a brute. 
 
 But the close friendship existing between 
 Mr. Traill and his old pupil led some few 
 charitably-disposed neighbours to believe 
 there must be some good in Lady Vansittart's 
 heir. Mr. Traill was one of those simple, 
 kindly creatures who are easily wounded, 
 even by a sharp word, and though Mr. Traill 
 had often spoken of the Baronet's wrongs and 
 disadvantages, he never complained of any of 
 his own ; so it is but fair to suppose that the 
 huge young man to whom he had devoted six 
 years of his life had a heart, and had given 
 him an " Open Sesame !" to it. 
 
 Mr. Traill had been also known to declare, 
 that Sir Augustus possessed a power of 
 attracting all he cared to draw into his inti- 
 macy. He had undoubted power over all the 
 animals he delighted in ; no horse, however 
 vicious, but he could tame ; no dog. however 
 vol. i. 12
 
 178 True Women. 
 
 savage, but he could soothe and win the con- 
 fidence of; and his people, those in daily 
 service about him, gave him the simple praise 
 of being " the right sort for a master !" With 
 two luckless exceptions, hereafter to be con- 
 fessed, Sir Augustus's few acknowledged 
 friends were, in every way, a credit to his 
 choice. 
 
 Colonel Meredith, of H.M. 1st Flamingoes, 
 now again stationed at Lynn, was one of 
 those men whose regard reflects honour on 
 their friends. He was the very soul of 
 honour himself; and a tried and valued 
 authority, from the mysterious Horse-Guards 
 themselves, down to the little drummers 
 practising with wearied arms their unrivaled 
 roll upon the furzy hillside beyond the parade 
 ground at Lynn. 
 
 Mr. Burleigh, the popular ex-member for 
 West Rootshire, and Arthur Carey, the be- 
 loved late Vicar of Eippleford, were stanch
 
 " He ivas in the Divorce Court" 179 
 
 friends of the huge Baronet. One and all 
 agreed that " If Yansittart had had a father 
 or a mother worth anything, he would have 
 been a first-rate fellow ; and that suit of the 
 Kerr Pagets would never have been heard of !" 
 
 That suit had been in the Divorce Court, 
 and had failed, for the Pagets were only 
 separated. And the petitioner, cut even by 
 the doubtful world in which he had striven 
 to keep a place, was now an outlaw. Still, 
 Mrs. Blight could not bring herself to believe 
 that any man could be brought so close to the 
 brink of dishonour by foolish, pitiful trust, 
 and reckless liberality, as Sir Augustus had 
 been brought ; nor could she recognise in his 
 sturdy, self-respecting opposition to the 
 Pagets' plot any better motive than brazen 
 impudence. 
 
 Mrs. Paget flaunted herself in Parisian 
 costumes and her celebrated diamond serpent 
 bracelets before the little world of Bippleford 
 
 12—2
 
 180 True Women. 
 
 and Lynn on every public occasion possible ; 
 and kept Mrs. Blight's memory fresh and full 
 of the bitterest suspicions regarding the sup- 
 posed donor of the diamonds ; the man who 
 had been wheedled to such an extent by that 
 artful jade, and showed such resolute indif- 
 ference to the innocent wiles of so many dear 
 girls living all round him. 
 
 Sir Augustus, indeed, withdrew himself 
 almost entirely from the gaieties of the 
 neighbourhood after what Mrs. Blight per- 
 sisted in calling " his awful scandal !" And 
 on the few occasions he did appear he had 
 wrapped himself in such haughty reserve that 
 none could say he had ventured to make him- 
 self agreeable, or to desire to be forgiven. 
 
 He said by his bearing as distinctly as 
 possible : " There is no need to assume any 
 virtuous indignation ; take no trouble on my 
 account, I give you credit for it all." 
 
 It is equally certain that the heads of
 
 " He ivas in the Divorce Court" 181 
 
 families round Ripple ford were far more sorry 
 than Sir Augustus that any need of any such 
 defiant retirement had arisen. 
 
 The fear that the beautiful owner of the 
 diamond serpents had made a bonfire of the 
 Baronet's heart, and burnt it up for her own 
 wicked amusement, was one reason for look- 
 ing on her with such horror. It was less her 
 supposed sin, than the " consequences to the 
 neighbourhood at large," as it was vaguely 
 described, that excited the popular wrath. 
 And if Sir Augustus would only have 
 humbled himself, or even have taken a cup of 
 early tea, or a croquet-mallet from the hands 
 of his detractors, there was not one that 
 would not gladly have given her word for it, 
 that he was an innocent and honourably 
 acquitted man. 
 
 But whatever else Sir Augustus thought of 
 his neighbours, he never thought of stooping 
 to conciliate them. And with a few excep-
 
 182 True Women. 
 
 tions in favour of his friends, or neighbours 
 like Mrs. Burleigh, Mrs. Vernon, and Mrs. 
 Loraine — from whose houses his absence 
 would have been too marked on great occa- 
 sions of hospitality — he refused all invita- 
 tions ; and restricted himself to doing the 
 honours for his mother at the Manor with the 
 gravity of a mute at a funeral. 
 
 The younger members of village society 
 openly deplored his gloom, and the " impos- 
 sibility of getting up anything in a neighbour- 
 hood where the only gentlemen were either 
 too old or too gouty to join them, or travel- 
 ling, or under a cloud." 
 
 Madge Vernon declared Sir Augustus's 
 sadness was infectious. "I can't be saucy 
 when I am in the room with him, or enjoy 
 myself; he makes me feel so wretched," she 
 said one unhappy day in Mrs. Blight's hear- 
 ing to Sibyl Loraine, for her friend answered 
 gaily and most imprudently :
 
 " He was in the Divorce Court." 183 
 
 " He is not sad ; he is only lonely, and im- 
 measurably superior to all of us inferior little 
 animals ; like the great hippopotamus at the 
 Zoological Gardens ! I should like to tease 
 him and rouse him : to run my hand along 
 his cage, and make him fling all his savage 
 strength against the barriers between us, and 
 roar a pleine gorge." 
 
 And delightful mischief Mrs, Blight made 
 later, in quoting this merry fancy to Lady 
 Vansittart. 
 
 The accurate Miss Eliza Blight remarked 
 she thought every one had a perfect right to 
 be disagreeable if he chose. And her friends, 
 the Miss MacBeggah Tweedys disputed 
 the assertion on religious grounds, that went 
 far to prove they availed themselves of the 
 right whether they suspected themselves to 
 be doing so or not. 
 
 Mr. Traill, through all, was the bulky 
 Baronet's firm friend. He sought his help in
 
 184 True Women. 
 
 all parish difficulties, his companionship as 
 his greatest solace, his intimacy in hopes of 
 cheering what was at hest a wasted life. 
 
 " If it was not for his own sake," the good 
 man told Mrs. Loraine, "I should much regret 
 his leaving home. But he is altogether mis- 
 understood and lost here. How I shall miss 
 him, to be sure !" 
 
 And Sir Augustus went abroad. 
 
 " To Mentone, to visit his father's grave ! 
 Well, that is a cheerful commencement to his 
 travels !" said Mrs. Blight, who, when she 
 could not fling a stone, flung a sneer. " And 
 then he goes on to Florence and to Borne, 
 and is to return after a long cruise in his 
 yacht. To think of such a monster having 
 such pleasures lavished on him ! But there — 
 he can no more enjoy them than the pigs could 
 the pearls." 
 
 It was, indeed, a dreary winter to good
 
 "He- was in the Divorce Court." 185 
 
 Mr. Traill — his quondam pupil cruising in 
 the Mediterranean, and The Beeches closed in 
 Mrs. Loraine's long absence. 
 
 He found some solace in visiting poor young 
 Mrs. Long. She had returned from Mrs. 
 Bird's bright home with a store of health that 
 helped her to bear up against the news from 
 Trinidad. Mr. Traill had been charged to 
 break to her gently, that Mr. Long had under- 
 taken a voyage round the world, and that 
 letters — if they ever found him — must long- 
 wait for answers.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WHAT MRS. LORAINE WENT TO GREYMIXSTER 
 FOR. 
 
 " Sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
 To have a thankless child." 
 
 Shakespeare {King Lear, i. 4). 
 
 "My dear," the old Dean said to Mrs. Loraine, 
 gently and sorrowf ally one morning, soon after 
 her departure for Rippleford had been fixed for 
 the ensuing week. " I think you should give 
 me a few weeks more of your company now. 
 I confess this engagement of Henry Elliott to 
 your Grace has taken me completely by sur- 
 prise. I ought to know more of a dear child 
 that must soon be to me as a daughter."
 
 Mrs. Loraine in Greyminster. 187 
 
 " What do you say ! what " 
 
 Mrs. Loraine was speechless. Was her 
 uncle dreaming, or was she herself? 
 
 " My dear/' again said the Dean. " I wish 
 you had told me of it yourself. The little 
 scene I came upon in the drawing-room this 
 morning hurt me. Of course there can be 
 no harm in Elliott's kissing his intended wife, 
 nor in Grace's returning such natural caresses, 
 still it pained me to think I should be the 
 last to hear of the happiness of those so near 
 and dear to me." 
 
 Mrs. Loraine felt positively ill with surprise, 
 and she could scarcely find voice to answer. 
 
 "Dear Uncle Ponsonby, what can I 
 say " 
 
 " I give you my word," the dear old gentle- 
 man went on, tenderly avoiding to look at 
 her as he uttered his plaintive apologetic re- 
 proof — " I give you my word I thought they 
 kept away from us to practise their songs. I
 
 188 True Women, 
 
 felt quite as much embarrassed as Elliot 
 seemed, at coming so suddenly upon the 
 truth. I hope you don't blame me, my dear 
 Dora." 
 
 But Mrs. Loraine was in no condition to 
 blame anybody. She was hiding her face on 
 the back of the Dean's high chair, sobbing, 
 murmuring of her own surprise ; " grief," 
 "shame," " deceit," " ingratitude " too were 
 words heard among the poor mothers agitated 
 sobs ; and it gradually dawned upon her 
 uncle that perhaps his surprise and pain were 
 as nothing compared to that of his poor niece 
 Dorothea Loraine's. 
 
 " Forgive me, uncle," at last she forced her- 
 self to say to him intelligibly ; "I know 
 nothing but what you have told me. But it 
 is all so unlike what my daughter's conduct 
 should be. I did not believe this of her. 
 The blow has fallen so suddenly." 
 
 "Sudden, indeed!" Then said the Dean
 
 Mrs. Loraine in Grey minster. 189 
 
 with unusual energy, and almost scorn in his 
 voice : " Elliott tells me it was settled within 
 a fortnight of your arrival. That was sudden 
 enough, but the concealment is worse. My 
 dear, did you, did Sibyl not know of it ? Did 
 neither of you suspect it ?" 
 
 " Oh ! no ! no ! We have all been 
 equally deceived," Mrs. Loraine had to own. 
 Her face was burning, every pulse was beat- 
 ing with a sudden, overwhelming sense of her 
 daughter's duplicity, now that the fact was 
 forced upon her. She was learning Lear's 
 hard lesson, " How sharper than a serpent's 
 tooth it is to have a thankless child."* 
 
 " Oh ! Grace ! Grace !" the poor outraged 
 mother said in her heart ; " I am glad your 
 dear father cannot suffer all I suffer now." 
 This was the hardest thought of all, and it 
 came again and again. Mrs. Loraine could 
 not forgive herself for thinking it ; it seemed 
 too cruel, too bitter, almost unnatural. But
 
 190 True Women. 
 
 it was there, ever-present, ever-pressing, as 
 the vision of Henry Elliott — the betrayer of 
 the Bishop's trust, and of the Dean's trust 
 and hospitality — kissing her Grace rose before 
 her. " Oh ! my Grace, my own baby !" the 
 mother's heart continued its cry ; " how could 
 you let such a man persuade you to forget all 
 womanly modesty, all truth, all honour in 
 two weeks, and deceive us so ! Uncle, I must 
 have time to think ; I must see Sibyl. I am 
 not fit to talk to you now. I will be guided 
 by your wishes afterwards, as to staying or 
 going, and all else regarding my daughter and 
 Mr. Elliott." 
 
 Saying this as quietly as she could, Mrs. 
 Loraine bent and kissed the Dean's bald head, 
 and left him without once having shown him 
 her sorrowful face fully. 
 
 There was no need to tell Sibyl that her 
 mother was ill with grief, when Mrs. Loraine 
 found her true daughter in her own room.
 
 Mrs, Loraine in Greyminster. 191 
 
 " Come to me, my dear, and help me to 
 bear it," Mrs. Loraine said, and hiding her 
 face in her hands she sobbed as she had never 
 sobbed since she had heard her husband's 
 coffin carried forth, with that muffled, close- 
 crowding tread that, once heard, can never be 
 forgotten. Why did she think of that now ? 
 Were the same nerves of brain and heart 
 under torture ? Was her present despair and 
 shame equal to that grief, the greatest wrench 
 of her whole life ? 
 
 " What is it, darling mother ? Tell me, 
 precious mother ! Who has done this V 
 
 The girl's arms were round her as she spoke, 
 for an instant only ; she flew for water, restora- 
 tives, and would have rung for Prue, but Mrs. 
 Loraine sobbed out, " Lock the door — let us be 
 alone, love. Oh, Sibyl, it is Grace !— Uncle 
 Ponsonby found her ; they have confessed ; — 
 it has been ever since the second week of our 
 visit."
 
 192 True Women. 
 
 "What? Mamma! Who? Oh! mother, 
 do try and tell me calmly." 
 
 " Mr. Elliott was kissing her ; and they con- 
 fessed they have been engaged since the 
 second week of our being here." 
 
 "Oh! that hateful man!" cried Sibyl, blush- 
 ing to her finger-tips. " When we first came 
 he pretended to be sighing still for the 
 Bishop's Beatrice, and only a few days after- 
 wards he — Mamma, you must forbid it, and 
 save her from that hateful, sham-pious puppy." 
 This outburst did Mrs. Loraine good. 
 When the grief to be soothed comes from a 
 wrong and not from a loss, there is nothing 
 like indignant sympathy. 
 
 "It is a fraud on his part, and fancy on 
 hers. Let us take her home, mother. She 
 will see her old flames there. They, at least, 
 are honest gentlemen." 
 
 But Mrs. Loraine still had that unhappy 
 vision of Mr. Elliott kissing Grace before her
 
 Mrs. Loraine in Grey minster. 193 
 
 eyes. And she instinctively felt that she 
 could never again build castles in the air, or 
 dream sweet motherly dreams for the Grace 
 who had thus revealed her true nature and 
 had deceived them so for months past. 
 
 Some inner voice was saying to her : " She 
 has found a fitting mate. All that mother, 
 sister, training and example can do, has been 
 utterly wasted on that girl." Now the poor 
 mother could understand why the deceitful 
 Jane Tweedy was her chosen friend. 
 
 " Poor mother/' the inner voice said, " let 
 her go ; give her into stronger hands for 
 guidance — before it is too late." 
 
 But it was hard indeed that the deceiver of 
 the Bishop's two innocent daughters was to 
 be to Mrs. Loraine in place of a son. 
 
 And Mrs. Loraine told Sibyl all that her 
 conscience, that inner voice, had whispered, 
 and Sibyl had no better counsel to offer ; so 
 she contented herself with seating herself at 
 
 vol. i. 13
 
 194 True Women. 
 
 her mother's knees, and soothing her with 
 
 loving clasps, as she promised her solemnly, 
 
 tenderly kissing the hand she held : 
 
 " I will never leave you, mother, as you 
 
 feared. Never, darling, never I" 
 
 * # * # * 
 
 There was still more pain in store for Mrs. 
 Loraine. She sent for Grace, and spoke to 
 her, we may be sure, " more in sorrow than 
 in anger ;" but instead of acknowledging any 
 fault, the young lady had the audacity to im- 
 pute to her mother the wish that Sibyl might 
 have fascinated Mr. Elliott instead of her- 
 self. 
 
 As for being on honour with them all, 
 she did not know why she should be. 
 She neither believed in, nor wanted their 
 love. She had chosen for herself, and 
 should abide by her choice. " Of course if you 
 like to make a hubbub and a scandal you 
 may. It will only show how right we were
 
 Mrs. Loraine in Greyminster. 195 
 
 not to tell you anything of our intentions 
 before." 
 
 When she finished this speech Grace 
 Loraine left her mother's room. 
 
 Mr. Elliott's account of his engagement was, 
 that his heart was caught in its rebound. 
 He had not been happy in his first affection. 
 Grace, so like her mother, so everything a 
 man could desire as friend, and companion, 
 and helpmeet, with so much beauty, and so 
 much innocent frankness — well, he fairly 
 owned he had lost his head. 
 
 He hoped Mrs. Loraine had no scruples as 
 to the right of the clergy to marry. At one 
 time he had been vexed with doubts on that 
 question ; but he had the firmest conviction 
 now that his eternal salvation might be im- 
 perilled — . Exactly. He did not wish to press 
 a subject that was distasteful to Mrs. Loraine, 
 but she had hinted at a want of frankness ; he 
 wished to conceal none of his youthful doubts 
 
 13—2
 
 196 True Women. 
 
 or present convictions — nothing could be 
 further from his thoughts. He hoped the 
 matter might end as speedily as he could 
 desire. " For Grace fancies she will be happier 
 now with me than with you, dearest Mrs. 
 Loraine," he ended, smiling with a mock 
 modesty and implied insolence that completed 
 his hearer's disgust. 
 
 " What is that I hear ?" the Dean said 
 angrily. He had come in while Mr. Elliott 
 was finishing his self-satisfied explanation, 
 and the last few words of it roused all the old 
 gentleman's suppressed indignation. " Not 
 content with robbing my niece Mrs. Loraine 
 of her daughter, you would insinuate that 
 you do so as the deliverer of a child in dis- 
 tress ? My dear Dorothea, give me leave to 
 speak to Elliott alone. Let me express my 
 opinion of his conduct if I must conceal all 
 expression of my feeling for that of your grace- 
 less daughter. And let me take upon myself
 
 Mrs. Lor aim in Grey minster. 197 
 
 the duties of your nearest male relative 
 until Colonel Loraine is here to guide and 
 advise you." 
 
 Mrs. Loraine gladly left them. Indeed, 
 she felt herself quite unable to deal with the 
 assuming hypocrisy of the smooth-tongued 
 Henry Elliott. 
 
 " Now, sir," the indignant Dean continued, 
 when Mrs. Loraine had left the room, " I 
 have to request that you listen in silence to 
 the few words 1 have to say to you. You 
 have already brought shame enough upon my 
 training and the profession I have reared you 
 for, by your conduct to my old friend the 
 Bishop's daughters. The mystery of that 
 affair had perhaps better not be solved. The 
 innocent girls have escaped your double 
 dealing. I will not name them in connection 
 with your present offence." 
 
 " Offence?" Mr. Elliott ventured to remon- 
 strate.
 
 198 True Women. 
 
 " Offence," the Dean repeated emphatically. 
 " While there is still a plain code of honour 
 for men's guidance, and truth and integrity 
 are not words alone to be idly bandied 
 between man and man, the world has a right 
 to demand from a minister of Christ's Church 
 a higher standard of honour and morality 
 than from a non-professing layman. Your 
 conduct in this affair with Grace Loraine, 
 in concealing for months a matter of vital 
 importance to all concerned, and using your 
 influence to destroy the good faith of the 
 woman you pretend to love, is an offence 
 against good feeling and an outrage to the 
 profession to which you belong." 
 
 " There is no pretence, sir, in my affection 
 for Grace Loraine," Mr. Elliott hastened to 
 assure the Dean, hoping to mollify his anger. 
 " It is perfectly honest and purely disin- 
 terested." 
 
 " We will hope it may prove so," Dean
 
 Mrs. Loraine in Greyminster. 199 
 
 Ponsonby replied dryly. " If Colonel Loraine 
 sees your conduct in the light I do, and yet 
 consents to give his niece to you, I trust he 
 will take care to secure her against interested 
 motives on your part. I confess I have lost 
 all confidence in you, and all that remains for 
 me to say is, that until you are reputably 
 acknowledged as Miss Loraine's accepted 
 suitor, or until Mrs. Loraine finds it con- 
 venient to remove her daughter from your 
 reach, you must absent yourself from my 
 house. I should insist on this if you were a 
 stranger ; the measure is doubly needful 
 because you are my nephew and a churchman. 
 I will not countenance such a lapse from 
 honest dealing. " 
 
 Even as he longed to revolt against his 
 uncle's authority, and to hurl back an angry 
 defiance to his reproaches, Henry Elliott felt 
 discretion now to be the better part of valour ; 
 and he mastered himself sufficiently, or rather
 
 200 True Women. 
 
 was hypocrite enough to conceal his baffled 
 rage, and to reply in words of submissive re- 
 gret. 
 
 He " deeply regretted the misconception 
 that dictated such needless severity " on the 
 Dean's part. 
 
 He " could only hope submission to his 
 wishes might be construed aright — not as a 
 confession of his having violated any canon 
 in the code of the nicest honour between man 
 and man, but as son-like obedience to his 
 uncle's every wish ;" and so saying, he left to 
 prepare for his departure. And we grieve to 
 say the old Dean seemed to put no faith in 
 the " son-like submission to his every wish." 
 On the contrary, his words were bitter as the 
 young man left the room, and sounded like 
 "palaver," and "plausible scamp." 
 
 And the poor old Dean drew his black 
 velvet cap closely down over his ears, and 
 shrunk into one of his favourite easy-chairs,
 
 Mrs. Laraine in Grey mi aster. 201 
 
 sadder and more weary than it is possible to 
 say ; his only comfort being the conviction 
 that he had held firmly to the guiding prin- 
 ciples of his own honourable life and calling. 
 
 Colonel Loraine joined his sister-in-law at 
 Greyminster with as little delay as possible, 
 and his displeasure at Mr. Elliott's secret woo- 
 ing was as full of distrust and contempt as 
 the old Dean's. They were both men of the 
 old school of honour ; and though all things 
 are said to be fair in love and war, the things 
 that came under this category were rather 
 deeds of daring than of dastardly deceit. 
 
 Colonel Loraine's advice, after hearing all 
 sides of the question, was not unlike that of 
 the inner voice that had urged Mrs. Loraine 
 to give her daughter into stronger hands 
 before it was too late. 
 
 Colonel Loraine would not have liked to 
 explain his reasons for yielding to the suit of 
 Henry Elliott, nor to have owned that he
 
 202 True Women. 
 
 thought the match was a fitting one. He 
 felt poignant regret that his opinion of his 
 youngest niece had never been one to in- 
 spire him with any loving hopes of a bright 
 future. 
 
 Seeing her as he did, with considerable 
 intervals between his visits, and judging her 
 as an experienced man of the world, he was 
 clearer- sighted to her traits of character, and 
 to the development of her unlovely nature, 
 than her mother or Sibyl. 
 
 Colonel Loraine, therefore, gave his consent 
 to his nieces speedy marriage, after one or 
 two long and somewhat animated interviews 
 with Mr. Elliott. 
 
 Mr. Elliott had greedily believed the report 
 of the Miss Loraines' wealth, and had heard 
 with great satisfaction, we may believe, that 
 Mrs. Loraines fortune had been considerable, 
 while her husband's " family " was all that 
 could be desired in point of " position."
 
 Mrs. Lovalne in Greyminster. 203 
 
 It was a surprise to him, however, to learn 
 that it was the former Mrs. Loraine who had 
 been the wealthy woman, and that Sibyl was 
 her sole heiress. 
 
 Grace would have little or nothing now, 
 and a very moderate portion hereafter ; and 
 his loudly vaunted disinterestedness would 
 have an excellent opportunity of proving 
 itself to be all it pretended to be. 
 
 Colonel Loraine was something of a phy- 
 siognomist, and he was much interested by 
 the play of emotions that chased over Henry 
 Elliott's countenance during his frank and 
 soldierly abrupt explanation of his nieces' 
 separate interests. 
 
 But Colonel Loraine was not a man to be 
 trifled with, and Mr. Elliott resigned himself 
 to the fate he had grasped so greedily in his 
 haste to secure beauty and riches, in spite of 
 his first failure. 
 
 If Grace Loraine found her lover's profes-
 
 204 True Women, 
 
 sions somewhat cooled by his exposure to the 
 truth, she did not complain of the circum- 
 stance. She was not, as we know, of a very 
 sensitive nature. 
 
 •»c ^jc yp yfc 7fc 
 
 Mr. Elliott was therefore reputably acknow- 
 ledged as the accepted suitor of Miss Grace ; 
 and the mother's return to Bippleford was 
 hastened to prepare bridal trappings for her 
 thankless daughter. 
 
 The Dean, the Colonel, and Mrs. Loraine 
 could only hope that the attraction that had 
 drawn the young people out of the usual 
 course of duty to those nearest, and sup- 
 posed to be dearest to them, might prove 
 strong enough to keep them staunch to the 
 duties they had undertaken towards each 
 other. 
 
 Letters soon came pouring in with 
 congratulations to all concerned. " Mrs. 
 Loraine has got what she went to Grey-
 
 Mrs. Loraine in Grey minster. 205 
 
 minster for !" Mrs. Blight said ; telling 
 unconsciously the exact truth, as Sibyl's 
 tender promise to her mother allows us to 
 hope.
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 LADY VANSITTART's GARDEN PARTY. 
 
 " Ladies, like variegated tulips, show 
 Tis to their changes half their charms we owe." 
 Pope (Characters of Women). 
 
 When Mrs. Lorain e returned from Grey- 
 minster towards the end of March it was 
 almost summer in Rippleford, so balmy and 
 genial had been the air and the showers 
 in the earlier days of that usually ungenial 
 month. The bedding-plants were all out 
 and thriving ; the croquet lawns were like 
 velvet ; lilacs, laburnums, guelder roses, and 
 hawthorn made fragrant blinds for the 
 dwellers in all the road-side villas round
 
 Lady Vansittart's Garden Party. 207 
 
 Rippleford ; and her own beautiful gardens 
 were ablaze with the old and new favourites 
 that Sibyl delighted in, from the old purple 
 velvet iris, and scarlet anemones, to the 
 graceful " dielytra spectabilis " and " skimmia 
 fragrans," that were then only beginning to 
 feel themselves at home in English soil. 
 
 Sibyl Loraine often wished plants could 
 have their own pet names imported with 
 them, and not be known only, as they so often 
 are, by the Latinised English names of their 
 botanist captors. She declared that this year 
 she would defy Yiner and his myrmidons, 
 and label every plant and flower with easy 
 and descriptive pet names of her own ; only 
 may, heartsease, violets, and lilies of the 
 valley should be sacred from interference ; and 
 all roses should be worshipped, in spite of 
 the little zinc titles hanging round their 
 necks. 
 
 After the long visit to Greyminster and
 
 208 True Women. 
 
 the stately and solemn Cathedral Close, the 
 delights of her own home, so wide-spread, so 
 glorious in colour and sweetness, filled her 
 heart to overflowing, and left no time for 
 brooding, or for missing the valuable mental 
 companionship Dean Ponsonby had brought 
 to bear on her short spell of morbid feeling. 
 
 Now that Mrs. Loraine had returned, and 
 that Rippleford rejoiced in the presence of all 
 its most important residents, spring gaieties 
 impended. 
 
 Sir Augustus Vansittart had returned from 
 his cruise in the Mediterranean, and was now 
 daily to be seen driving his high mail-phaeton 
 with splendid high-stepping roans to and 
 from the barracks at Lynn, or along the great 
 stretches of the open common beyond the 
 ford, towards Vernon's Chase. 
 
 The big Baronet's only companion was a 
 keenly intelligent little bull-terrier. In and 
 out of her beloved master's presence, however,
 
 Lady Vansittart's Garden Party. 209 
 
 this petted little beauty, "Nell Gwynne," 
 never stopped shivering ; and this habit, 
 joined to the sad, eager expression of her 
 white face, gave her a comical look of having 
 seen better days, and of finding herself now 
 in the position of poor relation to some one 
 or other not explained. 
 
 The whole of Shepley Common, with its 
 turfy rides under the shadow of the old oaks 
 and beeches, and across the great sandy roads 
 — and a perfect network of sheep-paths in 
 among the hawthorns and wild roses — to- 
 wards Dullford, belonged to the Manor of 
 Eipp]eford. In all England there was no 
 sweeter expanse of fresh breezes and wild 
 nature to be enjoyed. No wonder the owner 
 loved to exercise his horses there, drawing in 
 all the while long breaths of bitter-sweet, 
 herb-scented air ; and rejoicing his eyes with 
 a widely- extended view over his distant farms 
 and forest lands. 
 
 vol. I. 14
 
 210 True Women. 
 
 Mr. Vernon, too, might often be found 
 coming over the common on one of his famous 
 Persian mares, to or from Vernon's Chase, 
 with his escort of lean but lordly pets, his 
 Irish deerhounds, surrounding him. He and 
 they were well used to the admiring saluta- 
 tions and remarks of all they met. Well- 
 trained and obedient to a sign even, the 
 hounds were as gentlemanlike a set of dogs 
 as they were pure in breed, and faultlessly 
 handsome in form and colour. 
 
 There were as yet no dog-shows to make 
 them famous, but Guy Vernon's deerhounds 
 had sat to the great Landseer, and their 
 portraits figure in many of the national trea- 
 sures we have by the great Sir Edwin. 
 
 Indeed Guy Vernon's escort once seen 
 was never forgotten, following him thus, 
 soft and silently, as he rode. The many 
 depressed maiden sisters that abounded in 
 Eippleford felt it was a bright day when
 
 Lady Vansittart's Garden Party. 211 
 
 either of the manly young magnates of that 
 side of the county had blessed their sight ; 
 for they might then hope that Lady Vansit- 
 tart would think it time to give some of her 
 hospitable invitations. And Lady Vansit- 
 tart's invitations were as a trumpet-call in 
 the stillness of Rippleford life. No matter 
 how scattered the village forces might be, 
 they felt it their duty to muster gallantly 
 upon her lawns when the notes reached 
 them. 
 
 They also felt that in her superior presence 
 all petty rivalries, all vexatious dissensions 
 must cease, and seem, at least, to be for- 
 given. There Mrs. Blight did not dare to 
 refuse a smile as well as a bow of recognition 
 to Mrs. Vernon, as she often did coming out 
 of church. 
 
 There even Sibyl Loraine and Madge 
 Burleigh were comparatively safe from her 
 malevolent asides ; and her neighbours gene- 
 
 14—2
 
 212 True Women. 
 
 rally suffered less from her rebukes than from 
 her eager and active curiosity. 
 
 There Mrs. MacBeggah Tweedy's religious 
 gloom took an almost cheerful ray of hope 
 that some eligible young men might some day 
 or other rid her of two or three of her " pre- 
 cious girls," and that she might draw one or 
 two worldlings into the sad and text-paved 
 path she termed " The Way." There were 
 few pleasures, indeed, that Mrs. MacBeggah 
 thought innocent, but she was fond, very 
 fond of good dishes ; and Lady Vansittart's 
 lobster aspics were very good. 
 
 There Mrs. Loraine enjoyed thoroughly 
 the happy, bright looks of her own and her 
 neighbours' pretty daughters, and thereby 
 secured for herself more happiness than 
 usually falls to the lot of a passe'e beauty. 
 
 She enjoyed the idle afternoon among her 
 favourite neighbours immensely. Indeed, 
 Lady Vansittart felt that, when Mrs. Loraine
 
 Lady Vansittart's Garden Parti/. 213 
 
 and Mrs. Burleigh were once settled among 
 groups that instinctively gathered round them, 
 and the handsome Willie Meredith and young 
 Carteret and Crawford Ffrancks were in 
 charge of the croquet-ground with Madge 
 and the two Loraines, the afternoon was 
 sure to be only too short for all the chat and 
 merry doings of the young people. 
 
 There the riders of the hardest-mouthed 
 hobbies dismounted, and walked harmlessly 
 among their fellow-creatures. 
 
 There, in fact, the very dough of 
 Rippleford society tried to rise to its best 
 with the leaven that Lady Vansittart poured 
 into it. 
 
 The croquet-ground in front of the great 
 conservatory at the Manor was an unrivalled 
 stretch of velvety turf. 
 
 Many matches might be carried on at once 
 upon it, and it was rare that even the spent 
 balls of rovers lost themselves in the flower-
 
 214 True Women. 
 
 beds that bordered it with such a fragrant and 
 many-coloured arabesque. 
 
 The great cedars and limes cast strange 
 and beautiful effects of light and shade over 
 the animated Watteau-like groups passing or 
 resting on the lawn. 
 
 Lady Vansittart and the matrons she 
 drew from a distance to envy the glories of 
 her home, and her endless ranges of " glass," 
 had favourite chairs, and many-coloured rugs, 
 and cushions, spread in picturesque confusion 
 upon the low terrace surrounding the con- 
 servatory ; while the rheumatic or aged 
 guests found safer repose on all sorts of 
 well-protected seats on the broad, golden 
 gravel paths. 
 
 On the special occasion of which we are writing 
 the business of pleasure had not commenced. 
 Sir Augustus's large party from Lynn had not 
 arrived ; and a mere pretence of play, a very 
 poor pretence it was, was carried on with the
 
 Lady Vansittarb's Garden Party. 215 
 
 Miss T weedy s and Commodore Briggs' fat 
 son in his first tail-coat, and one or two stray 
 curates ; and one or two friends of guests 
 " who didn't know a soul, you know," played 
 with other strangers. Grace Loraine was 
 there, passing under the limes to, and fro, 
 keeping her minor canon Henry Elliott to 
 strict allegiance. 
 
 Sibyl wandered up and down past her 
 mother's chair, practising some new stroke 
 admirably adapted for the display of bien 
 gantee hands, and coquettish bronze boots. 
 
 " Are you all speaking of Miss Burleigh's 
 beauty, mamma V she stopped to ask mis- 
 chievously, having heard Guy Vernon's 
 name mentioned in Mrs. Blight's hard- 
 est tones, followed by a question in the 
 air of " What can he find to admire in such a 
 face r 
 
 "It is certainly never two days alike," 
 simpered silly Mrs. Briggs.
 
 216 True Women. 
 
 . Lady Vansittart expressed her surprise at 
 Miss Burleigh's declining her invitation. She 
 " could not consider Mrs. Burleigh's feverish 
 cold any excuse for her breaking her promise 
 to bring her music to the Manor. Lady 
 Almeria .Chetwynd was coming expressly 
 to hear her sing ;" and we all know how 
 little great ladies approve of being disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 " Nothing would induce Madge to leave 
 her mother when she is suffering, Lad} 7 Van- 
 sittart," Sibyl said courageously ; " you don't 
 know her." 
 
 Mrs. Briggs here laughed, for the Com- 
 modore's chair was a long way off, and 
 declared on good authority " that she knew 
 Mr. Vernon was coming over from the Chase 
 to-day." 
 
 " That accounts for everything," Mrs. 
 Blight remarked bitterly. And she went on 
 to state her utter astonishment that Mrs.
 
 Lady Vansittart's Garden Party. 217 
 
 Burleigh could allow the intimacy to continue 
 on its present footing between her daughter 
 and such a wild young man as Mr. Vernon. 
 She had been present when Mr. Vernon re- 
 turned from Constantinople, " and though 
 Miss Burleigh was then fully seventeen years 
 old — far too old to dash away into the hall, 
 and open the door to him, as if she was the 
 footman — Mrs. Burleigh's entreaty of ' Stay, 
 child, it may not be Guy/ was as if it had 
 never been spoken. I never saw greater im- 
 propriety in my life," Mrs. Blight went on, 
 working herself up to a state of indignation 
 worthy of a deeper wrong. " She brought 
 him in almost hanging on his arm, and crying 
 out : ' It is Guy, mamma, in a great Turkish 
 beard !' Every one knows," added Mrs. 
 Blight as a climax to this horrible story of 
 violated British modesty, " what an effect 
 that sort of hearty, liail-fellow-ivell-met~ishness 
 has upon shy awkward men. I date Mr.
 
 218 True Women. 
 
 Vernon's ridiculous infatuation from that 
 moment. " 
 
 " Many others besides Mr. Vernon are 
 infatuated by Miss Burleigh's heartiness and 
 unaffected feeling," kind Mrs. Loraine said in 
 her sweet, conciliatory voice, to turn the tide 
 of feeling into a kindlier channel. 
 
 " So many," cried the indignant Sibyl, 
 waxing eager to attack Madge's enemy, 
 " that it is almost impossible to make any 
 party succeed without her. Her sweet voice 
 and beaming face act as a charm." 
 
 If Lady Vansittart could have withered by 
 her frown, Miss Loraine would henceforth 
 have been as wrinkled as the poppies sur- 
 mounting the blonde napolitaine on her lady- 
 ship's crown of purple -black hair. 
 
 It was a relief to Mrs. Loraine to see her 
 imprudently outspoken darling pass un- 
 scathed to the croquet-lawn again ; as the 
 grinding of gravel, and the rattle of many
 
 Lady Vansittart's Garden Party. 219 
 
 curb-chains and crossbars gave comforting 
 notice of the arrival of the drags from Lynn. 
 And as the handsome, manly dandies of 
 Colonel Meredith's regiment hastened to re- 
 ceive Lady Vansittart's stately welcome, Miss 
 Burleigh and her face were, by common con- 
 sent gladly consigned to oblivion. 
 
 * * « * * 
 
 " The party was not a success. I don't 
 think I can remember any such utter failure 
 as to-day's, ma'am, in all my experience of 
 social dreariness at home," Sir Augustus had 
 told his mother, after bidding adieu to his 
 own especial party from Lynn. " The young 
 men did their best, but it would be well to 
 be sure of the Vernons and Burleighs, and a 
 few others likely to get on, before inviting 
 the ruck to stupefy one another and their 
 betters." 
 
 The party was not a success, Lady Vansit- 
 tart had owned it to herself before he spoke.
 
 220 True Women. 
 
 The guests would not mix ; they curdled 
 into hard, vexatious lumps, and the whole 
 thing was spoilt. 
 
 Even the courteous winning ways of 
 Colonel and Mrs. Meredith, and the gay 
 young officers from Lynn, had failed to leaven 
 the dough this time. 
 
 Lady Almeria Chetwynd had answered in 
 little more than monosyllables, instead of 
 talking to everybody of everything, as she 
 did when she was satisfied and gracious, and 
 Miss Burleigh was to sing for her. And 
 Mrs. Blight had victimised and depressed all 
 she came near. 
 
 The wrong people had been matched at 
 croquet. Grace Loraine would neither play 
 herself, nor allow Mr. Elliott to join in a 
 match. 
 
 The stray curates had attempted to be 
 facetious ; and nothing disgusts strangers so 
 much as facetiousness from young people
 
 Lady Vansittart' s Garden Party. 221 
 
 of no note whatever. And at supper it was 
 even worse. 
 
 The accurate Eliza Blight plumped down 
 into a seat specially reserved next to Sibyl 
 Loraine for Crawford . Ffrancks ; and Jane 
 Tweedy had fastened herself on to young 
 Carteret, and bored him to death about a 
 Zulu Kaffir who was on his way, she hoped, 
 to heaven, via Exeter Hall. 
 
 Captain Carteret was so nearl} 7 driven wild 
 by her that, before he escaped, he had pro- 
 mised to take tickets for some exhibition the 
 Zulu proposed making of himself at Ripple- 
 ford, and had given her five shillings towards 
 defraying " Sleeko's " tailor's bill. 
 
 Though Mr. Traill and Mrs. Loraine had 
 thoroughly enjoyed a long chat together, and 
 had agreed how charming it must be to have 
 Lady Yansittart's power of making others 
 happy ; and Mrs. MaeBeggah Tweedy had 
 had more than a fair share of the lobster
 
 222 I rue Women. 
 
 aspics for which Mitcham was so famous, the 
 party had been a failure, as Sir Augustus 
 had declared. 
 
 "It is absurd," Lady Vansittart thought, 
 as she laid aside, bit by bit, the " devilish 
 beauty " of which we have tried to give our 
 readers an idea, " what an immense amount of 
 influence one such chit as Madge Burleigh 
 has, directly and indirectly, in a neighbour- 
 hood so entirely as it seems my own. A 
 girl has only to be a perfect contrast to 
 a man's mother and sisters, and he thinks 
 her divine at once ! It is too bad to blame 
 me for her absence. Much as I hate the 
 whole Vernon and Burleigh party, I'm sure 
 I wish they had come. Goodness knows 
 how weary I am growing of it all." 
 
 Sir Augustus might perhaps have spoken 
 less abruptly, and in milder terms, if he had 
 only known that behind his mother's terrible 
 mask of rouge et noir there was a pale, grey,
 
 Lady Vansittart's Garden Party. 223 
 
 weary woman, tired of her long struggle with 
 time and personal deceits, longing for ever so 
 little rest, ever so little love, ever so little 
 courage to meet the Inevitable — old age and 
 death.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I WILL STAND THIS NO LONGER." 
 
 " She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd ; 
 She is a woman, therefore to be won." 
 Shakespeare (1 King Henry FL, Act v., sc. 3). 
 
 Miss Burleigh had veiy early shown a 
 remarkable talent for music. Even as the 
 " little horror/' so detested by Mrs. Blight, it 
 had been her woiit to sing in her pure, sweet 
 young soprano, any of the old-fashioned 
 ditties delighted in by Mr. Burleigh and her 
 mother whenever she was bid to sing. 
 
 Ariel's songs from the " Tempest," many 
 sweet old airs from Dr. Arne's " Artaxerxes," 
 and some few gems from Mozart's " Don Gio-
 
 "I will stand this no longer." 225 
 
 vanni " were known to Margaret Burleigh by 
 heart, and could be given with or without 
 accompaniments, if she might stand by her 
 father s chair, and have his kisses from time 
 to time to encourage her. 
 
 And later, Miss Burleigh of Pendrills 
 had been the delight of a dear old Ger- 
 man singing-master, who grew sick of the 
 smoke and noise of London, and had esta- 
 blished himself to enjoy quiet, and flowers, 
 and a few pupils among the elite of the 
 neighbourhood round Lynn. He had known 
 how to encourage Margaret's natural taste, 
 and to foster and develop the purest resources 
 of her talent. 
 
 The melody of Miss Burleigh's voice came, 
 as it were, truly from her heart ; it needed 
 neither grimace nor pretence of any kind to 
 make it flow — sweet and rich as honey. 
 
 She sang at her friends' request as she 
 would have given them any other pleasure 
 
 VOL. T. 15
 
 226 True Women. 
 
 in her power — her flowers, or her books to 
 look at. 
 
 The early habit of her childhood had grown 
 up with her growth ; never did a sweet 
 singer use her talent more generously. 
 
 And yet this sweet singer admired every 
 one else's talents too much to be content, 
 much less conceited, with her own great 
 
 gift. 
 
 " I cannot ' aggravate my voice/ as Bottom, 
 the weaver, boasted he could, mamma. He, 
 you know, could ' roar you like any lion/ and 
 could ' roar you as gently as any sucking- 
 dove.' I envy that unfeeling pussy-cat, 
 Grace Loraine, her power of drawing tears 
 into my eyes with those full yet trembling 
 notes of hers. It is a trick, I do believe ; but 
 I wish I could learn ]t," Madge said, turning 
 from her piano to Mrs. Burleigh's favourite 
 summer seat — a sofa by the doors of the con- 
 servatory.
 
 " I will stand this no longer.'" 227 
 
 Mrs. Burleigh was used to being harangued, 
 as she laughingly called it, by her darling, so 
 she just smiled as she remarked : 
 
 " As for learning any trick from Grace 
 Loraine, you would surely draw tears from my 
 eyes, darling, if you did ;" and she went on 
 counting the stitches of a new pattern of 
 knitting that had the charms of novelty, per- 
 versity, and ultimate incomprehensibility to 
 recommend it. 
 
 " I think I shall give up my singing and 
 take to the study of Hebrew, or conic sec- 
 tions, or astronomy, or something that no- 
 body else here understands or can rival me 
 in. I hate doing what I do worse than other 
 girls do. I do not believe my hard-hearted 
 mother cares for my mortifications, nor for 
 my confidences. One dropped stitch is more 
 to her than her only daughter — this morning 
 at all events," Madge said merrily. 
 
 " I cannot let my darling give up her sing- 
 
 15—2
 
 228 True Women, 
 
 ing," Mrs. Burleigh said, as all the truants 
 had appeared at muster on her needle, and 
 that exciting row was over. "It is one of 
 
 the delights of my old age, and Guy " 
 
 " Mamma, you must not talk of old age." 
 " Then let me talk of Guy, my dear. I 
 wish very much to speak of Guy Vernon." 
 
 " Guy — Guy ; for ever Guy !" Madge said, 
 rising from her seat and preparing to run 
 away from the embarrassing subject. " I 
 do believe it is your fault, mamma, that 
 odious Mrs. Blight spreads such wicked 
 reports of my trying to ' catch ' him ! If you 
 love Guy so much, I do wish you could marry 
 him !" 
 
 " Fie, Madge ! That is not my Madge !" 
 " Mrs. Blight, ma'am, and the young 
 ladies," the butler announced, throwing open 
 the door, and standing in their detested pre- 
 sence as stiff and staring as a kilted effigy at 
 a tobacconist's door.
 
 " / will stand this no longer." 229 
 
 After a depressed chorus of " How-do-you 
 do ? thank you, and you ?" Mrs. Burleigh 
 drew her old Indian shawl round her, as 
 Mrs. Blight so detested to see her do, 
 and longed to ask " what she meant by 
 it?" 
 
 And then the whole party expressed their 
 surprise at the usual caprices of the sun, and 
 the winds, and the weather generally. 
 
 " Hardly summer, yet too hot for spring ; 
 chilly, too, in the shade ; and the wind 
 cold enough to wear sealskin driving," Mrs. 
 Blight declared. " There was sickness in the 
 village, too ; there always was," — still she 
 could not understand it. 
 
 Once off her line, scandal, Mrs. Blight was ■ 
 almost nervous, and had to be gently started 
 afresh on" innocent topics by her gentle hos- 
 tess; while Miss Burleigh laboured hard to 
 entertain the uncongenial Eliza, and the 
 almost unknown Louisa Blight.
 
 230 True Women. 
 
 Early tea was ordered, and a large part of 
 the visit went down, as a nauseous powder 
 might, with a little liquid. But still Mrs. 
 Blight sat on, and on, and on, and had nearly 
 learnt Mrs. Burleigh's new stitch before she 
 left, and had counted " twenty-eight wax 
 candles in all in Mrs. Burleigh's drawing- 
 room. There were three in each girandole — 
 that makes eighteen, and six on the mantel- 
 piece in the candelabra to match, and two on 
 the writing-table, and two on the violin- 
 stand ; oh ! and two on the piano — that 
 makes thirty. So she must be going to have 
 people to dinner, or she must be living at a 
 nice rate ; and no doubt Mr. Vernon would 
 come to be sung to by Miss Madge. Hateful, 
 sly minx ! There she sat, in some sort of a 
 grey serge dress, made all down in one piece, 
 without a band, to show her figure, no 
 doubt. If you had any nous about you, you 
 two girls might copy that dress ; it was as
 
 u I will stand this no longer." 231 
 
 simple as a dress could be, and nothing could 
 be better for every-day country wear." 
 
 " Why do you go and waste your time on 
 people you dislike so much ?" Mrs. Mac- 
 Beggah Tweedy asked with asperity ; for 
 Mrs. Burleigh had hitherto carefully avoided 
 making that lady's acquaintance, and Pen- 
 drills was a sore subject to her. 
 
 " Because everybody of any standing at all 
 visits them and is asked there," Mrs. Blight 
 hastened to tell her friend. 
 
 " Oh woman ! woman !" Mr. Traill had been 
 moved to say in his trouble, when he had found 
 a text that would have admonished his two 
 uneasy parishioners, as he would fain have 
 done, " ' Cease from anger, and forsake wrath ; 
 
 fret not thyself in anywise to do evil.' ' 
 
 ***** 
 
 " I will stand this no longer," Guy Vernon 
 said to himself while dressing for the dinner 
 at Mrs. Burleigh's that Mrs. Blight had
 
 232 True Women. 
 
 clearly foreseen, from the number of wax 
 candles in the girandoles at Pendrills when 
 she called. "I will stand no more nonsense. 
 This very night I will bring this outrageous 
 state of things to an end. If I have done 
 anything to offend her, Madge shall speak 
 out. If not, she shall give me back the 
 rights of an old friend, and some dearer still — ■ 
 
 or " Mr. Vernon left the threat floating 
 
 in a dim future, and devoted himself to his 
 personal adornment with unwonted energy. 
 " I don't think I have a scrap of personal 
 vanity about me," he thought, and very 
 fairly ; " and I have seen fellows twice as 
 ugly as I am, with wives as pretty compara- 
 tively as Madge. I wish I knew how they 
 got them. When she looks at me with that 
 half-surprised, half-mischievous look of hers, 
 I feel as if I was a lout, and all my limbs 
 hang as if they were dislocated. If I could 
 only once get her to care for me propci^ly — I
 
 " I ivill stand this no longer" 233 
 
 am sure I could make her happier than any 
 one else. If I only knew what the fairy 
 
 liked This very evening," he said to 
 
 himself with determination, giving a last 
 persuasive touch to his cravat, " as soon as 
 she goes to her ferns, and our mothers take 
 up their incomprehensible knitting, and their 
 good gentle little friend, Miss Byles, fidgets 
 round the spirit-lamp to make tea, I will 
 follow Madge and have it out with her." 
 
 While Guy Vernon was holding desperate 
 counsel with his own fears at The Cedars, 
 Madge and Sibyl Loraine were prattling 
 under cover of their glossy long locks, as they 
 dressed for dinner in Madge's own room 
 facing the Lime Avenue, where the trees 
 were just beginning to unroll their silky leaf- 
 lets to the balmy April air. It was to be 
 quite a surprise to Guy finding Miss Loraine 
 there. We may be quite sure it would be, 
 and that it would disconcert all his plans
 
 234 True Women. 
 
 greatly ; but the girls imagined nothing of 
 his desperate resolve, and talked him over in 
 their kindliest manner. 
 
 " He has not an enemy in the world except 
 Mrs. Blight," Madge said, after vowing she 
 would " get from him enough Gloire de 
 Dijon roses on their own roots to supply her 
 from May to January, and some rare ferns, 
 too, only to be had from the gardener at The 
 Chase, for Sibyl. " Mrs. Blight will talk of 
 him as wild, and then sets about collecting 
 evidence to justify herself; and then people 
 believe that she knows more than any one 
 else, and so her suspicions are repeated as 
 facts/' 
 
 Madge tossed back all her sunburnt rippled 
 locks as she spoke, and turned a face glow- 
 ing with honest anger to her friend for 
 sympathy. " The old saying that ' evil com- 
 munications corrupt good manners,' should be 
 quoted as destroying good faith," she went
 
 " / ivill stand this no longer." 235 
 
 on, waxing eloquent against the detested 
 Mrs. Blight. " The poison of scandal works 
 so strangely ; one may hate to believe it, and 
 even disbelieve it, hut it clings to us and 
 creeps away into one's heart and hides there, 
 and then at some unhappy moment of doubt 
 it comes out again and kills our faith in a 
 true friend even, and for ever." 
 
 " She is like a hornet," said Sibyl Loraine ; 
 " and when she settles down to sting, one 
 does not know how much poison she may 
 leave — one may almost die of her. But what 
 has she been doing to Mr. Vernon ?" Sibyl 
 asked. 
 
 " She has been doing nothing, but saying 
 all that is most disagreeable," answered 
 Madge. " She makes it nearly impossible to 
 be happy with Guy any longer." 
 
 So it was Mrs. Blight's doing after all. 
 Matters had indeed become very serious of 
 late between Guy and Madge Burleigh. She
 
 236 True Women. 
 
 never had a smile to give him now. She 
 managed, he hardly knew how, to avoid talk- 
 ing to him, or even shaking hands with him. 
 She would fling her merry " How-do-you 
 do,'' or " Good-evening, Guy," all across the 
 room to him, and then entrench herself be- 
 hind persons or things impossible to out- 
 flank. 
 
 Some of Mrs. Blight's cruel suspicions must 
 have reached Madge, and the girl was scared, 
 and pained more deeply than Guy could have 
 believed possible. 
 
 Guy had such an honest affection for his 
 lovely playfellow. He rather feared her 
 scornful little ways, it is true ; but he heartily 
 admired her brightness and her honesty, as 
 well as her beauty ; and he longed, in his take- 
 it-for-granted quiet way, for her affection in 
 return. 
 
 Being six-feet-two, with a grand but un- 
 wieldy body, an imperturbable temper, and
 
 <c I will stand this no longer" 237 
 
 tawny hair, lie could not fail of being en- 
 slaved sooner or later by a bewitching, fairy- 
 like, nut-brown maid of five-feet-three, with 
 " a temper of her own." 
 
 Indeed it had long been an understood 
 thing that Guy Vernon had offered himself 
 to Madge Burleigh, or to her mother perhaps 
 for her, as a much easier person to confide in, 
 and was allowed to try to win her ; and 
 on Sibyl's return from Greyminster she found 
 that a wall of reserve had grown up between 
 her friends, and that Mrs. Blight had made it 
 "nearly impossible to be happy with Guy 
 any longer ;" while Mrs. Blight herself said 
 it was the suspense that was intolerable to 
 Rippleford generally. 
 
 " If it was settled, one way or the other, it 
 would be better for every one," she had 
 declared over and over again, almost with 
 tears in her eyes, thinking of her own un- 
 married daughters, and of the beautiful
 
 238 True Women. 
 
 Chase, and of " poor old Sir Henry's rapidly 
 failing health." 
 
 " And Miss Burleigh pretends not to know 
 why he is always in attendance on Mrs. Bur- 
 leigh wherever she goes. It is shameful," 
 said one of Mrs. Blight's few sympathising 
 gossips. 
 
 " I believe it is all clever acting on her 
 part. Nothing charms some men — rich men 
 — so much as perfect indifference," Mrs. Mac- 
 Beggah Tweedy declared ; while her daugh- 
 ters, it must be confessed, were far behind 
 their mother in knowledge of practical moral 
 philosophy. 
 
 * % * * * 
 
 " Is there anything wrong between you 
 and Madge, my son ?" gentle Mrs. Vernon 
 ventured to ask, as Guy opened the wicket- 
 gate under the beautiful silver birches by the 
 brook, to let her pass from her own grounds 
 into the woods of Pendrills. The first view
 
 " / will stand this no longer" 239 
 
 of the bright house, with all its windows 
 open, and the air of beauty and rejoicing that 
 a well-kept country home acquires in a warm 
 spring evening, brought with it a flood of 
 hopes for her son and the beloved little 
 neighbour whose greeting kiss was so often 
 given to her, breathlessly, after a chase down 
 the velvet lawns to the brook. " She has 
 changed towards us both. She never comes 
 flying out to welcome us now. Has she any 
 other fancy, do you think V 
 
 " For heaven's sake, mother," said poor 
 Guy, with a rush of blood to his face, " don't 
 take such cruel fancies into your head, or if 
 you do, don't tell me of them." 
 
 " I won't ; but it is so difficult not to 
 speak of a thing one is always thinking about, 
 Guy." 
 
 And Guy said again, as he followed his 
 mother into the great music-room, and saw 
 his tormentor come forward with Sibyl Loraine
 
 240 
 
 True Women. 
 
 from a low deep sofa in one of the window 
 recesses overlooking the garden, where she 
 must have seen his mother's approach from 
 the wicket-gate : 
 
 " I will stand this no longer !"
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 NOBODY AXED YOU, SIR f SHE SAID/ 
 
 " Better not be at all than not be noble." 
 
 Tennyson (Princess). 
 
 " I trust your sister's marriage is all Mrs. 
 Loraine can wish ?" Guy Vernon said to Sibyl, 
 abruptly turning what would have been hearty 
 joy-wishing into a bald inquiry ; for he saw 
 a shadow of sadness flit over Sibyl's frank face 
 even as he grasped her hand in greeting; and 
 how could he tell Mrs. Blight's malevolent 
 reports to be the cause of it 1 
 
 " Honestly, no," Sibyl answered ; and then 
 hastily added, " It pains my mother very much 
 
 vol. i. 16
 
 242 True Women. 
 
 to have to part with Grace so suddenly, and 
 to a stranger." 
 
 " I am sorry. I thought you had known 
 Mr. Elliott a long time, and liked him 
 well." 
 
 All they had known of him was as the sup- 
 posed admirer of the Bishop's gentle daughter 
 Beatrice. There was nothing for it but silence, 
 so Sibyl held her peace. Not so the impetu- 
 ous Madge. 
 
 " Sibyl," she said in her clear young voice, 
 " knows about as much of Mr. Elliott as ive do 
 of Barabbas! And that, you know, is summed 
 up in those terror- striking words, ' Noiu 
 Barabbas ivas a robber /' " 
 
 "Madge, my dear love, Madge!" Mrs. Bur- 
 leigh cried deprecatingly from her favourite 
 chimney-corner sofa, where she sat in peaceful 
 confab with her dear friend Mrs. Vernon. 
 
 "But on the 25 th we are to put on wedding 
 garments. ' The robber ' holds a marriage
 
 " ' Nobody axed you, sir /' she said." 243 
 
 masquerade that morning in our dear little old 
 church. The Bishop and the Dean, and a 
 great gang of ecclesiastics will be there ; some 
 very good characters and some very bad, for 
 you and I are to be there, Guy," the saucy 
 girl continued. " But dear Mr. Traill, I am 
 happy to say, will not be there ; his poor dying 
 friend in London detains him." 
 
 " Don't let us talk about it, Madge," Sibyl 
 said. " I have so longed to possess a brother, 
 and my one chance ends in — Henry Elliott." 
 
 7JC 7J7 /JT 7K >k 
 
 " How provoking girls can be sometimes," 
 Mrs. Burleigh whispered to Mrs. Vernon. 
 " In good hands there are not two more tract- 
 able and generous girls than Madge and 
 Sibyl." 
 
 " You know in whose hands I wish your 
 Madge to be, my dear," said Mrs. Vernon in 
 an answering whisper. 
 
 " If she does not in the end admit Guy's 
 
 16—2
 
 244 True Women. 
 
 noble qualities and love him," said generous 
 Mrs. Burleigh, " I shall believe she is not my 
 child." 
 
 ■*Jf *>c /K yfc ifc 
 
 The probable difficulty of carrying war into 
 his fair enemy's camp, while her ally Sibyl 
 was near her, preoccupied Guy a good deal. 
 
 His carving at dinner, for which he usually 
 received Mrs. Burleigh's thanks, mingled with 
 praises, was certainly nothing to boast of ; 
 the young ducklings, meant to be a surprise 
 and treat in company with the earliest peas 
 in BAppleford, were dismembered by Guy with 
 force in place of skill, and came at last as cold 
 and clammy to the guests as a mere tyro could 
 have sent them. 
 
 His replies to the conversation addressed to 
 him were by no means as brilliant as he wished 
 them to be, and his efforts to roll the ball of con- 
 versation, when it stopped with him, were des- 
 perate slips or miserable misses. And all the
 
 " ' Nobody axed you, sir /' she said." 245 
 
 while Madge safe radiant at the farther end of 
 the table, and never let slip any opportunity 
 of giving him a "sly pat with her claws out," 
 as she always called her contrariness, when she 
 could do so without showing malice prepense. 
 But Guy's spirit had now been fairly roused. 
 He was not going to flinch. He was kindness 
 itself to Sibyl, whose presence so disturbed 
 his plans. He promised his choicest ferns and 
 all the Gloire de Dijon roses Madge could 
 possibly desire. He volunteered his mother's 
 carriage should take Sibyl home, a trap into 
 which the sweet old lady, his mother, fell 
 ^eagerly ; and at last the game, he felt, was in 
 his own hands ; for after Sibyl's departure 
 Madge took her way into the conservatory, 
 and repassed the great glass doors on her way 
 to the fernery with her tiny watering-pot with 
 the longest spout and most delicate rose, to 
 give her favourites a spray-shower as her 
 " good-night."
 
 246 True Women. 
 
 Guy had often and often helped her at this 
 work; and if the truth may be told, had once or 
 twice received the last imperceptible sprinkle 
 on the top of his leonine crest. 
 
 Very Hebe-like he thought she looked, raised 
 on her pretty tip-toes, with her arm curved high 
 above her face, when this merry mischief had 
 been perpetrated. How pleasant it would all 
 be if the merry playfellow had not suddenly 
 grown into such a dignified little princess. 
 
 He longed to tell her no end of things ; but 
 then she must be willing to listen, He longed 
 to offer her his whole honest heart ; but at 
 that moment it seemed to have stuck hard and 
 fast in his throat, in size and substance even 
 as a cricket-ball. 
 
 Never was spirit more willing, or flesh more 
 weak. But there should be no trifling now, 
 no delay ; if only his voice would come past 
 that lump in his throat. 
 
 He would be very earnest at first, very
 
 " ' Nobody axed you, sir /' she said." 247 
 
 loving afterwards, if he could but transfer his 
 tremor to her ; and so he spoke, and startled 
 himself by the gruff n ess of his call, meant to 
 be a half-playful one. 
 
 " Miss Burleigh." 
 
 " Mr. Vernon," she answered, pitching her 
 voice to the most ghostly key she could 
 manage in return. 
 
 " I have come to have some very serious con- 
 versation with you. May I beg you to listen 
 seriously ?" 
 
 " I really cannot, Guy, unless you speak 
 more like yourself, and look less like the 
 marble man in ' Don Giovanni/ ' 
 
 " Can you never be serious — never think 
 before you speak whether it hurts a fellow or 
 not, Madge T 
 
 " As for never thinking," answered Madge, 
 " I am always thinking." 
 
 " When ¥' he asked in despair, to gain a 
 moment's time to set hi3 appeal in order.
 
 248 True Women. 
 
 " When you are lounging about at The 
 Chase, and there is no one here to disturb or 
 vex me. Then I coil myself up in the west 
 window-seat in the old playroom, and think 
 out my thoughts of as many shapes and shades 
 as there are clouds about the sunsets. It is 
 as good as blowing great rainbow-tinted soap- 
 bubbles, Guy. My thoughts float and float 
 out of my heart, away, away into the dusk !" 
 
 " Nonsense," said Guy. "I call that non- 
 sense." 
 
 " Delightful ! With all due deference to 
 your opinion, I call that delightful !" Madge 
 answered. 
 
 " What do you think of?" asked her greatly- 
 bothered companion. 
 
 " Of you very often," she frankly said. 
 
 " What about me V He spoke eagerly and 
 gently enough now, for this was something 
 like an opening for the interesting matter he 
 had come to talk of.
 
 " e Nobody axed you, sir /' she said." 249 
 
 " You will think me rude if I tell you," 
 Madge said, with a wickedly sweet smile. 
 
 "Not at all, dear Madge. Tell me, tell 
 me!" 
 
 " Well, then, of how big and strong and 
 useless you are. It seems to me so strange 
 that any man can bear to be famous only for 
 his size or his fortune, or for what he can't 
 help, whatever it may be. " If I was a man 
 I would do something, be somebody in my 
 day. I would leave my mark, a good mark, 
 too, if only on the soil on which I was 
 born." 
 
 "You are talking very fast of what you 
 don t understand," Guy panted out in his 
 annoyance. 
 
 " There ! now you are angry, Guy." 
 
 " I am not angry, not in the least ; only it 
 is difficult to argue with a woman without 
 losing one's calmness. All men find that at 
 times."
 
 250 True Women. 
 
 " Well, if you own it, I'll forgive you, 
 Guy." 
 
 " I own nothing. I wish you would listen. 
 When a man has been brought up to no pro- 
 fession, it is next to impossible at my age to 
 find employment. I do all that I can at The 
 Chase." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense, Guy. You rear tame 
 pheasants, and you play at squire among the 
 half-starved labourers; and make little orations 
 to them and their miserable families, and tell 
 them how thankful they ought to be when 
 God blesses Sir Henry's barns to overflowing 
 with a glorious harvest. Though after toiling 
 a whole year what do they get of his plenty ? 
 Only what they steal. But if I was a man, 
 that is not what /would do." 
 
 "It is easy to boast. What would you 
 do?" 
 
 " I would turn-to as working-bailiff or over- 
 seer, or something or other, to prevent Sir
 
 " 'Nobody axed you, sir f she said." 251 
 
 Henry and his poor working-men from being 
 cheated by rogues, set between him and 
 them." Madge spoke now as gravely as pos- 
 sible. "I would improve all the cottages, and 
 build more. I would have readings, and 
 music, and dancing ; and hold marriage feasts, 
 and christening feasts, and flower-shows for the 
 cottagers : not only beer, beer, beer — for ever 
 beer — without food, or friendship, or sympathy. 
 I would share my plenty and my pleasures. 
 Oh, I am out of breath, or I would tell you 
 much more that I would do if / were you. 
 And you do nothing and are nobody !" 
 
 A pleasant hearing this, for a man who 
 came to offer himself as a heart's idol to the 
 lady of his choice. 
 
 " Was ever woman in this humour woo'd V 1 
 
 Guy thought decidedly not. 
 
 " If this is all you can think of an old 
 friend and playfellow, Madge, it would be
 
 252 True Women. 
 
 madness to tell you all I came to say to- 
 night. 
 
 " ' Nobody axed you, sir !' she said," Madge 
 sang. Setting down her watering-pot, she 
 locked her pretty hands before her, and 
 twirled her thumbs, and dropped him a swift 
 little curtsy in the approved rustic-maiden 
 manner. 
 
 Guy turned on his heel without having 
 heart to return the naughty girl's mocking 
 salute, and strode off to the woods on his way 
 home, with his heart full of bitterness. 
 
 " How they all spoil Guy/' thought Madge 
 as she watched his dim retreating figure into 
 the denser gloom of the beech woods beyond 
 the brook. " He expects to be admired and 
 loved without doing anything to deserve it. 
 If he drops into the easiest chair in the room 
 and stares at one for an hour or two, he 
 thinks he must be making himself aoree- 
 able. If he gives a little money, which costs
 
 " ' Nobody axed you, sir /' she said' 1 253 
 
 him nothing, for he does not want it himself, 
 to our poor people, he is called generous and 
 charitable. And my mother and his mother 
 praise him to the skies, and he is satisfied 
 with being so praised — for nothing ! / try to 
 fascinate ! — / try to catch him ! I should 
 like to run a goad into him, to shake him, to 
 pinch him, to wake his soul ! Poor old 
 Guy." 
 
 But as Guy disappeared into the wood, the 
 hands unclasped and fell limp, the bright eyes 
 filled, the scornful lips quivered, and Madge 
 went her way upstairs to kiss her mother 
 good-night silently, with a penitent suspicion 
 that she had no right to run in the goad, nor 
 to give the shake, nor the pinch, nor to set 
 herself up as wiser and better than dear old 
 Guy, merely because her tongue could run 
 faster than his, or because she saw, as she 
 supposed, a nobler course open for him than 
 the one he was plodding so peacefully.
 
 254 True Women. 
 
 And while Guy imagined her in all the 
 saucy enjoyment of her victory, she was 
 sad and remorseful from the pain of his 
 defeat. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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