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 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 A LUCKY YOUNG WOMAN. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 A LUCKY YOUNG WOMAN 
 
 Jl ilooel. 
 
 BY 
 
 F. C. PHILIPS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " AS IN A LOOKING-GLASS.' 
 
 IX THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 IConbon : 
 
 WARD AND DOWNEY, 
 
 12, YORK STREET, COVEXT GARDEX. 
 
 1886. 
 
 [All Rights reserved.]
 
 Richard Clay A: Sons, 
 
 IREAD STREET HILL, LONDON, 
 
 Bungay, Suffolk.
 
 P538JL 
 
 A LUCKY YOUNG WOMAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Sir Hugo Conyers, the sixth baronet, 
 
 ought to have been a very rich man. He 
 
 ought to have been — so he would tell you 
 
 at Boodles, as he sat in the window to put 
 
 himself en evidence for the afternoon, before 
 
 making his way to some cheap restaurant 
 
 _ } for his dinner — worth at least fifty thousand 
 
 a year. The Conyers estates were in North 
 m 
 Wales, and would no doubt have brought in 
 
 : Sir Hugo the amount he named had they 
 
 i VOL.1. B
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 been unencumbered. But Sir Hugo's father 
 had been extravagant before him. 
 
 We need not tell the old story of cards 
 and racing and heavy betting. When Sir 
 Hugo succeeded to the title every acre that 
 could be sold had gone, and he himself had 
 joined with his father in so heavily en- 
 cumbering what remained that his income 
 consisted of some few hundreds a year, which 
 were paid him quarterly by the trustees of 
 his mother's marriage settlement, and which 
 he could not possibly anticipate or get into his 
 hands in any way. No solicitor in London 
 would advance him a farthing upon the 
 security of a property mortgaged up to the 
 hilt, and within two years after he suc- 
 ceeded his father the mortgagees foreclosed, 
 and Conyers Castle passed into the hands of 
 a rich iron-master and quarry- owner.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 There remained for Sir Hugo the modest 
 income we have already mentioned. Upon 
 this he somehow just contrived to exist. 
 He was at the time this story commences 
 some fifty-five years of age, and had been 
 a widower for ten years. The chief re- 
 maining trouble of his life — for he had 
 grown callous, and some men who knew 
 him went so far as to say shameless, about 
 things that usuallv trouble or ou^ht to 
 trouble a gentleman if he have them, such 
 as his tradesmen's accounts and his debts 
 of honour — was his daughter Marcia, who 
 was now nineteen. 
 
 In the first place, Sir Hugo did not care 
 for his daughter in the least. She was an 
 annoyance to him, and in an indolent, selfish 
 kind of way he disliked her on that account. 
 He would sometimes, indeed, as he drank 
 
 B 2
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 his glass of spirits and water in his bed- 
 room before retiring for the night, frame 
 a more or less definite wish, which went 
 rather beyond the mere expression of a 
 regret, that she had ever been born. But 
 apparently these paternal hopes were not 
 likely to be realized. Marcia was, as an 
 English girl of her age ought to be, the 
 picture of health, and Sir Hugo used to 
 finish his brandy and water and go to bed, 
 thinking over what might have been if 
 things had gone differently — a course of 
 meditation in which men who have reck- 
 lessly and wantonly thrown away their 
 chances and wasted their lives are very apt 
 to indulge, usually attributing the blame 
 to their own bad luck, or to a shameful 
 absence of any proper sense of duty on the 
 part of their friends and relations.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Marcia's mother when she became Lady 
 Conyers had immense expectations. Her 
 father was one of those great monied men 
 who have become more and more a power 
 in the state since we were wicked enough 
 to repeal the Corn Laws, and to do other 
 things equally calculated to destroy our 
 old titled and landed families. 
 
 When Mr. Sandarson's daughter married 
 Sir Hugo he paid his son-in-law's debts 
 without any inquiry further than as to 
 their amount, and he also was liberal as a 
 rich father-in-law ought to be in the way 
 of an annual allowance ; but with all the 
 instincts of a man of business, he refused 
 to make any settlement upon his daughter, 
 contenting himself with the remark that his 
 name was sufficiently well known in the 
 City; that when he promised to pay so
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 much a-year he could pay it, and that 
 when he died he should not forget his 
 only daughter. As for his capital, he 
 said he wanted it in his business, where 
 it could make fifteen per cent, safely instead 
 of being tied up at three and a half. 
 
 This was frank enough, and Sir Hugo 
 was more than contented at the time with 
 the three thousand a-year which her father's 
 solicitors transmitted punctually to Lady 
 Conyers, and with the certain prospect, as 
 every one then supposed, that the old gentle- 
 man would die worth a sum so large that 
 even Sir Hugo himself began to wonder at 
 the possibilities of enjoyment that would be 
 opened to him when his wife should succeed 
 to her share of it. Meantime he reflected 
 he could always get a little extra ready 
 money out of his father-in-law at a pinch.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 The pinches were frequent, and the old 
 man, to do him justice, did not gr amble at 
 them more than was necessary and reason- 
 able, especially when his daughter acted 
 as mediator and peacemaker. 
 
 Commercial fortunes, however, are even 
 more uncertain than are landed estates, and 
 bankruptcy may come upon the one as 
 suddenly and to the outer world as unex- 
 pectedly as a suit for foreclosure upon the 
 other. The City one morning was struck 
 with something like panic to hear that the 
 great house of Sandarson had suspended 
 payment, involving with it in its fall — so 
 the rumour went — one or two large houses 
 as well, and possibly even the bank which 
 had been honoured with its account. 
 
 The rumour was correct except as re- 
 garded the bank, which had for some time
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 past looked suspiciously at the paper of 
 Sandarson and Company, and had at last 
 flatly refused to discount that commodity 
 at all without a margin so considerable that 
 the refusal amounted virtually to a direct 
 denial of what is known as ordinary 
 mercantile credit. 
 
 Mr. Sandarson himself must have foreseen 
 the crash for some time, and he did not 
 survive it many months. Kindly people 
 said he died of a broken heart. Those 
 who suffered by his fall were less charitable, 
 and declared that for years he had known 
 what was coming, and instead of facing his 
 difficulties, had to brace himself up from 
 day to day with champagne and ultimately 
 with brandy. 
 
 It matters little what people say of a 
 man after he has failed in business, and
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 nothing what they say of him when he is 
 dead. Mr. Sandarson died before the full 
 extent of his liabilities was known. 
 
 There w T as great sympathy felt for Sir 
 Hugo in the sacred precincts of Boodles. 
 Men of the fashionable world know, as a 
 rule, that their most intimate friends are 
 selfish and heartless. Very few if any of 
 the members of Boodles had the slightest 
 regard or even respect for Sir Hugo 
 Conyers, but the heartlessness of his father- 
 in-law, in having the presumption to fail 
 for a sum of which even a small slice 
 would have made most of them happy, 
 wounded their moral susceptibilities very 
 painfully. 
 
 " A man in business," profoundly observed 
 an old gentleman, who, having spent his 
 wife's fortune and his own, was now just
 
 10 A Lucky Young "Woman. 
 
 able to keep his name on the books of the 
 Club and pay his Club accounts and debts 
 of honour by directing and promoting Joint 
 Stock Companies, " a man of business has 
 no business to fail. I consider Sandarson 
 far worse than a defaulter. A horse may 
 break its leg, or you may have a run of luck 
 against you at piquet — even with the best 
 play — but for a business man to fail is 
 inexcusable. It shows that he does not 
 understand what ought to be an absolute 
 certainty." 
 
 In this opinion the bulk of the company 
 seemed to concur. Some of them, indeed, 
 openly avowed a strong opinion that Sir 
 Hugo had been robbed by his father-in- 
 law, while those who best knew the baronet 
 himself discussed the interesting question 
 how he would take it.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 11 
 
 Sir Hugo took it as might have been 
 expected from a gentleman with his wide 
 knowledge of the world and peculiarly 
 philosophic temperament. He became so 
 careful over whist and ecarte, and so suc- 
 cessful when he took the trouble to form an 
 opinion on the merits of a horse, that many 
 of his old friends began to fight shy of him. 
 The limits of even the oldest friendship 
 are apt to become strained when the luck 
 invariably falls to Damon and not to 
 Pythias. And then, too, men who gamble 
 even within their means are apt to be un- 
 reasonable, and to say nasty things of those 
 to whom they habitually lose. So although 
 Sir Hugo kept his name on the books of 
 Boodles, he gave up frequenting the card- 
 room of that establishment, and contented 
 himself with the bow window in the after-
 
 12 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 noon, where he would sit pretending to read 
 the paper until his dinner hour, when he 
 would descend the steps with an air so 
 self-possessed that the oldest loungers in 
 Clubland could hardly have made a guess 
 at his destination and its object. 
 
 All these things make a man bitter in 
 proportion to his selfishness. It galled 
 Hugo Conyers to move about like one of 
 Homer's ghosts in the world to which he 
 had once belonged and to be denied its 
 pleasures. To him the delights of Club- 
 land were real and tangible — among the 
 few things worth living for. He had just 
 that amount of good taste which thoroughly 
 selfish men about town acquire. He liked 
 Boodles because it was old and select. He 
 could appreciate its cookery and the vintages 
 in its wine list. The butler respected his
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 13 
 
 opinion and the chief valued his com- 
 mendation. And Mr. Gainer himself 
 would have allowed him much of that 
 latitude which existed in the old days of 
 the " account per contra at Brooks'," rather 
 than see his name disappear from the 
 list of members. 
 
 We need only add what the reader will 
 probably have guessed for himself, that 
 from the time of Mr. Sandarson's failure 
 Sir Hugo persistently ill-treated his wife. 
 When a British workman is out of employ- 
 ment, and cannot enjoy his usual allowance 
 of beer and tobacco, he is apt to be in- 
 dignant with his wife because she cannot 
 set forth the dinner- table in its accustomed 
 manner, and to evince his displeasure in a 
 practical form by beating her. Sir Hugo 
 Conyers could not beat his wife, but studied
 
 14 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 neglect and bitter words can be made more 
 cruel than any blows ; and of these Lady 
 Conyers had more than even those who 
 knew her husband and his disposition most 
 thoroughly could ever have guessed. She 
 lingered on for several years as only a 
 woman can. She had hard work in their 
 little house in Sloane Street to make both 
 ends meet, and to keep her husband from 
 open outbreaks of temper, but she toiled 
 bravely. While Sir Hugo was at Boodles, 
 or in the Park, or looking in at Tattersalls, 
 of which he still continued a member, she 
 would occupy herself with that domestic 
 drudgery which is often an anodyne to 
 women. 
 
 They kept but one maid in these days of 
 famine, so Lady Conyers herself did much 
 of the work of the house ; and there was
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 15 
 
 always her child, little Marcia. Marcia and 
 her mother dined at one, and if the little 
 girl had acquitted herself creditably in the 
 morning over her spelling, she would be 
 allowed to go out with her mother in the 
 afternoon and look at the shops, or walk 
 in the park. 
 
 Marcia's life was happy enough, for she 
 was too young to understand or even guess 
 at the things that had happened. She 
 used to like to walk out with her mother 
 or to sit with her at home. Poor Lady 
 Conyers, who was devoted to the child, 
 used to play the piano to her, and show 
 her how to dress and undress her favourite 
 doll, and to read stories to her and tell her 
 fairy tales. 
 
 An only child will usually either turn 
 out very well or very ill, and the happiest
 
 16 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 children are those who have brothers and 
 sisters. Marcia showed signs of turning 
 out well. She was obedient, docile, quick- 
 witted, and extremely affectionate. It is 
 impossible to expect more from a child of 
 seven. It is very seldom that you get as 
 much. 
 
 When they told her that her mother had 
 gone away and was an angel in Heaven, — 
 this was told her by the hospital nurse and 
 by the servant, Heaven not lying within 
 the range of Sir Hugo's ideas, — she had 
 no more than a child's notion of what had 
 really happened, and of all that she had 
 lost. She suffered as children of her age 
 do suffer when they lose a mother who has 
 brought them up herself, and she for a 
 long time refused comfort. 
 
 The daily governess, who was engaged
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 17 
 
 until, as Sir Hugo feelingly remarked, 
 things Lad got into shape, did something 
 to brighten the child's life. She was a 
 German frdulein of the pleasantest type — 
 and the Germans are kindly to children, 
 and show their kindness for them in a 
 practical way that children appreciate. 
 German nursery tales and German toys are 
 marvels not to be approached in their 
 kind, and for a little girl left in the world 
 without mother, brothers and sisters, or 
 even playfellows, a kind-hearted German 
 governess comes as a Providence that is 
 sorely needed. 
 
 Fraulein Dietz was a kindly, simple, busy, 
 cheerful little body, and soon had entirely 
 won Marcia's heart. She showed her pupil 
 pictures of all kinds, and told her what they 
 represented when the letterpress offered 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 diriiculties. She began to teach her the 
 piano, and gave her some idea of how she 
 would have to play it when her hands were 
 larger : and she also taught her to chatter 
 fluently in German, and to pick her way 
 through easy French lesson books. 
 
 I believe, indeed I am sure, that German 
 governesses, like German professors, are the 
 best of their kind. Teaching with them is 
 not a means of livelihood so much as a 
 pursuit which they thoroughly enjoy, and 
 they make it their business to teach system- 
 atically and soundly. Nor do I agree with 
 those who accuse them of faults of temper. 
 On the contrary, I have always found the 
 Teutonic temper to be fond of authority, 
 but at the same time patient, gentle, and 
 capable of great affection. 
 
 Marcia was a pupil whom, as a famous
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 19 
 
 Head Master once observed, it paid you 
 to teach. She was also ' a child whom it 
 was difficult not to love, so that when the 
 first storm of her grief had calmed her days 
 passed brightly and pleasantly with the 
 warm-hearted, motherly Fraulein. They 
 were the happiest days she was to know 
 for many years to come. 
 
 Sir Hugo, finding that Fraulein Dietz was 
 able to manage his little daughter so admir- 
 ably, came to the conclusion that it would 
 be wise on his part to retain her services 
 altogether. And although the salary he 
 offered was by no means a tempting one, 
 yet the Fraulein, having become devotedly 
 attached to her little charge, was fain to 
 accept it, and henceforward she resided 
 altogether in the house. 
 
 The Fraulein and Marcia had many little 
 
 c a
 
 20 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 pleasures of their own, and many little 
 household matters upon their hands that 
 made time glide by hour after hour and 
 week after week almost unheeded. Upon 
 the Fraulein, indeed, it seemed as if time 
 could not possibly have any effect unless 
 it might be to turn absolutely white hair 
 that here and there already showed a 
 silvery glint. She was the typical German 
 woman, differing as much from all ordinary 
 notions we entertain as to what a German 
 Fraulein who bids fair to become an old 
 maid may resemble, as does one of our own 
 healthy English girls, whom you may see 
 any day where girls are to be found, — in 
 the Park, or on the Brighton Parade, or at 
 Scarborough, or where you please, — from 
 the marvellous Mees Anglaise portrayed by 
 Cham in Charivari. How Leech, who could
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 21 
 
 draw an English girl as truly as Landseer 
 could paint deer or hound, must have 
 laughed as he turned over Charivari at 
 his Club. 
 
 Fraulein Dietz was short, of course, and 
 also stout, with blue eyes and light hair, 
 genuinely Teuton. Profane critics, who 
 like the lean, colourless horrors sung by M. 
 Rossetti and Mr. Swinburne, and painted 
 by Mr. Paul Burne Jones, would have con- 
 sidered Miss Dietz, to use a plain English 
 word, podgy. But there was a depth of 
 honesty and affection in her blue eyes, and 
 her heart was as simple as a child's and as 
 tender as that of a mother. And qualities 
 such as these will go far to counterbalance 
 a carriage that is not altogether Parisian, 
 and a Teutonic homeliness such as is some- 
 times supposed by people who knew every-
 
 22 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 thing to indicate want of education, or, as 
 it pleases them to call it, culture. 
 
 Such, to sketch her briefly, was Fraulein 
 Dietz, Marcia's second mother and constant 
 companion. And it must be added, that 
 the Fraulein had many other most estimable 
 virtues. She was cheerful, industrious, 
 bright, full of life, extremely affectionate, 
 and absolutely devoid of selfishness. 
 
 It was little wonder that Marcia should 
 love Fraulein Dietz, and that when Sir 
 Hugo thought it time that the governess 
 should return to Germany or seek out some 
 other engagement, Marcia should be able 
 to point out that the Fraulein was, in fact, 
 housekeeper rather than ex-governess, and 
 that it would be a very false economy 
 indeed to lose her services, even although 
 she herself was now nineteen.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 23 
 
 " You see, papa," urged Marcia, " the 
 Fraulein has taught me as much as she 
 can make me learn ; but she will never 
 teach me to manage a house, or to keep 
 the servants in order, or to look after those 
 tiresome little bills which run away with 
 more money than the big ones. She has 
 tried very hard to do so, I know ; but she 
 laughs at me, and declares it isn't in me. 
 Why, papa, if the Fraulein went away 
 the servants would do exactly as they 
 pleased, the tradesmen would cheat me 
 shamefully, and our bills would be 
 terrible." 
 
 Sir Hugo saw the force of this, and un- 
 graciously gave his consent to the Fraulein's 
 remaining. Whereat, I grieve to say, for 
 the credit of Marcia's veracity, that she 
 and the Fraulein laughed very heartily in
 
 24 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 the evening over their little old-fashioned 
 repast of tea, toast, and watercress. 
 
 On the other hand, Sir Hugo consoled 
 
 himself with reflecting that the Fraulein's 
 
 salary was small, that he need not trouble 
 
 himself to pay it regularly, and that after 
 
 all it was probably cheaper to let her stop. 
 
 She cost little more than a servant, and no 
 
 doubt Marcia was right in contending that 
 
 she saved that little two or three times 
 
 over ; and with these calculations Sir Hugo 
 
 consoled himself as he sat in his easy-chair 
 
 at Boodles, and remembering dimly and 
 
 wistfully how he had always wished to live, 
 
 and pondering gloomily upon the shabby 
 
 way in which fortune had treated him. 
 
 " It is always so, sir," he said to himself. 
 "It is only the snobs who have a chance 
 in these days, even in the service. Fellows
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 25 
 
 who can live and dress themselves on a 
 hundred a year." Which course of reflec- 
 tion led him to the conclusion that the 
 country was goiug to the devil, and that 
 he could not do better than fortify himself 
 with a stiff glass of brandy and water.
 
 26 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Sir Hugo was, as I have said, fifty-five 
 years of age. He did not attempt to con- 
 ceal this fact, as it stood on record in Burke 
 and Debrett. You must not contradict 
 things that are written in the book of 
 Jasher, or when your back is turned, some 
 young gentleman may despatch the smok- 
 ing-room waiter for the awkward record 
 and turn you into ridicule. So Sir Hugo 
 never alluded to his age, but carried it 
 pleasantly and, indeed, almost defiantly. 
 And to do him justice, he was very well 
 preserved.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 27 
 
 Time does not tell upon men who are 
 idle and self-indulgent, unless they also 
 have a bad constitution or lead a vicious 
 life. Now Sir Hugo's constitution was ap- 
 parently excellent. His teeth were sound, 
 and his digestion unimpaired. He walked 
 erectly, and had never been troubled with 
 gout even in its premonitory form of indi- 
 gestion. He was constitutionally lazy. He 
 had never cared much even when young 
 for tramping the stubbles or keeping well 
 in the first flight ; but during the few years 
 that he was in the Guards he used to be 
 considered a smart officer, and he still 
 retained the dignity of his old military 
 bearing without its stiffness. 
 
 Sir Hugo could not afford a valet, but he 
 did not need one ; and as you saw him 
 make his way along Piccadilly and down
 
 28 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 St. James's Street, you would think, not 
 knowing at whom you were looking, what 
 a fine, gallant, upright English gentleman 
 he was. 
 
 And indeed a man can preserve himself 
 wonderfully if he avoids vulgar vices, such 
 as indulgence in early drinks, or in the 
 still more fatal habit of eating more than he 
 requires ; if he keeps regular hours ; and if, 
 to use a comprehensive phrase, he takes 
 care of himself. Now Sir Hugo took care 
 of himself without beingr aware that he did 
 so, and consequently his years sat graciously 
 on him. Above all, he never troubled him- 
 self with thinking — -a bad habit, tending 
 greatly to shorten our enjoyment of the 
 little span of life which the fates allow us. 
 
 It has been maliciously said, probably 
 by some ill- educated and ill-mannered non-
 
 A Luckv Young Woman. 29 
 
 conformist, that deans live to an immense 
 age, because they have a certain income, 
 nothing to do for it, and a thoroughly 
 comfortable deanery in which to do that 
 nothing in a manner that becomes the 
 environment and is worthy of it. 
 
 Sir Hugo, had he gone into the Church 
 instead of into the Guards, would certainly 
 have become a dean. And it is almost 
 equally certain that in these later and 
 vexatious days of ours, he would have 
 refused a bishopric. And herein he would 
 have been w^ise. Indeed, I, for my own 
 humble part, would far sooner be Dean of 
 Westminster than Archbishop of York, or 
 even Canterbury. 
 
 It is difficult to describe Marcia Conyers. 
 She was tall and upright like her father, 
 with a head such as the old masters loved
 
 30 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 to paint, well poised upon a neck worthy 
 of its burden. Her features were Roman 
 rather than Greek, and her thick soft hair 
 was of that deep black which, as the light 
 glints upon it, seems to take a bluish tinge. 
 Her eyes were of a colour that is rare — a 
 deep iron brown, like that (if the com- 
 parison may be permitted) of a thoroughly 
 tempered gun -barrel, and as fearless and 
 resolute as those of a hawk. Her gait was 
 not that now considered fashionable, nor 
 was it that which the drill-master sometimes 
 contrives to impart to tall young ladies 
 as a last boarding-school touch. Perhaps 
 I may best describe her by saying that the 
 more plainly she dressed the more likely 
 would she be to strike your attention. 
 She was, indeed, as Tennyson has it in his 
 vision of fair women —
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 31 
 
 " A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, 
 And most divinely fair." 
 
 It need only be added that she had admir- 
 ably good taste and a faultless eye for 
 colour, and that, as it can hardly be said 
 she went into society, she dressed to please 
 herself. 
 
 Now as Hugo Conyers was one day walk- 
 ing leisurely up Piccadilly he saw on the 
 other side of the way, under the blank wall 
 of Devonshire House, two ladies going in 
 the direction of Knightsbridge, who were in 
 fact his own daughter and Fraulein Dietz. 
 It may seem odd that a man should not 
 recognize his own daughter on the other 
 side of the street, but as a matter of fact, 
 Sir Hugo did not at first recognize Marcia. 
 
 Being too well-bred a gentleman to stare 
 at a lady, he might have passed on with
 
 32 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 some vague wishes that he was still young 
 aud could begin life again, had not Marcia 
 stopped and looked at him across the road. 
 An uneasy suspicion at once flashed through 
 his mind that she might want half a sove- 
 reign for further purchases, so he waved his 
 hand with an air of dignified affection that 
 spoke volumes. "Do not trouble to cross 
 the road, my sweet child," that wave said ; 
 "I require nothing. God bless you. I am 
 proud of you. You amply repay many 
 years of toil and anxiety and self-denial." 
 It was the gesture of a man who, like 
 Lord Beacon sfielcl's Dukes in Lothair, thanks 
 Providence devoutly that his children are 
 not unworthy of him. 
 
 But as he made his way down St. James's 
 Street towards Boodles other ideas came 
 crowding into his head ; and when he
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 33 
 
 reached that club, and had ensconced him- 
 self in a comfortable arm-chair, he began to 
 think so very seriously that many of the 
 men in the room inclined to the opinion 
 he must have lost money, while those who 
 knew better favoured the idea that he 
 had come into money, and was perhaps a 
 little bewildered by it. 
 
 It was late enough in the year for a fire, 
 and Sir Hugo sat before the fire and medi- 
 tated. He also did what for him was an 
 unusual thing ; for when he had apparently 
 finished his meditations he repaired to the 
 coffee-room, where he very slowly and 
 sedately, as becomes a gentleman of his age 
 and position, recruited himself with a brown 
 bread biscuit and two or three glasses of 
 Madeira. Madeira was a wine he rarely 
 touched, but on this occasion he felt a 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 stimulant necessary, so he took his Madeira 
 slowly, and, as it were, medicinally. When 
 it was finished he repaired to the writing- 
 room, and there, after making a careful draft 
 with alterations, copied and despatched the 
 following letter : — 
 
 "Dear Lady St. Austell, 
 
 " I am going to presume upon 
 our long friendship to ask a favour so 
 slioht that vou need no more hesitate at 
 its refusal than I at the suggestion. 
 
 " I know that at this time of the year 
 your house is always full, but if you could 
 make room for my daughter Marcia for a 
 few days, I should be glad if you would let 
 me send her. 
 
 " She has not lately been looking well. 
 Of course she pretends that there is
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 35 
 
 nothing the matter with her, but I believe 
 the truth to be that the dear child fancies 
 I prefer Town myself even at this time of 
 year, and is unwilling to leave me. 
 
 "The air of Oakshire would, I am sure, 
 brace her wonderfully. As she has never 
 had a maid of her own she will, of course, 
 not bring one with her, but will not 
 encroach upon the time of yours. 
 
 "You will find her greatly grown. 
 Indeed I sometimes fear she has a little 
 out-grown her strength. 
 
 "About yourself, who have the gift of 
 
 perpetual youth, I need hardly ask. And 
 
 as I read in last Saturday's Field & full 
 
 account of the day in your coverts, I 
 
 know that St. Austell must be as vigorous 
 
 and hearty as ever. 
 
 "For myself, the days of gun and 
 
 D 2
 
 36 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 saddle are gone; but age brings with 
 it its own consolations and even its own 
 enjoyments. 
 
 " Pray answer this letter as frankly as I 
 hope I have written it. If you are full I 
 shall take Marcia down to Brighton, which 
 is now and long has been my country 
 residence. 
 
 " Remember me most kindly to St. 
 Austell, and believe me, 
 
 " Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 " Hugo Conyers." 
 
 The composition of this letter took some 
 little time, and when it was finished and 
 despatched, Sir Hugo, with the proud feeling 
 that he was a father who did his duty at 
 any denial or sacrifice to himself, ordered a 
 dinner which he felt he had thoroughly
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 37 
 
 earned — half-a-dozen oysters, a little clear 
 soup, a partridge, and some caviare on toast, 
 and to this, with an Imperial pint of cham- 
 pagne, he did ample justice. 
 
 He felt that he had done his duty to his 
 daughter, and deserved a dinner a little out 
 of the common as its reward. He did not 
 read after dinner, for he took care of his 
 eyes, as of all other things essential to his 
 own comfort and enjoyment, but he sat 
 over the table for some little time with a 
 small cup of black coffee. 
 
 Sir Hugo was just about to leave the 
 club, when a sudden thought occurred to 
 him. He turned into the morning-room 
 and took up the Morning Post. 
 
 There he read as follows : — 
 
 "The Earl and Countess of St. Austell 
 are entertaining a small circle of friends at
 
 38 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 St. Austell Towers, Oakshire, including the 
 Austrio-Hungarian Ambassador and the 
 Countess Olmutski, the Duke and Duchess 
 of Lincoln, the Earl of Norwich, the Earl 
 and Countess of Deepdale, and the ladies 
 Gwendoline and Isabel Anstice, Sir Michael 
 Govett, Sir George and Lady Heythrop 
 and Miss Heythrop, Colonel Hewland, Eoyal 
 Horse Guards, the Honourable^and Eeverend 
 Sidney Winthrop, Mr. and the Honourable 
 Mrs. Carpenter, Major Allardyce, Mr. 
 Davidson, M.P. &c." 
 
 " I could not possibly have done better," 
 said Sir Hugo to himself, as he stood on 
 the mat while the porter hailed a cab, a 
 comfort to which this excellent parent felt 
 himself fully entitled after his day's work. 
 " It looks almost like the finger of 
 Providence."
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 39 
 
 The cabman on being paid bis exact fare 
 at the door in Sloane Street took a different 
 view of Providence and its workings, in 
 which two other cabmen, whom he met at 
 the Cadogan Arms, where he assuaged his 
 anger with rum and shrub, fully concurred. 
 
 "That's where it is in a club," observed 
 one of these two philosophers. " If you're 
 in the street and off the rank you can pick 
 your man. Get called to a club and you 
 never know what to expect. And what I 
 say is this — the sweller the club the meaner 
 the man. Ah ! nine times out of ten." 
 
 Sir Hugo for once in a way was not 
 discontented after his fashion or in his 
 own heart with the ways of Providence, and 
 went to bed with a misty sort of idea 
 that to be a good parent is its own 
 reward.
 
 40 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 This took more definite shape as he fell 
 asleep, thinking of Marcia's age, and of 
 other things, all of which would have been 
 pleasant enough were it not for the re- 
 flection that she would need one or two 
 new dresses at least, and that she had 
 no credit running with any West End 
 milliner. 
 
 " After all," he thought, " the girl always 
 looks at her best in her plainest dress. 
 I think I ought to know. And as there 
 are other girls there they will act as a 
 foil to her. In plain muslin and black 
 ribbon, or cherry, — yes, cherry for choice, 
 — I'd back her against most fields she is 
 likely to meet." 
 
 Excellent meditations such as these soon 
 had their effect, and Sir Hugo fell into 
 that peaceful sleep which ought always
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 41 
 
 to follow a day that has been conscien- 
 tiously devoted to hard work for a worthy 
 object. 
 
 By the earliest possible post Sir Hugo 
 received from Lady St. Austell the most 
 gracious of answers. Lady St. Austell 
 would be delighted if Marcia would come 
 down at once, and stop as long as she 
 pleased. Would not Sir Hugo come down 
 too ? Of course the men were all busy 
 in the truly English pastime of killing 
 something. Day after day it was either 
 hunting or shooting, so that nothing was 
 seen of them until dinner-time, after which 
 they retired to the smoking-room and went 
 religiously to sleep. But Sir Hugo could 
 please himself, and might stop indoors all 
 day, and give Lady St. Austell and her
 
 42 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 friends the pleasure of his society. If, on 
 the other hand, he found the air of Oak- 
 shire suit him, he could amuse him as he 
 pleased. There were horses that wanted 
 both riding and driving, and the grounds, 
 for the time of the year, were really in 
 capital order. She need not add that her 
 house was Liberty Hall, and that in all that 
 he did or left undone he could conduct him- 
 self exactly as if he was in his own house. 
 
 Sir Hugo's reply did not take him long. 
 He had many reasons for accepting the 
 invitation, and none for refusing it. He 
 felt that for himself a change would do him 
 good, and would even be an economy, after 
 all incidental expenses (including tips) 
 had been reckoned up to a five-shilling- 
 piece ; and in his own case there would be 
 no tips to huntsmen, whips, or keepers —
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 43 
 
 heavy items, as many a young man has 
 had cause to know. 
 
 Sir Hugo sent one of his most courtly 
 replies, and two days later was on his way 
 with Marcia to St. Austell Towers. 
 
 The journey down, although as a rule he 
 hated railway journeys, actually seemed to 
 invigorate Sir Hugo. He talked cheerfully 
 to Marcia about his own exploits in earlier 
 days with the gun and across country, and 
 he actually went so far as to declare that 
 had he only a decent place of his own 
 in the country, no power on earth should 
 tempt him up to London, unless it were for 
 something really important, such as to be 
 present at Court on Marcia's introduction. 
 
 He became, indeed, so amiable that 
 Marcia was almost bewildered, and marvelled 
 whether she mi^ht have come across some
 
 44 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 "streak," as the Americans call it, in her 
 father, the existence of which she had not 
 as yet even suspected. And when they 
 were met by an open carriage — for it was a 
 bright sunny day — and were being whirled 
 along the road by a pair of sturdy, fast- 
 going horses, she almost forgot all first 
 disagreeables in the exhilaration which fresh 
 air, fair English scenery, rapid motion, and 
 a clear sky will produce even in the most 
 confirmed invalid, but which in the young 
 is a something as indescribable as the effect 
 of good champagne taken in reason and at 
 the right time. 
 
 Everything was new to this London girl 
 who knew but little, indeed nothing, of our 
 most beautiful English scenery, except from 
 the Academy and from Vernon Heath's 
 photographs.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 45 
 
 Matcia would have clapped her hands 
 with pleasure had she been alone at the 
 mere sight of the hedgerows, — always 
 picturesque, — and of the cattle, and the 
 quaint cottages in the old village, and the 
 little stream with a bridge that seemed 
 almost an artificial ruin, it so invited the 
 sketcher by its infinite variety of dilapida- 
 tion and tint. 
 
 And then, as the gates were swung open, 
 they entered the park and clashed through 
 an avenue such as England only can boast. 
 On each side were the great elms ; and 
 under the oaks away in the turf the deer 
 were busy among the fallen acorns, and 
 the carriage wheels startled a great jay, 
 all chocolate and lapis lazuli, who scuttered 
 away with his own shriek of anger and 
 noisy complaint at being disturbed.
 
 46 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Nor was this all, for a little stone bridge 
 took them over the stream which fed the 
 lake, where there were swans both black 
 and white, and as many other kinds of 
 water-fowl as even St. James's Park had 
 ever shown her in her morning walks. 
 And there was the home farm, with its 
 little herd of cattle, and its goats, and a 
 large enclosure for some kangaroos.'^ ' And 
 
 . & ^ __ — ^~ ^_ ~~~ 
 
 then they came to thick shrubberies care- 
 fully planted with evergreens, until the 
 coachman checked his horses to an inch 
 at the door of an English house such as 
 it is a pleasure even to look at through a 
 railway window. 
 
 For The Towers were an old red-brick 
 Tudor mansion which might, before the time 
 of heavy guns, have almost stood a siege. 
 The moat round it had been drained, and
 
 A Lucky Young Womau. 47 
 
 its sides laid out as terraces, which in 
 summer were bright with flowers. The 
 windows had been fitted with modern sashes 
 and plate glass, and in the centre of the 
 quadrangle, which could easily have held 
 two or three troops of horse, a fountain now 
 leaped into the air, which in warm weather 
 fell upon centenarian gold fish basking 
 among broad water-lily leaves, but now threw 
 a crystal jet in the spray of which the 
 bright sun painted a glorious rainbow. 
 
 Eound all four sides of the court ran a 
 genuine cloister, the roof of which formed 
 a terrace and summer garden to the first 
 floor. Over the gateway was the clock 
 tower. Wolsey might have built St. Austell 
 Towers as a summer pleasaunce for himself 
 while meditating Hampton Court. 
 
 At the doorway Sir Hugo and Marcia
 
 48 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 were received with due solemnity by a hall 
 porter, who must have been some close 
 relation of that colossal and impenetrable 
 marvel of his kind who did duty at North- 
 umberland House before its demolition, and 
 from whom they gathered that his lordship 
 and the party had not returned from the 
 coverts, and that her ladyship had driven 
 over to the town. 
 
 After imparting this information he 
 touched some electric bells, a footman and 
 a ladies' maid appeared upon the scene, and 
 Marcia found herself in a chamber looking 
 out upon the park with its deer, and the 
 like of which she had never seen before. 
 For it was a large oak-panelled room, with 
 a great stone window, and a ceiling painted 
 by Verrio. But the furniture was entirely 
 modern, with the one exception of the fire-
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 49 
 
 place, which had an immense carved mantel- 
 piece. Under this, in a recess of Dutch 
 tiles, had been fitted, perhaps by way of 
 contrast, the brightest and most cheerful of 
 little grates ; and on the top of the coals 
 billets of pine were sputtering and crackling 
 a welcome, and throwing fitful lights and 
 shadows on the old oak and on some Lelys 
 and Vandycks for which the galleries had 
 not room. 
 
 It was pleasant to learn that there 
 were still three hours before dinner, and I 
 believe that young ladies after a long 
 railway journey and a brisk drive in cold 
 weather enjoy tea and hot dry toast as 
 much as Sir Hugo himself was at that 
 moment luxuriating in a glass of brandy 
 and water and a rusk with some devilled 
 caviare. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 A Lucky Young "Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Paper Buildings in the Temple are 
 strangely altered from what they once were. 
 If you doubt this, make your way to the 
 Inner Temple Library, the courteous libra- 
 rian of which noble collection will, after 
 duly verifying your credentials, place at 
 your disposal a rare portfolio of old steel 
 engravings and other treasures dating from 
 the days when Ben Jonson wrote masques 
 to be played before Queen Elizabeth in 
 the Middle Temple Hall, and her Majesty 
 showed her appreciation of the entertain- 
 ment by ordering that the noble chamber
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 51 
 
 should be newly panelled with oak from 
 the wreck of the Armada, down to these 
 later times of the Law Almanack, in which, 
 when the Benchers of an Inn of Court 
 determine to spend their money lest a 
 Eadical Government should lay plundering 
 hands upon it, they exhaust their treasure- 
 chest and mortgage the credit of the Inn 
 to erect piles of stone such as the pepper- 
 potted building on the Embankment, which 
 in my own humble opinion must have been 
 built from designs originally intended for 
 a grand hotel at a new and rising watering- 
 place, and which has hardly its equal in 
 London for ugliness. Paper Buildings are 
 now almost entirely occupied by men in 
 active and busy practice, and in term time 
 the stairs are beset with passengers, from 
 the Queen's Counsel or Junior hurrying 
 
 E 2 
 
 UNIVERSE OF 
 IU-IH01S LIBRARY
 
 52 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 across to the Law Courts, down to the 
 solicitor's clerk or errand-boy, with a brief 
 to be delivered or a consultation to be 
 fixed. 
 
 John Douglas had his business chambers 
 on the ground-floor in one of these dull 
 stone buildings, and hereiD he showed 
 his wisdom ; for although the first floor 
 is affected by Queen's Counsel and even 
 by Juniors in heavy mercantile practice 
 (which they usually owe to private interest), 
 solicitors have a weakness for the ground- 
 floor, as it saves them the trouble of 
 mounting and again descending a cold 
 stone staircase, trying to the limbs and 
 temper of elderly gentlemen in comfortable 
 circumstances. 
 
 But Mr. Douglas' residential chambers 
 were in King's Bench Walk, upon the
 
 A Lucky Yoxxg Woman. 53 
 
 second floor, and of these few except his 
 clerk knew the secret ; for he was a 
 methodical man, who liked to keep the 
 hours of business absolutely apart from 
 those of rest. His career had not been 
 exactly brilliant He had not rowed in 
 the University eight, or carried off the 
 Xewdigate, or done any other of those 
 things which are considered " crack " suc- 
 cesses. He had been at Harrow, where he 
 was in the eleven, had proceeded from 
 Harrow to Baliol, where he took a first- 
 class of the kind that is called " solid," 
 rowed in the college eigrht because he 
 said he wanted exercise, but declined the 
 honour of representing his University at 
 Putney, and left Oxford without a Fel- 
 lowship, because he had inherited a few 
 hundreds a year from his father, which
 
 54 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 disqualified him as a candidate anywhere 
 but at St. Asaph's — a corporate body to 
 which he did not aspire to belong. He 
 came to the Bar, and here again worked 
 steadily and with method. 
 
 If you do this and wait your time your 
 chance is sure to come, and Douglas' chance 
 came soon. It was no single event, such 
 as the one speech which made the fortune 
 of Erskine. It consisted of a series of small 
 successes which gradually brought him into 
 notice, so that one day, when a gentleman 
 who had for thirty years been standing 
 Counsel to the Kettle-Makers' Company, 
 and half-a-dozen other City guilds, to say 
 nothing of banks and firms, was raised to 
 the Bench, the bulk of his business gravi- 
 tated naturally to Douglas, who, as a matter 
 of fact, now counted his income in four
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 55 
 
 figures, of which the first was not a 
 unit. 
 
 His tastes were simple, and he could 
 afford to gratify them, and yet live very 
 considerably within his income. He be- 
 longed to the Oxford and Cambridge, he 
 had a small yacht of thirty tons in Dover 
 harbour, as being of easy access from 
 London, and in the winter hunting and 
 shooting were always ready for him, as 
 he was a capital guest in a country-house, 
 and far too much a man of the world to 
 promote small jealousies by showing the 
 residents the way over a fence, or wiping 
 the eye of his neighbour over a bird. 
 
 Douglas was a little over thirty-five years 
 of age, tall, upright, and well set together, 
 with broad shoulders and a deep chest. 
 Perhaps few women would have considered
 
 56 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 him handsome. Suffice it to say, that he 
 had dark brown hair which curled crisply, 
 keen grey eyes, a sunburnt complexion, and 
 features which were strongly marked. 
 
 Men, indeed, who did not like him 
 used to declare that he resembled Lord 
 Combermere, Wellington's favourite general 
 of cavalry. I have noticed, by the way, 
 that strongly-marked features are seen to 
 advantage under a white wig, and assist 
 a young barrister more than might be 
 generally supposed in his professional 
 career. Douglas was at this moment, the 
 last few weeks of the long vacation, at St. 
 Austell Towers, whither batches of what 
 are called " papers " used to come down to 
 him from town. 
 
 A man of strong constitution can get 
 through a considerable amount of work
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 57 
 
 whilst staying at a country-house without 
 in any way appearing to withdraw himself 
 from its society ; and, indeed, if you do not 
 need to be constantly consulting a library 
 of reference, the amount of work through 
 which you can get in a limited time under 
 the stimulus of country air is astonishing. 
 
 Now Sir Hugo had never so much as 
 heard the name of John Douglas, for he 
 never looked at the Law Reports in the 
 Times, unless it were to glance at a murder 
 trial, or a piquant divorce case, or a jewel 
 robbery of more than general interest. He 
 had a vague idea that young barristers lived 
 somewhere under the tiles in Pump Court, 
 and made their breakfast off a red-herring 
 toasted for them by an Irish laundress. 
 
 How some few of them emerged from 
 this obscurity to become judges, or even
 
 53 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 to occupy the woolsack, was a problem he 
 had never considered. Indeed, of the Bar 
 and of men at the Bar he knew about as 
 much as can be learnt about her Majesty's 
 services from reading Marryat's sea stories 
 and Lever's novels, in which we gather 
 only one side of the life usually led by 
 the Queen's officers, forgetting other sides 
 such as those shown us in Wellington's 
 despatches. 
 
 This kind of ignorance is far more 
 general than might be fancied, even by 
 men who live in what is called the 
 world. And it is perhaps some excuse 
 for Sir Hugo that John Douglas was 
 not yet in Parliament. A seat in the 
 House of Commons is not always a prize 
 which a barrister of eminence need covet, 
 and has long ceased to be in itself a
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 59 
 
 short road to the Bench. Consequently, 
 Douglas had not attempted to get into 
 the House, having indeed other things 
 to do. 
 
 But he was known, as I have said, to 
 the great mercantile firms in the City, and 
 the judges listened to his arguments with 
 attention, knowing that he never took 
 untenable points, or wasted their time by 
 talking to please his clients. In court, 
 in fact, as in the hunting-field, he took his 
 own line ; and I have noticed that judges 
 are very like masters of fox-hounds, in 
 one respect at any rate — that they can 
 soon see whether a man is up to his work, 
 and has the right stuff in him. 
 
 A barrister in large practice has hardly 
 time to dine out, and certainly none for 
 balls or receptions. He consequently escapes
 
 60 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 those opportunities of falling in love 
 which offer themselves so freely to gentle- 
 men who have nothing to do after four 
 in the afternoon, and very often nothing 
 to do until noon the next day, unless they 
 choose to mark themselves by excess of 
 zeal, which in her Majesty's Civil Service, 
 at any rate, is by no means the certain 
 road to promotion that might be supposed. 
 
 When John Douglas was in London his 
 habits were as methodical as those of a 
 clock. He rose early, had his breakfast 
 at once, and then took a brisk walk or 
 a sharp three quarters of an hour in the 
 saddle. 
 
 If you are in large practice you must 
 be ready for consultation by nine in the 
 morning. Court will take you the whole 
 day. The Court risen, you will have other
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 61 
 
 consultations until seven or thereabouts. 
 Then if you are wise, as John Douglas 
 was, you will dine at your club, play a 
 game or two at billiards, or join in a 
 rubber, and be in bed as early as possible. 
 It may be asked how it is that barristers 
 at the head of their profession ever manage 
 to read their briefs. The thin^ seems at 
 first impossible. And yet we know that 
 it is done. First there is the simple ex- 
 planation that they are clear-headed men, 
 who get through their work rapidly and 
 yet thoroughly, so that one reading of a 
 case is all they want. Then, too, there is 
 a certain method of compassing their work 
 which they somehow acquire. This is not 
 a secret known to the bulk of the pro- 
 fession, and it is the men that possess it 
 who come to the front. Besides, one case
 
 62 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 is very like another, and the more you 
 practise at the Bar the more law you 
 learn. It is not the men who write law 
 books and compile digests that get into 
 leading practice, however sound may be 
 their written opinions. 
 
 Law, indeed, is in this respect exactly 
 like its sister learned profession, medicine. 
 The men who are deservedly most eminent" 
 in it have no time to read, much less to 
 write. They have an experience and know- 
 ledge greater than that of books, and are 
 always in advance of the books which are 
 at the time the standard authorities. 
 
 It may almost be said of them that 
 they make law and medicine for the next 
 generation, and have no occasion to study 
 either the law or the medicine of the past.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 63 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The drawing-room at St. Austell Towers 
 was a curious mixture of old, new, and 
 •antique, and yet in perfect taste. The oak 
 panelling still remained, but had upon it, 
 hung low and within view, late pictures 
 by modern artists. Above these were 
 mirrors of Venetian glass, with countless 
 tapers that threw quaint many-hued lights. 
 The furniture was in character with the 
 room. There were cabin ets, some Louis 
 Quatorze with priceless plaques of porcelain ; 
 some of deeply-carved teak and ebony from 
 Burmah, with grotesque and hideous figures
 
 64 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 on them deeply out ; others of old oak 
 found in hidden Dutch towns and villages, 
 and each was loaded with china Oriental 
 and European, with Indian work of silver 
 spun out into cobwebs, and with things 
 even rarer than these, such as bowls cut 
 without flaw from a single block of 
 rock crystal ; and as counter-marvels of 
 mechanical skill, cunning toys which had 
 taken years in their construction. 
 
 A Chinaman, it has been said, will spend 
 ten years of his life in saving the money 
 with which to buy the root of a great 
 elephant tusk. Out of this he will cut a 
 spherical ball, through the holes of which 
 you see another ball, and through those 
 yet another, until the sphere inside com- 
 pletes the magic number of even fifty. 
 
 Burmese lacquer boxes, the largest the
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 65 
 
 size of a tea-caddy, the smallest and inner- 
 most less than a hazel nut, and silver boxes 
 from the Hague, out of which, when you 
 touched a spring, started a tiny humming- 
 bird, round which a lady could put her 
 ring, flapped his wings, flirted his tail, 
 vibrated his little beak, trilled a song, 
 and so retired again with a snap into his 
 box. 
 
 It was a museum rather than a room 
 had you chosen to spend a couple of days 
 in it. And, on the other hand, there were 
 signs of modern life. For Lord St. Austell, 
 like many other men of unlimited wealth, 
 had also good taste, and everywhere about 
 were vases of exquisite hot-house blossoms ; 
 for the sake of which the head-gardener 
 had a joint control over the chamber with 
 the housekeeper, carefully regulating the 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 temperature and taking a pride in his 
 work. 
 
 Marcia was not bewildered by tins mar- 
 vellous display. She would have liked, no 
 doubt, a couple of days to herself — a week 
 would not really have been too much — to 
 go through the room leisurely, as if it were 
 a museum. This, however, was a pleasure 
 that might well wait for the first rainy 
 day, which would probably be to-morrow 
 or the day after, two fine days in succes- 
 sion in October being a feat of which our 
 climate is, as a rule, incapable. 
 
 So Marcia did as most young ladies do 
 in the vexatious quarter of an hour that 
 precedes dinner — that is to say, she took 
 a seat (on an ottoman covered with rugs 
 of the silver fox), and waited the turn of 
 events.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 67 
 
 Presently, of course, was heard a gong 
 beaten in the most approved fashion, one 
 that would puzzle the most accomplished 
 drum-major in the British Army, and known 
 to few but Burmese and the Chinamen of 
 the Yellow River. 
 
 And so came dinner, and Marcia found 
 herself on the arm of John Douglas, whom 
 Lady St. Austell had just presented to 
 her, and to whose charge her hostess had 
 confided her. The staircase was as mar- 
 vellous after its kind as the room they 
 had left, and was panelled and decorated 
 to match the dining-room, to which latter 
 apartment, in my humble opinion, every 
 staircase should be assimilated in manner 
 and effect. 
 
 And in the dining-room again was black 
 
 oak, from which the light of the wax 
 
 F 2
 
 68 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 tapers glinted back, and above the oak, as 
 on the walls of *the staircase and in the 
 hall, were trophies of the chase, and armour 
 and weapons of almost every age and 
 country, from chain mail of the crusaders 
 down to steel breast-plates worn by Crom- 
 well's Ironsides ; from pikes and matchlocks, 
 yataghans and krises, to relics of Waterloo, 
 the Crimea, and the Mutiny. But on the 
 table, with the exception of some rare old 
 silver and china that did duty in the 
 centre, all was modern, down even to the 
 menu daintily written in a little pasteboard 
 volume, which contained for the ladies 
 other trifles, such as a miniature looking- 
 glass and a button-hook for gloves. 
 
 Nor need I after this speak of the dinner 
 itself. Any man can give a good dinner 
 if he will give his mind to the task, and
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 69 
 
 the dinner will not be the worse if he 
 can afford rarities. 
 
 Lord St. Austell had a good cook and 
 a good butler. He regarded the day's 
 dinner as one of the responsibilities attach- 
 ing to his wealth, and a duty, or rather 
 a courtesy, due to his guests. In this view 
 his chef, his butler, and his head-gardener 
 fully concurred. A dinner at such a table 
 is not a thing to be forgotten. Marcia, 
 ignorant of the difference between bisque 
 d'ecrevisse and tortue claire, and who had 
 never seen in her life red mullet or lamprey, 
 capercailzie or woodcock, except to wonder 
 at them in shops, was fairly bewildered, 
 and had to choose between refusing every 
 dish offered to her, or, in the true spirit 
 of a picnic, accepting the advice of John 
 Douglas, who had the tact to perceive her
 
 70 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 trouble and the dexterity to help her 
 through it without making her aware of 
 the fact. 
 
 On Marcia's right hand was the old 
 Duke of Lincoln, who cared for nothing 
 in the world but pedigree cattle and 
 subsoil drainage, and who consequently, 
 relying on the strength of his title, took 
 his dinner methodically, as becomes a Duke 
 who owns one shire in the grazing counties 
 and half another; and if he had known 
 his Horace, whose very name he had 
 forgotten since he was last flogged at Eton, 
 might perhaps have thought of the ode in 
 the first book, but who wisely contented 
 himself with saying nothing. 
 
 On the left Douglas helped her through 
 every difficulty ; and here let me own 
 at once, that I care very little for a
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 71 
 
 man who does not carry on well into 
 middle life and past it the heart and 
 feelings of five-and-twenty. Your cynics 
 of thirty are humbugs, bred of the tinpot 
 renaissance we owe to three distinguished 
 young gentlemen, and without the infinite 
 power of small talk which makes the 
 lesser followers of these luminaries enter- 
 taining even during the solemn period of 
 dinner. John Douglas was genuine, and 
 so he tried to find out what the girl he 
 had taken down to dinner might care to 
 talk about. If you once strike the true 
 note in a conversation everything will 
 follow smoothly, whether you are at a 
 dinner table, or in a railway train. 
 
 Douglas at a shot began with the flowers 
 in front of him. This led to a discussion 
 upon orchids, and Darwin, whom Marcia
 
 72 A Lucky Young '.Woman. 
 
 happened to have read, and orchid -hunting 
 in tropical forests, and the risks and dangers 
 of orchid -hunters — a class of toilers of 
 whose very existence Marcia was ignorant, 
 having only a vague idea that orchids 
 came from the Brazils. And so the 
 minutes slipped by pleasantly enough for 
 Marcia. 
 
 A girl's first ball has had things before 
 it in her life that lead up to it. She has 
 been to archery meetings and other such 
 gatherings. But her first dinner-party is 
 an event in her life, and one which few- 
 girls forget, even though it may have 
 fatigued and bored them. 
 
 In the drawing-room Marcia, by this time 
 thawed, began to feel thoroughly comfort- 
 able, if not indeed entirely happy. As 
 she had not in any way made herself re-
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 73 
 
 markable at dinner there was no set made 
 upon her, and -it was a novelty again to 
 be in such a huge room, and to drink tea 
 out of Dresden porcelain, and to play with 
 biscuits, marvels of French manufacture, 
 and to be able now at her leisure to 
 wonder at the room and all that it 
 contained. 
 
 And so she sat, still thinking more or 
 less dreamily of everything and nothing, 
 until she noticed that the men were coming 
 up. The coffee did not take long. Most 
 of the men were anxious to get to the 
 smoking-room with its unholy comforts, 
 and most of the ladies were equally anxious 
 to get away. There are many reasons for 
 this, of which I will give some in detail, 
 as they have been imparted to me under 
 terrible vows of secrecy.
 
 74 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 la the first place, a good dress must 
 not be worn too long at a time, and even 
 muslin will show signs of wear sooner than 
 might be expected from so simple and 
 apparently innocent a fabric. I have 
 heard, indeed, that a muslin dress must 
 be — I hope my technical terms are correct 
 — "unripped" and ''done up" and put 
 together again after its third evening of 
 duty. Silk dresses are a mystery, of the 
 proper management of which I know rather 
 less than do the ladies who wear them 
 of spot pool, or badger drawing, or boxing 
 the compass. Secondly, the men them- 
 selves are believed to hold meetings in 
 what is called the bachelors room, where 
 the butler makes his appearance with the 
 butlers tray, containing curries and anchovy 
 toast, and other such things, while his
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 75 
 
 assistant brings up the rear with cigars 
 and strong waters. And thirdly, as the 
 men like the smoking-room, and often 
 occupy it to an hour conventionally un- 
 seasonable, so do the ladies congregate 
 in the bed-room of some recognized leader. 
 These be mysteries of the Bona Dea, and 
 I shun the unenviable reputation of Clodius. 
 But I know that tea taken immediately 
 before bed upsets the nerves and produces 
 sleeplessness unless it be qualified, and that, 
 with the aid of a dainty silver tea-kettle 
 and its proper adjuncts, a scale of drinks 
 can be concocted, commencing with hot 
 port wine and water and ending with 
 just that amount of cognac which doctors 
 who know their profession are all agreed 
 is often necessary after a tiring day for a 
 married lady, and occasionally advisable,
 
 76 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 under her permission, and if mixed by 
 herself, for even unmarried ladies who, after 
 the day's excitement, are feeling a peg too 
 low, and need a sound night's rest to 
 restore the roses to their cheek ■ next 
 morning. 
 
 The whole thing was new to Marcia. 
 She did not understand the things she 
 heard talked about, and consequently could 
 not even affect an interest in them. Lady 
 St. Austell had deserted her, not unkindly 
 but entirely, to talk local politics to the 
 Duchess of Lincoln, and so it was a real 
 relief to her to find herself at last in 
 her own room, with the billets still blazing 
 and a sofa drawn before the fire, as if to 
 allure you into sitting up all night. This 
 temptation — and I for my own part know 
 of none more insidious — Marcia resisted
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 77 
 
 stoutly ; and was almost immediately asleep 
 covered by and hidden in that mass of 
 quilts and furs which you seldom see south 
 of the Tweed, but on which a Scotch house 
 prides itself. 
 
 And now I must say a word for John 
 Douglas. This bad young man, whose 
 failings it would be untruthful in me to 
 extenuate, was among the last who 
 sought their quarters in the bachelors' 
 wing, where at St. Austell Towers license 
 reigned without restriction. As I want 
 my readers to know him thoroughly, they 
 shall hear exactly what he did. 
 
 He was a methodical young man, so he 
 hung up his dress clothes, spreading them 
 wide, and sprinkling them with eau de 
 cologne that they might be freed from 
 the taint of the smoking-room. Then he
 
 78 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 ensconced himself in an easy-chair and 
 lit a briar-wood pipe, moistening it with 
 some Athol-brose which the butler had 
 specially recommended. 
 
 Athol-brose is made in this wise. Upon 
 virgin honeycombs you pour, according to 
 their amount, the oldest French brandy 
 and the most indisputable Scotch whiskey 
 in equal proportions. You allow this 
 goodly mixture to stand for days in a large 
 pipkin, and in a cool place, and it is then 
 strained and ready for drinking. Epicures 
 drop into the jug by way of imparting 
 artistic finish a small fragment of the 
 honeycomb itself. This I deprecate. But 
 I can conscientiously aver that Athol-brose, 
 whether as first brewed by the butler or 
 whether after diluted by a cautious young 
 Englishman, is a beverage which, judiciously
 
 A Lucky Young "Woman. 79 
 
 taken, might well have comforted even Job 
 in his most trying moments. 
 
 To a landsman after a day in the open 
 air Athol-brose is in its sense as precious 
 as egg-flip to the dwellers in the forecastle. 
 Like egg-flip also, it makes you first con- 
 tented, then retrospective, and finally 
 drowsy, so that when he had finished his 
 tumbler Douglas turned into bed with that 
 peculiar feeling of delight which comes 
 upon young men when they finish a well- 
 spent day, and oddly enough began to 
 think of his companion at the dinner-table, 
 and to wonder where and how she had been 
 brought up, and even to conjecture whether 
 she was possibly thinking of himself. This 
 last was very foolish on his part, for I am 
 assured on the best authority that bed with 
 young ladies is an institution too sacred to
 
 80 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 be disturbed by thought, — nay, more, that 
 they fall asleep immediately, and resent 
 being awakened in the morning. 
 
 If this be indeed true it is very sad, 
 for it destroys our faith in all the pretty 
 stories about St. Agnes' Eve and so on. 
 But we must not inquire too deeply into 
 certain secrets, and we may be quite sure 
 in any case of this, if a young lady goes 
 to bed with her mind half made up in the 
 evening, she will wake up with it fully 
 made up in the morning, for sleep, like 
 old age, of which the ancients called it 
 the precursor, only strengthens our con- 
 victions ; and the wise man who told us 
 not to let the sun go down upon our wrath 
 judged well, whereas he who said " Think 
 over it before you go to sleep," has been 
 responsible for infinite mischief. A man
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 81 
 
 is never so selfish as when he is falling 
 asleep and the drowsiness of his body 
 begins to creep to his mind. 
 
 Let us do John Douglas justice. He rose 
 early next morning and, to use an intelli- 
 gible phrase among young men, " shovelled 
 on " a thick suit, in which he took a brisk 
 walk of an hour and a half through inter- 
 minable shrubberies, returning to his toilet 
 with a swinging step, a clear head, and 
 his mind made up, as he thought — wherein 
 he deluded himself — that he would make 
 up his mind very carefully within the next 
 few days. And this is a dangerous attitude, 
 and one into which a young man should 
 never allow himself to be betrayed, for 
 whereas when his seniors think over matters 
 they usually end by the philosophic de- 
 termination to do nothing, the young man 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 who allows himself to think thing's over 
 
 o 
 
 is almost certain to end by finding that 
 he has done a great deal more than he ever 
 intended. 
 
 You may illustrate this, if you have had 
 the experience, by asking the value of your 
 comparative chance from a young man and 
 an old, when you have requested each to 
 do you a good turn, and each has told you 
 that he will think it over and let you 
 know to-morrow, by which time he shall 
 have made up his mind.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. R3 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Breakfast that morning was the desul- 
 tory meal that it usually is in a large 
 country-house. Marcia having ascertained 
 that Lady St. Austell would not be down 
 until ten, deferred her own appearance to 
 that hour. Sir Hugo before descending 
 fortified himself for the discharge of his 
 paternal duties through the day with a 
 brandy and soda, feeling that he had 
 important business upon hand, and might 
 really for once in a way, and under the 
 influence of bracing country air, allow him- 
 
 G 2
 
 84 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 self that gentle stimulant, with some dry 
 toast as a sort of excuse. 
 
 It was nearly half-past eleven before Sir 
 Hugo made his appearance at the breakfast 
 table, to find that the men had all left for 
 the coverts. There were, however, some 
 few of the ladies scattered at the table, 
 and Sir Hugo liked ladies' society as many 
 thoroughly selfish men do. So he set to 
 work, with the appetite of a Eoman father, 
 resolved to keep up his system, and in this 
 respect acquitted himself very creditably. 
 
 Breakfast in a well-appointed country- 
 house is a meal of delightful variety, a 
 meal to think over and to enjoy leisurely. 
 Young men do themselves lasting injury 
 with mutton chops and strong coffee, and 
 pressed beef and even ale. Sir Hugo had 
 reached an age at which you know better,
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 and at which you have learned to take care 
 of yourself, and to regard a meal as a sort 
 of duty which you owe to society. For 
 men such as Sir Hugo know T themselves 
 and their own value, and are Cornaros 
 upon a small scale, although, unless they 
 are confirmed dyspeptics, they like a well- 
 appointed table for its own sake, however 
 moderately they may indulge their infinite 
 field for choice. So Sir Hugo thoroughly 
 enjoyed his cold partridge and hot tea, 
 and felt so much the better for it as to 
 follow the advice of the butler when that 
 august official suggested, rather than recom- 
 mended, green curagon. 
 
 Green curacon is said by many persons 
 to be almost as poisonous as kirschenwasser, 
 which contains I do not know how much 
 per cent, of prussic acid. So does one of
 
 86 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Benson's big regalias contain enough nico- 
 tine to kill almost any animal of which I 
 know except a goat. But exactly as some 
 young men find that a big cigar steadies 
 their nerves, so do many of their elders 
 derive comfort from prussic acid, which, 
 judiciously taken, is as valuable an item as 
 any in the pharmacopoeia. 
 
 Breakfast over Sir Hugo felt some few 
 years younger, and began to seriously con- 
 sider the business he had in hand. It was 
 keen weather out of doors, so that he had 
 a good excuse for not venturing even so 
 far as the terraces. He loitered out into 
 a large conservatory, and then found him- 
 self in the library — an immense room with 
 a gallery running round it, supported on 
 pillars of Derbyshire marble, and with black 
 oak shelves full of rare books, for the late
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 87 
 
 Lord St. Austell had been an inveterate 
 and also a prudent collector. There was 
 a small organ at one end, for the library 
 occasionally did duty as a concert-room, and 
 there were easy-chairs, and tables covered 
 with the latest books from Mudie and Smith 
 and Sons, and with the current reviews and 
 magazines. No club library could have 
 been better appointed or arranged. 
 
 Sir Hugo was not much given to reading, 
 for which in his heart he had a certain 
 contempt, believing that if a man knows 
 anything which it is worth your while to 
 know also, he will be much too careful 
 over such a precious secret to put it in 
 a book and make public property of it. 
 But the glass doors of the library com- 
 manded the hall and the gallery which ran 
 round it, so that as Lady St. Austell
 
 88 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 descended from the gallery by the grand 
 staircase, it happened that Sir Hugo, having 
 just laid down the Builder, — a weekly paper 
 which he had seen at Boodles, but had 
 never before interested himself in, — was 
 emerging into the hall with the light firm 
 step and upright bearing of an English 
 gentleman who has done his duty before 
 however painful it may have been, and is 
 prepared to do it again at any sacrifice. 
 
 Lady St. Austell hoped Sir Hugo had 
 breakfasted. Did he intend to go later in 
 the day to the luncheon at the covert- side % 
 
 Sir Hugo was afraid that the day was 
 rather cold. Lady St. Austell shared in 
 that opinion. She doubted, indeed, if any 
 of the ladies would go, except, perhaps, 
 Lady Deepdale and her daughters, and 
 some few others who seemed positively
 
 A Lucky Youxg Womax. 89 
 
 to revel in October air for its own sake. 
 She herself was just about to visit the 
 conservatories. 
 
 Now there is no conservatory attached 
 to Boodles ; and although Mareia had some 
 favourite flowers of her own in a sort of 
 glass sentry box over the portico in Sloane 
 Street, Sir Hugo troubled himself as little 
 about them as about many other things 
 for which his daughter cared. He had 
 heard of orchids, but did not like to hazard 
 his reputation on the chance of their being 
 in season. As to camelias he felt more 
 certain, for he knew a camelia by sight, 
 and had noticed some in the drawing-room 
 the evening before, so he at once said 
 that he should like to see the camelias, 
 adding that a white camelia had always 
 been his poor wife's favourite flower ; and
 
 90 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 then he shook his head as if he were look- 
 ing back through the vista of past years, 
 and somehow seemed to find comfort in 
 the idea of camelias. 
 
 Now Lady St. Austell was proud of her 
 camelias, as Sir Hugo very well knew. 
 He had, in fact, noticed that the camelias 
 he had seen the evening before were freshly 
 cut, and had not come down by train 
 packed in wool. He consequently soon 
 found himself in the camelia house with 
 her ladyship, who although occupied in 
 tying little fragments of white ribbon to 
 the flowers she selected to be cut for the 
 evening, was yet not too engrossed in this 
 pursuit to compliment the exemplary father 
 on Marcia's appearance, and to add that 
 his daughter had a strong likeness to Sir 
 Huso himself.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman! 91 
 
 There was just enough truth in the com- 
 pliment to have made it pleasant if you 
 were perfectly certain of its sincerity ; for 
 people may tell the truth, and often do. 
 without the least intention of doing so, — 
 as when, to take a common instance, you 
 are unwise enough to talk to a man whose 
 name you do not know about a book whose 
 author you have never met, and to express 
 your opinion about that book with frank- 
 ness, not being aware that you are talking 
 to the man who wrote it. 
 
 Sir Huot) did a safe thin^ under all the 
 circumstances. He sighed, and added that 
 Mircia's health gave him great anxiety. 
 Her ladyship hoped this apprehension was 
 without foundation. At all events Marcia 
 looked, if she might be allowed to say so, 
 robust. Sir Hu^o had his doubts. Might
 
 92 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 lie, with the confidence of an old friend 
 now in the sole charge of an only daughter, 
 who was everything in life to him, take 
 Lady St. Austell into his confidence. 
 Certainly he might. So they w T ent on 
 selecting the camelias leisurely. Many of 
 my readers must know from experience 
 that there are pursuits which promote con- 
 versation. Angling is not one of these, 
 but the choice of flowers is. So Sir liu^o 
 began to talk. 
 
 "Marcia," said Sir Hugo, "is no longer 
 a child, and she is lonely in my dungeon 
 of a house in Sloane Street. I watch her 
 carefully, and am sure that my eye is not 
 deceived. She has, as far as my limited 
 income permits, everything that she can 
 wish. Her pets, her books, her flowers, 
 and her little studio — for she has, I believe,
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 93 
 
 so far as I can see, a genuine instinct for 
 art. Of her music I can speak with con- 
 fidence, and it is one of my greatest plea- 
 sures to take her to the opera. But I 
 feel that I am no companion for her. Her 
 governess, Fraulein Dietz, is a most accom- 
 plished and highly sympathetic lady. But 
 I feel, dear Lady St. Austell, that it is 
 hardly a wholesome life for a girl of 
 Marcia's age to be living in that lonely 
 house with her father, even although he is 
 fortunately able to devote his time to her.' , 
 
 Lady St. Austell assented most cordi- 
 ally ; but why did not Marcia go out into 
 society ? 
 
 " How can I take her out ? n replied Sir 
 Hugo. " I do what little I can, but my 
 means are sadly straitened. You would 
 be astonished," he added with a light
 
 94 A Lucky Young "Woman. 
 
 laugh, "to see how simply we have to 
 live. And I may also say how admirable 
 a housekeeper Marcia makes. Without 
 her our little menage could not possibly 
 be carried on for .'a week. But there are 
 not many years left me, and I must not 
 allow her, even if I would, to sacrifice her 
 young and bright life for, me." 
 
 " Marcia ought to marry," said Lady St. . 
 Austell decidedly. "It is time she did 
 so, and I do not see why she should not 
 make a brilliant match." 
 
 Here was the ball at Sir Hugo's feet. 
 It was the sole remaining object of his 
 life, he declared, with perceptible emotion 
 in his voice, to see his darling and 
 only child comfortably settled, and if 
 he might say so, in a position which he 
 was certain she would adorn, and to the
 
 A Lucky Young WoitAif. 95 
 
 duties and responsibilities of which he knew 
 she would prove equal. 
 
 " I can see no difficulty in the matter 
 whatever/' said her ladyship. " Marcia's 
 appearance is striking. " I may tell you 
 that she has been talked about since 
 your arrival. Even the old Duchess — and 
 Heaven knows she doesn't often praise 
 any one ! — has been quite taken by her, 
 and has been asking me all about her. 
 I said of course that I knew Marcia's 
 fortune was not large, but the Duchess 
 laughed the idea of fortune out of the 
 question, and said that Marcia could marry 
 when she pleased, and wondered where the 
 men had all been to allow her to remain 
 single so long." 
 
 Sir Hugo again sighed. It was a sigh 
 capable of many meanings. It expressed
 
 96 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 gratitude for Lady St. Austell's sympathy, 
 deep affection for an only child, and an 
 untold burden of anxiety as to the future 
 and its possibilities. Sir Hugo managed 
 that sigh and modulated it to perfection. 
 
 " There are men in the house at this 
 moment," her ladyship cheerfully con- 
 tinued as she selected her flowers ; " there 
 is young Lord Norwich. He is not thirty, 
 and he has seventy thousand a-year if a 
 penny, as I need hardly tell you. It 
 would be a splendid match for Marcia, and 
 one that is quite within her reach. At 
 least I can see no obstacle. Or there is 
 Mr. Davidson, the iron-master, who I dare 
 say could buy up three such men as 
 Norwich if he wishes. He is a Eadical in 
 politics, as you know, and talks to you a 
 great deal too much about his constituents,
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 97 
 
 the puddlers of Coketown, who belong to 
 him as much as does the place itself. But 
 it is the fashion to be a radical in these 
 days, and Mr. Davidson has many good 
 points. He has raced his own yacht over 
 the Atlantic and won by eleven hours. 
 You must have read of that, and the men 
 here are all agreed about him. I hear 
 that he is a «;ood shot, rides straight, and 
 is as simple and unaffected as the school- 
 boy that he still looks. I could name 
 others," — here a peculiarly choice camelia 
 was selected, — "but these two are the pick 
 of my party, cracks of my team, I think 
 men call it when they are talking of 
 horses. For myself," she added — here 
 another was marked out for the gardener, — 
 " I should give the preference to Davidson, 
 who I am certain has a good deal in him, 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 and will modify his radical views as lie 
 gets older, and feels the responsibilities 
 of his wealth." Another camelia was 
 selected. 
 
 Sir Hugo could hardly find words. 
 Might he rely on their old friendship ? 
 Might he ask her to help him in this most 
 delicate, difficult, and responsible matter ? 
 He felt it was one beyond his own powers, 
 needing a tact which he had never pos- 
 sessed, and which he had always felt was 
 an instinct, a natural gift, like Lady St. 
 Austell's own ear for music which he had 
 so often envied her. 
 
 Lady St. Austell laughed, and marked 
 another camelia. " There are no black 
 camelias," she said lightly, " any more, 
 my gardener tells me, than black roses. 
 Let us give Norwich the preference for
 
 A Lucky Young Womaw. 99 
 
 to-night, and the young king of coal and 
 iron can wait a day. Norwich shall take 
 your dear girl down to-night, and — well, 
 we will see." 
 
 H I
 
 100 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Lord St. Austell looked, as many of our 
 great landowners do, somewhat common- 
 place. Until lie began to talk to you, or 
 you noticed that easy charm of manner 
 which I venture to tell Mr. Chamberlain 
 is in England almost peculiar to the 
 aristocracy, you would have taken him 
 for a prosperous tenant farmer, or possibly 
 even a squire of sufficient importance to 
 be a justice of the peace. He was a 
 cheerful, hearty, simple man, who having 
 been born to his position and his wealth, 
 took them as a matter of course. He was
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 101 
 
 a good landlord ; he was kind-hearted, and 
 no man in the whole county was so 
 popular among his own tenants and those 
 of his neighbours. 
 
 English landowners of this type are 
 becorniug scarcer every year. They are 
 survivals of Sir Eoger de Coverley. Their 
 kind seem doomed to extinction, and it 
 is difficult to see who will take their 
 place. Lord St. Austell was the wrong 
 side of fifty, but as sturdy and hearty as 
 ever, with just a grey hair here and there. 
 He could walk thirty miles before dinner, 
 take his wine afterwards, and sit chatting 
 over his cigar and his one glass of whiskey 
 and water while the younger men all round 
 disappeared or fell asleep. 
 
 Her ladyship was some six or seven 
 years his junior. She was a kind-hearted
 
 102 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 woman, but her kindness consisted in 
 making up her mind somewhat at hap- 
 hazard what was best for her favourites, 
 and then insisting that it should be done. 
 Lady St. Austell was most anxious to 
 make } r ou happy, but you must consent 
 to be happy in her way and after her 
 method, and not according; to Your own 
 devices. 
 
 Edmund About has told us that the 
 Eoman Catholic Church holds it an article 
 of faith that the Pope is infallible, and 
 that the opinion is one to which the 
 majority of Popes themselves become in 
 time inclined. Lady St. Austell believed 
 firmly in her own infallibility, and her 
 husband encouraged the belief. 
 
 There was once an immense railway 
 navvy who, when his comrades expostu-
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 103 
 
 lated with him more suo for allowing his 
 wife to beat him with the broom-stick, 
 replied philosophically that it amused her 
 and it didn't trouble him. In something 
 after this fashion Lady St. Austell was 
 allowed to rule : and although when she 
 approached a cottage the children were 
 sent up- stairs to hide under the bed, yet 
 the mothers knew that her ladyship was 
 at heart far more kindly than imperious, 
 and that she was always open to any tale 
 of distress, although, as it was observed, 
 you had to take your medicine as well 
 as your beef and flour and blankets, and 
 to swallow it too. 
 
 Nothing pleased her more than to have 
 her advice asked or her assistance called 
 in, as Sir Hugo very well knew ; for her 
 character had hardly changed from what
 
 104 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 it had been five-and-twenty years earlier, 
 when there had been something like little 
 love passages between the two during the 
 London season, and when Sir Hugo still 
 believed that he should make his mark in 
 the world, and was especially calculated 
 to shine in diplomacy. Her ladyship was 
 still remarkably handsome — tall, erect, and 
 with dark black hair and singularly ex- 
 pressive eyes. She might have been painted 
 as Juno, or Margaret of Anjou, certainly 
 not at any time of her life as an ideal of 
 Tennyson's Enid. 
 
 Lord Pentreath, the only child of this 
 happily assorted couple, was a young lieu- 
 tenant, with as much military distinction 
 as can be won in the Blues, and was at 
 present shooting wolves in the Ardennes. 
 
 Having no daughters of her own, Lady
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 105 
 
 St Austell liked to take a motherly interest 
 ia those of other people, and was always 
 ready to lend herself to any scheme for 
 their welfare, provided that she was pro- 
 perl}' approached in the first instance, with 
 a due recognition of her judgment, tact, 
 and other sterling qualities. And so she 
 had, as she honestly believed, taken Marcia's 
 welfare to heart as much as if she had 
 been her own daughter ; and here let me 
 notice, as the reader may perhaps recollect, 
 that there was a certain resemblance both 
 of disposition and appearance between 
 Lady St. Austell and Marcia which some- 
 how attracted the elder woman to the 
 younger, and made it a pleasure, as well 
 as a self-imposed duty, to promote her 
 ultimate happiness in life. 
 
 All people with warm hearts are liable
 
 106 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 to errors of judgment, in which they some- 
 times obstinately persist ; but on the whole 
 they do more good in the world than 
 harm, as it is better for the bulk of young 
 people that they should shape their own 
 course of life as little as possible. Only 
 Marcia was not like the bulk of young 
 ladies, and was quite able to make up her 
 mind for herself, though quite amenable 
 to persuasion when her feelings of affection 
 were in any way roused. 
 
 Marcia's day — for I must return to her 
 at last — had passed pleasantly enough. 
 There had been a sort of excursion in three 
 or four roomy breaks, with an attendant 
 flotilla of pony carriages, to some ruins in 
 the neighbourhood, which were, like all 
 other old ruins, very interesting to those 
 who could reconstruct them in imagination,
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 107 
 
 and utterly devoid of interest to those 
 who looked at ruins as things to be 
 sketched or photographed, or painted for 
 the Academy, and not as the fossil homes 
 of history. 
 
 I remember being one of the party that 
 drove over from Carmarthen to Llanstephan, 
 and I can declare that the only one who ap- 
 preciated the ruins thoroughly, and explored 
 every part of it, was an American who 
 had lived all his life in the Southern States, 
 and who showed his wisdom by saying as 
 little as possible. 
 
 There was five o'clock tea, of course, and 
 dinner this evening was at seven, as usual. 
 \Vhen everv one was in the drawing-room, 
 and awaiting the welcome sound of the 
 gong, Lady St. Austell entrusted Mareia 
 to Lord Norwich. That young gentleman
 
 103 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 was a mild, pleasant man of the Saxon 
 type, with light curly hair and blue eyes. 
 He had not much to say, nor was what 
 little he had to say about anything in 
 particular, nor, if it had been, would it 
 probably have been profound ; but at any 
 rate it was to the point. And he was 
 intensely good-nature J, and still as vivacious 
 as when his exuberant spirits used to lead 
 to his being " sent up " at Eton with 
 unpleasant frequency. He had been in 
 the Grenadiers for three or four years, and 
 had left soon after his father died. For 
 he was shrewd enough to know that the 
 owner's eye makes the acre rise in value. 
 But he had still about him all that one 
 really likes in an English schoolboy. He 
 enjoyed any and every form of sport, from 
 shooting a grizzly bear down — I am sorry
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 109 
 
 to say — to drawing that terrible animal's 
 little British cousin, the badger. Perhaps 
 I can best describe him by saying, that 
 if he were laughed at over a fall in the 
 hunting-field, or if his neighbour wiped 
 his eve among the stubbles, he neither 
 showed temper at the time nor bore malice 
 afterwards. 
 
 Lord Norwich was kind to his depend- 
 ants, not with any ultimate object, but 
 because it really pleased him to make 
 people happy ; and I am afraid that this 
 really pleasant side in his character led 
 to his being sadly victimized, — as, for 
 instance, by the architect who designed 
 his model cottages, and the builder who 
 condescended to superintend their con- 
 struction. 
 
 "And how do you like St. Austell,
 
 110 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Miss Conyers ? " Lord Norwich commenced 
 by way of safety. 
 
 Marcia had never seen such a place 
 before. She was charmed with it. Now 
 Lord Norwich knew half the county houses 
 in England, but instead of saying so, and 
 treating her to long descriptions of places 
 she had never seen, he chatted about St. 
 Austell itself, and thence got to the ruins 
 Marcia had visited that afternoon. 
 
 This led then somehow to the cities of 
 Bashan, of which she had read and which 
 Lord Norwich had seen. And then they 
 got to a relic of Upper Syria on his watch- 
 chain — the claw of a Syrian bear he had 
 shot in Lebanon ; and at last Marcia found 
 herself talking as fluently as if she were 
 sitting in the twilight over the fire with 
 Friiulein Dietz. It was a novelty to sit
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. Ill 
 
 by a man who could talk vivaciously and 
 yet without even the suspicion of egotism 
 about places which it was one of the 
 secret wishes of Marcia's heart to see ; and 
 when Lord Norwich gave her an idea of 
 the Sea of Galilee as he first saw it when 
 he left his tent in the morning, having 
 camped after dark, Marcia so lost herself 
 in interest that she hardly noticed what 
 was going on. And this of course was 
 wrong, for conversation at dinner ought to 
 be general, wherefore it was said by Brillat 
 Savarin, that the number at table should 
 never exceed that of the Muses or fall 
 below that of the Graces, on the ground 
 that good conversation and pleasant is the 
 best possible promoter of sound digestion, 
 and that if you get beyond nine you split 
 up into knots, making not one dinner, but
 
 112 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 two or three ; whereas, if there are only 
 two of you, it is certain that the one will 
 bore the other. 
 
 But with our big dinner-parties you must 
 accept your fate, and make the most of 
 your next door neighbours. 
 
 Nearly opposite to Marcia sat John 
 Douglas, who was doing his best to extract 
 something better than monosyllables from 
 Miss Heythrop, whose conversational powers 
 were extremely limited. 
 
 Miss Heythrop was the daughter of a 
 fox-hunting; baronet, of whom it was said at 
 his club by a good-natured friend, that it 
 was unfair to call Heythrop stupid, and to 
 declare that he had not two ideas in his 
 head. On the contrary, that receptacle 
 always contained exactly a couple, for when 
 once a third made its way into it, it played
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 the young cuckoo in the nest, and was sure 
 to eject one of the others. 
 
 Miss Heythrop had somewhat more 
 imagination than her father, and hardly 
 did herself justice. You were apt to think 
 her more stupid than she really was. But 
 her stupidity, much of wdiich was due to 
 an unfortunate shyness, ceased to irritate 
 when you came across what a Calif ornian 
 would term the genuine streak of good 
 nature and freshness which is so common 
 in English girls who have been brought up 
 at home. 
 
 John Douglas had time to look across 
 the table, and somehow or another he did 
 not like what he saw, for he had begun 
 to become interested in Marcia, and he 
 entertained but a poor opinion of Lord 
 Norwich, whom he regarded as an empty- 
 
 VOL. I. i
 
 114 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 headed young fellow. And herein he was 
 doubly wrong. In the first place, you have 
 no business to regard a young lady whom 
 you may happen to admire as being more or 
 less your exclusive property ; and secondly, 
 however clever you may be yourself, you 
 are never safe in putting a man down for 
 a fool until you have known him for a 
 very considerable time. These are rules of 
 life which can only become branded into 
 you by that awkward and unpleasant kind 
 of experience which follows upon frequent 
 defeats, occasionally at the hands of men 
 whom you have some right to consider 
 inferior to yourself. I do not say that 
 Lord Norwich was not a most estimable 
 young nobleman, of average intelligence 
 and unblemished character. I may add 
 that Douglas knew as much — except, per-
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 115 
 
 heaps, that he underrated the intelligence. 
 But it irritated him to see Lord Norwich 
 sitting by Marcia and engrossing her. Men 
 of high ability who have deliberately pre- 
 ferred active life to the life of the library, 
 are yet in their way as petulant as a 
 scholar whose latinity is called in question. 
 And John Douglas was not yet superior to 
 this kind of vanity. Men indeed are far 
 more vain than women. It is in their 
 nature, as in that of birds, to ruffle their 
 plumes, and strut, and show themselves. 
 
 If you want a canary to sing you must 
 give him another canary to sing against, or 
 you must hang up a looking-glass, in which 
 he sees a rival with distended chest and 
 undulating throat. The old story that the 
 nightingale is a good husband singing to 
 
 his beloved mate is a fiction only equal to 
 
 I 2
 
 116 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 that which represents the robin redbreast 
 as a tender-hearted creature, living upon 
 bread crumbs. 
 
 " Come out ! " cries the cock nightingale 
 to a rival whom he hears in the distance. 
 " Come out ! Come out here ! Here ! 
 Here ! Come here ! Come out ! Come 
 here ! " This is his exquisite trill. 
 
 And this fierce instinct still remains 
 latent in man. The slightest circumstance 
 will bring it to the surface in a moment. 
 Douglas, as he sat at table, was literally 
 fidgetting for a pretext to quarrel with poor 
 Lord Norwich ; and if he could have bitten 
 his thumb at him he would probably have 
 done so immediately the ladies had left.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 117 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Next day the coverts bad a rest, and 
 there was nothing to be done except to kill 
 time. Lord Norwich, who had won the 
 hearts of the gamekeepers, repaired, with 
 one or two other choice spirits who knew of 
 the secret, to the home farm, where the 
 select company spent some hours in worry- 
 ing a badger, who having been only two 
 days caught, was aggressive and vindictive 
 in his manner, and by no means disposed 
 to recognize a fox-terrier two-thirds his 
 own weight as an acquaintance with whom 
 to familiarize.
 
 118 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Many people consider badger-baiting a 
 brutal sport. So it is if the dog be three 
 or four times the size of the badger, or the 
 badger twice the weight of the dog. I 
 myself, at a certain canine repository not a 
 mile from Charing Cross, have seen a 
 badger with one grip of his jaws tear off 
 the leer of a dog at the shoulder. And a 
 very sickening sight it was ! All field 
 sports are brutal more or less, and the 
 excuse for badger-baiting is identical with 
 that for cub-hunting — it is part of a dog's 
 education, and as such is sometimes said to 
 deserve the recognition of country gentle- 
 men. It certainly is not more cruel than 
 otter-hunting, in w T hich, especially if the 
 spear be not allowed, many of the hounds 
 are always terribly wounded, while the fate 
 of the otter, if he be not promptly tailed
 
 A Lucky Young "Woman. 119 
 
 for the sake of his skin, is not a picture for 
 humanitarians to consider. 
 
 Others of the company repaired to the 
 fir-wood in quest of cock. Most sportsmen 
 will agree with me that there is no sport 
 so keen as that of bringing down a wood- 
 cock ; and it is certainly a fact that 
 Chantrey, who once killed three cock at 
 a shot, devoted some weeks to commemor- 
 ating the feat in a marble bas-relief. 
 
 " Driven from northern climes that would have starved 
 them, 
 Chan trey first shot and then he carved them." 
 
 John Douglas was somehow missing. He 
 said something at breakfast about a sort of 
 sprain in his ankle. Anyhow he did not 
 go badger-baiting or cock -shooting, but 
 took a little more than usual care over his
 
 120 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 morning apparel, and hung about the house 
 and its precinets. 
 
 It is one of the great pleasures of stop- 
 ping in a large country house at the same 
 time with other guests, that you can stray 
 about and do as you please without being 
 considered to violate the proprieties, or even 
 to be guilty of eccentricity. In fact, you 
 are more or less asked for the express 
 purpose of doing as you please, unless your 
 services should be specially required. 
 
 You may hunt out the stables, armed 
 with a clay pipe, look at the horses, talk to 
 the grooms, and defer to the superior know- 
 ledge of the pad groom and the coachman. 
 Or you may send a request to the head 
 gardener to show you over his hot-houses 
 and forcing-pits. This you will find an 
 expensive tour, gardeners being less sociable
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 121 
 
 than grooms, and more alive to the sight 
 of a half sovereign. 
 
 Or you can stroll round to the houses 
 of the keepers, where you are sure to find 
 enough to interest you if you care in the 
 least either for sport in its ordinary accept- 
 ation, or for natural history as Gilbert 
 White understood it. The keeper's lodge 
 indeed is, if he be equal to his work and 
 responsibilities, a small museum of the 
 natural history of the county. I will leave 
 the home farm out of the question. No 
 man cares for cows or pigs or poultry 
 unless he owns land of his own. 
 
 Instead of visiting hot-houses, or the 
 keeper's lodge, or the home farm, Douglas 
 sauntered about the house — a place so huge 
 that your movements attracted but little 
 attention. First, by way of keeping up
 
 122 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 appearances, he strolled into the billiard- 
 room, which he found deserted, with the 
 brown holland over the table, and the 
 heavy iron preparing itself for work over a 
 little brazier of glowing charcoal. The 
 library was also vacant. It is a curious fact 
 that leather- binding — especially morocco 
 leather — seems to gather strength in the 
 night and to smell more powerfully in the 
 morning, as we are told that flowers do 
 when the dew is upon them. Perhaps 
 John Douglas may have disliked the smell 
 of morocco, or may not have felt disposed 
 to glance over Audubon's Birds of America, 
 in elephant folio. Anyhow, he passed 
 through the side door of the library into 
 what was known as the writing-room, be- 
 cause it had one or two small tables in it 
 at which you could write if you pleased,
 
 A Lucky Young Womak 123 
 
 and a letter-box on the mantelpiece, letters 
 dropped into which fell through the wall 
 into a miniature pillar-box in the hall. 
 And here, oddly enough, were Marcia and 
 the Duchess of Lincoln. The Duchess was 
 welcome to him. Her presence gave him 
 time to collect himself, or, as sporting 
 gentlemen say, pull himself together. 
 
 Besides, she was, as the phrase goes, a 
 dear, good, kind old lady, who was never 
 in the way, and might in fact, with infinite 
 advantage to her young friends, have put 
 herself in the way more often than she did. 
 
 The duchess kindly commenced the con- 
 versation. She thought it was a fine day. 
 Douglas agreed. He was sorry to be a 
 prisoner, but was detained in the house 
 sorely against his will by a sprained ankle. 
 The duchess had heard that a sprained
 
 124 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 ankle should be rubbed with a judicious 
 mixture of yellow soap, brown sugar, spirits 
 of hartshorn, and Scotch whiskey, and 
 should then be sewn up in unbleached 
 flannel and allowed entire rest. Douglas 
 promised to try this famous cure if he were 
 not better within a few hours. Marcia, 
 appealed to by her Grace, had no experi- 
 ence in the treatmeat of sprained aakles, 
 but had been told by Fraulein Dietz that 
 bruised poppy heads — the big poppy heads 
 that you see ia big jars ia the wiadows of 
 cheaiist's shops — were a sovereign specific 
 in the shape of a poultice, and alleviated 
 paia almost magically. 
 
 The Duchess coasidered poppy-heads 
 daaoferous. You miodit take too much of 
 them, as you might chlorodyne. She had 
 heard, moreover, that laudanum was made
 
 A Lucky Yookg Woman. 125 
 
 from poppies, and had never herself coun- 
 tenanced the practise of rubbing it into the 
 face for toothache. 
 
 Douglas had to explain that his accident 
 was slight, and probably only needed rest. 
 He would be all right in four-and-twenty 
 hours. Meantime, in such glorious air, and 
 in a house with chambers of such propor- 
 tions, one could well forego violent exercise 
 for so short a period. Then the convers- 
 ation became general, and in its course 
 Douglas succeeded fullv in securing some- 
 thing more than the Duchess's transient 
 good opinion. She knew that he was a 
 barrister, and had expected to find him 
 something after the type of the majority 
 of barristers described in fiction — a sort of 
 Mr. Serjeant Striver. 
 
 Clearly this young man could not belong
 
 126 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 to this class, and as the Duchess had just 
 formulated this opinion, she was summoned 
 by her maid, who came to say that his 
 Grace would like to see her for a few 
 minutes. And so it came to pass that 
 Douglas and Marcia were left alone. 
 
 What was the conversation about, and 
 how was it carried on ? I cannot tell you, 
 for the simple reason that it was natural, 
 and so wandered from one subject to an- 
 other. They talked about field sports, and 
 Scotch scenery, and Highland customs, and 
 yachting, and then of even lighter things, 
 such as the last opera, and the last novel, 
 and the latest variety of chrysanthemums, 
 and a book of travel that had just set all 
 London talking, because a number of people 
 who knew all about it declared it to be a 
 tissue of inventions, and were in their turn
 
 A Lucky Young "Woman. 127 
 
 denounced by a number of other people who 
 knew all about it as being animated by 
 personal jealousy. It had been the " gorilla 
 book" of the season, and they had both 
 read it. 
 
 Now I do not believe in love at first 
 sight. But it is quite possible upon a very 
 short acquaintance for a feeling to spring 
 into existence which may easily develop, 
 according to the circumstances, into either 
 love or strong friendship. Marcia, to use 
 an old expression which, like many of its 
 kind, is extremely felicitous, was "taken" 
 (not the French epris, but our honest 
 English taken) with this young man, whom 
 she knew to be so clever, and who yet 
 was so simple and almost youthful in his 
 manner, and who took so pleasant and keen 
 an interest in simple things. Douglas, on
 
 128 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 the other hand, found in Marcia a some- 
 thing unlike what you would expect to find 
 in a young lady of her age, inasmuch as 
 she was grave and thoughtful and intelli- 
 gent ; and as his mind reverted to the 
 Duchess, who had so opportunely left them, 
 it occurred to him that in the fitness of 
 things Marcia was suited to be a Duchess, 
 if not indeed obviously intended for that 
 exalted position. And this was a danger- 
 ous frame of mind, both for Marcia on her 
 part and for Douglas on his own. And 
 as I do not intend to take down my Shake- 
 speare to remind myself how Othello and 
 Desdemona fell in love, I will not pursue 
 the parallel, although in many points it 
 would be similar, or to say the least, 
 suggestive. For Sir Hugo had many 
 points in him which resembled Brabantio,
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 129 
 
 although he lacked much of that old gentle- 
 man's dignity. 
 
 How the conversation might have ended 
 or into what channels it might have strayed 
 I am not prepared to state, but it was 
 interrupted by the appearance on the scene 
 of Lady Gwendoline Anstice, who burst into 
 the room like a tornado, in quest, or pre- 
 tended quest, of a novel which she thought 
 she must have left there, plunged at once 
 into the conversation, and began to flounder 
 about in it after her own most helpless 
 fashion, and evinced not the least intention 
 of taking her departure. 
 
 Lady Gwendoline talked in much the 
 same monotonous fashion as that in which 
 a water-spout with a leak in it will drip 
 in rainy weather, and I believe was under 
 the honest delusion that she had excep- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 A Lucky Young Woman/ 
 
 tional conversational gifts. Marcia did not 
 like to go, and Douglas on his part saw- 
 that to take his departure would be a 
 false move. So they sat still, and Lady 
 Gwendoline cackled to them. 
 
 I dislike slang, but can conscientiously 
 declare that cackle is the only word in 
 the English language which expresses my 
 meaning. 
 
 And here let me give a word of advice to 
 ladies who, finding themselves, let us kindly 
 say, nearer thirty-two or even thirty-five 
 than they care to generally admit, and 
 wdio, having read of Madame de Stael and 
 other such ornaments of French salons, en- 
 deavour to cultivate the art of conversation 
 — perhaps the most difficult of all arts, and 
 one in which the very greatest men have 
 often conspicuously failed. A young lady
 
 A Lucky Young Woman; 131 
 
 should not talk as if she felt it incumbent 
 upon her to join in the conversation ; on 
 the contrary, she should rather endeavour 
 to say just enough to show that she is 
 following it and is interested by it. She 
 is usually troublesome if she endeavours to 
 take a leading part, and still more trouble- 
 some if she asks frivolous questions. 
 
 Now Lady Gwendoline would without 
 hesitation have plunged into the lunar 
 theory with an Astronomer Koyal, or have 
 taken Mr. Browning to task over his 
 Paracehus. She talked for the sake of 
 talking, and her conversation was conse- 
 quently as vacant and wearying as the 
 whistle of a railway porter when he has 
 nothing to do but to loiter about the plat- 
 form with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 On the other hand, Lady Gwendoline 
 
 K 2
 
 132 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Anstice knew very well how to manage a 
 stupid man, and if she found herself out 
 of her depth with John Douglas, could 
 have succeeded to a marvel with Lord 
 Norwich. 
 
 And if the truth must be told, Lady 
 Gwendoline had set her cap at Lord 
 Norwich, and ably assisted by her mother, 
 Lady Deepdale (a match-maker of wide 
 experience and acknowledged success), was 
 at present engaged in laying siege to that 
 eligible young nobleman. 
 
 This made her, of course, anxious to 
 annoy Marcia, who, she took it for granted, 
 had, as she would have phrased it herself, 
 intended business with Lord Norwich last 
 night, and was only keeping in her hand 
 with this young barrister in the morning. 
 So she remained out of mere spite, or as
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 133 
 
 ladies, I believe, term it, "aggravation," 
 — the corresponding Americanese is, as 
 I understand, " cussedness," — pouring out 
 a ceaseless flood of nothings until the 
 luncheon-bell rang. 
 
 The party at lunch included Sir Hugo, 
 of course, Douglas, and nearly all the ladies, 
 from her Grace downwards, although most 
 of the men were absent. Lord Norwich 
 came in from his morning's sport with a 
 strong aroma about him of tobacco-smoke 
 and the stable, not unmixed with a stronger 
 flavour, iu which an experienced nose would 
 at once have detected the peculiar fragrance 
 of a badger, an animal ranking in this 
 particular gift of nature next only to the 
 polecat. 
 
 An awkward attempt to mask his morn- 
 ing pursuits with eau de cologne had only
 
 134 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 intensified the evidence against him and 
 aggravated the offence. He made himself, 
 however, entertaining after his own fashion 
 to Marcia, so that her father was greatly 
 pleased, and began to consider that his self- 
 sacrifice in leaving Boodles would, like 
 other virtuous actions, have its own reward, 
 — a portion of which he anticipated in the 
 shape of some peculiarly choice Madeira, 
 thoughtfully tendered him by the head 
 butler. 
 
 Lunch ended as lunch ought to, it being 
 a meal which is somehow understood to be 
 like breakfast, with no definite beginning 
 or end, and consequently not requiring the 
 solemnity of initial or final invocation or 
 thanksgiving, even although a bishop may 
 be present in the full glory of his gaiters 
 and upright collar. The guests straggled
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 135 
 
 out as they had straggled in, and Marcia 
 soon found herself dressed for a cold day, 
 and waiting under the colonnade for Lady 
 St. Austell, with whom she was to drive 
 down to the bridge, and so across the river, 
 and back through the woods. She had 
 barely time to admire the indications given 
 by the long colonnade of its summer glories, 
 before the victoria arrived, and Marcia 
 found herself side by side with her kindly 
 hostess, covered with a rug of priceless 
 silver fox, and rattling briskly down the 
 avenue, glorious even in winter, past the 
 home farm and the kangaroo sheds, over 
 the lake, past the rookery and the deer, 
 and so at last in the open road. 
 
 And here it was, when the rattle of the 
 feet of the stout little cobs rendered the 
 conversation inaudible to the solemn and
 
 136 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 self-absorbed occupants of the box, that 
 Lady St. Austell took up her parable. 
 
 I will not undertake to describe her 
 ladyship's manner or method. Each in 
 its way was perfect. She was kindness 
 itself to Marcia, speaking to her in the 
 manner of a mother, which she was able 
 to assume at once, by explaining that the 
 rug which Marcia so much admired con- 
 sisted of skins perhaps the most prized in 
 the world, because the rarest, with the 
 exception of sable and ermine. They were 
 trophies of the chase, brought home by her 
 son from the extreme north of Canada, — 
 in fact, out the Hudson's Bay territory ; and 
 so from eulogy of her son's skill and power 
 of endurance as a Nimrod, she glided into 
 discreet praise of young Norwich, whose 
 many manly virtues she extolled with the
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 137 
 
 utmost tact. She had heard that he rode 
 magnificently to hounds, and had ridden 
 second on his own horse for the Grand 
 Military at Sandown, securing it the next 
 year on a chestnut, the property of his 
 Colonel, and so vicious as to be a terror 
 to the oldest rough-riders at Knightsbridge 
 and Windsor. 
 
 This led her to descant not only upon 
 Lord Norwich's excellent qualities, but also 
 upon his position, with its wealth and its 
 responsibilities — wealth almost beyond the 
 power of man to exhaust, and possibilities 
 that would be infinite if only his un- 
 doubted natural abilities were stimulated 
 and directed into the proper channel by 
 sympathy and tact. This eulogy, though 
 most adroitly planned and phrased, some- 
 how hung fire with Marcia, who could
 
 138 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 not help thinking for the life of her of 
 the immense difference, when all was said, 
 that separated Lord Norwich, with all his 
 good nature and versatility, from the re- 
 served and masterful John Douglas. It 
 was the difference almost between Prince 
 Kupert and John Hampden — each of whom 
 was beyond question the highest orna- 
 ment of the side on which he drew his 
 sword. 
 
 I wish to say nothing unkind of Lord 
 Norwich. I will prove as much by de- 
 claring my conviction that he was brave, 
 generous, and utterly incapable of anything 
 unworthy either in act or thought, differing 
 herein from many other young men of his 
 age and liable to his temptations. But in 
 her own mind Marcia never even dreamed 
 of comparing him with Douglas. Indeed,
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 139 
 
 the two men were so utterly dissimilar in 
 every way that the only comparison was 
 one which intensified the contrast. 
 
 So that when Lady St. Austell began to 
 somehow surest that Lord Norwich, with 
 his title, his wealth, his infinite good-nature, 
 and his many sterling qualities, would make 
 an excellent husband, and deserved a wife 
 who would appreciate him and stimulate 
 him to something higher and more worthy 
 of his abilities than. the chase and the race- 
 course, Marcia hardly, if at all, caught the 
 drift of her ladyship's praise of this young 
 man : and while a^reein^ with all that 
 fell from her hostess of well-deserved 
 encomium, failed to see how it in any 
 way concerned herself, until Lady St. 
 Austell, in the most simple manner possible 
 — and truth to tell, with almost Bismarkian
 
 140 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 bluntness— came straight to the point by 
 expressing her conviction, in fact, she 
 might say her knowledge, that Lord Nor- 
 wich admired Marcia greatly, and that 
 he would be, apart altogether from his 
 position, a husband of whom any girl 
 might be proud. 
 
 This fairly startled Marcia out of all her 
 usual self-possession, and she found herself 
 almost stammering out that she was fully 
 alive to these excellent qualities which Lord 
 Norwich undoubtedly possessed, and which 
 lay evidently and unmistakably upon the 
 surface, but that the idea of becoming 
 Lady Norwich had never crossed her mind, 
 and took her entirely by surprise. Wherein 
 she was speaking the exact truth, as young 
 ladies usually do when an intelligible pro- 
 position is laid before them which requires
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 141 
 
 an immediate answer, and, if I may say so, 
 takes them unawares. 
 
 Marcia could only murmur something in 
 general praise of the object of discussion 
 which she did with obvious sincerity. For 
 his frankness and good-nature were 
 beyond all question genuine, and Marcia 
 felt honestly that her ladyship had gone 
 little, if at all, in her praise further than 
 the limits of exact truth. So she could 
 only say that it was impossible to meet 
 Lord Norwich without seeing at once his 
 many admirable qualities, and above all 
 his utter absence of anything like egotism, 
 his evident kindness of heart, and his 
 extreme good-nature. 
 
 And as Marcia put all this in her own 
 way, instead of in the phraseology I have 
 chosen to summarize it, Lady St. Austell
 
 142 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 had the penetration to see that she was 
 saying exactly what she meant, and had 
 also the tact to divert the conversation 
 into other channels, and for the present to 
 wait upon events instead of precipitating 
 them.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 143 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 That evening there was a dinner-party 
 at St. Austell Towers. There was the 
 lord-lieutenant, with his wife and two 
 daughters ; and there was the Bishop of 
 the diocese, also accompanied by his wife, 
 three eligible daughters, and his domestic 
 chaplain. 
 
 The lord-lieutenant was a tall, largely 
 built man, with no power of consecutive 
 thought, and certainly none of consecutive 
 conversation. He detested railroads, 
 which he believed had lowered prices all 
 over the country, and made the working 
 classes far too independent. His general
 
 144 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 appearance was that of a sergeant-major in 
 a regiment of heavy dragoons. He stood 
 with his legs wide apart, talked in the 
 tone of voice of an adjutant in the orderly 
 room, and occasionally indulged in an 
 oath. He did not approve of swearing 
 in the abstract, but he considered it a 
 duty to use a little strong language about 
 such things as Mr. Gladstone's latest 
 speech, and the turnip fly, and the in- 
 crease of poaching, thereby asserting his 
 position, and showing that he was not 
 one of the ordinary herd, who under an 
 Act of Parliament still in force can be, 
 and sometimes are, fined five shillings for 
 each profane word they use. He was 
 very pompous, very prejudiced, very stupid, 
 and very kind-hearted. 
 
 The Bishop might have been taken for
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 145 
 
 a butler had it not been for his buckles, 
 apron, purple coat with turned-up collar, 
 and other outward and visible signs of the 
 inward and episcopal grace. He had been 
 seventh wrangler. He had edited the Epistle 
 to the Galatians, and he had a large family 
 of daughters whom he planted out in 
 marriage year after year, providing for his 
 sons-in-law out of the livings in his gift. 
 In reality he was a shrewd man of the 
 world, and would have given much to 
 have been able to begin life over again. 
 
 There was of course the usual allowance 
 of county squires and gentlemen, and there 
 was Lord St. Austell's agent* a fat man 
 with a fat watch-chain, who kept himself 
 in a corner as if he were present on suf- 
 france. And most of these guests had 
 brought their wives, and some their sons 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 and daughters, so that the immense room 
 would have appeared full were it not that 
 lord-lieutenants and bishops and other 
 peers of the realm dwarf ordinary folk, 
 until you are hardly aware of their 
 presence or even existence. 
 
 Let me erive the conversation for once 
 
 o 
 
 and for all. It was the ordinary conversa- 
 tion at St. Austell Towers. You can hear 
 it at all large country houses. Much of 
 it wearied Marcia, not a little of it made 
 her almost indignant. 
 
 A neighbouring squire declared that it 
 was impossible to make sheep pay. The 
 importation of all foreign cattle ought to 
 be stopped, and he would not even mind 
 a heavy duty on tinned meat, which 
 lowered the price of home produce, and 
 was usually very unwholesome.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 147 
 
 Lord St Austell was very doubtful 
 whether farming would pay its way for 
 many years longer. No doubt steam had 
 been a great blessing in many ways. But 
 in others it had been of doubtful ad- 
 vantage : and he wanted to know what 
 the farmers were to do when all our great 
 towns got their butter and eggs from 
 France and their cheese from Normandy, 
 and when corn from the Danube was so 
 cheap that it no longer paid a tenant 
 farmer to grow sound red wheat 1 ? 
 
 A colonel of hussars from York opined 
 that it was the radicals who did all the 
 mischief, — men like Cobden, and Bright, 
 and Chamberlain who set class against class. 
 
 The Bishop considered that to set class 
 against class was sinful. The earth was 
 the Lord's and the fulness thereof; and 
 
 L 2
 
 148 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 it was not for man to repine when Provi- 
 dence showered its bounties on him. And 
 he then finished the half breast of a par- 
 ticularly flue woodcock. 
 
 The Bishop's chaplain was stimulated 
 by this into the expression of his con- 
 viction that the poor were being educated 
 above their station, and that discontent 
 was the inevitable consequence. 
 
 Lady St Austell could confirm the fact. 
 It was almost impossible to get a good 
 domestic servant, and as soon as you had 
 secured one, and she had learnt her duties, 
 and saved twenty pounds, she was sure 
 to marry some worthless fellow from the 
 nearest town, and emigrate with him. It 
 was really dreadful, and it would soon 
 become a very serious question what we 
 were to do for servants at all.
 
 A Lucky Youxg Woman. 149 
 
 So the conversation rambled on, and 
 Marcia found it intolerably dull and even 
 irritating. But there is an end to every- 
 thing, even to a dinner of ceremony, 
 and it was a relief to follow in the train 
 of Lady St. Austell to the drawing-room, 
 where. the ladies, until the men joined them, 
 talked about nothing at all, infusing into 
 that substratum just enough of venom to 
 make it piquant. 
 
 Before long the men arrived upon the 
 scene, and to Marcia's pleasure John 
 Douglas somehow singled her out at once, 
 and came up with still a marked lameness, 
 but otherwise looking — I speak for men — 
 as fine and well-built a young giant as 
 any one in the room. 
 
 Sir Hugo had been drinking Cham- 
 bertin. This most excellent of parents
 
 150 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 could carry his liquor with any man. But, 
 on the other hand, Chambertin is a wine 
 which has peculiar virtues of its own. 
 It has a delicious bouquet, and it is very 
 strong. It is a wine that young men do 
 not apj>reciate as they ought, and which 
 their seniors are sometimes apt to appreciate 
 rather more than is good for them. 
 
 Sir Hugo seemed to feel his veins ex- 
 panding, and began again to think of how 
 comfortably he could live in lodgings 
 somewhere near his Club if he could only 
 get the house in Sloane Street off his hands. 
 He consequently looked round about with 
 the purest of paternal motives to see what 
 Marcia was doing, and how she was im- 
 proving the shining hour. He noticed that 
 she was talking to Douglas and not either 
 Lord Norwich or Mr. Davidson. But the
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 151 
 
 Chambertin made him disposed to take 
 all things cheerfully, and a cup of coffee 
 so steadied his nerves that a little later in 
 the evening, when the ladies had finally 
 departed, he took a hand at whist, and in 
 the end went to bed with his heart full of 
 the most noble sentiments, and his waist- 
 coat pocket of half-sovereigns. 
 
 Douglas mean time was talking earnestly 
 to ^Iarcia, and, as it were, cross-examining 
 her. There was much in her that was 
 certain to please a man of his temperament. 
 We all know what Byron says of a certain 
 large class of youDg ladies — 
 
 " The nursery still lisps out in all they utter ; 
 Besides, they always smell of bread and butter." 
 
 Marcia had nothing about her of the school 
 in question. And so the two were soon 
 busily engaged.
 
 152 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Good Burgundy makes a man bold if he 
 has been wise enough to take it in modera- 
 tion. The presence of a handsome woman 
 puts him upon his metal. Other causes 
 may easily concur to make him more or 
 less self-confident, possibly with sufficient 
 reason. I know a man who said, and I 
 believe truthfully, that he had never " pro- 
 posed," a3 the term is, but once in his life, 
 and that even then he was not aware that 
 he had done so until the fact was brought 
 home to him the next morning. And he 
 found himself married before a month was 
 over without having the faintest notion 
 how it all came about. 
 
 John Douglas was hardly of this type. 
 I am not going to give my readers exactly 
 what he said, but it was simple and to the 
 point. It ended by his telling Marcia that
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 153 
 
 he should find out Sir Huor> immediately 
 after lunch the next day, and by his 
 begging a camelia pinned in her dress to 
 nerve him for the encounter. 
 
 It is curious that when a man is in 
 earnest his jokes, unless bitter, are sure to 
 be intensely feeble, and his attention to 
 really unimportant trifles excessive. But 
 we are all the creatures of convention. 
 " Mr. Sambo," says the gentleman with the 
 bones to the gentleman with the banjo, 
 "you say something funny." Why this 
 should be the invariable prelude to a negro 
 melody I have always failed to understand. 
 So I have never been able to see why, from 
 time almost immemorial down to the day 
 when Corisande gave Lothair a rose, the 
 gift of a flower should be a thins; almost 
 
 to to 
 
 as full of consequences as was once the
 
 154 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 plucking of an apple. I do not attempt to 
 explain, the fact ; I only state it. And I 
 may add, that the flower imparted some 
 sort of indefinite charm to John Douglas' 
 disposition and manner. For whereas 
 earlier in the day he had irreverently 
 spoken of Sir Hugo to one or two of the 
 other men as being an old ass, he now 
 seemed disposed to extend to him a certain 
 measure of toleration, if not indeed of 
 positive respect ; and whereas he had also 
 somewhat snubbed poor harmless, good- 
 natured Lord Norwich, he now condescended 
 to chat with him pleasantly about things 
 in general, even down to the chances for 
 next year's Derby and the latest innovations 
 in burlesque. So that his lordship next 
 day spoke of Douglas to the other men 
 as bein^ a devilish clever fellow, and not
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 155 
 
 at all stuck-up. And this will show my 
 readers how easy it is to make yourself 
 pleasant if you will only take the very 
 slightest amount of trouble. 
 
 As for Marcia, I need not set out at 
 length what was passing through her mind. 
 But I shall do no harm if I give a few 
 salient points. She had a contempt for 
 her father which she had never consciously 
 avowed to herself until it dawned upon 
 her that she could change the whole tenor 
 
 o 
 
 of her existence, and leave him actually the 
 more comfortable for the change. 
 
 He would have his club and a bed-room 
 in St. James' Street, or somewhere close 
 off it. He mioht even take a set of 
 chambers and keep a man-servant at a 
 less expense than that entailed by the 
 melancholv old house in Sloane Street. He
 
 156 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 would be more comfortable and more at 
 his ease in every way, and Marcia felt 
 sure that her father would bear the shock 
 with fortitude of the most approved stage 
 stamp. 
 
 All this flashed upon her at once. Then, 
 too, she would also be able to provide a 
 comfortable home for dear old Fraulein 
 Dietz — a home where she would have no 
 little worries and anxieties, and would be 
 able, as it were, to sun herself and to 
 enjoy the luxury of doing nothing with no 
 responsibility attached to the doing of it. 
 And besides, she had made up her mind 
 that she liked John Douglas, and although 
 his proposal had come upon her most 
 unexpectedly she never hesitated for a 
 moment in accepting it. She could see 
 that he was a man who meant to make
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 157 
 
 his mark, and she felt certain that she 
 could help him. And she liked him better 
 than any one she had ever known. Beyond 
 this she did not extend her horizon. 
 
 She did not calculate on the possi- 
 bilities open to Douglas, of the ermine, or 
 possibly of the woolsack. She was quite 
 content, and more than content, to share 
 his fortunes as they were. Other things 
 occurred to her upon which I need not 
 dwell, but which in no way altered her 
 resolution, serving rather, indeed, to fortify 
 it. And the board being thus cleared, she, 
 both in metaphor and physically, put down 
 her foot and resolved that she would marry 
 John Douglas at any cost, checking herself, 
 like a fair-minded girl as she was, by the 
 reflection that there was no cost in the 
 matter to anybody concerned, unless indeed
 
 158 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 it were to Douglas himself, who might 
 perhaps have waited a little longer and 
 done a great deal better. Even this she 
 hardly admitted in her own heart, and so 
 it did not much discomfort her. 
 
 Lord Norwich she thought of almost 
 tenderly, but prudently concluded that he 
 would soon find consolation elsewhere, even 
 if he liked her as much as Lady St. Austell 
 had declared. And so ended her reflections. 
 
 Lord Norwich, on his own part, was 
 smoking a bio; cig;ar before his bedroom 
 fire, and moistening it with whiskey and 
 soda. I make no imputation of intemper- 
 ance, for the whiskey was largely diluted, 
 and an Eton boy might have drunk a pint 
 of the mixture with impunity. 
 
 And so one by one the lights in the 
 great house, not unlike human lives, were
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 159 
 
 either extinguished or allowed to burn 
 down in their sockets ; and nothing broke 
 the silence except the clock from the tower, 
 with perhaps now and again the yelp or 
 bay of a hound from the kennels.
 
 160 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Early next morning John Douglas 
 breakfasted with such of the party that 
 were assembled, and waited patiently for 
 Sir Hugo. He ascertained that coffee and 
 other light refreshments, together with the 
 Morning Post and his letters, had been 
 sent up to that gentleman's room. So 
 Douglas sauntered about the house, first 
 taking due precaution that he should be 
 at once id formed of Sir Hugo's descent. 
 He would have enjoyed a cigar on the 
 terrace, but he knew that the smell of 
 tobacco about him might possibly give Sir
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 161 
 
 Hugo a handle for an objection to his 
 habits and general mode of life. So he 
 resorted to the billiard room, where he 
 amused himself by what is called knocking 
 about the balls. This is an occupation 
 which seems to comfort men pretty much 
 as knitting comforts women. It gives them 
 something to do, and so relieves the irri- 
 ration always produced in an active mind 
 by absolute physical idleness. 
 
 On the other hand, you can practise the 
 most complicated cannons, and the boldest 
 of winning, together with the subtlest of 
 losing hazards, and be thinking of some- 
 thing else the whole time. The charm of 
 all this is broken at once if you play 
 yourself plain against spot, or spot against 
 plain, which makes you lose your temper 
 
 with yourself, and viciously concentrate 
 VOL. i. m
 
 162 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 your attention on the science of kinetics, 
 thereby upsetting the philosophic equi- 
 librium of your mind. 
 
 Douglas was in the midst of what for 
 a mere amateur was a really fair run of 
 spot strokes, when he was informed by an 
 attendant, who had had what barristers' 
 clerks call a special retainer, that Sir Hugo 
 had descended, and was in fact occupied 
 in the breakfast room. Eepairing thither, 
 Douglas found the occupation in question 
 to consist in artistic appreciation of a 
 Perigord pie and a glass of chablis — 
 excellent things, which may be safely 
 recommended by the youngest of physi- 
 cians to the most anxious of parents 
 whose system required support, or, for the 
 matter of that, to anybody whose taste 
 is sufficiently cultured to appreciate flavours
 
 A Lucky Youxg- Woman. 163 
 
 so delicate as those of the truffle, and a 
 wine which after all differs little, except as 
 a matter of curiosity, from Chateau Yquem. 
 Douglas, by way of excuse for entering 
 the room, broke a biscuit and just tasted 
 a small cup of coffee. Sir Hugo, always 
 good-natured when he had no immediate 
 troubles or wants, and nothing to remotely 
 rouse his selfishness into action or even 
 suspicion, opined jocularly that Douglas had 
 been sitting up late. Douglas replied that 
 he had been up for some hours, and had 
 really been waiting to see Sir Hugo. Sir 
 Hugo allowed himself a stare which did not 
 exceed the bounds of civility, and wondered 
 to himself what the devil was comino-. 
 
 o 
 
 These were his exact words, as he after- 
 wards told the story to one of his most 
 intimate friends at Boodles. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Then began an encounter in which there 
 was really some brilliant fence ; and as the 
 servants began to appear upon the scene, 
 an adjournment by tacit consent was made 
 to the terrace. Douglas began by informing 
 Sir Hugo of his position and prospects. 
 This a fencing master would call an en- 
 gagement in prime. Sir Hugo, guessing 
 what was coming, parried it at once. He 
 congratulated Douglas heartily. It was 
 always pleasant, he observed with a sigh, 
 to old fellows like himself who were coiner 
 down the hill to see a young man making 
 way up it, and to know that he was putting 
 his best years to better purpose than they 
 themselves had done. At the same time, 
 nothing in life was certain. Even land, 
 he added, in these Radical days seem to 
 melt in your fingers.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 165 
 
 Douorlaa agreed that land had been much 
 
 o o 
 
 affected of late years by legislation of an 
 advanced Liberal character, but added 
 that there were other investments, such as 
 the funds, which were absolutely safe, and 
 differed from land as involving less trouble 
 in their management. He wished, however, 
 he continued, to speak to Sir Hugo about 
 an entirely different matter. He wished, in 
 fact, to ask Sir Hugo's sanction to a promise 
 Miss Con vers had already given him. 
 
 Sir Hugo in the most gentlemanly way 
 exclaimed, " God bless my soul ! " Mr. 
 Hare himself could not have given the four 
 words more of an old gentleman's dignity 
 and sense of responsibility, and Douglas 
 found himself once again disengaged. 
 
 " I had the permission of Miss Conyers 
 herself," he exclaimed, " to speak to you
 
 166 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 as I have, and I shall be glad— in fact, 
 it will be a duty — to inform you in 
 what quarters you can obtain independent 
 information as to my present position, 
 and what I think are my reasonable 
 prospects in life." 
 
 Nothing would have gratified Sir Hugo 
 more had time permitted it. He had, in 
 fact, heard himself of the rising reputation 
 of Mr. Douglas, and of mauy other things 
 that spoke highly — he might say most 
 highly — in his favour. But the welfare of 
 his only daughter — he ought rather to have 
 said his only child — had been, since her 
 lamented mothers death, the one thing 
 that bound him to this world. When he 
 had once seen her settled as he wished, 
 he should feel that his own work in life 
 wa3 concluded and his labours over. And
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 167 
 
 — here he succeeded in the adroit manoeuvre 
 of disengagement immediately under the 
 wrist — he might tell Mr. Douglas in con- 
 fidence, and as a man of the world and 
 also a man of honour speaking to another, 
 that his daughter's marriage was a thing 
 
 o o o 
 
 almost settled. " And so," he added, ex- 
 tending his hand frankly to Douglas, "let 
 us, my dear sir, regard this conversation 
 as if it had never taken place, and hope 
 that it may end matters which when fully 
 and frankly explained, as I hope I have 
 endeavoured to do, need cause no trouble 
 and e*ive rise to no regret." 
 
 All this was very pretty, but I may add 
 that it was altogether too much for Douglas. 
 You can arome with the most dogmatic 
 judge on the Bench, because he cannot 
 dismiss you with platitudes. But there
 
 168 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 is no arguing with a man who firmly 
 and politely declines to argue at all, and 
 Douglas very nearly lost his temper. 
 
 "I have told you, Sir Hugo," he said, 
 "that I have already the consent of Miss 
 Conyers herself. Until she recalls that 
 consent as explicitly as she has given it 
 to me, I can only regret your refusal to 
 sanction it. More than this I need hardly 
 say, except that you must not consider me 
 for a moment to regard your own decision 
 just announced to me as in any way 
 ending the matter." 
 
 Sir Hugo assented as courteously as if 
 they had been discussing the most ordinary 
 matter, requiring nothing but grace and 
 tact and polish for its successful manage- 
 ment. He made a slight gesture indicating, 
 in a manner worthy of the great monarch
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 169 
 
 himself, that it was in his power when he 
 chose to bow with consummate grace, but 
 that for the present, at any rate, his bow 
 was a courtesy of civilized warfare and 
 nothing more. 
 
 Douglas, on his part, answered with a 
 stiff inclination of the body capable of 
 many interpretations, all more or less 
 uncomplimentary, and so turned upon his 
 heel. It is astonishing how much can be 
 compressed into a bow if you have that 
 much passing through your mind at the 
 time, and intend to distinctly let as much 
 be understood. 
 
 And so the two men parted, Douglas 
 after all not much disconcerted, and Sir 
 Hugo, in spite of his imperturbable manner, 
 in reality full of wrath, as most men are 
 who have lived to secure their own selfish
 
 170 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 purposes, and have somehow not exactly suc- 
 ceeded. For he could see that John Douglas 
 had sufficient force of character to prove 
 very troublesome, and certainly did not need 
 to be told that Marcia, in all matters of 
 real importance, had a will of her own. 
 
 So in a vague kind of way he foresaw 
 trouble, — that is to say, personal annoy- 
 ance and discomfort. And he even began 
 to wonder seriously whether it would not 
 be best to make some inquiries, and perhaps 
 to give his consent upon conditions which 
 would rid him of the gloomy house in 
 Sloane Street, and enable him to spend 
 the remainder of his days in well-earned 
 comfort. After all, he reflected, with a 
 complacency worthy of Mr. Turveydrop 
 himself, there was no certainty that Marcia 
 would marry either Lord Norwich or the
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 171 
 
 ironmaster, or, for the matter of that, that 
 either of them would offer himself as a 
 son-in-law in a proper spirit. For he felt 
 like old Mr. Cobbledyke in that admir- 
 able novel by the authors of Ready -Money 
 Mortiboy, that whoever married his daughter 
 must be prepared to make settlements, and 
 that the settlements must be such as Mr. 
 Cobbledyke contemplated, only more suited 
 to his own rank and position iu life. 
 
 Then it occurred to him that after all 
 there is better security in land and in iron 
 fields and furnaces than in any professional 
 jDrospects, however brilliant. So that in 
 stopping this doubtful marriage he would be 
 really doing his duty to Marcia, and acting 
 as every father with a proper and indeed 
 Christian sense of his duty ought to act. 
 
 And apparently he found comfort in these
 
 172 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 reflections. It is astonishing with how little 
 effort a thoroughly selfish man can per- 
 suade himself that he is doing his duty. 
 
 John Douglas had a quick temper, which, 
 as he kept it under absolute control in the 
 exercise of his profession, gave him the 
 more trouble in private life. He left the 
 terrace burning with a desire to kick the 
 selfish old man the whole length of it. 
 
 o 
 
 Indeed, Sir Hugo would hardly have 
 stepped along so jauntily if he had had 
 the least idea of what was passing in the 
 young man's mind. 
 
 Clearly, however, there were two things 
 for Douglas to do at once : one was to 
 see Marcia for himself, and the other to 
 arrange that his clerk should telegraph for 
 him to return to London without delay. 
 The latter piece of strategy only required
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 173 
 
 a stroll down to the village. The former 
 was more difficult, for where Marcia was 
 at that moment lie did not know, nor 
 did he know of whom to inquire. So he 
 sauntered about the house and grounds, 
 waiting upon time for his chance. 
 
 At last he boldly went into the library 
 and wrote Marcia his first letter to her. 
 I am not going to reproduce this epistle, 
 but I will say that it was a model. It 
 told Marcia exactly and briefly what had 
 occurred, and added that as Sir Hugo's 
 consent had been refused in a manner that 
 w^as evidently intended to be final, he 
 wished her to know that he himself should 
 wait patiently until the time came when 
 she would have the right to decide for 
 herself. He should return to town that 
 day. It would be hardly likely that they
 
 174 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 would meet in London for some little time ; 
 but, he added, months slip away while you 
 are counting days and hours, and it would 
 not be many months before the time would 
 come when they need never be parted 
 again. He should like to write to her in 
 the interval, but would not do so without 
 her permission. 
 
 This letter he managed by some exercise 
 of diplomacy to get conveyed to Marcia, 
 and before many minutes, although to him 
 they seemed innumerable, he received an 
 answer sufficiently characteristic : — 
 
 "Do not leave the Towers until I have 
 seen you. 
 
 " M. C." 
 
 And now, for every historian must be 
 truthful, I have to record that John
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 175 
 
 Douglas, instead of doing anything un- 
 practical, such as kissing the letter, put it 
 most methodically into his note-case, which 
 lie carried in an inner pocket, and then in 
 the spirit of a soldier going into action, 
 resolved to make certain of meeting Marcia 
 before the day was over. 
 
 He had not lono; to wait, and fortune 
 favoured him. Sir Hugo, feeling that a 
 small glass of brandy and curacoa would 
 restore his nerves and oive a tone to his 
 system, went in quest of that most un- 
 wholesome but not unpleasant compound. 
 One of the servants, who was putting away 
 the plate, divined at once what was wanted 
 of him, and provided the necessary cordial 
 with a promptitude really wonderful. Sir 
 Hugo drank a glass of it on the spot, 
 and sipped a second deliberately. The
 
 176 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Lour perhaps was early, but a footman in 
 a large house is like a Club waiter in one 
 most valuable quality — nothing ever allows 
 him to be betrayed into astonishment. 
 
 I once saw an experiment tried upon a 
 Club waiter to test this great truth. He 
 was ordered to bring a large wine glass, 
 brandy and chili vinegar, and saw about a 
 gill of the mixture tossed off without 
 moving a muscle of his features. 
 
 And let me add, par paranthese, that if 
 you have gone through the ice, or have 
 come in positively cramped from a Scotch 
 mist, a moderate dose of this especial 
 compound is as good a "corpse-reviver" 
 as you can select, and more wholesome than 
 might be supposed. 
 
 While the excellent parent was thus 
 occupied Douglas waited in the library.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 177 
 
 The room was well chosen, it being at that 
 moment entirely deserted. Nor had he 
 long to wait. Before he had almost 
 mechanically cast his eye down a column 
 of the Field, Marcia came in, walked 
 straight up to him, and held out her hand. 
 
 "I am sorry," she said, "that you are 
 going. I suppose there is no help for it. 
 But we shall meet again in London before 
 long I hope." 
 
 This was refreshingly frank, as Douglas 
 knew that Marcia in London hardly went 
 out at all. She had given him, indeed, 
 pretty much the same account of her daily 
 life as that which I have given the reader. 
 
 What ought Douglas to have said ? It 
 is odd that at these precise junctures a 
 clever man finds his power of exact 
 expression hopelessly gone. But he looked 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Marcia straight in the eyes, and took her 
 hand, and said, " Good-bye. It is not for 
 long." 
 
 " Not very long," she laughed, " but while 
 it lasts we must wait. Meantime, do not 
 imagine that T shall ever change. I have 
 given you my promise, and I shall keep it." 
 
 " We must wait, I suppose," said 
 Douglas. 
 
 "There is no help for it." This was 
 prosaic, but it was about the only thing to 
 be said. 
 
 Then Douglas, I grieve to say, degener- 
 ated into poetry, or to use the expressive 
 phrase of Mr. Silas Wegg, " dropped into " 
 it. On the little finger of his left hand 
 was a diamond ring — a single brilliant in a 
 perfectly plain hoop. 
 
 Opinions differ as to whether men ought
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 179 
 
 to wear jewelry or not. We know from 
 classical authors that a Boman barrister 
 in large practice used always to carry an 
 immense ring, and flourish it at the jury. 
 Juniors with a smaller practice used to hire 
 a ring for the day, paste at that time not 
 having been discovered or invented. A 
 small diamond of the first water is perhaps 
 permissible, — it is not like one of those 
 obtrusive gems the size of a hazel nut, 
 with which bill-discounters and meat sales- 
 men and book-makers love to dazzle you. 
 
 Douglas took the ring, and slipped it on 
 to the third finger of Marcia's left hand. 
 
 " The stone was my mother's," he said, 
 " and she had it set for me the day I was 
 called." 
 
 And then this bad man with true legal 
 ingenuity equivocated, for he pretended to 
 
 N 2
 
 180 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 kiss the ring as if he were bidding it good- 
 bye ; and to kiss a ring on a lady's hand 
 and nothing but the ring is a difficult task. 
 
 Marcia had no ring to give him in return. 
 Things at times have a habit of going 
 awkwardly. The diamond, of course, must 
 not be taken off again, and under it lay 
 her only other ornament, her mother's 
 engaged ring. 
 
 " I cannot give you this," she said, touch- 
 ing it. "I am not going to take off the 
 diamond, as that would be unlucky. Be- 
 sides," she added, with a laugh that was 
 earnest — for it is quite possible to laugh 
 earnestly — "the ring you have given me 
 was your mother's, and the little gold hoop 
 was all that my own mother wore except 
 her wedding ring for many years." 
 
 Douglas laughed merrily. " We must
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 181 
 
 not spoil luck," lie said, and he kissed her 
 hand again. 
 
 " But," continued Marcia, " I will send 
 vou a present, such as it is, before vou leave 
 the house." And then she drew herself up 
 to her full height, held out her hand, and 
 said, " I am going now, and }^ou may write 
 to me both here and at Sloane Street." 
 
 There are matter-of-fact elements in all 
 incidents of life, and even after what had 
 passed between them, it was a matter-of- 
 fact and mechanical kind of thing for 
 Douglas to open the door and bow once 
 again over Marcia's hand as she passed out. 
 
 Next, w T hat did he do ? Being an 
 Englishman, he walked to the fire and 
 stirred it vi^orouslv. Then he planted him- 
 self on the hearth-rug; with his back to the 
 mantel-piece. Did he think ? Yes, he did ;
 
 182 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 and it was of nothing in particular, for he 
 was too happy and, indeed, self-satisfied to 
 think definitely. It is a singular thing that 
 men seem to concentrate their ideas when 
 they plant themselves on the hearth-rug, in 
 its very centre, with their back to the fire. 
 There is a philosophy in these things. Why 
 does a man fold his arms when he has made 
 up his mind ? Why does he beat the devil's 
 tattoo when he cannot quite make up his 
 mind ? Why does he look up when he is 
 thinking of the future, and on the ground 
 when he is thinking of the past ? 
 
 There must be a reason for all these 
 things. They are relics of our long-for- 
 gotten ancestry, and the act is unconscious 
 on our own part — as unconscious as that of 
 the dog who turns round three or four times 
 before he finally lies clown to sleep, aud
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 183 
 
 then the moment he has lain down heaves 
 his chest and blows an immense respiration 
 through his nostrils. His ancestors used to 
 make themselves a little lair for the night 
 in the grass or brushwood, and used to 
 clear their nostrils with a deep blow, that 
 even while asleep they might scent the 
 advent of a possible enemy. Look at Mr. 
 Darwin's learned remarks on the descent 
 of man, and you will find it explained 
 why, when a man gets into a passion, he 
 draws back his lips and shows all his teeth. 
 John Douglas was still warming himself 
 in this attitude when the expected telegram 
 from his faithful clerk reached him. Blessed 
 is the barrister's clerk that lieth for his 
 master. Verily he shall not be disappointed 
 of his reward when they say unto that 
 master, tt Learned brother, sit up higher."
 
 184 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Thus ran the mendacious missive — 
 " From Henry Jenkinson, Temple. To 
 John Douglas, Esquire, St. Austell Towers, 
 Oakshire. Consultation fixed specially. 
 Attorney General's to-morrow. Special fee. 
 Bedford Level improvements. Cookson, 
 Cookson, Golds worthy, &c. View next day 
 if possible." 
 
 Here was a happy way out of difficulties. 
 Douglas clashed up-stairs, packed his port- 
 manteau, saw Lady St. Austell, and let the 
 telegram speak for itself, wrote a letter to 
 Lord St. Austell, and was soon on his way 
 to the station. 
 
 " One more or less will not be missed 
 in so big a house," he reflected. And then 
 he lit a cigar. 
 
 When he had fairly gone the servants 
 wondered among themselves at his liber-
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 185 
 
 ality. For there is honour of their own 
 among servants, and you may safely trust 
 your gratuities in a lump sum to one who 
 is in authority among them. 
 
 In the train Douglas read the papers, for 
 he had not the facts of the great Bedford 
 Level case as yet before him, nor indeed was 
 he ever likely to be troubled with them. 
 Nor have I anything now to add except 
 that he dined that evening at his club, and 
 wrote a letter to Marcia, thanking her for 
 the presents which he had received before 
 he left the house. They were a small 
 enamelled locket, and her own photograph 
 with her signature. 
 
 I suppose there ought also to have been 
 a lock of her hair, but for this he had not 
 asked, and so she had not sent it. Per- 
 haps he ought to have remembered to ask,
 
 186 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 only one forgets lesser matters on great 
 and hurried occasions. 
 
 There are some things which men will 
 never know about women, or women about 
 men, and about these things there are 
 pretty and almost pious fictions. Douglas 
 ought, according to all rules, from those of 
 chivalry down to our own day, to have lain 
 awake all ni^ht thinking of Marcia. I have 
 no hesitation in saying that he did nothing 
 of the sort. He was not exactly in the 
 humour for a theatre, but he played a game 
 or two of whist at his club, and then went 
 to bed and to sleep in the most matter- 
 of-fact manner possible. 
 
 As for the great Bedford Level case, Lady 
 St. Austell had forgotten its very name 
 within a quarter of an hour, so he was 
 never troubled afterwards with any awk-
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 187 
 
 ward inquiries. But I think Mr. Jenkinson 
 deserved credit for his ingenuity ; and I 
 have no doubt that if the Bedford Level or 
 any other level had led to litigation, either 
 litigant might have done worse than to 
 have sent Douglas a heavy brief, with the 
 pleasant subscription to his name, " With 
 you the Attorney - General, Mr. Joshua 
 Jawkins, Q.C., and Mr. Tugwell."
 
 188 A Lucky Young "Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Marcta, when she left John Douglas, 
 was crossing the hall with the intention of 
 making her way to her own room and 
 thinking. Edgar Allen Poe has gone so far 
 as to say that you can always think best in 
 the dark. You certainly can think best 
 when you are alone, and I will positively 
 defy any man to think if he knows that 
 his meditations may be at any moment 
 interrupted. This is why some wicked 
 people find it so easy to think in church 
 when the sermon has begun and the
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 189 
 
 preacher has fairly settled down into his 
 stride. 
 
 Marcia had almost gained the foot of the 
 stairs when she encountered her estimable 
 parent, who at once assumed his choicest 
 air of affectionate sorrow. And I must say, 
 in justice to Sir Hugo, that he was really 
 on this occasion extremely grieved and 
 pained. He had the misty idea I have 
 before referred to, that he had been making 
 great sacrifices for Marcia's welfare, that he 
 had somehow devoted the best years of his 
 life to her, and that the only return he had 
 met was base ingratitude. Had he ever 
 been compelled to earn a living, I think 
 Sir Hugo would have made a very good 
 first old gentleman, and there was now 
 about him almost a touch of King Lear. 
 He settled his features into an appropriate
 
 190 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 sadness, and there was something like a 
 quiver in his voice, as if the words hung in 
 his throat. 
 
 " Marcia," he said, " I wish you would 
 put on your things and come for a little 
 walk with me. The sun is tempting, and I 
 feel a walk might do me good. Besides, 
 my dear, I wish to speak to you." 
 
 Marcia, knowing perfectly well what was 
 about to come, betrayed no symptom of 
 emotion of any kind, not even of curiosity. 
 
 " Certainly, papa ; I will get ready at 
 once. Will you meet me here ? " 
 
 " Very well, my dear. I will be here, 
 let us say, in five minutes. You, I dare say, 
 will be a little longer." 
 
 " I will hurry, papa," and Marcia ran up- 
 stairs ; while Sir Hugo braced his nerves for 
 what he knew would be the most awkward
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 191 
 
 encounter of all with some French brandy, 
 neat, for once, and wrapped himself up 
 with the greatest care, as if he knew how 
 precious was his own life to the world at 
 large, and was determined not to run the 
 slightest risk of even a cold. 
 
 His preparations were hardly completed 
 when his daughter joined him in the hall, 
 with a look in her eyes that distinctly said, 
 " Gentlemen of the guard, fire first ! " and 
 entirely threw Sir Hugo off his balance. 
 
 " I hear, my dear child," he said, as they 
 found themselves on the gravel side by 
 side, " I hear with considerable astonish- 
 ment from Mr. Douglas — a young man, I 
 believe, of some ability, and I may even 
 say promise — that you have consented to 
 marry him, subject, I presume, to my 
 approval."
 
 192 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 " He asked me to marry him, papa, and 
 I wished him to speak to you. He has told 
 me what passed between you, and we are 
 now going to wait until I am of age." 
 
 Sir Hugo did not exactly know how to 
 meet this kind of answer. He was in much 
 the position as a man who, having de- 
 manded an apology in the certainty of at 
 once getting it, is told to go to a place not 
 generally named and to get it there. What 
 is a man to do with his own daughter 
 when she distinctly lets him know that she 
 is not afraid of him, and does not intend to 
 obey him ? 
 
 Perhaps Sir Hugo did the best thing 
 under all the circumstances. He blew his 
 nose, with a tinge of pathos in the per- 
 formance. 
 
 " My dear child," he said (and this was
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 193 
 
 stagy and unwise. It was the very last 
 kind of tack on which he should have 
 started with Marcia), "my dear child, I 
 confess I am deeply grieved and wounded. 
 I have been, Marcia, a loving and tender 
 parent to you. Since your dear mother's 
 death you have been my one and only 
 thought and care, and I confess that I 
 expected some other return from you for all 
 my devotion — some other return than in- 
 gratitude." And the man at this point 
 gave way to the father, for the excellent 
 old gentleman very nearly broke down. 
 
 Marcia remained silent, which was very 
 annoying. Her father, of course, would 
 have liked a scene, and in fact wanted it. 
 There was much in his nature of a certain 
 type of feminine cunning, and he had an 
 idea that out of a real good scene he should 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 come with flying colours. Evidently, how- 
 ever, there was not to be a scene, so he 
 turned on the tremolo stop again. 
 
 " I am getting old, Marcia. Time is tell- 
 ing on me. I may be summoned at any 
 moment." (His look of resignation to the 
 decrees of Providence was inimitable.) 
 " Life has little left for me, and my years 
 will not be many. I promised your dearest 
 mother that I would watch over you, and 
 do my best to supply the irreparable loss 
 that fell upon you by her death. Day and 
 night, early and late, I have had your 
 welfare constantly in my mind. And I 
 should be neglecting; the most sacred of all 
 duties if I did not make it the one object 
 of my solicitude to see your future secured 
 by a suitable marriage. I think, Marcia, 
 I have a right to expect that in this most
 
 A Lucky Youxg Woman. 195 
 
 important matter of all you should not 
 have acted without my approval or even 
 my consent." 
 
 Marcia's answer was very short, and, like 
 many short answers, was all the more 
 effective. 
 
 " My dear papa," she said, " this is a 
 matter in which 1 surely have the first right 
 to an opinion. If I am to marry I shall be 
 giving the whole of what is left of my life. 
 My own life is as serious a matter to me 
 as it can possibly be to you. And I cannot 
 see why you should object to a marriage 
 which would at once relieve you of all 
 responsibility so far as I am concerned, and 
 enable you to live as you have hitherto done, 
 almost without being aware of my existence." 
 
 Now here Sir Hugo was puzzled. If he 
 
 had been a man with any courage in him 
 
 o 2
 
 196 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 he would have told Marcia at once to go 
 about her business, and would have taken 
 the whole matter into his own hands. But 
 selfish men are always cowards. They are 
 haunted by the idea that they will have to 
 do something, or to give something. 
 
 The story of Iphigenia comes down to our 
 own day, only that fathers do not stab 
 their own daughters with a butcher's knife. 
 Otherwise, all the rest is true. Sir Hugo 
 could not have stabbed any living thing. 
 The mere sight of blood, or even the smell 
 of it, would have unhinged him for at least 
 a fortnight. But he wa3 none the less 
 resolute in having his own way. It is 
 curious how many men mislead themselves. 
 
 A man who has made his living for some 
 years over the billiard table discovers that 
 his wife has musical ability, and it at once
 
 A Lucky Young "Woman. 197 
 
 occurs to him that she ought to go upon 
 the Music Hall stage, and to earn an income 
 sufficient to support the entire family. Nor 
 is this mistaken point of view confined to 
 men. I have known men — a man, let me 
 say — whose wife has shaken him up in the 
 morning by the collar of his nightgown, and 
 veiled in his ears, " Whv do you not get 
 
 j J.JO 
 
 up ? Why do you not write poetry like 
 Lord Byron, or a history like Gibbon ? 
 Why do you not write a play like the 
 Private Secretary, or the Candidate ? Why 
 
 do you not ? " It is really too pitiful 
 
 to follow this kind of argument. 
 
 But Sir Hugo, unhappily, had made up 
 his mind that Marcia's marriage was to be 
 for his own special and particular benefit. 
 It is unpleasant to study morbid anatomy. 
 It is equally unpleasant to follow the
 
 198 A Lucky Young Woman: 
 
 reasoning of a thoroughly selfish man. But 
 Sir Hugo's reasoning was of this kind. 
 
 " I have treasured the girl as the apple of 
 my eye since her mother's death. I have 
 been the best, the most kind, the most 
 generous, and the most indulgent of fathers. 
 I have sacrificed my life for her." Now 
 this was most entirely and strictly untrue. 
 For Sir Hugo had all the vices which were 
 possible for a man of his age, and indulged 
 in them, not without an air of resignation, 
 as if he considered that he were by his 
 brilliant example keeping younger men 
 out of mischief, and teaching them to 
 know the ropes. You would find him 
 in places commonly considered dangerous, 
 or, to say the least, not quite reputable. 
 His first words with you allayed your 
 suspicions.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 199 
 
 " Odd it is how little these places alter. 
 It is just as I remember it thirty years ago. 
 But it is tiresome. Let us have a brandy 
 and soda. Not here, for Heaven's sake. 
 Let us go to the Club." 
 
 These remarks usually got rid of the 
 person to whom they were addressed. Sir 
 Hugo was of course very well known about 
 London. But is it not a fact, that if a man 
 is six feet in height, with grey hair and a 
 moustache to match, if he dresses well, if he 
 is always absolutely sober, if he pays his 
 bets, and if he is not suspected of sharp 
 play, either at cards or billiards, he is, as 
 a rule, accepted as the ideal of an English 
 gentleman % Should he spend a couple of 
 guineas on his supper, no man asks whether 
 his wife and children are starving on bread 
 and butter in Pentonviile. Were I to write
 
 200 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 a learned book on success in life, — success 
 inspired by no lofty motives — I should lay 
 down for a young man the following rules : — 
 
 1. Never forget a friend or forgive an 
 enemy. 
 
 2. Never let anybody know anything 
 about you, unless you can turn the con- 
 fidence to your own advantage. 
 
 3. Always live well and dress well. But 
 dine off a crust sooner than have a spot of 
 grease on your hat. 
 
 4. Never make any place too hot to hold 
 you. Always let it be possible for you to 
 come back ; pay up, and take your old 
 position. 
 
 5. Recollect that the older you grow the 
 wiser you become, and the more venerable 
 you look. If a man has a venerable look, 
 and also knows the world as a wild fowler
 
 A Lucky Young WomaK 201 
 
 knows bis marshes, he will find the supply 
 of fools infinite. 
 
 6. Fools are like wild fowl. They have 
 too much feather on them, and have never 
 heard of decovs or of o-oose-sliot. 
 
 J o 
 
 These are a more or less complete set of 
 commandments, although no doubt judi- 
 cious additions might easilv be made to 
 them. There is a much simpler rule of 
 life suitable for the smallest boy. Never 
 tell a lie. Never take a blow. Never prig. 
 
 A boy needs no bigger catechism than 
 this. As he becomes older his relations 
 with the world become more complex, and 
 his responsibilities more onerous. 
 
 Captain Cuttle used to observe that the 
 bearings of an observation lay in the appli- 
 cation of it. Blows are out of the question 
 for a lady. Prigging was out of all question
 
 202 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 for Marcia. Her sole duty under this table 
 of three command merits was to tell the 
 truth. This was a duty she could under- 
 take fearlessly. It would save an immense 
 amount of trouble in this very troublesome 
 world if people would only tell the truth. 
 A falsehood serves your purpose for the 
 minute, but it comes back to you ten years 
 afterwards with infinite punishment in its 
 train. Truth is very cheap and very short. 
 Also it entails no strain on the imagination. 
 
 Now Marcia had told her father the exact 
 truth with regard to her relations with 
 Douglas — neither above it, below it, before 
 it, nor behind it. There are some people 
 who are constitutionally incapable of a lie. 
 They simply cannot tell it. Marcia was 
 one of these. 
 
 I have thus indicated the various points
 
 A Lucky Young Womak. 203 
 
 of view taken by Sir Hugo and Marcia of 
 what really ought to have been a very 
 simple question. It would have been the 
 simplest question in the world if Sir Hugo 
 had not complicated it by his own selfish- 
 ness, and have aggravated his selfishness by 
 pretending that it was paternal solicitude. 
 Let me sum up the points as they are at 
 present at issue. 
 
 Sir Hugo wants his daughter to marry a 
 man with a large house and many servants, 
 where he can live as a pensioner without 
 causing sufficient friction to make the sug- 
 gestion possible that his visit has been 
 unduly protracted. I really believe that if 
 you say as little and do as little as possible, 
 except at the right time and to the right 
 persons — if, that is to say, you do not put 
 yourself en evidence, — you can stay in a big
 
 204 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 house, if you have a shadow of a claim 
 upon its owner, for almost as long as you 
 please. 
 
 There are artifices over this stratagem. 
 You must have breakfast in bed, and limit 
 it to toast and cocoa. You must look in 
 at lunch towards its finish. You must take 
 especial care to make yourself conversation- 
 ally useful at dinner. For to be useful is 
 a more humble task than to be brilliant, 
 or even ornamental. The highest gift you 
 can possess is that of gliding into the con- 
 versation and diverting it into a channel 
 which permits everybody to talk. You 
 yourself need then only nod approval. 
 This, however, is a very rare accomplish- 
 ment. The rarest of all is that of talking 
 up to the biggest man at the table, and 
 coaxing him into expansion, until he tells
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 205 
 
 you, all of you, how he was flogged at 
 Eton. Few men have the tact or the 
 nerve for this. 
 
 The second point is that Sir Hugo wants 
 that during the remainder of his life his 
 daughter shall not trouble him. It would 
 be a dreadful thing, for instance, if she 
 were to marry a government clerk or a 
 young barrister, and her husband were to 
 die, and she were to come back to him 
 with a couple of children. Sir Hugo hated 
 children of all sorts, looking on them as 
 things that get in your way, and divert 
 women from attentions to which you are 
 entirely and indefeasibly entitled. And he 
 would have hated unprovided-for descend- 
 ants most of all. 
 
 The third and last point is that Sir Hugo, 
 having cherished and nurtured the seed of
 
 206 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 hope planted in his bosom by Lady St. 
 Austell, has determined that, per fas aut 
 nefas, his daughter shall marry one or other 
 of those eligible young men — Lord Norwich 
 or Mr. Davidson. 
 
 Marcia, on her part, has equally made up 
 her mind to marry John Douglas. Nothing 
 shall come between them, she is firmly 
 resolved. This young woman came to St. 
 Austell Towers perfectly heart-whole. She 
 met Douglas as I have described, and liking 
 him from the first, soon had her heart filled 
 with a warmer feeling, which the present 
 difficulties with which the two are threat- 
 ened have only served to increase. She 
 is quite prepared for the worst, which 
 after all cannot be very terrible, for she 
 stands in no fear of her father, and will 
 decline in a most uncompromising manner
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 207 
 
 to be bullied into compliance with bis 
 wishes. 
 
 "My clear child," said Sir Hugo, after 
 receiving Marcia's home-thrust, " if you 
 will be g;ood enough to abstain from 
 being: rude, and to listen to me for five 
 minutes, I think that we shall probably 
 come to the conclusion that we have 
 been of the same mind after all. I can 
 quite understand your finding Sloane Street 
 dull, and becoming tired of the society of 
 the Fraulein, and wanting to ranger your- 
 self in life, and so accepting the first decent 
 offer. I have not the faintest objection 
 to your marrying. In fact, it is the only 
 thing for you to do. But what I do 
 object to, and most strongly, is that you 
 should throw yourself away upon the first 
 comer, when with your beauty and my
 
 208 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 influence you might command the most 
 brilliant marriage." 
 
 " I love Mr. Douglas, papa, and I shall 
 marry him." 
 
 " Great heavens ! grant me patience ! " 
 gasped Sir Hugo. " Are you aware that 
 there are at present two millionaires in 
 the house, either of whom you can have 
 for the asking ? Lady St. Austell is my 
 informant. I need not say that she could 
 have no object in deceiving me." 
 
 " I am not aware of the fact, papa ; and 
 if even it were so, I have promised Mr. 
 Douglas that I will marry him, and I shall 
 keep my word." 
 
 "I believe you have gone mad, Marcia. 
 At any rate you will soon drive me so. 
 Listen for one minute. There is young 
 Norwich head over ears in love with you.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 209 
 
 Every one can see it. He may propose at 
 any moment ; at least, if he does not hear 
 of this tomfoolery with Douglas. And if 
 you prefer it, there is Mr. Davidson the 
 ironmaster, who would — Lady St. Austell, 
 mark you, is my authority, and she takes a 
 most motherly interest in you — be only 
 too charmed to marry you, and settle a 
 hundred and fifty thousand pounds upon 
 you into the bargain. And with chances 
 like these, and brilliant prospects like these, 
 you propose to throw yourself away upon an 
 adventurer like Douglas." 
 
 "Mr. Douglas is no adventurer, papa. 
 You would not dare to tell him so to his 
 face. Why do so behind his back \ I 
 told Lady St. Austell, or at least let her 
 clearly understand, that I could never look 
 upon Lord Norwich in any other light than 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 that of a friend. I could never become 
 really attached to him. And as for Mr. 
 
 Davidson, I have not spoken half-a-dozen 
 words to him. I am not to be bought 
 and sold to suit your convenience, papa, 
 or the convenience of any one else. I 
 have made my mind up, and I tell you, 
 for once and for all, that it is utterly useless 
 to attempt to shake my resolve." 
 
 " If vou are insane enough to abandon 
 such a future as I have mapped for you 
 for such a shabby existence as you con- 
 template I have no argument left to use. 
 I shall, however, ask Lady St. Austell to 
 reason with you. She may possibly have 
 more weight with you than I. At all 
 events, you will not be able to accuse her 
 of self-interest. I am very hurt at your 
 wicked and unfeeling conduct, and also at
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 211 
 
 your cruel and unjust insinuations with 
 regard to myself. Now, if you please, we 
 will return home." 
 
 " Very well, papa ; just as you like." 
 People may say that Marcia did not do 
 her duty as a daughter. They may add 
 that she was ignorant of the world. I 
 venture to differ from them on both points. 
 In the first place, Marcia's marriage was 
 a thing that, as she said, concerned herself 
 more than her father. Sir Hugr) had no 
 
 o 
 
 ris;ht to entangle it in an undercurrent 
 
 of ways and means leading to his own 
 
 comfort. 
 
 A girl is not bound to marry an oyster 
 
 merchant to whom she objects because her 
 
 father is fond of oysters, and is anxious 
 
 to get them at trade price, or even for 
 
 nothing. And I for one can see no 
 
 P 2
 
 212 A Lcjcky Young Woman. 
 
 difference between oysters and other lesser 
 
 ends to which selfishness looks. It may 
 
 be oysters, or good claret, or anything else. 
 
 Anyhow, Sir Hugo wanted to sell his 
 
 daughter that he might live more luxuri- 
 es o 
 
 ously, and, in fact, after his own ideas of 
 comfort. And this was very wicked od 
 the part of Sir Hugo ; it was also very 
 unchristian ; it was worse than very un- 
 christian, for it was very selfish ; it was 
 worse than selfish, for it was almost un- 
 gentlemanly. Even Jephthah did not 
 propose to sell his daughter for a daily 
 mess of potage. 
 
 But Sir Hugo felt that he was getting 
 older. He had lived in London all his 
 life ; he had never really felt the wholesome 
 stimulus of family affection. There are 
 many such men. It is idle to attempt to
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 213 
 
 bring them to a sense of their duty. 
 " Sir," said a billiard-marker once to the 
 writer of these pages, naming a man pretty 
 well known at the time in London society, 
 " if you were to kick that man down a 
 passage a mile long in which there wasn't 
 room for him to turn round, I don't believe 
 that he could run straight." 
 
 It was Sir Huso's chief fault that he 
 could not run straight.
 
 214 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The first tiling that Sir Hugo did after 
 luncheon was to secure a tete-a-tete with 
 Lady St. Austell, into whose sympathetic 
 ears the thwarted parent poured a recital 
 of all his woes. I say " sympathetic," 
 because although her ladyship did not 
 entirely agree with the view that Sir Hugo 
 took of the matter, nevertheless, having 
 promised to assist in the matrimonial 
 campaign, and having indeed commenced 
 operations already, she felt more than a 
 kindly interest in the result. 
 
 And, as I have already hinted, Lady St.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 215 
 
 Austell liked Sir Hugo. She Lad in reality 
 only seen the best side of him, and recol- 
 lected what he was in the old days before 
 he left the army, and when she herself 
 was within an ace of becoming Lady 
 Conyers. Of the real Sir Hugo she had 
 not an idea. On the contrary, she gave 
 him credit for absolute disinterestedness 
 with regard to his daughter's future, and 
 believed that he was actuated by the best 
 and sincerest motives. 
 
 " I will speak to her to-morrow," said 
 Lady St. Austell. " After all, if she insists 
 on marrying Mr. Douglas it is not such 
 a bad match. He is very clever and 
 steady, and is sure to get od. His family 
 is an excellent one. St. Austell has known 
 them all his life, and indeed was a great 
 friend of Mr. Douglas's father."
 
 216 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 " All this is no doubt true, dear Lady 
 St. Austell. But I should question whether 
 Mr. Douglas has a farthing more than he 
 earns. These young barristers are all alike. 
 What settlements could he make ? None, 
 of course. It would be a most precarious 
 marriage, and it would be wicked on my 
 part to sanction it or countenance it in any 
 way. I couldn't do it, indeed I could not." 
 
 " Very well, Sir Hugo, there is something 
 in what you say, and I will talk to Marcia. 
 But I warn you that young ladies of the 
 present day have an awkward habit of 
 making up their minds for themselves, 
 and if she is really in love I much doubt 
 whether I shall have any success." 
 
 " It's an awful responsibility ! " said Sir 
 Hus;o. " But nothing will make me swerve 
 from my manifest duty."
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 217 
 
 The next morning after breakfast Lady 
 St. Austell invited Marcia to come to her 
 boudoir. " I dare say, my dear child, you 
 will guess why I want to speak to you/ 5 
 
 " Yes, I think I know, Lady St. Austell." 
 
 " Xow, Marcia," said her ladyship after 
 they had sat down, " I have promised 
 your papa to have a little talk with you. 
 You see, my child, you necessarily know 
 very little of the world, and you have no 
 mother to advise you. So if you will let 
 me, I will try and supply her place, and will 
 act towards you as if you were my own." 
 
 Now Lady St. Austell, to do her justice, 
 was perfectly sincere in all this, and her 
 manner of saying it convinced Marcia of 
 the fact, so that a feeling of affection and 
 gratitude sprang up in the girl's heart. 
 
 "Thank you, Lady St. Austell, I know
 
 218 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 you are my friend. I will listen to every- 
 thing you say." 
 
 " That's right, dear. Your papa tells 
 me that you have engaged yourself to Mr. 
 Douglas who was staying here. I suppose 
 that this is the case." 
 
 " Yes, Lady St. Austell." 
 
 " I fear, dear, that neither of you have 
 been very prudent. You see, Mr. Douglas 
 has no fortune. He is a most estimable 
 man ; I wish a few more of the present 
 generation were like him. But he has little 
 or nothing but that for which lie works. 
 Suppose that he were to fall ill, and his 
 income thereby cease. What would you 
 both do ? You see he is too young to 
 have had time to save any money. You 
 have none, and your papa could allow you 
 little or nothing."
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 219 
 
 " I should not mind roughing it," said 
 Marcia. 
 
 "No, my dear, perhaps not. But mar- 
 riages such as the one you are contem- 
 plating often end in something worse than 
 roughing it. Believe me, that when the 
 pinch comes, as it too often does, love 
 flies away; and a feeling very like aver- 
 sion takes its place. The man recognizes 
 that many of the petty troubles and 
 annoyances which he has to bear would 
 never have come upon him had it not 
 been for his marriage ; and the woman 
 cannot fail to realize how much happier 
 her life might have been had she 
 only made a more prudent choice, and 
 taken the advice of those who knew the 
 world better than she. Then an estrange- 
 ment takes place. It may be gradual
 
 220 A Lucky Yocjng Woman. 
 
 or it may be sudden, but in any case 
 it is certain, and thus two lives are 
 marred." 
 
 " But Mr. Douglas seems such a sensible 
 man. Do you think he would want me 
 to marry him if he did not see his way 
 clearly as to the future ? " 
 
 "A man in love, my child, is little 
 better than a fool. He never considers 
 the consequences of what he is doing. 
 Mr. Douglas is in all ordinary affairs a 
 most sensible and keen-witted young man. 
 But the fact is, your beauty has turned 
 his head, and he is proposing to do the 
 most foolish thing in the world, both 
 with regard to his interest and your 
 own." 
 
 " I shouldn't like Mr. Douglas to injure 
 his future for my sake," said Marcia.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 221 
 
 " I am sure of that, dear. No good- 
 hearted or proper-minded girl could wish 
 that." 
 
 " I like Mr. Douglas very much. I 
 never liked any one so much before, and 
 the prospect of being his wife has made 
 me happier than I have been for a long 
 time. But I would give all this up if 
 you are certain of what you say, dear 
 Lady St. Austell. I will be quite frank 
 with you. I would not do this for my 
 father's sake. I would only do it for 
 Mr. Douglas's own sake." 
 
 "You are taking a very sensible and 
 proper view of the matter, Marcia. If I 
 was conscientiously able to further this 
 marriage I would do so, and that too 
 in spite of your father's objections, if I 
 thought they were wrong or unfounded.
 
 222 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 But for both your sakes I cannot do this. 
 And I strongly advise you to write to 
 Mr. Douglas and tell him what conclusion 
 you have arrived at. Or, if you prefer it, 
 I will do so for you. What do you say, 
 Marcia ? " 
 
 "Very well, Lady St. Austell, you 
 write, please," replied Marcia, bursting 
 into tears and hurrying from the room. 
 
 " I don't like this," said Lady St. 
 Austell to herself. "But I suppose Sir 
 Hugo was right. After all, it would have 
 been a most imprudent marriage. And 
 I am certain that Norwich will propose to 
 her. But I never thought I should 
 manage her so easily. I wonder whether 
 she is really in love with Douglas. I do 
 indeed." 
 
 7J7 ^v t& -Jr * *
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 223 
 
 " St Austell Towers, 
 
 " Oct. 22nd, 18— 
 
 " Dear Mr. Douglas, 
 
 "I never felt greater difficulty 
 
 in commencing: a letter, although what I 
 have to say is after all very plain. 
 
 "To come to the point at once, Sir 
 Hugo Conyers has told me of your engage- 
 ment to his daughter, and of his strong 
 disapproval of such a step. Now, dear Mr. 
 Douglas, I will be perfectly frank with 
 you, and I must say at once that I think 
 Sir Hugo is right. Lord St. Austell and 
 I have the very highest opinion of you, 
 and I have not hesitated to express our 
 feelings towards you in discussing this 
 matter with Sir Hugo. But you have no 
 fortune, and you are entirely dependent on 
 your profession for your income. Marcia
 
 224 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 Conyers is a portionless girl, and it would 
 be, in my opinion, the height of im- 
 prudence for any two young people to 
 marry under such circumstances. 
 
 " I have told Marcia this, and I now 
 repeat it to you. In the advice I have 
 given Marcia, who has no mother of her 
 own to consult, I have considered you 
 quite as much as her. 
 
 " And I must now tell you that Marcia, 
 in spite of her evidently strong attachment 
 to you, sees things in this light, and has 
 commissioned me to write to you, and beg 
 you to consider everything at an end. 
 Believe me, my dear friend, it is best that 
 it should be so. 
 
 "Lord St. Austell and I take the 
 greatest interest in your career, and we 
 shall both be glad to hear good news of
 
 A Lucky Young Womast. 225 
 
 you, and to see you liere whenever you 
 can find time to run away from town. 
 " With kindest regards, believe me, 
 "Your sincere friend, 
 
 "Emily St. Austell. 
 
 "P.S. Marcia has just sent me your 
 ring, which she has be^o-ed me to return. 
 You will receive it by the same post as 
 this letter." 
 
 "My dearest Marcia," said Sir Hugo 
 to his daughter the next day, " Lady St. 
 Austell has been telling me of your sensible 
 conduct. You now see, my dear, that in 
 refusing to sanction your marriage with 
 Mr. Douglas I was only acting in your 
 interest, and — " 
 
 " Papa, if you wish me to retain one 
 spark of affection for you you will not 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 226 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 speak to me again on this subject. And 
 what is more, I decline to discuss it with 
 you." 
 
 "Very well, my dear," replied Sir Hugo, 
 perfectly satisfied at having gained his 
 point, " we will say no more about it. 
 After all, I dare say that you are right. 
 "Will you come for a little stroll ? No ? 
 So sorry. It is a lovely morning, and the 
 birds are singing, and the sun is shining, 
 and all nature seems to be joyful and full 
 of contentment. A wonderful thing nature ! 
 When you have children of your own you 
 will know what it is. Go and enjoy 
 yourself, my darling ; you are looking a 
 little paler than I altogether like. Dear 
 me, how like your mother you are getting. 
 It is positively wonderful ! Good-bye, my 
 sweet, good-bye."
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. , 217 
 
 And good Sir Hugo somehow gravitated 
 a^ain towards the billiard room. Curacoa 
 such as that to be had at the Towers was 
 beyond his reach in London. 
 
 Marcia for her part chose some stout 
 boots, a long thick cloak, a hat of the 
 kind known as " the deerstalker," and a 
 somewhat uncompromising umbrella, and 
 sallied out into the air. It was a crisp, 
 cheery day ; the ground rang pleasantly 
 under her feet, and the blood began to 
 move in her veins and bring the colour 
 to her cheeks. All the manly element in 
 her nature seemed to assert itself. For a 
 strong nature there is a positive pleasure 
 in defying and facing the worst troubles. 
 
 She had not gone far before she became 
 
 aware of the approach of Lord Norwich, 
 
 who it is charitably to be hoped had been 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 told in which direction to find her. On any 
 other assumption the hopeless bewilder- 
 ment of this young man would have been 
 ludicrous. His lordship blundered into 
 conversation much in the fashion of a 
 fairly good skater making his first fifty or 
 hundred strokes after half-a-dozen blank 
 winters. He remarked that it was cold, 
 and safely added that there was always 
 good snipe shooting in cold weather, a fact 
 of which Marcia was not aware. From 
 snipe he diverged to figure-skating, and 
 find in cj that Marcia could not execute the 
 outside edge backwards, expressed his 
 opinion that she ought to make herself 
 mistress of that accomplishment, which he 
 explained only required nerve. 
 
 In Canada the ladies acquired it while 
 young, and were absolutely perfect in it.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 229 
 
 Marcia expressed a regret more or less 
 sincere at her inability to achieve the 
 outside edge either forward or backwards, 
 and her readiness to study it upon the 
 first opportunity. 
 
 His lordship next ascertained that she 
 was fond of horses, but could neither drive 
 nor ride. And ultimately, having exhausted 
 these and some other similar topics of 
 interest, he expressed his emphatic con- 
 viction, with all his schoolboy good-nature, 
 that it was " a shame " for her to be 
 unequal to these things, which were all 
 useful and extremely pleasant, and needed 
 nothing more for their acquisition than 
 practise combined with the necessary 
 determination. 
 
 It was impossible to be angry with this 
 young man ; his o;ood nature was as evident 
 
 Jo * o
 
 230 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 as his sincerity. He amused Marcia, and 
 to a certain extent pleased her, for she was 
 quite sufficiently human to enjoy a sincere 
 compliment. 
 
 And so Lord Norwich, in sporting phrase- 
 ology, warmed up and settled down into 
 his work. He should like, he told Marcia, 
 above all things to have the high pleasure 
 of being her tutor in the various accom- 
 plishments that they had discussed, and 
 more particularly in the art of tandem 
 driving, which he explained was to all 
 other forms of driving what tennis is to 
 other games with ball, and as far superior 
 to four-in-hand as is billiards to bagatelle. 
 And having thus stood for a minute or two 
 on the bank, Lord Norwich boldly took his 
 header. 
 
 "I'm not a good hand at saying what
 
 A Lucky Young Womak. 231 
 
 I mean, Miss Conyers," he began. " Talk- 
 ing is one of the things they leave out in 
 our education. But what I want to say, 
 if you will allow me, is, that you would 
 make me the proudest and happiest man 
 in the world if you would take me as 
 you find me. I would do every mortal 
 thing I could to make you happy. I wont 
 talk about gratifying all your wishes. That 
 goes of course. But I would do anything 
 and everything to show you how sincere 
 I am in what I am saying. And I would 
 live where you liked — in London, or in 
 the country, or abroad ; and perhaps, if 
 there is any place you particularly liked, 
 you wouldn't mind choosing a house there, 
 or having one built to your own fancy, and 
 having it for your own, to go to whenever 
 you pleased, or wanted to be quiet. One
 
 232 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 does not always care for visitors, and I 
 think all ladies like some sort of hermi- 
 tage of their own. I know my mother 
 did. And" — -he laughed — "my father 
 never dared so much as pass the lodge 
 gates without her permission." 
 
 Here at last was the nettle to be grasped. 
 Marcia laid hold of it firmly. 
 
 She waited a minute or two, and then 
 said, " All this is very kind of you, Lord 
 Norwich, — kinder still because I am sure 
 you mean it. I had better be quite frank 
 with you. It is always best to tell the 
 truth. I cannot possibly do as you ask, 
 for the very best of reasons. I am en- 
 gaged to nobody else ; but there is some 
 one of whom I have been very fond, 
 although I shall never marry him. I could 
 not honestly marry any other man. That
 
 A Lucky Young Woman; 233 
 
 is all, Lord Norwich. Let us forget this 
 morning, and let us always be the best 
 of friends. I do not mind telling; vou " — 
 and here her voice rang pleasantly — "that 
 I should like to always reckon vou anion f? 
 my few friends." 
 
 Lord Norwich, in an account of this 
 interview to his dearest and closest old 
 friend and brother officer, emphatically 
 declared that the young lady completely 
 " bottled " him. The phrase may not be 
 exactly an elegant one, but its native sim- 
 plicity is complete. 
 
 What ouo'ht a nobleman and ex-guards- 
 man to say when he is completely 
 "bottled"? Pretty much, I suppose, 
 what Lord Norwich did. He told Marcia 
 he was honoured by her confidence, and 
 would respect it. He expressed a hope
 
 234 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 that she might perhaps change her deter- 
 mination, and said something simple and 
 to the point about his own resolve to 
 wait. He would wait for her, he told 
 her, for years, and in the interval he 
 supposed they would meet occasionally. 
 And then, being a sensible young man, 
 he said nothing more, but be^an to talk 
 about what may be best described as 
 " anything." 
 
 With commendable adroitness he allowed 
 Marcia to pick the way, and somehow the 
 way led them back to the house, at which 
 when they arrived they were really upon 
 most excellent terms with one another. 
 Why should they not have been? Lord 
 Norwich was one of the best and most 
 warm-hearted of young men, and Marcia 
 felt this. Marcia herself had been straight-
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 235 
 
 forward, and Lord Norwich respected her 
 for it. How very much easier and happier 
 life would become at once if we would 
 only tell each other the exact truth as these 
 two young people had just done. 
 
 What was now the result of the whole 
 thing ? A marriage prevented which 
 might possibly have been wearisome, and 
 if so, certainly unhappy, and instead of 
 it a firm and honest friendship cemented. 
 For a good man the friendship of a good 
 woman, and for a good woman the friend- 
 ship of a good man is invaluable. It is 
 one of the few things in this life worth 
 having;. 
 
 So both Marcia and Lord Xorwich 
 thought and felt as they shook hands 
 heartily under the portico before passing 
 into the hall.
 
 236 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 On receiving and reading Lady St. 
 Austell's letter — lie read it carefully two 
 or three times — Douglas put the document 
 into his pocket, lit a cigar, and walked 
 leisurely to his Club by way of the 
 Embankment. 
 
 At the Club he wrote a couple of letters, 
 each very brief and pronouncedly business- 
 like. One was to Lady St. Austell, the 
 other to Marcia. That to Lady St. Austell 
 was little more than an acknowledgment 
 of her letter to himself, concluding with 
 the interesting information that he was
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 237 
 
 now once again hard at work, for which 
 his visit to St. Austell Towers had made 
 him fully fit, and in fact almost impatient. 
 That to Marcia was, as lawyers used to 
 say, in hac verld. 
 
 " Oxford and Cambridge Club, 
 "October oOth, 18—. 
 
 "Dear Miss Conyeks, 
 
 " You are of course aware that 
 I have heard from Lady St. Austell. Pray 
 consider yourself perfectly and entirely free 
 from any kind of pledge or promise you 
 may ever have given me. 
 
 "It is only due to myself to state that 
 I am not an adventurer, and could have 
 sufficiently provided both for your present 
 and for any possible future. This, I hope, 
 you will believe, or if you doubt it, you
 
 238 A Lucky Young Woman - . 
 
 can easily satisfy yourself when you return 
 to London. 
 
 " I once had your guod opinion, and I 
 should not like you to think that I was 
 altogether unworthy it. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " John Douglas." 
 
 These letters finished and posted, Mr. 
 Douglas, having nothing else to do, strolled 
 round to some very well-known livery 
 stables in Piccadilly where (I had forgotten 
 to mention the fact) he kept his horse. 
 A brisk trot to Richmond with a canter 
 in the Park will fit you admirably after- 
 wards for a plain dinner, not at the Star 
 and Garter, which is practically closed in 
 October, but a certain good old-fashioned 
 house down in the town, where you can
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 239 
 
 get a beef-steak with mashed potatoes 
 and onions and a pickled walnut, with a 
 bottle of sound port and a good cigar. 
 
 John Douglas was a simple man, liking 
 old-fashioned houses and good plain cookery. 
 This is the true stoic philosophy, the net 
 outcome of which is that those, after all, 
 who expect the least in this world go to 
 the certain way to get the most. 
 
 And then, after a few compliments ex- 
 changed with the host, Douglas let out 
 his stirrup-leathers a couple of holes and 
 jogged back to town at that most delightful 
 of all paces to any man who can ride — a 
 steady covert trot. All of which things 
 may seem prosaic, and no doubt are, but 
 ninety-nine per cent, of life is prose of the 
 most substantial and unvarnished kind. 
 And it is fortunate for us that this should
 
 240 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 be the case. Else a man with any brains 
 would at once flare down in the socket as 
 a taper does when we plunge it into a jar 
 of oxygen. 
 
 When Douglas found himself again in 
 his chambers he began to think over things. 
 This was only natural, and in no way a 
 symptom of weakness. He had been harder 
 hit than he cared to own even to himself, 
 although of course the whole thing was 
 now over. And he had been insulted into 
 the bargain by the veriest old Polonius 
 that ever trod the boards of real life — only 
 tli at Polonius was merely an old driveller, 
 well meaning in his stupid way, and wholly 
 unselfish. Now no one could say as much 
 as this in favour of Sir Hugo. And, into 
 the bargain, he had been patronized — a 
 thing that no man likes at any time, and
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 241 
 
 is doubly irritating when the patronage is 
 absolutely uncalled-for and offered with 
 superfluous fuss and rustle of condescension. 
 
 And, as all these things recurred to him, 
 he in his own mind heartily and emphatic- 
 ally cursed the whole business from begin- 
 ning to End, and vowed with great fervour 
 that he would never again make such a fool 
 of himself. 
 
 This, of course, was wholly unnecessary, 
 as he had not made a fool of himself at 
 all. There is all the difference in the 
 world between making a fool of yourself 
 and being fooled by other people. The 
 last is a thing that may happen to the 
 strongest of men, especially if he be of 
 a generous disposition. 
 
 He thus then, as it were, drew a heavy 
 line down these pages of his diary to 
 
 VOL. I. B,
 
 242 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 show that they were finally settled and 
 done with, and so closed the book with 
 what in metaphor I will call a slam. 
 
 After all, the best and the fullest portion 
 of his life was still before him, and there 
 was no reason upon earth why he should 
 not use it wisely and enjoy it thoroughly. 
 There were no skeletons in his cupboard, 
 and if a man without a skeleton in his 
 cupboard cannot live happily and add 
 to the happiness of other people, there 
 must be some extraordinary defect in his 
 constitution. 
 
 There being no such defect in the con- 
 stitution of John Douglas, he, in a matter- 
 of-fact way worthy of the oldest coasting 
 skipper that ever yet trod deck, turned in, 
 and was almost immediately wrapped in 
 that sound sleep which we are taught to
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 243 
 
 believe is the peculiar privilege of the 
 just. 
 
 ■^ 7|J ¥fc % $fc 3f£ 
 
 At St. Austell Towers his letters pro- 
 duced very much the effect he had intended 
 they should. 
 
 Sir Hugo was glad that the thing was 
 over, a result which he put down entirely 
 to his own diplomacy, and upon which he 
 proportionately plumed himself. Lady St. 
 Austell was not a little nettled, but disposed 
 in a friendly way to make allowances. 
 She could not get it out of her head that 
 both Douglas and Marcia were very young 
 people who were all the better for a little 
 sound advice given at the proper moment, 
 and in a friendly manner. 
 
 There was once a benevolent old Scotch 
 dame who expressed her conviction of the 
 
 K 2
 
 244 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 devil that he would be " nae the waur for a 
 guid talking to." In a similar spirit of 
 broad philanthropy her ladyship felt that 
 Douglas had had his "talking to," and enter- 
 tained a firm hope that it had clone him good. 
 
 Marcia, with all her strength, was fairly 
 broken down ; and I do not know that 
 I can add anything to these two words 
 by any sort of expansion. All she could 
 see before her was a life as dull and 
 wearisome as the past, and with nothing 
 in it like the little pleasures of her child- 
 hood and girlhood under the genial Fraulein 
 to relieve its horrible monotony. 
 
 This is a crooked world, in which things 
 go crookedly and perversely. Had there 
 been at St. Austell Towers a single person 
 with any observation, common sense, and 
 moral courage — any one of such genuine
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 245 
 
 metal as that grand old lady, Miss Betsy 
 Trotwood — and who would have acted as 
 Marcia's friend, this miserable tangle would 
 have been seen and cut through. Mrs. 
 Jane Pontifex with her own " flap-doodle 
 and fudge " would have settled it in a 
 moment. Half, and more than half, the 
 unpleasantness in this world is due to moral 
 cowardice. 
 
 But the wretched Sir Hugo was not 
 yet out of his troubles. The full extent 
 of his misery was still unknown to him. 
 I think if ever any person in this world got 
 something like a share of the punishment 
 he deserved, it was that estimable father 
 when Lady St. Austell had to break to 
 him the terrible intelligence that Marcia 
 had actually so far forgotten her duty, 
 and everything else which a right-minded
 
 246 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 young woman ought to hold most sacred, 
 as to positively refuse the coronet which 
 that really excellent and genial young man, 
 Lord Norwich, had laid at her feet. 
 
 At first he refused altogether to believe 
 the thing. It was too monstrous. It was 
 out of the question. Then when he found 
 that he had got to believe it, he worked 
 himself into a passion which would have 
 brought a man of less methodical and 
 temperate habits dangerously near the verge 
 of apoplexy. 
 
 He felt that he should like to shake 
 Marcia, and lock her up in her room, and 
 feed her upon bread of affliction and water 
 of affliction for a good week or so. 
 
 He almost lamented that even stronger 
 measures were not possible. Besides, he 
 could not help seeing that he was left
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 247 
 
 in an awkward position as towards Lord 
 Norwich himself. Lord Norwich, he argued, 
 would think that he had been made a 
 fool of, and would be correspondingly 
 angry. 
 
 Now to such men as Sir Hugo the 
 anger of a peer in the position of Lord 
 Norwich is something more than a serious 
 thing. It is a very terrible matter indeed. 
 It may ruin him for life, or for so much 
 of life as he has left. 
 
 Sir Hugo, after all, was very ignorant 
 of the world as it now is — as ignorant 
 indeed as was that most profound scholar, 
 Dean Gaisford of Christ Church. 
 
 There came one day to Dean Gaisford 
 a young man who had taken a double 
 first, and who informed the learned editor 
 of Suidas (a most uncommonly useless
 
 248 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 author) that he intended to resign his 
 tutorship and to go to the Bar. 
 
 "To go to London/' said the Dean 
 doubtfully. " And how, sir, do you propose 
 to succeed in London ? " 
 
 The young man thus brought to book 
 replied modestly that he had a small 
 income, and he hoped reasonably fair 
 abilities. The Dean laughed in his face. 
 "Go to London if you like, sir," he said. 
 " Of course I cannot stop you. But take 
 my advice. Never mind your abilities, but 
 attach yourself, if you can, to some person 
 of position, and make yourself useful to 
 him." 
 
 Perhaps the Dean in those clays was 
 not altogether wrong. He would most 
 certainly be wrong now, when hardly a 
 minister except the Lord Chancellor has
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 249 
 
 any patronage at his disposal, and even 
 that most august of State officials dare 
 hardly perpetrate a downright job lest the 
 profession should prove too strong for him. 
 
 Patronage has now practically become a 
 public trust, and its exercise is jealously 
 scrutinized even in that most Conservative 
 of services — Her Majesty's. 
 
 Of all this, as of much else that had been 
 going on during the latter years of his 
 life, Sir Hugo was seriously and profoundly 
 ignorant, and if you had told him that 
 without powerful private friends behind 
 him. John Douglas w T ould certainlv become 
 a Judge, and very possible Lord Chief 
 Justice, he would charitably have put the 
 statement down to your inexperience. 
 
 Sir Hugo, accordingly, resolved to lie in 
 wait for Lord Norwich, to bring all his
 
 250 A Lcjcky Young Woman. 
 
 diplomacy to bear upon that young gen- 
 tleman, to plead all kinds of excuses for 
 Marcia — wilfulness, bewilderment, anything 
 you please — and so, in his own way, to 
 bring matters to a happy issue. 
 
 First of all he had a stormy interview 
 with his daughter, in which, I regret to say, 
 he used unseemly and indeed almost un- 
 clubable language. Then he extracted such 
 final words of consolation and advice as he 
 could from Lady St. Austell, before whom 
 he nervously paraded himself, like some 
 raw recruit under the inspection by a 
 general of more than average strength of 
 character and power of expression. Then 
 he fortified himself, according to his usual 
 custom, with his favourite curacoa and 
 brandy, and then he pulled himself together, 
 drew himself up to his full height, and went
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 251 
 
 at once in quest of Lord Norwich, lest his 
 courage, now fairly screwed to the sticking- 
 point, should in any way desert him. 
 
 Lord Norwich was easily found, and 
 received Sir Hugo most courteously. He 
 knew him to be a worthless, selfish man, 
 and felt an almost pitying contempt for 
 the game which his common sense had now 
 thoroughly seen through. 
 
 But he was too much a gentleman to 
 show anything of this to a man so much 
 older than himself, and who happened also 
 to be Marcia's father. So he received Sir 
 Hugo, and listened to what he had to say, 
 with every courtesy. Sir Hugo, of course, 
 made a long story of the matter, during 
 which he managed to talk an infinite deal 
 of nothing, until Lord Norwich, from being: 
 amused, became bored, and from being
 
 252 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 bored felt strongly disposed to let himself 
 become angry and to show it. 
 
 He was a simple young man, as I have 
 said, who hated to have a fuss made about 
 himself. However, he listened patiently. 
 
 With needless prolixity and iteration, 
 Sir Hugo set out that he was deeply dis- 
 tressed and humiliated ; that he had never 
 been so distressed before in his life ; that 
 he could only ascribe his daughter's ex- 
 traordinary conduct to caprice, and perhaps 
 ignorance ; that he had spoken to her himself 
 very seriously, and as he hoped a father 
 ought to speak under such astonishing 
 circumstances ; that Lady St. Austell herself 
 had most kindly undertaken to see Marcia 
 and to reason with her as her own dear 
 mother — and here out came the tear, and 
 after it the pocket-handkerchief to chase it
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 253 
 
 — would have done herself had she only 
 been spared ; that he was very unhappy, 
 but had great faith in Lady St. Austell, 
 who was known to Marcia as his best and 
 oldest friend, and as almost a second mother 
 to herself. 
 
 And having reached this point, he was 
 pumped out and collapsed feebly. These 
 felicitous sporting phrases are the only ones 
 I know in which to convey the situation. 
 
 Lord Norwich, to Sir Hugo's utter horror 
 and dismay, took the matter quite cheer- 
 fully, and in a most practical and business- 
 like manner. 
 
 " I assure you, Sir Hugo," he said, " that 
 I entertain the most sincere admiration for 
 Miss Conyers, who has treated me in this 
 matter with the greatest straightforward- 
 ness. I am also sensible how much I shall
 
 254 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 owe both to Lady St. Austell aud to your- 
 self for your kind offices. But I hardly 
 anticipate that they will end as you expect, 
 and I almost doubt if I should be doing 
 the right thing in again forcing myself, or 
 even appearing to force myself, upon your 
 daughter. She has given me the simplest 
 and very best reasons — reasons against 
 which nothing could be urged, and which 
 I was absolutely bound to respect — for her 
 decision. I regret it deeply, but for my 
 own part I do not see how it is to be 
 helped. My own feelings towards Miss 
 Conyers are entirely unchanged. They are, 
 in fact, stronger than ever. But I should 
 be simply doing a wrong thing if I made 
 myself a party in any way to forcing her 
 inclinations, and I ought to add that I have 
 no intention of doing so."
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 255 
 
 How easy it is to be honest if } t ou have 
 only the requisite amount of courage, and 
 how simple a way honesty is out of every 
 possible difficulty ! The frank avowal of 
 Lord Norwich came upon Sir Hugo with 
 all the dash and force of a waterspout. 
 An American backwoodsman, using his own 
 tongue, would have termed it a " slock- 
 dologer," and he would have been perfectly 
 right. 
 
 Sir Hugo, however, being a man callous 
 by this time, and not easily shamed, had no 
 intention of being put off in this manner. 
 Perhaps, his ready brain saw at once, the 
 marriage might be arranged after all. 
 Many a ship has ultimately been launched 
 which has two or three times stuck 
 obstinately in the stocks. Marcia no doubt 
 had a temper of her own. But if you
 
 256 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 bully, and pester, and bore, and cajole, and 
 entreat a woman from morning to night, 
 alternating between the methods, you may 
 ultimately get your way. Anyhow the one 
 thing to be done, clearly, was to gain time. 
 So Sir Hugo endeavoured to dip]omatize, 
 and to tide matters over. 
 
 I will not inflict his harangue upon my 
 readers. It was a sort of dying wriggle, and 
 occupied so much time that before it was 
 concluded Lord Norwich had so far for- 
 gotten the amenities of life as to sit with 
 his hands deeply thrust into his trousers 
 pockets, and to attentively contemplate the 
 tips of his boots. 
 
 " Give 'em line," he afterwards explained 
 when describing the interview. " Give 'em 
 line. Wait till they are blown. If you in- 
 terrupt them they get their second wind,
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 257 
 
 and the whole thingr has to be crone over 
 again." 
 
 So Sir Hugo ran himself out a second 
 time, and then remained more or less 
 breathless, and evidently of opinion that 
 there was no more to be said. This is a 
 habit many people have when they have 
 finished what they have got to say them- 
 selves. Lord Norwich, first waiting for 
 some twenty or thirty seconds of courtesy 
 then took up his parable. 
 
 "I am young, Sir Hugo," he said, "and 
 
 perhaps not very bright, but I know a 
 
 thine- or two. I know when a ladv means 
 
 what she says, and wishes you once and for 
 
 all to understand that she means it. It 
 
 is open to me, of course, to tell you plumplv 
 
 that Miss Conyers has refused me once, 
 
 and that I do not intend to subject myself 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 to the unpleasant experience of being re- 
 fused again. That would be rude on my 
 part, and it would be most unfair to Miss 
 Conyers, who has behaved very handsomely. 
 I have had my answer, and I have taken 
 it, and I have no present intention of 
 troubling Miss Conyers again. I think I 
 said before that we parted on the best 
 of terms, and with the best possible 
 understanding." 
 
 Checkmate ! Sir Hugo trotted out a 
 few sentences, always feeling it due to 
 himself, to his age, to his position in 
 society, and to a number of other things, 
 to have the last word. He had the last 
 word, or rather, the last hundred or so of 
 words, which it would have been unkind to 
 check, and then, as accountants would say, 
 the books were closed.
 
 A Lucky Young Woman. 25 9 
 
 Sir Hugo " doddered " off at random. 
 Lord Norwich went out into the open air. 
 If there is one thing which more than 
 another lets light upon a man's character, 
 it is his behaviour at the very moment 
 that the crisis is over. 
 
 When the jury returned into court with 
 their verdict of guilty, William Palmer of 
 Hugely, as the Judge was assuming the 
 black cap and the warders closed round 
 behind him in the dock — a custom with 
 warders, lest the convict should attempt 
 something violent or foolish — scribbled a 
 note in pencil, and handed it down to 
 his junior counsel. 
 
 " The riding did it." 
 
 Sir Hugo had not the strength of mind 
 or nerve of William Palmer. He was 
 perfectly aware that, somehow or other,
 
 2G0 A Lucky Young Woman. 
 
 the riding had done it. But he had not 
 sufficient philosophy in him to acquiesce in 
 the result. And his retreat from the inter- 
 view was consequently not so dignified as 
 it might have been. 
 
 Exit is the simple stage direction. But 
 there are more modes of exit than one. 
 And Sir Hugo, in stage parlance, did not 
 go off as effectively as he could have 
 wished. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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