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UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 BOOKSTACKS 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/lesleysguardians01webs 
 
hin J^u^tri^ 
 
 <J.uvi/i fl-y^^ t-^^-j ^I'r^D ^'^^ 
 
 LESLEY'S GUAEDIANS. 
 
■ i4 s 
 
LESLEY'S GUARDIANS. 
 
 BY 
 
 CECIL HOME. / 
 
 'CilYJ- 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Honbon antr CTambritfgE. 
 M2VCMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1864. 
 
 The Right of Translation and Jieproihiction is reserved. 
 
Cambrittffc : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY. M.A. 
 AT THE UNrV'ERSlTY VRESS. 
 
^23 
 . v. I 
 
 CONTENTS TO VOLUME I. 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGB 
 A BEIDE ELECT 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 MADEMOISELLE DESIREE 14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ■^ LESLEY'S SECRET 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I 
 
 (A LOUIS'g SECRET 42 
 
 ^ CHAPTER V. 
 
 I 
 
 r- love's labour LOST 59 
 
 4 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE WEDDING RING 74 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A FRESH START 96 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOW LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDING-DAY 117 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN SHOAL WATER 139 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A FEW YEARS BACK 152 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ANOTHER FRESH START 1S3 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LESLEY'S RIVAL 19.1 
 
CONTENTS. vil 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 TAGB 
 
 THE PRODIGAL RETURNED 212 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 REHEARSING AN OLD LESSON . . ' 239 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AN INVITATION TO A BALL 262 
 
LESLEY'S GUAEDIANS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A BRIDE ELECT. 
 
 "Oh Lesley, Lesley, will you never do anything 
 but dream? — when there is so much to be looked 
 to!" 
 
 She was sitting on the ground by the mndow, 
 with one dingy threadbare curtain drooping half 
 over her, looking out farther than sight, as one 
 does wdth dreaming eyes that do not care to see. 
 The sunbeams had left her, tliey streamed a pale 
 good bye through the window at the other end of 
 the narrow room, but she w^as in the dusk. Out- 
 side, opposite her, the clouds were didl grey above 
 huddled housetops. Little beauty to gaze at with 
 VOL L 1 
 
2 LESLEY .S GUARDLVXS. 
 
 such earnestness that she should not even hear her 
 mother's fretting voice ; but Lesley was dreaming. 
 
 " Child, where are your brains gone woolgather- 
 ing now? Can't you hear me even ?'' 
 
 She turned round with an odd flicker of a smile, 
 as if she smiled from the force of pleasant habit 
 and not in unison with her mood now. She was 
 very pretty, with eyes that not beautiful in them- 
 selves made her beautiful, of the grey colour of 
 deep i)ure water shadowed on a sunny day, chang- 
 ing like the shades on water, and leaf-brown hair 
 that Avould glitter in its waves under the sunbeams, 
 and through which, even in that still light, the gold 
 threads showed like a fine dust of metal scattered 
 among the darker masses. She was fair and rose- 
 cheeked, with an English face ; but when she spoke 
 there was an edio rather than accent of French, 
 and she called her mother " thou." 
 
 "Did I not answer thee, dear mother?" She 
 was fond of that sweet homely title, and, not 
 knowing it was a vulgar one, chiefly used it wlien 
 more fashionable daughters would have said mama. 
 "Did I not answer thee, dear mother? In Eiio:- 
 
A BRIDE ELECT. 3 
 
 land I, who am not a great lady, must be married 
 iu a bonnet, must I not? But thou, surely, must 
 know best/' 
 
 "Why, Lesley! I asked j^ou that and you an- 
 swered a quarter of an hour ago! You really 
 must not give way to this absence. What loill 
 INIonsieur de TAubonne think of you?" 
 
 Lesley blushed painfully. " Little mother, thou 
 must not scold me ; we are to be separated so soon. 
 I was thinking so much — so much — I did not hear 
 that thou liadst spoken to me since. I am not 
 happy when I think, now." 
 
 "Whynot, Kttleone?" 
 
 "I like thee to call me that, mama; it sounds 
 kinder than our English ways." 
 
 Mrs Hawthorn came near and laid her hand 
 fondly on her daughter's head. 
 
 "You are glad that we always speak English 
 together, Lesley, and my English will not fit well 
 to the thou you are so fond of. Tn is natural in 
 French, but we are English." 
 
 " Yes, little mother, I am glad you made me an 
 
 English girl." 
 
 1 
 
4 LESLEY S GUARDL\N.«. 
 
 Still Lesley sighed a little wearily, leaning her 
 head against her mother's knee while she kept her 
 seat on the ground at the end of the low couch by 
 the window where i\Irs Hawthorn had now placed 
 herself. jNIrs Hawthorn sighed too with a silent 
 regret that her English girl would not also be 
 an English wife. Mrs Hawthorn Avas always re- 
 gretting: her life went on its own way, or some- 
 body else's way, while she was still deciding how it 
 had better be, and she remained pondering on the 
 evils that reached her with a vague impression that 
 tliere had been mismanagement somewhere, that if 
 she had been allowed to rule matters all would 
 have been well. She was not desponding or melan- 
 choly, but lamenting. 
 
 She had married a Frenchman and had been on 
 the whole a happy wife, but there could not but 
 be many a fret and jar fi'om want of ethical con- 
 geniality and intercomprehensiou in such a union. 
 These she bore in mind, and forgot to weigh 
 against them the blessings that were and the un- 
 blessed might-have-beens that were not. So, in 
 spite of a very loving recollection of her husband 
 
A BRIt)E ELECT. 5 
 
 l3ing now in the cemetery of jNfont Parnasse, she 
 sighed tliat lier Lesley should marry a Frenchman. 
 
 But she would have sighed more, and with, it 
 may be, a little bitterness, if Lesley had refused 
 lier fine suitor with his title of Marquis and his 
 rich prospects. 
 
 Lesley did not refuse him : she loved him. 
 
 "Little one," said the care-faced woman after a 
 while, " you might tell me why you are not happy." 
 
 " I am happy, mother — only — only thinking is sad. 
 I fear lest I should doubt Louis — which would be 
 wrong, treacherous — when I try to foresee these 
 tilings. And yet I must shrink from uncertainty." 
 
 "Are you uncertain, Lesley? you seemed so 
 positive." 
 
 " Only positive that I love him, mama." 
 
 Lesley was half French, after all. English girls 
 do not say "I love him," even to the kindest 
 mothers. Lihe, care for, do duty for the word 
 tliat, like some term of religion too sacred for 
 common talk and made ridiculous by contrast if 
 used except in prayer, is almost impossible upon 
 their lips. 
 
6 LESLEY S GUARDIANS. 
 
 "Then you think him \^Tong, after all, to have 
 you marry against the wish of his family?" sug- 
 gested Mrs Hawthorn, in a doubting tone. 
 
 "Wrong? Oh no mother," cried Lesley, her face 
 burning with her eagerness. "How can he be 
 wrong not to marry a woman he disHkes and 
 ridicules, to f)lease them and secure her for- 
 tune?" 
 
 " But he need not marry you then." 
 
 "Ah, no," said the girl, sadly, "he need not." 
 
 Mrs Hawthorn felt hardly satisfied with the 
 course the conversation was taking. Till now she 
 had been much rested in Lesley's own innocent 
 boldness through all this business. That Lesley 
 should seem unsettled in her opinion now left her 
 ill at ease. " But you forget, dear child," she said 
 presently, " that Louis de 1' Aubonne made almost 
 a kind of vow to liis i)arents that he would marry 
 his laide doree, as he calls her, or soiiie oiie else 
 suitable, before next year." 
 
 Lesley listened as if she had never heard it 
 before. 
 
 "Yes," she said, in the tone that means " go on." 
 
A BRIDE ELECT. 7 
 
 "And you see," continued her mother, "that, 
 when they allowed him to say that about some 
 other suitable person, they meant to keep the same 
 clieck on him still by only consenting to his mar- 
 riage with a rich w^oman." 
 
 "And I am poor," sighed the girl. 
 
 " Yes ; and, as he says, under ordinary circum- 
 stances they could prevent his marrying you, as 
 they will his marrying any body else, excepting 
 this choice of their own — or some choice of tlieir 
 own — at any rate some one with money enough 
 to tempt them to give up this one — which is not 
 a likely thing to find. But you, being half Eng- 
 lish at the least and marrying in England, are 
 independent of their consent. So that you are 
 the only person w^ho could save him from being 
 forced, poor fellow, into what we English think 
 the sin of a loveless marriage — A marriage for 
 money — Ah, it's contemptible!" said Mrs Haw- 
 thorn, who on this point at least had a strong 
 and settled opinion. 
 
 "Yes, it is true; we have said it many many 
 times," said Lesley. " I shall save him where per- 
 
8 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 haps his own will mi^ht be overruled by temptations 
 and persuasions — if it were not that I do not be- 
 lieve even him when he fears that he could be 
 brought to do that, since it is not honourable. 
 But it is so different from all my fancy when 
 I first knew that he liked me. He thought 
 then his mother would receive me because it 
 would make him happy. Ah, dear mother, it is 
 so sad to know I am to make her turn away from 
 him." 
 
 "So it is — yes — it is unfortunate. And you 
 know, Lesley, I always said that had to be con- 
 sidered. Yes, to be sure, it is she who is to 
 blame — of course we should never consent to this 
 now if it were not that they are driving him into 
 a marriage that is hateful to him. That is his 
 excuse in the matter, though. But Jie is very 
 sure that this is the only way — as he said to me 
 this morning, ^Your daughter saves me from a 
 whole life of unhappiness.'" 
 
 " Yes, and I lead him to outrage his family," said 
 Lesley, in a sad hushed voice. But immediately 
 she added more quickly, " But he is indeed right ; 
 
A BRIDE ELECT. 9 
 
 this restraint in sucli a matter over a young man 
 old enough to judge of his own duty is wrong, is 
 unbearable for him." 
 
 " Wrong indeed ! and an extraordinary custom 
 in a country where the little boys in tunics be- 
 have themselves like gro^vn dandies and bow to 
 you over their little formal speeches, as if they 
 were so many actors. Ah, you should see our 
 bright-faced English schoolboys, Lesley, at their 
 cricket and football." 
 
 "I shall soon, perhaps," said Lesley, with a 
 faint smile. 
 
 "Well?" Her mother returned to the subject 
 left a moment for recollections of fair-haired little 
 brothers who had long since groT\7i into men and 
 who, excepting one she believed, were dead now — 
 brothers living and dying estranged from the 
 sister who, wilful for once, or rather obedient to 
 a dearer will than theirs, had let a foreigner per- 
 suade her to brave the resentment of her relations. 
 The foreigner was poor, which made the resent- 
 ment implacable. For Mary Lesley came of a 
 grasping loveless race. But she herself had in- 
 
10 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 herited some of the tenderness and even romance 
 (so little like the Lesleys) of a gentle mother, who 
 died before her daughter's marriage. ''Well?" 
 said Mrs Hawthorn. 
 
 It was a question put with no very positive 
 meaning in the speaker's thought, but intended 
 to draw forth some positive answer. 
 
 " I am pained, mother, remembering that happy 
 brides should marry surrounded by their friends 
 and be welcomed into their new life by second 
 parents and new brothers and sisters, and I go to 
 my wedding like a fugitive escaping from the laws, 
 and his family will say, 'Louis is not one of us 
 now.' And ah, if he should repent some day ! He 
 noble and born to riches to drag himself down to 
 my humbleness and poverty." 
 
 "For humbleness," said IVtrs Hawthorn, drawing 
 herself up; ''better families than your father's 
 and mine they will not find among all their 
 Gascon heiresses, although we have no title to 
 claim." 
 
 " But they do not care to ask our descent. We 
 live in a poor quarter as the poor live. I labour 
 
A BRIDE ELECT. 11 
 
 hard to learn my art that I may support myself. 
 What should these rich have to say to us?" 
 
 " That is tnie, child, and I have always told you 
 I ha'd fears about this marriage. Still, to marry at 
 all, you must marry some one richer than yourself, 
 and more or less makes little diiFerence. Wlio- 
 ever he is he will remember that he had a full 
 purse to your empty one, whether he had it filled 
 with gold or silver." 
 
 *^ Louis will not count that w^ay," said Lesley, 
 proudly; "think, mama, he does not hesitate to 
 lose all for me." 
 
 " Yes, his purse will not be ovei'fiUed, more's the 
 pity. You will have to fight against the world till 
 his father dies, and be but half well off then. And 
 you don't know, Lesley, what it is to struggle 
 against poverty in that way, when you have to 
 keep up the appearance of luxuries and dare not 
 allow yourself common comforts. We are willing 
 to live like poor people and make the best of it : 
 it will be a different thing, I am afraid, a very dif- 
 ferent thing, when you have a husband who never 
 knew what it was to go without whatever he took 
 
12 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 it into his head to want, and he feeling that his 
 marriage has done it all. If he could only have 
 persuaded his godfather! But we have gone so 
 far now " 
 
 "Oh, mother!" 
 
 "Well, Lesley, I only Avish you to decide," said 
 Mrs Hawthorn, deprecatingly. 
 
 "Mother, we have decided^ 
 
 " WCj no, little one, the decision was none of 
 mine. I could not see any certainty of your wel- 
 ftxre — and yet it seems foolish too to make him and 
 you miserable for — But it was not I who settled 
 it." 
 
 "Mother, I have decided." 
 
 " My dear child, remember what you are doing. 
 You told me you were wavering just now." 
 
 "I never wavered, mama. I was only sad." 
 
 And Lesley Hawthorn rising drew the curtains 
 over the windows through Avhich the stars of the 
 April evening were peering at her now, lit the 
 little lamp on the table and touched tlie graceful 
 bouquets in their small white vases into their most 
 graceful effects to make the room look j^leasanter 
 
A BRIDE ELECT. 13 
 
 in tlie eyes of some one coming presently — some 
 one who would hardly look at anything else in 
 it, nevertheless, with her there. 
 She loved this Louis de I'Aubonne. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DESIREE. 
 
 Out in the bright sunshine, brightening with it as 
 she went, passed Lesley Hawthorn next morning 
 through the irregular narrow streets that not 
 even that pure-skied spring day could smile out 
 of their heaviness. For she lived iu one of the 
 dingy streets of the dingy neighbourhood between 
 the Palais des Beaux Arts and the Rue de la 
 Harpe, and her way ran through a little labyrinth 
 of like dingy streets. She was too young and too 
 far removed in appearance from even the highest 
 classes of Avorkwomen to be properly entitled to 
 walk alone in that great discourteous courteous 
 Paris, but her English look seemed to explain it 
 to the passers by, who thought (those who noticed 
 her), "Tieus! what strange freedom these young 
 
MADEMOISELLE DESIRI^E. 15 
 
 English girls have ; it is wonderful that they do 
 not abuse it!" and the confidence of her proud 
 modesty protected her from annoyance, ^ow and 
 then a compliment muttered beneath a moustache 
 (the oftenest a grey one, too), caught her ear, or 
 some blouse-clad workman or slouching soldier ex- 
 claimed in a louder tone, " Oh la belle Anglaise ! 
 comme 9a est jolie !" but Lesley, who had lived all 
 her life in Paris, was too familiar with such passing 
 remarks, even when she was under all the cer- 
 tificated chaperonage for a young lady, to be dis- 
 turbed, and no one attempted to address her 
 directly. So she moved onwards blithely and 
 fearlessly, in her simple print morning dress, with 
 her little sheaf of brushes in her hand as a kind 
 of proof that she was out on business. 
 
 She turned presently into a crooked short street 
 which should have been called a passage. Here, 
 the third of a row of tall gaunt houses, stood one 
 which some centuries ago had doubtless been 
 no contemptible residence for persons of an order 
 that now ignored the very existence of this di- 
 lapidated old Rue du Gougeon, but which now 
 
16 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 had its degradation written all over its drear}' 
 face. It was many stories liigli, with worn-down 
 knots of stone tracery adorning its Innumerable 
 windows and a defaced stone shield, every trace of 
 what had once been borne on it gone, over the 
 low arch of the porte cochere, under Avliich on 
 one side the concierge's door, thrown open, allowed 
 a view of a wide oaken staircase, very low and 
 broad in the steps, with massive carved banisters. 
 It looked poverty struck, with a kind of despair- 
 ing helplessness that none of its less pretentious 
 neighbours could imitate — a house that saddened 
 you to look at, seeming, like that inexorable IMari- 
 ner, to stop you in order to force sorrowfid tales 
 upon your thoughts and make you, if wiser, sadder 
 too, and, as all such houses in Paris do, to be 
 mixed up somehow with the crimes and the mise- 
 ries of that weary Terror. 
 
 But, not to count the Sundays, there had not 
 been many days in the last six yeai'S in which 
 this young girl had not seen the decayed mansion, 
 and it could not sadden her — pleasant thoughts 
 belonged to it in her mind, and the pursuit which 
 
MADEMOISELLE DESTRl^E. 17 
 
 for all that time, until she knew Louis de FAu- 
 bonne, had been tlie chief interest of her life 
 could not be remembered apart from it. She 
 smiled to it unconsciously as if to a familiar friend, 
 and ran lightly up step after step, higher and 
 higher, only pausing to speak cheerily to the little 
 bro^m-faced boys nodding to her from the thresh- 
 hold of one of the apartments on the rez-de- 
 chausse, and to caress more than one purring cat 
 basking in the sunshine of the landing-window 
 on their respective owners' stories, till she gained 
 the troisitnie and the door of numero vingt. 
 Xumero vingt was hospitably open, and she passed 
 in without knocking or announcing herself: she 
 was always expected at this time, and always wel- 
 come at any. 
 
 "You are late, Mile. Desiree," said Mde. Bau- 
 doyer a little acidly. Lesley was still nominally 
 her pupil, and ^ladame had her importance to 
 keep up in the eyes of the other pupils. And 
 Lesley was at least half an hour behindhand, and 
 this not for the first time that week. 
 
 "Chere grognarde," said Lesley, "I was kept 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
18 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 long from sleep last night, and slept late this 
 morning to make up for it. You know I am not 
 successful in my painting if I come fatigued." 
 
 "But how will you make an industry of your 
 art, to live by it, if you allow yourself such idle- 
 ness, careless child?" returned her monitress, who, 
 already appeased as she was, had her part to play 
 and would not drop beneath it. 
 
 "Then I must make my pleasure of it," said 
 the reproved Mile. Desiree, blusliing at her own 
 secret meaning, " and find another occupation for 
 my industrious hours." 
 
 Mde. Baudoyer looked amazement, but while 
 she was still shutting her lips tight to prepare 
 for opening them to speak, the opportunity was 
 lost. 
 
 "Is that our idle Desiree?" called a creaking 
 voice from an inner room ; " hasten her here, then, 
 chere amie, I wait for her." And Lesley, carefully 
 laying her little straw bonnet and black silk 
 mantle on a ruined looking couch, where already 
 lay three straw bonnets and tliree black silk 
 mantles verv like hers when off but verv unlike 
 
MADEMOISELLE DESIRI^E. 19 
 
 and inferior to hers when on, hurried to her im- 
 patient master. 
 
 JNIde. Baudoyer remained in her amazement. 
 No pupil had ever laboured so diligently as Desiree 
 to master the mechanical difficulties of her art, 
 determined as she was to make it " an industry" — 
 none had shewn so decided an intention to abide 
 by it through success and ill success. And the 
 girl had been so proud recently when she had 
 begun to have her earnings by her brush, small 
 though they necessarily were as yet, she too, 
 like her master and her rival M. Baudoyer, as she 
 laughingly said. And now such a surprising fickle- 
 ness ! such a strange levity in one who had been 
 accustomed to talk of her profession so seriously ! 
 IMde. Baudoyer recovered very slowly. 
 
 Then she arranged her red shawl carefully 
 (Mde. Baudoyer would not have felt herself dressed 
 without a shawl), shook its folds more evenly over 
 her little plump person, smoothed down her bands 
 of black and white hair with both hands, and 
 looked earnestly in the bleared glass over the 
 mantel shelf, as if to make sure that the dignity 
 
 2—2 
 
20 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 of her appearance was such as might still im- 
 press her three busy pupils at their drawing- 
 boards with the proper reverence, in spite of the 
 shock she had suffered from her most promising 
 young artist's surprising demeanour. 
 
 " Mesdemoiselles," she said solemnly, "^Ille. 
 Desiree speaks heedlessly this morning, but I 
 need not remind you that none have been more 
 zealous in their course of study than she has. 
 Permit me to pray you to follow her excellent 
 example in that. And to you, Mile. Elise, I may 
 address myself the more urgently that my hus- 
 band proposes, if you continue to display talent 
 and perseverance, to bestow on you, as on IMUe. 
 Desiree, the benefit of his own instruction. — I 
 may mention that it is at her suggestion." 
 
 Pale Elise crimsoned with j)leasure, and Lesley, 
 hearing this harangue as she stood at her easel 
 in the little room between Mde. Baudoyer's par- 
 lour and class room and M. Baudoyer's own paint- 
 er's sanctum, thought, "Ah! I hope Elise will 
 take my j)lace and console these good people for 
 the disappointment I shall cause them." 
 
MADEMOISELLE DESIREE. 21 
 
 Pencils and brushes worked away busily for 
 two or three hours: then there was an interval. 
 The girls spread out their small lunches, brought 
 with them, on their table; Mde. Baudoyer dis- 
 appeared into unknown regions — not, you may 
 be sure, into the sitting room, that carefully 
 guarded salon which was only made use of at 
 the new year and other ceremonial occasions. 
 Lesley continued steadily at work on the copy 
 she was making of her master's favourite Holy 
 Family. 
 
 "Why did you not rest also?" asked Mde. 
 Baudoyer of her as coming back through her 
 husband's studio by-and-by she found her thus 
 busy, while in the outer room the other pupils 
 were laughing and chattering, even Elise not yet 
 preparing to resume her work. 
 
 "I was not hungry or tired," answered Lesley, 
 " and I am anxious to finish this copy." 
 
 " But you have plenty of time, Desiree ; it is not 
 expected to be finished before the beginning of 
 next month. — ^ly dear, you need not labour so to 
 do that." 
 
22 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 For Mde. Baudoyer felt a remorseful fear lest 
 her little lecture had made the girl overtask her 
 strength. 
 
 Lesley only smiled, a little sadly. Mde. Bau- 
 doyer went back to her pupils sometliing uneasy, 
 she did not understand her favourite to-day. 
 
 The day grew late, and one by one the pupils 
 went to their homes, but Lesley remained. " To- 
 day I will stay with you if you will," she said — 
 "When it is later a friend will come to take 
 me home." 
 
 "You are but too welcome, my child," said 
 the old painter, who had come out of his den 
 now, and "That is charming," said the smiling 
 Mde. Baudoyer, all her little pompousness van- 
 ished with the pupils. 
 
 '^Then I shall help you to prepare," said 
 Lesley. And to and fro she went, armngiug the 
 room so as to allow some possibility of a table 
 being spread for the dinner expected from the 
 restaurant in the next street. For Jean the 
 concierge, and his wife, who for a small stipend 
 so far waited on the painter's housekeeping neces- 
 
MADEMOISELLE DESIRE E. 23 
 
 sities as to clean the rooms (when they were al- 
 lowed to do so) and lay out the breakfast, did 
 not consider the care of the dinner table among 
 tlie duties they had undertaken. "Every one 
 dines at a restaurant in these circumstances," 
 they considered. 
 
 Lesley was used to her present operations. " Sit 
 down, madame," she said with pretty imperious- 
 ness — "I do this to-day." — "Ah, no," she urged 
 in answer to the good housewife's remonstrances, 
 "I must do it all to-day — as if it were the last 
 time." 
 
 "Desiree! what do you mean? You have a 
 little tear on your cheek!" 
 
 "When we sit quietly after dinner I shall tell 
 you what I mean. Now I must arrange — see, 
 here is an angel w^ho must leave off flying from 
 that bar just over the table for a little, his 
 wings would be in the soup. — I do not like that 
 'ecorche' opposite to me while I eat, that gives 
 me an unpleasant feeling, let him go away into 
 this corner, poor fellow. — I can sit on this chair 
 without disarranging the folds of the mantle, 
 
24 Lesley's guaediaxs. 
 
 M. Baudoyer, but you really should not make lay 
 blocks of all your furniture." 
 
 "What should I do then, impertment?" said 
 Pierre Baudoyer, laughing. "There was nothing 
 else disencumbered." 
 
 " You must buy a great arm chair for yourself 
 and one for your wife and a pretty chair for 
 Elise, and you must put nothing on them but 
 yourselves." 
 
 " I am not extravagant, child, as you know, and 
 I am not rich yet — and Elise does not come to 
 dine with us." 
 
 " But she will by-and-by — you must make 
 much of her, she has more talent than I have — 
 more genius, certainly — only as yet she has not 
 been so much in earnest ; and then you know you 
 have taught me since I was a child. You will 
 be proud of her when you have praised her a 
 little so as to give her courage to work ; you must 
 think much of her to please me." 
 
 "And your chair, Desiree, what is it to be?" 
 asked Mde. Baudoyer suspiciously. Did Desii-ee 
 mean to leave them? she thought. 
 
MADEMOISELLE DESIREE. 25 
 
 "How hard your room is to make neat," con- 
 tinued Lesley, flitting about her task. "See, 
 how can you sit with this easel right at your 
 elbow as you dine? You would certainly knock 
 it down, picture and all — and look, this pallet all 
 over paint on the table where the dessert should 
 be put till we want it." 
 
 It was certainly hard to make that room neat. 
 Pictures finished and unfinished were on the walls, 
 on the ground, on the seats, everywhere; little 
 stucco figures, serving by turns as angelets and 
 cupids, dangled fi-om the ceiling and in the win- 
 dows ; casts, some of them broken, were scattered 
 here and there, among them that unhapj^y flayed 
 figure to whose company at dinner Lesley had 
 objected ; draperies were artistically tumbled over 
 the backs of the chairs and drooped from the 
 doors, as studies for the work of either the 
 Baudoyers or their pupils ; the chiffonier was 
 chiefly used to keep colour boxes and drawings 
 in, and on which of the three tables, two with 
 straggling claws square and short, and one with 
 lank spider legs narroAV and high, was the right 
 
26 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 one for dinner, it Avonld have puzzled any one 
 without Lesley Hawthorn's experience to say, so 
 encumbered were they with heterogeneous objects, 
 models mostly for the pictorial studies continually 
 going on in these i^recincts. But Lesley under- 
 stood all about it, and by the time the little basins 
 of soup were sent from the restaurateur's Avith the 
 "portions" of meat, vegetable or pastr}', which 
 she, determined to do all herself, arranged on the 
 small portable cooking stove to keep waim, her 
 table Avas set out and looking as nearly comfortable 
 as circumstances and the un-Frenclmess of the 
 word would admit. 
 
 " How is it you make my dingy room so smart 
 all at once, little fairy?" asked M. Baudoyer, 
 nodding to his wife to express his admii-ation of 
 their favourite. 
 
 "English fairies are used to such work," an- 
 swered Lesley ; " tliat is what they do to reward 
 those that are kind to them; but they come by 
 stealth." "And then," she added softly, "a change 
 comes suddenly one day, and they never come 
 back to their work again." 
 
MADEMOISELLE DESlllEE. 27 
 
 "Desiree! you are going to leave us," cried Mde. 
 Baudoyer. 
 
 "After dinner I mil tell you all about it. You 
 will sit and talk with me, instead of your evening 
 walk for once. I have to wish you good-bye for 
 a little while, dear friends." 
 
 "Desiree!" cried two voices at once. 
 
 "Chut! do you hear the dinner clattering up 
 the stairs? I must open the dbor for it — No indeed 
 I will not tell you till I have an hour, yes a whole 
 hour to do it in." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LESLEY S SECRET. 
 
 These three friends were sitting very silent ; the 
 older pair looked at Lesley and thought, and 
 looked at each other and thought, and looked at 
 Lesley again. She sat on a Ioav stool between 
 them, looking into the fire, with her head leant on 
 her hand in her favourite position ; some tears still 
 lingered under her drooped eyelids; the j)ainter 
 and his wife did not smile now for the mere 
 looking at her, as they did before ; Mde. Baudoyer's 
 plump cheeks were glistening damply, and her 
 husband's face was a whole network of fretted 
 wrinkles. 
 
 For Lesley had told her secret ; they knew now 
 that she was going to-morrow mth her mother to 
 England, there to be married in three weeks' time ; 
 
Lesley's secret. 29 
 
 and, tliough she would return to Paris, their 
 darling pupil was lost to them. 
 
 The evening was coming near now, and, although 
 they did not suspect it, Lesley was already listening 
 to every step on the great staircase, to recognize 
 the one she was waiting for. 
 
 "So then we are in fact saying good-bye for 
 always," said M. Baudoyer at last. 
 
 " Oh no, no, truly — shall I not still love my old 
 friends?" 
 
 " It will not be the same, my child. You marry a 
 nobleman, rich even as it is, even if he must lose 
 the succession of his godfather — proud also. He is 
 frank and friendly with the old painter folk who 
 come from his country and knew him as a boy — 
 almost as frank and friendly as j\I. Paul — but he 
 will not have his mfe one of us. We must accept 
 things in their truth." 
 
 "But I too am proud," cried Lesley, "and 
 yet — " the sentence was not easy to finish -without 
 injuring its meaning. 
 
 "There is pride and pride," said Pierre Bau- 
 doyer ; " and how things must be one sees plainly. 
 
30 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 And now will you tell us how this came to 
 pass ? " 
 
 "You know when I first saw him — that was 
 when he came to pay you a visit the first time and 
 said so pleasantly, ' It does me good to see my old 
 friends again/ and took both your hands in his, 
 yours and ]\Iadame's at the same* time. That 
 interested me in him, because he had such warm 
 feelings. And you know his friend that had come 
 with him to buy the picture never attended to 
 what you were saying at all, but stared at me till I 
 was pained, and made me impertinent compli- 
 ments, but Louis turned to him angrily and mut- 
 tered to him, ^AYliy do you not shew respect to 
 this young girl, who you can see deserves it?' 
 And though he scarcely spoke to me he shewed 
 me a deference that flattered me. So, though I 
 did not love him — as one says love — I did not for- 
 get him, and when I saw that a gentleman watched 
 me from a distance whenever I came here I knew 
 well who he was. After a little he used to meet 
 me always when I came out from my home to come 
 here and when I returned, and bow to me, fixing 
 
Lesley's secret. 31 
 
 his e3^es. I returned tlie bow but always looked 
 away quickly, for I was ashamed of his folloA\ing 
 me so. And yet, do you know, I am afraid I was 
 not really sorry he did. But he saw that I did 
 not mean to allow him ever to speak to me, so he 
 ceased to meet me and without my knowing it he 
 was always watching for my mother, to try to 
 make an acquaintance with her. At last one day 
 she dropped her victorine from her neck without 
 knowing it, and he picked it up and followed her 
 with it; and when she came to know where she 
 had dropped it and how far he had come after her 
 to give it her she could not but thank him very 
 cordially ; so it came that she seemed to know him 
 when they met and they became as it were ac- 
 quaintances. After that he contrived so as to join 
 us when I was with her sometimes and to make a 
 pretext for paying us a visit. Only when my 
 mother saw what he thought of she grew frigh^t- 
 ened and pleased both at once and went one way 
 one time and another the next, because she could 
 not make up her mind about him ; but it was too 
 late to keep him from coming then. And I was 
 
32 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 never frightened ; I perceived the nobleness of Lis 
 character too well. You know him, dear friends, 
 you know what he is. So when he wished so much 
 —when he said I held all his happiness in my 
 hands, how could I refuse it to him? He will 
 bring me back to France as his wife, and then his 
 parents can no longer distress him about that 
 hateful marriage with the ugly stupid heiress. 
 And he says his mother is so gentle I shall soon 
 be able to make her love me." 
 
 'Tor the parents I do not say," returned the 
 painter ; " but M. de Fourrere is not likely to be so 
 easily appeased. And the best of M. Louis's pro- 
 spects will be lost mth his anger." 
 
 " Ah ! Louis does not value fortune so much ; he 
 will still not be quite poor with his share of the 
 family inheritance. And he says too his mother 
 and his brother who loves him so much will suc- 
 ceed in pacifying his godfather." 
 
 " Not so easily, my child ; I know 'M. de Fourrere. 
 But we will not speak of that ; if M. Louis is con- 
 tent to risk that it is well ; I at least know he gains 
 more in you. But are you certain you take a safe 
 
Lesley's secret. 33 
 
 step ill tliis marriage ? It will be protested against 
 by the family without doubt. Do you not risk too 
 much?" 
 
 " It is an English marriage," replied Lesley con- 
 fidentl} , " over which, since he is more than of age 
 there — for he is nearly twenty four — his parents 
 have no control. And / have my mother's sanc- 
 tion and presence. And it is quite seemly that I 
 should marry in England ; you know I am rightly 
 English, since my father also was of English 
 origin." 
 
 " You know this of the English marriage surely T' 
 
 "Yes; from Louis and from my mother both." 
 
 "Well then, you have perhaps not decided so 
 unwisely — provided that M. Louis does not repine 
 for the loss of the great inheritance from his god- 
 father. If it were M. Paul only ! " 
 
 " M. Baudoyer ! you know M. Paul is not better, 
 not warmer hearted than Louis." 
 
 "No; but he is lighter-hearted, my dear child, 
 and never regrets." 
 
 " Wliat I still dislike," interposed j\Ide. Baudoyer, 
 *'is this flying in the face of iSI. Louis's family." 
 
 VOL. T. 3 
 
o4 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 *^That pains me," said Lesley, sadly. 
 
 "That is bad," said M. Baudoyer speaking at 
 the same moment; "yet under the circumstances 
 one can excuse it — another marriage being forced 
 upon him — and these young creatures love — " 
 
 "I do not approve of these love matches," inter- 
 rupted his wife, getting cross under her vexation 
 at losing their beloved Desiree ; " they do not con- 
 tinue happy. Young people follow their foolish 
 fancies in them instead of trusting to the experi- 
 ence of their friends wliose age and discretion fits 
 them to choose for them, and what can be ex- 
 pected from it?" 
 
 "My mother approves," murmured Lesley. 
 
 "Yes, to please you. It should be you who 
 agree to her choice to i)lease her." 
 
 "But she could not tell whom I loved." 
 
 "The folly!" ejaculated Mde. Baudoyer, raising 
 her hands to express her astonishment at such a 
 entiment from a well trained girl ; " and how could 
 a young girl who respected herself think of loving 
 a man before he was presented to her as her future 
 husband? And of course she would feci it her 
 
Lesley's secret. 35 
 
 duty to love him when that had happened, aud 
 she would be quite safe then since her family had 
 considered him suitable for it. But trust a young 
 girl's j)rudence in such a choice ! Bon ! " 
 
 " x\m I not then a young girl who respects her- 
 self?" asked Lesley indignantly, " I who loved Louis 
 because he loved me?" Mde. Baudoyer softened 
 immediately. "The best, the most modest child," 
 she exclaimed, smoothing Lesley's shimmering 
 tresses. But you have been brought up like an 
 English girl, and love matches are esteemed among 
 them. But it must be truly a dangerous system." 
 
 "Yet we have not been unhappy, my friend," 
 said her husband slily. 
 
 Mde. Baudoyer started at the home thrust ; 
 it was shameful to attack her thus at such a 
 moment, when she must seem to have pronounced 
 her own condemnation; she fired at the outrage. 
 " How ! Do you mean to accuse me, Pierre Bau- 
 doyer ? Why then should we have been unhappy ? 
 Certainly our marriage had no folly in it but was 
 properly arranged for us by oui* relations. I am 
 
36 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 surprised that thou shouldst wish Desiree to be- 
 lieve otherwise." 
 
 " But had I never danced with a young girl at 
 a ball and trembled as I spoke to her ? And had 
 I never seen a face that was the prettiest and 
 dearest I knew, and painted it in all my pictures 
 till it became a jest that Pierre Baud oyer had 
 only once seen a woman's face ? And did no one 
 always blush crimson when she saw me, and put 
 white flowers into her hair because I liked them 
 best on her?" 
 
 Madame Baudoyer was appeased again ; her 
 husband spoke with a certain tenderness in his 
 teasing, and she remembered those old days as 
 kindly as he : still she must maintain her reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 "That may be true indeed, but did not our 
 parents meet and say, * So much my son will have ; 
 so much is my daughter's portion — they will suit 
 each other ; he will be a great painter, and she, 
 who has her poor little talent for his art, will be 
 able to assist, working under him :' and so arrange 
 
LESLEY'S SECRET. 37 
 
 * 
 
 it all, before we said one word of our wishes to 
 each other?" 
 
 "Yes,'* was the obstinate reply — "Our parents 
 approved to please us — not, dost thou see, we to 
 please them." 
 
 Lesley arrested ^Ide. Baudoyer's revived anger : 
 "You will see Louis presently; he is coming to 
 walk home with me." 
 
 " My dear ! walk home with you ' alone ! a 
 young man ! But — " Mde. Baudoyer became 
 breathless with horror. 
 
 "He is my betrothed," said Lesley quietly, 
 though she blushed. "English young ladies do 
 thus." 
 
 " But it is dreadfid ! it is immoral ! 'What does 
 your mother say ?" 
 
 "She asked him to come for me that I might 
 stay a little while later with you. It will be be- 
 ginning to groAV dusk now when I reach home." 
 
 A knock sounded on the door at the moment, 
 and a hard yet pleasant tenor voice demanded 
 admittance. 
 
38 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 " You see me, my friends, come to steal DesirCe 
 from you," said the young man laughing. 
 
 " Ah yes, M. Louis, you must always accomplish 
 every fancy," said ^Ide. Baudoyer a little pettishly. 
 
 "Are you cross with me, dear lady ?" 
 
 Mde. Baudoyer wanted to say Yes, but her 
 affection for Louis, whom she had known from his 
 boyhood, and her conscientiousness reduced her 
 to answering Xo. ^'He is so handsome and so 
 pleasant," she thought, " who coidd vex him ?" 
 
 He was very handsome and very pleasant, no 
 wonder he had taught Lesley to love him. She 
 felt proud of him as she looked at him convei*sing 
 so winningly with the painter and his wife and 
 drawing from them so naturally the congratula- 
 tions with which she had been unable to inspire 
 them. He was tall and slight, with deep passionate 
 eyes, and dusky curls tumbled over a low broad 
 forehead that had an odd way of wrinkling as he 
 talked but when he was in repose was marvellously 
 smooth and white for such a rich southern com- 
 plexion as darkened redly over his cheeks. The 
 
Lesley's secret. 39 
 
 over-fullucss of the upper lip was the only flaw 
 noticeable in the beautiful face, Avhich however, 
 though of a noble masculine type, had in it a 
 want of calmness or decision or some such ex- 
 pression looked for on such boldly cut features, so 
 that it reminded one of a passionate woman. The 
 grace of his manner was something to be seen, and 
 his words flowed with all the animation of the 
 Gascon and the gmce of the Parisian, only, though 
 all he said was happily turned and had the slight 
 epigrammatic point of an accomplished and clever 
 Frenchman's talk, he was evidently grave natured 
 and probably easily brought to exaggerate his 
 more serious thoughts into melancholy. And this 
 tendency, which Lesley divined, was her chief 
 anxiety on his account ; but she thought, " I will 
 watch, and keep all sorrow from him," and believed 
 the hope. 
 
 " You will have a bouquet in your room to talk 
 to you about me on Saturday three weeks?" Lesley 
 said, as another farewell after many farewells, to 
 her old master. ^' Why have you never flowers in 
 your room noAV they are blooming again?" she 
 
40 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 added, perceiving that the old man's lips trem- 
 bled too much to answer her yet. " You, who are 
 a painter, should love to have beautiful things 
 round you." 
 
 "They are dear, are they not?" said M. Bau- 
 doyer. "But I do not know — Marie, why do we 
 never have flowers?" 
 
 "Wouldst thou not have scolded me if I had 
 spent money on them?" replied his >vife. "And 
 we are so busy how could we find leisure to miss 
 them?" 
 
 "Ah! if our little one, our angel Marie, had 
 remained to us we should have been reminded of 
 such things. N'ow we will always have them for 
 Desiree's sake." 
 
 Lesley turned quickly to go, afraid of giving way 
 again to her tears and vexing Louis. "Remember 
 my flowers on Saturday three weeks, still," she 
 left behind her as her last words. 
 
 But the old painter remembered to keep flowers 
 in his room constantly, as he said, for Desiree's 
 sake, and when the sweet violets he received as 
 her good-bye message the next morning had to 
 
Lesley's secret. 41 
 
 be removed from the little vase they came in, and 
 be folded away to wither, treasured up in honour 
 of her, he made his wife replenish it through 
 the season till all the violets were gone. For he 
 was not by any means too poor to indulge in 
 such little luxuries, and greater too, rarely as he 
 allowed himself to step out of economy's straightest 
 path. 
 
 "Why is it?" said Lesley to her lover as they 
 walked towards her home, "these kind people 
 love me best because I seem like their child to 
 them, yet it is you who persuade them? Before 
 you came they did not like our marriage." 
 
 " I like to persuade jieox^le, my beautiful Desiree, 
 so I have cultivated the art." 
 
 "But was that needed?" thought Lesley. "AVho 
 would refuse to be persuaded by him ?" 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LOUIS S SECRET. 
 
 In Paris the old painter was, with his o^vn hands, 
 arranging the huge bunch of choice flowers that 
 was to do honour to his best pupil's wedding day. 
 In London Lesley, weeping and smiling at once 
 through happy blushes, seated by Louis de lAu- 
 bonne's side, was driving home from the little 
 French Episcopalian church where her marriage 
 vows had just been pronounced. 
 
 "My darling! art thou as happy as I?" he ex- 
 claimed, kissing the newly placed ring under the 
 little white glove. 
 
 "Yes, Louis," she said simply, looking into his 
 passionate eyes with her bright confiding smile 
 lighting her whole face. " I am happy and proud 
 to be your wife." 
 
Louis's secret. 43 
 
 "Not happiest that I love you so?" 
 
 " The two things are one," she answered softly. 
 
 She looked so innocently lovely. Unpretending 
 as their wedding was to be she had had a sweet 
 half superstition about her dress for it ; it must 
 all be of the purest white ; so there she sat in lily 
 raiment, with the soft clouds of drapery gathered 
 round her, looking fairer and more girlish than 
 ever. She was very young and, though she was 
 tall, did not look much more than a child. 
 
 "Thou art so beautiful, my Desiree!" he ex- 
 claimed, "I cannot bear it!" 
 
 She smiled half wonderingly, " It is too late now, 
 you must resign yourself to it." 
 
 It was not too late, but how could she suspect 
 it — as yet ? In the carriage following them, Mrs 
 Hawthorn sitting opposite the fashionable person 
 engaged as the young bride's maid, who had been 
 taken to the wedding to make one more in that 
 small company, had arrived at the pleasant point 
 of ceasing to doubt of the event before she had 
 begim to regret. " I am thankful indeed," she 
 thought, " to see my child so happily settled and 
 
44 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 with one to whom I am not afraid to trust her. 
 Now I can begin to Hve without always asking 
 myself what will happen to her if I die." 
 
 Ah ! careful mother, your cares are not over yet ; 
 perhaps the worst are to come ! Ah ! pretty Les- 
 ley, in your young happiness, if it were only to 
 drive on so together to the end of life! That 
 would be happy, you would think ; but what Anil 
 you say of what awaits you ? 
 
 "Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Louis as they drove 
 up to the hotel again, "there is my brother!" 
 
 Looking out from the coffee room window was 
 a merry face which, if it had not been merry and 
 set in light brown hair and with a sandy moustache 
 instead of a chestnut one, would have been Louis's, 
 but which, being what it was, Lesley at once un- 
 derstood to belong to M. Paul de TAubonne. 
 
 "For the love of Heaven, Desiree," cried Louis, 
 " do not let him discover that it is fi'om our wed- 
 ding we return." 
 
 " But my dress, will it not betray it ? And after 
 all it would be no better if he thought we had 
 been longer married." 
 
Louis's secret. 45 
 
 "True, your dress — what should one do ?" 
 
 " Must you not tell him the truth now, just as 
 you would hfive done in a little while on our 
 return to France ?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," was the hurried reply, "I must tell 
 him the truth ; Paul is my very good friend. You 
 will go to our apartments with your mother, Desi- 
 ree, and I will come to you after I have* spoken 
 with him. Perhaps I shall bring him." 
 
 " Do, he looks gentil and I long to be on kindly 
 terms with your brother," said Lesley, with such a 
 tender little stress on the your. And she stepped 
 lightly out of the carriage and tripped upstairs 
 before her mother, not in the least afraid of the 
 result of the intervicAV between her husband and 
 his brother. For the secret would not have been 
 long kept at any rate, she reflected, and it was not 
 amiss that this kind Paul should be the one of 
 the family to hear it first : he would announce it 
 considerately to the others. 
 
 Paul was contemplating himself in the glass 
 Avhen Louis entered ; he remarked, in the tone of 
 one addressing the companion of the last half 
 
46 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 hour, " I am as handsome as thou, Louis, mon 
 hrave, — why do the women not perceive it?" 
 
 Louis drew back, wounded. " Paul, no warmer 
 greeting after months of separation?" 
 
 Paul made a rush at his brother's two hands, 
 which he pressed vehemently amid a whirlwind of 
 protestations too affectionate for an English taste 
 but after their fashion sincere. He would have 
 liked to embrace him had not that custom become 
 ridiculous and of the old world now among young 
 men of civilized habits. Louis, graver-natured as 
 he was, was hardly less demonstrative in his greet- 
 ing, and something like tears trembled alike in the 
 brown and in the blue eyes. Then Paul's gaiety 
 returned. "I thought it but right to model my- 
 self on the Englishman here in his own great dull 
 city, my brother, and the Englishman of w ell-regu- 
 lated mind does not disturb himself for a few 
 months more or less of separation from his nearest 
 friends. Here one's brother comes back again 
 one fine, day, after his monument has been erected 
 at home, and one nods to him pleasantly and goes 
 on with one's Times." 
 
Louis's secret. 47 
 
 " Thou hast not liad much time to assure thyself 
 of that, however," said Louis laughing. 
 
 " Pardon me : in England one economizes time ; 
 no moment is wasted ; and I have been here ten 
 thousand five hundred and eighty moments pre- 
 cisely — ah ! no, I perceive by my watch that I have 
 overstated by one moment. If we set out on our 
 return together this evening I shall still be ena- 
 bled to fill a volume with the observations ga- 
 thered from these valuable moments, since they 
 go farther here than with us in France." 
 
 "Then thou hast come on my account." 
 
 "Have I said it to thee?" 
 
 " No, tridy. But we have beaten about the bush 
 long enough ; let us come to realities." 
 
 "Here?" 
 
 " I think so — we are private enough — to ask for 
 an additional room might be to disturb the minds 
 of those ladies." 
 
 "I have one already, but it is next to thine, 
 which we must pass to reach it — that would be 
 embarrassing if those ladies should be watching 
 for thee." 
 
48 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 " We are private here for the moment — even if 
 any one should enter we have our protection from 
 curious ears — let us talk here, " said Louis hur- 
 riedly, "only let us not lose time." 
 
 "Good. Then, I am come, I fear too late, to 
 warn thee from thy ruin. Just Heaven ! hast thou 
 married this girl?" 
 
 Paul began his speech in French, but concluded 
 in the patois of their birth-place. Such a change 
 was familiar to the brothers, who were thus ena- 
 bled to pursue their most intimate conversations 
 unchecked by the entrance of strangers. And a 
 quiet formal looking gentleman had just come 
 into the room, who. Englishman as he plainly was, 
 thought Paul, might understand something of mere 
 French. 
 
 '^And if I had?" rejoined Louis in the same 
 mysterious jargon. 
 
 " Then adieu to thy prospects. Take a name of 
 the people, my friend, and hide thyself in the 
 Faubourg St Antoine to live on thy handiwork. 
 Thy beauty can sew, I suppose ; she may perhaps 
 earn your breakfasts. But dost thou understand 
 
Louis's secret. 49 
 
 that the paternal fortune is embarrassed ? We in- 
 herit a channing collection of debts ; and we must 
 look on their rarity as the enhancement of our 
 napoleons." 
 
 , "Mon Dieu! Paul! art thou sure? Art thou 
 telling me no more than the truth ?" 
 
 " Very sure, unfortunately. And thou knowest 
 I never break our compact of candour T\ith each 
 other on all subjects. I will explain the particidars 
 if thou wilt ; but business details are little to thy 
 taste, and will tell thee no more than I say, and 
 it will delay us perhaps suspiciously from those 
 ladies." 
 
 'Tass for the present. I must believe thee, 
 Paul." 
 
 " Good. Then consider, wilt thou well, that 
 our father's health fails rapidly; at his death the 
 impoverishment of the estate becomes kno^m ; 
 thou hast a mountain of debts already, and thou 
 wilt no longer be able to raise money. How then 
 wilt thou live? I imagine that love and clear 
 water are after all an insufficient diet for a man 
 who has been accustomed to dine a la carte." 
 VOL. I. 4 
 
50 Lesley's guaedtans. 
 
 " The godfather is so feeble his fortune will soon 
 come to me." 
 
 " But he will never forgive thee this folly ; thou 
 knowest him ; one might blow away the Luxor by 
 talking, before his resolutions. Parbleu ! he is so 
 obstinate that even death cannot get the better of 
 him whilst he chooses to stay in the world. At 
 present he proposes to live until he sees thy affair 
 settled to his fancy. And thou knowest that he is 
 bent on thy uniting the estates of our belle I aide 
 to his. And, in truth, if thou wilt not marry Ste- 
 phanie, still a fortune, and not a small one, with 
 thy wife will be necessary to save the estates of 
 our family, since he will have disinherited thee on 
 the refusal. The very chateau will go fi'om us 
 without some purse to attach to it." 
 
 '' He is losing his memory, he lives out of the 
 world, why should he know? A little pardonable 
 deceit — " 
 
 "He knows too much already, my poor 
 friend ; and I myself must tell him the certainty I 
 discover. Some one, whom I cannot guess, but 
 thou mayst know the enemy, has written to him an 
 
Louis's secret. ol 
 
 anonj^mous letter. He persisted in sending some 
 one after thee to verify the information : therefore 
 I offered to come that he might not employ a more 
 dangerous emissary. But I have been compelled 
 to pledge myself so solemnly to him and to our 
 mother, that I must give them tine information." 
 
 "Tell him then and ruin me." 
 
 "Xot of necessity. Art thou aware that this 
 marriage is void, is in fact no marriage for thee?" 
 
 "Certainly, I am aware of it." Louis's face crim- 
 soned with sudden strong emotion, and then grew 
 fearfully white ; he shuddered as he spoke, but he 
 repeated with trembling lips, "Certainly, I am 
 aware of it." 
 
 "And then?" said Paul. 
 
 "I cannot part with her! I cannot, Paul! I 
 would rather die; kill me before thou tearest me 
 from her." 
 
 "And the godfather's fortune?" said Paul, with 
 a little flicker of a laugh in his bright eyes. 
 
 "Mon Dieu!" groaned Louis, hiding his face in 
 his hands, and so remaining, shaken with sobs, in 
 silence. Paul's eyes filled with sympathizing tears, 
 
 4—2 
 
 
52 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 but he suppressed his emotion, remembering that 
 it would appear ridiculous to an Englishman, and 
 that the formal elderly gentleman might by some 
 fatality be tempted to look up from his paper at 
 that inopportune moment. 
 
 "I cannot part ^yith her," repeated Louis at 
 length, "I cannot part with her." 
 
 " Dost thou then propose to recognize her pub- 
 licly as thy wife and compel our parents to contest 
 the marriage according to their protest?" 
 
 "That would give some delay at least," said the 
 drowning man, clinging to his straw. 
 
 "And the godfather's fortune?" said Paul again. 
 
 The straw floated away. "MonDieu!" gasped 
 the drowning man again, and again there was a 
 silence. 
 
 " But what hadst thou contemplated as the end 
 of this affair, in resolving on the step thou hast 
 taken?" inquired Paul, determined to bring the 
 conversation to some positive issue. 
 
 " I do not know ; T thought there would be time 
 enough for decision afterwards," was the low reply. 
 
 " Tliou must have certainlv felt that thou wouldst 
 
Louis's secret. 53 
 
 liave to explain the true position to her even- 
 tuaUy?" 
 
 "I feared it at least." 
 
 " Then thou Avilt but have to carry out that idea 
 a little sooner. I can make excuses for remaining 
 two or three days, thou wilt have time to prei)are 
 her for the blow and to reconcile her to the po- 
 sition of affairs. Then I shall tell the godfather 
 that the young person does not claim to be thy 
 wife, and all wiU come right." 
 
 "Then I should lose her for ever. I tell thee 
 death would be preferable, my brother." 
 
 "It is tiresome," said Paul earnestly; "I cannot 
 tell lies to the godfather ; for I am convinced that 
 he has a spy in my servant, Avhom he himself gave 
 me for the journey on pretence of his being useful 
 from his experience of England. The fellow will 
 tell all I conceal. Canst thou not persuade her to 
 allow her marriage to remain a mystery for thy 
 sake? Thou couldst provide her with a home here 
 or secretly in Paris. If she would but seem to 
 deny the marriage in the presence of this traitor of 
 a servant all Avould be safe." 
 
54 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "She would suspect the truth; she wouhl think I 
 meant to desert her. It would drive her to de- 
 spair." 
 
 " Thou couldst give her a hope that thou wouldst 
 acknowledge her and legalize her position on tlie 
 death of M. de Fourrere." 
 
 "That I certainly should do." 
 
 " Never be too certain. Possibility is enough for 
 a sane man to contemplate. AY hat thou uilt do in 
 this matter is nothing (and doubtless would be 
 nothing in the fact when the time came), but what 
 thou doest now is what requires decision." 
 
 "Am I calm enough to decide?" said Louis, bit- 
 terly. 
 
 "Quite, mon cher. Especially when the choice 
 is so limited. O^vn the whole truth, and, as thou 
 hast said, let it announce a parting (which indeed 
 would be best), or tell her part of the truth and 
 persuade her to secresy." 
 
 " But how can I ask this of her? Thou dost not 
 know her. She has a horror of dissimulations and 
 concealments. And she will not submit to a du- 
 bious position." _ 
 
Louis's secret. 55 
 
 "And has she no generosity then, thy chosen 
 love?" asked Paul, surprized. '^ Canst thou not 
 prevail on so young a girl, who loves thee, to make 
 this sacrifice for thy sake? She does not then 
 Comprehend the holy devotedness of love. And 
 after all, what dost thou ask of her at present? 
 she, who is of English family, is thy wife, accord- 
 ing to the ceremonies of her religion and in this 
 coimtry, and thou canst show her truly that, by 
 consenting not to be openly recognized as such in 
 France for a while, she leaves room for thy being 
 able to conciliate thy family and legalize the mar- 
 riage there, of which otherwise thou hast no hope. 
 If she is obstinate thou must tell her this." 
 
 "But she must not know she is not my wife 
 according to our law — " 
 
 "Ah! mon cher, we are but going back on the 
 old ground. I say, tell her this if all else fails. 
 But it will not come to that ; one can trust some- 
 thing to the pure unselfishness of a woman's heart 
 when love has enlarged and inspired it. Now let 
 us talk no more of it, but go to her ; she will be 
 suspicious of our delay." 
 
56 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "Not yet," said Louis, drawing him back. "Let 
 us talk of other things before we go to her, that I 
 may not have the consciousness of this painful dis- 
 cussion still on me when I answer her tender smile. 
 And tell me also to whom will ^L de Fourrere 
 leave his fortune if he withdi*aws it from me." 
 
 " Naturally to me ; which would make thee safe 
 in spite of thy escapade, thou understandest, but 
 that the old man resolves to bind me to share no 
 portion of it with thee. He has the two wills, one 
 on each side, always by him, and asks himself at 
 every moment which he shall confirm. I have per- 
 suaded him to delay his decision till my return. 
 He is not fond of me since I personated him so 
 successfully at that fancy ball and that malicious 
 Mere Badaude carried him the report ; but at least 
 he considers me incapable of the folly of a love 
 match with the dowry omitted. I am on my best 
 behaviour to him at present on thy accomit. But 
 then it is a difiiculty that I must not refuse his 
 offers too positively, lest he should take offence al- 
 together and send for that bourgeois grandson 
 whom his daughter has left to the charity of the 
 
Louis's secret. 57 
 
 relations of her lowborn husband. lie proposed 
 to me the other day that I should marry thy 
 rejected lady, and the idea smiled to me, for she is 
 not so disagreeable after all, and what a dowry! 
 But it must be to carry out his plan of uniting the 
 estates, and I cannot take the lady without taking 
 also thy inheritance from the godftitlier. It is hard 
 on me, for Mile. Stephanie seems not ill-disposed 
 to me herself." 
 
 ^*Paid, what temi)tation thou art placed in. 
 Canst thou indeed resist it?" said Louis doubt- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Still that suspicious character ! Canst thou 
 imagine that I could be a traitor to our affection ? 
 I sacrifice thee to my interests ! Louis, I should 
 not doubt thee thus." 
 
 <^ Forgive me, I was wrong to think of it for a 
 moment," said Louis, holding out his hand for 
 a grasp of reconciliation. "And now," he added, 
 "before I present you upstairs tell me the news 
 of thyself since we parted." 
 
 Paid's history of his proceedings in the last few 
 months took some time — he had been desj)erately 
 
58 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 in love twice, and was in fact still despairing from 
 the last attack — he had written a wonderiid poem, 
 part of which he must recite — he had lost much 
 money at play, and by miracle in one night re- 
 paired his losses — he had made four never-to-be- 
 equalled friends and quarrelled with two old ones. 
 "Ungrateful hearts, disloyal to their affections," 
 he sighed, — he had bought a horse and broken 
 its knees, of which accident however it had re- 
 covered so well that he was inclined to think the 
 animal benefited by it, as it would doubtless 
 learn caution from it and avoid careless steps 
 thereafter. 
 Then at last they went upstairs. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 LOVES LABOUR LOST. 
 
 Lesley was trying to persuade herself that she 
 did not wonder why Louis was so long away from 
 her, and assuring herself that she was rejoiced 
 that his affection for his brother should be so 
 strong as to make him thus lose count of time in 
 conversing with him. "Oh no, not yet, mama," 
 she had just answered to Mrs Hawthorn's inquiry 
 fi'om the next room if that step heard on the 
 stairs had not been Louis's. " They must have so 
 much to say to each other." 
 
 But the step which had passed the door came 
 back again, as if some mistake had led it onwards, 
 and, heavy as it was, she began to think it must 
 be Loius's, and her heart beat quickly, for it 
 
60 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 sounded slow and alone, and where then was Paul 
 de TAubonne, and what evil tidings could he have 
 brought ? But she was startled by a knock at the 
 door and the appearance of an unknoAvn visitor. 
 
 He was a tall spare man with straight grey hair 
 and scanty grey whiskers in spite of which his 
 face gave you a pecuKar suggestion of its being 
 shaved — the recollection of razors and shaving- 
 brushes seeming forced upon you ; perhaps the 
 exceeding length of the upper lip caused that effect 
 of bareness. He wore a remarkably high collar 
 starched into a iierfect wall about his throat, and 
 an exact black neckerchief rolled twice or thrice 
 round and primly tied. He looked altogether the 
 very caricature of a precise Englishman mther 
 over middle age. He saluted Lesley with a bow 
 which contrived to combine the not easily com- 
 bined qualities of being very stiff and very low, 
 and by that performance and the idtra shaved look 
 showed that he was a Frenchman of that exceed- 
 ingly respectable and exceedingly dull type which 
 is seen sometimes among the precise of " la haute 
 bourgeoisie," and which to the eye of a Frenchman 
 
love's labour lost. 61 
 
 not perfectly familiar with the peculiarities of 
 English appearance seems thoroughly English. 
 But, although she was a stranger to her own 
 countrymen, Lesley's English instinct was positive 
 on her visitor's nationality, and she at once con- 
 nected him in her mind with Paul de I'Aubonne's 
 arrival. A strange feeling took possession of her 
 that she was about to hear some terrible intelli- 
 gence, and making quickly to herself the sign and 
 prayer of the cross, which was all the Romanism 
 with which her foreign life had imbued her, she 
 summoned up all her fortitude. 
 
 Her visitor, who perceived her sudden pallor, 
 wisely allowed her time to recover herself before he 
 addressed her, speaking then with a calmness be- 
 yond even his wont and far different from what he 
 felt in his honest heart, in hopes thus to assist her 
 in retaining the calmness she had assumed. Nor 
 were his good intentions wholly unavailing ; Lesley's 
 presence of mind never once forsook her. I think 
 presence of mind rarely does fail in great agonies ; 
 it is to the sharp small pangs it succumbs. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said the formal man, "allow 
 
62 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 me to apologize for intruding upon you, and to 
 assure you that I do so only out of respect and 
 consideration for you." 
 
 Lesley bowed and glanced at her bride's dress, 
 and then at the ring on her left hand — her visitor 
 had said "Mademoiselle" in spite of them. 
 
 He perceived her thoughts : " I have the honour 
 of addressing — ?" he paused. 
 
 "Madame de I'Aubonne," Lesley answered. 
 
 He shook his head portentously, but continued 
 with his most decorous politeness : " I have to 
 present myself to you as Simon Gueret, banker, 
 lately resident at Nantes and now on a little 
 tour in England before settling myself in the first 
 city of the world, our beautiful Paris. Shoidd 
 you consider it necessary, after you have heard 
 the information I approach you to convey, I can, 
 by letters in my possession and by reference to 
 respectable merchants of this city, prove to you 
 that I am a person worthy of credence ; but in the 
 meanwhile time presses, and my story is, alas ! such 
 as will prove itself true from the mere circum- 
 stance of my being able to tell it. Permit me, 
 
love's labour lost. 63 
 
 Mademoiselle, to request you, if your mother is at 
 hand, to summon her." 
 
 Still under that first idea of the connection be- 
 tween this visitor and Paul's arrival, Lesley com- 
 plied with the request. Mrs Hawthorn appeared 
 in flutter and surprise, but " Do not question, 
 mama," said Lesley; "it is safest to listen." 
 
 Simon Gueret had, as he informed them, a sin- 
 gularly accurate memory ; he could report the de- 
 tails of a conversation all but verbatim, providing 
 no unreasonable length of time for the recol- 
 lection of it, if unimportant, had elapsed — or, if 
 it were important, whatever length of time had 
 elapsed. Now, with the details fresh on his mind, 
 he related what he had just overheard in the cofibe- 
 room. "They were conversing in a patois with 
 which, from residence in one of the mentioned de- 
 partments in my youth, I am conversant," he said ; 
 "and, as they did not check their conversation 
 when I entered, it did not at first occur to me that 
 they imagined it to be private to themselves, — and 
 these Gascons chatter their aff^xirs to anybody," 
 interjaculated ^L Gueret, almost warmly, giving way 
 
64 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 to a private antipathy for an instant. He resnmcfl 
 however his sober speech immediately: "There- 
 fore, when their conversation prevented me from 
 practising decipliering my few English phrases in 
 the journal, I did not refuse to listen, and when 
 I perceived the subject of their communications 
 I made it my duty to listen without their per- 
 ceiving it, in order to frustrate their wickedness. 
 I trust you think me justified in doing so." 
 
 "Oh, surely," said Mrs Hawthorn, scarcely 
 knowing what she did say in her anxiety for his 
 stay. 
 
 "I hardly know," said Lesley, speaking as if in 
 a dream. " I have not had time to think of it." 
 
 M. Gueret went on : " These two young men 
 were brothers ; one is named Louis, the other 
 Paul ; I have not heard any surnames in the 
 history excepting that of M. de Fourrere, the 
 godfather of the taller and darker brother, Louis. 
 They said thus. — And he rehearsed their con- 
 versation, just as they had spoken it in words, but 
 with the uninterested tone of a schoolboy over 
 his grammar, until Pauls fine speech about the 
 
LOVE S LABOUR LOST. 65 
 
 unselfishness of a woman's heart had closed the 
 discussion so far as it touched the young bride ; 
 "and," said he, "hearing them resolve to calm 
 themselves by talking on more indifierent subjects 
 I perceived that I had time to warn you of your 
 unfortunate position." 
 
 Mrs Hawthorn sat stunned and speechless. And 
 already every sound seemed to announce the 
 coming of the brothers ; every minute seemed that 
 which must bring them; there was no time for 
 consideration, yet something must be done. 
 
 Lesley's face Avas scared and blanched, and a reso- 
 lutely suppressed emotion was evident in her very 
 attitude, as she stood, her arms held stifily down 
 her sides, the hands clenched with a strain, and 
 her head thrown backwards with a movement of 
 pain ; but she found a steady voice to say, " I shall 
 ask Louis if this is the truth, and — " she wished 
 to add, with a feeling that it was her duty to trust 
 him, " he will be able to prove his honour," but 
 she could not bring out the words : there was a 
 frightful air of truthfulness about Simon Gueret's 
 story, and if — 
 
 VOL. I. 5 
 
66 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 " Are you angry at our delay, my queen ?" asked 
 Louis de I'Aubonne, gaily beyond his wont, entering 
 with Paul. " You must blame this brother, whom 
 I present to you." 
 
 " Is he my brother ? " asked Lesley gravely, almost 
 sternly. 
 
 "If it were not too great a happiness for me — " 
 Paul was beginning, when he suddenly caught 
 sight of Gueret, whom he instantly recognized as 
 the person who had been reading his paper near 
 them a few minutes ago, though Louis, who per- 
 ceived him at the same moment, only marvelled, 
 a little crossly, who this stranger Englishman 
 might be and why he was there with Desiree and 
 her mother. Paul's dismay fairly choked him. 
 M. Gueret bowed ; Louis returned the salutation : 
 "May I ask whom I have the honour of receiving ?"' 
 he asked him. 
 
 But it was Lesley who answered : " ]\L Simon 
 Gueret; who is my witness ; for I have to ask you, 
 am I laAvfully, in France as in England, your 
 wife?" 
 
 Louis staggered backwards ; Paul almost shriek- 
 
love's labour lost. G7 
 
 ed : they looked at each other as if for some 
 means of escape from the question. Each saw 
 in Gueret an emissary of M. de Fourrere's, and 
 M. de Fourrc^re once made an enemy was an im- 
 placable one. It was no longer possible to deceive 
 this girl. 
 
 She, poor thing, saw her answer, and a sickness 
 like death crept to her heart; but she must hear 
 it too, and she had nerve enough to repeat her 
 question. 
 
 " Yes or no, Louis? Am I your lawful wife ?" 
 
 "No," replied Paul, not from insidt or cruelty 
 but to save his brother the pain which the first 
 step costs. 
 
 *' Louis,' repeated Lesley, "am I your lawful 
 wife?" 
 
 "No," murmured, almost moaned the young 
 man with agony on his face and every limb quiver- 
 ing. — All ! it w^as done, he knew she was lost to 
 him! But he added, "JSTot yet," though M. de 
 Fourrere's agent should hear. 
 
 JNIrs Hawthorn caught the " Not yet," and eclioing 
 it with an hysterical burst, began, " What yet can 
 
G8 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 there be in such a matter ? do you tliink you 
 may — " But Lesley hushed her before she broke 
 down in a sobbing fit, as she was on the verge of 
 doing : " Dear mother, let us only know the truth — 
 then we will say no more to him/' 
 
 But she too had noticed the faint "Xot yet," 
 and asked him : "You say Not yet; had you then 
 any means by which you would immediately have 
 made me so?" 
 
 M. Gueret turned his solemn visage on Louis, 
 who, remembering M. de Foun-ere, was again 
 driven to answer " No." 
 
 "Is it his fault?" Paul exclaimed; "he had no 
 power to do it." 
 
 " And you knew that you had no power ?" asked 
 Lesley of Louis. 
 
 Again the presence of ^L Gueret seemed to com- 
 pel him to criminate himself: he must answer 
 "yes" in spite of himself. 
 
 The girl's face was white with a great anger; 
 "Oh the infamy!" she gasped, tightening her 
 trembling hands over each other, and went hurriedly 
 to the window. She wanted a minute's shelter 
 
love's labour lost. 69 
 
 from observant eyes, a minute's hush to gather 
 again the strength that began to fail her. 
 
 But Louis followed her impetuously, seized her 
 liand, threw himself on his knees, imploring, raving, 
 " Oh, pardon me, pardon ! it was my love for you — 
 have you no pity, no love? Was it then all 
 feigned ? Desiree, you will not leave me ? You 
 will not kill me ? Does your heart plead nothing 
 forme?" 
 
 At last she turned her face to him ; " AVliat do 
 you want of me ? " she asked slowly. 
 
 The terrible directness of the question silenced 
 him: for what indeed could he ask of her? He 
 knew that this marriage, contracted without the 
 consent and even in the teeth of the prohibition 
 of his parents, was void, and how could he, in the 
 presence (as he believed) of M. de Fourrere's agent, 
 cry out, as he was one wild moment tempted to 
 do, " Be yet my wife, I Avill renounce my country 
 and adopt your's." Could he even ask her to re- 
 member their troth till time and his strong resolve 
 should bring it to a happy fulfilment ? J^ot many 
 young men had fairer worldly prospects than he 
 
70 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 had as it was, not many would be more at daggers 
 draw with fortune than he if he renounced them : 
 he could not sacrifice so much to a love-longing. 
 
 She looked at him sadly, " There is no more to 
 wish now. We must bear the wrong you have 
 done me, both you and I — now let us part, for 
 always." 
 
 But her quiet despair revealed to Louis de 
 TAubonne his ti*ue position and her's: for he knew 
 that her despair was not for herself in tliis misery 
 he had brought on her, but for him, because he 
 was so loAV beneath her pride in him and had bur- 
 dened his life with dishonour. Now first he felt 
 plainly that this was not an evil fortune come upon 
 him but a shameful thing Avhich he had done, and 
 by the light of her sorrow for him he saw his 
 treachery towards her and shuddered to think of 
 all that lay before her — her desolate anguish, her 
 long regrets, bitter memory comi^anying her — per- 
 haps the pain of bodily sufiering, for she did not 
 seem strong, and grief is hard to bear — perhaps 
 the agony of a blighted name. 
 
 He wept at her feet : " Oh, what have I done ! 
 
love's labour lost. 71 
 
 And you, cruel, why are you so patient ? Re- 
 proach me, spurn me, hate me — Hate me! My 
 God ! Desiree, will you not love me still?" 
 
 She checked him gravely — Paul loathed her for 
 her insensibility. "Do not let us talk more of 
 love ; it is for us to forget. I will pray God that 
 I may not love you." 
 
 "Cruel! revengeful!" cried her lover (he was 
 her lover in spite of all). " Pray rather that he will 
 make you merciful — you abuse your power, you 
 make me suffer because I love you — but suffer !" 
 
 " Have I reproached you, Louis ?" 
 
 "No, no," he groaned, "I reproach myself. For- 
 give." 
 
 "Ah! I forgive." 
 
 "Only for pity's sake leave me a little while," 
 she added wearily. She Avas faint with suppressed 
 emotion; she had put a cruel force on herself to 
 play her iiart calmly, and the scene was repulsive 
 to her. She did not understand passionate melo- 
 drama. 
 
 "Oh go, go!" she moaned, as she still vainly 
 tried to discnGrase her hand scorched with his 
 
72 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 kisses. "Oh, monsieur, you who are his brother 
 persuade him to go for his own sake. Can you 
 bear that he should be seen thus?" 
 
 "Yes, Mademoiselle," Paul replied indignantly, 
 " I will lead my unhappy brother from one who is 
 incapable of generosity and of sympathy, and I 
 will seek to console him, with a devotion which 
 your selfish rigour cannot comprehend, for the 
 arid heart he has lost." 
 
 Lesley made no answer. Eeleased from Louis's 
 grasp she sank on a couch, her face buried in her 
 hands. One last look Louis turned to cast on her 
 in the hope that she might recall him for at least 
 a kinder farewell, but when the door closed on 
 the brothers she had not stirred. 
 
 "I will retire if Mesdames permit it," said ]M. 
 Gueret. "May I venture to hope that when you 
 have decided on your arrangements you will in- 
 form me, in order that I may have the honour of 
 offering you my most willing assistance?" 
 
 Poor Mrs Hawthorn, overwhelmed and bewil- 
 dered, was only too glad to accept his offer. Lesley 
 still had not moved. 
 
t.ove's labour lost. 73 
 
 But when they were left alone she came quietly 
 to her mother and knelt with her head on her 
 mother's lap. What was there for her now but 
 to weep ? Yes, long, very long and bitterly. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE WEDDING RING. 
 
 Again Lesley was gazing out at the housetops in 
 the narrow Paris street, but there were no last 
 sunlights now; the evening was glimmering into 
 the night dusks, and at every moment another 
 star looked do^n on the great city aglow with 
 its gaslights, careless of it with its far off tremu- 
 lous radiance. The hubbub of a quarrel rose and 
 then calmed below her, leaning motionless in her 
 high window, and the passings and bustlings of 
 the noisy evening of a large town sounded up to 
 her, but she was only aware of herself and the 
 black roofs and the darkling sky with its white 
 stars looking at her. All the day she had sat 
 listless and silent watching her mother's move- 
 ments without the coumge, or, as it seemed to 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 75 
 
 her, the power, to think ; and now, on the plea of 
 weariness, which not herself but her anxious 
 mother had found for her, she had come so early 
 to her little sleeping room, — but not to sleep; 
 she was taking the rest of solitude. Even that 
 kind maternal presence was a thing to escape in 
 the girl's sorrowful mood; she could think now, 
 for she was alone. 
 
 " Alone." She murmured the word with a sense 
 of its relief. But then she was reminded of its 
 bitterness. Would it always be thus? Was her 
 love too great to die? Must she, day after day 
 and year after year, bear it with her, a curse upon 
 her life, a long secret regret coming between 
 her and her world, oppressing her with a feeling 
 of inmost isolation? Why could she not cast 
 aside all thought of it? After all she was but 
 now as if she had never known Louis de I'Au- 
 bonne. 
 
 Ah ! no ; he had come into her life, they had 
 come into each other's lives; come what would 
 henceforth they were part of them. And because 
 he had knoAvn her this miserable humiliation had 
 
76 Lesley's guardlv.ns. 
 
 come upon him, he had done so greatly wrong. 
 Could she be blameless, since without her the evil 
 would not have been ? Wliy had she not, with 
 righteous maidenly indignation, silenced for ever 
 his first half words of love ? But no, they whis- 
 pered pleasantly to her heart, and she had made 
 a seeming of not understanding tliem and had let 
 him repeat them, strengthen them, unrebuked. 
 As if she did not knoAv that to love her was a fatal 
 thing for him ! Why had she only tried to draw 
 back (for his sake, always for his sake), when it 
 was too late ? Nay, why had she thought it too 
 late? why had she yielded to his long pleadings and 
 in her vanity been persuaded that it was for his 
 happiness to forego so much rather than forego her 
 with her mere beauty and love for dower? She 
 ought to have fled out of his reach and been a 
 stranger to him for ever when she knew all : but 
 she had remained and had been willing to have 
 him forget all his prospects, forget his duty to his 
 parents, for his love of her. Why, why had she 
 let him love her ? Why had she loved him ? 
 
 No, her loving him was not a fault, that she 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 77 
 
 could not have liclpcd : he asked her for love, how 
 he asked ! she could not but love him. Who 
 could have been strong enough to refuse him? 
 How handsome he was — not handsome, but beauti- 
 ful as a Greek god. How noble he had been till 
 now, nay how noble he still was; for could one 
 fault corrupt for ever a high generous nature like 
 his, and did not the very wildness of his passion 
 in that cruel parting, terrible as it seemed to her 
 then, show how far he was above his fault ? A 
 meaner heart woidd have judged it lightly, a colder 
 would have borne calmly, but Louis had been 
 stricken down with anguish. And there was some- 
 thing lofty too in the way in which he had an- 
 swered her fatal inteiTogation ; no evading, no 
 excusing; a simple No and Yes, that confessed all. 
 Yes even now, fallen as he was, if she, separated 
 from him for ever, knew that no other love could 
 come to brighten her life, it was that no other 
 could seem worthy after him. AMiom could she 
 trust since he had deceived ? Ah ! never again, 
 never again. And it had been so happy to love, so 
 happy to think there was one to whom she was so 
 
7S Lesley's guardians. 
 
 much, — all. Did he not say all, with that deep tre- 
 mulous voice of his and that long shadowy gaze, that 
 it made her heart leap and stop suddenly in its flut^ 
 tered beatings to hear and to feel ? It was strange 
 she did not know whether it was pleasure or pain 
 most to recall that sensation now, to seem to listen 
 anew to the fond words which used to be echoed 
 by her heart again and again so often in her re- 
 veries while she would wonder why they meant 
 to her so much beyond many like them in tender 
 phrase which he had spoken too — but surely not 
 with such a tone, not such a look. One by one 
 she recalled those exquisite moments ; it would not 
 be wrong to allow herself that indulgence, it was 
 all that was left her. Yes, all, even if she were 
 to hear love fi'om his lips again, and he shoidd 
 come back to her prepared to redeem the T\Tong 
 and give up all for her sake. He might do this, 
 lie was capable of such heroic repentance, but 
 she must yield no more ; not though he should 
 pray to her as if for dear life, and, watching her 
 night and day — 
 She started from her seat ; her excited l\incy had 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 79 
 
 made her see in the overshadowed figure of a man 
 leaning in the archway of the house opposite Louis 
 de I'Aubonne watching as she had pictured, ^hc 
 knew it was but a wild fancy, and it frightened her 
 that it had come ; she shuddered to think that 
 even for a moment her trouble had so disordered 
 her imagination. 
 
 "Good God! if I were to grow mad," she gasped 
 as she left the window. But she smiled at herself 
 already as the words left her lips ; she could trust 
 her own self control. 
 
 She drew down the blind and lit her candle, 
 with the smile, a bitter quiet smile new to those 
 soft lips, still on her face. Then she sat down to 
 think before the glass. It seems that women al- 
 ways do sit down before the glass when they intend 
 thinking, that thinking I mean which is feeling; 
 why I do not fathom, though I ponder it some- 
 times : perhaps the quiet presence within the frame 
 lessens the sense of loneliness ; perhaps the pitying- 
 face conveys a sense of sympathy. Or does the 
 presentation of contours and features and shadows 
 and of expression unguarded utterly now, give 
 
80 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 unconscious witness unconsciously received of the 
 hidden things of the soul and their untraceable 
 but, doubtless, sure causation-linkings to the out- 
 ward destiny ; as it might to some seer-sighted phy- 
 siognomist allowed such an impossible opportunity? 
 If none of these, then what is the spell? for, though 
 the happy beauty may gladden with her o>mi love- 
 liness and smile afresh for the very joyousness of 
 the smiles she sees reflected on her there, swelled 
 eyes and a weary face are not pleasant to look on, 
 and the trouble-sick woman, half loathing her life, 
 can have no delight in her sad-browed counterpart 
 that should bring her before it to watch her own 
 nioumful thoughts passing across its face. 
 
 Lesley did not know, neither did she question, 
 why she went to the looking-glass to think; but 
 the other natural thinking place, the window, 
 having failed her, she went there as a thing of 
 course. And she looked at it too and thought, as 
 she had never allowed herself to think before, 
 "Yes, I must be pretty: I am pretty even now, 
 after these cruel hours." Before, vou see, she had 
 shrunk from vanitv: but what vanitv could there 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 81 
 
 be for her now? "How strange it is, I look so 
 little changed and I am, oli, so different; my old 
 self is gone quite and for always: now I wonder 
 what it is like to feel happy." This was her next 
 thought, as she saw how the young face, perplexed 
 with its distress, was yet so soft and fresh. Seeing 
 it thus gave her an odd impression of unreality in 
 her grief, as if it must be something vague and 
 illusive that showed so little outward trace; the 
 change in her was but the stupor of callousness 
 perhaps, her real phlegmatic nature revealed to 
 her now in this emergency ; she had no deep feel- 
 ing, she had hitherto only imagined it, built it up 
 out of what she had heard and read of it in others, 
 what her girlish romance made her Avish to possess. 
 She felt pained at her own apathy, but it was 
 evidently part of her true character; all she had 
 hitherto flattered herself was courage and self- 
 reliance in her, all that fancied presence of mind, 
 was mere heart indifference, mere paucity of emo- 
 tion. And as she came to this conclusion she won- 
 dered more and more at the quick tears streaming 
 down the face she was scanning. 
 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
82 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "I have deceived even myself," she said aloud, 
 distinctly, listening to herself as if it were some 
 other speaker whose meaning she had to follow. 
 "I am a good actress, playing my part even 
 alone, till I believed in it myself: but I have no 
 feeling ; Louis once told me so, and he was right ; 
 I suppose I did noji love him in reality ; I do not 
 care about losing him; if I could undo all this I 
 do not think I should try. If anything could 
 make me suffer thoroughly, deep down, it woiUd 
 be this; and at heart it leaves me quiet. I only 
 weep from excitement; I care as much as ever 
 how I look; I find out that my hair is parted a 
 thread away from the middle ; if I were in earnest 
 I should not see that." 
 
 And she took down the shimmering coils of hair, 
 and loosened them into long wavy masses over her 
 shoulders, and very carefully made a new parting, 
 straight and narrow, like a white thread losing 
 itself into the white forehead. Then she fastened 
 up the coils again, not quite as they were before, 
 but in a new style (she had seen it somewhere in 
 that unfortunate visit to her own countiy), which 
 
THE WEDDING RING. S3 
 
 she had tliought might be more quickly done and 
 look more graceful. And she studied the eifect 
 quite seriously: for the moment she really believed 
 that she cared. She despised herself for her 
 heartlessness. 
 
 Then it frightened her. "Have T grown im- 
 becile? Has this shock weakened my intellect, 
 and left me only the power of thinking of trifles ? 
 Can I feel at all ?" 
 
 And then she tried to excite herself to some 
 sorrow, not for her real trouble, that she knew 
 could not move her, but for imaginary miseries, 
 the most overwhelming she could picture. One 
 after another she called them up before her eyes 
 in the most vivid detail, and one after the other 
 she turned away from them unmoved. " I am too 
 cold," she said. "Even this would not agitate 
 me." 
 
 She imagined her mother dying — dead, and even 
 then she said : " ]\Iiserable that I am ! I should 
 hardly suffer ; see I can contemplate the possibility 
 calmly." She could not arouse any emotion in 
 herself. 
 
 6—2 
 
84 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "It is horrible," she said, "horrible! I seem 
 made of stone. Am I indeed, as his brother said, 
 of so arid a nature ? Or are my faculties leaving 
 me?" 
 
 She was too new to grief to suspect that her 
 unnatural apathy was mere exhaustion ; that know- 
 ledge only came to her afterwards with the ex- 
 perience of many such nights. 
 
 " Can I think ?" she asked herself. " I must think 
 to-night. To-morrow the old life begins again. — 
 The old life? the new, the cruel new life aping 
 the old. To-night I must think." 
 
 But apparently she could not think. She had 
 to decide a question which seems a slight one, 
 but there was meaning in it to her beyond its 
 material import, meaning too dim and visionary 
 too involved in half superstitious sympathies for 
 her to be able to set it clearly before herself in 
 her present, or perhaps in any mood, but very 
 perceptible nevertheless. And the question was 
 what should be done with that ring on the third 
 finger of her left hand. 
 
 Why ! return it, one would think, nothing simpler 
 
THK WEDDING RING. 85 
 
 than thcat. But as it happened tliat couhl not be 
 done, not done yet at all events, for Lesley knew 
 not where her husband (it seemed to her as if 
 Louis were yet her husband while she wore the 
 ring) was to be found, and she was aware, more- 
 over, that, even had she possessed that information, 
 it woidd be a dangerous step to begin a com- 
 munication of any kind with Louis de I'Aubonne 
 at present. It was not to be doubted that he 
 would avail himself of such an opening to follow 
 up the drama which, with ]\L Gueret for its Deus 
 ex mackind, had come to so abrupt a conclusion, 
 by a sequel of storm and passion and prayers, to 
 end Avho could tell how ? 
 
 Possessed with that odd fancy, which yet she 
 knew to be no more than a fancy, that while she 
 retained the ring it was a kind of bond between her 
 and the man who had placed it on her hand in so 
 solemn a moment, there had been intervals in which 
 she conceived it her duty to destroy it. But then 
 again she reflected that the sacred manner of her 
 vow, made before God, left it higher than a merely 
 formal law of man, to be fulfilled in spirit at least 
 
86 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 even towards him who had avowed it not binding 
 indeed, and to set her life apart like a true wife- 
 hood : and then she did not even dare to move the 
 sign of the strange wedding from her finger. So 
 for the three days in which she had been again in 
 the old home which she and her mother had been 
 so thankful to find still able to receive them, she 
 had continued to wear it, doubting. But now she 
 must resolve whether she would still do so, for 
 to-morrow she was to resume her place as Pierre 
 Baudoyer's pupil, and to appear among her class- 
 mates with that tell-tale badge was to be prepared 
 to explain to them her painful iDOsition and, 
 throwing utterly aside the comfortable veil of 
 secresy, expose herself to the misconstructions 
 possibly and gossippings certainly of her world. 
 For every reason, above all for that chief reason 
 that it would be to betray Louis to bitter tongues 
 armed with inconsiderate censure and alas ! also 
 with unanswerable condemnation, this was to be 
 avoided ; and happily it could be avoided easily ; — 
 but for that perplexed notion of hers. 
 
 She could not think : her mind wandered, some- 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 87 
 
 times back to the Past that seemed ah-eady so far 
 away behind the glooming mists, sometimes on 
 to the vague unreal Future: now memories, now 
 fantastic pictures of scenes in wiiich imaginary 
 consequences of her deciding in either manner were 
 developed with all the minuteness in impossibility 
 of a waking dream and with no preciser adjust- 
 ment of cause to effect, took the place of thought. 
 I think that wdth most persons — with many men, 
 and still more naturally with w^omen, whose reason, 
 though quick enough, surely, if that were all, is 
 left w ithout that method which is developed in the 
 mental training of every boy Avho masters his w ork 
 up to the fifth form of his school, say that he 
 gets no farther — this kind of discursive meditation 
 often does duty, in ordinary circumstances, for 
 thought, especially if it be on serious subjects: 
 when the rare occasions come requiring prompt yet 
 momentous decision to the wandering bodiless 
 syllogisms, insisting practically against all ambigu- 
 ous muddles, and confounding of universals and 
 generals, and circle reasonings, commanding definite 
 predicates and absolute conclusions, and denounc- 
 
88 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 ing all the fond fallacies and elusions of may be's 
 and might be's coaxed to the taste, in favour of 
 simple statements and close argument, what we all 
 innocently call our thinking comes to a shrewd 
 test. It may be that some of us when thus brought 
 to close quarters with our own mind find our- 
 selves not so evidently its master as we had con- 
 ceived, and prove not such very steady reasoners 
 under the trying circumstances. Happily even 
 in the most peremptor}^ existences they do not 
 occur every day. 
 
 Lesley was under such a necessity and did not 
 get on well with it at all. Certainly she had placed 
 herself in the position by her caprice, or senti- 
 ment, or superstition, call it which you will ; there 
 need have been no difficulty whatever ; but Lesley 
 Hawthorn was Lesley Hawthorn, and there was 
 a difficulty. And now that it faced her she could 
 not think. 
 
 That question which she had asked herself already 
 more than once : that question Avhich, with no greater 
 cause, many a sorrow-shaken soiU has asked, while 
 yet unaccustomed to its new condition, and shud- 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 89 
 
 (lered at its o^vll asking, she asked again in a fresli 
 bewildennent, "Is my reason leaving me?" She 
 gave her memory hard tasks, she repeated old 
 child-learned lessons, "^laitre Corbeau sur un 
 arbre perche," the chronology of the French kings 
 from Pharamond to Charles VI., the names of the 
 departments and rivers — '^I can remember at all 
 events," she decided. Ah, poor child, she could 
 remember only too well. Had the dull river Lethe 
 only made one in her list, that she might have 
 gone to its smooth waters and drank and slept 
 a little while and wakened happy again! For 
 though we, watching another's sorrow, foresee al- 
 ready a day when those sharp agonies tvIU have 
 ceased, just as we feel assured that the spasms 
 Avhich writhe the body of our invalid will by-and- 
 by have passed away, pain is a keen thing to the 
 sufferer and not to be ignored in any looking for- 
 ward to far away rest. Time is a good surgeon, 
 but a deliberate one, and where, as happens oftenest 
 in the cases entrusted to him, there has to be 
 some use of the knife, it would be pleasanter not 
 to have to feel the operation. And if you say that 
 
90 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 this trouble of Lesley's, being but a girl's love 
 trouble after all, was no very serious thing, why, 
 no more is toothache, which yet, I am told, is while 
 it lasts one of the most acute pains to be suffered. 
 Yet though the only absolute cure is to have the 
 tooth taken away j)eople do not enjoy the salutary 
 torturing process. I, happily for me, have never 
 had toothache ; but since, in body as in mind, no 
 sensation possible to our nature (once suggested) 
 can seem wholly unknown to it even though never 
 yet experienced and never to be exi)erienced, I 
 have a tolerably vivid conception of the thing ; 
 and I know that if that misfortune should overtake 
 me, followed by its objectionable remedy, I should 
 begin to think about chloroform. And I trust 
 that I may use this precaution as my wisdom 
 through life. 
 
 Lesley thought it the best way. She was well 
 aware that, at the very best, she doing her part 
 as one who meant "Thy will be done" in brave 
 Christian truth and not as one might say it to 
 one's tyrant, a long cruel cure awaited her — at the 
 very best, but if she failed to herself then the last 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 91 
 
 sorrow-sin, scorpion like deepening (as they used 
 to tell the story) and poisoning its own wounds, 
 poor pitifid despair. And she knew that a con- 
 sciousness intent upon pain, even intent to endure 
 it, becomes a keener sui)eradded sense to endance 
 it, that bearing it thus she must faint under it. 
 She had no thought of doing that, she only looked 
 for chloroform: and she i)erceived that in work, 
 strong purposeful work, lay her oi^iate. She per- 
 ceived this as many a woman may have perceived 
 it before now, and not known where to lay her 
 hand on it : unvowed Sisters of Charity have been 
 made thus, and busy-lived Marthas — some have 
 found space for their effort in the great world, 
 some by the home-hearth : but many have looked 
 and not seen their place, and so closed their eyes 
 again disheartened, and fallen back asleep in that 
 sad inner selfishness of vague aspirations and 
 vague regrets, fallen back to a dream-vexed sleep, 
 murmuring "there is nothing to live for." 
 
 Kothing to live for ! Oh, maddest and cruellest 
 of all heart deceits. So long as the sun has 
 somctliing to shine for, so long has every man 
 
92 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 and woman and child in the world sometliing to 
 live for. 
 
 But Lesley found no such difficulty, her work 
 lay ready to her hand. Her art was already for 
 her a profession, but now it must be more — it must 
 be a consecration — not to be pursued as a means 
 only of supporting herself and adding some com- 
 forts to her mother's much tried life, but with all 
 her energies and desires bent towards it, that she 
 might he worthy of the priesthood which she now 
 first understood in it. She would study, she would 
 think, she would pray, she woidd strive all to be 
 greater, so she should do more greatly. Xot that she 
 was aware of any especial power, though she knew 
 she had talent (inherited from her father, who, so far 
 as he was anything but an idler, was an artist) 
 and patience and love in the labour ; but she felt 
 the inspiration that lies in sorrow. Talent and 
 patience and love, these three, if they do not con- 
 stitute genius, go already so far towards it that 
 it may Avell be that such an awakening of the soul 
 and clothing it with the great strength of sadness 
 were to such a one the divine impulse vivifying 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 93 
 
 the secret germ. So very likely this girl's instinct 
 was a true one and a new something, a faculty? 
 a sense? a life? was being evoked in her. 
 
 Some such notion might flit mistily through 
 her brain and even already rehearten her, un- 
 recognised, as she sat there trying to think, and 
 still trying in vain. It was of no use to try ; when 
 she had tested her memory with the fable and the 
 kings and the departments, and proved her reason- 
 ing powers intact by calculations connected with 
 the relative values of French and English coins, as 
 measuring the expenditure in her last month, the 
 time it would take her at her probable average of 
 gain to make up the deficiency it would leave in 
 her mother's scant income, and how much they 
 would have to repay M. Gueret, she had fairly 
 wearied out her little remaining energy and the 
 effort was more futile than before. 
 
 She gave it up and prepared for rest. Then she 
 took her little English bible in her hand and sat 
 doAvn again to read. And when she had pored 
 over it long and intently, for it seemed to her a 
 new book full of interest deeper than ever before — 
 
94 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 a book that sorrowed and endured and hoped 
 and was comforted as her very inmost self — she 
 put it aside, and quietly, without pausing to con- 
 sider or to prepare, drew the ring from her finger, 
 and fastened it beside the little cross on a slender 
 gold chain which, almost her only ornament till 
 she knew Louis and now to be quite her only 
 ornament, (for his gifts she had left behind for him, 
 and she meant to sell her other little trinkets at 
 the present pinch to the poor purse) she usually 
 wore round her throat. The cross and the ring 
 would hang inside the dress now, concealed as need 
 was : and I think that it was not without a meaning 
 she placed them together, though she had not 
 paused to weigh it. She clasped the thread-like 
 circlet round her pretty neck, and there the two 
 hung together — not to be removed, she thought, 
 in life, perhaps to lie so in the grave with her. 
 
 Then, with that sense of relief which attends 
 any resolution after a period of imcertainty, 
 she knelt down and folding her hands prayed 
 simply for peaceful rest and peacefid waking — 
 no more than that, for she dared not yet think 
 
THE WEDDING RING. 95 
 
 of him in prayer. And, with a calm feeling that 
 she had renounced him for ever, she lay do^vn and 
 enjoyed the blessing of exhaustion, deep unbroken 
 sleep. 
 
 And all the while Louis de I'Aubonne was raving 
 her name in the delirium of fever. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A FRESH START. 
 
 The bouquet Pierre Baudoyer had chosen so care- 
 fully and arranged with his own hands in its large 
 white vase on the mantleshelf in honour of his 
 best pupil's wedding, had scarcely lost its fresh- 
 ness, and here she was again on her way to his 
 studio, very near already, this spring moniing, and 
 the good painter couple were awaiting her, whis- 
 pering together uneasily. 
 
 They knew all about it and were prepared to 
 receive her with matter-of-course welcome if she 
 should make her first appearance while the other 
 pupils were there ; for they, at all events, had de- 
 cided unhesitatingly that it would be best to keep 
 strict secresy on the late events, and they were 
 resolved to carry out to the full the take-things-as- 
 
A FRESH START. 97 
 
 they-come policy suggested by Siuioii Giicret. It 
 was from this decorous person, be it said, that 
 they had received their information. For, when 
 INIrs Hawthorn and her daughter had made ready 
 to take flight on that sudden discovery, a great 
 perplexity occurred to them: all Louis's former 
 gifts were made up into a packet by Lesley's own 
 hands and given into Gueret's charge to be de- 
 livered to him ; the maid he had desired them to 
 engage for his bride Avas dismissed, and the wages 
 which would have been due to her in a few weeks 
 l^aid by JNIrs Hawthorn, though that not veiy tre- 
 mendous outlay left her purse barely full enough 
 to pay their journey back to Paris ; but still they 
 were under pecuniary obligation to him, a thing 
 not to be borne, surely, under the present circum- 
 stances. They felt sick at heart at the thought of 
 leaving in his debt, nor could they tell how to 
 make arrangements for eventually freeing them- 
 selves from the hateful weight, since they could 
 not ask for an account of their share of the ex- 
 penditure at the hotel Avithout being prepared 
 to pay it; nor could they claim from Louis de 
 
 VOL. I. 7 
 
98 Lesley's guardIxVns. 
 
 TAubonne, even had they thought it likely that 
 he would submit to the indignity, the particulars of 
 that and other outlay for which they would now 
 choose to consider themselves responsible, since it 
 was not for them to propose opening further com- 
 munication with him on any pretext. And besides, 
 their hope was to get off AAith so little delay that 
 they should be out of his reach before he was 
 aware of their design, for such an interview as a 
 farewell one with him must be was a thing to 
 shrink from ; they knew how madly he Avould op- 
 pose the inexorable necessity, how he would plead 
 and reproach and suffer and make Lesley suffer 
 threefold for him. Xo wonder they were making 
 haste to escape him. 
 
 But what was to be done? And again what 
 Avas to be done? And never a whit could they 
 answer, but they looked at each other troublously 
 and felt that it was hard indeed to accept this 
 position; it was terrible to these two women to 
 have to carry one sou's burden of gift from Louis 
 de I'Aubonne. 
 
 Probably good Simon Gueret giiessed the diffil- 
 
A FRESH START. 99 
 
 culty; at all events he so fitted his conversation 
 towards it that it Avas all but unavoidable that 
 they should do the only thing which could tend 
 to annul it, and own the state of the case to him. 
 
 " Allow me to arrange that," he said, so promptly, 
 for him, that it looked as if he had lain in wait for 
 the communication with his answer prepared ; but, 
 indeed, when ^I. Gueret once got under way to 
 speak it always seemed as if the speech had been 
 prepared. "Allow me to arrange it. Of course, 
 INIademoiselle, and also Madame, cannot remain, as 
 they say, under obligation to this person. I con- 
 ceive their scruples of delicacy, and although they 
 are doubtless unnecessary on their part, considering 
 the manner in which they have been deceived, I 
 would not have them set aside. Mesdames mil 
 honour me, then, by suffering me, immediately 
 after their departure, to make the requisite en- 
 quiries and, Avith all decision, to repay in their 
 name to ^I. de I'Aubonne all which shall apj)ear 
 to have been exx^ended by him on their account. 
 I will then communicate with them at the address 
 which they will have the goodness to name." 
 
100 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 The mother and daughter looked at each other ; 
 Mrs Hawthorn, in a confused manner, murmured 
 something which seemed a declining of the offer, 
 in which the hurried words "strangers" and "ob- 
 ligation," sounded like the key-notes. 
 
 Gueret understood it perfectly. "I am aware, 
 Mesdames," he explained, "that as a stranger I 
 must not take the liberty of conferring a favour on 
 you; but it is my right and my duty to perform 
 a casual service to you as ladies whom I find in 
 an accidental embarrassment, and all the laws of 
 courtesy permit it to me. For the rest I pledge 
 myself that I will account to you to the utter- 
 most for my outlay in your names, and accept 
 my position as your creditor without objection, 
 only praying you to let me wait your perfect 
 convenience." 
 
 Mrs Hawthorn looked at the stiff unmoved coun- 
 tenance turned towards her, and wondered if the 
 man could really know what a kindness he was 
 offering, or did indeed think it a mere matter of 
 courtesy. What to answer she knew not, for the 
 accepting it from a wholly unknown person was a 
 
A FRESH START. 101 
 
 matter of doubtful expediency and one that would 
 ^all her pride, and to decline it seemed to her 
 then to be almost to leave her daughter in the 
 l)ower of Louis de I'Aubonne. She opened her lips 
 to speak and got no farther: then she coughed 
 and looked at Lesley. 
 
 Lesley understood the appeal ; from her child- 
 liood she had been accustomed to assist her mother, 
 or rather to act for her, in all emergencies calling 
 for decision. She thought that this question must 
 be entered on openly and resolutely, even if she 
 must throw aside for the moment her habitual 
 lady's reticence on pecuniary questions, and she 
 came forward bravely to face the ordeal. And she 
 too looked at Gueret, wondering how liis formal 
 air and precise discourse could be reconciled with 
 such real kindness of heart and such unguarded 
 confidence in two mere strangers, but she saw no 
 cause for mistrust in his look, but rather was 
 assured of an honesty and, contradictory as it 
 might seem, a genuine simplicity in his real na- 
 ture under all that studied preciseness. So she 
 asked him simply, looking into his face with her 
 
102 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 truthful eyes, "Why are you willing to do this 
 for us?" 
 
 " Because you have no honest friend here. And 
 because you, my child, have the face of a pure 
 angel and are so young and so unhappy." Thus 
 spoke Simon Gueret, answering the look and 
 the tone that seemed to rely so innocently on his 
 veracity. " It is, after all, so small a service ; it 
 is I who will be benefited by the honour mes- 
 dames will do me in accepting it," he added in 
 his habitual manner, answering the words. 
 
 "But," said Lesley, "let us speak of it frankly, 
 it is a great kindness you wish to do us : it 
 may be a considerable sum you would have to 
 advance for us; we are unknown to you, we 
 tell you that we are poor, why would you tinist 
 us?" 
 
 Gueret smiled. "You feel in your o^vn guile- 
 lessness so many reasons why even a stranger 
 should trust you that I need not give you any ; 
 yet, think, why should I suppose that you, who 
 are so honourably desirous to discharge a debt 
 for which no one holds you responsible, would 
 
A FRESH START. 10.'3 
 
 for that purpose commit a miserable baseness? 
 What gain could I conceive it to you?" 
 
 "And if there iverc gain — " the girl began a 
 little haughtily. ^*Oh,no," she said, checking her- 
 self, " I am foolish. You judge rightly ; moreover, 
 were we capable of such an infamy, what could it 
 serve us? But how should we make proper re- 
 turn to you for the inconvenience? Might we 
 make Some arrangement of a just acknowledge- 
 ment to be paid for the loan, above the sum itself, 
 when we repaid it?" 
 
 " All that is usual in such transactions shall be 
 done, if mademoiselle insists when the time arrives," 
 said Gueret, with threefold rigidity. " The receipted 
 accounts of that which I shall have paid being 
 placed in her hands, we will then proceed to an 
 exact settlement. If mademoiselle resolves on my 
 following the customs of a moneylender lest I 
 should have the pleasure of flattering myself that 
 I had been serviceable to her, it is for me to 
 comply." 
 
 Lesley's answer was to put her hand into his 
 and say, " See, the bargain is made. Do not be 
 
104 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 angry with me, I know you are kind, and I seem 
 ungracious ; but what can I do?" 
 
 There was a sadness in that "w^hat can I do?" 
 that moved even M. Gueret from his staid de- 
 meanour, reminding him of her desolate position, 
 and he turned away abruptly as he pressed her 
 hand w ith almost an English grasp, and answered 
 only, " We are agreed then." 
 
 "Are we not, mama?" she asked. And Mrs 
 Hawthorn, finding the question settled, gave her 
 consent and was free to complain about it ever 
 after, since she had been but a passive listener to 
 its discussion. 
 
 So M. Gueret was left to transact this piece of 
 business for them, and they had even accepted, 
 when they departed in haste half an hour later, 
 a small loan, not unneeded to make their minds 
 easy as to the accomplishment of their journey. 
 But Lesley, unreasonable as it was, had a little 
 feeling of indignation — no not indignation, say 
 soreness, on her mind that ^I. Gueret had had a 
 7'eason to give for trusting them, and she could 
 not wholly overcome it, even in perceiving his 
 
A FRESH START. 105 
 
 pei-fect security in tlieir good faitli. Therefore slie 
 would not be denied leaving some pledge in his 
 hands ; Gueret's politeness forbade him to dispute 
 the point Avhen he saw how much in earnest she 
 was. 
 
 "See," she said, "we have few things of price, 
 but my bracelet, if of no great value, shows by 
 the portrait it contains that we prize it too much 
 to leave it unredeemed. It is my mother's eldest 
 brother, done in his youth and hers while they 
 Avere each other's favourite companions; and now 
 they would pass as strangers." 
 
 "I will preserve it for you if you command it," 
 replied Gueret, " only I had not intended to intrude 
 a personal visit, possibly unwelcome, on Mes- 
 dames, happy as I should have been to see them 
 again had they expressed a wish for it ; but I 
 cannot trust this, like a letter, to a poste restante 
 address, and I am compelled to ask for an oppor- 
 tunity of placing it again in their hands." 
 
 " I fear we shall hardly find our old apartment 
 vacant," said Mrs Hawthorn, "it is for that reason 
 that I could give you no address." 
 
106 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 " Yet," interrupted Lesley, " we have an address 
 to give after all, for I, at least, shall be found in 
 the studio of M. Baudoyer, and," — 
 
 "Pierre Baudoyer?" enquired Gueret, "painter, 
 a Gascon, with a handsome wife with quick black 
 eyes and brown hair ? 
 
 "Yes," said Lesley eagerly. "Do you know 
 him?" 
 
 "Let us ascertain. He has lived now some 
 years in Paris, say ten ?" 
 
 "Eleven," said she. "I have heard him say so. 
 I have known him six." 
 
 " And his wife also paints, but not so well ? And 
 he does not love to spend much, yet loves well 
 enough to give ? And he is a short rotund man, 
 T^th a face like a triangle nevertheless, and 
 he has peering grey eyes and tangled black 
 hair?" 
 
 "Grey hair," put in Lesley, "thick and tangled, 
 but quite grey." 
 
 "Ah !" sighed Gueret, "eleven years !" and for 
 a moment he ceased to look like a wooden lay- 
 block ; " and you have never heard him speak of 
 
A FRESH START. 107 
 
 me?" he resumed, "of his old schoolfellow, Simon 
 Gueret?"* 
 
 " No. Yet often he has talked of his youth, and 
 loves to relate his schoolboy frolics." 
 
 " Did he tell you of coming in the priest's sou- 
 tane and giving the Friday lecture to the second 
 class, pretending Father Joseph was ill and had 
 sent him to take his place, and puzzling all the 
 masters with his new doctrines ?" 
 
 "Yes. But it was not he who did it, it was 
 Colin, Colin le Malin, as he calls him." 
 
 "C'est ca, c'est 9a," said Gueret, almost eagerly, 
 " I thought he would not have completely forgot- 
 ten me — Colin they called me in those fine days, 
 by a school joke which it is needless to relate — 
 Colin, and they would add le Malin for I was of 
 all that youth the most frolicsome." 
 
 " M. Baudoyer is your friend then?" 
 
 " Yes, Mademoiselle — or was ; for who knows 
 what time may have effiiced of a sentiment." 
 
 " But, if you are Colin, it seems to have efiaced 
 nothing." 
 
 " That is good to hear. Mademoiselle. We have 
 
108 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 lost sight of each other long; at first when he 
 went to Paris we, from time to time, exchanged 
 letters, but that ceased. He ^vrote to me while 
 I was absent on a journey, and I did not receive 
 the letter in time to reach him with my answer 
 before the accomplishment of a change of resi- 
 dence which he had announced to me without 
 giving me the particulars; thus I did not know 
 his address, and he, who possessed a certain 
 touchy humility, doubtless concluded, as he had 
 before been prompt to imagine when he fancied 
 neglect, that I remembered too e\idently that my 
 social position Avas more advantageous than his, 
 and wrote to me no more. I thank you, INIademoi- 
 selle, that by your means I shall be enabled to 
 resume our interrupted intercourse." 
 
 "Then," said Lesley, "I mil ask a kindness of 
 you. Will you ^vrite to him and tell him the cir- 
 cumstances under which I return his pupil as be- 
 fore, and bid him show no surprise at seeing me 
 aorain so soon — as soon as I dare trust mvself — 
 in his studio ? I coidd not explain yet — you would 
 save me so much pain." 
 
A FRESH START. 109 
 
 Gueret was pleased at the suggestion ; pleased 
 that she asked him to do her a kindness not to 
 be bargained over, and pleased at so good an 
 opportunity for breaking the ice of all those years 
 between him and his old friend. He bowed his 
 lowest over it, and the address was given him, 
 distinctly written in spite of the poor trembling 
 little hand, just as Mrs Hawthorn ai)peared, finally 
 ready to start. 
 
 Mrs Hawthorn and Lesley refused his prof- 
 fered escort to the steamboat, and he was too 
 courteous to insist; the more that he perceived 
 that his accompanying them might add fresh 
 subject for speculation on the sudden change 
 in their plans, which was already amazing the 
 stafi* of the hotel and which would soon form 
 a topic for comments and conjectures innumera- 
 ble among its occupants, who had, for the most 
 part, shown a good deal of curiosity about this 
 fair girlish bride. So he lost no time in fid- 
 fiUing his commission as to the letter, and thus 
 the Baudoyers, while from wise kindness they 
 had refmined from seeking out their sorrow- 
 
110 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 stricken pupil, were looking anxiously for her 
 appearance. 
 
 Yet they hardly counted on her coming so soon ; 
 but they said, " This must be the fourth day, and 
 she should not delay long, for the shorter her 
 absence the shorter the wonder," and they fidget- 
 ted about in an unsettled manner very unlike their 
 usual art-engrossed quietude at that morning time. 
 They sat by the Avindow watching for her, although 
 they knew that in that short bowbacked street 
 there was every chance of their not catching sight 
 
 of her as she came along. 
 
 " If she comes, it will surely be a little before 
 
 the hour," said Madame, " that she may not meet 
 
 us first in the presence of all those young ladies." 
 *' And already there are scarcely a few minutes 
 
 to si)are," returned her husband anxiously. "Xo, 
 
 she will not come to-day." 
 But just at that moment a light step Avas heard 
 
 on the stairs. The old j)ainter's eye fell upon the 
 
 brilliant bouquet, as he turned from the window. 
 
 "Ah that bouquet! We have forgotten, she will 
 
 think why it was placed there." 
 
A FRESH START. Ill 
 
 Mde. Baudoyer, red with alarm, rushed at it 
 and, snatching it from its vase, hid it beneath her 
 shawl. "There is not time, she is coming," she 
 ejaculated breathlessly. "What can one do Avith 
 it?" 
 
 "Throw it fi-om the Avindow, my friend," said 
 her husband. And the flowers were tossed out 
 and fell with a i^lash on the stones, where the i)or- 
 ter's children seized on them triumphantly; and 
 Lesley, coming on them presently in their division 
 of the spoils, understood the little history at a 
 glance and a word, and trembled a little the more 
 as she began to ascend the staircase. 
 
 For it had not been Lesley the Baudoyers had 
 heard, but only Elise coming full of eagerness to 
 begin a new and more difficult study of colour. 
 And all the pupils had come and were arranging 
 themselves to their work when Lesley came in 
 among them. 
 
 She had chosen her time carefully, and had suc- 
 ceeded in her plan. She meant to come after the 
 others, that there might be no, what you might call, 
 first meeting with her friendly teachers, for she 
 
112 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 dreaded losing her composure in painful explana- 
 tions, and not being able to sustain her pai*t after- 
 wards : and she meant to come while the business 
 of the day was being set on foot, that her com- 
 panions, j)re-occupied with that, might observe her 
 the less. 
 
 She was received without surprise; the com- 
 panions had only been told that she had gone for 
 a little while to England with her mother, and, 
 seeing nothing singular in her visit to the country 
 from which she derived her origin, saw nothing 
 singular in her return. And ^Ide. Baudoyer had 
 tact enough to divert her own emotion and the 
 attention of her pupils into another channel by a 
 vigorous fit of criticism; and Madame's criticism 
 was not to be heard carelessly; she was a hot little 
 vessel and there was no telling which way the 
 steam might scald when she fizzed and bubbled. 
 It was a little hard on Mile. Euphrasic, whose 
 di'awing was no more sinful against the laws of 
 perspective than usual, but no doubt it was neces- 
 sary that she should have her shortcomings im- 
 pressed on her from time to time, and the lecture 
 
A FRESH START. 113 
 
 on tlicin was instructive to her fellow-students. 
 At all events it enabled Lesley to pass on unde- 
 layed by conversation or separate greetings. 
 
 There was no change visible in her yet. Her 
 walk had revived her fresh transparent complexion, 
 and brightness of cheek easily represents bright- 
 ness of expression to unsuspicious beholders. If 
 you had been there and had had time to notice 
 closely you might have recognized a weary look in 
 the eyes, that, detected among the blushes and 
 smiles of youth, has its own sad significance ; but 
 happily you do not often observe so minutely (if 
 you did too many sacred mysteries would become 
 public and unmysterious, and the great Avhirring 
 machine Society would become a torture, "a 
 question" to reluctant confessors), and you Avould 
 quite likely have dreamed of no shadow beneath 
 the girlish bloom and rounding of the face. And 
 she had a self-possession that bafiled mere casual 
 scrutiny. 
 
 So this ordeal was over, and she had passed 
 through it safely. She was very thankful at heart 
 for that; for, the first embarrassment over, she 
 
 VOL. I. 8 
 
114 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 knew she could fall naturally into her old place, 
 and have no over-curious attention called on 
 her. 
 
 There was one effort more to make. "Witliout 
 hesitating she opened the inner door of the little 
 room in which she had worked alone since Pierre 
 Baudoyer, thinking her more than a mere young 
 lady artist, had condescended to remove her from 
 his wife's class to be his own immediate pupil. 
 The door opened into his own studio, where he 
 was intently engaged on his chef cVceuvre that was 
 to be, the martyrdom of St Someone who is lying 
 (the picture is finished now and is highly esteemed) 
 bound with cords, every sinew in a horrible tension 
 and the veins swelled into blue cords, while fiend- 
 ish-looking executioners are torturing her, chiefly 
 by tearing her flesh with red hot pincers, her face, 
 expressing only a meek beatitude, upturned to 
 visionary angels floating above her — one of those 
 scenes of ghastly detail dear to French art. 
 
 "I do but look in to wish you good-day, and 
 let 3^ou see me returned, dear ]\[. Baudoyer," she 
 said, lightly, ''and I make haste to set to work." 
 
A FRESH START. 115 
 
 The painter started at her voice, but lie dis- 
 cerned her Avish and did but return her greeting 
 Avith a brief instruction as to her sketch, and was 
 absorbed again in his picture. Xor did lie and 
 his Avife afterwards make the slightest attempt to 
 dmw her into conversation on a subject which 
 they saw she wished to have ignored. It was 
 outwardly as if there had been no break in her 
 life ; she seemed to continue naturally from where 
 she had paused, and day after day passed quietly 
 by finding her with the same occupations and 
 even the same pleasures as of old. 
 
 But she was suddenly, greatly changed. She 
 felt it sadly. " The sorrow I can bear," she thought ; 
 " but this weary old feeling is a harder tiling. I 
 am a woman too soon." She was conscious of a 
 new mental development, of greater powers and 
 wider, deeper sympathies, but she seemed to pay 
 too dear a price for them in parting with her 
 youth. She hei^elf was the first to perceive that 
 the kitten-like playfulness, the pretty mutlnerlcs 
 and caprices which so lightly and gracefully veiled 
 her real thoughtfulness were gone, and she re- 
 
 8—2 
 
116 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 gretted, as she might have regi'ctted the bro-vyii 
 hairs when the grizzled had come — the}^ were a 
 part of her youth. 
 
 Ah, I am sure that the looking-glass could still 
 tell a different story from that of any one else who 
 watched her, and that the nights knew sad secrets 
 she never owned to the days. For slowly and 
 slowly, almost imperceptibly, the shadow grew 
 upon her; and how should that be if she had 
 forgotten ? 
 
 Kevertheless she had her happiness ; she began 
 to feel the inspiration of her art ; her life went out 
 into it more and more ; and though it might be 
 doubted whether this growing gift of genius were 
 not in itself a sadness, yet it was sorrow's greatest 
 rival. 
 
 And so let us leave her to her weakness and 
 her strength, learning their secret oneness, as 
 many a troubled God's child in this sleepless world 
 has done before lier. 
 
CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 HOW LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDING-DAY. 
 
 Paul de rAubonne bad a hard task after he had 
 withdrawn his brother from that farewell with 
 Lesley. His devotion, sincere though it was, did 
 not, as he admitted mournfully, console Louis for 
 her selfish rigour and for the arid heart he had lo^t. 
 Louis raved and wept, and then would pause sud- 
 denly in the midst of his passion, as if struck with 
 a sudden stupor, and so remain, heavy and still, 
 until some sound, or some thought of his own 
 aroused him to the knowledge that she was about 
 to depart for ever out of his sight, and then the 
 paroxysm came on again. Unfortunately the room 
 Paul had engaged for himself, into which he had 
 conducted his brother, had been purposely chosen 
 near those occupied by the Hawthorns, so that by- 
 
118 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 and-by the sound of hunied rustlings to and 
 fro and opening and shutting of wardrobes and 
 boxes, could be heard there — an evident warning 
 that their neighbours had no thought of relenting 
 or delay. 
 
 "Yes, they are going!" cried Louis, starting to 
 his feet, " They are going! selfish pride of women ! 
 What does my agony matter to them?" "Xo- 
 thing," answered Paul Tehemently. "Xo thing, I 
 tell thee. That girl, white and cold as a figui*e of 
 snow, has no heart, no love. She is safe, she asks 
 no more — if she should weep it will be that the 
 game she played for a great marriage is lost." 
 
 " Xo, she has loved me, my white dove, she has 
 loved me," sobbed Louis. 
 
 "Then how has she changed so jH'omptl}^, my 
 poor friend? Thou weepest for her — she saw thee 
 weep — and she is going." 
 
 "She is going? — but going! But I will follow 
 her, oh yes, I follow. Come, we must prepare for 
 the journey." 
 
 This was just what Paul had expected and 
 feared. He did not wish his brother to meet his 
 
HOW LOUIS KEPT IIIS WEDDING-DAY. 119 
 
 fugitive lady again, for he believed in his heart 
 that she was an as^iiring adventuress who Avould 
 do her best to drive him to the desperation of 
 renouncing home and family and golden future to 
 make her his own, and, though he also believed in 
 his heart (which had had its own experience, for 
 Paul was a Frenchman and in his twenty-third 
 year) that after this first exquisite anguish of 
 imrting, too mad to last and already more than an 
 hour old, was over, the dangerous crisis would be 
 past and the convalescent stage fairly entered upon, 
 he felt sure that Louis would be capable of any 
 degree of madness if he fell again under the sj)ells 
 of the siren while the fever-fit was yet on him. 
 
 It was of no use to try to make the unfortunate 
 young man perceive the serpent coils that revealed 
 the true nature of the siren he called his white 
 dove : she had lured him to her across an enchanted 
 sea of love, and now, gasping for breath, with the 
 salt waters between his lips, he still saw only her 
 fair face and warm woman hands beckoning him 
 on into the deadly surges. *^ I speak in vain now," 
 said Paul inwardly, " that which soon he will speak 
 
120 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 to himself. At present there is to remove him 
 from this dangerous vicinity : tliis day once well 
 over all will go well, for this girl will be gone." 
 
 He assumed that authority which the hale take 
 naturally over the sick, a goodnatured domineer- 
 ing which it were ingratitude to resist, and insisted 
 on having Louis out with him. " Thou shalt guide 
 me through this colossal town, which thou know- 
 est a little and I nothing. We will go to this 
 Park in which the beauty and the rank and the 
 wealth of these insulaires displays itself, and we 
 will find a distraction from these vexations." 
 
 In vain Louis objected; Paul, in right of his 
 mental calmness, had seized the dictatorship ; there 
 was no escape. " Come then, Louis," he said with 
 well acted impatience, "here is thy hat, — come 
 then. We will fly from this vicinity which mimans 
 thee, we will find at least a momentary oblivion in 
 new scenes. 
 
 " Well then," said Louis quickly, " come ; in new 
 scenes one may lose a moment the desolating 
 power of thinking." And he dashed out of the 
 room, leaving his astonished brother to follow, and 
 
now LOUIS KEPT IIIS WEDDING-DAY. 121 
 
 hunting with averted liead past the room wliere, 
 as the fluttered lady's maid passed in, Paul saw 
 the white dress of the siren, as she stood bending 
 over the table, sealing a little packet (a packet in 
 which Avere Louis's love gifts), and was in the 
 open air before Paul could rejoin him. 
 
 So Paul had his way, and the bride and bride- 
 groom of that morning, strangers henceforward, were 
 altogether parted. For, if they had not said it, both 
 brothers understood that they were not to return 
 till late at night, when she would be gone. Louis 
 said, " I will not return again to this house," but 
 Paul answered, "We must return — that Gueret 
 will doubtless remain to speak with us. We can- 
 not forget the godfather, dost thou see ?" He was 
 not afraid, however, of Isl. de Fourrere's supposed 
 agent ; Louis, having renounced his marriage, was 
 safe in that quarter. 
 
 Paul, having no tourist zeal for lionizing and 
 having a disparaging opinion of the beauties of 
 London streets, had said, "We will go to the 
 park," thinking that the life and gaiety of a 
 fashionable promenade was the most likely thing 
 
122 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 to divert his brother's attention from his disap- 
 pointment ; but the plan was a faikire ; the younger 
 brother criticised and commented with all his wont- 
 ed volubility, but the elder brother answered irre- 
 levantly, breaking into lament and anger without 
 explanation, just as if they had all along only been 
 speaking of one subject. Ids one subject. They 
 were strangers in that gay company; grey horses 
 and blue liveries and bay horses and green live- 
 ries seen advancing in a halo of dust forewarned 
 them of no looked for acquaintances at hand ; the 
 pretty faces had no smiles for them and the loung- 
 ing men with whiskers had not to take the trouble 
 of fixing their eyes to recognize them and nod 
 familiarly ; nobody had greetings to exchange with 
 them, nobody seemed to know that they were 
 there. It was very triste and lonely, Paul 
 thought, among all these people; they were as 
 much tete-a-tete as if they had remained in their 
 room ; and Louis talked on feverishly on his sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Paul flagged with walking at last, but Louis 
 seemed bent on tiring himself out, and the good- 
 
HOAV LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDING-DAY. 123 
 
 natured fellow thought "it is good for him, and 
 flitigue will not kill me," and allowed himself to 
 be made a victim to his brother's unusual fancy 
 for physical exertion. When they left the park 
 they walked in the streets still : Paul said, " But, 
 mon cher, we must dine," but in vain; Louis 
 asked him fiercely, " Thou wouldst dine if I were 
 dead an hour ago, doubtless?" And they con- 
 tinued their peregrination. But at length nature 
 insisted on her rightful sustenance; Paul said, 
 "But, mon cher, ahsolutehj we must dine." And 
 Louis, in a faint voice, his face very white by 
 this time, consented. 
 
 "But where shall we dine to-day?" asked Paul. 
 That pathetic question is answered daily in the 
 advertisement column of more than one paper. 
 I forget the establishment so obligingly suggested ; 
 Paul as a Frenchman naturally thought of Yerey's, 
 and thither they went and dined after their own 
 Parisian fashion. 
 
 In the warm room, amid the fumes of a meal 
 set before him when his exhaustion was too great 
 for food to do its wholesome service, Louis's 
 
124 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 pallor flushed into a bursting crimson, and when, 
 as he drank of the Englisliman's stronger wines, 
 w^hich he had called for, as if needing a stimuhis, 
 instead of any of the lighter vintages he was ac- 
 customed to use, his eyes began to glitter fiercely 
 — with a glare rather than a light — and he talked 
 "more feverishly than ever, Paul began to be un- 
 easy lest he should fall into an excess or lest 
 this over excitement might be dangerously in- 
 creased. 
 
 "Come, w^e will go to the theatre," he said, 
 rising to forestal any objection by assuming Louis's 
 consent. Louis was willing. "Yes, let lis go — 
 she shall hear that I could amuse myself on the 
 very day of her deserting me— that cui*sed Gucret 
 shall tell her of it." 
 
 His tones were so wild that Paul would have 
 taken him home at once; but that there was a 
 risk of the w^omen they were avoiding being only 
 then about to set out (as w^as the fact indeed\ 
 and they might even meet them face to face. 
 There was nothing for it but the theatre. 
 
 It does not much matter which thev chose, as 
 
HOW LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDING-DAY. 125 
 
 neither of tliem uiulcrstood more than three words 
 of what they heard there. Nor does it matter 
 what was the name of the piece nor who was 
 the fascinating actress who pkiyed its heroine, 
 the brothers themselves never having been cog- 
 nizant of either particular. But in the piece it 
 so happened that there was a tremendous quarrel 
 and parting between the lovers, and the fasci- 
 nating actress, in a white dress and with gold- 
 brown hair something the tint of Lesley Haw- 
 thorn's, turned angrily, dashing the tears from her 
 eyes unseen by any one, excepting the audience, 
 away from the despairing young gentleman kneel- 
 ing at her feet. And it so happened that among 
 the audience, sitting close to the de I'Aubonnes, 
 were four squat youths luxurious in pomatum 
 and sham jewelry, Avho might have been shopmen, 
 but if they were would be very much mortified 
 at being thought so, while if they were not, 
 some respectable shopman might feel as much 
 mortified at the mistake which had classed them 
 with him. They dropped the H's and were fix- 
 cetious : and as they had all of them passed two 
 
126 Lesley's guaedians. 
 
 or three degrees beyond sobriety, and one of 
 them conspicuously, their facetiousness was extra 
 offensive. 
 
 Louis, vv'ho had relapsed into a weary quietude, 
 fixed all his attention on the stage-lovers, and 
 the squat youths fixed all theirs on him. Paul 
 perceived that they were practising their wit at 
 his brother's expense, and, in a less degree, at 
 his own — a fact which they took care shoidd be 
 no secret; but his scanty comprehension of their 
 language, of which they somehow became aware, 
 left him at their mercy. He cast withering glances 
 at them, but these, met by new grimaces, only 
 added to their flow of wit. 
 
 Louis perceived nothing of all this. In fact, 
 he was losing himself away from his surroundings : 
 his head felt heav}^, all seemed in a mist in his 
 sight and in his thoughts, excepting those figures 
 mimicking his story on the stage; he was losing 
 consciousness of what they were, it felt as if he 
 were dreaming them ; but he still understood what 
 they meant — they touched an instinct of trouble 
 in him. When you are asleei) you do not question 
 
now LOUIS KEPT IIIS WEDDING-DAY. 127 
 
 about the scenes that pass before you in the 
 dream-world, and you are alone, however many 
 of those varying forms of its people you see 
 about you vaguely, because you have a feeling 
 that among them all you are the only reality; 
 they do not disturb you from your own dream 
 emotions. Louis seemed asleep thus. Conscious 
 only of himself, and that passively, he made no 
 resistance to the troublous sensations which dimly 
 oppressed him. 
 
 At length he leaned his forehead on one hand, 
 and great tears began to swell on his long eye- 
 lashes. This was too good an oiiportunity for 
 humour for his persecutors to lose. 
 
 " I say, look 'ere, this is interestin, Frenchy's 
 took melancholy," jeered the nearest, in a boister- 
 ous wliisper. 
 
 "Too much for his feelins, eh?" said the far- 
 thest, putting his tongue in his cheek. 
 
 " P'raps ain't used to this kind of thing, and 
 thinks it all boney fider," said another. 
 
 "Yes, per'aps the party is not in the 'abit of 
 witnessing thehatrical representations, and finds 
 
128 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 'is feelings excited by the brilliancy and faithful- 
 ness of the depiction," was the emendation of the 
 fine gentleman of the quartet, who even in his 
 lighter moments disdained to lower his language to 
 the unadorned license of every-day conversation. 
 
 "I'd offer him my cambric, Jim; as 'e's a 
 Frenchman 'e mayn't appen to 'ave a clean one 
 about him." 
 
 . "No, no, you won't get it back," and "Do, he 
 might take it kind," said two of the othei-s in a 
 breath, while the more deliberate Jim was begin- 
 ning, " I should be 'appy to offer a similar atten- 
 tion to the other party, who appears to be in some 
 agitation ; it might be considered a kyindness to 
 enable 'im to remove that unpleasant dampness 
 from his halabaster brow." 
 
 "Take care, he looks as if he was up to us; 
 he understood you, Jim." 
 
 "Not 'e, but he exhibits indication of a wish to.'' 
 
 " Tell 'im listenin's not bong tong. Ere, Oskins, 
 offer the other gent this," said Jim's neighbour, 
 drawing forth his highly-scented i^ocket handker- 
 chief, and pointing to Louis. 
 
HOW LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDING-DAY. 129 
 
 Hoskins thrust it, as if by accident however, 
 not to go too far, close to Louis's face, but Louis 
 merely drew back, unaware of the incivility. En- 
 couraged by impunity the quartett became still 
 wittier. 
 
 "It's a shame though really to let the poor 
 feller think it's all real that 'e sees up there. Jim, 
 you can parle3^-voo a bit, according to your own 
 account, you tell him not to fret over it too much, 
 it aiiit true." And, charmed at the humour of 
 the suggestion, they all applauded. 
 
 Jim hesitated, but the game seemed quite 
 safe, as the foreigners, remarked his companions, 
 couldn't get up a row about a bit of politeness 
 to them, and then the temptation of showing his 
 companions that he really could speak French 
 went for something. So he lent forward over his 
 grinning neighbour to Louis and began : " Ne 
 soyey pas concernay Mosseu, cella nest pas real 
 que veu voyey lay actours jouey, et il ne pay pas 
 a criey pour riong." By which he meant : " Don't 
 be concerned, what you see the actors i)lay isn't 
 real, and it doesn't pa}^ to cry for nothing," — his 
 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
130 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 refinement failing him in the excitement of trans- 
 lating what he wished to say into French. 
 
 Louis looked vacantly at him, "Pardon, Mon- 
 sieur?" but Paul turned round angrily, "AVhat 
 do you want of us ?" 
 
 The delinquent, nothing abashed, replied jaunt- 
 ily, "Je n'ay pas parley a veu," and repeated 
 to Louis his assurance : " cella nest pas real doo 
 tout, aussi soor comme mon nom est Jim Par- 
 sons." 
 
 "Well, Jim," said Paul de I'Aubonne in a con- 
 descending tone and using the French second 
 person singular, as to an inferior : " We do not 
 need thy services, and we could not at any rate 
 engage thee without a recommendation, so do not 
 give thyself the trouble of saying more, my 
 man." 
 
 The youth turned very red in the ii\ce, and 
 muttered something about an "infernal French 
 jackanapes," but had no answer forthcoming. 
 
 "What did he say ?— 'E's got the best of it 
 asn't'e? — eh — eh — Avhat was it?" his companions 
 kept repeating, and " nothing, nothing — only asked 
 
HOW LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDING-DAY. VM 
 
 what I wanted," kept answering the disconcerted 
 Jim Parsons, but he coukl not prevent them 
 from having an inkling of Paul's contemptuous 
 meaning, and under that mortification his vein of 
 pleasantry dried up. In sheer ill temper he tried 
 to avenge himself by annoying the two foreigners 
 with perpetual pushings and sprawlings of legs 
 and arms, in which his friends, on the considera- 
 tion that the snubbing administered to him had 
 a recoil on them, helped him with a will, so that 
 Paul began to foresee with horror a vulgar brawl 
 forced on him and his brother in a public place. 
 He wished to go, but Louis, not understanding the 
 position, showed unwillingness to be disturbed 
 and answered absently, without moving. At 
 length, just when, in desj)air, Paul was calcula- 
 ting the possibility of drawing him away sudden- 
 ly without considting him, the piece came to an 
 end and the scramble of departure began. " Ah ! 
 what a happiness," he sighed from his heart, and 
 the troubles of the day seemed over : it was only 
 to get back to their hotel now, those women 
 would be gone and Louis's exhaustion would 
 
 9—2 
 
132 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 prevent him from feeling any violent distress at 
 it and would incline him to the night's good 
 sleep that would do so much for him. 
 
 They lost their enemies in the crowd, and with- 
 out farther annoyance worked their way into the 
 street. "A la bonne lieure — now to call a cab." 
 But Louis, revived by the air, prayed to be allowed 
 to walk : " I must weary myself, that I may rest at 
 length," he urged piteously; "drive thou, if thou 
 wilt, I shall rejoin thee safely." 
 
 Paul, of course, had no idea of leaving him, and 
 they walked on together. " When we have come 
 a little out of the crowd we will seek directions for 
 our way back," he said, but he thought, "A few 
 steps and he will be so tired he will consent not to 
 walk." 
 
 So it would have been, and no harm done, but 
 unfortunately there came behind them presently 
 a clatter of vulgar voices and the offensive quartett 
 pushed rudely against them. 
 
 "'UUo!" cried oue,^ as the brothers looked 
 round, " 'Ere's the interestin foreigners again." 
 
 " 'Tis sweet to meet the lost again and gi'asp 
 
HOW LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDINO-DAY. 1?>P} 
 
 them by the 'and," quoted Hoskins from his fa- 
 vourite song. 
 
 ^' Beastly idiot ! " muttered Jim Parsons, " I 
 should like to give 'im a good kicking." And, 
 suiting the action as nearly to the word as he dared, 
 he jostled savagely against Paul from behind so as 
 to make him stagger forwards. 
 
 "Vouatte is zis, dog?" Paul shouted in ex- 
 asperation. ^^I shell straike ieu to earrt if ieu 
 arre insolen." 
 
 A roar of laughter answered him. " Ve sail gib 
 zoo a dood lickin if zoo don't look sarp and be 
 off," said the wittiest of the party. 
 
 "I'd like to know who you call dog. Mister 
 Frenchy," said the indignant Jim, preparing for 
 war. "Look, do you see that?" and he clenched 
 his fist in Paul's face. 
 
 Louis struck at him in a moment. "Diable!" 
 said Paul. "Thou hast awakened famously at 
 length ! Behold us in the midst of an English 
 boxer 
 
 It was not exactly a "boxe," but Jim made a 
 rush against Louis which pushed him roughly to 
 
134 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 the wall ; Paul sprang to the scene with a vigour 
 which made Jim forget his manliness, as he had 
 already forgotten his refinement, and give yent to 
 a howl and a curse of pain : the other three closed 
 round pushing and hitting; Jim, encouraged, be- 
 came still more aggressive — a ring began to form 
 round the scuffle, some of the outsiders began to 
 suggest that some one should go for the police, but 
 as none of them thought of performing that good 
 service himself, it fell out that no one went, and 
 the two young Frenchmen found themselves in 
 no very promising situation. They were likely to 
 get a good deal the worst of it ; Louis in his pre- 
 sent state was nearly useless — his excitement in- 
 deed gave him the hysterical strength of an enraged 
 woman but it could give no more — and Paul, 
 though as dauntless as a lion, had no science, so 
 that numerical strength must carry its full value 
 against him. 
 
 But at this juncture open flew the door of a cab 
 waiting in a dead-lock just opposite the scene of 
 combat, and a gentleman jumped out — a stalwart 
 man and one not to be attacked lightly if looks 
 
now LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDINO-DAY. 135 
 
 went for anything. Forcing his Avay through 
 the throng he Avas at Paul's side before the 
 assailants had had time to find out that he had 
 thrust them aside in an unexpected and not espe- 
 cially gentle manner. 
 
 "Stand back, young men," he said, not very 
 loud, but so authoritatively that his voice startled 
 them all the more for its quiet " Take my advice 
 and go home as fast as you can, before you get 
 into a serious scrape." 
 
 However they could not go for the being told; 
 Avith so many lookers on it would not do to submit 
 to such a humiliation, so they fussed and pushed 
 and muttered, still on the offensive. 
 
 *' Better go home, I tell you," repeated the 
 newcomer, "you will regret it if your employers 
 come to hear of this, I should say — be off before 
 the police come up or it will be the worse for 
 you. I was at the theatre and I have seen the 
 whole affair, my lads, and it won't be over pleasant 
 for you before the magistrate, if you wait for 
 that." 
 
 The spirits of the quartett began to be rather 
 
136 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 dashed — the bystanders laughed. Jim Parsons 
 did not clioose to be laughed at. " It's no fault of 
 ours," he said sulkily, pointing to Louis, ^^ He hit 
 at me." "And I shan't go for your telling me nei- 
 ther," he added, with reviving courage. 
 
 "You struck him first, sir — come be off while 
 you can." 
 
 "It's a lie; but I'll strike you first though," said 
 the fellow, raising his hand with an oath. 
 
 "Oh, is that it," said the newcomer quietly ; and 
 somehow Jim Parsons found himself sprawling on 
 the ground, astonished. 
 
 "Pick up that fool, you there," said the victor 
 calmly to Jim's abashed friends, "and get home 
 while you can." 
 
 It seemed better to comply : Jim was picked up 
 and persuaded away, making a show of defiance 
 for the look of the thing but subdued at heart; 
 and the discomfitted quartett slunk away from the 
 jeers of the crowd, which thought it had considered 
 them mean bullies all along; — ^vhereas it had in 
 fact much inspirited them by its sympathy at the 
 onset. 
 
now LOUIS KEPT HIS WEDDINfJ-DAY. 1?j7 
 
 "Can I assist you?" the stranger began, cour- 
 teously, turning to the brothers, but he interrupted 
 himself, surprised, "Why! — Good heavens, is he 
 so much hurt?" 
 
 Louis was sinking to the ground, his face as 
 white as death. 
 
 "Not hurt — ill. Mon Dieu! how shall I get 
 him home!" said Paul in despair. 
 
 "I am well enough," gasped Louis, "it was but 
 a moment's dizziness." And indeed he looked bet- 
 ter already, and was able to get to the cab their 
 new ally offered without support. But they had to 
 lift him in. 
 
 "I will go with you, if you will allow me," sug- 
 gested the stranger, seeing Paul's distress, "you 
 may require help if the shock continues to affect 
 him." 
 
 Paul was aware of a shade of contempt in his 
 new friend's manner, as if he despised the weakness 
 that seemed to have had its origin in alarm, so he 
 explained as they drove off that his brother had 
 suffered from great distress of mind all that day — 
 he had received a terrible blow from a person he 
 
138 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 trusted; in fact he had been driven almost to 
 desperation, and had become so exhausted that 
 this excitement overcame him. 
 
 The stranger seemed puzzled at some of Paul's 
 high-flown sentiments, as he conveyed this state- 
 ment, but was interested in the young men — than 
 whom he liimself was not many years older indeed. 
 He assisted in carrying Louis to his room and get- 
 ting him to bed, and left with Paul the address of 
 a medical man to whom it would be well to send if 
 increasing illness should overcome Louis's objec- 
 tion to the step, and he spoke of calling betimes 
 next day to see if he could be of any service, or, as 
 he should hope to hear that M. de I'Aubonne was 
 no longer in need of care — a promise which was 
 grateful to the brothers, Avho, now that trouble had 
 come upon them, felt in need of a friend in the 
 strange land. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN SHOAL WATER. 
 
 When Simon Gueret went, the morning after 
 Lesley's departure, towards Louis de I'Aubonne's 
 room to fidfil her commission, he was passed on 
 his way along the corridor by the more expected 
 visitor going in the same direction with a prompter 
 step — tliere was confusion among the domesticity 
 of the hotel, and he had been sent up unushered ; 
 Gueret, for his own diplomatic reasons, was intend- 
 ing to announce himself. 
 
 The Englishman was impatiently knocking at 
 the door a second time when the Frenchman 
 reached it. "What is going on?" he asked the 
 new-comer, "there seems to be something wrong." 
 
 Gueret had no time to express his ignorance, 
 for Paul de I'Aubonne was heard from within. 
 
140 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 " Is any one there ? Come in, come in, for the 
 love of God." 
 
 They hastened to obey the summons. A sitting- 
 room, disordered as if some one had slept in it, 
 was empty : but from the adjacent bedroom came 
 a sound of groanings, and Paul's voice still calling 
 " Come." They found him with Louis's head rest- 
 ing on his shoulder, and Louis's limp hands held 
 in his. Louis was lying on the bed half dressed, 
 in a fainting state. 
 
 "Hush!" whispered Paul hoarsely, "he is quiet 
 now, he has worn himself out — but he is mad." 
 
 "Just heaven ! what a fate !" ejaculated Gueret 
 horrified, "has that poor child been avenged on 
 him thus!" 
 
 "Let me take your place a moment," said the 
 Englishman, seeing that Paul's increasing agita- 
 tion was rendering him incapable of assisting his 
 brother. "There" — he had moved him away with- 
 out waiting for an answer ; " that is better, he 
 does not find out the change, you see — you can 
 chafe his hands." 
 
 The poor fellow was thankful to be directed. 
 
IN SHOAL WATER. 141 
 
 "Thank God you are come," he said, "no one 
 would stay with me, they said it was fever and 
 fled from the contagion — and my traitor of a 
 servant refuses to remain a day, an hour — " 
 
 His new friend interrupted him without scruple, 
 for he saw that he would break down in con- 
 tinuing : "You have sent for the doctor?" 
 
 "Yes, they hastened to propose that; but I 
 would only let them call the one you named — 
 but, my God ! of what use is it ? He is mad." 
 
 " Stand a little more aside, the free air is doing 
 him good" (Gueret had opened the window). 
 " Why do you say he is mad ?" 
 
 " He has been frenzied for hours — raving — weep- 
 ing — he struck me, taking me for " Paul hesi- 
 tated, he remembered who was standing silently 
 facing him, ready to be of help: it was Gueret 
 Louis had cursed and fought at, though Paul had 
 been the one to bear it actually. 
 
 "That was fever, very likely." 
 
 "Then he will die! Oh, my brother!" 
 
 " Look, he is better. Hold the glass to his lij^s 
 — he will understand you better than cither of us." 
 
142 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 But Paul's hand trembled, so that it must be 
 Gueret to hold the water to Louis's reviving lips. 
 Gueret felt very forgiving in that moment, looking 
 on the death-like face that was so young, and 
 thinking that trouble had brought him to this. 
 When he had stood at the door waiting to enter 
 he had hated him; but then he had pictured to 
 himself that young girl, desolate with her love 
 journeying far away, and here a selfish profligate 
 consoled and indifierent already, or planning new 
 treacheries to ensnare her. And he had foimd 
 him dying. 
 
 Louis began to revive, he opened his eyes and 
 stared vacantly at Gueret — then the look of con- 
 sciousness began to pass into them. 
 
 Gueret moved aside: "Let him recognize you 
 first," he said to Paul, on a hint from the English- 
 man, a wiser hint than the giver suspected. 
 
 "Ah, Paul," murmured the fiiint voice at last, 
 "then I am not dead. Where is she?" 
 
 "She must not come just yet," was answered 
 from behind him, "wait a little." 
 
 Louis was quite contented; in his dreamy 
 
IN SHOAL WATER. 143 
 
 languor he never thought of doubting, he formed 
 no idea as to who this unknown person address- 
 ing him might be — it was all of course. 
 
 "But she is gone," whispered Paul to the 
 Englishman. 
 
 "Is she? Well, he must not be told yet— 
 whoever she may be." The last clause was a 
 parenthesis to himself, he had no more idea 
 who she might be than the man in the moon. 
 But he had made out from Paul's pathetic re- 
 presentations last night that some pretty girl had 
 jilted the elder of the two brothers on the wed- 
 ding-day — apparently on some question of settle- 
 ments — and that he had been too dee^^ly attached 
 to her to recognize the blessing he had in losing 
 his fair fortune-hunter. 
 
 "Another of them !" he had murmured to him- 
 self last night, musing in the stillness before he 
 went to sleep. " Good Heavens ! why are women, 
 women of pure hearts and lives, taught to look 
 on themselves as auction-lots for the highest 
 bidder? How on earth do they get the coarse 
 idea of the marriaore market to chime in with their 
 
144 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 feminine delicacy? But I suppose this girl had 
 little of that, by her coming here clandestinely with 
 her lover though. 'Golden-haired rose-cheeked 
 meess.' Well, golden hair and rose cheeks go off 
 well sometimes ; — hers did. One would have said 
 she was the last girl on earth to do that, but it 
 was too good a chance to throw away for all her 
 vestal dignity. Stuff and nonsense, and ill nature 
 too. How do I know she wasn't in love witli 
 him? She never said she was with me at all 
 events — and if she had been, it was very natural 
 she should get over it. I oughtn't to think of 
 her in the same breath with this Frenchman's 
 light-o'-love. Such a child as she was too, what 
 could one expect? How one's old self dies out 
 of one ! I can hardly realize the fact now, 
 that it was I who thought my life broken and 
 worthless, because she had gone out of it. 
 This i)oor fellow, I suppose, feels as if the sun 
 would never shine again. What a perfect face 
 he has ! he ought to have been able to get a 
 woman to worship him. But he's well out of it 
 no doubt." 
 
IN SUOAL WATER. 14.'3 
 
 Thus his thoughts had flickered into tlie dark- 
 ness of rest perfect in sleep, and in the morning 
 he had forgotten tliem. But Paul's card on his 
 dressing-table had reminded him of his promise 
 to call on the two young strangers, in whom 
 he had begun last night to feel an interest, 
 and, reflecting on the state in which he had 
 left one of them, he had made up his mind 
 to lose no time in going where he might be of 
 use. 
 
 It was fortunate that he was there at that time, 
 for, when presently Louis, with some recovered 
 strength, began to look round him, he caught sight 
 of Gueret, whom he recognized in a moment as 
 ^I. de Fourrere's agent and the destroyer of his 
 happiness. At once he was raving in the wildest 
 excitement, 
 
 " Go from me, demon. I am dying ; there is no 
 more need of you. What are you still afraid of? 
 A dead man can have no love, can he ? What 
 do you want of me now? Ah !" and he shrieked 
 piercingly. 
 
 Gueret was withdrawing quietly out of sight 
 VOL. I. 1!) 
 
\AG Lesley's guardlvxs. 
 
 while Paul and his new friend were supporting 
 and restraining the sick man, who had raised him- 
 self with a sudden energy and was throT\ing him- 
 self about vehemently. But Louis called to him, 
 "AYhere are you going? Are you going to tell 
 her I am dying already? Did she send you to 
 kill me?" 
 
 " N'o," said Guerct soberly. " I was waiting to 
 see of what service I could be to you now you are 
 suffering, and now I am going because you do 
 not like my presence." He added, as he saw that 
 Louis was calmed for the moment : " But I shall 
 still try to be of use to you, because I know that 
 that is what the young lady you speak of would 
 wish." 
 
 "Stay then, stay then," murmured Louis hastily, 
 " stay then, since she sends you — perhaps she will 
 come herself by-and-by." 
 
 Gueret sat do^ni at the foot of the bed, but 
 it did not do : Louis was contented to have him 
 there, but his presence, associated too vividly with 
 yesterday's distress, agitated him fearfully and 
 he became more and more delirious, now raving 
 
IN SHOAL WATER. 147 
 
 furiously against the traitress, now weeping pite- 
 ously over his darling's absence, now commanding, 
 now imploring Gueret to bring her back. 
 
 "Listen, then," he whispered to him mysteri- 
 ously after an interval of exhaustion, " bring her 
 to me before they fill up my grave ; do not tell her 
 I am there, she will not recognize me when I am 
 dead. Then I shall stretch out my arms suddenly 
 and keep her there with me," and he smiled over 
 the happy scheme. 
 
 When the doctor came, he said, " There is hope 
 yet." How could he have said more i:>lainly, 
 "Look for the worst?" When days and nights 
 of anxious watching have passed and, fevered and 
 worn, you look with tremulous sight on the 
 changed face that has ceased to try to smile on 
 you, thinking with a shiver, "The end cannot 
 be far off now;" that word would seem to you 
 thrice blessed — "There is hope yet;" a happiness^ 
 almost past belief, not to be dwelt upon lest the 
 awakening from tliat delusion should be too cruel 
 at last : but in the first hours of the illness, wlien 
 you look to be told soothingly how wrong you 
 
 10—2 
 
148 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 were to be alarmed, that the worst of the attack 
 is over, a little care and good nursing and this 
 medicine three times a day and all 'snll be well 
 soon ; and instead of that you hear an encouraging 
 Yoice, through which in remembering it you will 
 fancy you heard the loud echo of a Xo, tell you 
 that there is hope yet, is it not something hard 
 to bear — like despair striking chill into your 
 heart? 
 
 Paul heard it in an agony, he talked as if his 
 brother were already dead: " Oh, heavens," he moan- 
 ed, "how shall I tell it to our mother? — and she 
 cannot leave that infirm old man, he would die 
 without her care — she will not be able to look on 
 her son's face before he is laid in the earth, here, 
 far from his ancestors, far from where our father 
 will soon sleep. Oh, Louis ! death for thee ! — it is 
 too terrible." And then he remembered the siren 
 who had lured him to England and then left 
 him, and he cursed her bitterly, reviling her 
 baseness with harsh rage. Would Lesley have 
 recognised herself in this treacherous woman 
 whose name he did not know ? But after all 
 
IN SHOAL WATER. 149 
 
 it was true that through her Louis lay stricken 
 down. 
 
 Only the Englishman could succeed in bringing 
 Paul to reason ; Gueret, calm himself, could not 
 communicate his calmness to the young man, but 
 the Englishman seemed to exert a quiet control 
 over him by his downright manner and show of 
 indifference. The bewildered Paul obeyed his direc- 
 tions with docility: poor fellow, he was of little 
 use in the sick room, unnerved as he was, but 
 he clung to the thought that his brother was re- 
 assured when, in the intervals from delirium, he 
 recognized him near him, and he devoted himself 
 to him with a dog-like faithfulness. 
 
 In these intervals, dreamy and puzzled, Louis 
 shewed an odd predilection for the presence of 
 Gueret — of his English friend, Paul's constant sup- 
 port, he took little notice, seeming to take his 
 being there as a matter of course, without ques- 
 tion. But through the nine wild days of his fever 
 it was to the nurse the doctor had sent that his 
 eyes were oftenest turned — she Avas Desiree, his 
 darling, his wife — he wooed her as in the old days 
 
153 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 of his courtship— he would snatch at her hand and 
 caress it tenderly. Sometimes his fancy changed, 
 she was Desire e still, but cruel, angry, reproaching 
 him, leaving him : then he would go over the scene 
 of that passionate morning and implore her for- 
 giveness, he would try to tlirow himself at her 
 feet; she, good woman, understanding nothing of 
 his outlandish ravings, listened with her fat face 
 steady and dull, and with the needful equanimity 
 of her office smoothed the tumbled bed and 
 waited ready with the draught. 
 
 One day Louis imagined that Lesley was dead — 
 somehow he had killed her. There she was lying 
 white and still across the foot of his bed. Hour 
 after hour he saw her, her pale face upturned, and 
 the hands, one with a gold ring on its third finger, 
 folded on her breast. 
 
 Tlien he thought that, while he was still im- 
 ploring her for forgiveness, she had risen slowly, 
 very slowly, and turned the death-fixed face towards 
 him, utterly calm, loveless, and angerless. He saw 
 her pass quietly away — only at the last she tui'ned 
 and beckoned him. 
 
IN SHOAL WATER. lol 
 
 He said to Paul, "Now I know that I shall 
 die. I am not dreaming now, I am awake and 
 calm, and I tell thee I have seen her dead and 
 she beckoned me to follow her. I feel death 
 by me." 
 
 And looking on his face Paul must believe him. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 A FEW YEARS BACK. 
 
 Six years before Louis de I'Aubonne and Lesley 
 Hawthorn were pronounced man and wife to so 
 little purpose, there had been a quarrel between 
 two lovers — no, not lovers, but tw o young people 
 who partly thought themselves lovers, and would 
 have been, no doubt, had not this misunderstand- 
 ing intervened. 
 
 I must correct myself again: I suppose mis- 
 understcmding implies some tangible aiuse of dis- 
 pute, something which a distinct explanation 
 might remove. But this was a mere wilful bicker- 
 ing, a war with no casus belli, or none ostensible. 
 
 It was the lady's fault; or, at any rate, she 
 began the quarrel. Whether the blame of her 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 153 
 
 feeling piqued to do so was to be laid on her own 
 unreasonableness alone I do not say ; she did not 
 think so at the time; though she did later. But 
 then that was when she had received some small 
 wrong at the gentleman's hands, and of course was 
 anxious to persuade herself that she and not he 
 was responsible for it. So her second thoughts 
 need go for no more than the first. 
 
 The lady at the time had but newly gi'own up 
 into sufiicient maturity to assume that title of 
 womanhood ; so newly that she was still in bondage 
 to her honours, and afflicted with all the exacting 
 dignity of the transitional states in all social 
 greatnesses — whether the aristocratic eminence 
 attained by the parvenu millionaire, or the queen- 
 dom in polite life which young ladies are allowed 
 to exercise (or to fancy they exercise, which does 
 just as well), in compensation for their domestic 
 bondage. For she was scarcely more than a child, 
 though looking so much older that she had to 
 grow younger every year from then in order to look 
 her true age by-and-by at twenty. She Avas good- 
 looking, and more : but see how indistinct is word- 
 
154 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 portraiture; if I were to describe her appearance 
 I must use nearly the same terms as for Lesley 
 Hawthorn, yet the two were distinctly unlike. 
 And Lesley was far the most beautiful. Neither 
 of the faces was marred by that symmetiical dul- 
 ness which is called regularity of feature, but this 
 girl's features were less harmoniously combined; 
 the bright bloom of her cheeks was not so trans- 
 parent, her eyes were keener and harder bright. 
 She might have the advantage in form ; both were 
 tall and shapely, but hers was of fuller outline, in 
 better proportion to the height; yet Lesley's, from 
 its very deficiency, had a fragile gracefulness which 
 the other could not rival. And though each pos- 
 sessed the inconvenient charm of changing expres- 
 sion, in general this girls had a too eager vivacity, 
 far less winning than Lesley's softer look of inter- 
 est. That her lip at this time was often set in the 
 contemi)tuous curl which it always assumed in- 
 stinctively in her disdainful moments, was, I think, 
 owing more to the heroines of certain novels being 
 in the habit of displaying a "haughty bearing,'' 
 and a "scornful beaut}^," than to an unamiable 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 155 
 
 tone of mind, or even than to the capability of 
 impetuous scorn real in her nature. 
 
 I have used the word "rival" above; it suggests 
 to me to explain that it is not because of such a 
 connection or disconnection between these two that 
 I have made this comparison, but because I am 
 allowed to hope that any one who has cared to fol- 
 low the story to the end of the seventh chapter 
 (not being thereto compelled) must have taken 
 sufficient interest in it to receive some sort of por- 
 trait of its heroine on the mental camera; and it 
 seems a likely plan of ]3resenting the heroine of 
 the present chapter to such a one to describe her 
 with reference to that portrait, always hoping that 
 he may by-and-by form for himself a true like- 
 ness of her also. For a woman's looks are so large 
 a part of her personality, they are so greatly in- 
 fluenced by it and so greatly influence it, that you 
 cannot individualize her apart from them. And 
 the writer has failed in his book if the reader has 
 not individualized its characters. 
 
 But for men, in books or out of them, the out- 
 ward presentment imports far less, (though some- 
 
156 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 thing too,) their individuality being largely express- 
 ed in their outer lives with their greater space for 
 movement and more angular contact with the world. 
 Their looks do not operate upon their characters 
 to anything like the same extent, because they are 
 not the standard by which they are judged ; you 
 think of the man himself apart from them. 
 
 Therefore I do not care to describe the other 
 actor in this little episode in two diverging lives 
 further at present than to say that he looked a 
 gentleman — an English gentleman, with the power 
 of an athlete and the refinement of a scholar — but 
 not a handsome one. In after years he w^as more 
 so than now, but never with any accurate beauty. 
 
 But the beauty of an Antinous would not have 
 served him with Miss Annesley, who utterly disre- 
 garded that quality in a man, valuing it only in 
 her own sex where she recognized it with a quite 
 masculine enthusiasm ; and, on the other hand, he 
 had the very gifts, moral and mental, which could 
 most incline her in his favour. She, who was al- 
 ways ready to run a tilt against "les convenances" 
 wherever and w^henever she chose to consider 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 1/57 
 
 them tyrannical or dishonest, appreciated his quiet 
 independence of the voice of that incomprehensible 
 uncomprehending legislator surnamed The World. 
 Her strong will, because it was a woman's strong 
 will, was prepared to find a proud pleasure in 
 yielding to his man's strong will surer and master- 
 ful, she would be glad to lay down her self-reliance 
 and rest on the wisdom and the love of one whose 
 superiority she could feel: she liked to have her 
 imperiousness met by his firm self-assertion. Then 
 her somewhat fierce truthfulness met Avith no 
 shock in him; what she meant by honour and 
 generosity he meant, and she had penetration — or 
 instinct — enough to discover in him, deeper than 
 his daily self, that secret and sensitive tenderness 
 which sometimes makes a strong nature a high 
 one: it gave her faith in his. In fact she under- 
 stood him. She thought he also understood her, 
 but in that she was mistaken ; he never possessed 
 her sympathetic insight ; if he had he would have 
 been one of those men from whom true poets arc 
 made. 
 
 She understood him so well that her judgment 
 
];')S Lesley's guardians. 
 
 of him in those early days was more tnie of him 
 afterwards than at the time. She knew what he 
 could be — must be, unless in some miserable way 
 he sank beneath himself, as such men have done 
 before now — and, in part even consciously, she 
 measured him by the future more than by the 
 present. Child almost as she was herself, she dis- 
 cerned the incompleteness of his youth. 
 
 He also divined it ; but being clever, and what 
 was more, proved clever in a brilliant university 
 career, he was not disposed to allow others, and 
 especially this child, whom he was inclined to think 
 he loved, to make him recognize it; and though 
 she had an exaggerated respect for intellect and 
 surely gave him credit for what he possessed, he 
 was suspicious of her on tliat point. 
 
 Did he love her? He generally thought he did ; 
 he was often sure of it, even passionately; ami 
 after this quarrel he was always sure of it. Yet it 
 may well be that he was pleased by lier frank 
 preference, piqued by her little assumptions and 
 petulances, rather than led to her by that dee]> 
 affection which alone he would have called love — 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. I.jO 
 
 for he was inwardly given to sentiment, though he 
 was a poor man, and knew he was called on to be 
 a prudent one. 
 
 Did she love him then? She very rarely thought 
 she did, very rarely thought about it at all: and 
 she was the more borne out in considering herself 
 fancy free that she could speak of him, and even 
 praise him, freely in any society. But she was 
 easily to be offended by him, firing up at quite 
 imaginary slights ; and she was very changeable in 
 her opinion of his attentions to her, believing at 
 one time that he was the true lover she would 
 wish to be the one of her life, at another, that he 
 was only the well-meaning friend she chose always 
 to imply to him that she considered him, and 
 sometimes in a sudden anger — or would it be a 
 sudden alarm? — wholly doubting him and chafing 
 at herself that a mere man flirt coidd think he 
 might play with her at his fancy. And she was 
 pettishly anxious that he should not think her 
 careful to please him. "I won't have any man 
 think I'm prej)aring to receive an offer — not even 
 to say "No thank you" to it — that he isn't prepared 
 
160 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 to make" was a thing she had often said, but she 
 had not acted on it so vehemently or so fitfully 
 with some people. 
 
 It looks as if she, if she did not love the most 
 of these two, was likely to love the most — it 
 looks at least to those who know how to take 
 it. But she was so young that her heart had not 
 grown to its self-knowledge, and there was hardly 
 soil enough of thought for a love to take an in- 
 destructible root there. 
 
 The thing had begun when she was no more 
 than fifteen, and ever since, that is some time over 
 a year, there had been much talk about it in the 
 gossipries of the place, and Mrs Annesley was be- 
 ginning to regret that she had not stood in the 
 way in time. \Yhen she thought of it it was too 
 late ; she desired her daughter's marriage and was 
 quite sure that if she loved this man nothing 
 would prevail on her to give her hand to another, 
 nor would she have urged her to a step which her 
 own principle condemned. She could but de- 
 preciate the, to her at all events, unwelcome wooer, 
 and point out to her daughter all possible and im- 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. IGl 
 
 possible reasons for doubting his being one in 
 earnest The effect of which was tliat the girl 
 grew more wilful both to the accuser and the ac- 
 cused and was in a constantly restless mood — 
 except when the latter was out of her way alto- 
 gether at college; an exception which made her 
 doubt her having any affection for him and by 
 some odd process of reasoning disbelieve the ex- 
 istence of any in him for her. 
 
 Nevertheless she had owned to herself a kind 
 of foreknowledge of the love she would give him 
 if he once fairly wooed it, and she felt aggrieved. 
 For he, while taking into consideration many ques- 
 tions of happiness and expediency and of fairness 
 to her, had forgotten to take her feelings into 
 consideration too, and never thought how detri- 
 mental the uncertain position in which he had 
 placed her towards himself must be to a young 
 girl, especially as she was so very young that it 
 completely bewildered her. It was not unrea- 
 sonable indeed to tell himself that since, with only 
 three hundred a year and the choice of his pro- 
 fession, he coidd neither marry a young lady with 
 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
1G2 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 no present fortune nor foresee tho fulfilment of 
 an engagement with any certainty, he ought not 
 to fetter her youth with such a tie, but then it 
 would haye been well (in that case) to refrain 
 from a line of conduct necessarily mducing her 
 and moreover the lookers on (who in a country 
 neighbourhood consist of all the inhabitants) to 
 infer that he had argued in a less prudent sense. 
 
 They were both young enough for it to be much 
 better for them to wait before they thought of 
 such things, but since he had not waited nor 
 allowed her to wait, but had allowed his fancy so 
 far to overcome his prudence and place them in 
 a doubtful relation, painful for her and only half 
 creditable to him, it might have been better, if he 
 cared for her in earnest, to meet the situation with 
 a bold face and leave her "interests" in her own 
 hands. 
 
 All this this child, whom he, being four or five 
 years older, thought quite incapable of pondering 
 it "au serieux," felt strongly, and her young dig- 
 nity was fretted by it. Still she found hei-self 
 drawn unawares into a closer and closer inter- 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 1G3 
 
 course with her uncertain lover, and when he left 
 home to keep his last term at college, something 
 so near an understanding was established between 
 them that she began to tease herself with the 
 mortifying idea, suggested in the j&rst instance by 
 her mother, that she had allowed a man to think 
 her at his refusal, to be taken or left as suited 
 his whim by-and-by. 
 
 So that when, his degree taken, not without some 
 scholarly eclat, and his friends about Alderford, 
 and she most, looking for him to hasten to their 
 congratulations, he lingered on with no evident 
 necessity, clinging to the apron-strings of his 
 Alma jNlater after she had given him leave to 
 journey from her, writing B.A. on tlie labels of 
 his luggage if he felt so disposed, as freckle-faced 
 John Higgs, the son of his uncle's worthy but un- 
 grammatical tenant Farmer Higgs, had done on 
 the very day when that academic title was be- 
 stowed on him, "IMiss Annesley became irritated 
 and, pronouncing in her own mind that if he had 
 cared for her he would not have stayed away now, 
 resolved to make him see that she was as in- 
 
 11—2 
 
164 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 dependent of him for her happiness as he was of 
 her for his. 
 
 And, to put the climax to her indignation, not 
 many days before he did return she heard talk 
 of his trying for a fellowship — which must cer- 
 tainly be a thing derogatory to him as gentleman 
 born since John Higgs was going to have one, and 
 which, as Mrs Annesley pointed out, was even a 
 profession precluding matrimony, so that she look- 
 ed on his conduct veiy nearly as she might have 
 done had she lived before the Reformation and 
 heard that her lover thought of becoming a can- 
 didate for the priesthood. 
 
 He came home at length and the next day 
 appeared, as was his duty, as a morning caller 
 in INIrs Annesley's little drawing room in her little 
 cottage behind the church of Alderford, the small 
 market town, which also called him parishioner. 
 INIrs Annesley was not likely to fail in courtesy 
 even had she disliked him, Avhich she did not, 
 but the welcome he had expected was not forth- 
 coming. As he sat and tried to be interesting 
 on subjects in which at that moment he felt no 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 1G5 
 
 particle of interest he could see Miss Annesley 
 loitering along the garden walk, gathering the 
 sweet June roses from the standards on each side 
 and leisurely arranging them, bending a spray 
 here and setting a leaf there with coaxing fingers, 
 as if no one particular were being kept waiting. 
 
 She had her flowers in her hand when she 
 came in, so that she had to lay them down care- 
 fully before she could give him the tips of her 
 fingers to shake, and then, as they were a little dis- 
 arranged, had to gather them together again and 
 dispose them as tastefully as before. There was 
 no incivility in her occupying herself thus, as it 
 did not prevent her from following the conver- 
 sation with a careless remark and a smile now 
 and then, but he was dissatisfied, and as her 
 remarks expressed no interest in him beyond sur- 
 prise — surprise at his return to so dull a place 
 so soon, surprise to find that it really was so many 
 months since they had seen him, when you came 
 to count, surprise that he should hesitate about 
 going abroad at once, as his uncle advised — neither 
 they nor the smiles were acceptable. 
 
166 Lesley's guakdl\ns. 
 
 To punish her he took occasion to observe that 
 he had never passed so thoroughly enjoyable a 
 time as the last few months, and made honourable 
 mention of various pleasant entertainments and 
 l)leasant people contributing to this unusual enjoy- 
 ment. But Miss Annesley, though she coloured 
 a little at first, showed no annoyance and made 
 her little comments with the most serenely polite 
 indifference — though, to be sure, considering that 
 they had knoT\ai each other from childhood, the 
 serenity and the politeness and the indifference 
 were too perfect not to betoken some secret anger. 
 
 He could have spared the considerateness with 
 which she advised him not to go to a certain 
 tea and gossip party on the following evening. 
 He knew from old experience that she was quite 
 right, that the evening s amusement was of a de- 
 pressing tendency to the minds of the uninured, 
 but as she was going herself such care on his 
 behalf might seem uncalled for. 
 
 He hinted so much to her. " Oh," she said, 
 laughing, very likely at heart fiendishly, as our 
 forefathers the romance writers call it, but out- 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 1G7 
 
 "wardl}^ Avith as merry a trill as ever parted scliool- 
 girl's lips: "Mama and I have no choice, Misa 
 Jones seized upon us unawares as we came from 
 churcii last Sunday, but you can still escape for 
 you haven't got her note yet and arc not suj)- 
 posed to know it is coming. Besides, we mean 
 to come home very early but you will not be al- 
 lowed to get away so easily — walking late doesn't 
 matter for a gentleman." 
 
 That meant, " Don't think you are to walk home 
 with me in the old way." 
 
 lie took his leave that afternoon in no pleasant 
 humour. Of course he did go te ]Mis3 Jones's 
 tea-party, however. He might have some guess 
 that his unkind lady would not be conciliated, 
 but altogether the contrary, by his taking her 
 advice. 
 
 But here it was worse than before. The party 
 was as dull as tea parties in Alderford and above 
 all the tea parties of Miss Jones (fussiest and 
 most judicial of spinsters) inevitably turned out, 
 but Miss Annesley chose to be in her highest 
 spirits and after her wont, when in a mischievous 
 
168 Lesley's guakdl\.ns. 
 
 humour, preferring to spend her superfluous cri- 
 ticism on the present rather than the absent, of 
 coui^e selected the object at once of her greatest 
 interest and her greatest indignation to fly lier 
 shafts at, and became satirical and impertinent, 
 not to say inide, to him. 
 
 Naturally satire, under the circumstances, was 
 an assumption of superiority which he could not 
 allow, and he attempted to defeat her with her own 
 weapons. Of course he failed and made matters 
 woi'se : she being a lady had manifestly the advan- 
 tage in attacking ("Strike a woman!" you know, 
 and the rule holds good metaphorically) and his 
 show of fight only gave her the right of fiercer as- 
 sault. Miss Amiesley's tongue grew so keen that 
 Miss Jones felt called on to point out next day to her 
 two special friends, the clergyman's serious sisters, 
 that " it was very plain what game that precocious 
 chit was playing, setting up quarrels Avith a young 
 man like last night — she wanted to get a husband 
 before better trained girls left ofi" their pinafores 
 and learning to sew." And her opponent thought, 
 "What a fool I was to think the girl cared for 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 169 
 
 me!" He was wholly routed, and then both com- 
 batants became cross and silent. 
 
 Neither of them arose very self-satisfied next 
 morning : the lady felt uncomfortably that she had. 
 been wanting in dignity and had lapsed into the 
 pertness of a forward school girl ; the gentleman 
 perceived that his retorts if less stinged than 
 hers flew less lightly, he could not play with 
 edged tools as she a woman and a cJuld-wom?in 
 could, he had been too much in earnest and he 
 felt himself guilty of discourtesy. And each of 
 them was quite as clear sighted to the other's 
 short coming. 
 
 They met in the course of that day. ^Miss An- 
 nesley went down into the valley beneath her 
 mother's house to finish her sketch of the rustic 
 bridge with its back- ground of sun and shadow- 
 flickered elms. And as she sat at work with 
 the shadow of a screen of brambles dipping 
 over her forehead and her feet buried in the 
 long grass, while a whole sky of blue forget-me- 
 nots looked up at her from the water half-a- 
 dozen inches below, and the merry little brook 
 
170 Lesley's GUAnDLVNS. 
 
 glittered and quivered along, gossiping so quaintly 
 of all the happiness and beauty of its free life in 
 fields and woodlands under the summer sky that 
 she could not choose but listen to it and lose 
 her own thoughts, came with his fishing-rod the 
 l^erson she should have been thinking of for true 
 love's sake but was not. 
 
 " Miss Annesley is very much engrossed in her 
 sketching." That was the first she heard of his 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 "Yes," she said quickly with cheeks flushed 
 like sunset, " I was trying to get my sketch 
 finished. But it is time for me to go home." 
 
 "Pray do not let me drive you away. I am 
 going farther on along the stream." 
 
 "No, it is don't let me drive yon away. I am 
 going home," and she began to jiack up sketch- 
 book and pencils. 
 
 Tliere would have been nothing in what either 
 of them said if they could have contrived to find 
 kinder voices to say it in, and it was quite evi- 
 dent that the young lady could not in any pro- 
 priety spend a romantic afternoon there with this 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 17l 
 
 unexpected companion, but Miss Annesley's lover 
 felt insulted, and Miss Annesley would not have 
 disliked had it been allowable to go througli tlic 
 vulgar process of "giving a bit of her mind," 
 ending up no doubt with a good cry. 
 
 Iler packing was finished in silence before he 
 had time to think of an answer at once suffici- 
 ently ill-tempered and sufficiently polite. She 
 bowed, turning to go- — "Good afternoon." 
 
 " Good afternoon — I trust I have not disturbed 
 you before j^ou intended to go. Perhaps I should 
 say ^good-bye' though, Miss Annesley, I shall 
 certainly call if I have time, before going, but I 
 may be prevented." 
 
 " Going ! so soon ! " she said, thrown off her 
 guard. 
 
 "Yes; wliat have I to keep me here?" he an- 
 swered sentimentally. 
 
 "Ah, to be sure," replied the wilful girl choos- 
 ing to misunderstand him, "this is a very dull 
 place. I think you quite right to go I'm sure — 
 only I fancied your uncle wanted you to stay 
 longer.'* 
 
172 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "Well, I cannot flatter myself that you share 
 his Avish — very evidently," he said bitterly. 
 
 "I? Oh no. I always advise people to go 
 from such a quiet place as this, unless they have 
 quiet tastes that suit it, or happen to like it by 
 some prejudice as I do and you don't." 
 
 " ^Yhy do you say I don't like it ? " 
 
 "Because you are in a hurry to leave it, and 
 stayed away so long." 
 
 "I am glad you were good enough to know it 
 was long." 
 
 He meant it at heart but he said it half sneer- 
 ingly, not meaning it so very deeply as to he forced 
 to speak it with lover-like warmth, and being still 
 out of humour. He made the girl furious, of 
 course, though she took it quietly enough, merely 
 saying, "Well, it was long if you come to count 
 the time — from somewhere in the autumn wasn't 
 it? Though the days do pass so quickly that 
 nothing seems really long.'* 
 
 But w hen he went on to say, " Oh pray do not 
 think I ventured to hope I was missed," she 
 turned upon him angrily. 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 173 
 
 "No, I do not tliiiik you Sxnturcd to hope' any 
 thing of the kind. Let me venture to hope that 
 you never will." 
 
 "I don't know by what right you talk to me 
 in- this way," she added petulantly. 
 
 *'Miss Annesley !— really I was not aware — I 
 must apologise if I have given offence. I did 
 not know we were supposed to be talking so much 
 in earnest." 
 
 *'/ do not know that it matters whether we 
 were talking in earnest or not. Presumption is 
 quite as disrespectful in jest as in earnest, I 
 believe." 
 
 " Allow me to assure you that I have no wish to 
 presume in any manner, certainly not in the one 
 you imagine." 
 
 "Thank you — you are forgiven. Xow I must 
 really wish you good afternoon. Or good-bye, is 
 it?" 
 
 lie fancied her voice Avas a little sadder in the 
 last words, and he fancied that his words with 
 their insulting meaning which he did not mean 
 were bitter to her. He was willing to prolong the 
 
174 Lesley's guaedian^. 
 
 conversation, thinking it might float towards some 
 more favourable current. 
 
 "I really had not meant to offend you; I sup- 
 pose I was inconsiderate." 
 
 "Yes." She said shortly. *'Well, good-bye, in 
 case I don't see you again." 
 
 They shook hands inimically, and their love 
 matter was at an end then and there. 
 
 You see if they had been engaged there could 
 have been a little forget-and-forgive scene, or even 
 if they had parted in an absolute quarrel he might 
 have apologized ; she of course could not do that, 
 but being the beginner of the war she could have 
 accepted the apology pleasantly and the end of it 
 might have been a plighting of troths and whisper- 
 ing of soft contrition. Either way it might have 
 been the burden of the old song over again, " The 
 falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love." 
 But there was nothing for it in this case but to let 
 bygones be bygones and begin again. And the 
 same two people cannot begin again in a thing of 
 this kind very easily. If these two had arisen in a 
 dissatisfied mood in the morning, in wliat frame 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 175 
 
 do you think tbcy betook themselves to re^t at 
 uight ? 
 
 The end of the matter — we are playing at a 
 game of consequences in this chapter, what the 
 lady said to the gentleman, what the gentleman to 
 the lady, and so on — the end of the matter was 
 that the gentleman, constrained by this parting at 
 the brook (since it would have been so ridiculous 
 for him not to take his departure after all, as if he 
 had held it over her as a threat), went abroad much 
 sooner than he wished or had intended, and went 
 in a moody and generally blighted state of mind, 
 believing himself to have been much more in love 
 and mucli worse used than he had been, and run- 
 ning much risk of the Locksley-IIall developement 
 Avithout reforming in final stanzas; and that the 
 lady married for money. 
 
 Yes, indisputably, she married for money. ]Mrs 
 Annesley saw the "detrimental" go off the stage 
 with satisfaction, fully believing that her own de- 
 sign was better for her daughter's happiness, and 
 immediately the way was made ready for a new- 
 comer favoured of Plutus and of Mrs Anneslev. 
 
176 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 Miss Annesley was indignant. " Mama ! would you 
 have sold yourself?" 
 
 "No, indeed; nor will I have you do anything so 
 wrong;" sinful was the word on the tip of the 
 mother's tongue, but she changed it ; it was a little 
 too strong, for perhaps in her deepest heart she 
 was not convinced by her own arguments; "but 
 you will never be in love romantically like some 
 girls, weaker and gentler than you are, and you do 
 like this man — like him I'm sure at least better 
 than any one else you know." 
 
 "Yes," owned the daughter; for she had never 
 chosen to think she sorrowed for the lost lover. 
 And wondering secretly that she had suffered no 
 more, she thought it must be true that she could 
 not fall in love romantically like some girls, and 
 was rather sorry for it and ashamed as for a de- 
 ficiency in her nature. Xor had it occurred to her 
 to find in that quarrel the reason why all the days 
 seemed so dull and long now and she so weary 
 wishful for any change. 
 
 She could not have been taken in better mood ; 
 Mrs Annesley i)resently rejoiced in success. She 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 1m 
 
 had provided well for her daughter's fortunes, and 
 the girl was not sentimental — not so much even as 
 would have been pleasing in one so young; she 
 had given her a wise and kind husband, whom she 
 could respect and did; and though he was over 
 twice her age a man is not old at forty. 
 
 But she had done better than this. She had a 
 stepson, unruliest of spendthrifts, who wasted her 
 substance i)retty nearly at his will. For she had 
 in her mind that not uncommon confusion between 
 impartiality and preference for the side on which 
 there can be least partiality which is the cause of 
 so much generous dishonesty in honourable people ; 
 and her husband having left her free control of 
 his property she, being above the temptation of 
 sacrificing his son's interests to those of her o^vn 
 child, went the other way, and, as if forgetting 
 that her own child had rights from the father too, 
 made it a virtue to allow no thought of providing 
 for the little one to limit his expenditure. 
 
 The young man was grateful to her for it, tliougli 
 his gratitude rather took the course of shewing 
 her his appreciation of her generosity by fresh 
 
 VOL. I. 12 
 
178 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 calls upon it ; he felt she was a good woman, and 
 he liked her and petted and caressed her, while 
 he nearly broke her heart, just as he would have 
 done had she been his real mother. And she 
 perhaps could sympathize better A\ith this careless 
 ne'er-do-well full of lazy selfishness and going on 
 his way like any hundred of ne'er-do-wells, than 
 with her wilful girl, full of impulse, uncertain as 
 the winds and as wild, always trying at some im- 
 possible out-of-the-way goodness (not content with 
 the everyday, alas ! not even equal to it), always 
 learning something that there was not the slightest 
 necessity for her knowing, and working at it as 
 ne'er-do-well ought to have done at all the subjects 
 in which he was plucked over and over again at 
 college. The girl puzzled and disturbed her, she 
 did not think either that she was so fond of her 
 mother as she should have been — " My own child 
 loves me less than my step-son does," thought !Mrs 
 Annesley, forgetting that she, who in her un- 
 demonstrative nature never touched her girl's fore- 
 head with her lips but to bid her good night nor 
 spoke a gentler word to her than to her servants, 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 179 
 
 had not encouraged her to the show of affection 
 which Ralph found it convenient to make and had 
 no sensitive reticences to hinder. 
 
 But, though this might be, it was really in the 
 lofty notion that her husband's property should 
 go as if he had never given his son a dowerless 
 step-mother, that Mrs Annesley resolved to make 
 it all his excepting a bare Hfe-i)ittancc for her 
 daughter. And just now young xinnesley was in 
 pecuniary difficidties so many and so complicated 
 that to extricate him nearly all the remaining 
 fortune must be sacrificed, and the retaining for 
 her daughter this i)rovision, which it so happened 
 had been arranged in such a manner that by 
 making it over to Ralph more immediate relief 
 would accrue to him than by any other means in 
 her power, weighed on her mind as almost an 
 injustice to him. It was a question whether his 
 commission — it had pleased him after acceding to 
 the wish hinted by certain authorities at Oxford 
 for his absence from that University for at least 
 a time, to go into the army — whether his com- 
 mission coidd be saved at any sacrifice ISirs ^Vimesley 
 
 12—2 
 
180 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 was able to make, but make all and any sacrifice 
 she must and would, and what was to be done 
 with the girl ? 
 
 All this the giri knew but she hesitated. 
 
 " I would not have you marry with any dislike, 
 or even without a real affection," her mother 
 urged; "but you do like him. And you have 
 given him decided encouragement." 
 
 " Oh, mama ! you don't think it ? And I did 
 not guess what he wanted even till you told me 
 yourself." 
 
 "You must have knoAvn and not owned it to 
 yourself — girls do these things. But at all events 
 you have gone so far that he must feel you bound 
 in honour to accept him." 
 
 It was not wholly true — not that Mrs Annesley 
 would have lied, but she wished it to be tine and 
 helped herself to believe it so ; yet it was true in 
 part, enough to alarm this girl, so inexperienced 
 and so proud. She held honour very high. 
 
 Still it was not enough yet. But it became 
 evident that her brother's affairs could not be set 
 right without giving up all that was for her, nay 
 
A FEW YEARS BACK. 181 
 
 not "without licr mother being relieved of the ex- 
 pense of supporting her, and INIrs Annesley was 
 growing ill with anxiety and bidding ftiir to starve 
 herself with economies ; her sacrifice was necessary 
 to her mother and her brother ; self-sacrifice is a 
 glorious thing, hiding many evils. The eagle may 
 look at the sun and not be dazzled blind, but not 
 the unfledged eaglets : the girl was no eagle yet, 
 she looked and all swam before her eyes. You 
 knoAV the maxim of some good people — if you 
 doubt which of two courses is right (or some would 
 almost have it whether you doubt or not) take the 
 one which is repugnant to you and you may be 
 sure you have done well : this girl reasoning thus 
 took the course she liked least. She was a wife at 
 seventeen. 
 
 Mrs Annesley thanked God; her daughter had 
 a good husband (that was true) and was happy 
 "snth him (that was nearly true), and she herself was 
 able to give all she had to ne'er-do-well. And 
 dying in her daughter's arms a year after she 
 could say, " God bless you, my child, you thought 
 
182 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 you were making a sacrifice and you left me able 
 to do my duty by my husband's son." 
 
 The old admirer, all but forgotten by that time, 
 was the man who came to the rescue of the 
 brothers de I'Aubonne on the night of Louis's 
 wedding day. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ANOTHER FRESH START. 
 
 Was it spring or summer? Far away in the 
 country, where the lanes were still fresh with the 
 green hawthorn shoots before the ripeness and 
 dusk from the warm months had come upon them, 
 and the dainty j)ale primroses were all a-bloom, 
 and you might find the last violet perhaps under 
 the lush leaves, you knew that it was spring, 
 bright and warm as few springs are now-a-days, 
 when, instead of going a-maying blithely on the 
 merry first of May the old tales talk of, we may 
 be dolefully warming ourselves by the fire, think- 
 ing when the sunny days will come. But in a 
 street of the great town the last two or three days 
 might be taken for summer ones, and on this 
 close night with the window open yet no chill 
 
184 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 through the room, and the large moon quite yel- 
 low opposite in the sky, spring seemed weeks 
 away, left behind clinging to the dead old ^dnter. 
 
 Paul had fallen asleep leaning uncomfortably 
 in his chair ; the moonlight falling on his face 
 showed it worn and wearied, to look at him he 
 himself might have been brought to death's door 
 by some sharp bout of illness — nay in tliat wan 
 light you might have thought, but for the glisten- 
 ing under the eyelashes that showed sorrow and 
 dreaming left to him, that a dead man had slept 
 a while ago into his last sleep and rested in it 
 there yet undiscovered. 
 
 The lights had burned down while he was sit- 
 ting there, but his companion had not cared to 
 disturb him by procuring others; he had crept 
 to the windows and softly dra\Mi up the blinds 
 that they might not be in darkness if they were 
 suddenly called for, and then he had quietly re- 
 sumed his watch. 
 
 His thoughts were busy. He had asked before 
 Paul succumbed to that lassitude from fatigue 
 and anxiety, " Tell me what was that trinket your 
 
ANOTHER FRESH START. 185 
 
 brother was clutching in that last frenzy fit." 
 And Paul had answered, " It was a bracelet of tliat 
 cursed girl's. He asked for something of hers, 
 Monsieur Gueret possessed that (the infamous 
 creature she gives him too souvenirs!) — and, as 
 he refused to deliver the packet she left for Louis 
 into any other keeping and we dared not agitate 
 him with that matter now, he placed that in his 
 hand, and" — 
 
 He broke down, remembering how Louis seized 
 the bauble complaining and pleading to it as if it 
 had possessed a portion of his lost love's sentient 
 humanity in it and could hear and pity him. Then 
 he became ironical : " The fine complaisance ! 
 Monsieur Gueret lends it to the dying man to con- 
 sole him — no doubt the dying man himself had 
 given it to the miserable woman who has killed 
 him. That makes it more interesting." It was 
 soon after that outburst that he had fallen asleep. 
 
 "So the bracelet was hers," mused his com- 
 panion. " I thought as much. That girl must 
 have a wonderful gift of fascination ! the brother 
 says she's not beautiful too — but to be sure his 
 
186 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 feeling against her may prejudice him ; that poor 
 Louis thinks her a marvel — I wonder he didn't 
 marry her, after all ; bad as she may be his con- 
 duct, so far as I can see, really had been unfair 
 to her — inexcusably so, I should say. Poor fel- 
 low, her bracelet." 
 
 And he went on modulating on that theme. He 
 constructed these two persons' romance — but not 
 as it was, for he had heard but a garbled and 
 imperfect account and he looked through the 
 light that the love passion he had seen in the 
 man threw on it. Yet he was lenient on the 
 woman's levity and egotism, he imagined excuses, 
 temptations. He was a man who was willing to 
 judge no woman harshly. 
 
 "I have heard none of the particulars," he 
 thought, " I do not even know the principal facts : 
 I have gathered something of a complicated story 
 — a very puzzling story, for what were those rights 
 in France the girl wanted ? and why couldn't he 
 give them to her ? — gathered it in this poor warm- 
 hearted Paul's outbursts, and one can't get any- 
 thing very clear from them ; for anything I know 
 
ANOTHER FRESH START. 187 
 
 the two women might be able to make out a case 
 for themselves. ^Ylio am I to say hard things of 
 them?" So he was forbearing. 
 
 He thought too of what it might be if the news 
 came to that girl that her lover was dead — " God 
 knows she will have punishment enough then," 
 and he could be sorry for her ; and then he for- 
 got her and, as was natural in that room on 
 that night, thought of death. You know what 
 it is to think of that directly, in earnest, to think 
 of it apart from the vagueness that is beautiful 
 over it in poetry, the shadow and dimness of 
 rest, to think of it with circumstance — the death 
 of one lying still alive in the next room to you 
 now — your own death. It wants a strong mental 
 effort and some courage to do that. This man 
 who, as the phrase goes, did not know fear (that 
 is he did know it, saw what it meant and was 
 its master), being led in thinking of another to 
 think of himself, dared to think distinctly of his 
 death and coiUd face it in that form almost as 
 easily as he would do in reality— the last is kno^ii 
 to be the easier of the two. Then he began to 
 
1S8 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 ponder that mysterious Whither? and How? and 
 when the mind has once started on that road it 
 does not soon turn back measuring the passing 
 time. So his Avatch seemed to him neither long 
 nor short, though the sleeper knew all the while 
 that the time was long and was weary of it in 
 Ills dreams. 
 
 By-and-by a step moved stealthily along an 
 inner room and the door was softly unclosed: 
 he Avent to it, listened to a whisper, answered 
 with a whisper, and came back opposite the 
 sleeper with a doubtful face, "Shall I awake 
 him?" Paul looked so troubled in his rest that 
 it was a question whether it was not worse than 
 waking, especially now. But he decided to leave 
 him to himself. ^'He seems quieter just now— 
 even this sleep may refresh him — and if I rouse 
 him he will be startled and imagine the worst. 
 He is in no safe state for excitement." So he 
 left him to sleep on and retui-ned to his oaati 
 thoughts. 
 
 This time they were of life. Was it not an 
 a^vful gift if it were to be made to a man a second 
 
ANOTHER FRESH SPAKT. 18IJ 
 
 time? As if he were meant to begin anew and 
 make a better story of it this time. As if he 
 were snatched from death tliat he might do some- 
 thing a while longer in the world and in a higher 
 and more pui-poseful way than he had thought 
 of before. He remembered the words of an old 
 formulary, "to continue Clirist's faithful servant 
 and soldier to his life's end:" they were great 
 words and brave and he thought how a man sent 
 out on trial a second time, having wavered from 
 them oftentimes before, might take them again 
 for his oath of fealty and see if better might 
 not come of it. 
 
 "It is better for a man to die and make an 
 end of it at once," he said to himself, "than begin 
 to live again and make no better a thing of it 
 than he did before." 
 
 Presently he remembered, "It's the common 
 folly of waiting for a beginning — why dont 1 
 start to make a better thing of it than before? 
 Must one come to death's door for a starting- 
 point? This is Tuesday, the— the something or 
 other — why shouldn't one begin because it is 
 
190 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 Tuesday the whatever the date may be? That 
 is quite starting-point enough. If it were new- 
 year's day one would say what an opportunity 
 for a new beginning; and what difference would 
 it make ? Tuesday is the third day of the week, 
 my father was a third son— won't that do?" 
 
 And when he had relapsed into more general 
 reverie for a little while he returned to his thought 
 again: "What I have to do I suppose is to be- 
 come a usefulness. I'm no idle man : and I don't 
 do myself much harm, but I dont know that I do 
 any one else any good — excepting what's fair to 
 my tenants — they say I succeed there — well, 
 and I improve the estate, — but there must be 
 more to do than that — there is more done at 
 Ormeboys, I hear" — helper's work, "as she used 
 to call it when she made her grand girl's plans 
 for reforming society — mender's work, too, wanted 
 in some quarters, I should saj, and why on 
 earth haven't I looked to it ? I'd go do^Mi home 
 now and see what there is to do thereabout if 
 there were time to do it properly — or any time at 
 all ; but I can't in fairness to the rest delay my 
 
ANOTHER FRESH START. 191 
 
 journey longer. I must keep faith and start to- 
 morrow evening, now I can leave this young 
 fellow." 
 
 He was to have left town a couple of days after 
 that on which he met with the De I'xVubonnes, 
 but had remained on their account, in spite of 
 the gi-umblings of his friends, who were already 
 waiting for him on the other side of the Channel. 
 He was all Paul's support, and what the poor 
 fellow would have done without him I cannot 
 say; when it was at the worst with Louis they 
 were forced to keep him from the room, his self- 
 control could not be relied on, and he clung to 
 the presence of his new friend, who scolded and 
 advised him as if he had been a little child, to 
 save him from his despairing self. The man who 
 sat near him at present, remembering that he 
 might be of more use in the world than he was, 
 had done some good service here. 
 
 There was a glimmering light of dawn slowly 
 growing through the room when Paul awoke with 
 a faint cry, startled at the sound of the gentle 
 closing of a window — tlic morning cliill liad come. 
 
192 Lesley's GUArvDiAxs. 
 
 and liis friend was though tful for him. "What 
 are you doing? Avhat is it?" he asked confused. 
 "Louis?—" 
 
 Then he remembered before there was time for 
 an answer : " I have fallen asleep while we were 
 watching ! My God ! I have fallen asleep and my 
 brother was dying, miserable that I am! Hush! 
 do not tell me — it is dawn and he is dead!" And 
 he threw himself on the ground like a woman 
 and sobbed aloud. 
 
 "But he is not dead:" he was answered dis- 
 tinctly and calmly, " and you are very wrong and 
 very weak to lie tossing there — you will make 
 yourself heard in the next room, and disturb 
 your brother from the first wholesome sleep he 
 has had for days." 
 
 " Sleep !" cried Paul, ''He is not dead ! He is 
 asleep safely! He is out of danger! My God, 
 my God! can it be true?" 
 
 "Sit down quietly, my friend, you will do as 
 much harm with your foolish rejoicing as you 
 were going to do lying there moaning over your 
 fancy." 
 
ANOTHEli FKESH START. 193 
 
 This was not want of feeling, it was the way 
 to manage Paul, taught by experience. 
 
 "Sit down and I Avill tell you," he repeated, 
 "and keep quiet, whatever you do.'' 
 
 Paul sat down — he knew he was not likely to 
 be told if he did not obev — and bv a miraculous 
 effort he kept quiet. 
 
 "In the night the nurse came to the door and 
 told me the change had come at last, and that it 
 was for the better. Do not cry out but thank 
 God for it in your heart, if you never felt what 
 it was to thank Him before since you were a child. 
 The nurse said he had fallen asleep, and she 
 would call us when he wakened. If he awakes 
 as they expect there will be no danger to fear — 
 except from weakness, I ought to say. Remem- 
 ber, to excite him may be to kill him." 
 
 Paul was weeping quietly, his com])anion turned 
 away to the window, only repeating, " If you never 
 prayed to God before since you were a child" — 
 he knew it Avas so — " pray to Him now, my friend ; 
 it AviU do 3^ou good." 
 
 He could see the street now ; soon the early 
 VOL. I. 13 
 
194 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 morning passers, few and far between, began to 
 go by, the sky grew day blue and the night was 
 forgotten. But for hours there was a hush still 
 in those two rooms ; morning there would be 
 when Louis awoke. 
 
 At length a sound of voices was heard in the 
 inner-room ; IVIartin the valet came to the door. 
 " You may come now if you please, Monsieur Paul, 
 he is aAvake and is asking for you — but he is very 
 weak still — they say he must not be agitated." 
 
 And Paul, trembling from head to foot, crept 
 in and took his brother's hand and heard him 
 say, "My brother, I am weak and ill; it is well 
 that thou art with me." 
 
 }U 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LESLEY S RIVAL. 
 
 What a plain woman ! 
 
 Oh take care, don't let her hear you. You forget 
 what it is to a woman to be plain. Everjwhere she 
 hears and reads and in her own vexed heart she 
 feels that it is her woman's birthright to be comely, 
 and somehow she has missed her birthright. She 
 carries that uneasy consciousness with her con- 
 tinually; your eye resting on her has given her 
 pain; she fancies a mockery or a disgust in it. 
 Perhaps a little while ago she was brightening a 
 bit, forgetting the nervous haunting self in a sud- 
 den animation or even vaguely flattering herself — 
 she who is never deceived herself as to lier own 
 inferiority — that you were deceived a little and had 
 not noticed how sadly difierent she was from the 
 
 l;3— 2 
 
196 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 others, bright happy beings who need not blush 
 when they see any one looking at them and think 
 " He sees how ugly I am." Don't force the painful 
 thought back on her ; to her morbid sensitiveness 
 it means that she is apart from her sisterhood, 
 that she cannot be loved or even liked as they are, 
 that her value can never be counted to others ex- 
 cepting by what drudging use they may have of 
 her, nor their kindness to her excepting by their 
 pity. She is wrong no doubt to give way to this 
 kind of feeling, and she overstates the case ; yet 
 so long as pretty women are looked on with kinder 
 eyes and judged in a gentler way than ugly women 
 (and who can help that weakness, if weakness it 
 be), you cannot say that her misfortune has no 
 reality; and it is such rough criticisms as that of 
 yours that press it upon her too sharply. 
 
 No, if she is bitter a little, make excuse for her 
 and let her go by ; if she is stupid and dull, tole- 
 rate her just a little while ; if she is womanly and 
 agreeable, be as courteously compassionable to her 
 as if she were not plain'; you will very likely pre- 
 sently forget tliat she is, and she will perceive that 
 
Lesley's rival. 197 
 
 and be the better for it. But, if you can do nothing 
 else for her, at least be careful not to make her 
 aware that all your thought of her is that " What 
 a plain woman!" 
 
 Poor little Stephanie, how many times she had 
 heard that said or seen it looked ! Wien she was 
 a child and people fancied that she would not un- 
 derstand that they were talking of her she used to 
 hear her mother and her nurse and the friends of 
 the family (cimies intimes who we '^. privileged to 
 condole over unpleasant matters) nay the very vil- 
 lagers who met the little lady in her walks with 
 her attendants and stopped to say a w^^rd to Fan- 
 chon and Lisette wondering how she came to be 
 so deficient in beauty, so unlike her mother and 
 the lovely little sister who died before she could 
 remember. The poor little girl understood them all 
 well enough then, though some were so considerate 
 as to make a lefthanded attempt at deceiving her, 
 pretending that they were talking of some stranger 
 little girl in whom she could have no j)ossible in- 
 terest : but Stephanie was neither more obtuse nor 
 more indifierent to such remarks about herself 
 
198 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 than other children are, nor was her memory less 
 tenacious ; years after she was humiliated and sad- 
 dened by the recollection of them. They made 
 her keener at detecting the more covert allusions 
 hazarded within her hearing as she began to grow 
 up. As a girl she knew well that her parents were 
 still annoyed at her plainness, and that it was the 
 reason she was no one in the house of which she 
 was the only daughter. And now, when the death 
 of her brother, whom she hardly knew, for he was 
 many years older than she was and did not care 
 about his insignificant i)lain little sister, had made 
 her important as the heiress of the neighbourhood, 
 she had still, though treaties of marriage had been 
 proposed often enough to her parents by other 
 parents on behalf of sons who would have been 
 the better for a good fortune with the bride, passed 
 by four or five years, perhaps more, the age at 
 which she might be considered demoiselle a Qua- 
 7'ier, without ever having been told she was pretty, 
 although she was a French girl and compliments 
 are cheap in those parts. Poor Stephanie must 
 needs know she was hopelessly plain. 
 
Lesley's rival. 199 
 
 Yet when she could talk at her ease a smile and 
 a tender light would grow out of her brown eyes 
 over the whole face that made it pleasant, so plea- 
 sant that whether it was pretty or plain you could 
 not tell, no one Avould think of caring. But of 
 course she might not, being demoiselle a marier, 
 talk to gentlemen, so they could not find out that 
 one charm, else some might have thought it great 
 enough to make her lovable : and she could not 
 talk to the dignified married ladies who came to 
 visit her mother, it Avould have been forward in 
 her to do more than answer their occasional notice 
 in a diffident and unoriginating manner, just as if 
 they had been gentlemen : and there were no 
 young ladies of her own rank living near enough 
 for her to have their companionship. And with 
 her parents Stephanie had not learned to be at 
 ease. So she was not often seen to advantage. 
 
 Hers was a dull vacuous life, but she did not 
 know it. Not that she was either too clever or too 
 stupid to Aveary of that monotony, for she was only 
 at a fair mediocrity of intellect, but because she 
 had known no other, and she had been well edu- 
 
200 Lesley's guardl\ns. 
 
 cated and knew that her religious duties and her 
 embroidery were enough of interest in the day for 
 a pious and modest girl to wish for : by-and-by her 
 parents would choose a new destiny for her, but 
 she could hardly hope it should be a happy one ; 
 she was so unattractive that her husband must 
 hate her she thought 
 
 She had no special talent to atone for her other 
 deficiencies ; she could not draw, she danced with- 
 out grace, and she had little skill in music; but 
 she had a sweet murmuring voice, like the cadence 
 of a far off waterfall, and some ears might have 
 found pleasant music in it. Cmbbed M. de Four- 
 rere liked to hear it. She was his other godchild, 
 and she had to be dutiful to him and attentive. 
 He was cross to her of coui-se, but he liked her, 
 and if anyone appreciated her it was he. And in 
 spite of his crossness and crooked talk, it was he 
 who oftenest saw that beautifying light grow out 
 from her eyes. 
 
 She was reading to him on this summer day, 
 her mother with her bonnet on sitting em- 
 broidering in the other window the while. Lat- 
 
Lesley's rival. 201 
 
 terly M. de Fourrbre, who was a very old man, 
 had begun to think that the longest life could 
 not go on for ever, and that since he had gro\vii 
 too ailing and infirm to do anything else he 
 had better begin to prepare for death : so 
 Stephanie in her daily visits had to read to him 
 from a devotional work making much mention of 
 repentance and death and the merits and glorifica- 
 tions of various saints, to which he did not listen 
 very intently, it is true, but yet with a satisfactory 
 feeling that it was doing him good and soothed 
 with the even murmur of the voice in his ear. 
 Stephanie made no great emphasis or change of 
 tone as she read. Either Madame de la Chatellerie, 
 her mother, or Madame Lefort, dame de com- 
 pagiiie and monitress, always came with her, and 
 when she had read a certain portion she closed 
 the book and sat demurely listening to the con- 
 versation on w^orldly gossip matters between her 
 companion and the invalid; now that he could 
 not walk there was not often talk between her 
 and him, because there was no more tete-a- 
 tete. 
 
202 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 " Here is Madame de TAubonne coming up the 
 walk !" exclaimed Mde. de la Chatellerie sud- 
 denly. 
 
 It was a thing unusual enough to make it 
 excusable that she interrupted the reading ; 
 JVIde. de I'Aubonne was almost close prisoner 
 to the house, she had her wife and nurse's heavy 
 duties there. Indeed M. de Fourrere's old friend 
 and contemporary, Casimir de I'Aubonne, was 
 running a race A^dth him to the grave, and the 
 goal seemed not far off from either. 
 
 ^^ She has brought news," croaked M. de Four- 
 rcre in his rusty old voice. "Make haste then, 
 Stephanie, make haste child — how slowly you 
 read — can you not get on and finish the i)ortion 
 before Mde. de I'Aubonne comes ! Oh how stupid 
 the child is!" 
 
 Stei)hanie was all the while jerking out her 
 sentences breathlessly in order to get them 
 finished in time — "tm'nomortalthenfromthecontem- 
 plationofthismiserableworldandfixthyhopefuleyeson 
 thesplendourofeternity-Preparethyselfwithpatience 
 andpenitence " 
 
Lesley's -rival. 203 
 
 JNlde. de rAubonne was announced. 
 
 " Do make haste, child — One moment, dear ma- 
 dame, we are finishing." 
 
 " Forth'nd 'fall thy earthly 'maginations 'nd vanities 
 'ndknowth'th'igherthngs 'rewaitingthee'nth 'realmof 
 saints'ndaug'lswherethoushaltth'nb'admitted'udfind 
 th' r' ward pr'pared for thee t' all eternity — 'nd sev'n- 
 teenthportion." 
 
 "A thousand thanks for this visit, madame," 
 said M. de Fourr^re courteously to the new 
 comer — she was a woman with whom every one 
 was gentle. "Forgive me for delaying them a 
 moment; when one is no near the brink of the 
 grave as I find myself, even the pleasure of re- 
 ceiving you, madame, must not shorten a religious 
 exercise." 
 
 "Jt is understood," said the beautiful lady — beau- 
 tiful though years on from her last youth. " But 
 you have hurried our poor little Stephanie out 
 of breath on my account, and that is cruel." 
 
 "Oh, Stephanie is a good child, she does not 
 mind, and I was impatient to hear of our young — 
 young friend in England." He had been going to 
 
204 Lesley's GUARDIANS. 
 
 say our young scapegrace, but it might not be well 
 to say that for fear of Stephanie's taking him too 
 literally; and as Louis was to be her husband — 
 you see. 
 
 "I have news," said Mde. de I'Aubonne, all 
 mother happiness, "good news — my dear Louis 
 has written himself — think how much stronger he 
 must be ! and soon — very soon, thank God ! — 
 they T\dll let him come to me. Paid T\dll be 
 careful of him, they will travel gently, at home 
 he ^\\\l soon grow strong — and he longs for home 
 and for his mother." She, gentle lady, trembled 
 with joy. 
 
 "So he is coming, is he?" growled M. de 
 Fourrere through Mde. la Chatellerie's congratu- 
 lations; "and as self-willed as ever, no doubt, 
 expecting to be master of everything with his 
 sickly looks." 
 
 "Ah, but the best is that it is not so; he is 
 sobered, he is in a good mood for our little 
 arrangement, Paul thinks — " 
 
 "Stephanie," interrupted Mde. de la Chatellerie, 
 "it is time for us to prepare for returning, go 
 
Lesley's rival. 205 
 
 and find thy straw hat, thou hast left it in the 
 garden — stay, do me the pleasure to gather a few 
 of those grasses (Monsieur will kindly permit), 
 they will improve our bouquets in the drawing- 
 room." 
 
 Stephanie went blushing : she knew very well 
 why she was sent away. No one had ever told 
 her, but she knew as well as if she had heard 
 ]\L de Fourrere say to her mother two years ago, 
 " That grave little Stephanie suits me ; she is very 
 good and gentle and I love the child ; I must do 
 something for her, but I cannot divide my estate, 
 and I have promised it to the other. I shall 
 marry her to him, does that suit you?" that she 
 w^as to marry Louis de I'Aubonne. She neither 
 repined nor was glad. Of course it was desirable 
 to be married, she should have a place in the 
 world and amusements and interests, instead of 
 being nobody and living for nothing as it was 
 with her now ; and it would be nice to have the 
 spending of fabulous wealth (few could venture 
 to estimate the fortune that those two neighbour 
 estates would represent when they were joined, 
 
206 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 and Stephanie least of all — !M. de Fourrere's 
 alone, which would come first, was beyond her 
 arithmetic), and to wear diamonds and to go 
 to Paris and be seen at the Tuilleries. And 
 Louis was very handsome — only so very grave — 
 and he was not thirty years older than herself, 
 like M. de Fontaines, who she was sure had 
 nearly settled with her parents last year that he 
 should be their son-in-law — and all the young 
 ladies in the neighbourhood would envy her 
 such a husband in their secret hearts. Only — 
 The old sore galled her again, she felt that he 
 could never conquer his aversion to her, she saw 
 that her jilainness repelled him, she was sure 
 that the marriage must have been proposed to 
 him such a look of repugnance came on his 
 face sometimes as he spoke to her. She must be 
 very unhappy with him if she ever came to love 
 him — as of course she must do. If it had only 
 been Paul ! Paul was so gay, so courteous, and 
 handsomer still than Louis, Stephanie thought; 
 and she had an instinct that she could hope 
 better to please Paul than his brother. He did 
 
leslf.y's rival. 207 
 
 « 
 
 not care for her but he at least had no aversion 
 for her, nobody had told Mm to marry her and 
 made him loathe her by it, and he talked to her 
 frankly so that she felt to trust in him and be 
 at her best with him; so in time he might have 
 come to think a little more favourably of her 
 without knowing it. But Louis ! tliat was very 
 different. 
 
 She felt decidedly against the marriage to-day 
 as she was choosing very slowly, for she must 
 not come back too soon, among the feathery 
 grasses and council was being held on it within 
 doors. The indoor three, on the contrary, grew 
 sanguine on their scheme. 
 
 "But Louis? Does he speak of it in his let- 
 ter?" asked M. de Fourrere presently. 
 
 "Xot at all. As I told you, his letter seemed 
 to me at first to leave it hopeless — no, you shall 
 not see it, it is a son's grief sacred to his 
 mother. He says he comes but to rest a broken 
 heart on mine, a heart mortally wounded. But 
 Paul, as you shall see, says he is not angry now 
 when he speaks to him of it, answering as if it 
 
208 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 might be. And he does not speak of the English 
 
 girl." 
 
 " Tliat is a had sign," remarked Mde. de Cha- 
 tellerie; the story of that wedding was no secret 
 to her; indeed through her its likelihood had 
 come to M. de Fourrere's ears. For her maid 
 had a fiance and that fiance was valet to Louis 
 and had a constitutional riglit to pry into his 
 afiairs. Therefore, when his master went on an 
 unexplained journey to England, the valet left 
 behind was able to explain it not only to him- 
 self but to his lady-love, who being partly in her 
 mistress' confidence understood the importance 
 of the information too well not to make use 
 of it." 
 
 " That is a had sign," said Mde. de la Cha- 
 tellerie. 
 
 "But he has sent her away," said IMde. de 
 r Aubonne eagerly ; " he does not even know where 
 she has gone." 
 
 " Somewhere where he will be able to find her 
 . when he chooses to look, be sure " returned tlie 
 other. 
 
Lesley's rival. 209 
 
 "That, no doubt," said ]\Idc. de I'Aubonne scorn- 
 fully, thinking of the bold girl who had so nearly 
 entrapped her son. But she added, repenting a 
 little of her hard thoughts, " After all, poor girl, 
 one must be sorry for her ; she must have loved 
 Louis for his own sake besides you see, and it 
 must have been a dreadful parting for her when 
 he sent her away at the last moment; poor girl ! " 
 
 "Poor girl!" laughed iMde. de la Cliatellerie, 
 "and if she entraps your son again after all?" 
 
 "If she does — " M. Fourrere began to menace. 
 
 Mde. de I'i^ubonne made haste to stop him — 
 " Louis has promised Paul — it was the only time 
 they mentioned her since — look Paul says thus — " 
 " I said to him, ' Thank me no more or I shall 
 quarrel with thee — only, if thou wilt reward me 
 as thou shouldst, promise me not to seek that 
 girl any more.' And he promised me quite 
 quietly, I assure thee, my dear mother. And, 
 thou knowest it well, he keeps his promises. The 
 sting of the whole matter to him, for love does 
 not kill, is that he fancies he has not acted honour- 
 ably toAvards that adventuress. As if one should 
 VOL. I. 14 
 
210 LESLEY'S GUARDIANS. 
 
 talk of honour towards a person of the sort. But 
 thou niayst rest satisfied that her nets are fairly 
 broken." 
 
 "Then we shall see soon," said the old man 
 more contented. 
 
 "Yes? It remains to be seen," said Mde. de la 
 Chatellerie doubtful still. 
 
 " Ah ! I hope all will go well : it would make 
 me so happy," said the gentle lady with tears 
 in her eyes. " If you knew what I have suffered ! 
 My poor Louis!" 
 
 Mde. de I'Aubonne had a kindly liking to- 
 wards Stephanie : for the sake of her gentleness 
 and goodness she would gladly have had her for 
 her daughter-in-law, as well as for the advantages 
 of the match. She kept the girl by her side 
 as she walked homewards with her and her mother 
 as far as their ways went together, and talked to 
 her of the goodness and cleverness of Louis — and 
 indeed, (for how could she do otherwise?) of both 
 her sons, and of the cruel fear she had had about 
 her son's death- danger. Stephanie listened with 
 interest but not quite as was intended, she was 
 
Lesley's eival. 211 
 
 all sympathy for the fear and the danger as to 
 Louis, but when the goodness and the cleverness 
 were talked of she cared a little the most to hear 
 of Paul's. It did not matter much, she would 
 do what she was told. 
 
 14—2 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 
 
 Louis came home. He looked very much changed, 
 he was pale and haggard, and, if he had seemed 
 grave beside the rapid Paul before, now he seemed 
 morose. The gloom of his thoughts when he did 
 express them was painful, but he was of reticent 
 nature and on the whole, though accustomed to 
 be confidential with Paul and confessing with his 
 mother, of reticent habit, and now even they were 
 allowed to know but little of what was passing 
 in his mind. The wicked siren whom Paul loathed 
 in his heart was never mentioned between them. 
 That whole perplexed aifair was made a great 
 forget of — Louis had had a dangerous illness, that 
 was all. 
 
 In body he soon grew stronger, but in mind 
 
THE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 213 
 
 his chief feeling was one of weariness, a rest-long- 
 ing, lie was dissatisfied with himself and of 
 course still more dissatisfied with the world, which 
 is alwa3's to blame for the ill consequences of a 
 man's yagaries — it was heartless, it was hollow, 
 it had no room for love, no time to pause and 
 turn aside from crushing a fainting heart ; it Avas 
 terribly cruel and he was the victim of a harsh 
 destiny. He was very bitter against it and scofied 
 at its ways with a most biting cynicism. He 
 dared not think about the last few months of 
 his life — his love for Lesley indeed had gone to 
 sleep and it was not that he was afraid of rousing, 
 but it was his shame and remorse. These were 
 always struggling to awake, and, though he man- 
 aged to turn his mind from them, there is nothing 
 more fatiguing mentally than that victory over 
 a thought which you will not have with you but 
 which you tacitly feel is always at hand ready to 
 assault you again if you once relax your vigi- 
 lance. He wanted some new interest to grow up 
 in its place and kill it out, but instead of that 
 as time went on there ya^^Tied all the more a 
 
214 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 great void in his life, and it Avas very cold and 
 dreary Avitbin and he wanted something — and for 
 what he knew something might be some one — 
 to help him to warmth and rest. 
 
 By-and-by he found that something did mean 
 some one : and some one might as well be Ste- 
 phanie. She was moved with sympathy for him 
 now that he looked so worn and pale and sad, 
 she felt too that something more than his illness 
 must have done all this, and she felt the woman's 
 longing to comfort the unhappy, and tlierewith 
 the woman's power to do it. That changed her 
 position towards him — now that she had to that 
 extent a superiority over him she was not afraid 
 of him, and, though for maiden decorum she could 
 not yield to her impulse and come into his life 
 with a pitying tenderness, her manner to him 
 grew at once bolder and softer. She had kind 
 eyes for him now and her answers, that might 
 not of course be longer or less circumspect than 
 before, had a touch of interest in them somehow 
 that made him answer them again. So he came 
 to talk to her sometimes and began to notice that 
 
THE TRODIGAL RETURNED. 215 
 
 kind of beauty under her plainness of wliich I 
 have spoken. Stephanie, Avho was neither brilliant 
 nor sage, had a certain winningness in her talk ; 
 and the council had decided that since Louis could 
 not be dealt with like other young men it might 
 be wise in this case for Madame de la Chatellerie 
 to be a little less demonstrative of her surveillance 
 than would be desirable in general ; so with lessened 
 restraint this quality developed. Of course she 
 never was out of her mothers sight and not 
 often out of reach of her hearing, but that strict 
 guardian nevertheless allowed it to be perceived 
 that she did not always give heed to their pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 "Then thou wilt marry the little Stephanie at 
 length?" said Paul approvingly to his brother. 
 
 "I do not know — it might be. I want rest, 
 and there is a feeling of rest in being with her 
 — she is gentle, she is modest, somehow in spite 
 of her plainness she does not displease. But I 
 do not love her — no, I shall not marry her. Take 
 her, thou, I think thou couldst contrive to be 
 content with her." 
 
216 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "I think I could contrive to be content Tvitli 
 her, yes, the little one has pleasant looks; but 
 I do not think Monsieur and ]\Iadame her prudent 
 parents could contrive to be content with me," 
 said Paul, and went off, well pleased, to tell his 
 mother that matters were going at the best. 
 
 Louis sat down to think over it. Perhaps that 
 would be the best end of it. He had had ex- 
 alted ideas once about marriage, he had thought 
 his wife should be his love, all the charm of senti- 
 ment should cling about his home, there he would 
 pass the happiest hours of his life, he would not 
 have to seek for companionship out of doors nor 
 look for the fairest graces of woman's society 
 among the houris of fashionable circles, the woman 
 who was always near him should be the one he 
 would most have cared to follow if she had not 
 been. 
 
 But he was disillusioned now — in the world (the 
 world of society you understand) this idyllic do- 
 mesticity could not be realized, a man coukl not 
 marry a woman merely because she was in her- 
 self the one of all others to suit him — the cruel 
 
THE TRODIGAL KETURNED. 217 
 
 rigours of life forbade that — and if he married 
 some other she coidd never be the heroine of the 
 idyll. "Another dream vanished!" he sighed 
 angrily, "when will the period of awakening be 
 over? I long to be old." And he resigned him- 
 self to his new perception — marriage and romance 
 were incompatible. 
 
 And, since this was admitted, what of Stephanie ? 
 
 Yes, perhaps that Avould be the best end of it. 
 
 These were the question and answer he pon- 
 dered backwards and forwards. They changed 
 places sometimes and they blended vaguely with 
 each other, but they fell on nothing contradictory. 
 
 This w^as not the first time that he had thought 
 over this matter, but it was the first time with 
 a result. In the evening he said to his motlier — 
 sitting alone with her in her own room, where 
 it had been his longed-for treat to be with her 
 when he w^as a child and where now that he was 
 a man it was hers to see him by her side — " My 
 mother, thou hast ceased to persuade me to marry 
 Mademoiselle de la Chatellerie V 
 
 "To persuade, yes — to wish it no.'* Then she 
 
218 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 smiled and added, " I ceased to persuade thee 
 because I thought that — that — " 
 
 "That I was obstinate and tliat I should do a 
 thing more readily because thou didst not urge 
 it? Oh, thou hast not thought kindly, bonne 
 mere," said Louis reproachfully. 
 
 "^No, not that, my son," answered the gentle 
 lady, "but it was as if thy own thoughts began 
 to go with mine, and so it was wiser to let them 
 ripen. Thou knowest / would not urge thee to 
 what seemed disagreeable to thee — I could have 
 consented even and brought thy father to consent 
 to—" 
 
 " I know it. I always counted on thee." 
 
 "Yes," said Madame de I'Aubonne half pleased 
 and half shamed, "my sons know how weak 
 their mother is. Were it not for Monsieur de 
 Fourrere ! " 
 
 "But now," she resumed, "thou wilt ask for 
 Stei^hanie from her parents ?" 
 
 " Listen my mother. I see now that it would be 
 best for me to marry Mademoiselle de la Chatel- 
 lerie — with her it would be a calm life, good for 
 
THE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 219 
 
 a weary man. But, my mother, I have been very 
 selfish when I loved and now that I have no pas- 
 sion to blind me I would not be selfish still. I 
 would not marry this girl to have her unhappy 
 and I can see that she will not love me. — Were it 
 Paul—" 
 
 " Paul ! They would never give her to him. 
 j\Iy Paul — a woman might well love him, but he is 
 too poor for her." 
 
 " I know it, I do not speak of it as if it could 
 be. But if they married her to me against her 
 will?" 
 
 " It will not be against her will, Louis ; she is 
 dutiful and she is modest and amiable, she will 
 love him who is chosen for her husband and not 
 any before." 
 
 "Tell me, my mother, truly, wast thou happy?" 
 
 " I was contented. At first it seemed to me a 
 little sad, — your father was so many years older 
 than I, he seemed already an old man and I was 
 little more tlian a child: but then I reverenced 
 him much, and thou knowest how generous he 
 was, he took me from my mother in her first 
 
220 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 widowhood wlien all our fortune was gone ; I had 
 no dowry, dost thou know that? For your sakes 
 I have sorrowed for it." 
 
 "Yes, my mother, I know it and I have thought 
 how wisely he did in marrying thee instead of 
 some richer person. Who would have cared for 
 him in his infirm years as thou hast done ?" 
 
 "I do not say so, Louis. Why should not a 
 rich woman have done her duty as faithfully ? I 
 should have been as I am if I had brought a for- 
 tune with me should I not ? And my being por- 
 tionless was an evil, it prevented my having any 
 influence over your father, I could not restrain his 
 expenditure of a fortune to which I had added 
 nothing, and I could not resist it when he — I 
 must not speak to my sons of their father's 
 faults." 
 
 " Afterwards ? — after the first days of marriage ? 
 was it happy for thee?" asked Louis carrying on 
 the subject still. 
 
 "Yes I have been very happy, I had my mo- 
 ther's happiness, I had you, Paul and thee 
 Louis." 
 
THE PKODIGAL KETURNED. 221 
 
 A little bell hung over the door began to 
 vibrate and tinkle — IVIadame de I'Aubonne rose. 
 "See your father is awake and needs me." But 
 she turned back, as she was leaving the room, to 
 say, " Yet remember my son if Stephanie should 
 be given thee it is better for her than it was for 
 me; thou art but of her age, thou art Avhat she 
 could love with the romance a young woman 
 dreams of. Do not fear for her happiness." 
 
 She went away with those words and Louis 
 was left to a return of his thoughts of the morn- 
 ing and to the feeling that he had taken the 
 first step in this matter now that he had of his 
 own accord discussed it with his mother and in 
 a tone which left her to infer his consent. He 
 was glad to fancy that he had gone far enough to 
 engage himself to a distinct course — there is no 
 greater comfort to a wavering man than to find 
 himself adventitiously propelled towards one of 
 the paths at his option — and now that this mar- 
 riage looked like a certainty it became evident 
 to him that it was the best thing which could 
 happen to him under the circumstances. When 
 
222 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 Madame de I'Aubonne's maid came to tell him 
 her mistress could not come down to him again 
 that evening his answer was in a little twisted 
 note, "No matter, dear mother, I am decided. I 
 agree to this marriage and thou mayest tell my 
 father so if he is in a state to understand thee. 
 To-morrow we will act in it." 
 
 Madame de I'Aubonne folded her hands and 
 thanked God when she had read the note. Louis 
 because he was unhappy was for the time her 
 favourite son — such favourite as she, who when 
 she spoke to one son in her familiar French 
 always said your father and not thy because she 
 thought at the same time of the other son, could 
 have — and now his fortune and, as she hoped, 
 thinking much good of little plain Stephanie, his 
 moral happiness were assured. Anxious and wea- 
 rying months had the last two or three been to 
 her on his account, and this would make amends 
 for all. 
 
 "Very well," muttered the decrepit half doting 
 invalid to whom with infinite eflfort and explaining 
 she communicated her eldest son's message, "so 
 
THE niODICJAL KETUllXED. 223 
 
 he has come to his senses. He has mj permission, 
 madame." And so, having asserted an authority 
 of which he was jealously tenacious although his 
 memory and comprehension were so fitful that he 
 had to be reminded of what his own wishes had 
 been, he relapsed into vacancy with an angry 
 crowing incomprehensible excei>ting that she knew 
 it was a kind of scolding at her. 
 
 She did not mind, she sat tending him care- 
 fully and thought of her sons. And she still 
 thanked God for Louis. 
 
 Louis did not change his intention. The formal 
 proposal for Mademoiselle de la Chatellerie's hand 
 was made on his behalf to Mademoiselle de la 
 Chatellerie's parents tlie next day — but in spite 
 of all remonstrances he clogged it with a con- 
 dition. He ivould communicate it himself, and 
 before any one else might do so, to the young 
 lady and learn her wishes from her own mouth. 
 If he found unwillingness on her part he should 
 withdraw, he w^ould hope that it would not prove 
 thus, he believed it since her mother assured him 
 of her acceptance, but he must be granted an 
 
224 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 opportunity of ascertaining Mademoiselle de la 
 Chatellerie's sentiments. He even insisted that 
 his interview with her should be a private one — 
 the restraint imposed by the presence of a third 
 person, he said, would prevent his speaking with 
 that truth he felt due under the circumstances to 
 a young lady whose happiness he shrank from 
 compromising and would add an embarrassment 
 to her answering. Besides he claimed for her 
 the right of this much freedom in deciding a 
 question so momentous to her future. His ideas 
 on some subjects were still influenced, through 
 subtle associations, by Lesley Hawthorn. 
 
 It was through referring to Lesley's gentle self- 
 respect that he failed to appreciate the impro- 
 priety Madame de la Chatellerie discerned in trust- 
 ing her daughter unduennaed in his company, and 
 inwardly fortified with this precedent he would 
 only reply to his mother's remonstrances on his 
 outraging that severe lady's sense of decorum by 
 his inconvenient request that it was no very se- 
 rious matter to relax the pruderies of formality 
 for once, and that if the young lady's mother had 
 
THE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 225 
 
 not confidence enough in lier discretion to trust her 
 so far he did not see from whom he was to gather 
 enough to encourage him to make her his wife. 
 
 The treaty seemed breaking off on this dispute 
 for a little while, Madame de la Chatellerie (head of 
 the De la Chatellerie side, her husband being con- 
 tent to leave her plenipotential so long as he could 
 enjoy himself undisturbed in Paris), considering 
 M. Louis de T Aubonne's request disrespectful to her 
 daughter and to the family and giving herself airs 
 somewhat more magnificent than the other two 
 councillors, M. de Fourrere not disposed to have 
 his project set aside for a point of prudery, and 
 JNIadame de I'Aubonne full of pride for her 
 son, could submit to placidly. And when they 
 thought it expedient that Monsieur de Fourrere 
 should, with great pretence of secrecy, communi- 
 cate to her Louis's opinion above mentioned, the 
 experiment at first had the most unfavourable re- 
 sults, as was natural, oMde. de la Chatellerie be- 
 coming altogether impracticable. She went home 
 in high dudgeon, after having positively declined 
 the proposed alliance on her daughter's behalf. 
 VOL. I. 15 
 
226 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "Very good," chuckled Monsieur de Fourrere; 
 " now, in order to resume the negotiation, she will 
 be forced to comply with all we ask." In his 
 discontent with her he had taken Louis's part 
 no little, to every one's surprise, his own in- 
 cluded. 
 
 He was right in his conclusion : ^ladame de la 
 Chatellerie, thinking over it at home alone, began 
 to hesitate about giving up the only satisfactory 
 match that had yet presented itself for her 
 daughter, and as she pondered the matter in all 
 its clauses she seemed to find some reason in that 
 offensive remark of Louis's. "After all," she said 
 to herself, remembering what a very satisfactory 
 match this only satisfactory match was — "After 
 all, he is right that I ought not to have the ap- 
 pearance of distrusting my daughter's discretion. 
 And his request is not so very objectionable that 
 I should refuse the marriage mther than grant 
 it. If it were done with the semblance of accident 
 so that there should not seem any immodesty on 
 Stephanie's part — and it need not be known be- 
 yond ourselves." 
 
THE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 227 
 
 And ill this fashion she proposed the question 
 to iVIadame Lefort, who, also remembering what 
 a very satisfactory match it was, answered like an 
 echo. 
 
 Finally they settled that, as Madame de la 
 Chatellerie could not without abasement of her 
 dignity go and recant absolutely, the dame de 
 compagiile should make the customary visit to 
 INIonsieur de Fourrere the next day without Ste- 
 phanie, and proceed daintily to beat about the 
 bush and see what chance there might be of 
 dislodging the bird and dropping salt on his tail. 
 
 Madame Lefort did her work very well — the 
 better, to be sure, that IMonsieur de Fourrere was 
 aware of her and willing that she should succeed. 
 Between them they contrived the fiction of a 
 compromise — the interview should take place and 
 should be private in fact to Louis and Stephanie, 
 but ostensibly public to the two mothers. It 
 should liappen in the De la Chatellerie gardens 
 during a call to be paid by ^Ladame de I'Aubonne 
 and her son, of which an inspection of the beau- 
 tiful rose-alleys that were the pride of the neigh- 
 
 15—2 
 
228 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 bourhood was to make part : and Stephanie should 
 not be prepared for what was commg. This last 
 arrangement suited Louis no less than it did 
 Mde. de la Chatellerie ; for if she was anxious that 
 her daughter's credit for maidenly reserve should 
 not be compromised by her being supposed ready 
 to give opportunity for such an advance, he was 
 desirous that the young lady should not be tutored 
 beforehand. He really wished to be fair to her, 
 and to be fair he must be confident of the spon- 
 taneity of her decision. 
 
 The compromise was successful; the de I'Au- 
 bonne side Avas fictitiously held to have made 
 concession by it, on that supposition ^Madame 
 de la Chatellerie could meet them half way with- 
 out derogation, and the treaty of marriage was 
 provisionally concluded. 
 
 Stephanie meanwhile saw that something im- 
 portant was going on and judged that her fate 
 was in question, but, as she still did not receive 
 from her mother the expected intimation that 
 Monsieur Louis de FAubonne had honoured her 
 by asking for her hand and she could imagine 
 
THE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 229 
 
 no difficulty which could arise if he had done so, 
 she began to bewilder herself with conjectures and 
 was nervous and frightened. In the day or two 
 that had to pass after the compromise before a 
 fair opportunity could be arranged for the stroll 
 in the rose-garden she had time to grow confident 
 that something in which she was concerned was 
 impending, and the sallowness of her complexion 
 turned into a dense pallor which made her think 
 herself plainer than ever. 
 
 Paul out of his good nature would have liked 
 to give her a hint of the state of affairs, but when 
 he contrived a dim allusion for a first attempt she 
 shewed herself so disturbed that he was in mortal 
 fear of her agitation betraying him and was com- 
 pelled to plunge headlong into the general con- 
 versation at hand in order to divert attention. 
 
 At length the time came — a beautiful summer 
 evening rich with the breath of flowers, an even- 
 ing made for a lover to woo in, and Louis, who, 
 though not a lover, looked kindly to the one bit 
 of romance this wooing was to make in his mar- 
 riage, felt a pleasant tremor as he saw his op- 
 
230 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 portunity Hearing. He had just enough excite- 
 ment to quicken his feelings agreeably; he liked 
 the idea of the little episode, the scene in wliich 
 he was going to play, he liked to feel that he 
 was taking a generous part and the girl would 
 respect him for it, and he was not much afraid 
 of having to sacrifice his new scheme to her re- 
 luctance. Though indeed he was honestly resolved 
 to do so if need were. 
 
 Stephanie walked by him silent and timid, her 
 mother seemed to have found matters confiden- 
 tial to discuss with Mde. de I'Aubonne and by a 
 look prevented her from pressing too closely in 
 ear-reach of their whisperings. She could only fol- 
 low dutifully at a little distance, looking at the 
 ground and wondering why JNI. de I'Aubonne did 
 not talk to her. Presently they came to a cross- 
 line of path and rose-hedge only wide enough 
 for one at a time ; somehow Louis passed into it 
 before her and stood; the two elder ladies had 
 gone on along it, and there she was, barred out 
 from them. 
 
 Stephanie felt veiy red and wondered what she 
 
THE PRODIGAL KETURNED. 231 
 
 ought to do, for there Louis continued to stand 
 looking down gravely at her and, turning her 
 Iiead aside a little, she could see her mother in- 
 viting INIde. de 1 'Aubonne to sit down in a small 
 bower seat in the nook at the end of the path, 
 a bower seat with scarcely room for two. But she 
 felt all fire when he spoke and instead of offer- 
 ing to let her pass before him it was to propose 
 that they should go on together along the main 
 walk — in quite a different direction from the two 
 mothers, though in their sight. She collected 
 herself however to answer demurely, " It is along 
 this little walk that Mde. de I'Aubonne and my 
 mother have gone." 
 
 "That is why I ask you to come along the 
 other, Mademoiselle," said Louis smiling at her 
 perplexity, which she had not succeeded in hiding, 
 as she flattered herself. "See, it is wider, two 
 can walk in it with ease." 
 
 " But Madame de I'Aubonne and my mother" — 
 Stephanie began again. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Stephanie, stay with me only a 
 few moments," said Louis earnestly; "let me speak 
 
232 LESLEY S GUARDIANS. 
 
 to you — a few words only, but important words 
 —I—" 
 
 "But Mde. de I'Aubonne and" — Stephanie, as 
 she spoke, was trying to make a detour round a 
 rose bush and pass onwards. 
 
 Louis interrupted her promptly : '^ I have per- 
 mission, Mademoiselle, to ask you to listen to me 
 here this evening in your mother's sight but not 
 in her hearing. See, I will stand aside a moment ; 
 if she disapproves of your staying with me she 
 will make you some sign, will she not? Look then." 
 
 They made the trial ; Mde. de Chatellerie look- 
 ing straight towards them seemed unconscious of 
 them. 
 
 " Now you will listen to me, will you not ? " said 
 Louis gently ; '' you have your mother's authority 
 for it." 
 
 "Yes, I will listen," answered Stephanie trem- 
 bling. 
 
 " Thank you. Mademoiselle." And Louis , not 
 quite so apt in his part as he had imagined, 
 paused to find a fit beginning. She waited, pulling 
 the roses to pieces. 
 
TFIE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 233 
 
 "Mademoiselle," began Louis, "I speak in 
 justice to you only. I have asked for a great 
 boon fi'oin your parents, I have ventured to ask 
 them to give me your hand." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 "I have ventured to ask it though I do not 
 presume to call myself worthy of it, but I have 
 resolved not to make you the sacrifice to my in- 
 terests ; it is for you to answer my request ; you are 
 free, perfectly free, to repulse me — or if you will. 
 Mademoiselle, to allow me to hope that you do not 
 think too ill of me to trust me with the care of your 
 happiness. It is to you that I come for my answer." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 "Mademoiselle, do you allow me?" He took 
 her hand, which she hastily withdrew — luckily, for 
 Mde. de la Chatellerie observed the proceedings. 
 Another pause. 
 
 "Mademoiselle — Stephanie — is there no answer 
 for me?" said Louis, in his tender reproachful 
 voice. 
 
 "And my parents ?" asked Stephanie all at once 
 looking up at him. 
 
234 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "They have given tlieir consent." 
 
 **Then how can I be called free to choose? she 
 asked coldly. "Their decision must be mine." 
 
 "No — I swear it — if you are unwilling I leave 
 you free, free without blame or anger. * 
 
 "And they?" 
 
 He was puzzled for a moment; the gentleness 
 of Mde. de la Chatellerie, if her daughter crossed 
 her wishes, was more than he could answer 
 for. 
 
 "I thought so," she said quietly. 
 
 "No, but you are wrong, quite Avi'ong," he ex- 
 plained now eagerly. "They have allowed you 
 freedom ; it was my condition — they have pledged 
 themselves to leave my acceptance with you." 
 
 "Because they feel sure I shall obey their 
 wishes — I must obey them," she said. " Do you not 
 see that I am even now receiving their com- 
 mands through you? What do you think they 
 would say to me if I rejected the person whom 
 they had thought right for me?" 
 
 "But I will take care — I will make the blame 
 mine," he answered earnestly. 
 
THE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 235 
 
 "You promise?" she said, with one of those 
 expressive looks. 
 
 "Yes, I promise — solemnly," he ansAvered with 
 increased earnestness, moved by that sudden 
 gleam of beauty. "Believe that you are free, 
 and only let me plead my cause." 
 
 It was half won by that promise — not her love, 
 mind, but his cause, which was to be gained with 
 something less than that — it was half won, and he 
 saw it and grew eloquent. He told her that he did 
 not love her, but as he told it it seemed a flattery 
 rather than a slight; and he told his story truly 
 and without gloss, he thought — yet if Lesley Haw- 
 thorn had been there to tell it the account would 
 not have sounded quite so favourable to him, 
 anxious as she was to spare him from even her 
 own blame. Somehow as he put it Stephanie, 
 while she blamed him somewhat, yet thought the 
 better of him for it. 
 
 And then he told her of his loneliness, his un- 
 happiness, his wearyings and angers at the hard 
 unloving world. He told her how he yearned for 
 rest and felt she could give it him. Stei)hanie's 
 
236 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 eyes grew large Avith tears ; suddenly, by an invo- 
 luntary movement, she i^laced her hand in his. 
 
 " Dear Stephanie," he murmured tenderly, press- 
 ing it. But that pressure seemed to recall her to 
 herself, the momentary enthusiasm was gone, and 
 she drew the trembling hand away again. 
 
 "Listen," she said. "If I were compelled to 
 marry you I could do it without repugnance. I 
 think I could learn to love you. But shice I am 
 left free to choose, I dare not say I love you enough 
 now. Grant me a little time for the decision." 
 
 Louis felt mortified. "As you will, Made- 
 moiselle. I am bound to obey you." 
 
 "Are you angry," she said, with an appealing 
 look, "that I ask for a little delay? Think how 
 strange this is to me, how unprepared I am. And 
 so much depends on it to me — all my life." 
 
 "No, I am not angry, dear Stephanie," he re- 
 plied, repenting of his ill humour. "You are 
 right — and I thank you for being so merciful to 
 me. 
 
 " And you will do the best for me with mama ?" 
 she asked timidly. 
 
THE PRODIGAL RETURNED. 237 
 
 ((\^. 
 
 Yes, have no fear." He promised boldly; but 
 he remembered afterwards that he had undertaken 
 no light task when he made sure of contenting 
 Mde. de la Chatellerie with that result to the con- 
 ference. However it was done, he would make 
 the best of it. 
 
 "Will you go to her now?" suggested Stephanie, 
 anxious to close the conversation and run with 
 her new emotions to the refuge of her own room. 
 
 Louis thought it might be best, but as he went 
 he lingered to arrange his report, with a view to 
 securing Stephanie from molestation. He brought 
 it out in this fashion: "I have everything to 
 rejoice at in the way in which Mile, de la Cha- 
 tellerie has received me. I have said that she is 
 to give me her final answer in a little while ; and 
 in the mean time I prepare myself for the honour 
 of being allied to the family of Madame before 
 the close of the year." 
 
 Mde. de la Chatellerie did not quite like the 
 delay in the answer, but it was for a short time 
 only after all, and, as he had put it, it seemed 
 but a slight matter; and as she saw the marriage 
 
238 LESLEYS GUARDIANS. 
 
 was at any rate not to be immediate — and slie 
 could not very well require that it should take 
 place before the intended bridegroom wished it — 
 she thought best to accept the arrangement witli 
 a good grace. It would have been very different 
 if she had thought Stephanie had left her eventual 
 consent really doubtful ; but, as Louis had con- 
 trived, she looked on it as merely a show of re- 
 rerve which would seem all the more dignified 
 in her daughter. 
 
 "And ^ladame will kindly consider that my 
 conversation with Mademoiselle her daughter was 
 under the seal of confidence," Louis farther sug- 
 gested and met with a favourable answer. But 
 he need hardly have taken that precaution, there was 
 too little sympathy between mother and daughter 
 for Stephanie to be likely to betray the feelings 
 he had shown her there, or for ]Madame de la 
 Chatellerie to care to question her on a subject 
 of which she believed that she knew the result. 
 It was for Stephanie's sake chiefly that he had 
 asked for that promise, however, and she at least 
 felt more secure on the strength of it. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 REHEARSING AN OLD LESSON. 
 
 After that evening's talk in the rose-garden 
 Stephanie shrank from Louis; she was afraid of 
 seeming to wish to win his love — in truth because 
 she was conscious of a half-wish that she might 
 win it— and she was ashamed to remember in his 
 presence that she was teaching herself to be 
 glad that he was to be her husband. 
 
 She used to turn pale and red and tremble 
 when she met him. Louis i)erceived it and was 
 pleased. It was gratifying to excite this emotion 
 in the quiet girl, and he thought of her tenderly, 
 touched by the conviction growing on him of 
 her secret devotion to him. And, though the 
 fact was that he over-interpreted the signs, not 
 making allowance for mere maidenly tremor in 
 
240 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 Stephanie's unusual position and not understand- 
 ing the morbid sense of unloveliness that kept 
 her full of fear yet so grateful for any show of 
 affection, he was right in belie^^ing that she was 
 being drawn to him by something more than obe- 
 dience to her parent's wish. So the more she 
 shrank from him the better contented he was 
 with her, and when he found her eyes shun his 
 more and more and her speech grow more re- 
 luctant and hesitating, he said to himself, " I have 
 done Avisely, this poor ugly Stephanie loves me — 
 and she seems almost to grow pretty with it! 
 If this goes on I shall be really in love with her." 
 
 He took her hand one evening — they were walk- 
 ing behind Paul and Mde. de la Chatellerie, pretty 
 far behind, too, as they were apt to do now — she 
 snatched it from him crimsoning hotly. "Then 
 will you not soon give me that right ?" he asked 
 her in a pleading voice. 
 
 But Stephanie was struggling with a choking 
 sensation in her throat. Presently she turned on 
 him, " You are cruel — cowardly ! You insult me 
 because I am ugly." 
 
REHEARSING AN OLD LESSON. 241 
 
 "Stephanie!" he answered, "you are not beau- 
 tiful, but the oftenest you seem so to me; for 
 there is a grace independent of contours and 
 tints, and you possess it. When you look softly 
 towards me I feel as if you were beautiful." 
 
 Her heart beat quickly, it was the first com- 
 pliment in her life which had made her flush 
 with pleasure — always before it had been with 
 pain — for this one she could receive as spoken 
 in gentle truth; if he had told her she w^as 
 in fact not plain she would have felt as if 
 he had stinick her. She faltered and dared 
 not again raise her eyes to his, which she felt 
 (not altogether sorry to feel it) were intent upon 
 her. 
 
 "You wrong yourself," he whispered, "but 
 I — have I ofibnded your reserve ? Forgive 
 me. 
 
 And Stephanie, the daughter of the punctilious 
 Mde. de la Chatellerie, the pupil of the correct 
 Mde. Lefort, actually replaced in his the hand 
 she had withdrawn. But she looked at him so 
 imploringly w^hen he would have retained it that 
 
 VOL. T. 16 
 
242 Lesley's guardl\ns. 
 
 he felt ashamed to have tried to take so unfair 
 an advantage of her impulse. 
 
 How Mde. de la Chatellerie could have con- 
 trived to see this little incident no one knows : 
 walking on as if to walk were all her business in 
 life, quite out of earshot, with Paul chattering in- 
 dustriously by her side, and without having been 
 seen once to turn her head to right or left far less 
 look back, she yet by-and-by showed a knowledge 
 of Stephanie's little impropriety. Perhaps she was 
 only with a shrewd diplomacy assuming the cer- 
 tainty of a guess in order to ascertain it, but at 
 any rate, when her daughter came humbly to wish 
 her good night in her room, she said, " You have 
 then finally gone through the fonn of giving your 
 consent to M. Louis de I'Aubonne. But it would 
 have been more decorous to do it through me." 
 
 "I have not" — stammered Stephanie, "he has 
 not again — I do not know if I — " 
 
 "Your hand was in his this evening," said 
 Madame de la Chatellerie, cutting short her 
 daughter's incolierent statements. 
 
 Stephanie dropped her eyes abashed and fright- 
 
 I 
 
REHEARSING AN OLD LESSON. 243 
 
 ened, and stood with tightly clasped hands, ex- 
 pectant. 
 
 " Is it not so ? Your hand was in his this even- 
 ing," reiterated her mother. 
 
 "Yes," faltered Stephanie, clasping her hands 
 still tighter. 
 
 But the scolding did not come. "Go then, 
 child, it is bed-time and you look pale. I will 
 attend to this." 
 
 Stephanie received her mother's kiss on her 
 forehead and went silently. But at the door she 
 turned, and coming back hastily threw herself 
 kneeling on the ground beside her mother, clasp- 
 ing her waist as she sat. 
 
 " Oh, mama, can there be love enough between 
 him and me for marriage ? — his heart full of that 
 other person, and mine" — she stojiped abruptly. 
 
 " Stephanie ! What were you about to say ? 
 Just Heaven ! You have allowed no immodest 
 fancies of ill-taught young girls to enter your 
 head? You have not allowed yourself to think 
 too much of some person not proposed to j^ou 
 by your parents?" 
 
 IG— 2 
 
244 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 ^'Oh, no, mama!" cried Stephanie, shocked at 
 the idea, " No truly — I did but mean — I thought 
 — whether I valued him so much as — I mean — " 
 
 "You talk nonsense, child. It is my care and 
 your father's to provide for your happiness — you 
 may safely trust to us. Now go : and do not for- 
 get to say your prayers." 
 
 Stephanie, who was already beginning to wonder 
 in amazed mood whether it could be herself 
 kneeling there with her arms round her mother, 
 and to feel a little puzzled how to get without 
 awkwardness out of so strange a situation, rose 
 mechanically. 
 
 "Good night, child; you may trust to me," 
 repeated Mde. de la Chatellerie, this time in a 
 tenderer voice than Stephanie often heard from 
 her. 
 
 Stephanie went to her room, and said her 
 prayers — it did not need her mother's injunction 
 this night of all nights in her quiet life to make 
 her do that. The white Madonna over her bed, 
 who took the mother's place in her heart, looked 
 down on her long restless in the moonlight, while 
 
REHEARSING AN OLD LES80X. 24e5 
 
 she prayed the dear IMary to tliiiik of her and help 
 her to learii the earthly love she needed that so 
 she niiglit win his who was to be her husband. 
 If she could have known whether she wished or 
 disliked this marriage she could have been easier 
 she thought, but as it was she was all doubtful 
 and afraid. The white INIadonna was glimmer- 
 ing dully in the pale cold light that comes just 
 before dawn by the time Stephanie fell asleep. 
 
 ]\Iadame de la Chatellerie saw Louis alone in a 
 solemn interview the next day. It did not take 
 long, but it was long enough; two minutes de- 
 cided all. 
 
 "Do you continue in your intentions towards 
 my daughter?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes, certainly, most certainly," she was an- 
 swered. 
 
 "You have communicated them to her?" 
 
 " Once, as you know, since it was with your 
 permission, Madame," he replied. 
 
 "And not since?" 
 
 "Not since, in the same definite manner — but 
 as far as I could signify it — I had your sanction, 
 
246 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 and therefore I have allowed myseif to indicate 
 to her—" 
 
 "I understand," she said, as he paused unwil- 
 ling to make confession, being doubtful of what 
 he might be about to be called in question — " I 
 understand. But I can no longer allow a ro- 
 mantic courtship which may compromise my 
 daughter." 
 
 "But, madame! I acted under your sanction, 
 and I make a formal proposal to you for your 
 daughter's hand." 
 
 " You make it now ? definitely ? ' ' 
 
 "Certainly, now, and definitely," agreed Louis, 
 thus brought to overstep his promise to Steplianie 
 of gaining first her private consent. 
 
 " Very well. Then, on the part of my daughter, 
 I accept it. I will communicate my wishes to her 
 and it will remain for you to endeavour to make 
 them agreeable to her. You will see my husband 
 this evening when he Avill be returned from Paris, 
 meanwhile I am authorized to give you his con- 
 sent." 
 
 Louis bowed and said he was grateful. There 
 
 i 
 
REIIEAKSING AN OLD LESSON. 247 
 
 was no more to be said. He was engaged to Ste- 
 phanie de la Chatellerie, a plain little dowdy body, 
 not very young (his own age considered), not very 
 lively, not very clever, heiress of millions (in 
 francs) and of tlie honours of an ancient family, 
 with goodness enough for half a dozen beauties. 
 He did not know whether he was very much 
 pleased or no, but he certainly was not sorry. 
 "And that," as Paul afterwards remarked to 
 him, " is already much to say of one's mar- 
 riage." 
 
 Mde. de la Chatellerie had said that she would 
 communicate the news to her daughter and so 
 she did in due form, but not till after the father's 
 return that evening, so that Stephanie first heard 
 of the recent decision of her fate from Louis. 
 Perhaps Mde. de la Chatellerie was not unwilling 
 that it should be so. 
 
 He had to tell her briefly, snatching a hasty 
 moment when no one was near enough to over- 
 hear them. 
 
 "Your mother," he said, "has just granted mc 
 what I wish for most." 
 
248 ' Lesley's guardians. 
 
 " Yes ?" in the tone of a question : 
 
 "My Stephanie," he answered. 
 
 It Avas pleasant to hear herself appropriated 
 thus in that low long tone dwelling on the my, 
 now at last for the first time in her life to feel her 
 woman's value to another existence : Stephanie felt 
 a new happiness thrill through her, her heart beat 
 violently but she dared not look up. 
 
 "And you?" he urged. 
 
 "Yes," she whispered and hurried away. Her 
 mother and Mde. Lefort were approaching. 
 
 So it was settled, and Louis and Stephanie were 
 formally betrothed. And Louis began to see a 
 possibility of being once more happy, of even lov- 
 ing the plain little dowdy body who, he thought, 
 " loves me so entirely that with all her effort she 
 cannot conceal it." And Stephanie thought how 
 good it was of Louis to condescend to an insig- 
 nificant unattractive girl like her, and how^ gentle 
 he was to her, and how patient and generous he 
 had shewn himself. No surely, she need never be 
 afraid of unkindness from him ; and if she did not 
 come quite to understand him and were to dis- 
 
REHEARSING AN OLD LESSOX. 249 
 
 please him at any time, there would be Paul, the 
 kindest and cleverest and warmest hearted of 
 men, to help her and tell her what to do — Paul 
 who would be her brother now, so that she need 
 not beware of liking him. 
 
 And the council rejoiced at their success, 
 triumphing about it confidentially and prophesy- 
 ing a good issue to such a well-arranged union, 
 an union as to which all concerned were content, 
 not only the natural authorities but both the con- 
 tracting j)arties. So well satisfied were they with 
 this state of things that they even agreed to con- 
 nive at certain lover Uke proceedings of the young 
 people, conversations carried on in asides, liuger- 
 ings behind and furtive deviations into side-paths, 
 assumed to be accidental. By means of these 
 asides and lingerings and side-paths Louis and 
 Stephanie soon came to be on the most pro- 
 mising terms for their future unanimity : they 
 began to rely on each other for sympathy and 
 counsel — and even, what was still more significant, 
 for blame. How far ofi* is love Avlien two young 
 people take pleasure in each other's censorship? 
 
250 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 It is not always disagreeable to be told your 
 faults. 
 
 It was an amusement Louis relished. Lesley 
 had not known that he had any faults, excepting 
 in so far as she was aware that "all men are 
 sinners" is a universal proposition, but Stephanie 
 thought him perhaps too impulsive, too careless 
 of worldly wisdom, too romantic, " trop exalte" in 
 fine, and she would tell him so. And as these 
 were the faults he recognized in himself he at- 
 tributed to her the intuition of love and from 
 time to time remembered that Lesley who had 
 seemed to see nothing but good in him turned 
 from him for ever at the first perception of his 
 fallibility. 
 
 For he dared sometimes to remember that 
 chapter of his life now, not with long dwelling 
 indeed, but gingerly, as you touch a healing sore, 
 with a half-pleasure in the pain and a wondering 
 to find it so much less than it was. And he did 
 not feel so much to blame as he had at first, he 
 could no longer account for the intensity of his 
 former self-reproach. He did not, however, blame 
 
REHEARSING AN OLD LESSON. 2;")! 
 
 Lesley the more, on the contrary lie was per- 
 suaded that she had acted with propriety and jus- 
 tice, "not with generosity indeed," he thought; 
 "but I had no right to expect the heroism of 
 love, that is the mysterious gift of the few, the 
 unhappy few." In fact he began to look on it 
 more as the work of fate than his or hers, it was 
 destined thus — of what use would it have been for 
 them, puppets in the game which Le Malheur 
 plays with human lives, to struggle against the 
 resistless power ? 
 
 "I blamed myself and her too much," he said 
 to Stephanie one day. " It was my habitual 
 exaggeration of Avhich you sometimes speak — I 
 see all en colosse'' 
 
 "Yes truly, how many times I repeat it to 
 you. But you were wrong also in what you 
 did." 
 
 " Yes, wrong indeed ! Add that my regrets do 
 not cease." 
 
 "Poor Louis!" said Stephanie pityingly. "And 
 you cannot forget her?" 
 
 " Forget her ! never, mon Dieu, never ! Ah ! how 
 
252 Lesley's guakdians. 
 
 beautiful she was! — " He stopped suddenly, there 
 was a troubled look on Stephanie's face. She did 
 not dislike his lingering sentiment for the heroine 
 of his romance, she admired it in him, but she 
 could not bear his enthusiasm for the beauty, she 
 was thinking "And I am so plain." 
 
 " Why do you stop ?" she asked. 
 
 "Because I find no pleasure now in a feeling 
 which you cannot share," he answered in his ten- 
 derest voice. " You can share my regrets, my in- 
 ward conflicts, but not my admiration for the 
 beauty of one you have never known." 
 
 " You understand me," she said, brightening up. 
 "You do not suspect me of jealousy." — "And 
 truly," she added thoughtfully, " I could admire 
 the beauty I have not seen, imagining it from 
 your praise, if I were not forced to believe it 
 degraded by the expression of an ignoble cha- 
 racter." 
 
 " You wrong her," he answered hastily ; " do not 
 continue in the injustice I taught you. Believe 
 me, her very faults were noble, she was only too 
 pure, too proud ; she might have been a saint, a 
 
REIIEAliSING AN OLD LESSON. 253 
 
 lieroine, — yes, a Jeanne d'Arc, but never an Agnes 
 Sorel." 
 
 **WIiy?" asked Stephanie, wlio did not under- 
 stand the allusion: it Avas not she but Lesley 
 who had found him that translation of Schiller's 
 fantastic apotheosis of the maiden warrior of 
 France and read it with him one summer evening 
 of that utter past. 
 
 "Well, after all, what have I to complain of?" 
 said Louis — he had been remembering. "Why 
 should the white dove soil her feathers by follow- 
 ing me to the ground where I lay grovelling in 
 anguish ? And now I writhe no more ; Ste- 
 phanie — " 
 
 She flushed with pleasurable emotion at that 
 pause and that look, but she implored in good 
 earnest, " Do not say too much — I should believe 
 nothing then." 
 
 "I shall learn to love you as I loved her then," 
 he modified the speech she had guessed in his 
 eyes. "And you?" 
 
 " I am no longer afraid in obeying the wishes of 
 my parents," she said in a tremulous murmur. 
 
254 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "Then you were afraid!'' 
 
 " I thought you would hate me, me forced upon 
 you in her place, so unlike her, so different from 
 what you would have chosen." 
 
 "Poor child, did you really frighten yourself 
 thus, you to whom so little choice was allowed?" 
 
 "They understood our welfare better than we 
 did," Stephanie said. "If only M. de Fourrere 
 might live to see his wish fulfilled!" 
 
 "Why should he not? It is not a long time. 
 September is already passing, the first days of 
 N^ovember are not distant." 
 
 "But he is so feeble," she said with tears in her 
 eyes. " It is strange they none of them will see 
 it — and he seems unaware. But he fails daily, 
 and he frets like a tired child." 
 
 "He was as well as usual yesterday. — And 
 that reminds me, he renewed his offer of trans- 
 ferring the new fittings of the rooms he is 
 having prepared for us at Chateau de I'Au- 
 bonne to his own house — mine that will be : it 
 is a finer one, certainly, but I declined once 
 more. It will decidedly be better that you should 
 
REIIEAKSING AN OLD LESSON. 255 
 
 be with my mother, in case I were away at 
 Paris." 
 
 "Oh yes, truly, I woukl rather be with your 
 uiother. It w^oukl be melancholy for me alone, 
 if you were often at Paris, but w ith her I should 
 not mind it." 
 
 " But you must be with me sometimes at Paris, 
 Stephanie. Eventually I shall reclaim the tenant- 
 ship of our Hotel in the Rue de Bellechasse, it is 
 due to the family name. We need not wait for your 
 inheritance, Stephanie. M. de Fourrere's fortune 
 will accomplish that without so much as knowing 
 it. Paul must have his apartment there — he shall 
 have the second etage — you must find him a wife 
 with a good dowTy among the friends you will 
 have in the circle that will gather round you." 
 * *' One will easily do that," she said. "He will 
 have plenty of choice." 
 
 "Will he manage to choose a more charming 
 wife than mine?" asked Louis playfully. 
 
 She answered lightly, then more earnestly as he 
 grew more earnest, presently with only assents 
 vaguely murmured and silences. Suddenly they 
 
'25G Lesley's guardians. 
 
 had become lovers lost in that foolish lovers' 
 talk Avliich of all talk is at once the slightest and 
 the most profound — profound by virtue of the 
 underlying meaning it has quite independent of 
 the signification of phrases and words. 
 
 "Mama is coming!" said Stephanie hurriedly, 
 starting to a most suspicious distance from Louis 
 sitting still in the rose-twined arbour nook where 
 an hour ago they had agreed to rest for five 
 minutes. 
 
 " Peste I always the mama ! " Louis muttered 
 between his teeth as he approached to a more 
 matter-of-course looking neighbourhood. Then in 
 a polite measured tone — " Nevertheless I must be 
 allowed to contradict your opinion, mademoiselle : 
 the influence of music upon the soul seems to me 
 due not only to the happy combination of — Ah, 
 madame ! is it you ?" 
 
 Stephanie's anxious ear, always quick to re- 
 cognize forewarnings of the presence in which of 
 all others she was least at ease, had not deceived 
 her. It was her mother who came towards them 
 with her most majestic slowness, head stiffened 
 
EEHEARSING AN OLD LESSON. 257 
 
 back and right hand slightly raising her skirt 
 draperies in statuesqne pose, Avith nevertheless a 
 troubled flush on her cheeks that betrayed a little 
 of the actress in the stately gait. The daughter 
 trembled at heart, she had seen such a combination 
 more than once before and it had always presaged 
 anger. She looked instinctively to Louis with a 
 mute appeal for help, but he had assumed an air 
 of urbane indifference; he was prepared to do 
 battle in his own politic fashion, he knew how to 
 meet Mde. de la Chatellerie. 
 
 It would be safer, as also kinder, never by pre- 
 judgment to assume hardness in even the hardest 
 of human natures at any particular moment ; for 
 there are exceptions to all rules, excepting to 
 this time-honoured one itself, and when the harsh 
 mind has departed from its rule and is softened 
 for once, it is bitter to it to be forced back under 
 the old unloving law and it grows the harsher 
 for a sense of being wronged and misunderstood. 
 The mistake is often made, and the interrupted 
 lovers made it now; for if i\Ide. de la Chatellerie 
 was not in a tender mood (a mood imi)ossible to 
 VOL. I. 17 
 
258 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 her) at least she was not m a harsh one, and 
 understanding their faces she felt indignant at a 
 false accusation there and loved Stephanie the 
 less for the alarm on hers. 
 
 " I came," she said to Louis, " that you might 
 hear from me rather than from a servant news 
 which will afflict you ; but — no matter, however. 
 I have a sorrowful, a fatal event to announce to 
 you. Death is even now removing from you" — 
 
 "My mother ! oh, my mother !" 
 
 Stephanie sprang towards him : never had she 
 heard such a cry of agony. Her mother caught 
 his hand. "Oh no, no, listen to me, not your 
 mother. Your father has been ill, you must have 
 kno^^ii that his life had little security, another 
 stroke and — " 
 
 " Pierre, Pierre," cried Louis, catching sight of 
 the messenger who had followed her at a respect- 
 ful distance, " tell me, is my mother?" — His voice 
 was choked. 
 
 "No, no. Monsieur Louis," answered the old 
 servant cheerily ; " madame is well, perfectly well ; 
 it is monsieur." 
 
 J 
 
REHEArvSING AN OLD LESSON. 259 
 
 He knew well that that Avas a very secondary 
 matter, as indeed it could not but be: what had 
 Casimir de I'Aubonne been to liis sons in all 
 those years ? It was because Louis loved his 
 mother for both father and mother that his first 
 alarmed thought had been of her. 
 
 The young man sat down trembling, with a 
 faintness at his heart still, but reassured: "Ah, 
 pardon, madame," he said to the stately lady, 
 dimly aware that she had spoken and he had not 
 listened. " I was bewildered. You Avere telling 
 me?" 
 
 " I was telling you that an hour ago your fa- 
 ther was suddenly seized by a fit, such as that 
 which first disabled him. They have sent for you ; 
 I have ordered your horse to be got ready; I 
 would have you hasten, he may he alive." 
 
 Louis went : he did not need a second bidding. 
 He did not expect by any speed to reach his fa- 
 ther in time to see him alive, nor did he yearn 
 for some last word, some blessing from that death- 
 bed to take with him a memory and a hallowing 
 into his on-lying life ; but it was natural that he 
 
 17—2 
 
260 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 should strain every nerve to the utmost in such 
 a ride. In that wihl liurry and still dazed with 
 excitement lie had not had time to think of grief — 
 his OAMi, if he should have any, or Paul's or his 
 mother's. But wlien lie had dismounted at the 
 door Paul's white face reminded him. "Our 
 mother?" he asked. 
 
 " She is still there, she is praying by the body. 
 Louis, she weeps for him as if he had been to 
 her * — 
 
 ^•' Speak nothing against the dead, Paul," said 
 Louis, and hurried up stairs to his father's room, 
 to find him ashen-hued and rigid ^rith a gentler 
 nobler look on his face than it had known for 
 years, and his mother kneeling beside with clasped 
 hands and eyes too blind with tears to see the 
 crucifix that shook in her grasp. 
 
 " Oh Louis ! your father !" And she rose and 
 would have had her son touch that dead right 
 hand with a son's farewell. But Louis shuddered 
 and started back, the lifeless thing was terrible 
 to him. 
 
 " My mother, come," he urged. 
 
REHEARSING AN OLD LESSON. 261 
 
 "One prayer at least, Louis, before tliou 
 goest." 
 
 He bent Lis head and murmured a prayer. 
 Then he looked at her and she came with him. 
 
 "My sons! my sons!" she cried as they led 
 her away. " Oh comfort me, I have only you on 
 earth." 
 
 It is something to be mourned so truly as that 
 dead man was mourned that day. What had he 
 done to deserve it ? 
 
CHAPTER XY. 
 
 AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 
 
 The first days of N'ovember had passed ; this was 
 the day which had been fixed as the wedding- 
 day of Louis de I'Aubonne and Stephanie de la 
 Chatellerie. Lesley Hawthorn remembered that 
 as she took her way from hei* old master's studio 
 in dingy Rue du Gougeon to the fashionable 
 Chaussee d'Antin. Lesley is not now altogether 
 in the position in which we left her; her artist 
 promise has been recognized by one or two whose 
 recognition is a passport to the talkers' world, 
 which gives fame for the day, and thence usually 
 to the buyei-s' world, which gives wealth ; already 
 she is beginning to leave the prison of her poverty, 
 Bhe rejoices in a new freedom now that she is 
 no longer burdened with incessant calculations 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 263 
 
 whether new shawl or new boots can best be dis- 
 pensed with when both seem indispensable, and 
 balancings whether additional parsimony in food 
 or in fuel can best be borne and will most reduce 
 the too great scant}^ expenditure. She has been 
 able to gatlier a few comforts around her mother 
 now, and for herself she has both the shaAvl and 
 the boots; she is not obliged to walk to-day 
 either, she is rich enough to afford a fiacre on 
 an occasion, but the exercise will do her good 
 and she has time enough before her. 
 
 Has she forgotten her love for Louis? Is the 
 sadness on her face for him — or is it for the van- 
 ished dream, the lost trust? Does she love Mrrif 
 his living self, the man Louis de FAubonne, or 
 does she love a memory, nothing more? How 
 should one tell? It is not in Lesley's nature to 
 forget past love, past pain; she has said before 
 now, " such things cannot be forgotten, they were 
 a part of the life and cannot pass away like the 
 scenes of a play. The living past cannot cease 
 to be — and if it wearies me, troubles me with 
 the self-consciousness that only awakes through 
 
264 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 pain, still I would not have it not so, as if a 
 part of one's life could be wholly past— as if so 
 much of life had been unreal and in vain." She 
 will never forget, but does the old love live on 
 with the life of the present too ? Her mother 
 thinks it silently and sadly in her heart, the good 
 Baudoyers think it discussing the matter sorrow- 
 fully at night over their wood fire, Simon Gueret 
 thinks it watching her unobserved and sighing 
 for the loneliness of the young girl who is learn- 
 ing to trust him like a fatherly friend, and con- 
 cerning whom he may at times have a half- 
 formed wish that she could learn to trust him 
 enough to give the keeping of her future fate to 
 him, too old for other than daughter-like love from 
 her as he yet feels himself to be. Lesley could 
 hardly say whether she thinks it or no ; she has 
 not asked herself, she is learning a lesson and 
 it is too soon yet to put her hand over this new 
 rule of duty and try if she has it by heart : for 
 if not would she have courage to set about con- 
 ning it from the beginning again ? 
 
 Lesley walked on thoughtfully. That day, had 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 265 
 
 old M. (le rAuboiiiic not died Avhcii lie did, Avould 
 have been the wedding-day of Louis de I'Aubonne 
 and Stephanie de la Chatellerie. There was text 
 for sufficient thouglit in that, and Lesley never 
 shrank from any thought only because it pained — 
 it was even a kind of poignant pleasure to her 
 to probe her heart to its saddest depths when 
 she could without fear of undoing healing work. 
 She i)ictured to herself now how it might have 
 been this day, how she might have been thinking 
 to herself as she walked, " At this very moment 
 they are standing hand-in-hand" — " it is over, the 
 contract is made, he is lier husband" — " now they 
 are receiving the blessing from the altar." And 
 she felt that she was sorry it was not so, that she 
 would rather have had it over, have known that 
 he Avhom till that should be she could hardly 
 help thinking her husband had irrevocabh^ barred 
 himself from her, that she would have liked to 
 be assured that, even if he would, he could never 
 now come to claim her by virtue of the solemnity 
 of that legally void marriage and urge her into 
 a fresh one legally firm. Somehow by the delay 
 
266 LESLFA*'S GUARDIANS. 
 
 of this marriage she seemed thro^vll back into a 
 state of suspense — she clenched her hand, dis- 
 turbed as slie thought of it 
 
 " Has any one annoyed you, Mademoiselle ?' 
 asked Gueret, overtaking her. 
 
 Lesley coloured, conscious of being taken un- 
 aware and annoyed at lier involuntary self-be- 
 trayal. 
 
 "Xo one,' she said smiling quietly, "excepting 
 M. Gueret bv not joining me before I lost mvself 
 in cross thoughts." 
 
 "And since I could not know that bv walking 
 faster I should the sooner enjoy the agreeable sur- 
 prise of overtaking Mademoiselle Lesley, I must 
 be forgiven,"' said Gueret bowing reverentially; 
 "but cross thoughts! yours!" 
 
 " Yes, cross. But let us leave them, I am good- 
 tempered ag-ain. Where are you going?' 
 
 "I should rather ask where are you going, / 
 was almost at my own door."' 
 
 "And surely nearer it now,"' said she looking 
 round. 
 
 " Yes, ^lademoiselle ; but if I may have the 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 267 
 
 honour of escorting you?" a bow extrn reve- 
 rential. 
 
 "Oh yes, do, if you have no engagement. I 
 am going to a Lady Leonora Hurst's, a rich 
 Englishwoman in the ChaussCe d'Antin, to make 
 a copy of a picture for Mrs Raymond." 
 
 "You still make copies, then?" 
 
 "I do not intend it, but this is beautiful — a 
 Correggio — and tlien for Mrs Raymond!" 
 
 "As a mark of friendship, I understand." 
 
 "Xo, no," said Lesley hurriedly; "not that, I 
 wish it were, but T could not spare the time and 
 she would not allow it — she pays me, pays too 
 much, for my copy." She was annoyed, Gueret 
 had reminded her that she could not yet do more 
 than hireling kindness, and it was a sore point 
 with her. 
 
 "xVnd why should she not pay nobly?" returned 
 Gueret ; " you are still doing her a favour, for you 
 can do more than coi)y now." 
 
 " I still could earn more by copying," she said 
 gmvely; "but yet I know that I shall be able 
 to do something more than copy, and I feel as 
 
268 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 if it would be wrong to be turned aside for 
 money." 
 
 "True, my child. Do not fear, go on bravely; 
 you are beginning to achieve your success. And 
 now when are you going to paint me that Isielle 
 you talked of?" 
 
 "Iseult," corrected Lesley ; "I began — but — you 
 know my idea was only — I thought of painting 
 it for myself — for my own pleasure, that is, in 
 the conception, and then I should see if any one 
 cared to have the picture." 
 
 "And I asked you to paint it on my commis- 
 sion because I wished to see the idea carried 
 out — and you refuse me, ^lademoiselle Lesley ?" 
 
 "Oh no, no, — but I do not like — in short," 
 drawing herself up suddenly, '' I do not like, even 
 by you, to have a picture ordered out of charity." 
 
 "Oh, Mademoiselle!" Gueret's long face grew 
 so much longer and he looked so disconcerted, 
 that Lesley, penitent, made haste to promise, 
 " I will set to work on it to-morrow, I will paint 
 it for you; I see I was wrong, ungenerous." 
 "Then we are agreed?" said Gueret quietly, 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 269 
 
 only delighted to find she had forgotten that 
 stipulations could be made as to price: the pic- 
 ture once painted he would take care to keep 
 his riglit in it at his own price, however high 
 she miglit think it. 
 
 "Yes," she answered; "and to tell you the 
 truth," she Avent on in reply to his bow, " I have 
 got some w^ay with it already, for I could not 
 get the fancy of her out of my head, and I was 
 forced to carry it out though it was like stealing 
 the time from Rizpali." 
 
 "You have finished that now?" 
 
 " Yes, the last glaze will be on soon, and then — 
 I hope about that picture." 
 
 " You are satisfied with it yourself; I know Pierre 
 Baudoyer is triumphant about it." 
 
 "Ye-es," she hesitated, "Yes, I am satisfied; it 
 is not all I meant, but it is something. And the 
 group of soldiers, about which I felt least sanguine 
 when I began, has succeeded — they tell me." 
 
 " You do not know then. Mademoiselle?" 
 
 "Not so well," she said; "I never saw them so 
 plainly as I did her among her dead." 
 
270 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 "But that foremost one who looks at her so 
 pitymgly?" 
 
 ''I saw 1dm,'' she said quietly. "Oh look at that 
 child's face — see — just passing." 
 
 "It is dirty," said Gueret. 
 
 "It smiles," Lesley answered. 
 
 " Surely Mademoiselle does not consider that so 
 especial a singularity?" 
 
 "Yes, but I do — that real smile. One sees many 
 lips curve upwards in half-laughters, in courtesy; 
 but that unconscious smile which only a true na- 
 ture has while it thinks pure thoughts that are 
 happy one does not see twice in the week — or 
 month — I think." 
 
 " Such a smile as, with all her sorrow, this young 
 girl wears when she feels beauty and sunshine," 
 Gueret thought to himself, but he did not utter it : 
 he had too much real courtesy to vex her with a 
 compliment. "You are right. Mademoiselle," he 
 said, "such a smile is not common." And they 
 walked on tlie short distance still to be gone, ' 
 still talking amicably of her prosj)ects and her 
 plans. 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 271 
 
 It was not till Lesley was turning to him to bid 
 him good-bye and pass through Lady Leonora 
 Hurst's porte cochere that M. Gueret said, " I have 
 heard, Mademoiselle, that the marriage of the per- 
 sons in whom we are interested in Gascony is 
 likely to be still longer delayed. M. de Fourrere 
 cannot, they think, survive the winter; thus there 
 will be an additional period of mourning to observe 
 before it can take place." 
 
 " I am very sorry," said Lesley ; her lips quivered 
 a little and that was all ; then she smiled good-bye 
 and passed on. Yet I think she could hardly not 
 remember how different it would have been now if 
 Jier marriage had been yet to come, if that journey 
 to England last spring had never been. For now, 
 on M. de Fourrere's death, Louis would be free — 
 w^ould have been free at least. 
 
 "Oh I am so vexed! so really sorry, Miss-a 
 Hawthorn. I ought to have let you know; how 
 could I forget? The picture has been displaced in 
 preparing for a ball this evening: I only just re- 
 membered before you came, or I would have sent 
 to let you know, and save you a useless journey ; 
 
272 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 I am not receiving other visitors this afternoon, 
 but I told them at once to let me see you that I 
 might apologize." 
 
 So explained Lady Leonora Hurst anxiously as 
 she received Lesley in her peach-bloom tinted 
 boudoir, made more dainty than ever in honour of 
 an approaching fete. She really was uneasy lest 
 her carelessness should Avound this refined looking 
 girl's lady pride. But Lesley felt herself too surely 
 a lady to be prompt to imagine slights; she ac- 
 cepted Lady Leonora's excuses with pleasant cour- 
 tesy and declined the proffered refreshment and 
 the invitation to rest a longer while, with her Avin- 
 ning smile, "My walk has rested me itself — and 
 I have not done work enough since I got here to 
 tire me, I think," she added playfully. 
 
 Lady Leonora must conduct her herself to the 
 end of the corridor ; she could not think of leaving 
 it to the servant : a door was open as they passed, 
 and she saw Lesley allow her tempted eyes to look 
 a moment at the beautifully decorated suite of 
 rooms revealed in the glimpse and then turn her 
 head quickly aside, annoyed at herself for inquisi- 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 273 
 
 tiveness. " Will you pass through these rooms in- 
 stead?" she proposed; "it is pleasanter than the 
 corridor, and there has been some trouble taken 
 in their arrangement." 
 
 Lesley gave a willing assent and passed into a 
 dream of splendour, as it seemed to her. Luxury 
 and mechanic art, and above all a refined taste, 
 had done their utmost here. How those draperies 
 fell, round and shadowy and sweeping, she could 
 have studied them for an hour; how subtly the 
 delicate tints were harmonized from the soft-toned 
 walls to the carved and gilded wainscotings, where 
 the subdued lines of colour seemed like reflex 
 lights from the velvet and damask hangings and 
 couches. And what a radiancy of mirrors and pier 
 glasses ; and what a richness of rarely designed or- 
 molu ; and here and there, on tables and brackets 
 and snow-white chimney pieces, were exquisite 
 statuettes and fragile-looking Bohemian glass, fret- 
 ted like cobweb lace — not too many ornaments, 
 but enough to show the finished taste that chose 
 these for some peculiar beauty or fitness, instead 
 of crowding every available space with the many 
 VOL. I. 18 
 
274 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 that such wealth as you could divine here could 
 have bought. 
 
 Lesley gazed delighted, while Lady Leonora, 
 lingering on with her, enjoyed her sensitive appre- 
 ciation of the effects her taste had planned. And 
 at first the girl took in the scene with bright and 
 unalloyed admiration : but in the last room of the 
 suite a burst of sunlight Avhich had broken through 
 a grey sky was streaming through the windows 
 and setting the prisms of the many facetted glass 
 chandelier all aglow with violet and ruby and gold 
 and lucent green, and Lesley was reminded how 
 those crystalline branches would blaze and glitter 
 again by-and-by in a glory of light that would 
 flash, as it were, its own brightness into young 
 hearts like her's and thrill them with a kind of 
 intoxication. Lesley was peculiarly sensitive to 
 the beauty of light in all its modes and changes. 
 Then she thought how the music would ring 
 through those beautiful rooms the while, and the 
 dancers would be whirling and floating along, and 
 girls like herself would be there in fairy gauzy 
 dresses and drooping clusters of floAvers, and she 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 275 
 
 would be sitting in her poor home tiring the eyes 
 that wanted rest after her day's painting Avith 
 darning the little rent in her mantle or sewing at 
 her mother's neAV warm petticoat ; and then when 
 tliey had just begun to be at the merriest and to 
 dance the lightest and fastest, she to go to her 
 curtainless bed and lie there, perhaps awake think- 
 ing of — ah such sad things ! She, the daughter of a 
 gentleman, the descendant of gentlemen from so 
 long and long back, was too poor and too humble 
 to mix among these rich well-born people — they 
 would despise her. 
 
 And at the thought she drew herself up uncon- 
 sciously and answered goodnatured Lady Leonora 
 in a stiffer tone — Lady Leonora, who meanwhile had 
 been questioning inly whether she could ask this 
 graceful Aliss Hawthorn to join her guests, and, 
 after deciding that there was no unfitness in the 
 invitation, was held back by the consideration 
 that she could hardly be ready provided with a 
 dress for such an occasion and that it might 
 give her pain to feel forced to refuse on such an 
 account— and then besides that perhaps it might 
 
 IS— 2 
 
276 Lesley's guardian's. 
 
 even annoy her to be asked at all without the 
 usual long notice demanded by ceremony. 
 
 At last as she took Lesley's hand in hers to wish 
 her good-bye, she said, " I hardly know if I may 
 ask you, but if you ivould do me the pleasure of 
 coming to my ball to-night — under my chaperon- 
 age, if you will accept it, or ]Mrs Raymond's — I 
 should be so glad to see you." 
 
 Lesley bowed, rather too stiffly, for she was 
 taken by surprise in the midst of her inward 
 pettishness. "I thank you," she said, "but I can- 
 not have the pleasure of accepting your unex- 
 pected invitation. And then my mother — " 
 
 "Oh! I heg your pardon," interposed Lady Leo- 
 nora; "I did not think Mrs Ha^^i/horn would go 
 out. I think I heard Mrs Raymond say she was not 
 strong." 
 
 "Not very strong now," said Lesley, glad to 
 turn the conversation, "but in good health I 
 trust." 
 
 "But if she" — Lady Leonora was beginning 
 when Lesley stopped her. 
 
 " Pray do not think T meant to force her on 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 277 
 
 your invitation. I assure you it would be impos- 
 sible for her to accept it." 
 
 "But I hoped to offer you a little pleasure," 
 said Lady Leonora depreeatingly, hurt at the girl's 
 defeusiveness. " Young ladies always enjoy danc- 
 ing, and I thought you would at least know I only 
 meant an attention to you — but you will not ac- 
 cept it?" 
 
 Lesley looked straight into her eyes. "You 
 are very kind," she said: "and now I should like 
 to accept it. — I Avill tell you the truth," she 
 added, stopping the renewed invitation on Lady 
 Leonora's lips, " I have not a dress — and I could 
 not afford one even if there were time to make it." 
 
 How Lady Leonora longed to offer to supply 
 this deficiency, but she felt she must not. " You 
 are a dear frank girl," she said, pressing her hand; 
 "and very soon, when you are Miss Hawthorn 
 the celebrated artist, you will be sure to come 
 to my next ball?" 
 
 " Yery soon," thought Lesley as she went from 
 Lady Leonora Hurst's — '^Very soon!" It was a 
 pleasant promise, and she was in the mood when 
 
278 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 one accept? augiiries unconsciously. But still she 
 was vexed at heart ; she was young, and the natural 
 romance of her character threw a double chami 
 over the pleasure she had been compelled to re- 
 fuse. She was conscious of feeling cross ; she had 
 no inclination to the painting she was going back 
 to her studio to resume ; she was tired too. *' I 
 will take a fiacre and go to Marion fii*st/' she 
 decided with herself. 
 
 ^Marion seemed cross too, when Lesley foimd 
 her in lier own room ; Marion was Mrs Raymond, 
 it should be said. Evidently she and Lesley were 
 on familiar temis : for without waiting to greet her 
 she stopped short in the midst of an indignant 
 complaint poured into the sympathizing ears of 
 her maid Gasparine : " Oh, Lesley ! do just look — 
 I am so put out ! See. I have to go to tliis gi'eat 
 ball in a friz of }>eony ribbon. Look at this thing!" 
 And with contemptuous emphasis in her tone 
 she held up the ''thing,'' a mass of white silk 
 dress luxuriantly festooned with deep crimson 
 ribbon. 
 
 " Well ! " said Lesley, in a gasp of horror. 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 279 
 
 a \r. 
 
 You may say Well ! Did you ever sec a 
 wilder dress? Why, they'll think I've mistaken 
 it for a fancy ball, and come as Madge Wild- 
 fire." 
 
 " How came j^ou to choose crimson at all ? The 
 colour does not suit you too well." 
 
 "No, and this shade is hideous into the bar- 
 gain. But Casparine says Mde. Claire proposed 
 it the other day, and I said, ^Anything will do.' " 
 
 " And did you not then ? " 
 
 " Oh, most likely. I know I had my head full 
 of something else — but who could expect any- 
 thing so terrible as this? If she had only sent 
 it earlier so that it could be altered — if I had 
 thought of it I would have sent to her to let 
 me have it yesterday, in case. But I forgot all 
 about the dress. What I shall do now I can't 
 conceive." 
 
 "How odd you are about dress, Marion," said 
 Ijcsley, laughing : " at one time you order it without 
 even knowing what you are saying, and at another 
 time you are particular — but to a miracle. Then 
 sometimes you throw on your things and do not 
 
2S0 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 even look in the glass to see what you have on, 
 and at other times you are even absurdly fasti- 
 dious." 
 
 "Well, it depends on whether my head is full of 
 other things or not ; but at my worst times, Lesley, 
 you can't say you ever saw me go out with the 
 wrong colours put together, though. But now 
 what can I do with this?" 
 
 " Have all the trimming off, decidedly." 
 " Yes, but we've tried and it will leave marks 
 where it looped the upper skirt, and I\lde. Claire 
 has no time to put on another trimming." 
 
 "What is this then?" asked Lesley, taking up 
 a blue crape dress thrown on the bed. 
 "Oh that is for to-morrow night." 
 " Very well, why not wear this to-night ? there 
 will be time to have the white in order for to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Quite impossible — at least — I'm sure there 
 are a dozen good reasons if one could only find 
 them. But then, I couldn't when I had made up 
 my mind to have the white to-night go and wear 
 the blue, for anything — you know if you've taken 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 281 
 
 a thing into your head you must do it. I should 
 be miserable in the blue to-night." 
 
 Lesley laughed. "Well, what is this scarlet 
 tassel cord ? — oh I see your sortie de hal string — 
 Now I have it ! If you were to send for cord 
 like this we would i)lait it so, look, and loop the 
 silk so"— 
 
 "The very thing! the very thing! Gasparine, 
 send for it at once — go yourself. Here, we'll 
 unpick these red things." 
 
 Lesley, amused, sat down and gave her assist- 
 ance. By-and-by the scarlet loopings were suc- 
 cessfully achieved. "You have made an elegant 
 dress for me — that is the use of having an 
 artist for one's friend," said j\Irs Raymond glee- 
 fully. 
 
 " I am glad to find you think there is any use," 
 Lesley said curtly. 
 
 Mrs Raymond looked up surprised. "Dear 
 Lesley, you didn't take it in earnest ?" 
 
 "No— I know," said Lesley. "This seems to be 
 a bad day of mine — I have been cross for two 
 hours, and this is the third time I have taken 
 
282 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 offence without reason. I must go home and get 
 good." 
 
 "Poor child/' said Mrs Raymond caressingly; 
 "you want a little recreation, that is it. I do 
 wish you would go with me sometimes." 
 
 '^No, Marion. I have told you when I am a 
 little better off I will come to your parties ; and if 
 I make acquaintance there and they invite me 
 that will be well ; but I cannot go with you as only 
 an allowed guest." 
 
 She would not tell her that she had been 
 invited on this occasion, for she knew that 
 Mrs Raymond would insist on supplying the 
 deficiencies in her toilet and taking her 
 with her ; and she was not sure that she 
 could be resolute against INIrs Raymond's insis- 
 tance. 
 
 She had grown to love IMarion Raymond in the 
 last few months. This was how she came to know 
 her. Not very long after she had been on that 
 unfortunate journey the Baudoyers told her that 
 a new pupil was coming, a beautiful young Eng- 
 lish lady, very rich, much engrossed with "le 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 283 
 
 monde,'* one might judge, and not likely to work 
 much, but it was her caprice to study art in a 
 real atelier instead of drawing-master's effects by 
 private lessons in her own apartments. Not a 
 pupil after Madame Baudoyer's heart this, but 
 then she had proposed the arrangement witli 
 such a smiling certainty of its being acceptable 
 that it would have been difficult to refuse her — 
 and besides the terms were so advantageous. 
 Pierre Baudoyer and his wife liked to put money 
 in the funds, and the rich English lady would pay 
 largely to be a kind of privileged pupil coming 
 and going and working and resting as she liked. 
 "You may count that she will do little enough," 
 said JNIde. Baudoyer. 
 
 Nevertheless when she came it was found that 
 she worked with some application, in a flighty 
 kind of way indeed, full of likes and dislikes to 
 her copies, with an impatience of difficulties and 
 with a petulant perception of her shortcomings 
 that did not promise much for their correction. 
 But it was remarked for the fii*st few days that 
 she always paused when Lesley came into the 
 
284 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 class-room and seemed to find an especial interest 
 in watching her. 
 
 After a little while she took a fancy to have her 
 easel in the small middle room where Lesley still 
 worked ; she should get on so much better there, 
 she said, that room was lighter and prettier, she 
 should work twice as well in it and she would not 
 disturb Mile. Desiree in the least. 
 
 She hardly kept her word, however, for she had 
 not been in it half an hour when she turned to 
 Lesley w ith, " But surely, Mile. Desiree, you are an 
 English girl?" 
 
 Lesley looked up quickly from her painting; 
 she saw in Mrs Raymond's pleasant face that she 
 was not accustomed to find any one take offence 
 at what she might choose to do — she herself felt 
 inclined to like her. So she smiled and said, 
 " Yes, we are countrywomen, Madame ; I call my- 
 self English." 
 
 " But your French is not an Englishwoman's." 
 "My father was French; I was born in Paris." 
 " We are fellow- students, we ought to knoAv each 
 other's names: I am called Marion Raymond." 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 285 
 
 "And I Lesley Desiree Hawthorn — it is an 
 English name," she added, seeing Mrs Raymond's 
 eye-brows rise slightly. "My grandfather was an 
 Englishman ; he came over in the beginning of the 
 Revolution, out of enthusiasm for the cause ; and 
 had himself naturalized a Frenchman." 
 
 "Strange for an Englishman!" said Mrs Ray- 
 mond. 
 
 " I think not, if you consider the excitement of 
 the time : many other young men were stirred by 
 the theoiy of a pure and brotherly republic — 
 he paid dearly for his political visions though," 
 continued Lesley; "he suffered in the Terror, he 
 and his young French wife together." 
 
 "And their children?" asked Mrs Raymond with 
 interest. 
 
 "There was only one, my father; they had not 
 been fifteen months married. The nurse contrived 
 to take care of him and bring him up. There was 
 no one else to do it, for his mother's relations all 
 perished or were lost sight of. I have heard that 
 the nurse told him his father and mother stood 
 together and waited by the guillotine almost the 
 
286 Lesley's guardlvxs. 
 
 last of the victims, and the nurse held him in the 
 crowd for his mother to look at when her turn 
 came ; she just caught a glimpse of him and pointed 
 upwards ; then the nurse hurried off as soon as she 
 could for fear of observation." 
 
 ''And what became of your father afterwards? 
 You don't think me impertinent? I am so inter- 
 ested in the story." 
 
 "I will willingly tell you all I know," answered 
 Lesley. "When he was still a child with the 
 nurse he showed a talent for drawing, and some- 
 times kind people would give him for his little 
 sketches money which was very welcome, for they 
 were extremely poor. At first Madelon had passed 
 him off for her son, but when it was safe she told 
 his story, and the Emperor had him educated. He 
 served for a little time, but he always cared most 
 to paint (though he was brave and won his cross) ; 
 and when the monarchy was restored he left the 
 army — he returned of course, you understand, to 
 fight for the Emperor Avlien he landed from Elba, 
 but that was not for long. Afterwards he lived as 
 an artist." 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 287 
 
 *'Thank you, it is very kind of you to satisfy my 
 curiosity. I wish I had a story to tell you in 
 exchange, but my grandfather and father lived 
 at home and were comfortable and that's all. 
 See there is my carriage come for me, do come 
 and have a drive.'* 
 
 Lesley was very busy. 
 
 **Then next time you must Won't even the 
 Bois de Boulogne tempt you out into the sun- 
 shine?" 
 
 And for that time Lesley was left again to her 
 work and her quiet. But next time she took 
 the drive, and in a little while she was on friendly 
 terms with her new fellow-pupil. The Baudoyers 
 did not quite like it ; they thought Mrs Raymond 
 scarcely a worthy associate for their talented De- 
 siree, and feared deterioration to her mind from 
 companionship with one so much richer and doubt- 
 less so very much more worldly than herself. 
 But Lesley chose to judge her new friend with 
 other eyes and trust her o>vn judgment, and her 
 two old friends did not like to remind her how 
 ill she had read character once before. Besides, 
 
288 Lesley's guardians. 
 
 they soon saw that this intimacy made her hap- 
 pier, and after all there was no harm in Mrs 
 Raymond; they thought no worse of her than that 
 she was frivolous : so they left off grumbling. And 
 as for Mrs Hawthorn, who was uneasy too at first, 
 Mrs Raymond's first call won her over. 
 
 Mrs Raymond and her sister-in-law Violet had 
 remained in Paris till late on into the summer, but 
 then the heat and the burning pavements had 
 driven them away. "We ought to have staid in 
 Italy for coolness and not have come here till the 
 winter," they said, and fled to Switzerland. Xow 
 they had been a fortnight returned and Lesley 
 was again rejoicing in her pleasant intercourse 
 with a female friend not many years older than 
 herself. 
 
 "What a comfort ^Marion is to me without 
 knowing it!" she thought to herself as she went 
 home "to get good." 
 
 " I am growing ill-tempered, I think," said 
 Lesley, as she sat down to the new petticoat at 
 evening. 
 
 '^ YoUj Lesley!" exclaimed the astonished mo- 
 
AN INVITATION TO A BALL. 289 
 
 ther. "Ah! well, perhaps, poor child," she added 
 in a lower tone. 
 
 Lesley laughed, "Tliou shouldst not have 
 agreed with me at least — it is only I who should 
 say it. But, little mother, I do feel dull and 
 dispirited at times, and, though I complain at 
 being made idle, I think it is good for me that 
 Marion has returned to force me to a holiday 
 now and then. Sometimes it is as if I were not 
 interested in life, but looking on it stupidly out 
 of a sleep." 
 
 "Yes, I am sure she will do you good," said 
 Mrs Hawthorn from her sewing. 
 
 END OF VOLUME I. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITT PRESS. 
 
 VOL. I. ' 19 
 
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